Techie Ramblings

Author: Ryan

  • OLED or LCD on a smartphone?

    Look at the specifications of any midrange or flagship smartphone today and I can guarantee with a degree of certainty that it will have an OLED screen. Look at the budget segment of the smartphone market and all but a couple of exceptions will have LCD screens. It wouldn’t be a stretch then to assume that an OLED is the premium option, which it is but would it also be correct to assume it’s the better option? Lets delve in.

    OLED benefits

    An OLED (or Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen is the newer technology that many of today’s more premium phones are equipped with. They have unmatched contrast, in part due to the design of these screens in that there is no backlight, each pixel is individually lit and can be turned off entirely to create a much darker black. They consume less power, again due to the individual LED’s being able to turn off (a big driving factor for “Dark mode”). They have excellent colour accuracy. They can have very fast response times due to the speed the LED’s can change state. OLED screens can be flexible, create the market of folding smartphones we’ve seen over the last few years.

    OLED Drawbacks

    The cost to produce an OLED panel is high, due to the organic compounds in the OLED’s having a short shelf life and a complex manufacturing process. Over extended use the OLED’s luminance, or ability to produce light decreases. This leads to a problem we refer to as “Burn in”. When these OLED panels display a static image for extended period of time they get dimmer, whilst the other OLED’s around it that were not left in that state keep their brightness, leading to a shadow of the image being permanently on the panel. On phones this commonly occurs on the status bar, or home screen. PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) is the method in which an OLED panel controls its brightness. An OLED is either in an on or off state, there is no in between. Therefore to appear dimmer the OLED will turn on and off hundreds of times a second to trick our brains into seeing a less bright image. Some people can perceive this flicker and it causes them headaches and eye strain in a term that’s now commonly referred to as “PWM Sensitivity”. Durability is also a concern with OLED panels, depending on the quality used they can be quite susceptible to impact damage and deterioration over time.

    LCD Benefits

    An LCD (or Liquid Crystal Display) is a more mature technology used in everything from digital watches and train departure boards to TV’s, computer monitors and mobile phones. It’s more complex in how it works compared to OLED with it’s RGB LED’s, but essentially there is a backlight which shines through colour filters to create an image. They are cheaper to manufacture because the manufacturing process is simpler and uses readily available materials. They are not susceptible to burn in. They do not have issues with PWM due to the fact the backlight brightness can be directly adjusted by simply lowering or increasing the voltage. LCD’s can achieve a higher peak brightness due to the backlight technology. LCD panels also generally have a very long lifespan.

    LCD Drawbacks

    On higher brightness settings LCD panels can draw a lot of power due to the backlight. Also due to the backlight the contrast between black and white is limited, this varies by quality of the LCD used. LCD’s can also have poor response times, again this varies by quality of panel and isn’t as prominent in modern LCD displays but essentially the light filters cannot respond fast enough to the input they receive and a “ghost” image can be displayed for a fraction of a second but enough to be perceivable.

    Which is best for a smartphone then?

    That was a lot of information, but its important when making a comparison to have all the facts. How do we go about comparing both of these technologies just for the application in a smartphone? We have to bring real use cases and user requirements into it. We also have to appreciate that not all LCD and OLED panels are created equal. There is a vast difference in quality between the best and worse panels for each of these technologies.

    There are extreme ends of the user spectrum here for which the decision will be very easy: For a user with PWM sensitivity, or someone who needs to display static images for an extended of period of time they need a phone with an LCD screen. For a user playing high intensity games, or a professional photographer demanding colour accuracy they need an OLED screen.

    A couple of niche features OLED panels can provide may also sway your decision too. If you need an always on display or want the deepest blacks when using dark mode, only an OLED can provide that.

    Personally I fall into the category of LCD being a better choice for me. While I don’t get headaches or eye strain from an OLED screen I can detect the flicker, especially in my peripheral vision which can get annoying. I also keep my screen timeout set at 10 minutes, and often display text or an image for reference while I’m working on something, so not having to worry about burn in is a plus. I also appreciate the lower cost, my current personal phone (HMD Pulse) cost me just £60 new and sealed, whereas my work phone (CMF Phone 1) cost £165, and aside from the OLED and faster chipset it’s missing features that the HMD Pulse has. The cost of replacement is also a benefit to me too, it’s reassuring to know that if I break the screen I can replace it for £15 delivered whereas on some of the premium flagship phones a replacement OLED panel can be £200-300 just for the part, considering most users can’t fit a screen themselves it becomes worryingly expensive.

