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   goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Sunday, 07-Jan-2024 06:12:07 JST goatsarah

   21st century capitalism, for me, has as its salient feature the flight away from quality. There is now an inbuilt acceptance that everything will just get slowly worse. There are now entire areas of commerce where you simply cannot buy a well designed high quality product, when you used to be able to. Everything is a race to the bottom.

   This is most exemplified in my mind by the way Telsa enshittified DOOR HANDLES.

   If you’ve never used the door on a Tesla, the thing is that you cannot close and latch the door if you’re holding the handle. Holding the handle means that the latch is disengaged.

   Which means you have to slam it.

   Whoever designed this must never have lived anywhere windy.

   Earlier I posted about what I want in a car, and how it’s getting harder and harder to buy one that isn’t an SUV/iPad crossover. They look great, but are just dreadful from an ergonomic and safety point of view.

   And they’re getting worse. There have been a few joyous years when you have been able to use the satnav system on your phone for directions via CarPlay or the Android equivalent, instead of the dreadful shit the manufacturers include.

   They’re now moving away from letting you connect your phone. In the future, not only will we be forced to use their dross; we will have to pay a monthly subscription for it.

   I honestly hate it all.

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Sunday, 07-Jan-2024 06:19:03 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     I paid over 30k euros for a car and the app that accompanies it is dogshit.

     Nobody cares any more.

   • Embed this notice
     goatsarah (goatsarah@thegoatery.dyndns.org)'s status on Sunday, 07-Jan-2024 06:39:00 JST goatsarah

     in reply to

     • Piers Cawley
     @pdcawley yeah. I have to accept the T&Cs every time I turn my Leaf on.
   • Embed this notice
     Piers Cawley (pdcawley@mendeddrum.org)'s status on Sunday, 07-Jan-2024 06:39:01 JST Piers Cawley

     in reply to

     @goatsarah my current car is a four year old Audi Q3 (yeah, I know, but the height makes it significantly more accessible to my mobility impaired wife, and the boot's big enough to hold her wheelchair without having to fold it down) and every time I turn on the ignition, I have to tap the 'do not ask me again' dialogue on the main screen because I've set security to "No, don't use any of your online crap".

     Still, at least Carplay works.

   • Embed this notice
     Miguel Arroz (arroz@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Jan-2024 00:41:09 JST Miguel Arroz

     in reply to

     @goatsarah Regarding cars, if I was on the market for one, I would look into the Hyundai Kona (or Kauai or whatever it’s called in Portugal to avoid the c word). It’s a bit SUVy so you probably won’t like it, and I’m not sure about the enshittification factor. However it seems to be the car that usually gets higher ratings on range per kW second only to the fascist EVs (and I’m almost sure the battery has active cooling).

     goatsarah likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Miguel Arroz (arroz@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Jan-2024 00:41:10 JST Miguel Arroz

     in reply to

     @goatsarah Capitalism does to products what it does to everything else: the wealth gap, here visible in quality and price tag.

     The midrange products are kinda gone or turned to shit. We now have a lot of shitty cheap stuff (getting less cheap by the day in many cases) and very high end quality stuff, unaffordable by most.

     On top of that, all the crap technology now allows like subscriptions to be able to use the hardware we paid for are not prevalent.

   • Embed this notice
     Lojie :blobcatcoffee: (lojie@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Jan-2024 00:46:16 JST Lojie :blobcatcoffee:

     in reply to

     • Llwynog

     @llwynog @goatsarah
     I have the same experience when it comes to clothes and textiles from the parents' or grandparents' generation:
     clearing out my parents' house I remember handling old clothes (coats, blouses, shoes, gloves and scarves), and the realization on the first touch:
     "Wow, this such a great, thick and built-to-last quality of textile!"
     This was clothing that was 50 to 80 years old.

     I wasnt used to feeling that kind of quality in my clothes lifetime. Mindboggling. Sad.

     goatsarah likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Llwynog (llwynog@eupolicy.social)'s status on Monday, 08-Jan-2024 00:46:17 JST Llwynog

     in reply to

     @goatsarah Suitcases too: I have a suitcase from the 70s that my dad gave me, saying "you can dump it". Is he nuts? It may look old-fashioned, but made of proper leather with metal clasps. I'm over 30, but am sure that suitcase will outlast me. Compared to suitcases made these days, which will last 15 years if you're lucky. I hate the concept of planned obsolescence so much!