this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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zerowaste
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I did for a while. Then I started repurposing some of them and found it’s a lot harder to make things work and they’re a lot slower when it does then relatively cheaper but MUCH faster and more capable newer hardware. Tech moved to fast in the early days to make the older stuff really worth it by todays standards.
I am writing this from a 2008 machine.
Bad software forces people into the market for new hardware. I can run the most recent version of Debian on this old hardware with 4gb RAM just fine. I will never for the rest of my life have to buy a PC or laptop because I keep finding abandoned PCs and laptops that are faster than what I have (faster than what I need). Microsoft will exploit these consumers for decades to come. Glad I am not feeding the ecocide.
When it comes to parts/repair, (most) Computers are a bit of a different beast than other electronics. They're specifically built/designed to use standardized connections and form factors that allow you to swap a large variety of parts from a wide range of manufacturers as desired. You often don't need or even want original replacement parts as you upgrade to better/faster hardware piecemeal.
There's few other product categories that achieve the same level of inter-compatibility or upgradability.
Compared to something like a smart phone for example; where parts have to be made for that specific devices make/model, and are often explicitly designed to make this impossible/impractical for any third party to do via thing's like serialized part-pairing, while companies also restrict the supply of OEM components to end-users or 'unauthorized' repair centers... This is where right to repair laws really come into play.