Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
Doubling the lifespan of older Chromebooks would save California’s schools $225 million, according to advocacy group CALPIRG.
There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".
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The service life of the devices was known up-front. You can check for yourself the service life dates of every Chrome OS machine here:
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
The correct deployment strategy would be to make a big purchase at the front end of a device's lifecycle and then only replacements from then on out so that you get the most out of every machine. Future capital purchases would be with a new device and termination date.
I think this point is really important, and allow me to go one step further: I work in the public sector of education and purchasing technology is such a complex issue that IT governance has to be involved with decisions like this. That's to say that, without a governing body to review purchases (outside of whoever handles the actual procurement, i.e. funds leaving the bank account), mistakes like this will happen.
We can be upset with planned obsolescence, but there's distinctly a human error here where there wasn't enough research and planning.