Some tech is getting pricier and looking a lot like the older services it was supposed to beat. Namely video streaming, ride-hailing, and cloud computing.
      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
        171·
        4 months ago

        I think you give the idiots in charge of the corps that can’t see beyond a 3 month window of time too much credit. It is just the natural progression of unchecked and unregulated Capitalism that will always lead to this place, regardless of the industry or technology.

        Don’t get me wrong, I want to blame them too for their evil plot, but they’re too dumb to have contrived the whole narrative.

        Example with the cloud:

        • Look over past decades, storing your data in servers has been a thing for decades. Companies have tried time and again to get the concept to stick in various forms, and it always waxed and waned. (Reverse-example right now is AI, since people barely want it, and having it in the cloud is even creepier, manufacturers are trying to make people comfortable with cloud-executed AI queries, and otherwise releasing limited subsets of compute that run locally on the phone.)
        • Voice recognition tech like Voice Command (predecessor to Siri for those super young) started on phone-only. Then Siri used to run on the cloud until phones became powerful enough to run more commands locally and they moved more commands to the phone.
        • Apple used to synchronize SMS messages between iPhones and other Apple devices in a secure local method on your local WiFI network. Then, as they sold more types of devices, it made it evolutionarily (made up word) necessary to move that logic to the cloud. They probably didn’t pre-think that all this would be clouded, they just got there out of need to sell a new toy, and suddenly screw the alleged privacy they purport to worship.

        The reality is, a lot of these cloud techs have been held up by:

        • Lack of fast enough Internet bandwidth to make it doable, nobody is going to spend 4 hours a day uploading photos somewhere
        • Lack of fast local compute, hilariously, local compute can do most things now, but in the past, the local compute wasn’t fast enough to be able to parse/process the data to send to the cloud
        • Lack of local storage, again, prepping data for cloud transport and having local caching be performant requires enough throwaway space on the local machine that users don’t become frustrated with the latency of remote disks in a datacenter
        • Lack of metadata for trust verification like FaceID, fingerprint, GPS geolocation, and other security functions so the company could avoid fraud
        • Lack of quality mobile cameras and recording devices making the input content garbage

        Once these problems ended up being solved, it wasn’t some visionary with a big plan executing. It was just another Business Weenie being paid 9 figures having the same idea 300 other people had, and it just sticking this time because the technological environment is different.

        (Replace Apple examples with Google, Microsoft, Cisco whoever as necessary.)

    • Biezelbob@programming.devEnglish
      6·
      4 months ago

      First new word I learned on lemmy a few months back.

      I think of it multiple times a day when browsing my RSS feed

  • Hannes@feddit.org
    35·
    4 months ago

    Isn’t that how silicon valley worked for years even within itself? Run a loss for long enough until you’ve overtaken the market and then raise prices when the competition has lost their edge.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        27·
        4 months ago

        Yet you still see people grumbling about how restrictions on chinese EV imports are just “American/Western Imperialism”, since people apparently don’t understand how valueable domestic production is

        • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
          133·
          4 months ago

          It’s because the USA floods countries with cheap goods all the time and then cries foul when someone else does it. It’s pure hypocrisy.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
            62·
            4 months ago

            What cheap goods does the US produce and flood other countries with? Even in the US, most of our products are made in China.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
              10·
              4 months ago

              US Agricultural goods are heavily subsidized and, thanks to NAFTA, flooded Mexico’s markets and destroyed farmers’ livelihoods.

            • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
              2·
              3 months ago

              Well, Facebook, google spring to mind. They are both cheap for the consumer and undermine local competition. Digital goods can be dumped too.

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
    19·
    4 months ago

    Cloud was never supposed to be “cheap”. It has always been a utility based model where you pay for how much you use it. The problem is, way too many people used is as a 1:1 replacement without rearchitecting their workloads, so of course it’s gonna be more expensive.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
      81·
      4 months ago

      Not just that, but the big value proposition was supposed be that you wouldn’t need sysadmins. In practice, these services are so complex that you need a dedicated skill set to use them, except now it’s specific skills for each provider that aren’t directly transferable.

      • Laser@feddit.org
        6·
        4 months ago

        Which means you can sell support in addition to the service itself. Mission accomplished!

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
          41·
          4 months ago

          Not to mention the benefits of having vendor lock in, since migrating to a different service becomes prohibitively expensive.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    4 months ago

    Uber was always more expensive then a taxi, at least in NYC/London. It was originally marketed as a “luxury” transportation option. The cloud was always ~2x more Operation Expenses with the value proposition that you didn’t have any Capital Expenses so if you were a startup it was easier to sell-out and get started with lower risk. Streaming is still cheaper then cable, but it is getting shittier.

    • Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      6·
      4 months ago

      Streaming is still cheaper than cable

      That really depends on where you live. With my current provider here in the Netherlands, I would be paying 12.50 euros extra for TV.

      Netflix standard is already more expensive than that at 13.99.

      • kindenough@kbin.earth
        3·
        4 months ago

        Realdebrid serves torrents instantly from torrentio at 3 bucks a month. Nvidia shieldtv Pro is the best media steamer (*in my opinion which is probably worthless). I had Apple TV’s running Stremio, but it was a pain in the butt syncing, so I gave those away.

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    9·
    4 months ago

    A primary purpose of technology under capitalism is the violent control of people and the planet. Any actual progress is an unwanted side effect.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    8·
    4 months ago

    I’ve been adding a bunch of torrent-focused features to both lemmy-ui and jerboa this week, the next releases of both should have them.

  • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
    5·
    4 months ago

    Is there a reasonable explanation for this or is it plain greed? In my book, technology gets always cheaper, but scalability is also always a concern.