As I said before in another thread [0]
This is the way to go, what we need are
modular open standards for both hardware
and software.
Imagine a phone that you can just swap and mix
components from different manufacturers. You could
buy the components yourself and assemble, like a
standard PC. If one manufacturer tries to lock you in,
or you don't like their component you simply replace them
with others from a different manufacturer.
Great post. Why use Social Media when you can use your own blog with RSS. I think it's because of Network effects, Social Media gives you an identity/address within a social network that has demand for your posts and a supply of posts that interests you. The Social Network itself should be vybrant for strong Network Effects to take place, this is inherently centralizing sorta like super markets. Thus the idea of Decentralization and Social Media don't go well together.
Decentralization is also more complex for the developers and particularly for the users, this creates a market for people offering services to operate decentralized systems, which ends up centralizing the network. This is how the WWW, Email, Git, BTC all got more and more centralized.
> How do you move past the initial hurdle of the at least several first iterations of this device being inferior to the competition in every single way, though?
I think it will initially be a phone for hackers, and they will develop the ecosystem. It will also be competitive in that different manufacturers will try to develop the best components for the market.
Yes, I forgot to add a standard camera on the list.
I think if there's an open standard that different organizations can contribute to things will move faster and will be cheaper than having single organization trying to build a new Linux phone from scratch, it is also more reselient with little centralization. Different groups can specialize on different components where they have expertise.
I chose RISCV because it's a open standard, we could build around that ecosystem.
The standard can be updated, having different generations/versions when it's absolutely necessary. But it shouldn't move too fast especially if the interfaces are clearly defined. Phones from 10 years ago are powerful enough it's just that brands create new devices to force people to upgrade.
I think instead of a particular phone or brand what we need are open standards for a mobile platform.
- RISCV processor
- Standard Logic board
- Standard Screen
- Standard Battery
- Standard Wifi & Bluetooth modem
- Probably ditch cellular and use something like LoRa
- Standard OS (Linux)
- Standard package manager
Edit: Imagine a phone that you can just swap and mix components from different manufacturers. You could buy the components yourself and assemble, like a standard PC. If one manufacturer tries to lock you in, or you don't like their component you simply replace it.
Imagine a phone that you can just swap and mix components from different manufacturers. You could buy the components yourself and assemble, like a standard PC. If one manufacturer tries to lock you in, or you don't like their component you simply replace them with others from a different manufacturer.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45307093