Why isnt technology aesthetic anymore?

why isnt technology aesthetic anymore?

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>Hello, hypothetical consumer, we are selling products:

>700 for n units of computer, or
>1000 for n units of computer, but it looks intangibly "nicer", for some definitions of nicer

> What would you like?

American society all agreed as a collective that they like option one better, except when option two is a status item like apple products are seen as, or luxury cars.

This is why you have planned obsolescence, ugly workhorse technology, airplane seats which are little coffins, and Walmart: it's what you really wanted.

my problem is that the some definitions of nicer that they make don't overlap with mine. This flat minimalism shit that's in today is not at all aesthetic.

Today everything is made to satisfy the taste(lessness) of the dumb masses.

See for instance the ugliness of modern German cars that are sold to tasteless Chinese neoveau rich plebs, dumb arabs, Russian criminals and oligarchs..., these cars all look like shit because the targeted customers love things that look like shit.

Because Apple happened and set a trend of fucking atrocious designs normies love because it's being shoved down their throats 24/7 and they learned to love the taste of Jobs' necrotic cancer dicklet.

Apple is one of the few tech companies making quality designs.

Has mess. Messy text. You know it's there, you can see it from a distance, but you have to go close up to read it.

Get rid of the tmi ui design and it would look better.

It is, just not to your tastes.

Moreover you can buy equipment that retains older aesthetics, but they're niche equipment so you pay a premium.

It was back then too...

The ubiquity of digital engineering happened. A piece of hardware used to be something special you took pride in but since everything that can possibly be recreated with ones and zeroes has been people don't really hold the same respect for it.

Also, people are wealthier and everything's cheaper and more abundant. Same thing happened to cars, clothing, tools and basically everything else.

Not since the war has that been true.
>bbut muh '50s/'60s/'70s equipment was made with pride and care, not at all as a throwaway item designed to be replaced with the newer model next year!
I beg to differ.

>I beg to differ.
you beg for cock, faggot.

I have an amp from the early 80s still working like it's pristine.

In no way am I some fedora-clad pseud jerking off the past because it's the past but it really is true.

People couldn't and wouldn't buy the new model of something every 3 years, you acquired something and it would likely be with you for life.

For my grandparents' wedding gift they got a washer and dryer and they STILL own it.

Because of 'le gamer RGB lights' and the paper thin device meme.

Legitimate argument is. Using op's pic.

Redundant text: Headphone + Microphone
>Like we wouldn't know what the jack sockets are for
>like there couldn't be a diagram elsewhere for those instructions

Redundant text: Power on/off
>that would fucking stump me if that text wasn't there

Redundant text: All the EQ text
>bass, mid, high with numbers pulled out of ass from -10 to +10
>fucking lost without those numbers and which one could be which.

Redundant text: branding

Redundant text: 'tuning'
>gtfo
>it's so redundant, it's fucking miles away from the button

Back then people wanted stuff that boasted about everything it does. Now they want it to look good as well as function. All that redundant text looks like shit.

pic related
>better design
>implying design, partly as a functional way to also instruct how to use with minimal compromise
>could also be better

>the aesthetic of this thing tries too hard because it has colors
Fuck off

...

In what way would that differ from amps now?
I have a 2004 amp, it still works fine.
It will still be working fine in 20 years time, save for the VFD will have probably gotten pretty dark (not that it's actually required either or irreplaceable)

I'd wager a new amplifier from a reputable brand would also stand the test of time too.

That's doesn't mean they aren't designed to replaced.
Lots of classic cars from the 50's are still around and working well - but 50's cars are the classic archtype of throw it away culture - a new style every year, so you have to keep buying to 'keep up with the Joneses'

I'm not saying that's bad, I have no issue with Capitalism, but to say that old amps are in someway better to newer amps (outside of subjective/'feels' reasons - style and general aesthetic is subjective) is falsehood.

emberassing

I dunno but my amp from 7 years ago has shit the bed

It just doesn't work. Sounds like it's full of sand

What is it?

>In what way would that differ from amps now?

Planned obsolescence. Manufacturors put in artificial breaking points, like parts on the circuit board that is not designed for certain voltages, so they end up shorting after a specific set of hours.

That shit only started happening on an industrial scale in the 90s and up.

>That shit only started happening on an industrial scale in the 90s and up.
It started happening in the 50's...

I forget. It was pretty standard though

Yamaha one retailed at a couple hundred bucks

Different industries felt it earlier than others. You're right in that the car-industry, for example, started way earlier.

