Seven Years of Institutional Anti-‘Big-Tech’ Bias at The New York Times Might Lead to Cognitive Dissonance

Brian X. Chen — the “Tech Fix” columnist for The New York Times who is so unenthused about tech products that he advised readers to “just use flash” rather than upgrade their phone if their low-light photos look bad — in a column on Roku’s recent licensing shenanigans:

Roku’s no-good month stirred discussions in online forums about what it means when a company can essentially deactivate the device you paid for. That’s similar to how companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft can decide to stop issuing software updates for older devices, which gradually degrades their performance.

That’s just stated as fact. But here’s Chen back in 2017, in a column headlined “A New Phone Comes Out. Yours Slows Down. A Conspiracy? No.”:

The phenomenon of perceived slowdowns is so widespread that many believe tech companies intentionally cripple smartphones and computers to ensure that people buy new ones every few years. Conspiracy theorists call it planned obsolescence.

That’s a myth. While slowdowns happen, they take place for a far less nefarious reason. That reason is a software upgrade.

So getting software updates was the cause for slowdowns in 2017, but not getting software updates is now the cause in 2024. Got it.

★ Friday, 22 March 2024