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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
(www.mercurynews.com)
Planned Obsolesce should be a crime
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Technology
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I would have agreed with that statement until I saw the most recent Technology Connections video about why the incandescent light bulb has planned obsolescence built in. Sometimes it's not malicious but to actually provide a compromise leading to an overall better product.
I don't think software death dates count, tho.
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The service life of the devices was known up-front. You can check for yourself the service life dates of every Chrome OS machine here:
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
The correct deployment strategy would be to make a big purchase at the front end of a device's lifecycle and then only replacements from then on out so that you get the most out of every machine. Future capital purchases would be with a new device and termination date.
These things are such junk - even when new they were so slow and bloated that they couldn't load my kid's schoolwork half the time. I had to make sure he had an alternate laptop for use so he wouldn't fall behind. I felt really bad for the school district, it was clear they were being ripped off, and that most of the machines were going to be in a landfill within 3 years time.
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Good, maybe that will get them to stop using Chrome OS in schools, it has been a disaster for computer literacy in general.
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I have preordered a framework laptop which will run Linux until it fucking blows up or falls apart.
Enough with being screwed over by well known brands whose interest is just selling you more and more stuff.
When I was in 9th grade it was netbooks with Windows 7 and they were also terrible and fated for the recycling bin before I was a junior.
In most enterprise IT your lifespan for hardware is between 5 and 7 years maybe 10 for printers and network switches.
I'm sure most schools try to stretch hardware as far as it will go but IT would have known when they bought the Chromebooks that they'd not be long for this world as cheap as they were and that's the price they would pay for paying such a low price.
I think what is sticking up the works is on an administrative level, higher ups are expecting IT departments to stretch EOL dates like they used to do with Windows machines but now they absolutely can't and Admin didn't plan to have to buy all new whether or not IT did
ok I'll bite, can't they reinstall the chromebooks with linux instead?
Sure, but then they have to pay the salaries of an IT department to not only do the OS install on thousands of devices, but also provide support when things go wonky from kids doing dumb shit (it's Linux; there will be that one kid who figures out how to gain su privileges and convinces a couple others to rm -f / their shit). The same thought crossed my mind, but these are low spec $200 laptops that I really don't think it would be financially viable to do so.
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My 15 years old Linux laptop can still do everything (except gaming new titles)
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Hey Mike Judge should make a movie about this