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Look around you and ask yourself: is this the type of futuristic life that you thought you’d have? For some of us, that answer is a definite ‘no’ because it strays too far from the idealized things we’ve seen in our favorite sci-fi movies and shows. In real life, there’s too much friction, bad design, and annoyance compared to technological awesomeness. In short, some tech corporations are less than friendly toward their valued customers in their pursuit of profit and never-ending growth.

User u/cutypatotie sparked an interesting discussion on r/AskReddit after asking everyone to share their opinions about the biggest tech scams that have been widely accepted. We’ve collected the most interesting insights to share with you, from how God-awful subscriptions can be to the scourge that is planned obsolescence. 

We wanted to learn more about user-(un)friendly companies and product longevity, so we reached out to marketing psychology speaker Matt Johnson, Ph.D., for comment. Johnson is the host of the branding and human nature blogs. You'll find the expert insights he shared with Bored Panda as you read on.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams “We have changed our terms of service.  Click here to accept and continue using our services.”

IamShellingFord:

Forced arbitration and changing the terms of service after the product has been bought

when i bought my device, i had an understanding of what i was buying. it makes my skin crawl knowing that companies can change that after i paid for something and i can't hold them accountable for that.

it's like i bought a pizza with some toppings.
after i buy it with the terms being i can eat the toppings as well, they take away the toppings from the rest of the pizza as soon as I've had a couple of slices.
feels absolutely disgusting to me.

sunnyspiders , Alex Green Alex Green / pexels Report

Final score:
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According to marketing psychology speaker Johnson, companies that aren't user-friendly aren't in the long-term loyalty game. It's not a priority for them. "Instead, they often prioritize factors like cost cutting, technical limitations, industry norms, and corporate culture over user experience. Cost considerations might lead them to cut corners in research, design, and testing, while technical constraints, particularly in highly regulated industries, can make creating user-friendly interfaces challenging," he explained to Bored Panda via email.

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"This also comes up a lot in industries where usability isn't traditionally a priority. Here, companies may focus more on functionality and reliability. Corporate cultures that value other aspects of business, like engineering excellence or speed of delivery, may also contribute to the lack of emphasis on user-centric design practices," Johnson explained.

However, those aren't the only considerations. Some companies might fundamentally lack the understanding or the resources for effective research and testing when it comes to user experience. Not only that but their short-term goals or market dominance may make them less likely to invest in user experience in the first place. Put simply, there’s a lack of resources, know-how, or urgency.
#2

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Non-replaceable batteries. 

whittlingcanbefatal , Stanley Ng / pexels Report

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Gabriele Alfredo Pini
Gabriele Alfredo Pini
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Thankfully in the EU from 2027 all new phone will have replacable batteries. Guess I will wait to replace mine! https://mashable.com/article/replaceable-batteries-smartphones-iphones-2027

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#3

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Apple. The entire company. The entire product range. The whole thing is a scam from top to bottom. Paying double what the stuff is worth for a subpar operating system and the privilege of being locked into their ecosystem and their predatory app store. Their anti-competitive business practices are disgraceful and I hope the SEC/DOJ burns them to the ground. What they did to the USB-C ports on the new iPhone is a new and special level of s****y. Seriously people, stop buying Apple's overpriced and poorly made garbage.

NaziTrucksFuckOff , zhang kaiyv / pexels Report

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"Overall, a combination of financial, technical, cultural, and market factors drives companies that aren't user-friendly to prioritize other considerations over creating intuitive and accessible products and services," Johnson said.

Bored Panda was curious about what could convince companies to invest more into improving their products' longevity. After all, many of us feel like we have to replace or upgrade many of our tech gadgets quite frequently. (When's the last time you had to get a new smartphone because your old one was on its last legs?)

Johnson said that, ultimately, this comes down to changing the organization itself so that it adopts long-term thinking with respect to their customers. This means instilling the belief that the company will be rewarded with “the goodwill and repeat patronage of their customers” if they create “high-quality, long-lasting products.”

