Got burned with a Linksys/Cisco router, in, i wanna say 2011 or so, when they changed my username & password security setup back to factory default (no security) without my knowledge or permission. Tried to get their overseas tech support to help me, spent HOURS on this via phone & ridiculous chats that I archived, only to have them try to extort money from me to “extend” this needed feature on their junk that I owned — that’s when I knew it was intentional.
2nd example: Discovered during setup that my HP printer/scanner/fax/photocopier/photo printer came with expired ink cartridges; no instruction book, of course, so hours of research revealed these have chips on them that only let you do initial setup w/ original non-expired cartridges — not with new replacements.
Overseas HP tech sed on phone: just throw this printer away & go buy a new printer — to them this sophisticated machine/potential e-waste is just a disposable thing, like paper towels et. al., or a 20-lb paper weight. I persisted & did get it to work on my own, entirely self-taught, but have found each time I replace the expensive HP cartridges they “expire” much more quickly than did the previous batch. Plus this fancy machine only exists to extort you for ink with all its apps & crappy refills.
3rd example: My Dell laptop’s “lifetime PC support” as touted on QVC was denied to me, then when I threw a fit they grudgingly referred me to their new tech service provider (no more helpful than the first) BUT WAIT not actual lifetime of the PC itself but of Microsoft’s SUPPORT (updates & bug-fixes expiration time determines its death, to them) of this PC laptop.
4th example: My Dell laptop’s entire Wi-Fi capability/setting/existence seemingly being erased entirely several times by Windows 10 updates. The Wi-Fi setting completely vanished on all the main settings pages — chicken-or-egg dilemma where, I no longer had wired, Ethernet connection at home anymore after Cisco router fiasco to go online to download/fix it (I’d gone totally “cutting edge” all-wireless at home!) & libraries/coffee shops no longer had Ethernet either. I spent 2 hours working with one “lifetime support tech” who couldn’t hack my PC — since I had no Internet at all — & tried to walk me thru it via phone while offline, but to no avail; also spent many hours in a museum’s library using their Ethernet contacting Microsoft & others. I finally found a hotel in an adjacent county with a wired portal in their “Business Center” — so I crashed it posing as a hotel guest, where it took a lifetime tech with the 2nd tech support provider 4 HOURS to figure out how to restore the device driver W10 update had ham-handedly obliterated. But it was erased again next W10 update, I You-Tubed it from there on out, & learned the updates weren’t literally erasing the Wi-Fi — just turning off its device driver, or putting it to Default state, which would then remove Wi-Fi from the settings page (where it’s usually there next to Ethernet, VPN, etc.) I’m not a natural computer tech person, but in all I figured out at least 3 distinct ways to restore Wi-Fi in the bowels of my computer’s two different Settings fiefdoms as W10 kept erasing it — along with monkeying around with my preferences, my colors, my attempts to “schedule” the updates themselves so they wouldn’t just start updating & interrupt my work deadlines & lots of other needless meddling with my stuff that should have nothing to do with MS’ updates.
But see, that’s Microsoft saying: This is not YOUR computer, Dear Stupid Customer.
Remember the opening credits of that old TV show “The Outer Limits” ? Where it says: “We control the transmission.” (and other stuff) ?
So I became The Accidental Computer Tech.
But I only ever wanted to be a clueless, joyful user like I was in the early days with Macs & now with my iPhone.
4th example: I was so naive when I got my first home computer many years ago. It was several years in when I learned the updates support was ending on Tiger? And I now had to buy - Snow Leopard? Or was it Leopard? And eventually learned even those updates would end, as Apple considered that my beautiful $1,000 MacBook —,which I had planned to use forever! — was ready to be put out to pasture, ready for Hospice care, to be put on a raft & floated out to sea. OMG, many companies had put cookies on it that don’t expire till the year 9999 (4-digit limit, I guess, but will the Earth even be around that long?) Yet its “creator” disagreed, said do-not-resuscitate, pull that there plug!
Eventually it lost its Internet-surfing power — because of Them — but I still use it as an external hard drive (it has its own monitor, unlike other hard drives & thumb drives), as a way to access my original iTunes library (I like the user interface better than the version I copied over to the much-hated Dell PC) & as a CD player & disc burner. So it’s now like a disabled, much-loved favorite child.
But Mac really makes it hard, as a replacement battery & repair to the mousepad are not in any way cost-effective. So I don’t really OWN that device nor do I own any of the tablets, phones or Chromebook devices I’ve gotten since.
5th example: All those iPods I got, from the shuffles to the iPod Touch with color screen, are disposables, despite all the paraphernalia (WARDROBES of various colorful cases, screen protectors, designer earbuds etcetera). When the batteries all die, they’re gone. The first shuffle to go, I realized: This thing is no more than a souped-up thumb drive. 2 pods still work — but now we know they were just a fad, outpaced by their own Cousin iPhone.
All this is the reason I have never gotten home security tech & never gotten my animals microchipped. Don’t trust the technology will last, don’t want a subscription, don’t want no more disposable tech, don’t believe no Lifetime Anything.
