Chromebooks Were Once a Good Deal for Schools. Now They’re Becoming E-Waste

Having worked in a district where we ewasted as many CBs as we ordered, it was painful to see, but even more painful was how much wasted potential these students had except for those with a lot of curiosity. ChromeOS is great because it allows for some semblance of security, student account organization, and lots of happy shareholders who see that infosec audits are passing.

The wasted potential is due to the fact that the students aren't learning how to use computers, they're learning how to push data from one SaaS app to another without digging into how and why its happening. They don't understand file directories, file extensions, HID concepts, etc... they aren't learning ANY of the components of a machine in the first place. There is next to no digital literacy training happening other than "make a strong password" and "don't share it with other people", which is great, but that is just creating more consumers who don't know how their devices work and get irate/disregulated when they stop working. (I'm speaking in generalities here, FYI)

In my district, I had a group of kids who came to learn about computers, we took apart ewaste, replaced LCDs, swapped power supplies and RAM sticks, wiped and imaged hard disks--they built shitty little PCs that they were able to use and understand to some degree. Naturally, most of those students saw how limiting ChromeOS really is and went on to dipping into Linux, playing with Windows, and just expanding their horizons more than they would if they hadn't joined me.

Sitting kids in front of these machines and making them the consumers of the bullshit SaaS "teaching and learning" apps that administrators keep buying licenses for is doing the education industry a massive disservice. Kids need to start learning how these things work.

I dunno. It's nice to have the CBs, especially in terms of students who are in data deserts and have LTE connectivity, or socioeconomically disadvantaged families having access to web services, all fine and dandy, but it doesn't solve the problem of the general populace being completely in the dark about how their devices work.

Love them or hate them, the current Chromebook market allows schools to afford to put a computing device in every student’s hands.

A close second reason is that managing ChromeOS devices is pretty easy and doesn’t require highly-trained people.

To crack the market, you’ll need dirt cheap hardware and dirt cheap and easy management. Doesn’t sound too profitable.

But yes, stuff gets thrown away way before the hardware goes obsolete, due to the limited ChromeOS lifecycle.

Not a lot of schools are going to spend much time trying to get Windows or Linux going because that requires more FTE money than just discarding and buying a new Chromebook. I know this from experience (n= US state level)

I think this phenomenon should be known as "software-defined garbage". We're sending electronics to the landfill entirely for reasons written in code that could be changed.

Perhaps it was not entirely altruistic of Google to get into the K12 Education market to begin with.

Consider that kids who grow up are often inclined to choose computers (or whatever they used in school) as a familiar thing that they have experience and skills with. For example, introducing me to Unix in college cemented my career as a sysadmin, and I eagerly ran Minix/BSD/Linux at home at the first opportunity.

So if Google could earn itself some brand recognition and some product-based goodwill from young students by furnishing a Chromebook for everyone to play/work on for their formative years, I think it's a win that doesn't even need them to calculate the backlash from rapidly-obsolete eWaste in the future.

I mean I hate Chromebook, or more like any crappy Laptop Which is what 99% of Chromebooks are. But

> Google imposes expiration dates, even if the hardware still works.

The article doesn't even say what does it mean by expiration. The link [1] which expiration points to talks about Auto Update Expiration.

> “I hit the update button and found out it couldn’t update,” Mr. Nielsen said.

Well yes. That is like every MacBook or Windows 8 - 10 Laptop etc. Software update isn't free. Your iPhone dont get infinite iOS update, the same with Android.

So what exactly is the expiration, which the submitted article takes about, it turns out as listed in the second article [1] it meant,

> Immediately after a Chromebook’s expiration date, you won’t experience much of a difference. In fact, you’ll likely be able to use the device normally for months. But some sites might start to act funny.

It turns out Chrome inside Chromebook don't get updated like the original browser. So Chrome ( browsers ) may get outdated. And some shitty website will act funny. How the heck is that a Chromebook expiration? You could install Firefox on your Chromebook and it would still work. Complaining about Website not working on your expired Chromebook? That is a website problem.

Again I hate Chromebooks, they are shit, just like pretty much every Google product ever existed apart from early days Gmail and Google Reader. But you know what is even worst than Google, modern mainstream media reporting.

[1] https://archive.is/RqE36

The real problem here is two fold.

Windows and Macs have much longer support for OS updated, after which Chrome and other browsers still will receive updates for many years

Second the student testing software/services that schools are required to use is only certified for ChromeBooks that are officially supported by Google.

Once the units are no longer supported for testing, they have almost no value to schools even if the are otherwise still fully functional

In the early netbook/Chromebook years there were some nicely built devices available. Sure most were a bit underpowered but still. Now it's mostly garbage with even worse chips and more case flex than a rubberband or the premium d vices are as expensive as a MacBook air or a decent windows laptop. I just don't get the target group...

Literally typing this on the old 2012 Chromebook running Debian 12. Very nice and snappy.

Any advice on how to intercept one of these on their way to a trash can, perhaps for bargain price? I'd probably install Linux.

As far as I know there's an even shorter shelf life beyond the software Chromebooks run. Which is their flash memory and RAM. Those components are almost always soldered to the board as part of the Chromebook specifications, meaning if Google pushes a ChromeOS update that exceeds the 2-4GB of RAM these all ship with (you can easily exceed the 4GB by just leaving ten Youtube tabs open with adblock running for about two hours), that means it's constantly pushing into swap memory. Even worse, if the flash memory on the SSD burns out because ChromeOS has been constantly writing to the swap the entire thing is dead. This is a much rarer and thus smaller concern these days considering the push for SSD reliability, but for everyone except those with soldering or reflowing skills once the onboard storage is dead the device is effectively bricked.

The real question is: how do we re-use the expired laptops? Seems to me that the better deal for everyone involved is to create a leasing program where CBs go back to the manufactures and they have to figure out what to do with them. They would ultimately find the best way to reduce the waste.

I have an expired CB that has a very well made body. It's solid and has very little wear and tear. It can easily do another 8 years of service. I can see a situation where a manufacture can renew it and put it out for service again. The manufactures would have to build them to be renewed but that's not out of the possibility.

The term, 'reduce, reuse, recycle' has been pushed on consumers for decades but ultimately the manufactures have to be part of the solution too.

They couldn't find a school district which purchased all Windows laptops to compare with?

“Seemed like”. If they aren’t a good deal in retrospect, they never were a good deal.

They call locked bootloaders "LandfillBoot" for a reason.

add another tombstone to the google graveyard

hopefully schools/companies will abide the graveyard-- take note of it... and maybe reduce their re-"liability" on google.