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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much software issues like this cause people to unnecessarily throw away perfectly functional hardware and buy new, given that ChromeOS is heavily targeted towards the non-technical and non-computer-literate. I've personally fixed a few systems that I got for free because they were "broken", by simply reinstalling the OS.

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Not sure why you’re downvoted.

I helped a teacher last week reinstall her OS. She was about to buy a new $1300 gaming PC (not reimbursed by the school district) because she kept getting kicked out of her video calls with her students and apps randomly crashed.

And now it’s good as new, no need for a new computer.

I think us tech people sometimes lose sight of the amount of crapware that non-techies accumulate / download / install over a period of years.

And just even how hard it for non techies to download and install a simple utility/AV application/whatever when they are on sites that have ads with fake download buttons...

CPU performance improvements were basically stagnant for so long that basically any computer from about 2010 onwards could be made an adequate office PC by installing a fresh copy of windows and swapping in an SSD. Now with AMD back in the game, and Intel being forced to improve I wonder if software bloat will catch up with the improved performance and make old hardware obsolete faster - hopefully not.

> issues like this cause people to unnecessarily throw away perfectly functional hardware

> ChromeOS is targeted towards the non-technical and non-computer-literate.

you just answered why :)

I think these kind of things should be taught in schools from young age, so that people would have some understanding why some things happen they way they happen (for example why could laptop that has worked perfectly fine become barely usable after few months) and strategies of critical thinking. I am pretty sure there would be at least one person in the room when such decisions happen saying that, but there will be another person saying: What about the economy? Some people unfortunately still believe in broken window parable - that if people could fix their own laptops, then economy would collapse, but they don't think how much people could get progress with their goals if they didn't have to spend money on a new laptop every time it slows down.

The problem with this is that kids have limited attention span and there are only so many hours in a school day and so many hours of homework.

In recent decades (at least in the US) we have already gutted civics and home economics completely, and effectively gutted arts and music programs, in the pursuit of STEM and looking good on PISA rankings. What else are we going to eliminate for this new requirement?

I would think basic computer literacy should be included in "the pursuit of STEM" itself, but instead it turned into having masses of students who have next to no interest in, and can barely turn on a computer, being forced into "learn to code" classes...

I used to get worried that Gen Z was coming for my job until I realized that just like I didn't learn anything that excited me for my career at school, they probably won't either. It's a crap shoot if you get the right skills at the right time when you are still excitable about otherwise "overly-complicated" things.

Elementary school for me in the ‘00s had a computer lab whose primary purpose was to teach how to use Word.

It’s also unclear given the general sorry state of education salaries in the US who we’d be getting to teach these classes. Most adults aren’t that computer literate either, and I doubt a high-falutin’ FAANG employee is about to work in an urban school with lead paint and asbestos for a ~50k salary, some of which you have to use to pay for chalk, tissues, paper towels and other basics of the classroom.

Or we as a profession get our shit together? Apply formal methods (yes, yes not a silver bullet), and make software longer lasting instead of pushing our debt onto consumers?

I look forward to some kind of liability forcing companies to actually care.

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