cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/58764195

I was in the non-profit shop of a local charity. They accept donations of used computers then resell them to the public. The profit goes to charity. I asked for their oldest machine. It had an AMD chip from the 16h family. Thus, a spychip.

So their oldest machine was still too new for me. I asked why don’t you have anything older? They said the general public would not accept anything older, and so the shop also does not accept anything older. When machines are rejected, they go to a factory that destroys them and recovers the raw metals.

It’s sad to see that pre-spychip machines are being destroyed and that even 2nd-hand customers are being limited to anti-consumer spychip hardware.

  • evenwichtOP
    1·
    2 天前

    Your forgetting storage costs.

    I can probably fit 100 old (thick) laptops in my closet. I doubt it’s a noteworthy cost for a shop to store ~6—12 laptops, which is comparable to the size of a single laser printer.

    It’s similar with old monitors.

    Ditch the CRTs but hold on to the LCDs. They will sell better once the market is saturated with this garbage.

    In practice, most can’t. They don’t have the reach to change people’s views on the scale needed.

    Hardware not traversing their shop is not in their scope. They can do something on the scale of their shop’s operation. It’s not their job to fix the world on a global scale. I’m fine with that. Doing their part is all anyone can expect.

    They would also need to deal with people who didn’t understand what they were buying. Older computers often need a bit of finessing to get the most out of. Sticking windoze 11 on them, and giving them out to OAPs or single mums is asking for very frustrated complaints.

    That’s a problem for sure. The charity shops tried -and failed- to sell linux machines. They went back to Windows. But that’s not the end of the story. The charity shops have connections with repair cafes and linux clubs, who are picking up the slack.

    If you think it’s viable, make a small business out of it.

    I’m not interested in profit. I might do a non-profit action. But it’s certainly a fight so far to just get the gov to reveal where the destruction factory is. Will need a substantial effort to get a position in the supply chain.