The Platform Is The Thing
Progress, in a human sense, is replacement or repetition. Whatever reasonable or horrible thing one can conceive of as 'progress' requires either getting rid of an obstacle in favor of a solution (absence too is a solution), or continuing to repeat behaviors that are fundamental to existence. The tech sector is all too quick to forget, or rather, redefine the second.
You've probably heard the phrase 'move fast and break things', the last honest words out of Mark Zuckerberg's face. That principle hails from a mentality of take action first, or someone else will take action instead. No idea is truly original; we're all learning from one another. Getting there first means not only will others follow, but you can charge them for the trip.
Create the garden first, and wait for the guests to arrive before installing the walls.
A rather contentious phrase in tech criticism is enshittification, a specter conjured by Cory Doctorow to describe a pattern of tech monopoly behavior. Treat your users well until they're isolated enough to treat them as revenue source, alone. To give the observation a name is all well and good, yet it has since been used by some prescriptively, rather than descriptively; a hurled insult easily dodged by corporations aware of its name.
Good corporate PR after being dragged in the news for anti-consumer practices speaks the same language as the opening act of so-called 'enshittification'. The corp plants a new garden, and just look how low those walls are! For now.
Here's the problem: there isn't a version of big tech that doesn't do this.
In order to be "big" in this sense in the first place, you need great resource. Under capitalism, that's money first, consumer support second, state support third. A factor that does not come into play here is competitive support, at least above the board. Competition breeds innovation the way a champion horse breeds future champions: inhumanely and with great effort. It's hardly an efficient system by any definition other than 'speed'.
Smartphones, for example, operate on a schedule of yearly releases, if not more frequent. For those whom the edge cuts, or creators seeking that edge out for themselves, spending thousands a year on smartphones is distressingly common.
The ubiquity of a pocket computer to make calls with is not the issue here, just as the concept of streamlined road travel is not the issue with cars. It's the scaling inward and out; reaching demographics uninterested through sheer monopoly, and the remonetization of demographics you've sold multiple decades-viable products to in a span of months.
If phones were not being designed to be replaced every year, they would not need to be replaced every year. Better materials, standardized components; this would all be attainable if the decision makers involved weren't profiting from their absence. Mere obstacles removed, perhaps quickly or broken, for the sake of progress.
But consider! A new phone is a new camera, a higher resolution camera, one packed so far with AI you can't even tell what's real anymore! While it takes a lot of data to transmit these images, detailed beyond any 2-year-old device's pitifully outdated screen, you can speed things along with cheap* higher-speed connectivity. And don't forget your cloud storage charge, wouldn't want to lose all your precious memories, trapped in the siliconfines of devices not just dead, but killed.
Let's apply this logic to rolling firebombs; mind the cuts as you and everyone else on the road are held to that edge.
Electric vehicles are sold as yearly releases, reliant on technical support for the key buyer, and obscured if not actively unusable for any future chump resold to. Support is discontinued, features unavailable, behind a toll for the walls of long-since-dead gardens.
Wanna try a rocket next?
These combinations of metal and plastic and rubber, electrified to purpose, are not how computers must be made. It is simply the profitable version of these devices, ones which are platforms first, and technology second.
Purchasing these powerful machines does not give you the key to start them. You're buying the lock, and paying rent on the key's fleeting availability. If you want tech made big to work, buy it new or learn how to lockpick.
But don't forget: you're an early adopter, so problems are just progress we haven't made yet.
