I hope at some point we'll start including recycling/disassembly and replacement externalities into price somehow. I don't know how you would do that in a fair way, but it is frustrating that there aren't a ton of corrective market forces to encourage manufacturers to make highly reusable, repairable, recyclable devices.
All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with carbon energy products, the entire world is forced to pay for the environmental externalities rather than the actual tech users.
You can make an accelerationist argument about not discouraging tech development and dealing with the problems using more efficient tech in the future, I guess. But I'd honestly rather have electronics cost a bit more and know that manufacturers had a financial interest in maintaining rather than replacing.
The main issue is this: We need to reduce consumption overall!
It is well known that Americans consume far more natural resources and live much less sustainably than people from any other large country of the world. “A child born in the United States will create thirteen times as much ecological damage over the course of his or her lifetime than a child born in Brazil,” reports the Sierra Club’s Dave Tilford, adding that the average American will drain as many resources as 35 natives of India and consume 53 times more goods and services than someone from China.
Warranty for 6 months, right to complain for 18 months after that.
The difference is the burden of proof. For the initial 6 months, the manufacturer/store has to prove the item was not somehow defective from the beginning, due to manufacturing errors or similar mishaps, even if it broke 5 months and 29 days after the sale.
In the following 18 months, the burden of proof shifts to the buyer, to prove that the fault did not happen to due mistreatment during (ab)use of the item.
In theory maybe. In practice handing it in to a seller with for example a faulty PSU or dead backlight your implicit claim as the buyer is that it was not manufactured to spec (to last at least those two years) and they would have a hard time fighting that claim unless there are obvious traces of mechanical abuse.
I don't know the detail, but the way you put it, "prove that the fault did not happen to due mistreatment" basically means that user has to prove the he didn't do something. I can prove that I did something, but prove I didn't do, that's a whole lot different.
That's why some manufacturers put water "sensors" in cellphones; once water enters, the "sensor" (in quotes because it's not an electronic part) changes its state forever revealing that water poured into the phone even well after it has been cleaned and dried.
Doesn't that make sense, though? If you have a physical product that you use daily, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to ask how a failure after 700+ uses (or many, many more) can be confirmed as a manufacturing issue and not use [over|mis|ab]use.
I don't think overuses should be a reasonable cause for defects within 2 years. If 99.9% of users use it less than X, then covering the last 0.1% is not a significant issue.
The top 5% on the other hand are IMO within normal usage patterns.
The exceptions seem to focus on using consumer products like a coffee maker in an industrial setting. But, 2 years is rather short term to be replacing these devices not to mention the overhead of a regular breakdown > replacement process.
Yes, I think it does. I find it a reasonable balance between weeding out early failures and not letting customers get away with abusing their devices and still claiming a warranty repair.
That would depend on the specific item, I'm sure. For example you can tell if a phone has ever been wet because there will be signs on the interior. No situation will be perfect but at some point the burden of proof has to shift from the company to the user. I think six months is probably a bit soon but sometime between that and two years seems reasonable to me.
Six months, not two years. I personally tend to ignore warranty periods of under a year anyways, since products with such short warranty periods (30-90 days is common here in the US) tend to be cheaper to replace than to get warranty service on anyways.
On the other hand, warranty here in the US can be annoying to deal with anyways--I've failed twice at getting replacements for Samsung flash memory cards that have been in production for less than their warranty period. There a some problems (microsd becoming read-only) that can't be caused by user misuse. That might be more reflective of Samsung as a company, however I've had similar issues with other companies as well.
I actually don't even want to compare numbers or countries directly. I just want to remind that consumption in Western countries exceeds available resources by far. We're bankrupting the planet, it's the wrong path and it simply can't last.
We've finally cracked the nut with renewable resources. Its cost a great deal of environmental damage, but I see no good progression to go from hunter-gatherer to high tech. That's just entropy laws.
Now, it could certainly be argued that certain trajectories should be followed and aren't. But progress costs.
In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price).
