Thread

Google breaks promise to provide 10 years of updates to Chromebooks

355 points · 156 comments · speckx

jezzamon · 1790860299 · focus · HN ↗
Discussed a lot here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653
Seems to be more reasonable than this title suggests?
Some comments: "So they have introduced a major change and said any older Chromebooks bought going forward will only get 8. So its not a retrospective reduction for existing customers." (Edit: actually I think this comment is wrong, if you bought a Chromebook 1 year ago, you'd only get 9 years of ChromeOS updates)
"From my understanding of the article, it sounds like ChromeOS support is getting pared back for those devices, but the devices themselves should still be supported, albeit via a (planned but not yet in existence) migration path to GooglebookOS."
1. hedora · 1790860980 · focus · HN ↗
  These devices are usually bought on contract, with lots of lock in.
  In particular, there are lots of schools getting screwed over financially. Maybe they’ll switch vendors, or use the money for education. Chromebook spending has a strong negative correlation with educational performance.
  As a parent, I am supposed to have control over my kids’ personal information, but the schools firehose all the most sensitive kids’ info they have to an unlawful marketing firm that I do not trust. How do I opt out?
  1. _blk · 1790862851 · focus · HN ↗
    Homeschool, vote for free school choice, vote for getting the subsidized funds to where you actually send your kids. Solves most problems related to bad school policies.
    afavour · 1790863984 · focus · HN ↗
    > vote for getting the subsidized funds to where you actually send your kids
    …which is what happens today with public schools. Your case only makes sense if you’re sending your kid to private school and would like public funds to help pay for it.
    School vouchers allow richer families to go to private school while preventing lower income folks from doing so, exacerbating problems with educational achievement.
    theoreticalmal · 1790865538 · focus · HN ↗
    School vouchers are the only fair way to do schooling. Rich people paying for more expensive things isn’t bad. They just shouldn’t be forced to pay for the more expensive thing that they use as well as the less expensive thing they don’t use
    afavour · 1790866643 · focus · HN ↗
    Surely that depends entirely on your definition of the word “fair”. Is it fair that a lower income child is deprived of an opportunity to improve their life through education because their parents can’t afford it?
    Ultimately the debate here is “should richer people have to contribute back to society to help the lives of the poorer people”? Of course you can say no to that. But the majority of society doesn’t agree.
    pfannkuchen · 1790869416 · focus · HN ↗
    At least in America aren’t school taxes extremely local? I’m not sure what you are suggesting actually happens, or at least you are exaggerating quite a bit.
    Poor people typically don’t live in the same neighborhoods as wealthy people in America. Wealthy neighborhood public schools tend to have lavish facilities from the tax base, so it’s more like “wealthy guy X doesn’t want to pay for the very fancy facilities he isn’t even using”, not “wealthy guy X doesn’t want to pay to send his poor neighbor’s kid to school at all”.
    bluGill · 1790872064 · focus · HN ↗
    Where I live all the districts in the metro area pool the money and divide it so the poor student is worth just as much as the rich student in a different district. (Assuming you don't go to a private school)
    There are still schools rated much worse than others.
    _blk · 1790912693 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes school taxes are local (county and/or city or regional school district) but schools are typically still subsidized by the state too. The fact that schools are rated differently has nothing to do with who goes there, but how it's managed (which definitely has an effect on who goes there when given a choice). That's why I come to the conclusion that free choice of school (private, charter, public or homeschool) is the only sane way to go. Don't force me to send my kids to a bad school when there's a viable option available that I think is better for my kids. My kids, my choice.

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