Maybe because the electronic appliance industry was so new, it took longer before they started pulling that shit. Perhaps they wanted to build a certain confidence and dependence in their industry before doing it.

Many older main brand amps are objectively better due the stereo wars in the 1970's. Back when it was all about MUH WATTS and MUH MINIMAL DISTORTION before they started cutting corners.

A Pioneer SX-1080 beats a modern Pioneer Home Theater receiver.

Though part of that stuff has to do with the death of many good high voltage parts and low distortion fets in the manufacturing sector in the last twenty years or so. The death of CRT's took a lot of ancillary stuff with it.

Another ten years and most decent through hole stuff of all kinds will likely be gone too. Fucking sucks for the electronics hobbyist.

was Akai a good brand? My grampa has this sort of stuff with a vinyl player in his room

In 10 years there probably won't be any Tripath chips left either...
DDX or bust apparently for the cheap and cheerful hobbiest amp.

Yes, Japanese brands all suffered with Asian Economic Crises of the early 90's

I'm pretty sure you can fix it. Very often those kind of electronics just need blown capacitors changed in order to keep working.

>they
You're and idiot, Harry

Notice how most of the technology with good aesthetics is specialised hardware? Now what has become more common recently?

Matte surface + simple geometric forms = most aesthetic design.

Today too many companies get carried away and add pointless design elements to their products.

Because you're a contrarian purposefully living in a rose-tinted vision of the past and only seeing the present for the low-end. There's plenty of high-quality shit you can buy today, but you don't want any of that, instead you want cheap vomit boxes to put on your hip IKEA particle board trash while you bitch about how terrible it is.

And this is very true as well. Manufacturers don't care to go the extra mile for something the average consumer even on Sup Forums will berate and shit on as "overpriced" if it's even slightly more expensive than something else with the same spec sheet, and throw in the trash as soon as the next biggest thing™ comes along.

I fucking hate wrong generation faggots.

Nah, back then there was real technological progress passed down to the customer with every generation. However since the 90s/early
2000s this has been replaced with meme-progress for marketing purposes.

>not buying old high quality for the price of new low quality and getting something that looks great in the process

>There's plenty of high-quality shit you can buy today, but you can't afford any of that

Fixed for brevity, Sup Forums likes to fish crackly radiators out of the dumpster and justify their poverty by talking shit about vague stuff they've never listened to because the fanciest thing they can think of is Bose-tier

If I was dirt broke I'd probably do the same thing

>glass to the very edge
>the lightest drop shatters it
>quality design

>bass, mid, high with numbers pulled out of ass from -10 to +10
those are decibels, you retarded inbred

Everything is made in china now, for the cheapest possible costs.

>All that redundant text looks like shit.
Cue 10,000 neckbeards raging that you must be stupid because you don't like having 50 extra knobs and connectors that are completely pointless
>my crackling dumpster dive "find" says "tape deck" so it must be better than new stuff that I can't afford

Retro devices look much nicer for way less money than modern devices. They can also be fun projects, replaced all of the capacitors on the bottom one to get it working

No, poorfag NEET. Just everything YOU can afford.

>There is only one company which cares about design. It is an American company. It is Apple.

- Dieter Rams

I admit that I am stuck in the past when it comes to design. The designs from the past look more calculated to me. Like I can imagine a master designer, with a good sense of aesthetics, going through countless iterations until he comes up with the perfect design. Thinking consciously whether he should include an element or not.

And now, even though I know it's not like that, it looks to me like the designer just goes with the first thing that came into his mind.

Back then technology used to be about electric engineering, discrete, repairable components, hardware controls and cables, designed for an analog world.

Now it's about software running in a literal solid mass of electronics whose circuits are so integrated the only thing you can do is throw it out if any problems occur.

>pay $190 to have your rattly finicky Seiko SNK repaired
>have to wait 6 weeks and fill the city's water treatment facilities with hazardous waste from the ultrasonic cleansers and 60 different kinds of lubricant for ONE movement
OR
>buy another Seiko SNK for $65 that was produced in a giant factory that used 1/600th the amount of cleansers and lubricants because of economies of scale

The thing you dumb ass wrong decade fags seem to forget is that your mental illness doesn't make doing things the stupid way less of a waste.

>our new computer is 5% more energy efficient
>a factory in China eats 5 times more energy as old model computers running would consume for another 5 years

Very nice.

>this old crackly radiator only cost me $5
>plus it voided my parents' homeowners insurance and burned the house down costing them $790k but the important thing is that I didn't get screwed by the yellow jew

So what is some recent technology you find appealing?