Naturally, this is far easier said than done. "Improving product longevity requires businesses to rethink their approach to design, manufacturing, and consumer relationships. Firstly, investing in quality materials and craftsmanship can enhance durability, reducing the need for frequent replacements. For instance, companies like Patagonia have built a reputation for durable outdoor clothing that lasts for years, backed by repair services that extend product life," Johnson told Bored Panda.

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#4

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Trapping customers with subscriptions.

YJeezy , Yan Krukau / pexels Report

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Friendly Neighbourhood Hermit
Friendly Neighbourhood Hermit
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Are you sure you want to cancel? We can offer you a discount of 3 months for £3.99 to stay with us!" So you're basically proving that you're overcharging us in the first place like...

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#5

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Replacing physical controls and digital displays with in built tablets in cars. I can no longer safely operate the climate control, media player or any of my other car systems without having to physically stare at a massive f*****g touchscreen with s****y touch response and laggy ui that gets worse with every patch.

Arin_Flint , SCREEN POST / pexels Report

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Phil Vaive
Phil Vaive
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This needs to be banned as a serious safety concern. It's distracted driving, plain and simple.

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#6

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Planned obsolescence. Companies need that profit margin, and they will use very underhanded methods to make sure your appliances/electronics will get replaced by their new models when they come out.

Zorothegallade , Phillip Pessar / flickr Report

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128points
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similarly
similarly
Community Member
7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I really hated it when The Tyrell Corporation started giving their "replicants" a 4-year lifespan just so I'd buy another one! What a rip-off!

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"Secondly, adopting modular design principles allows for easy repairs and upgrades, extending the usefulness of products over time. Smartphone manufacturer Fairphone, for example, designs its devices with modular components, enabling users to replace individual parts rather than the entire phone. Additionally, offering software updates and support for older devices can help maintain functionality and security, as seen with Apple's long-term support for its iPhones and iPads," he gave some examples where companies are more consumer-friendly.

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"Lastly, implementing buy-back or trade-in programs incentivizes customers to return old products, fostering a circular economy where materials are reused or recycled, as demonstrated by companies like Tesla with its battery recycling initiatives. By embracing these strategies, businesses can get out of the short designed obsolescence game and enter the much more lucrative long-term game. Done right, and it will not only improve their products’ longevity but also foster customer loyalty and contribute to sustainability efforts, ultimately benefiting both consumers and the environment.” For some more expert insights, feel free to take a look at Johnson's branding and human nature blogs.
#7

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Intentionally downgrading older models of just about anything so you’re forced to upgrade.

mango_coke , Josh Sorenson / pexels Report

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#8

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Physical banks fees on everything digitally executed.

You want to move your money : transaction fees
You want to keep your money : account management fees
You want to withdraw your money : fees again

Seriously, everything works on its own with technology, no human intervention 99% of the time. Banks already make money from loan interests while giving us back s****y return interest to borrow our money to go make millions of profits.

Having to pay for basics and automated operations is a ripp off.

alebrann , Karolina Grabowska / pexels Report

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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My bank doesn't do any of these things. I'm with a Credit Union so I can use any other local credit union ATM for free even.

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#9

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Printer cartridges.

mica280amg , frankieleon / flickr Report

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109points
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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

99% of what you want to print is black and white anyway. Modern printers make me miss the old fashioned dot matrix machines. A big box of ribbon paper and they just worked. You replace the carbon ribbon after about a thousand pages or so. So reliable and functional.

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In an ideal world, most companies wouldn’t just go for the biggest profit and maximum growth. They’d also prioritize the user experience, ethical business practices, and providing the best quality products and services that they can realistically create (not just get away with).

However, we do not live in an ideal world. While profit-seeking isn’t good or bad in and of itself (it’s how businesses survive and thrive), it can lead to some serious problems if it’s always placed ahead of the customers’ wants and needs.

You build a loyal following by having a dependable, quality brand. On the flip side, if you make your customers’ lives more difficult and expensive, eventually, you’re going to push some of them away. And that’s relatively easy to do if any of your competitors offer cheaper, user-friendly alternatives.
#10

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Subscription with ads. Ads was only widely accepted because “we had to maintain our work somehow”. Ads ruined the internet.

