Re: Beware survival bias
"There are 100 year old Ford Model Ts that still run despite the fact that they were designed to be produced quickly and cheaply."
At the time of the Model T, materials weren't as consistent and there was no such thing as finite element analysis (FEA) so a certain amount of overbuilding was needed to make sure they lasted through the warranty period (if any). Most of the mechanical items that are still working today are the ones at the top range of the market when they were new. The tat coming out of mainly China these days has so many corners cut that it's perfectly round.
iThingys are a good example of product that won't be around in a decade to any great extent. They aren't made to be serviced and electronic parts go obsolete all of the time. That's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of EVs where everything funnels through one LCD. An LCD that spends many days thermal cycling in the sun until the separate layers delaminate and the goo leaks out. Will that custom screen be available as a spare 10 years from now? They're® saying that the "new" Tesla batteries will be good for a million miles. Will the LCD last that long? How about that Flash memory that's massively abused and bricks the car when it goes sproing?
A lot of modern tech is very ephemeral. Its got no legs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