Sometimes it's even used in marketing ("bring your old TV, get new one 10% cheaper"), maybe because they need to meet some quotas so they have to actively convince people to bring their old stuff.
I'm not sure what happens with the items they collect, but hopefully it's shipped to some recycling center instead of getting dropped in a landfill, which would be the case when consumers didn't have this option.
Nope. A directive is not a regulation. A directive means the member states must implement into their own law a comparable version of the directive. A regulation is when the countries must enforce the EU regulation as if it were their own law.
(The difference is marked in the case of the General Data Protection Regulation, which will become enforceable in a few months. There is no wiggleroom in interpreting it, compared to its predecessor, the Data Protection Directive, where each member state has implemented their own version, with varying levels of data protection.)
This is very common in the US, although there is no regulation governing it. Most places will take your old appliances away when they deliver your new ones.
Heck, our power company will pay you $35 if you recycle a working fridge or freezer through them. With them coming out to pick it up for free. The idea being that a lot of people stick their old, inefficient fridge in the basement or garage when they get a new one and it sucks down a lot of power.
In Michigan at least, these programs are funded by the taxpayer. $Power_Company gets to make a profit on every crappy fridge they haul away or every LED lightbulb they install.
If the truck has to come back after making deliveries it's usually better to load it up with scrap metal than to send it back empty.
It's a pretty damn good example of the market solving a problem by itself.
This only really falls apart when the cost of new stuff is less than the cost of recycling. High wages are not good for recycling/repair businesses.
When you get new tires on your car most places will take the old ones for free. They get recycled into filler for lower quality rubbers (you can't re-vulcanize rubber, it's like un-baking a cake)
> In Poland, and I believe it's an EU regulation, every seller is obligated to take your old appliances when you buy new ones in the same category. For example when you buy a freezer you can drop your old one for recycling free of charge (so the cost is included in the retail price).
In Italy is the same. Keep in mind that the retail price includes a tax to cover the costs of recycling, so it is not really free :-). The amount depends on the type of appliance. This too should come from an EU directive.
I always thought that a regulation along the lines of "if you sell it, you must give the customer the ability to dispose of it" would be nice. And, yes, I do think that means Amazon would have to have some sort of bricks-and-mortar operation: at minimum there must be a shop owned by someone, which Amazon has a deal with, that you'd be able to drop your discarded Amajunk off at.
Also, I also think we should have a carbon recapture tax added to gasoline, but no one I know really wants to pay an additional tax of 7-10$/gallon.
Amazon wouldn't need a brick-and-mortar operation. Just log into your account and print out a postpaid shipping label. They keep your purchase history; so, you could look up the order and click a link next to the item. There are far more Post Offices than any shops they could make a deal with.
This is good. It also appears that a larger share of US e-waste is actually handled in the US then I remembered (its been trending up since the 1990s i think). I have no idea of the numbers but environmental regulations be equal (which they are not but we can one day they are) this seems more efficient to my brain.
Actually, that is more about rare earth elements being recovered, ever since the Chinese supply scare a few years ago (which is also related to the environment as rare earth processing is incredibly dirty if done cheaply). Anyways, there is a lot more effort to recycle and re-use these elements for economic reasons.
You never ship them individually, you use containers. And it's probably quite efficient: the shipping boats have to return to China anyway to get more stuff.
There's far more stuff coming from China to the west than vice-versa. A ship can't travel empty, but needs to be ballasted with an appropriate weight of cargo. If there isn't enough booked cargo on the return leg to China, they'll make up the weight with scrap metal or rubble.
I'm referring to the shipping of the broken goods to amazon individually. That's the part I'm critical of.
Sure, send them back to China, I don't care, it just seems silly that we would all just mail our broken junk back one piece at a time to AMazon who then puts it in a container and sends it to China.
Better to take it to alocal recycling facility for them to send it en masse. Have Amazon give you a voucher to handle the recycling fee.
Trucks coming from the Amazon warehouse also have to come back.
Still, Amazon just gifted me an item when I tried to return it since I ordered it by mistake (and I was honest on the form). I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to avoid recycling returns too.
