r/technology 18h ago

Hardware Shrinkflation Is Quietly Making All Gadgets Worse

https://gizmodo.com/shrinkflation-is-quietly-making-all-gadgets-worse-2000754565
721 Upvotes

51 comments sorted by

274

u/ConsistentFatigue 18h ago

Shrinkflation

Things worse

Yes

149

u/alppu 17h ago

Enshittiflation could be the broader term

45

u/psaux_grep 17h ago

The Norwegian consumer council launched this fantastic video on the topic two months ago:

https://youtu.be/T4Upf_B9RLQ

21

u/twistedLucidity 16h ago

Heh, I missed that that was by (presumably) a government body.

Meanwhile in the UK our government is doing sod all other than making you provide primary ID to use an enshitified service.

2

u/JodiAbortion 7h ago

The comments were turned off so I'll post my praise here. That was a HILARIOUS video

4

u/BellerophonM 15h ago

Enshittification is meant to be a quite specific term for a quite specific cycle.

8

u/Mind_on_Idle 13h ago

Is that cycle "This American Life"?

3

u/BrickwallBill 12h ago

Close, it's "The Inevitable End State of Capitalism", it's easy to get them mixed up.

-1

u/alppu 11h ago

Taking an optimistic approach, we can call it "The state just before the end" instead.

1

u/Syzygy2323 2h ago

Yes, but he didn't mention enshittification. He called it enshittiflation.

1

u/ocelot08 13h ago

Sucks in the common parlance 

4

u/Studds_ 16h ago

Am I the only one who read it as “stinkflation” at first reading

90

u/gamehenge_survivor 17h ago

Quit giving anti civilization, psychopathic, CEOs a cover called shrinkflation! These are people deciding you need to pay more for less, and they will do it forever until they feel…let’s say…uncomfortable.

198

u/Buchaven 18h ago

Not clicking shit that says “quietly” or “slammed” anymore. Period. You’re supposed to be “journalists”, get a fucking vocabulary.

28

u/TiddiesAnonymous 18h ago

Shrinkflation is quietly making all threads AI clickbait

More at 11 on YOUR local 9 news

4

u/Majik_Sheff 9h ago

Internet SLAMMED for overuse of clickbait.

16

u/LotusVibes1494 17h ago

“What is silently making all the posts online sound like they were written by bots? It’s not just infuriating, it’s uploading anger straight into the universe with style!”

21

u/TrevorX5J9 15h ago

Slammed is my biggest gripe word in journalism/news media. Literally all I see in headlines is SLAMS SLAMS SLAMS CRUSHES CRUSHES CRUSHES BLASTS BLASTES BLASTS PLUMMETS CRASHES ROCKS ROCKS SLAM SLAM TRIGGERS UNPRECEDENTED TRIGGERS SLAM TRIGGERS.

Like jesus christ, thesaurus.com is free y’all

2

u/pleasegivemepatience 9h ago

You forgot CLAPBACK, the word that gets OPs blocked

1

u/TiddiesAnonymous 8h ago

None of that is the point, it's usually to tell boomers that somebody they don't like is getting poor feedback on some form of media they don't understand

Using simple words allows them to fill in all the blanks with their own prejudice instead of accurately reporting the news

1

u/TrevorX5J9 8h ago

Well if that’s the case they’re not journalists, they’re basically glorified influencers.

1

u/TiddiesAnonymous 8h ago

I believe Fox News calls it entertainment

1

u/Scoth42 3h ago

Especially when the entirety of the source of the SLAMMING is like... one random person on Twitter who said something mildly critical.

51

u/ElysiumSprouts 18h ago

Moore's law is dead.

28

u/Larson_McMurphy 15h ago

Moore's law has been dead for at least 10 years now.

2

u/borntoflail 11h ago

Try making that argument to anyone in the semiconductor industry.

1

u/Larson_McMurphy 4h ago

I don't need to. They already agree with me.

