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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Interesting points here. I hope things don’t work out this way, but I think there is a very strong chance that this is exactly what will happen: the streets of Manhattan below 60th will stay mostly-as-busy, but with more ride shares and private car services, since clear streets means rich people can finally transmute money into quick, private transportation.

    I’m curious about this statement:

    There exist way more people in New York who would drive if they could, but they literally can’t fit.

    I believe there are a lot of rich folks in NYC who would rideshare even more if they didn’t get stuck in gridlock. But I’m not sure we have sufficient evidence to say that “way more people” would drive if there was less traffic. When I lived in NYC (just before covid hit), none of my friends owned cars even though they all had the means. It was just too much trouble to park them and maintain them for the few days a year you need a car if you mostly hang out in the city. And driving is a pain if you’re mostly in a city – the NYC lifestyle is very alcohol heavy and for a lot of folks only spans a couple of miles on an average day. Not exactly a huge benefit from cars there.

    100% agreed that we should reclaim parking space and lanes from cars, though. Perhaps congestion pricing will temporarily empty the streets and give the city ammunition to reclaim that space? A smart city would enact congestion pricing, downsize the largest avenues before rideshares figure out a way to exploit the opportunity, and then use that reduced main throughput to justify downsizing and pedestrianizing streets across the city over the next few years. But I suppose they could have done that during the covid traffic downturn, too, like how Paris and London seized the empty streets to expand bicycle infrastructure and pedestrianize streets around schools.




  • Yeah, the small car thing is a perfect parallel. The market doesn’t necessarily fit preferences perfectly: instead, companies optimise for whatever MOST folks will buy that nets them the most money.

    They make more money selling a large phone with a bigger sticker price and a bigger profit margin, so they make big phones. And the most phone-hungry people, power users, who buy a new phone every year or so, tend to buy big phones. So they cater to that group.

    Think of it this way: when I bought my iPhone SE 2016 7 years ago, I cast maybe $100 of profit “vote” in the marketplace.

    Every time someone buys a $1700 folding phone, they cast something between $500 and $1000 of profit “vote” in the marketplace. And they do that every year, not once every 7.

    Of course, I’d be willing to spend a lot more on a really decent small phone. But nobody in the market has really experimented with that model yet. And it is admittedly harder to fit components into a smaller phone body (though not as hard as Apple would have you believe – after all, the 14 and 15 literally takes up more space with a useless empty plastic SIM card spacer than the headphone jack used to take.







  • From the article:

    “The problem is Apple has exclusive rights to [the iPhone Mini’s] display — so, even with the line being discontinued, [Samsung Display] isn’t going to give us access,” he told supporters last month.

    Sounds like we’re splitting hairs: no other OEM is ordering the Mini-sized display, and this line certainly implies some kind of exclusivity. I’ve been following the thread on the Small Android Phone discord as well, and what I’ve seen there aligns with that understanding.

    As far as I know, no small manufacturer ever gets displays built specifically for them. Even Pebble, which was a lot more popular than Small Android Phone, used preexisting displays. It just takes a lot of time, knowledge, and money to create a custom display.



  • I’d go with the Fairphone if I were you, as long as you actually care about having the phone long term. I know the Pixel is very shiny and very nice, but Google really does have an awful history of QA. Fairphone isn’t perfect either, but being able to repair things yourself is a huge benefit. Sure the CPU and camera and screen aren’t as nice, but they’re probably nicer than what you’ve currently got, and definitely nice enough unless you’re a tech reviewer who’s constantly looking at the new shinies.

    Plus, y’know, it is kind of cool that Fairphone tries to produce their phones without any slavery or labor abuses, and at least makes real attempts at sustainability. When you get burned by Google, you just feel shame because you knew they were going to screw you one way or another. If you get burned by Fairphone, at least you tried to do something better in the world.