> If you tax gas, you effectively tax everything, and that's not okay for any economy.
Why? The purpose of the carbon tax is to capture the negative externality of carbon pollution, and to encourage more energy-efficient industries. Not all parts of the economy use equal amounts of energy, and we should encourage the energy-efficient ones.
I burn carbon when I drive my car to work. I burn much less carbon when I take the bus to work. We want to encourage the latter - carbon taxes let the market do this encouragement. The alternative is doing so by government fiat.
> I burn much less carbon when I take the bus to work.
I understand that. It's the obvious reasoning behind a gas tax.
My entire point is that there are also other effects.
If gas prices raise significantly, then the price of everything - groceries, medication, clothing, cleaning supplies, solar panels, everything - raises, meaning simple things that everyone relies on suddenly become unaffordable to low-wage workers, so their employers suddenly need to raise profits to accommodate the price hike, and raise wages for the bulk of their employees, or (more likely) simply fail, resulting in a significant unemployment increase.
You can't just magically fix climate change by putting the poor out of work, nor should you.
> encourage more energy-efficient industries.
This can be done with much more reasonable methods. Don't forget that transportation is not the only significant source of carbon emissions. The best legislative efforts we can make are to support clean energy (nuclear, wind, solar).
I'm running some code through the profiler right now. I'm working on improving that function that is using 17% of CPU, rather than the dozens clocking in at less than 1%.
If I can get that 17% function to run in 94% of the time, that is a greater gain from less effort than making any of those <1% functions run in 50% of the time.
The same principle applies to air pollution. Focus on the container ships burning bunker oil and the power plants burning coal first. Personal transportation using internal combustion engines is one of those 1% things, and even then, just taxing the gasoline won't help all that much.
As parent mentioned, it will also stifle the economic activity that could allow ordinary people to afford capital investments like at-home solar energy systems. And while one presumes that a "carbon tax" on gasoline fuel should be used to combat air pollution elsewhere, that is not necessarily how it will be spent.
Tax on gasoline like that would only affect the poorest of citizens. Charge it on shares of gasoline producing companies and car companies so their share holders scream at them to move to less carbon-y energy creation mechanisms.
The problem with the US is that outside of a handful of the biggest cities, transit is extremely lacking and the roads aren't bike-friendly at all. It's very difficult to hold down a job without access to a car, especially low wage jobs like retail that change the schedule around on short notice all the time and are often outside the operating hours of transit. You can also get a used car for around $1000, insurance can be had for $30/month, and gas is cheap so owning a car isn't nearly as expensive as some countries. I still drive a car I bought 5 years ago for $1500, it's over 20 years old now but runs fine.
Even some of the big cities (like LA) have woefully lacking transit and everyone just sits in gridlocked traffic for multiple hours every day.
While everything you wrote may be true, the US still seems to be exceptionally bad by international standards. We have a lot of rural communities here in the UK as well, where people also need private transport because the public alternatives are lacking. But our vehicles are a fraction of the size (and have a fraction of the fuel consumption) of some of the giant monstrosities that seems to be much more common in the US, and so even though our fuel prices are much higher (almost entirely due to higher taxes), people living in rural communities still manage to get around. The same is true across much of Europe.
While running a car may be cheap in financial terms in the US, environmentally and in terms of scarce natural resources it is anything but, and at some point the US is going to have to deal with the social acceptability of one person driving an enormous vehicle for long distances many times per week or within our lifetimes there are going to be serious problems.
That already happens, but on a different scale. When Apple has to repair or replace an iPhone, they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding. This is factored into the costs of an iPhone which keeps them 'lower' / profit margins higher.
> they're giving you a remanufactured iPhone using reused internal parts like screws or shielding
And, unless something changed recently, batteries. My iPhone 5 had a faulty charging socket, which got worse. A month after unboxing, it would no longer charge at all, so I handed it in for repair. Got back a unit with half the battery life and a faulty charging socket.
