71–80 of 241 posts
paradoxically we want longer lifetime for some products but not for IE 6, Windows XP, JDK 1 , name your product's support hell...
If something is going to get updates for twelve years, there's no problem with people continuing to use it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Software and hardware should be sold separately.
How does that work? Computers would be sold without operating systems? Good luck pitching that idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am unconvinced that more expensive = better quality for a lot of things these days. There are some anecdotal examples of people with Miele washing machines that have lasted for decades etc (... as an aside I guess we wont know about today's Miele washing machines for several more years at least ...), but in my experience paying a premium for a product more often than not just gives you an as-cheaply-made product bu…
If you buy a Miele appliance anf get the extended guarantee which is ~10% of the purchase price, you get 7 years guarantee. As in, something breaks, tomorrow a repairman will be at your house and fix it, no extra cost. Quality is available, people just don't want to pay for it. Those washing machines that lasted for 15 years? Back then, they cost one or two months' wages. Try to get anyone to pay $2500 for a washing…
I totally support this. I accidentally cracked the touch screen of my car radio console. The car is nothing special, a Ford Mondeo that is a few years old. Cost to replace touch screen module: more than the entire value of the car! That is insane. Effectively, if I want to claim from insurance - crack the touch screen (it is a replaceable module) and have to scrap the entire car. In this case, I managed to get a repl…
How does regulation solve the issue that replacing e.g. the touch screen may take many man hours of labor, whereas making the car itself took proportionally less, thus making replacements more expensive? Your experience is a symptom of a high degree of automation in one area (car manufacturing) and the absence in another (repairs), and regulation does not change that.
Seems intellectually dishonest to suggest that a robot screwing finished parts together is the only context relevant for considering cost comparison
Products that last longer reduce our need to produce more. Reduces human labor requirements, resource extraction
They crater sales though. And economists can't sit about contributing little while dictating how objects are produced
IMO that's a net win for humanity. Economists religion be damned. Play Sim City if you want to get your authoritarian jollies off
The article says that consumers are discouraged by the cost of repair. A few weeks ago, I repaired an eltronical appliance and was surprised to see that all screws were screwed into plastic. As I unscrewed them to access the inside of the device, the plastic around the screw broke. I think there should be laws that prevent screwing into plastic. That just makes no sense appart from upfront cost. Once the plastic is b…
A law requiring a particular material? Unless it’s health or safety related, no way. The last place I want to see government is regulating how a product must be constructed (unless it’s health or safety critical obviously.) If you want a device without plastic screw holes, pay more money and find one or make one yourself, market it and sell it to other like-minded people. If I have a toaster that breaks, the time it…
Although I would welcome this, I can't understand how such broad demands can be enforced. If the EU is really interested in increasing the lifetime of products, it's simple, just increase the mandatory warranty from 2 to 5 (or some other appropriate number) years. That would right away, increase the lifetime of the products, but would also, put a strain on the manufacturers to make it easier to repair (after all, if…
there's no guarantee of that. the manufacturers could just charge X times more, and expect on average to send 1.5 replacements out.
(or less, most likely. folks who wouldn't bother to ask for warranty service, or lose the device first, or otherwise fail to satisfy the requirements of the warranty.)
Wages have gone up and consumer goods have gone down in price and build quality. It's not feasible to have a repair business any more. Growing up, there were still loads of repair businesses around. You could fix anything. If build quality and price go up, you can revert to an economy where you would fix your broken appliance once or twice before you replacing it. But what's the incentive for the manufacturers?
> But what's the incentive for the manufacturers? Possibly reducing the companies' environmental footprint on the world. Instead of cheap devices being scrapped every two years and sent to the landfill, consumers could instead hold on to the companies' products for much much longer. If products have comparatively more time and quality parts, the cost will indeed go up--both for manufacturing and retail price. My gran…
One way of doing it would be to charge companies up-front for the cost of handling the waste for the eventual disposal of the product. That directly disincetivizes companies from make it poorly, pile it high, sell it cheap business models.
Of course, the flipside of this is the flipside of Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness - if the cheap boots that fall apart quickly didn't exist, Sam Vimes would not be able to buy boots at all in the first place. The solution is, of course, to put more people in a position where they can afford to buy the more expensive boots and see the value in doing so.
On the other hand, if the scale in the marketplace was in durable boots, then companies would be able to optimize for that, and the price would almost certainly come down. There would be a shift away from fashion design, and marketing, towards product engineering to be able to produce that product at a price that most people could afford.
Although I would welcome this, I can't understand how such broad demands can be enforced. If the EU is really interested in increasing the lifetime of products, it's simple, just increase the mandatory warranty from 2 to 5 (or some other appropriate number) years. That would right away, increase the lifetime of the products, but would also, put a strain on the manufacturers to make it easier to repair (after all, if…
Although I would welcome this, I can't understand how such broad demands can be enforced. If the EU is really interested in increasing the lifetime of products, it's simple, just increase the mandatory warranty from 2 to 5 (or some other appropriate number) years. That would right away, increase the lifetime of the products, but would also, put a strain on the manufacturers to make it easier to repair (after all, if…
> That would right away, increase the lifetime of the products there's no guarantee of that. the manufacturers could just charge X times more, and expect on average to send 1.5 replacements out. (or less, most likely. folks who wouldn't bother to ask for warranty service, or lose the device first, or otherwise fail to satisfy the requirements of the warranty.)