    What should the average user do then? Assuming you don’t have any of the specific requirements I’ve mentioned above. In reality you don’t have much choice. In today’s market as I mentioned in the first paragraph budget phones get LCD panels and more expensive phones get an OLED panel. Unfortunately it seems this trend is only increasing and in some cases budget phones such as the CMF Phone 1 and Samsung A15 and A16 have now got OLED screens.

    In an ideal world I’d like to see customers presented with a choice: The same phone with the only difference being a choice of an LCD or an OLED. Even more optimistically the LCD variant would be slightly cheaper too, passing on the reduced manufacturing cost. An LCD is arguably the best choice for most people, and the environment. It only takes a quick search on 2nd hand online marketplaces to see thousands of phones being sold as spares and repairs due to OLED burn in and broken panels.

    How many of these phones would still be in use if they didn’t have this fault, and if when broken the screen could have been replaced cheaply? In a room of average people none of them would be able to discern or tell you the difference between a quality LCD and an OLED, it seems like the ingenious marketing departments of the smartphone companies have struck again.

    Below I’ve taken two photos of four phones displaying the same image at maximum brightness.

    From left to right we have a Samsung Galaxy Y (2011, TFT LCD), HMD Pulse (2024, IPS LCD), Samsung Galaxy S3 (2012, Super AMOLED), CMF Phone 1 (2024, AMOLED).

    As you can see there are differences here, and in particular the older devices have lower max brightness levels. However even in the case of the 2011 Galaxy Y other than its miniscule size you can’t look at the display and say it looks awful. On the newer phones the bezels are smaller and the screens are much bigger but the difference between the two is marginal and these two aren’t even close to being equal. The Pulse has a PPI (Pixels per inch) of 265, whereas the CMF Phone 1 has 395.

    What I’m getting at here is that specs on paper can look like a night and day difference but in reality the differences are barely noticeable. Buy what works for you best and don’t get sucked into marketing tactics!

  • Samsung S3350 (Chat 335)

    Image Credits webuy.com

    There was actually another device in-between this one and the Tocco Lite. It was a Nokia X3-02, and on paper it should’ve been better than this one. However there was a problem with it not being able to connect to WiFi and another issue I can’t remember that meant it had to be returned, because I only had it for around a week I’m not going to do a full post for it.

    Onto the Samsung S3350 AKA Chat 335. I used this phone throughout my time at College. Aside from the key feature that it was actually possible to type on unlike the Tocco Lite this had one notable, major improvement on it. WiFi. No longer was I limited by my minimal credit, when I was somewhere with WiFi (admittedly not too many public places had this yet) I could browse Facebook or the web.

    You only need to take one look at the picture above to see that this phone is a blatant Blackberry knock off. 2010 was a strange time for the mobile phone market. On one hand you had the iPhone 4, the Galaxy S and the Nexus One whilst on the other hand Blackberry still had a large market share and people were still buying feature phones like the Chat 335 and Nokia devices running Symbian. We were not yet in a world where a smartphone was a requirement, mobile banking wasn’t an option, mobile data prices were still high and the height of portability for me was a laptop. For one I wouldn’t have been able to afford a smartphone and it simply wasn’t a requirement for me.

    This phone was still annoying enough that you wouldn’t want to use it unless you really needed to. I think I may have used the inbuilt internet browser a couple of times, and most of the time you were met with the dreaded “Out of memory” message when trying to load a page. It did however have a micro SD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack so it got plenty of use as a media device. I also got quite good at texting with the full keyboard, although I remember occasionally using my girlfriend at the time’s Blackberry and that was worlds ahead of the Chat 335 in terms of quality and functionality.

    Without any comparison this was a decidedly budget and basic device. I actually recently re-purchased this device to revisit so I can review it without memories clouding my judgement. It has a capacitive home button, which allows you to scroll around the menus. This is overly sensitive and doesn’t work well at all. The keyboard often doesn’t register a button press, which compounds the issue with the inaccurate scrolling button when you try to correct it. It lacks a reasonable amount of RAM to load any website beyond Google. The camera was poor, even for the time. On the flip side, just using it as a feature phone and not expecting it to be a smartphone it’s OK. The keyboard is still better than the best T9 keyboard, or a resistive touch screen. Despite being small the display is clear and readable. The battery lasts a long time and the device is very durable.

