I feel this is hyperbolic, because in my head, why would you ever buy a defective-by-design piece of junk? But I am aware that I'm an outlier here, with a ~20 year old printer, ~15 year old TV, 10 year old laptop running coreboot with no ME chaperone, 13 year old desktop running libreboot with no ME chaperone, very few Internet of Trash devices that are allowed to connect to the Internet, no streaming services, no software subscriptions, etc.
I do appreciate that many of these decisions have required effort and self actualization. Like I'm not particularly expecting a non-tech yuppie to seek out a libreboot machine. But if I were in the market to replace any of these things, I'd turn to the commercial and the used markets rather than walking into Best Buy (or worse searching Amazon) and narrowing my field of view to only shiny surveillance traps.
I do have to wonder what it will take to get the technologically sustainable choices into the general public consciousness, so they stop buying things designed to milk your wallet and spy on you for a few short years, before they're deliberately obsoleted.
> I feel this is hyperbolic, because in my head, why would you ever buy a defective-by-design piece of junk?
Because manufacturers will not mention their product is defective by design. Until I heard of the HP ink subscription scheme a year or two ago, I would not think twice if they advertised such a feature since the expectation is that I could still buy ink independently. I would not expect the printer to stop functioning if I did not subscribe.
That's not to say that I would have bought HP. I already knew that they were not upfront about a lot of things and I already had a company that I trusted. (Ironically, a company that people claimed produced cheap junk back in the 90's.) That said, there are a lot of people buying their first printer and who have little concept of what the pitfalls are. Certain types of pitfalls are rarely mentioned in reviews and, when they are, they may come off as hyperbolic. That said, even commercial products have their pitfalls. I had to deal with a Xerox printer a while back that refused to work with a toner purchased under a support contract since the printer was not covered by the support contract. (The printer was purchased separately since the Internet connection wasn't reliable at that site.)
Of course manufacturers will never mention that their product is defective by design. The change I'm referring to is when consumers will stop relying on nonsense advertising / placement to comparison shop, actually care about how something functions, and reject products that are built with backdoor control.
And yeah the same crapification is happening to commercial markets, at slower or faster paces. The point is that most of this gimmicky consumer shit is just advertising skins on functionality that was already solved 20 years ago, and buying a new old stock or refurbished products would meet the need while avoiding backdoors.
It just feels like so many of the headlines these days about Internet of Trash and subscription service rugpulls are like the old doctor joke - "Doc, it hurts when I do this" ... "Well, stop doing that".
These technologically sustainable choices would also have to be desirable on their own merits. Largely, they're not; they're often ugly, difficult to use, require specialized knowledge, or of uncertain quality (e.g. used cars). The technologically sustainable, not-designed-to-milk-your-wallet alternative to subscription music services is ... buying or pirating everything you want individually, which is inconvenient and potentially even more expensive than Spotify. That's an uphill battle.
What's the sustainable alternative to buying a new locked-down laptop? If it's a ten-year-old laptop running coreboot then almost nobody is ever going to go that route. You could explain your principles until you're blue in the face but it will never seem like a better alternative than a fast, warrantied new laptop that does almost everything they want to do fairly easily.
While I agree with the general dynamic of what you're saying, you're also referencing a lot of the advertising bullet points that are used to confuse consumers to sell crap. Like there's very little point to worrying about a 3 year warranty that you'll have to beg the company to send a service person out for, for an item that is expected to last 10-20 years (like say a TV or appliances).
Also the point of opting for media self-ownership (which may include piracy) isn't to save money on subscription services, but rather to avoid the inevitable rug pulls and other backstabbing down the line. All these articles about Netflix clamping down on account sharing are only relevant if you've bought into their zero sum world. I understand that's where pop culture is these days, but it's unfortunate that the tech community, who should know better, treats it as if it's anything more than a passing fad.
Use a print shop/library, hit up a friend/coworker, or figure out a different way of getting the immediate task done without printing. Basically anything that isn't walking into a store and dropping a few hundred dollars on a fully-fledged simulation of a capital asset, that will likely put you in the same exact urgent situation within a year or two.
I totally understand the impulse to spend a bit of money and feel that you're solving a problem now and for the future. But these companies have evolved their offerings to fully take advantage of this behavior, and the only way to protect yourself is to take a step back and act deliberately.
Even if you manage to postpone buying a printer, needing one can still be inevitable. You asked "why would you buy a defective-by-design piece of junk", the answer is buying anything else seems to be impossible. Holding on to whatever you bought 10-20 years ago does not solve the problem going forward.
Better consumer options have been mentioned in this thread. There is repair. There is used hardware. And there are new non-consumer-targeted products. And sure, sometimes you just have to compromise. But not nearly as much as people end up doing when they feel pressed to make quick decisions on the spot, and fall for advertising and placement.
I do appreciate that many of these decisions have required effort and self actualization. Like I'm not particularly expecting a non-tech yuppie to seek out a libreboot machine. But if I were in the market to replace any of these things, I'd turn to the commercial and the used markets rather than walking into Best Buy (or worse searching Amazon) and narrowing my field of view to only shiny surveillance traps.
I do have to wonder what it will take to get the technologically sustainable choices into the general public consciousness, so they stop buying things designed to milk your wallet and spy on you for a few short years, before they're deliberately obsoleted.