#ThingsThatSuck
by Doc Searls Sunday, October 8, 2017

All printers.

All USB hubs.

The fucking cloud.

iTunes (which has now moved all my music to the fucking cloud, so I have to download what I want before I can listen to it on planes, subways, oceans and Wyoming).

Bluetooth.

USB Micro-B connectors and jacks.

Proprietary apps you can't get rid of.

Purposely slow upstream.

"Plans" with data caps.

iOS, or what's become of it.

The gone headphone hole.

The gone MagSafe power connector.

The gone function keys.

The gone SD card reader.

Power cables in two sections: one that can be easily wound for storage, and the other that can't be wound at all because it's too thick and stiff.

Trackpads that are too small (e.g. on the Apple TV remote) or too big (e.g. on the new Apple laptops).

Silos.

All cable and satellite TV set top boxes.

Adtech, and every other business and business model that relies on uninvited spying on people.

When some other party uses the first person possessive pronoun "my" for me, when it's really for them.

Absent cheap and easy offsite storage for people like me who have terabytes of data on drives scattered in places where the possibility of obliteration by fire or earthquake is greater than zero.

Absent good HD radios, or good new radios at all.

"Soundbars" for TV, which have eliminated the simple and clear sound stage that old-fashioned stereo provided for decades.

Books too big for shelves.

All "infotainment" systems in cars.

Wipers that keep wiping a few more times after you turn them off.

Little shitty power supplies for big honking external drives.

Un-illuminated (or -illuminating) grey labels on black electronic devices likely to be used in dark rooms or spaces, such as remote controls and entertainment gear.

All light switches with dimmer gimmicks that will be obsolete and non-replaceable within a few years.

Car seats designed only for people in the middle 60% of the bell curve for body heights.

Overly rounded and faux muscle-shape body types in cars, which have together reduced storage space and views outward, especially to the rear.

The persistent belief that "spectrum" is scarce and requires federal controls, along with auctions for rights to use parts of it, which is like selling colors of sunlight.

Burners on home gas stoves that could heat a warehouse but won't simmer.

All microwave oven UIs.

The fact that it's 2017 and we're still using logins and passwords.