Then subscription came along, fine a paid version to get rid of those pesky adverts.
But hey ho, let’s get more money from both sides.

Also, premium content.
All content use the same platform.
They are forced to do extra work to separate content in the delivery and choose which content is premium.

It’s a scam on top of their subscription scam.

ImTalkingGibberish , c0c0nut_ / reddit Report

Final score:
108points
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Sergy Yeltsen
Sergy Yeltsen
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i am so done with all the ads, constant and never-ending commercialism being shoved down my throat. And on subscription TV - my subscription is meant to pay for services, but I'm paying for commercials! Do most companies not know they are making people hate products so much? And even worse - forcing you to choose what types of ads you want. How about f***ing NONE? Or one at the beginning. Or end? not 5-11 through the video, interrupting wherever?

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#11

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Hippity hoppity your data is now my property… or something along those lines.

Both-Equipment1473 , Christina Morillo / pexels Report

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CaptainSlapNTickle
CaptainSlapNTickle
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

F**k at&t. F**k t-mobile. F**k these data breaches and zero consequences for the companies.

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#12

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Everything needs an app. Especially physical devices. I don't want your cheap buggy app to use my thermostat, scale, battery, lock, or light bulb. Ship one if you want, but devices should conform to standards-based, documented protocols so I can control them however I want. I also don't want to install an app just to do something that works just fine on a website. Also requiring Internet connectivity is cr*ppy design. I don't want basic functionality depending on your servers being up (and requiring accounts and giving you unknown data). My whatever should not stop working because you decided to stop spending money on the servers. This is bad with software but egregious with hardware and unacceptable with household devices (my water heater should never depend on outside servers). I've been in tech a long time. While greed and control and access to sellable data drives lots of things, there is also an attitude surviving from the 90s and 00s that the lifespan of anything is a few years. This attitude infects product design even in fields where lifespans are decades and replacement costs are high as we add compute to everything (which can be a great thing). USB was successful not because it had one (ish) plug, but because it standardized the protocols devices used. All mice speak one protocol, so anything that knows it (hci class) can handle any mouse. Zwave and ZigBee tried to do this for household stuff, but instead we got vendor proprietary, Internet connected, phone-home, WiFi devices. Rant done.

darthsata , ready made / pexels Report

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Neffla
Neffla
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Bored Panda app isn't great either... Website much easier to use, for me anyway.

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When there’s enough competition, the customer (theoretically) comes out on top. There is a caveat, however. If certain user-unfriendly but profitable practices (e.g., showing advertisements even when someone’s a subscriber) become widespread trends, then it might be very difficult to do anything different from your competitors.

From our personal perspective, some of the worst things that the modern internet has introduced include weird subscriptions to newsletters we never signed up for, spam and scam emails, and YouTube’s recent policy of bombarding us with ads. To be perfectly frank with you, it’s exhausting, and it makes you want to step away from the screen (which, ironically, can be a good thing for everyone’s physical and mental health).
#13

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Unsubscribe button not being honored. Tactics include:

1. It takes 15 days to unsubscribe but 1 min to subscribe.
2. Sometimes link does not exists at all.
3. Sometimes it takes you to a non existent page.
4. Sometimes it asks you to login but you never had an account.
5. Sometimes they will randomly send emails even after unsubscribing , especially around holiday season. Like out of the blue they will email, I think they got a new incompetent marketing guy.
6. Them not realizing that they product they sell is not something I buy or need on a regular basis. Eg: indochino , how frequently do you think I buy a new suit.
7. The whole marketing email is an image and not an html. Clicking on it just opens the image or takes you to home page (mostly sites from India )
8. Somehow referencing the canspam act and sending it to their privacy email stops all the emails suddenly. But the. Point 5 happens.

kindrudekid , Torsten Dettlaff / pexels Report

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Neffla
Neffla
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sometimes it makes you phone in to cancel a subscription, and the call isn't picked up for 30 minutes, then they try various tedious tactics to keep you while you're paying for the call. And interrogate you about why you want to leave.

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#14

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams No SD card slot in cell phones. This straight pisses me off. I don't want your b******t cloud storage or whatever. I want my own storage in my own hands, k thanks.

