I forgot to write my conclusion because I got so livid and carried away about how much Fitbits suck, so here it is:
I don't think Fitbit's troubles are necessarily an indictment of the hardware industry as a whole. I think they're particular to that company having a horrible product and horrible hardware engineering, to the point where poor build quality actively repulses users rather than creating repeat customers. GoPro similarly has lots of issues that I've heard from others, but I don't have first-hand experience like I do with Fitbit so I won't spend any further time on it.
Contrast with, say, Apple, which is still a hardware company more so than it is anything else, and has become the largest publicly traded company in the world by doing so. I'm not a huge Apple fan by any means, but at least the devices don't suffer from such horrible flaws. My next laptop might not be another Macbook Pro, but it's at least in the running as an option because I've liked the one I currently have. Fitbit does not have that same charity from me.
I don't think Fitbit's troubles are necessarily an indictment of the hardware industry as a whole. I think they're particular to that company having a horrible product and horrible hardware engineering, to the point where poor build quality actively repulses users rather than creating repeat customers. GoPro similarly has lots of issues that I've heard from others, but I don't have first-hand experience like I do with Fitbit so I won't spend any further time on it.
Contrast with, say, Apple, which is still a hardware company more so than it is anything else, and has become the largest publicly traded company in the world by doing so. I'm not a huge Apple fan by any means, but at least the devices don't suffer from such horrible flaws. My next laptop might not be another Macbook Pro, but it's at least in the running as an option because I've liked the one I currently have. Fitbit does not have that same charity from me.