After Apple , Sony is the hardware tech company that I hate the most. They have always had retrograde and protectionist thinking with their products like Nintendo.Betamax x VHS war was a great example
Their professional CD audio recorders only take CDRs with special “generation bits” in some desperate stupid attempt to reduce copying even though everybody else’s CD recorders don’t care about the bit.
They invented their stupid proprietary memory sticks even though SD cards were cheaper and more readily available.
The power plugs for their devices of course are not barrel plugs so you can’t replace them with a cheap and easily available replacement.
I’d say the HP is at least on par with them. They’re software locking which RAM or WiFi modules you can use in their laptops and theyuse as much proprietary components as possible in their desktops and servers, just because they can. And that’s not even talking about printers…
4th place I think would go to LG, but thankfully they’re not big enough to be noticeable
All Japanese tech and adjacent companies are so extremely corporatised. Panasonic, Toshiba, Fuji, Mitsubishi etc. They protect their profits through proprietary connectors and firmware, and the overworked Japanese populace puts up with it over there. Where it’s for an international market, that’s made clear by the fact that there’s almost never a Japanese language option (see: games and other media that protects the corporations’ IP for Japanese voice actors). Living there I was always disturbed by how the government let this happen and there was no social movement to do anything about it. The zaibatsu are still in control of the country, of course.
I wonder how much of the world’s resources Sony has poured into their own proprietary formats that didn’t catch on because they kept them proprietary, from Betamax to Memory Stick.
If anyone reading this is considering cheaper Sony bluetooth headphones versus the comparable Anker product, go with Anker! The speaker and a few models of headphones I’ve used were much better and cheaper than the comparable Sony product.
After Apple , Sony is the hardware tech company that I hate the most. They have always had retrograde and protectionist thinking with their products like Nintendo.Betamax x VHS war was a great example
Happy to see Sony hate. Sony was Apple before Apple.
Their professional CD audio recorders only take CDRs with special “generation bits” in some desperate stupid attempt to reduce copying even though everybody else’s CD recorders don’t care about the bit.
They invented their stupid proprietary memory sticks even though SD cards were cheaper and more readily available.
The power plugs for their devices of course are not barrel plugs so you can’t replace them with a cheap and easily available replacement.
They’re complete assholes to their customers.
I’d say the HP is at least on par with them. They’re software locking which RAM or WiFi modules you can use in their laptops and theyuse as much proprietary components as possible in their desktops and servers, just because they can. And that’s not even talking about printers…
4th place I think would go to LG, but thankfully they’re not big enough to be noticeable
Then again, the Xperias are pretty damn good and use stock Android without all the bloat that other manufacturers add.
New xperias are good, old xperias used to be a nightmare and made me switch to an iphone 4 back in the day
All Japanese tech and adjacent companies are so extremely corporatised. Panasonic, Toshiba, Fuji, Mitsubishi etc. They protect their profits through proprietary connectors and firmware, and the overworked Japanese populace puts up with it over there. Where it’s for an international market, that’s made clear by the fact that there’s almost never a Japanese language option (see: games and other media that protects the corporations’ IP for Japanese voice actors). Living there I was always disturbed by how the government let this happen and there was no social movement to do anything about it. The zaibatsu are still in control of the country, of course.
The vita was amazing, but destroyed by the stupid proprietary memory cards that were obscenely expensive
I wonder how much of the world’s resources Sony has poured into their own proprietary formats that didn’t catch on because they kept them proprietary, from Betamax to Memory Stick.
If anyone reading this is considering cheaper Sony bluetooth headphones versus the comparable Anker product, go with Anker! The speaker and a few models of headphones I’ve used were much better and cheaper than the comparable Sony product.