AutumnVibe , miip / flickr Report

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devotedtodreams
devotedtodreams
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

SD card slot has been absolutely mandatory for all the smartphones I've owned, won't settle for anything less.

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#15

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Having to subscribe to your car. Yes that's right, you're buying a brand new car for 75grand. and they make you pay for extras on a monthly basis instead of just having a base model and a premium model, it's just 1 model and you pay for the extra s**t.

AND PEOPLE JUST ACCEPT THIS!! They think that coz they're saving money on fuel they're okay with spending it on the subscription!

HaroerHaktak , Antoni Shkraba / pexels Report

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Any
Any
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's absolutely unacceptable. I don't want a subscription on a car! I bought it fully, so i can use the functions fully. Capitalism at its finest..... paying for using the functions you already bought with your car!!! Infuriating.

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But from a more objective point of view, something that hurts users and the environment is planned obsolescence. When you think about how short various tech products’ lifespans are, it really boggles your mind.

Sure, you don’t have to upgrade your smartphone every two or three years, but there is a noticeable drop in battery life and a rise in lag the longer you use the device. Having to charge our phones every day is not the bright and brilliant future we imagined!

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#16

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Selling AI "art" programs as alternatives to hiring creative professionals. And now there are these bs posts I see from people taking **commissions** to type words into a text to image generator for you. Come on, seriously, can this whole AI art thing collapse so that we can turn these bots toward calculating taxes or some s**t? 

writeorelse , Michael Burrows / pexels Report

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Corvus
Corvus
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

AI "art" isn't real art, and this should be made into a law worldwide.

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#17

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Crypto. Magic internet money with a community of people all just trying to get other people stuck holding the bag.

Currywurst_Is_Life , Anna Tarazevich / pexels Report

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Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa)
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's a classic example of a bubble. It'll pop someday. Bitcoin and Ethereum and the rest aren't backed by any hard assets. It's basically Monopoly money.

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#18

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams A new iPhone being released every year and Apple convincing people it has a ton of improvements.

sam020586 , Brett Jordan / pexels Report

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What are your biggest frustrations with tech products and services, dear Pandas? What tech business practices would you change if you had the power to do so? What companies do you think are more user-friendly than their competitors? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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#19

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Ads after subscription.

Tantan159 , Andrea Piacquadio / pexels Report

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Daniela Lavanza
Daniela Lavanza
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't know what services this is about, but anything STILL getting ads while paying will never have me as a customer. If no one accepts, the product won't be for sale anymore.

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#20

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Accepting cookies.

Just to continue on a site they’ll say accept or reject cookies. It’s easier for everyone to just accept. However, we’re selling our data to a host of companies who package it sell it to advertisers

feric89 , nationalgeographic Report

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Guigsy Gwiggins
Guigsy Gwiggins
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

About 50% of the time I use a site I decide to stop using it because I’m unticking legitimate interest having blocked other cookies and it’s not worth going through it to read whatever I was looking for. 100% of the time I use it, including this site, I’m deleting all browser cookies, history and data after use. And that’s coming from someone who lives in the EU. The internet is ruined by this sh!t

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#21

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams You don't actually own anything, you just own a license to view/listen/play it... and it can be revoked/edited at any time without consequence.

SqueezyCheez85 , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

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Carl Roberts
Carl Roberts
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7 months ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's why I buy physical media. I bought it, it's mine. I own it...so Sony can't suddenly say "Sorry, we're deleting all 12 seasons of this show from your device, and we're not refunding the hundreds of dollars you paid". Then, of course, there's streaming...where you have to subscribe to multiple platforms to watch a full series. For example Law & Order is owned by NBC, but Peacock (also owned by NBC) only has seasons 14-20...and season 23 (no seasons 21 & 22). To watch the rest of the series you need Hulu (but ONLY if you subscribe to the $75 a month plan) or Amazon (at $1.99 PER EPISODE.) The heck with that.

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#22

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Cable TV packages that include hundreds of channels most people never watch but have to pay for. It forces consumers to overspend on content they don't want just to get access to a few channels they do.

