People who fall for these random tech gizmo startups deserve to be scammed

I don't think anyone deserves to be scammed. Here's a good Cory doctrow section on the topic: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

Everyone is vulnerable to different things at different times, the wrongdoers are the ones at fault. We should aspire to a society where being trusting is a good thing that is rewarded.

It's actually insane that we let people get up on stages and tell blatant lies beamed right into the ears of millions of people. Doubly so when we reward them with unfathomable riches.

For a second i thought you linked the article of the woman who handed $50k to "the FBI"
If we’re talking about essential items like food, helmets, medicine, safety goggles, etc, absolutely, they don’t deserve to be scammed. But this isn’t an essential item. It’s a tech gizmo that no one needs that promises to do everything that can already be done with a device you already own. Only idiots with a lot of spare money will buy this shit. Even your example isn’t equivalent because someone pretending to be working for your bank’s fraud prevention is a more important issue than some guy pretending to be a AI guru.
- Idk, my mate who's mind was shredded by failed psych treatments almost got one till I talked him down. He was optimistic about an interface that could be easier to use with shot working memory and maybe help him remember all the stuff he forgets.
  
  I don't know why you have to be so contemptuous of people. What's the gain? how does anyone's life get better by being scornful of people who believed lies for the few moments it took to impulse purchase something? What's the point of that ideology?
- My dad and my grandfather on my mother’s side are both poor as dirt but they can’t stop buying these tech pieces of garbage. They are both over 70 and are not tech bros.
  
  They are both naive but you’re being a jagoff if you believe they deserve it.
From the CD section:

If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable

This right here is why "dumb people deserve to get scammed" is an idiotic sentiment. One day, all guardrails may fail and in spite of all caution and consideration, you too may slip up and fall for a scam. Would you like us to point and sneer, because you were dumb and should have been more cautious?

I'm with you: We should fix trust issues, not make them worse by laughing at those who trusted.
- I actually think "it could happen to me" is probably the worst reason to care about something? or at least the most base. But yeah, when those voice gen scams started claiming to be panicked ransom demands from kidnapped relatives it was like... Jesus Christ who wouldn't fall for that on a bad day?

No victim blaming.

I’m out of the loop what tech gizmo startups? Are people buying unitasking devices that a smartphone can do?

The device pictured is the Rabbit R1, an alleged "AI assistant" that's supposed to do all the shit that the original pitches for Siri and OK Google were supposed to do; "Order me an uber", "Find me a restaurant nearby", etc. Turns out it's just chatGPT with a few autoclick scripts bolted on. Not only does it work worse than a smartphone for any given task, it also works worse than existing non-AI voice assistants.
The things were recently released but idk if anyone has actually bought them l.
- Pretty sure quite a few people got in on the R1 because it was cheap ($200) and designed by Teenage Engineering which people fucking love for some reason.
unitasking devices that do stuff a smartphone can do are cool actually, this is a device that claims and fails to do what a smartphone can do, or provide its own compelling feature-set at all. a scam considering how underbaked it is.
- I mean the main transgression here is that it's literally just a slighly altered android ROM that hides the fact that it runs Android. It could literally have been a free app on your smartphone.
  
  A unitasking device is fine, as long as it's doing something that could not be done by the multitasking device we already hurt the environment to create. Or it does so more power efficiently, or even offload a task that is burdensome for your phone to another device. This does none of those things, it just sends your voice request to chatgpt.
  
  It also has dog shit battery life, so that's another knock.

too bitter and full of hate

I have one and it’s great and it works I think you’re just jealous

nerd
- I’m lying i didn’t buy that piece of shit

even if you think that, its also creating e-waste

just use your phone ffs. I have no need to carry around a second device that doesn't do half of what a phone can.

to be fair when I had an iphone about 10 years ago (a mistake I'll never make again) I was incredibly frustrated with needing to use itunes to dump my pirated MP3 files into the phone. Just let the phone work like a USB device dammit so I can load all my media onto it. Don't make me use proprietary software and I won't consider a second device.

Also having a tiny thumbnail sized MP3 player that like clips to my belt or whatever is much more convenient in a gym setting than sweating all over my brick sized phone as it clunks around in my gym shorts
- I've tried to look up an itty bitty mp3 player over the years and the ones that actually exist are all hundreds of dollars. Fucking weird.

I don't need to be a tech genius to recognize a scam, but when even the most tech-optimist reviewers who get paid to do this stuff say it's not a good gadget, I listen to them.

I can't afford it anyways, but even if I could I wouldn't get it.

I mean, everyone is responsible for their own choices. I don't think they deserve to be scammed, that sounds a bit predatory.

They do need to learn their lesson and suffer consequences, however minor, but they don't deserve to be scammed.

The scammer should be punished. Harshly.

Else we wind up in a world where a scam is the only, or at least most prominent, way. As seen with The Cloud, subscription based streaming and "buying", "smart" devices and so on.

The good: it's $200

The bad: it's useless and a waste of $200
- I love that "the price is right" for "best features are MIA". Also, the wikipedia article is funny.
  
  Do the uninformed people that just see the design and promise deserve to be scammed? Even if the only reason might be to not further enable the scammer, the scammed people don't deserve their fate.
  
  I say all this but I still cannot comprehend how someone would buy this.

call me a sucker but i love the aesthetics of that thing. but the """""AI""""" shit is stupid and it's a glorified android phone.

I mean teenage engineering just did the visual design and ui. I guess you could also question their judgement on who to partner with too.

Their audio stuff they make actually does what it says on the tin most of the time.

I thought this was a broken link but no I'm really supposed to recognize this junk on sight

If it could do what it's supposed to it would be neat - but if someone had developed an app to do what this thing is supposed to, it would probably just run on your phone without needing another device.

Brb getting a flipper zero for the ✨ aesthetic ✨

Teenage Engineering fell off so fuckin hard after the OP-1. I still have my pocket operators and they're really fun