this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u01AbiCn_Nw mental outlaw video:

hi everyone, i was planning on getting a new laptop cheaply for about 500ish but then i stumbled upon this near-totally modular laptop rhat starts out at above 1000 bucks. do you think the cheaper laptop in the long run is just a false economy and i should go for the framework or what? if you want to ask questions go ahead but im mainly concerned about the longterm financials (and how well it will keep up over time)

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[–] Snapz 21 points 11 months ago (8 children)

No.

I don't trust a single modern platform to last long enough to justify an investment - the company will be acquired and shuttered or the base platform will be upgraded and the current deprecated. The company today can full-throatedly promise you the world, but they know they won't be here tomorrow to answer for those promises and there are no consumer safeguards in place to hold the future leaders accountable should framework show profit potential and therefore become a target of acquisition to exploit that potential or to squash competition.

Framework is a fun, marketable idea, but Phonebloks / Project Ara me once, shame on you...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I appreciate the healthy skepticism of typical business cycles, but at the same time - why would you buy the company and not sell upgrade parts to previous customers? If you didn't, you'd just own an overpriced laptop company amongst a dozen other cheap laptop companies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

To end competition. Brand loyalty. Poor vision. Many reasons, none of them very kind.

[–] Snapz 1 points 11 months ago

As others have pointed out, to kill competition and about paradigm shift. All, from their broken POV, so you can ideally eventually sell cheap laptops/phones shitty enough to warrant annual refresh (aka, the holy grail)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

They've kept up for three generations, I don't see why they'd stop now.

Even if you just got one upgrade out of it, it's probably worth the cost of entry.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Let's not count Project Ara here, any google project has a 75% chance of being shut down before reaching consumers, they're just not a good company

[–] Snapz 2 points 11 months ago

Ara was the kill, Phonebloks was first hope and the actual promise that was suffocated by Google in that instance - we'll absolutely count this here.

[–] Waker 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Huh, that's a good take! Didn't think about that.

It kind reminds me of the Oneplus brand. I loved the one plus (1) so I bought a Oneplus2 only for it to be put aside fairly quickly. I remember I used to suggest Oneplus to everybody, eventually I told everyone to stay away... Eventually the brand just lost it's focus imo... Instead trying to pump out as much overpriced garbage as possible...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's a subsidiary of Oppo, they just tried different brands to corner the market. OnePlus attracted the purists but money reigns and they thought they had a loyal fan base and started changing. Most people would probably say stick to pixel phones for the stock Google Android experience. I liked my OnePlus 5, it lasted for a long time. Never smashed despite being dropped all the time. Just the usb c port lost its connectivity after a few years and needed replacing.

[–] Waker 1 points 11 months ago

Yep I moved from Oneplus to Xiaomi and I can't day I'm disappointed but I'm feeling they are charging more and more and then phones aren't getting that much better. I think my next phone will be a pixel. Mostly for the camera. As I'm getting older I notice that I don't use my phone for too much other than photos of traveling or just messaging my friends and family on WhatsApp. Games on phone are absolute cancer anyways...

[–] kshade 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They have been here tomorrow for people who bough one with an 11th generation Intel CPU in 2021. I don't think they are looking to get acquired either.

[–] Snapz 1 points 11 months ago

Companies that are looking to get acquired don't hold press conferences to announce, "we're now ready to be acquired". They typically build and acquire press wins to get attention until they are a thorn in the side of a market leader who then takes a meeting with them. It's a quiet process, but the initial conversation is almost exclusively, "we're building this for the long term and we plan to be around for a long time".

Just like all the products that promise long or even "lifetime" warranties - for most of these tech startups, they are well aware that lifetime means "OUR" short lifetime as a company and not your lifetime as the consumer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Likely, but I'm hoping they last a decade like usual. I'm only slight jaded, and have similar reservations from similar history. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Reddit all had similar ideals. ("Don't Be Evil." Part of open source before it was popular. "It's your data. You control your data." Freedom of speech/information and, "Bits are not a bug.") [Insert Joke: "My back hurts" or "Get off my lawn."]

The good news is Framwork is priced at near parity of Apple's products, which makes them unlikely to be bought out; they're much more likely to get too greedy, and compromise on their ideals.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It doesn’t look like the parts have any kind of DRM, so it wouldn’t be hard for third party manufacturers to build modules if the company ever went bankrupt. Worst case scenario you use the computer to its end of life like you would any other computer. I’m not seeing the systemic risk here.

[–] Crashumbc 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

No third party is going to waste resources manufacturing for such a niche platform.