Design matters, and bad designs can literally be deadly. Why auto mfgs feel the need to "innovate" with shifter designs is beyond me. The worst part is how every mfg seems to be implementing a different design of bad electronic shifters, from wheels and touchscreens to one-click-at-a-time joysticks to single-function pushbuttons for some gears with others on a scroll wheel. They've taken something and made it worse with no benefit to the user. At least with those auto-flushing toilets, the intention was good, even if the implementation is still somehow so awful decades later.
My guess is that the dial costs less, so it is done for the company not the customer. Many cases of bad design come from prioritizing the manufacturer over the customer.
On my old Chevrolet Tahoe, I can tell what gear I just shifted into by feel (shifting into D, it has a slight tendency to overshoot the normal overdrive mode and end up locked into 3rd). And of course, this is essentially a nonissue on manual transmissions.
I've got news for you. My uncle worked in construction most his life. He told me the concrete isn't as good today as it used to be. He said in some places for shipping they "blow it around". Meaning you don't put it on a ship using a conveyor, you do something similar to blowing dust through a pipe? I never asked for more detail. He thought the handling was exposing it to humidity or in some way degrading the concrete. This would be another case of prioritizing cost/efficiency over the customer.
So even your humble concrete block might not be as good as they used to make em'
It also doesnt work at all if i am in tube, or when my building forgets to pay phone bill, or movike network craps out
Whatever benefits the tech firms and salespeople sold you (not literally you, anyone reading) on all this shit, if you have this stuff in your life I guarantee you your life is more stressful than mine because of it.
I'm to the point where I only buy used stuff period. Basically food and underwear have to be new. I don't think I've bought a brand new anything in over 5 years. I don't know if I ever will if this trend continues, proprietary single serve coffee pouches, internet connected stovetops, TVs that show ads separate from the broadcast, cars that track your movements and sell them to data brokers, touch screen everything, how many screens does a single person need?
Until, of course, it does.
They're literally engineering shit people don't need now. In virtually every product. And doing UI redesigns on things that change the user friendly UX, often breaking it.
I remember looking forward to browser updates, OS updates, the next generation hardware whatever. Things used to actually get better. I actually got a new phone the other day with a newer android version, never mind that there's a fucking hole in the screen, when I changed my screen brightness there was a deliberate animated delay to the brightness changing with the slider. Seriously, who the fuck is making decisions like this?
90% of things don't need to get more complex. A touch screen on a fridge, speakers in your car that get louder as you accelerate, Bluetooth speakers that need software updates, these are not improvements to the products in any real way whatsoever.
