[conspire] Flashing twelves

[Don Marti]

On 3/14/24 02:53, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> On 3/14/24 6:20 AM, Les Faby wrote:
>> The cheapest interface is the owner's smart phone running a simple 
>> app. You have got a bigger touch screen, etc
> Many times you end up with fancy products connected to the net, 
> controlled by a smartphone that are still a PITA to use and companies 
> that drop support.

In a lot of cases the product you buy ends up not being the product you 
end up getting to use.

The company behind the Instant Pot is in trouble probably because they 
were purchased by a private equity fund with the expectation of being 
able to churn the installed base...but most of the existing Instant Pots 
are the pre-app version that can't be remotely made less useful in order 
to drive sales of a replacement.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/06/instant-pot-bankrupt-private-equity/674414/

Every once in a while, what's normally a rugpull economy ends up 
generating excess consumer surplus (microcomputers, flat-rate home 
Internet, original Instant Pots) and has to do a bunch of "innovation" 
to try to claw it back.