Not when you consider the maintenance costs of the plants they closed. Basically of them were beyond original design life.

And the democracy sausage!

You’ve proven yourself wrong.

Mochi Tetsu is mentioned in that article as being a source that produces higher quality products than iron sand. Exactly what you’re arguing against.

The facts are that due to the limited availability of good quality iron ore the steel produced in Japan often used iron sand and that led to lower quality products.

Why? The past lives long in the memory.

Sony was at the Vanguard of Japan’s post-war recovery. Making any electronics for the home.

Rice cookers and standard small white goods in the 40s.

They had a huge success with the transistor radios in the mid 50s.

Bearing in mind transistors themselves were first created in 1947. Sony is putting them in consumer products 8 years later. Copying a product produced in small numbers but making it better. Using the latest technology.

I own a 1960s reel to reel machine that still works perfectly. Sound on sound recording, echo and reverb effects. Built using transistors and “solid state” amplifies. Not at the cutting edge but using transistors to mass produce a product more reliably than previous tech.

All high fi equipment following the same pattern. Can they replace the old style amplifiers in record players. Yep.

The cassette tape comes along Sony makes it portable. And this is the point they also start hitting the top of the market in quality.

The portable tape decks Sony produced are considered the best.

This is while they’re dealing with videotape and producing betamax and the first consumer recorders and cameras.

Sony is a mark of reliability from the 50s by replacing old tech with transistors and a mark of quality by being better than the mass market competition by the 70s.

They then look at digital and create their own media. Betamax is a war they eventually lost even though it was better quality than VHS. But they made money on the professionals end of the market because of that quality.

This moved Sony into that direction. Focusing on the premium product, aiming high and for the mass market, but with the idea that quality will guarantee the high end segment.

In audio

Digital cassette DCC, DAT CD SACD Competition for Dolby Surround SPDIF optical audio. LDAC Bluetooth protocol

All the devices to play and record/transmit these.

In video: U-matic Betamax MMCD (mothballed to then partnering with DVD) Blu-ray Blu-ray 4K

The devices to play and produce them. The media to go on them from Sony Music and Sony Pictures.

Displays they created Trinitron displays to go with their analogue video cameras and formats.

They produced the first LED backlit LCDs. They produced the first quantum dot displays to go with the professional cinema quality digital cameras.

In the computing world they produced the first 3.5" floppies then CDs, then flash memory storage.

They tried to partner with Nintendo on the first CD-Rom gaming system and, when they were kicked out, launched their own console.

Sony have aimed for the professional market and bring those lessons learned to the masses.

Always based around a media format.

1999 Sony produced SACD. R&D in audio finished when that wound up in 2007.

High end audio equipment before that point is great. After that it’s just badges up stuff made to the lowest price.

2006 Sony produced Blu-ray. Blu-ray 4K looks to be the last gasp in 2016.

They were aiming for the top with video, TVs and blu ray players were great.

They’re still the best quality audio and video products you can buy.

But no one is buying them. We left quality of CDs for the convenience of mp3. We left Blu-ray for streaming.

We left high quality physical products for software products and codecs for convenience.

We left individual electronic devices for smart phones.

Sony have stopped R&D and quality control on devices as the market for them has dropped.

You can still buy a great high end TV from Sony.

Everything else, they’ve let the high end go.

If the high end isn’t mass market. Then they’re not going to make it high end anymore.

But as the last mass manufacturer to leave so many segments over the years. The cheapest high end device is still often a second hand Sony.

When the high end drops out of a segment all the individual components they would mass produce get penny pinched. Before they would produce huge numbers of lasers for CD players and make sure they were all good enough across the whole range.

When no one wants a high end CD player, no more high quality lasers get made.

The same with each component. Amplifiers, connectors, buttons, power supplies.

Sony’s products borrowed from each other’s tech and as the high end went in one area it had knock on effects in others.

Look at the PS5, the components are not produced in Japan by Sony. They’re outsourcing.

The 4K Blu-Ray disk drive is optional.

They say they’re unlikely to ever release their 8K Blu-Ray standard.

Top quality is no longer a priority and you place 20 years ago about right for audio. Probably 10 years ago for video.

The playstation 3 was Sony’s last CD player in a console. The last to be backwards compatible. The last of the Sony attitude of trying to be the best and trying to be backwards compatible.

The best CD players, SACD, players, DVD players etc all come in one Sony 4k UHD Blu Ray box.

Then you need a decent receiver and speakers to take that digital signal through a DAC, and amplify it. The last vestage of high end Sony audio is there.

The TVs the last of Sony’s high end lines in general.