>living in a cardboard house
>using electric radiators
>used electric goods cost less than a big mac
Ha, spotted an amerishart!

>AZERTY

definitely not that failed product

>electronic amplifiers are bad
What do they use in the third world? Cow horns?

How did it fail?

how was it a success?

How would you define success?

people buying the product.

People did buy it. Anyways popularity doesn't necessarily say something about the quality of the product.

you could put plane wings on a car, and use high quality parts to build it, but that doesn't make it a good product.

Okay?

Technology used to be designed by smart people for smart people. Now it's all just retards.

I'd say that this used to be true. Apple from mid-90s until 2013 or so made some aesthetically pleasing (albeit flawed) designs. However, the aluminum and glass trademark of theirs has become generic and tired. Not to mention they are a disgusting corporation that manufactures the absolute bare minimum and markets it as premium.

It's less that they put them in then they changed the budget.

A cheap resistor might be a few cents. An expensive one might be double.

A design that's less fault tolerant might need 50 resistors, one that is more fault tolerant might need 60, meaning it's about 13% more expensive in a world where all you need are resistors.

If people prefer paying ~50-60% more to cover the expense of this fault tolerant design and to compensate that they won't be buying a replacement than they do about buying one, then needing a replacement in 2 years, then you save the money and build them the crap they want.

There's that, but there's also the fact that Sup Forums is mostly in their teens and 20s, so the recent history of capacitor plague strongly affects their attitude towards the idea of paying more for quality

Even fairly good gear in the mid 2000s was failing at an alarming rate though no fault of the manufacturer. This was a problem for computers too, but people are more willing to forget fucky behavior on a computer that's supposed to be replaced with newer and better in five years. Whereas with an amp, if it goes bad in five years you're probably going to be mad

As a result today's youth think that there was some globalist jewish conspiracy to make their stuff break, even though 2017 audio gear is pretty much amazing as long as you're buying real stuff and not some sherwood 16 channel garbage amp from Best Buy

The problem is you children and liberals think Chinks are remotely competent at making hardware.

The decline of quality is because of Chink made garbage.

t. cleetus posting from his china-made facebook machine

minimalism is the dislike of waste

nothing apple makes is minimalist

Except not. Go out of my way to avoid Chinkshit and it pays off. If I have to buy Chinkshit I try to make sure it's assembled in Chinkland with Jap parts.

>haha that guy saying chink manufacturing is shite is probably using a shite chink machine

Checkmate, Atheists.

>I don't buy chinkshit except when I do
LŒL

Nice paraphrasing skills, bucko. You got me!

But it is.

Yes, it is shit.

>emberrasing
don't make me berry my dick inside your asshole

lifetime transferable waranty

My 18 year old has gone through a fuckton of iPods Touch and iPhones since she started buying her own phones and shit -only 6 months ago-. Prior to that our rule was "you can have any phone you want as long as is ain't made by Apple".

Three weeks ago she set her phone on her keyboard and it slid off and hit the floor. That's only a 2' 5" drop from the keyboard to the floor.

The screen shattered yet again.

Meanwhile, my 13 year old son has one of my old Android phones he uses to take pics and vids with and listens to his collection of Detroit techno tunes. It's an old LG Optimus T I got for free from T-Mobile back in 2011. It's been through hell. It was dropped from a moving car, dropped in the toilet too many times to remember, went flying from my backpack and tumbled across the asphalt once while running across the parking lot at work 'cause I was late for my 8am meeting. The screen is still 100% intact without so much as a crack.

The phone I replaced the Optimus with is a Galaxy S4G (T959V) and same thing: In all these years of owning it it has a single crack on the chrome bezel but not a crack on the screen.

There's still a lot of old Curtis Mathis console TV's in use because the picture is clear as fuck and they were built to last forever. Personally, I dumped a bunch of IBM G97 monitors I had for cheap not because they stopped working, but because I had to scale down the size of my environment to fit in an apartment. I bought them in 2001 and owned them for 15 years. The guy I sold 'em to got 4 monitors in pristine working order for a song.

I know people that haven't bought a fridge since Jimmy Carter was in office.

Shit used to be built to last.