I gave it to a good GSoC student across the world after a second unsuccessful trip to service
Are phone parts "consumable"? I thought "consumable" meant refers to things that get "used up" like milk, ink, pens, etc., not storage media or LCD screens or the like...
Batteries can be consumable after a fashion, as they lose capacity with each charge cycle. The effect can be reduced via certain techniques (depending on the battery chemistry involved), but so far never completely eliminated. Just consider it entropy in action, really.
You absolutely can, but it's currently not cost-effective. On the other hand it looks like it's cheap enough that making it mandatory or putting a recycling deposit on batteries would be viable.
Are battery recycling programs near you not feasible? Our local Home Depot and Best Buy stores will take back rechargeable batteries for recycling for free.
Can you substantiate that? It's clearly at odds with my experience, neither of my two replacement units had a battery life that even came close to unboxed unit.
I just don't buy that every serviced device gets a new battery.
Unfortunately, what ends up happening in most cases is that people make products, give them a ridiculous 1y or 2y warranty, then claim that if there're any problems after that time period you'll have to pay to repair or replace.
In our country we have a law that states a product has to live up to it's reasonably expected life time. So while a manufacturer might give it a warranty and the retailer might give it some special warranty, ultimately, the retailer (which in some cases is the manufacturer if you buy directly) is responsible no matter what. That doesn't go for consumables or software, or if you break it yourself obviously, but a phone or computer for example is of course expected to work for at least 4 or 5 years or so. So if it breaks, you are entitled to support and/or repairs, which also has a limitation on any administrative fees that might apply. It pretty much applies to everything, from cars to washing machines to faucets to electric toothbrushes.
The main EU rule is that you have to have a minimum 2 year warranty. A number of electronics vendors, famously including Apple, had to up their game as a result of this.
However, that is in addition to various other statutory consumer rights about fitness for purpose and being of appropriate quality, which EU member states might have in their national laws as well. Here in the UK, for example, those obligations can run for many years beyond the initial warranty, and can result in repair, replacement or (full or partial) refund for faulty products depending on the circumstances.
In most cases, it's the vendor who took your money who is on the hook legally for these kinds of responsibilities, though in practice of course manufacturers often offer their own warranties to the final customers and/or make supporting arrangements with vendors selling their products.
Unfortunately at present most of these rules only apply to private individuals, and with business purchases caveat emptor and expensive service contracts are often the norm even if a purchase is being made by a small business with no more real leverage against a vendor or manufacturer than a private individual. When it comes to electronic devices like phones and laptops, this is potentially quite a big stumbling block in terms of forcing up standards of maintainability and promoting a "right to repair" to reduce waste.
i think I understand it different, they must give you 2 years warranty, but maybe he is saying they must help you with repair/support (with your own money) 4-5 years
kinda similar like car parts, warranty is like 3-5 years (or 100K km) but parts must be available like 10 years or something
A digression, but I doubt screws are one of the parts the retain for re-manufactured devices, is that really true? I thought those screws they use with the thread-lock coatings were only rated for one insertion.
This is exactly what the EU WEEE directive is. It makes only a very small difference, although it did result in action against anti-refill ink cartridges.
> All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with carbon energy products, the entire world is forced to pay for the environmental externalities rather than the actual tech users.
Well, let’s see what a leading company is saying about that:
”We believe our goal should be a closed-loop supply chain, where products are built using only renewable resources or recycled material”[0]
It’s not quite the cyberpunk dream of being able to repair anything with a soldering iron in 30 minutes, but it’s a very critical step to reach. We’re slowly getting there.
It's not just cypherpunks and hardware hackers. We in the occult communities also very much believe in the same ideals. In fact, this saying is what this discussion reminded me of:
Nidhogg's Rule: Recycling. There is no such place as Away, so be careful what you throw there. Recycle, give away, don't waste, find a place for it somewhere else. This includes people as well as things.
Current policy overemphasizes recycling. Recycling is the last resort. First reduce or reuse, which are far superior. Throwing away would normally not even be a serious option, but this world's people are kinda brain damaged.