    While this phone would never have won any awards even back in 2010 it was an acceptable device. It kept me in contact with friends and family, and kept me occupied through moments of boredom. This was my last feature phone before I moved onto a smartphone! Aside from where I’ve done digital detoxes and used a “Dumbphone” from here on out it’s all Android and iOS devices from here on.

  • Samsung GT-S5230 (Tocco Lite)

    Image credit www.njuskalo.hr

    This was my first phone that had a touch screen, and it was purchased as a replacement to the W300i.

    This phone was my introduction to Samsung devices and it runs TouchWiz 1.0. This was the basis of One UI which is now on version 7 on Android 15. Technically this is where it all began. Launched in 2009 this phone was a budget phone, on a proprietary operating system. It has a resistive touch screen and no physical keyboard. In some ways it looks very familiar to the smartphones we know. However don’t be fooled, this is very much a feature phone with a touch screen. The operating system was very limited, with no method to install any apps other than what it shipped with. You could however set up your homescreen with widgets for the first time, although it’s uses were limited.

    My only real fond memory of this phone was the camera and MP3 player. There was still no 3.5mm headphone jack to be seen on this device, but it had the option to expand the storage with a Micro SD card, offering at the time seemingly limitless storage. The camera was much better than the VGA camera I was used to on the W300i, and to this day I still have some memories from around 2010 in photo and video form taken on this camera.

    That’s where the good part ends. The touch screen on this phone was a nightmare to use. Being resistive stacked the odds against it but having parts of the user interface requiring you to press and drag (scrolling) was just a recipe for disaster. You would often accidentally click into menus and accidentally call the wrong person, it was haphazard at best. Typing was no better, in portrait orientation the phone would display a T9 keyboard and you had to orient the phone in landscape to get a full QWERTY layout. Neither were fast or accurate and I would often resort to a phone call instead just to avoid having to endure it. The fact that my next device was a phone with a full QWERTY, physical keyboard should speak volumes about my experience with this.

    Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the device was not durable at all. As a teenager, doing things that normal teenagers do this device didn’t last long at all. When dropped the back cover and battery had a habit of ejecting themselves from the phone, and the soft resistive touch screen wasn’t up to much abuse. I can’t remember the incident that caused it’s untimely demise but it isn’t hard to imagine.

  • Sony Ericsson W300i

    Image credits cellphones.ca

    There are only around 3 or 4 phones in this list that I consider to be the perfect devices for the time period and my application and this was one of them. I don’t really consider the NEC between this and the 3200 as one of my devices because of the short time period I owned it, so side by side with the Nokia 3200 getting this device in 2006 was a major upgrade.

    Over the 3200 it had Bluetooth, WAP, an excellent loudspeaker, a headphone adapter to take any 3.5mm headphones, memory card expandability, had dedicated media buttons and of course was a clamshell with a secondary screen for notifications and media information when shut.

    With this phone I could retire my terrible 128MB AA battery powered MP3 player, it had 256MB of internal storage and could be expanded by a further 2GB. I think I may have had a 1GB card for this. This was a marked point where phones began to consolidate the need for multiple devices into one. Later in the phones life I did get an iPod Nano but this phone still got used for media when a loudspeaker was required. The loudspeaker was particularly good quality compared to other phones of the time, and if I was with friends it was always the W300i that got used to play music as it was clearer and louder than the others.

    To date the W300i is my longest serving device, it lasted me a whole 4 years which took the majority of the way through high school. The battery lasted well throughout my ownership, in the absence of social media sharing music, funny videos and pictures took place through Bluetooth so it also took a beating there. The device was very durable, surviving countless drops, bangs and falls onto every imaginable surface. It survived years in the pocket of a very active teenager and never faltered. Until the fateful day it met its demise. I still remember it clearly, it was 2010 and we were in the midst of a very severe winter. We’d had at least 6 inches of snow and I’d just walked a girlfriend home. I was wrapped up well with a down coat, hat and gloves and my phone had just vibrated. I pulled the phone out to check and with the gloves on, fumbled opening it and it fell into the snow while open. Being white and the snow being deep it completely disappeared so was in the snow for a good couple of minutes before I found it. The phone survived initially, I folded it back up and put it back in my pocket. By the time I was home though it had died, the snow that had made its way into the hinges melted and destroyed the phone.