Commercial-Low-1381 , Ksenia Chernaya / pexels Report

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#23

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Here’s a new product! (Uber! DoorDash! Amazon!) It’s so cheap and easy!

One year later: Sorry! We had to raise prices! Sorry, you have to pay for a membership now! Sorry, we had to make the app really confusing so you’re not really sure what you’re buying! Sorry, you have to wade through 1 million ads to find what you’re looking for!

Sorry, not sorry!

r33c3d , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

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Mia Hamsa
Mia Hamsa
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

anything on amazon, search it online, most likely will find it 20% cheaper.

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#24

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams AI = Certainly artificial but lacking a great deal of intelligence.

munificent:

Training generative AI on copyrighted material laboriously produced by artists and then using the result to put those same artists out of work.

Hefty-Station1704 , Airam Dato-on / pexels Report

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CaptainSlapNTickle
CaptainSlapNTickle
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This s**t needs to have the f*****g regulated out of it. Not just release some invasive product and then, possibly, maybe come out with the workaround if/when it misbehaves or gets out of control. After the damage has already been done. With impunity.

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#25

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams "I accept your 1000 page privacy policy and terms of service"

imnobey , PhotoMIX Company / pexels Report

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#26

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Selling our data. It’s even so bad that our phones that use GPS track where we are and send our driving habits and check-ins to companies. Facebook sells our data as well. Who we’re friends with, height, weight, medical info we post, etc.

Everything about us is sold. The only way to avoid that is to basically NEVER be online. For anything. VPNs are a joke and don’t do s**t. If they did what they advertise, we would have a lot more tech crime.

Remember: If you do not pay for it, you are the product. Not the customer.

shinakohana , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

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56points
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Argotina Schmurgle
Argotina Schmurgle
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The only way to keep your data safe is to not hand it over in the first place. The only way a site can keep your data safe is not to ask for it in the first place.

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#27

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Ticket surcharges, Uber flex fees, etc.

Basically everything that has enabled greedy people to further reach into your pocket.

Suck_Me_Dry666 , Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels Report

Final score:
52points
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CaptainSlapNTickle
CaptainSlapNTickle
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Mmmm, thank you for charging me the equivalent of a third ticket for the comedy show. You didn't even provide me with a tangible ticket.

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#28

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Subscription Traps: Makes signing up easy but canceling difficult, often hiding the cancellation process.

mostcutegirll , Andrea Piacquadio / pexels Report

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gijeff58
gijeff58
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Always go to and find, review and bookmark the cancelation page before signing up. Also as soon as you sign up cancelation your product you just bought, it will still be valid for the subscription period, it won't renew automatically and you will get plenty of notices that it's about to expire. Then if you want to renew wait as long as you can and talk to a person and you can usually renew at a lower price than original, just hold out.

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#29

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams I can't believe I don't see this in here, but the fact that most tech companies use their end users as testers is wild. Tons of the time you get something released that like, half works, and the end users or customers are used to find and fix bugs. It's everywhere man.

ssv-serenity , olia danilevich / pexels Report

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Any
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's mostly the reason for me to buy games waaaay after their release. It's updated and it's way cheaper later.

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#30

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Extended warranties for electronics, which are rarely worth the cost given the low chance of a malfunction that would fall under the warranty terms, and often overlap with the manufacturer’s warranty.

Aggressive_Gas3275 , trenttsd / flickr Report

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gijeff58
gijeff58
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Whatever the fault is is not covered under the warranty.

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#31

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Digital media in general. Yeah, I get why people would go in on it, convenience and the like, but for all the money we spend on it, we don't own a goddamned thing. Companies can go tits up, breakups, mergers, licenses can expire, digital storefronts are shuttered, etc. At any point the game/movie/song/TV show/whatever, that you PAID FOR, can be rendered unusable and unobtainable with zero notice and fewer ways to get it back.

It's been especially big in video game circles with various digital storefronts being shut down (the Nintendo 3DS and Wii-U stores *just* got the axe), announced to be shut down (the Xbox 360 store is set to go bye-bye this year), or held up only by way of extreme backlash (people raised unholy hell when Sony announced they were going to kill the PS3 store)... and there will be NO way get those games back unless you set sail for the Buccaneer Bay.