Indeed. But I would set the blame at manufacturers at this view.
The last time I got a circuit schematic was with my Icom radio. And even with that, still received none of the firmware. "Proprietary".
Ideally, mechanical drawings, circuit schematics, and firmware would enable a great deal of repair and 3d party parts replacement. But the idea of allowing that isn't capitalist - in fact it goes directly against selling more to replace (planned obsolescence).
I would heartily like to have a library of parts I can refer to, designs I can 3d print parts as needed, firmware access to correct issues. But this all flies in direct opposition with "commercial" opportunities, save a very few.
It's also why I highly prefer free/open source hardware, with as much details how it works available. That's the only way to guarantee that your hardware doesn't get abandoned - there's always someone who has a similar problem.
Just require all manufacturers to charge a disposal deposit when selling any consumer electronics. Consumer gets the deposit back upon returning the device to an authorized center for disposal or recycling. A $15 deposit would probably give most people sufficient incentive to do the right thing.
You can thank Louis Rossmann, in part, for this one.
His livelihood does depend on it (although he has acknowledged that, as electronics get more disposable, he will inevitably end up having to shift into something like software or hardware design), but he has made a really admirable effort of actually going boots-on-the-ground and lobbying at political hearings.
Even though I'm a programmer and not really a hardware guy, I find watching him repairing stuff very interesting and oddly satisfying. He often even does all this on a live stream.
PS. For some reason most of his videos get a "do you want a website" preroll ad, which is already a running joke on his streams.
He's freaking awesome. Have you seen the videos he has on the kinds of arguments Apple makes to prevent the right-to-repair become a thing? They're quite eye-opening and really gets to the heart of how ridiculous the whole situation is.
They basically all boil down to trade secrets and "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products".
Personally, I don't see how gerber files with board layouts and selling replacement components violates any trade secrets, considering the former is readily reverse-engineered (even if you can't easily determine exact routing for things in layers not on the board surface) and the latter poses them no risk either.
As for what boils down to the "people are stupid" argument, that's just BS and they know it.
> "it's dangerous to let people repair these sensitive products"
One has to ask what's really more likely to destroy my life - the glass of the iPhone I clumsily tried to repair, or the shit I wrote on that iPhone...
I'm neutral on his political stances. I think either a strong shift towards extremely free markets (i.e., healthcare and education highly privatized and non-subsidized), or towards highly regulated markets (i.e., healthcare and education fully publicized and price-regulated) would both be a step in the right direction. Either case seems like it lends towards cheaper services. There's something to be said for age old Adam Smith principles, but I think the "FEWER REGULATIONS!" statement requires more nuance than most people who espouse it tend to afford.
I feel like we're at the very bottom of a parabolic curve right now where everyone is getting fucked due to fake money being injected into these systems. I think above all, what everyone can agree on, is that the individual should come first, and policy should follow. The amount of large businesses with their hands in politics is really the struggle he's crusading against.
I can definitely see where he comes from as a small business owner -- it seems like the same injustice that individuals feel towards certain sections of the upper class is magnified. I think it's helpful to hear small-business owners' side of the argument, because they really are the ones who stand to be hurt most by moving further left, unless done with careful tact.
Denmark is very left-wing compared to the US (still, though our "dear" government is trying to undo that), and yet has been rated one of the best countries to do business in.
"Left-wing politics are anti-business" is a huge fallacy.
I've been thinking recently that there is exists a completely unxplored market in tech. Local shops based around FOSS / open hardware where designers, hardware and software people work together to build custom projects for their clients. I would call this person a "technology artisan", because the closest analogue I can think of is a tailor or a carpinter.
So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs. Or perhaps a local band would commision some custom-made Raspberry Pi-based synthesizer with fancy lights for a show (https://youtu.be/_nBK8sAl9nw)
To the consumer, it would mean not only devices tailored to their needs, but also ones that are cheap and simple to get repaired and extended, because they would be based on open standards. No lock-ins, no secret surveilance.