    To this day the W300i reminds me of a simpler time. Happy times with friends and the chaotic times of Bluetooth file sharing and hacks, taking over each others devices and generally causing mischief. A time when phones weren’t as important, weren’t as expensive and they didn’t hold the key to our entire lives.

  • NEC E228

    This was a phone I only owned very briefly in 2004. My Father (parents separated) wanted to make sure he could keep in touch with me and that I could call him whenever I wanted (I often ran out of credit on my pay as you go SIM) so he got me this on contract. The reason it didn’t last long with me was that being on contract I was terrified of it running up a massive bill. Ultimately we returned it after a brief period.

    Compared to the Nokia 3200 this was a much more advanced phone. For starters it had 3G connectivity, so network speeds were much faster. The screen was a lot bigger and of a higher resolution. I also remember the speaker being much louder and the Polyphonic audio being much better. It also had a front facing camera, not that I ever explored the feature but I imagine it could make video calls.

    It was a strange device though. In comparison to other mobiles of the time it was massive, unnecessarily so and felt strangely hollow and light. Similar to the cordless telephones that a few people still have around today. I also remember it consuming battery fast. The Nokia’s I’d become used to could easily go a week between charges with light to moderate use, this one needed charging at best every other day. I assume the early 3G modem was the cause for this.

    Overall not a device I was very fond of, partly due to it being a difficult point in my life and the memory of this phone is probably associated with that. However, objectively speaking this was a very advanced device for its time, it took me until around 2010 to get another device that matched the functionality of this one.

  • Nokia 3200

    Image credits imei.info

    The Nokia 3200 was the first phone I owned from new. My timeline is fuzzy going this far back, but the device was released late 2003 so I must’ve got this after around 2 years of using the hand-me-down Nokia 3210. I don’t know if this was a gift or I’d purchased it with my own money, not helped by the fact I can’t find any details online about its original retail price.

    By all accounts this was a massive functional upgrade over the 3210 which had been released just 4 years prior to this. It has a colour screen, a camera (albeit basic, however still a big upgrade over nothing!), a GPRS data connection with a rudimentary web browser, polyphonic ringtones, the ability to run Java based applications, infrared connectivity, an FM radio, MMS messaging and a torch.

    I have very fond memories of this phone. We didn’t have internet at home at this point, and this had internet access. Unfortunately I was on pay as you go, and data was still very expensive at this point so I had to be very careful how I used it or I would burn through my allowance in no time. I remember being lured into buying poor polyphonic ringtones that mimicked popular songs at the time and java games from various stores online. I can only imagine what a minefield it is today for children to navigate in the world of in app purchases if I was convinced to buy these! I remember using the included headset to listen to the FM radio, and spent a lot of time playing the “Bounce” platformer game that was included with the phone.

    Image credits gsmfind.com

    This phones party piece however was it’s customization options. The front and rear panel of the phone unclipped easily and the coloured insert of the phone could be removed and replaced. In the box were 3 holographic insert options; blue, green and orange, my favourite being the blue one. Also included in the box (isn’t it a start contrast how many extras manufacturers used to include, considering now we don’t even get a charging block!) was a paper cutter. You could take any card or paper and make your very own insert for this phone. I remember making inserts from magazines and game covers. I don’t think this level of customization has even been exceeded on a phone before or after this one.

    It was not all sunshine though, this phone did have two major drawbacks; it’s size and it’s keypad. The size issue was a common one for the time period, as phones still had very limited media functionality smaller was better. It was a competition of who could have the smallest phone, and while this one was nowhere near the smallest it was still minute by todays standards. The low pixel count and small LCD limited usability, any web page would lose any kind of formatting and layout it was intended to have. The size also exaggerated the issues with they keypad as it was harder to hold. The main issue as mentioned was the keypad. A truly dreadful design that really highlights the downsides to manufacturers trying to be different for the sake of it. If you revisit the image at the top of this page you’ll notice that each physical button has 2 numbers on, they were essentially rocker switches. Combined with the fact these buttons were tiny to start with typing was a horrific experience. You could forget typing with fingers, you had to use your fingernail to stand any chance of accurately inputting. Texting was laborious, and as people in my circle started to text more I found myself reverting back to the 3210 which had full sized buttons.

