This is literally evidence of stuff being designed to fail. An extra diode costs less than a cent at production scale. This was a manufacturing choice, not an error.

• cogman10

  today at 10:34 PM

  Eh, I don't agree.

  LEDs are diodes (Light emitting diode). Certainly this was a cost saving measure, but it's not a bad assumption that the LED wouldn't allow reverse current flow.

• HPsquared

  today at 10:05 PM

  Don't underestimate the appeal of saving one cent per unit. So long as the costs are externalised, anyway...

• wat10000

  today at 10:13 PM

  It’s not exactly designed to fail, they just don’t care. If they could add a one-cent part that made it fail sooner, they wouldn’t do that either.

• Atlas667

  today at 10:15 PM

  Capitalist profit motive strikes again. The invisible hand expands tech and the visible hand keeps making tech worse.

  People usually respond to this by saying that it would be absurd to suggest the company did this for its own benefit, when anyone who engineers knows these are often caused by revising design to minimize costs... and increase profits.

168 points and 116 comments at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41480038

Very impressive engineering on the door switches. On the display, not so much.