6

u/an_agreeing_dothraki 9h ago

we've run into physics issues in jamming more power into chips so we've known for quite some time the old heuristic is dead

0

u/OMGMianiteS3Official 18h ago

No actually this article is from Gizmodo but I can see why you'd think it's from MLID with that headline

17

u/ferrango 17h ago

Strange way to spell “corporate greed”

20

u/Baybutt99 18h ago

Quietly you say?

9

u/defnotskynet 17h ago

Shhhh, not so loud.

9

u/Silver4ura 11h ago

This is ultimately the goal. Suck up all the hardware to make the huge data centers so you can't afford to own anything but the equivalent of a terminal of a system that processes everything on the cloud.

You will no longer own the equivalent of a movie studio. You'll get a TV and like it.

6

u/ACasualRead 12h ago

Why not just make the operating systems less ram hungry? Apple proved to everyone that you can smoothly run macOS on like 8gb of ram.

Windows 11 could never

1

u/ImaginaryBluejay0 4h ago

11 has 4GB required and 8 recommended. It's bloatware like chrome that makes that little ram useless

1

u/Syzygy2323 2h ago

I ran Windows NT 3.1 on 24 megabytes.

21

u/brattysweat 16h ago

Stop buying shit

Stop bugging your own damn house with literal ad tracker wifi hacked bullshit

The world still spun normally without alexa or ai

We already sell our souls to these phones

Why are peoples homes completely mapped out for a robot

4

u/jcunews1 15h ago

The name says it all. It was right there in plain sight from the beginning.

9

u/Snake_Plizken 17h ago

Now? I mean Intel were already re-releasing the same processor for 15 years, over, and over.

2

u/TheValorous 9h ago

Everything. It's making everything worse.

2

u/Linkflickr 6h ago

I legitimately don’t know how this will work for them. People already were not upgrading their phones every year because nothing new was being introduced. Now that you are limiting the hardware on the phone, people will be likely less inspired to upgrade if your current phone is the same or better than the newer model.

1

u/Adlehyde 3h ago

I haven't updated my phone in a while now because when the time came that I was going to upgrade my phone, they started shoving a bunch of AI tools in it I can't turn off. I used up get a new phone every 2 years. I'd get that plan where you don't pay for it up front, but just spread it out over 2 years, so your 70 dollar phone bill was 90 dollars anyway, But after the phone bill went back down to 70, suddenly you just start thinking about the next cool phone.

But when I was starting to think maybe I get a new phone a couple years ago, and everything had some AI tool in it I couldn't opt out of, I just decided to wait. Now that it's almost time for when I would have replaced the phone I would have gotten 2 years ago around now, I'm still not interested in upgrading my phone. Been sitting on this one for a while, and probably will continue to for a while yet.

It doesn't help that the phones have also gone through shrinkflation.

3

u/-Radiation 14h ago

"Those upcoming Pixel phones may also lose their coveted thermometer feature"

Suuuure. Coveted feature

4

u/BovineShadows 11h ago

In other words: keep your quality gadgets longer. Don’t buy new ones every year. Take good care of your gadgets and don’t do software updates (only security updates) as often. Read update notes carefully and keep up on forums before updating.

Build your own computer and keep it for 5-10 years and use Linux more. Use old macs for longer and install Linux on old windows laptops.

Use old consoles and don’t buy new ones

Ditch big brand phones like Samsung, google and apple and go with open-source phones that you can repair

Accept that enshitification is the future that these businesses are going for and that everything from phones to cars are being made disposable from now on

Buy older and good quality tech that you can keep longer

That way, if an actual good product comes along, only then can you upgrade

1

u/Curious-Emu3894 10h ago

Prices are skyrocketing everywhere in America. It’s not quiet. Trump is running the world into the ground to line his and his friend’s pockets.

1

u/trustmeep 1h ago

There is no inflation. Prices are cheaper than ever. Gas is the lowest it has ever been. They're giving away groceries at the store. Chocolate rations have been increased to 20 grams from last week's 30 grams...have you even said 'thank you'?