As the saying goes, if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

Calamity_Jay , JESHOOTS.com / pexels Report

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David
David
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Digital isn't a 'scam' if it is priced accordingly. Games through say Steam blur that line a bit because the game price isn't that much cheaper than if it was a hard copy. But movies are. I used to buy / save DVDs and bluray. Over time I realized it was pointless because the vast majority of of my collection I didn't want to watch more than once or twice. Out of hundreds, there were a handful of 'old friends' I'd watch again if bored / depressed. So I donated most of them to my local library. What I pay for the hundreds of hours of viewing time on netflix is very tiny fraction of what it would cost me to own those shows on disc. So I consider that a reasonable trade off. Basically I'm viewing it as a service or a rental instead of a purchase.

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#32

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Data caps, literally not a technical reason for it. Throttling may make sense if they get overloaded but caps are literally just money grabs.

t00sl0w , Ivan Radic / flickr Report

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Robert T
Robert T
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Data caps are a way of throttling usage. If everyone had unlimited data, the networks would be overloaded and the speed of everybodies connections would drop. It can also be done by rate limiting, but you wouldn't be happy if it took your cat video 5 mins to load. Network capacity has increased over the years, but so has usage. I remember the days when we had usage caps on websites and we were charged for data usage.

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#33

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Paying for storage on iPhones.

MelissaGulbin , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

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#34

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams McAfee - who in the hell actually needs it?

Vivid-Luck1163 , Adc1999 / wikipedia Report

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#35

Calling something “Full Self Driving” and releasing it years before it’s ready all while it blows through stop signs and violates speed limits without care.

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Graham_Illegal
Graham_Illegal
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Or convincing people that self-driving cars would be a feasible solution to any transportation issues. The entire concept is a scam, beyond just its lack of readiness for launch.

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#36

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Tenuous link but BMW's subscription service.


The options are already in the car but you have to pay a monthly fee to unlock them.

toon_84 , Luis Quintero / pexels Report

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Tabitha
Tabitha
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What happens when you’re in one of those remote areas with no internet or cell service? Do those functions of the car just stop?

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#37

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Needing wifi to play single player videogames. Yeah like 5 people are complaining about it but ain't no one doing any meaning protests to stop it.

Unfinished products being sold for full price, everyone hates it but guess we all consume. Like I can guartee you that Rockstar will rush the f**k out GTA 6 and it will be leaked with everyone saying "It's bad" "Literally impossible to play" and yet everyone's gonna buy it.

firefly139 , Alena Darmel / pexels Report

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#38

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Convenient fees when paying with credit cards. Like what, want me to send a physical check that you have to go cash then?

d0nutd0n , Anete Lusina / pexels Report

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Robert T
Robert T
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Illegal in the UK and EU. You are not allowed to charge more for people using a different payment method. If you accepts cards, the costs must be absorbed by the business (which normally means a slightly higher price for everybody).

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#39

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Having to buy the same game multiple times to play it on a different platform.

meruta , Alexander Kovalev / pexels Report

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Rocket Surgeon
Rocket Surgeon
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't mind this one, considering usually they need to do a significant amount of work to get the game working on that other system.

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#40

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams People preaching learning programming is the golden ticket to a lucrative career.While it's true that programming skills can open doors in various industries. These people are heavily promoting their coding courses and bootcamps. The reality is that the market is oversaturated.

Joe-Mwangi , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

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#41

Spam emails and calls/texts being free for scammers to take advantage of.

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Kelly Scott
Kelly Scott
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I counted the other day. I have 357 spam phone numbers blocked on my phone.

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#42

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Selling phones without chargers. Deprecating features to cross sell counter products.

milkymist00 , Karolina Grabowska / pexels Report

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Ace
Ace
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I must have at least a dozen USB chargers, or adapters as I prefer to think of them. so am thankful that they're no longer included with every new USB-enabled device I may buy. Even shipping with cables will soon become the exception as the EU-mandated USB-C standard for phones takes hold. Don't forget that you're paying for these things, whether you need them or not.