What makes me think this is possible is how big the hobby space is around all these hackable technologies (raspberry pi / arduino, 3D printing, electronics)... people are already building home media centres and farm bots in their back yard just for fun. Hacker spaces are already a thing -- make them a service!
Custom software development is not an unexplored market. There are literally thousands of companies, many of them small & local, offering those services. It's just that we do so to other businesses, since it's way too expensive to develop custom stuff for single individuals.
I've built a coin-operated electric candle stand[1] for a local theater group. I'm just an amateur at electronic circuits, and I'm sure a professional would have spent less time on it, but even at half my hourly price, I would have blown half their production budget.
You could say some builders would be willing to take a pay cut to work within your community, but frankly, doing one-off toys to upper-middle-class people is not my idea of community service. I'd rather have a well paying job writing B2B software and then work for free for people in actual need.
I've heard that before, but I'm not convinced. Supposedly clients treat you better if they're paying, but in my experience, the correlation doesn't hold. At least by not charging I feel freer to walk away when I'm not being respected.
Yeah. I'm not convinced either. I do little things for various small non-profits/volunteer organizations and I've basically never had anyone bug me because it took me a bit longer to get to something than I anticipated. If I'm paying someone market rates to do a task, you can be sure that I'll be doing the "when will it be done?" thing if they get behind schedule.
My specific problem was : client claiming intellectual property over my work. If I work for free, my work is my work but somehow the claim was made.
Then you have bugs, months after delivering, and you can't say "no I won't fix it". So although you don't want to work anymore, you still have to.
Then you have new functionalities. You are burned out with the project but there is this little thing that your friend/customer really needs. And you don't want to do it, and since you've never been paid, you'll do it for free again and you'll get burned out some more... So no compensation.
Now you can argue that the problem here is not the money, but the lack for a proper contract, that'd be right. But the money question automatically brings the contract question. That's why I say : don't work for free, ever.
Your instincts are correct, you're describing the future. But there's a problem preventing it from working today.
Your idea only really works if you can get a large number of these artisans on board, across many disciplines, and keep their "dance card" stocked.
The issue is that solving any problem in software costs about $1000. And typically if you want to solve one problem you need to solve 2-20 others first.
Your mention of open source is key here. Every pizza place in the world probably has a dozen information problems that would be worth solving, but most of them aren't going to be willing to spend $100,000 to do it, even in 10 installations.
But of those 10 problems, 9 or 10 of them are not core IP for them. So something like 95% of the budget could be split across like 1000 pizza places, driving that cost to $1-20 which is a much more manageable cost.
So you need some sort of bond to finance these projects across 1000 clients.
And second, when you split the design work across 1000 clients all paying in a different moment, you end up with 990 little gigs and 10 big ones and the 990 are too small to be worth the overhead for your artisan. To make those worthwhile you need some infrastructure for turning those contracts into 5 minute non interactive (no customer support) deliveries, and packing them into a stocked queue that can pay the artisan'a rent. I.e. If there's one new pizza joint on a Tuesday afternoon, there are 50 other 5 minute tasks that they can also do so they aren't waiting around for pizza joints and getting nothing done.
And when a pizza joint needs analytics while that artisan is on vacation, you need another artisan who can step in.
So that's a two sided market, which is a notoriously hard startup problem.
And lastly, these information problems are not all code problems. There is design and stats and customer service and other stuff mixed in there. So you need a stable of design artisans, customer service artisans, etc. which means we're talking about an n-sided market.
Which the startup world has, as far as I'm aware, no known examples of.
There are plenty of small companies doing exactly those kinds of projects for SMBs; I worked for one for five years (it's still doing fine, I just moved on).
Rather than a bond, which would be unwieldy to implement, we'd take a risk: we develop it for the first few customers for a percentage of the cost, but keeping all rights to the code so we can then reuse it. Some projects pay their bills and some more, others not so much.
As for the n-sided market, we used the typical solution: having employees.
In our case, we used an open source platform (Odoo) which comes with the generic business modules - CRM, Accounting, Invoicing, ERP, etc - and which allowed us to build integrated functionality for the specific industry. We had clients of all sorts, from one-man dental offices to international clothing manufacturers.
