India's 'Frankenstein' Laptop Economy Thrives Against Planned Obsolescence (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0176962353
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/04/08/1116241/indias-frankenstein-laptop-economy-thrives-against-planned-obsolescence
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops
"Most people don't care about having the latest model; they just want something that works and won't break the bank," a technician told Verge. This repair ecosystem operates within a larger battle against tech giants pushing planned obsolescence through proprietary designs and restricted parts access. Many technicians source components from Seelampur, India's largest e-waste hub processing 30,000 tonnes daily, though workers there handle toxic materials with minimal protection. "India has always had a repair culture," says Satish Sinha of Toxics Link, "but companies are pushing planned obsolescence, making repairs harder and forcing people to buy new devices."
[1] https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops
TFA doesn't mention OS just hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
So, interestingly, the biggest thing driving planned obsolescence right now as far as I can tell is MS pushing windows 10 out, and so many devices unable to meet the hardware requirements for Win 11
The article didn't mention if these machines would be set up with older Windows or with Linux, though I'm going to guess it will be the former.
I do developer support for an SDK, and thus I have a lot of customers in India, so I have some sense of one part of this: an incredibly strong "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude. I regularly have customers using a 10 or even 15 year outdated version of our SDK they're trying to work with - it worked well enough that they didn't need to update and so they didn't. Many of these folks are also using really outdated Windows. I'll admit it's been a while since I've seen someone actively using XP still, but I still often see win 7. We don't officially tell them "no we won't support you" but we will tell them "if your issue is fixed in a newer version, you need to upgrade, we can't backport fixes to ancient versions.", and over time, those ancient windows systems have been mostly replaced... I'd guess though that just like other OS versions, a huge number of folks will continue to use outdated / unsupported versions long past end of life...
Granted, this isn't just India - but I do think they have extra large motivation and that repair culture there (as mentioned in TFA) to keep older hardware limping along, and probably using out of support Windows.. I kind of shudder at the security implications... but I also kind of really admire the ingenuity and resourcefulness.
The whole windows 10 end of life due to hardware requirements is indeed going to drive a lot of waste of perfectly serviceable hardware - honestly, I kind of hope it finds its way to the bodgers / makers / hackers rather than landfills.. but I do kind of wish there was more Linux uptake to lessen the number of unpatched/unpatchable vulnerable machines out there.
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I'm not sure if enough people will care to make it worthwhile; but I'll be curious to see if, and how broadly, "Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021" either gets cracked for redistribution or gets mined for patches.
It's basically Win10 21H2; but with the benefit of not having 'store'/appx to deal with; and with security support through 2032. MS makes a big deal about how you should super only use it for special purpose embedded devices; because what kind of sick retrograde weirdo would want an OS that jus
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With all due respect to Linux, and I am just as much a fan of Linux as anyone (hell, my daily is Crunchbang++), the problem with adoption is there are too many choices.
The average person will have heard of Linux and think..."maybe!" and then discover the massive choices they are faced with, and their eyes will glaze over.
Or perhaps they will google it, find Linux Mint to be a top hit, try it, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, and then run face-first into Linux elitism when they have a problem, and run right
Re: Repair videos on youtube (Score:2)
Fixed a few ancient things with thanks to an Indian YouTube video. One is a laserprinter my wife gave up on. 6$ for a new fuser roll from our Chinese friends, a boring rainy Sunday afternoon, Indian video going through all the replacement steps, et voila! Functioning printer. Still works many years after the repair. Things getting expensive might be good. Repairing stuff becomes important again and India leads the way. Respect!
but do they run Linux? (Score:2)
who am I kidding, of course they run Linux :D
Work Harder (Score:2)
I am not sure who works harder in the electronics districts - India or Vietnam. Both sell DIY practical repair manuals - always have. Hazardous waste is mostly a lie . Wearing sandals and using an angle grinder is more to the point - if the motorcycle/rickshaw ride don't end you first. I think bios locking is the most evil. They also do speaker cone repairs, better than new, and old 1970 stereo amps and such. Remember, In India one can by technical English textbooks real cheap. The poorer ones have download
"It's alive! it's aliiiiive! (Score:2)
"He's more food processer now than laptop. His mind is wire wrapped and evil..."
Frankenstein (Score:2)
Frankenstein was the creator not the monster
TFS is an odd read. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading TFS about how someone is putting together a computer from parts, only reminds me of just how far we’ve come from when I was building company computers. From parts. Sourced at my local computer parts reseller.
It’s unreal how much shit has happened in 20-25 years.
Re:TFS is an odd read. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple started this trend/mess of e-waste. From Smartphone to computer/laptop: everything soldered on board and nearly impossible to fix/upgrade (RAM, CPU, Batteries, ...). Everything is now disposable and planned for obsolescence. This is a freaking nonsense and it's having impact on environment, humans, ... A trend now infecting cars, appliances, ... and many other industries. This have to stop.
Re:TFS is an odd read. (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone should sue Microsoft over the damage that will be caused from all the ewaste from their forced upgrade. If states are suing oil companies, this is only logical.
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My thought is that the alternative OS groups should be thanking MS and Apple, I drop Linux Mint and Apache Office on older laptops now and give them to my wife's relatives when we go to Peru. Perfectly adequate for 90+ percent of users out there.
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Friends don't let friends use the abandoned Apache OpenOffice, but suggest Libreoffice instead
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Apple did not start this nonsense. Don't be daft. While they embraced it, there's prior art for everything. The most you can say is you noticed it more with Apple. Which is fair.
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Apple was far from first; it's not like the Game Boy came with SODIMM slots; but they do deserve a lot of 'credit' for attempting, and getting away with, both the use of soldered components where the margins are especially attractive (there are, at least, technical arguments in favor of soldered RAM just because it's really hard to get the more aggressive data rates, latencies, and bus widths at acceptable energy cost, if at all, with a bunch of extra distance and connectors in the signal path; but it's als
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They just followed Detroit's lead.
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I read somewhere else that Apple solders things on-board because of memory and bus speed issues. If true, that makes sense, and I can see the need for speed driving integrated components. I don't like it, in terms of the waste it creates, but I can understand it.
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Since supercomputers don't do it I think it's just more Apple propaganda.
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> Reading TFS about how someone is putting together a computer from parts, only reminds me of just how far we’ve come from when I was building company computers. From parts. Sourced at my local computer parts reseller.
What the article describes is not what you were doing 20 years ago (and what I myself did back in the day). These Indian techs aren't sourcing parts from the "local computer parts reseller", and hardly anything is bought new. They are cannibalizing components from one junked computer i
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China is ahead of even that. For years now you have been able to buy new motherboards and new laptops that have a CPU or northbridge chip scavenged from an older machine. They also found ways to get around Intel's forced obsolescence of chipsets, allowing them to use a newer CPU and thus support Windows 11.
You get weird machines that have a laptop CPU, integrated cooler, desktop chipset, and other parts that are brand new. New motherboards for old laptop chassis, and vice versa. They also take laptop CPUs a
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The article describes essentially every computer lab I've set up at home since about 1997.