    While I’d love to own this device again just to relive the memories they’re now very hard to come by in complete condition and I think the saying of “Never meet your heroes” rings true here. Especially with large adult male hands I think trying to use this device today, even just playing around with it would tarnish the memory I have of it.

  • Nokia 3210

    Image Credits https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com

    This was my introduction into mobile phones and I hold it in very high regard. At first this phone belonged to my Mother, and I have strong memories of getting hold of it from her whenever I could to play a game of Snake while we waited in a doctors waiting room, or being dragged around department stores.

    Once my Mother’s contract had ended she replaced the device, and this was handed down to me, with a o2 pay as you go SIM as my very own first mobile phone. At this point in my life, around 2001 I had very little need for a mobile phone, other than being contactable for my parents when I was playing out and I may have sent a couple of text messages.

    This didn’t stop me using this phone and exploring every feature it had. I remember the green backlight and backlit keys, which were very similar to a Casio F91-W’s in colour, and actual usefulness. It had an inbuilt ringtone maker, which you could painstakingly type out a sequence of numbers for different notes, and breaks to create your very own song. I think my proudest ringtone was the 007 theme tune, in all it’s Monophonic glory. Aside from Snake and the ringtone maker this phone was very basic, it didn’t have any type of connectivity aside from calls and text messages.

    I remember keeping this device around while I had my next couple of devices, but I can’t work out what actually happened to this phone. I don’t think it was every sold but perhaps it was lost in a later house move or maybe it was passed on to another family member.

  • My Phone History – A Series

    My relationships with mobile phones, and smartphones has been a somewhat strange one. From my pre-teen, pre-internet years I remember poring through the Argos catalogue comparing the phones they had for sale. As a youngster I didn’t have access to money outside of a trivial weekly pocket money allowance, so this never really amounted to much.

    However as I grew older and my disposable income increased this strange desire to keep switching and changing smartphones grew too. I’ve never been able to really get to the bottom of the reason why over the years I’ve bought and sold so many smartphones. For a while I kept swapping cars, but I grew out of that and reached the point that as long as my car is functional I’m perfectly happy with it. Other areas of my life don’t match this behaviour either. I keep my computing devices and other tech items for as long as they’re functional, I don’t obsess over clothing, only really buying more when I need to replace something. It’s just a strange fascination with phones.

    This all reached a breaking point a few weeks ago, when I was caving in to the itch of changing phones merely a month after just changing devices. Fortunately this has never cost me much money because I always resold the other device and often purchased them 2nd hand in the first place. In fact I would hazard a guess, this has only cost me the equivalent of what the average person spends on their phone contract each month. However the constant setting up, and potentially losing data, and worrying about resale value was wearing thin on me and I decided to make a change for the better and break the cycle.

    Regardless of the above I do still have a passion for mobile phones of all shapes and sizes, and have decided to start a series documenting each of the phones I’ve owned over the years. Below is a list of those devices, in the best chronological order I can remember and I plan on making a post on each of these. These posts won’t be in-depth technical reviews, more an overview of the device and my thoughts about the device at that point in time and how it fit into my life.

    • Nokia 3210
    • Nokia 3200
    • Sony Ericsson W300i
    • Samsung Chat 335
    • Nokia X3-02
    • Samsung Tocco Lite
    • Samsung Galaxy Y
    • Samsung Galaxy S3
    • HTC One M8
    • iPhone 6
    • iPhone 6s
    • iPhone 7 Plus
    • iPhone SE
    • Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X
    • Samsung Note 9
    • Google Pixel 4
    • iPhone Se 2nd
    • Motorola G8 Power
    • Samsung M51
    • Nokia 105
    • Pixel 3a
    • iPhone 13
    • Nokia G11
    • Pixel 6a
    • Samsung S23 Ultra
    • Pixel 7a
    • Samsung A14
    • iPhone 15 Pro
    • Nokia 110 4G
    • AGM M7
    • Unihertz Jelly Star
    • Pixel 8
    • Samsung S24 Ultra
    • Samsung A55
    • Samsung S24
    • CMF Phone 1
    • Oppo Find x8 Pro
    • HMD Pulse

  • The attention economy

    In my constant battle of trying to find balance in today’s world I’ve been going on a trip filled with nostalgia back in time a decade or two.