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#43

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Text message charges by mobile carriers, especially when considering the negligible cost of transmitting SMS data compared to the fees charged.

Western-Speaker-7226 , Roman Pohorecki / pexels Report

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Skip Marooch
Skip Marooch
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Where on earth are you, that you have to pay extra for SMS?

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#44

“Free” services like Google and Meta, they say it’s free but it’s not, you’re paying with your privacy.

It’s like if they put free-to-use toilets in an airport but they put those toilets right in the middle of the floor in the waiting areas with no stalls or walls, you just gotta sit there and take your s**t with everyone watching.

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#45

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Trapping customers in eco systems. Having non upgradeable hardware. Only have a limited time with security updates. All focused on optimising long term profits.

DonutsOnTheWall , Pixabay / pexels Report

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#46

MS Windows.

It's an operating system. Get out of my way, stay out of my way, and know your place. Stop being a greedy attention whore with your ads and endless updates and beta testing in the marketplace BECAUSE WE CAN, and your obsession with, "I am too worthy of attention from you every damn month! And hey, you need to give me a new computer every few years because I'm high maintenance."


And why the hell do I need a third-party driver update app? Because you don't update the drivers with your updates. Never have, never will.


Most of us wouldn't tolerate that sort of self-centered behavior in a human. Why do we put up with it from Microsoft?


I remember the old joke that if Windows were a car, you'd have to frequently shut off the engine, run around the car twice, then start the engine again to keep it running. That joke is at least 30 years old, and it still applies.

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#47

Automatic non refundable renewals ->>>

My kiddo bought an annual sub from “awesome tuts” and it auto renewed for $144. The guy would not give me a refund even though I contacted him within 24 hrs of renewal. Had to go back and forth a dozen times, and then write a letter to the CC vendor to get a refund.

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moggie63
moggie63
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For things I don't know if I want to keep having I use the number of a prepaid credit card with a zero balance. Good luck getting anything from that.

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#48

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Pretty much the whole AAA video games industry:
- Releasing bugged games
- Making games with DLC in mind or cutting content to sell it to you
- Endless sequels, no more risks, creativity or originality
- Microtransactions, gambling and subscriptions
- Online single player games
- You don‘t own games anymore and can‘t sell them
- Quality of hardware (especially controllers) has gone done significantly

I don‘t know if it‘s accepted but people really have no other choice but to take it.

Iwasateenagecirclrjk , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report

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Rocket Surgeon
Rocket Surgeon
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

All the best games for the past 20 years have been indie games, and usually they're happy to sell them for half the cost of AAA or less.

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#49

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Various smart phone apps that reward users with little perks like McD’s deals, or fuel apps saving you 18¢ per gallon, etc but are really tracking your location, spending habits, hobbies, general details about you.

Built in cameras and mics on smart phones, ring and alexa that are covertly recording you.

canned_spaghetti85 , Erik Mclean / pexels Report

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#50

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams Commercial VPNs.

Sure, there are valid uses for these like circumventing geoblocking but the majority of use cases they advertise (privacy, encryption, security) are utter b******t.

You’re basically trading your ISP (that is bound by data protection laws in most countries) for some shady company located on the Cayman Islands.

Your VPN provider can monitor your entire traffic and is in a perfect position to perform man-in-the-middle attacks on you, especially if you use the providers software.

It’s basically like being on public wifi all the time, just that you’re paying to do so.

leoklaus , Dan Nelson / pexels Report

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Adrian
Adrian
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't think you understand VPN. I'm an IT tech and have been using VPN to securely connect to client's servers for decades. Regular internet traffic can be monitored and intercepted. A proper VPN prevents that.

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#51

Apple/Google taking a 30% cut of the entire mobile software market for doing little more than hosting files.

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SirWriteALot
SirWriteALot
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, and websites taking money to put up your ads when it's little more than hosting an image. Dude ... it's like paying rent in a shopping center. The shopping center provides the location and the CUSTOMERS. You can build your own little shop somewhere. but you won't have the same amount of customers walking by every day as you would in a shopping center.