The best portable cd players without breaking the bank, old Sony’s.

I’m going for UK, specifically Scotland.

I’m sorry, I started joking because you weren’t being serious either.

Wait, you were being serious?

Well I’ve got a solution for you!

Just insert this adapter into the 3.5mm jack and it will be blocked for you. It’ll no longer be wasted space because this adapter is a useful place to store several grains of rice for a snack.

Unfortunately you do lose a feature as a result of using this adapter, it will stop one of the speakers from working and degrade your audio quality.

But you shouldn’t complain about anything removing a feature, or degrading your audio quality. You’ve got a new feature of being able to store rice!

You can even buy special fairphone sustainable rice from us. With only a small 300% mark up but an incredible 80% of the sustainability of already available rice. It comes in green!

The “demographic” of human being who doesn’t want to wreck the planet if Fairphone’s target.

If Fairphone is not trying to be universal anymore you should see that as a problem. So should every fairphone customer.

I’ll buy a more sustainable phone than the fairphone when my phone loses support in 2027. I’ll encourage everyone to buy a more sustainable product today.

I’d much prefer a 3.5mm jack

Are they bringing back the headphone jack?

My Nokia should last until 2027 with updates but it would be nice to know my options if it breaks.

iPods had an 82% share of the US market at the time the term was first used.

https://www.theregister.com/2004/10/12/ipod_us_share/

At the time a “broadcast” to you iPod made the name podcast pretty understandable.

And there’s not much else I could think of to call it given technology at the time.

MP3 player was the generic term. But MP3 cast feels clunky.

I did hear audioblog used. But they weren’t all blogs.

It really comes down to the fact that at the time everyone knew “pod” meant “iPod” and that’s it.

Absolutely. The reason these things don’t last is because it’s not worth the investment to redevelop and maintain.

I’m just pointing out that’s the reason to move to where there is investment and sustainability in the product.

Firefox cut funding for maintaining an option due to low usage. Speculative investment in a replacement fell flat.

Google cuts investment for the same reasons and that happens often. They speculate on a new product then cut it if it doesn’t work out for them.

Neither company doing this is a bad thing.

The problem most people have is they are late to move to a mature product, which then having reached maturity is assessed as either a success or failure. Then due to low usage it’s cut.

Then they’re looking for the next mature product. Again ignoring sustainability. Which is then also cut.

Firefox has also had issues in this regard.

“Firefox’s built-in support for web feeds and Live Bookmarks was removed with the release of Firefox version 64 in December 2018.”

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacements-firefox

They pushed “Pocket” over RSS.

Now they’re depreciating the Mac pocket app and it’s clearly not going to do well in the future.

5 years of moving people away from RSS to another service, to then start to depreciate that service.

5 years from the major redesign of google reader from 2008 to 2013 and closing it down.

My lesson. Expect to change your software for the web every 4 years or so. If it lasts longer it’s a bonus. But chances are if you make the effort to move to the best (and most recently developed) candidate every 4 years you’ll be in a good place.

You know when software gets stale, you know when there are better options, use them.

Sometimes your current choice gets a new round of development, sometimes it goes stale.

Framework 13 has a fingerprint reader in the power button.

The EU and Nokia are at the forefront of what you’re asking for.

Ultimately the more appetite for sustainability the better and the less custom sent to companies which are not actually sustainable the better.

Fairphone isn’t a sustainable company it’s pretending to be one and taking market share from more reputable companies.

They’ve probably lost to the competition already.

Nokia are more sustainable and offer more options for a lower price.

Fairphone are a virtue signalling brand at best now and a hypocritical one at that.

Anyone with a fairphone 4 might have made an honest mistake, a 5 or later and they’re just gullible.

A Nokia.

5 years of security updates. Cheap. Repairability commitment.

Headphone Jack Dual SIM

Very good camera.

Making a modular phone is complicated.

If they can’t deal with complicated things they should shut up shop and get out of the way so someone genuinely ethical can take their market share.

To be clear, if they only failed to produce a phone with a headphone jack I’d be happy to just not buy it.

The fact they went on to produce electronic trash in making Bluetooth earbuds means it’s clear they’ve reached the enshittification point They are just out to make money from their user base now like every other manufacturer.

The hypocrisy of encouraging waste while pretending to be against that is what I’m calling out.

They’re hypocrites and the worse they do the better a competitor for the ethical market can rise.

To be honest I’d just buy a Nokia. They’re more committed to actually producing a sustainable product at volume.

Making up theories that don’t match reality.

Is talking to you worth any time at all?

All dongles break, especially the fairphone ones.

They are initially unnecessary to manufacture, then become unnecessary waste.