    I’m 31 now so some of my fondest memories are 15–20 years ago which takes us back to the time period of 2005–2010. Now I imagine everyone of different ages has a period of time in their heads they consider to be the “golden times” but I truly do believe these were great times, for technology and the internet at the very least which is something I enjoy focusing on.

    Myspace was in it’s final days, the most addictive part of Facebook was Farmville, Tumblr was where we pretended we were very deep and complex individuals and I never really got my head around what the point of Twitter was. We accessed these sites with intention, because it involved sitting down at a PC, more often than not the family PC in a shared space in the house. We still used MSN messenger, and Facebook chat was just getting started. Messages would only be replied to when we were on the PC.

    Our phones were what I consider to be the ideal scenario, they were complex enough that we could play basic offline games, they had rudimentary web browsers so we could obtain information in a pinch but the lack of memory and slow data meant that it was not an enjoyable experience. Other than that they made calls, sent texts and took very pixelated photos and videos.

    Most people gamed on an Xbox 360 or PS3 and most households had a Wii to play as a family. Online gaming was experiencing it’s first generation for most people who never owned a gaming PC. You bought the game and a year subscription to online services (or not in the case of the PS3, it was free!) and could play to your hearts content with your friends. Nobody was competing on who had the most expensive cosmetic items, and there was very little in the way of DLC.

    At some point in time, which I struggle to pinpoint, around 2012–2015 there was a major shift. Mobile devices became more advanced, mobile internet speeds improved and prices decreased, and WiFi became commonplace everywhere. The internet became a thing that followed us everywhere we went, rather than something we sit down to pay a visit to. Social media began to boom, and multiple different platforms began popping up. As time went on a cultural shift happened, most people no longer used or even owned a desktop PC or a laptop. Everything could be done on the ever expanding smartphone in our pockets.

    A war began across the internet, and the target was our attention.

    Very quickly marketers discovered that someone’s decision making process could be altered by what they saw on their social media feeds. Be that making a decision to buy a product based on advertisements that were displayed to the user, political opinions based on videos and material the user was fed, even lifestyle choices could all be altered.

    Social media platforms began monetising their platforms, but not to us the users. We were the product. Our attention was and is still sold to the highest bidder, they can pay money to target very specific demographics with their material. Think what you may but it’s very effective, these social media companies are now some of the wealthiest in the world, and their only product is a platform and its users.

    Any successful company will ensure it’s product is available and in plentiful supply, and this is where the addictive nature of these platforms come into play. Huge teams of people engineer their platform to be as addictive as possible, to keep you coming back and for as long as possible to ensure you are there and ready to view their customers advertisements. A notable example of this is when Facebook introduced notifications. At first the notification dot was blue, and users generally left it unread. When the colour was changed to red however it got much more attention, the colour red is well known to provoke a response in humans (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4413730/). These companies openly utilise our human nature and instinct to assure our attention.

    Humans have developed very rapidly over the last century. In evolution terms it’s been the blink of an eye since we were simple tribal or nomadic hunter gatherers. Our brains are not equipped to deal the cheap thrill that is social media. We are social creatures too, so when we receive a “like” it simulates social acceptance from our peers. Our brain rewards us for this good action with a little rush of dopamine. We crave this dopamine and repeat the behaviour. In more primitive times this would’ve been beneficial in that humans would act in ways that other members of their group liked, and this in turn would strengthen their bond which in survival terms is a good thing. In terms of social media a like costs nothing, and often means very little however the primitive circuitry in our brain cannot differentiate that from genuine interaction. Very easily people become addicted to this instant gratification, and in turn spend more time on social media which leads them to spend less time on genuine interaction.

    As you probably already know, or are finding out now social media isn’t beneficial for average people. There are genuine use cases for it, such as long distance relationships or friendships where face to face or a higher quality interaction is impossible but in general it is a lower quality social interaction. People are lonelier than ever but more connected than ever, why is this? I’d argue it’s because we’re replacing face to face interaction, or even a phone call with a like or a comment on a post, and somehow that feels like we’ve touched base with that person and removed the need to contact them in another manner.