(Disclaimer: I still work with Odoo, but I was never an Odoo SA employee)
I would argue the issuance of the bond and the separate market for holding risk is key.
Developing a market is key to being able to fund smaller and smaller client segments. This is what I talked about above... with a single origin of corporate ownership there is an upper bound on the number of managers. You need to separate into two markets to meet the entire demand. It's just a matter of graph traversal distances. N corporate boards cannot manage N^2 managers.
But N^2/10 agents can manage N^2 managers. And they take 25%.
> a hodge-podge of insecure, half baked solutions?
That's exactly what the commercial market of Internet of Things devices is so far. You couldn't really make it worse by putting a replaceable ESP8266 or BeagleBone at the heart of each of these gadgets.
After two or three similar people have had their custom thingy build the next person could use the "off the shelf" open source solution with a little customization.
> So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs.
I am a software developer and consultant and you do not figure how insanely expensive I am - when your family comes through the doors of my artisanal soldering boutique and demands a custom built home automation system, I would suggest them to invest the money in a long, long vacation with the whole family instead.
Sure but you wouldn't pay a chainsaw sculptor to cut down a tree, you'd pay a lumberjack. You can already go to a hackerspace and pay a guy a couple hundred bucks to build you something basic so long as it's mildly ineresting.
With kids growing up playing with Raspberry Pis, in 10-20 years I don't think your comment's parent is such a farfetched idea.
Unfortunately, that's also the story of how Internet of Things (well-known by other nouns) was born.
This works perfectly well for non-so-smart stuff (thermostats, automatic cat doors, etc etc) but when you increase complexity (smart home system) you need engineers with higher qualifications and better expertise. And that's expensive (unless someone volunteers and works for pennies, but that quickly gets stressful - literally not worth it).
(Not like off-the-shelf solutions are any better. They were also born that way - by lowest spending necessary.)
> So, for example, a family would go to their local technology artisan to put together a smart home system tailored specifically to their needs.
I'm getting a bit tired of the smart home system example. We've seen projects for smart home systems in DIY magazines since the 70s. These projects never really took off, and turned into businesses (Nest being a notable exception). It's something people don't really need or even want.
Hackerspaces / makerspaces are full of this already even if it's not their primary focus. For example, I know two people at hackerspaces who make large interactive art pieces for concerts and festivals.
Anyone in this thread know or should know THE GUY who tackles these considerations from the orthogonal position — AvE ("Arduinio vs Evil").
He cracks gear open before he's ever turned it on to look for build quality and/or any janky crap, then reassembles and runs it after. (No, he's not batting 1.000, but he's good.)
Classic teardown here of some sweet gear from the <hint> fourth smallest country (area) in Europe (0m37s, 1m06s & 1m21s are +1 moments, btw.)
I'm behind on the comments but I hope someone linked back to the "It Should Last Fifty Years" thread from the past ~12 mo or so: highly relevant to the topic at hand.
Honorable mention to the coffee grinders' manufacturer Baratza. They publish detailed instructions on how to repair their grinders, make videos showing how it's done, sell replacement parts and recommend service centers.
This actually factored into my purchasing decision when I got a baratza grinder. I'd been using a hand crank burr grinder for about a year, and figured it was worth getting an electric one. Mine is pretty easy to disassemble, there's mods available (mostly ways to trick it out) and I've taken it apart to adjust the grind already (plus to clean it and so on).
For me, it was youtube videos of the grinders being used / reassembled / cleaned that made up my mind. I mean, if you're going to spend $200+ on a grinder, it's nice to know ahead of time that you can fiddle with it.
A long time ago I read a Science Fiction short story about a society where everything was unrepairable, throwaway and came with expiry dates.
Does not seem too much like Science Fiction nowadays...