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#52

I work in a very niche area of tech and the biggest scam is people who work in tech but are not tech people.

I'm specifically talking about people who show up as "CEO" or "Founder" on LinkedIn and try to sell me some AI-driven, Zero Trust, Buzzword Salad product.

The field is so full of them that the non-technical decision makers are having trouble sussing them out, so they put a non-technical or faux-technical CIO or CTO in charge and he hires more non-technical people because he himself is too untechnical to sus them out. Before long your IT, cybersecurity, and information systems management departments are loaded with people who have no technical expertise.

**Example:** My company buys smaller companies and in one case we bought a small $20mil operation. Their IT department was one very technical systems admin and then about 20 people who were really good at Excel. They had the entire corporate network run by daisy-chaining routers together all operating with no VLANs or traffic segregation or security; There was no firewall, just plugging in a router to the modem; They didn't bother with any Wi-Fi security, just people connecting to the network, so guests, personal cell phones, whatever were all directly tied into the corporate network. I explained that this was a problem to my management (who doesn't know tech but trusts me to know it) and to the new subsidiary. Their CTO was **furious** at me for telling him how to do his job and fully believed he was still in charge of their tech. He had a "CIO" who worked for him and she spent roughly $20k a month on "services" that she bought from vendors to support their network. Most of the stuff she bought didn't even make sense in the context of their organization. Stuff like spending tens of thousands on a cloud product and Terraform to deploy their IaC when they had three VMs on AWS. She spent every day being wined and dined by vendors and then threw them breadcrumbs to keep visiting her and filling her schedule.

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#53

“If Buying Isn’t Owning, Piracy Isn’t Stealing”: 35 Tech Products That Are Huge Scams The way expansions packs work with games now, or at least a lot I play. It seems like it used to be that an expansion meant essentially almost a new game with lots of unique material, but now I feel lucky if any singe one is noticeable at all. Not to mention day one releases.

RuralJaywalking , Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels Report

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Sergy Yeltsen
Sergy Yeltsen
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Preach. I gave up 10 years of playing Warcraft because it was all so same-o same-o. There isn't going to be a "Warcraft Killer". Blizzard will do that all on their own.

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#54

Cloud computing.
Progressed something like this:
0) Buy a server, put it in your room. Have a website

1. Rent a server, put it in your room. Have a website.
2. Rent a server that is part of a server farm. Have a website.
3. Buy a cloud contract. Your cloud service rents a server that is part of a server farm. Have a website.

While servers are getting less expensive as storage and processors get better and cooling and energy systems get more efficient. Somehow the cloud needs more and more fees to provide the same server. All the while you get less and less freedom to configure your server how you want.
There are some small benefits like guaranteed support, but the price does not warrant it.

Edit: After getting a lot of comments I realized I did not use the right terminology and grouped other things together. I guess what I meant is that for many customers who were using a service which sold them remote servers and other access "moving to the cloud" meant making themselves reliant on a contract with a decoupling of the price of the contract from the actual price of the physical hardware that hosts the services.
Like you used to drive a taxi, but now you are picked up and dropped of blindfolded and earmuffed. Sure, you still know you are at your destination and how long it took, you can still feel the seats, you can smell the air, but you have no idea if you are driving a car, a bus or something else. There is no real issue with it; until the price goes up.

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Ace
Ace
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7 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Even with the edit this doesn't really seem to be making any valid point, apart from prices rising, just like everything else. Remote computing and/or storage solutions have been in common use since a long time before the term 'cloud' was coined, indeed since a long time before anyone even thought of the Internet. As long ago as the 1970s.

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#55

Kubernetes.

I'm sure that it's a godsend if you have a massive farm of thousands of servers. But for 99% of companies it's a kludge of a system, with cryptic configuration files that allocate bizarre arbitrary identification numbers to components of the system, and those identification numbers are not even consistent from one configuration file to another.

Services start and crash for no clear reason, and the people who cheerlead for it... it's like a sect, try to say "I do not think that a solution designed by and for Google's massive server farms is going to be optimal for a company with just 6 servers" and you'll get shouted down.

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