    Social media then, is only really beneficial for the social media company itself, who make money from exploiting their users and keeping them active, and the companies that pay the social media company to advertise to it’s users.

    This is where we are today, and it only takes an altered perspective and you’ll find it impossible to avoid. AI generated sites litter search results. Social media can make you lose hours without realising just by choosing to open the app. We feel disconnected, dissatisfied and lonely through poor quality interaction online. Teenage boys are using steroids so they can look like their idols on Instagram, teenage girls are struggling with eating disorders for the same reason. Buying a genuine product online has become a minefield of ads and inferior products. There are so many bots online now it’s hard to tell if we’re talking to a real person, and in some cases bots end up talking to themselves.

    It feels like somewhere along the lines we went wrong with the internet, and I suppose where money is involved this was bound to happen. But I wish we could go back, and enjoy the internet for what it was again when it was fresh, exciting but not yet addictive and completely capitalised.

  • eBay – A downward spiral?

    Of the older ones among us that were the pioneers of the internet, most will have memories of eBay in its early days. My earliest memory of it would’ve been around 2003 as we didn’t get internet access at home until around 2005. I remember borrowing my Grandfathers laptop and browsing listings, there were no businesses on there it was just average people selling their unwanted belongings as it was originally intended.

    Fast forward today and you have to set up a search specifically just to find a private seller. The majority are “businesses” (in the loosest sense of the definition) reselling things can be purchased for a 5th of the price on Chinese market places such as Temu and Aliexpress.

    eBay seem hell bent on ruining their marketplace through poor decisions over the years. Pushing buyers and sellers away in their droves. I’ll list a few that come to mind:

    • Charging ever increasing selling fees.
    • Forcing all payments through their platform, and charging higher payment fees.
    • Siding with the buyer regardless of the situation, leaving honest sellers out of pocket.
    • Promoting alternative sellers items on a product listing, drawing attention away from the item that was clicked on toward a sponsored listing.
    • The entirety of the Global Shipping Programme. This abomination has left buyers and sellers all over the world frustrated and out of pocket through sheer incompetence.
    • Packlink shipping. They act as a broker for different couriers but when a shipment goes wrong neither of the parties will take responsibility.

    I could go on.

    The latest nail in the metaphorical coffin is the abolishing of the seller fees. This was in response to a loss of traffic due to Vinted. Vinted offer zero selling fees and put the onus on the buyer to pay for a “Buyer protection fee”, which in effect is just paying the platform tax.

    For a brief period of around a month eBay experienced a new golden era. Sellers sold their items with no fees, and buyers paid no fees. Sellers got paid immediately and could withdraw funds at any time. However this was not to last.

    Not satisfied with ad revenue and sponsored listing income eBay tried to follow Vinted’s footsteps and implement buyer fees, buy of course in a much worse way. As of Feb 2025 if you now go onto eBay and search for anything you will see all the prices look a little strange. Where an item was £9.99, you’ll now see an item at £10.76. This is because eBay have slid their fees into the selling price of the item. The seller still listed their item for £9.99 but now it looks like they’ve priced it higher.

    The honest way for eBay to implement this would have been to state the original price, and then clearly state their fees which make up the total. Interestingly this fee only applies to private sellers. Seemingly another effort to push out entire market they’re promoting themselves to. To stand any chance of competing with the droves of business sellers on eBay the private seller will realistically have to lower their asking price to incorporate eBay’s slice of the pie.

    To make matters worse eBay have made a change to how sellers get paid. Payments will now be held until a confirmed delivery is made, based on the tracking number. In the case of a collection or untracked delivery they will hold payment for 14 days. This leaves sellers out of pocket when they need to pay for postage, and they will not have the money for the item that is no longer in their possession.

    I think we are witnessing the end of eBay’s 30 year run, at least eBay as we know it. One of the first big websites, a household name and a hobby and a passion for many coming to an end. If the company does survive their truly dreadful decision makers latest blunder it will not be as we know it. We can expect more of the Amazon esque off brand products, a search that is fed by the highest bidder and algorithms and an ever worsening user interface.

    Truly a shame.