The essence of what you're saying is right, but you're missing the point.
We know there's nice-looking high quality stuff still out there, but now it costs a premium. Whereas "back in the day", it didn't. Company A and Company B both make a product that does X and costs Y. The difference is Company A is greedy and full of shit and doesn't give a fuck about the buyer, and is only in it for the money. Company B was founded because B's CEO really just wanted to make X because it's his passion and he rejoices in his heart to see people using a better X than the competition can/wants to. B doesn't want to overcharge you, they're not in it for the money. As long as they can pay their employees and keep the lights on and go on vacation once in a while, they're happy. They make shit better because they realize that if they were buying X they'd want it made properly.

We no longer have many Company Bs in 2017.

You're pushing it when you get to post war like that user said. When everything went away from cast iron to plastics.

The shit you listed as examples were also extraordinarily expensive new.

It's never been a better time to be "company B". The shit is out there. Just stay away from chink shit. It's been said ITT already.

It's funny you say that because a lot of "chink shit" has, in my experience, been pretty damn good for the price.

Xiaomi and OnePlus in particular seem to make shit that's legitimately built for users to enjoy, and not priced ludicrously.

I haven't dropped my phone (s4) in the toilet or let somebody drive over it but, but I have used it when it was raining hard and I have dropped it like 20 to 30 times on stone and wood floor and the only thing that is worn out is the cheap fake aluminium

are all android phones like this or is it only phones with plastic shells? just wondering since I want to get a zuk 2 pro eventually

I don't know what either of those chink companies are.

I know of no Chink company that makes a non shit product.

can you recommend anything A E S T H E T I C from a chink company that is iphone 6/7 or google pixel sized?

There's no sense in arguing with these people. They found the one out of 500 specimens made 40 years ago that wasn't complete dogshit and for some reason made it to 2017. 40 years ago manufacturing was more local, all around. Therefore, logically, it follows from this one specimen that the chinese are why I can't get a jerrrrb as the CEO of Blizzard because of my 500 hours a month spent playing video games in my boxer shorts

I love how Google appeals to nerds and technologi interested.

OnePlus 3T isn't much bigger than a Pixel

The old shit, like OP's pick, is usually pretty fucking ugly

Man you're just stuck in the medieval age

Yamaha still makes high end stuff that looks like stuff they made in the 70s and early 80s.

usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/hifi-components/amps/a-s1100_g/?mode=model

or

usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/hifi-components/amps/a-s501/?mode=model

would not look out of place with pic related, which was made in the 70s.

>those annoying crevices

i like the squareness, but those fucking crevices man

>pajeetposting

>B-BUT MUH CHILLUNS
jesus christ keep this stupid fucking norman nonsense out of Sup Forums

Yeah, they look totally the same except the new one has
>no shitty fake wood finish
>actual ventilation
>pointless obsolete shit like low pass filters ("noise reduction") removed
>largest knob is volume, as it should be
>can be coupled with a modern digitally tuned FM/AM/HD receiver that can actually pick out a signal worth a shit instead of manually hunting around with a fussy knob that's probably corroded to hell and you don't know if it's a mechanical problem, a bad cap, bad antenna placement, or what
>comes with a warranty and a remote
>comes with an onboard DAC because it's not fucking 1974 anymore
>doesn't need to have all its caps torn out and replaced
>actual, sensible input selectors
But yeah, old stuff is good *tips fedora*

Still works great

When I was in high school in the late 80's, Sony, Aiwa, Panasonic, and Yamaha started making these amazing looking/sounding bookshelf stereo systems. Aesthetically pleasing, good sounding, and would still look good in your home office or bedroom today. Pic related was the one I had (definitely what it looked like, but might not have been that exact model here in The States). I saved up money from my McBurgertown job and bought it and would zone out every day after school to some Too $hort, Derrick May, or Wes Montgomery on this thing.

Somewhere in the mid 90's bookshelf systems went from these pleasing units to cheap, craptastic monstrosities with as many flashing lights as the manufacturers could cram into them and horrid speakers run by the shittiest amps not found at a flea market.

We need tech that looks like this. This is aesthetic as fuck

>OnePlus 3T
very nice phone, but really, pixel size is the absolute most my little handlet hands can handle, I really don't wanna go over that

>Somewhere in the mid 90's bookshelf systems went from these pleasing units to cheap, craptastic monstrosities with as many flashing lights as the manufacturers could cram into them and horrid speakers run by the shittiest amps not found at a flea market.

Like all the other wrong decade fedoras in this thread, you're wrong about that too

What happens with all consumer tech is that cheaper stuff comes out that copies elements of a good product, and people who aren't savvy shoppers mistake "the first thing I saw when I walked into a shitty store" with the only possible options

There were perfectly decent tabletop systems available in the 90s, if you had been around then you'd remember