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107

I Can’t Sell You Laptops Anymore (video) (enshittification of computer repair) (www.youtube.com)

submitted 20 hours ago by chasteinsect@programming.dev to c/technology@beehaw.org

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

From : https://techhub.social/@sawaba@infosec.exchange/115924627853343043 (mastodon)

The enshittification of computer repair is happening.

AI has amazingly managed to make repairable computers practically worthless.

The increase in memory and storage pricing is destroying the second-hand market for computing hardware and this makes me sad. I watched a video from someone that runs a repair shop, and this is what's happening:

The memory/storage alone is worth more than the rest of the computer, so people are stripping them out to sell separately.

The second hand market is now flooded with computers that have no memory or storage. Buying new memory or storage to put in these used computers is now more expensive than buying a new computer.

So we now suddenly have a giant e-waste problem PLUS a giant problem for repair shops that want to stay in business.

In the video, he was basically saying that they have to pivot to the only computers that folks aren't stripping RAM and storage out of - computers that have those things soldered on. The irony here is that repair shops now have to ignore the most repairable computers and focus on the least repairable computers instead.

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[–] uninvitedguest@piefed.ca 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The price of DDR4 has gone up enough that I'm no longer considering upgrading my 2017 daily driver laptop to 32GB.

[–] Fifrok@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 17 hours ago

same here, I've wanted to buy a second 32GB stick for my laptop, but now it costs about the same as a months rent for my collage dorm. My broke ass can't afford that and still eat, so I'm gonna have to rock single channel for a couple of years more.