EDIT:
I wonder if anyone might remember the name of the story: The basic plot is a business man living in a throwaway society manages to convince a dying man to sell him his personally developed car. A car that has been built to last for decades. The business man eventually succeeds by promising to respect the philosophy of the dying man and the manufacturing of machines built to last. As he is driving the magnificent car away he starts thinking of the "improvements" he will make. That loud analogue clock on the dashboard could be replaced by a digital clock and that gear lever knob that could be made from a modern plastic....
Dont know that particular one, but Janusz A. Zajdel (one of the best Polish sf writers, up there with Lem of Solaris fame) wrote a short story about total planned obsolescence society "...et in pulverem reverteri" (published in https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7539053-ogon-diab-a )
TLDR: Someone invents a catalyst able to revert any product back to dust after precisely set lifetime, every country adopts it to ensure steady employment across whole planet. Pants? 3 monts, wrist watch? 1 year, car? 2 years, etc. Can you guess what could and did go wrong? ;)
> "That seems like somewhat of a weak ending, .. "
I hardly think I gave the story justice, since it is based on my memory from something like 20 years ago or more and I am sure I am misremembering the specifics.
But to address the points that were raised:
It is a convertible and plastic does not do well in the sun. Then next year the company decides that they can save 50% on manufacturing cost by using a cheaper and thinner plastic, which would only last 10 years, rather than the decades of the alloy it replaced originally, but that is more than enough time for any car. Then soon after that the company decides that 10 years is still too long and they can save even more by.....
First a digital clock, then a digital clock that gets wifi updates, then a digital clock that tracks and transmits your locations, then a digital clock that won't work unless the company sends a heartbeat code, then...you get the idea...it is a slippery slope.
I've read the story, but frustratingly can't remember its title or who wrote it.
The ending works well because everything in the car is handmade and overengineered, and the "improvements" are all cost-saving measures. In doing so, he ends up making the car nothing like the original and nearly the same as the cars the maker was reacting to.
I am the proud owner of a Laptop, that I can enjoy for years to come, since I can upgrade and replace disks, RAM and battery (hint: it's the last Macbook Pro that allowed this).
Recently my smartphone battery died and I could order a new one for less than $10 and replace it in 20 seconds.
Both devices are more that four years old but I am not going to replace them with something, that does not have at least this amount of repairability.
Smartphones and laptops with soldered batteries, RAM or SSD? Come on, these things are not throwaway devices - even if this is what marketing wants you to believe.
I think the trend of reclassifying popular commodities or opportunities as "rights" is pretty tacky, and ultimately counterproductive.
What you should really want, if you like reparability, is a market for reparable goods. In general, it will be more costly than mass-produced integrated goods, but foisting repair opportunities onto every consumer product will ultimately make people less satisfied with the products on the market, and it will make those products less accessible (and more expensive).
As for cars, I think there's a real market opportunity to make your cars exceptionally open to repair, but I don't think mandating it is a good idea. Especially as powertrain designs become more and more complex, the likelihood that you will be able to correctly reassemble them dwindles. The onus must remain on the customers and technicians to meet the technical demands of repair.
A line in the sand must be drawn between "difficult to repair" and "illegal to repair". The first is at the hands of the customer, the second, the legislature.
As for software, sure, the DMCA is unfair, it should have been struck down long ago. It is being abused constantly, and serves little or no practical purpose except to enable abuse.
Nothing is being "reclassified." Look at John Deere tractors - thanks to the licensing of the software running on those tractors, combined with the DMCA, people do not have the right to repair them. Yes, they bought the tractor, but they will be breaking the law if they fix the tractor themselves.
Being able to work on a machine you own sounds much more like a "right" than an "opportunity" to me.
I'm specifically not arguing for the DMCA provisions which legally protect physical objects based on the copyright on data encoded in them. That is not the whole of what is being argued for, though.
Repair is not a right, ownership is. The problem here is that the DMCA allows something that you consider your property to be ultimately owned by somebody else even after you purchase it.
The problem with smartphones is entirely separate, it's a question of convenience and practicality for third-party repair shops and people who can afford repair tooling for their own devices.
I object to the idea that manufacturers should have a duty to package and sell separately replacement parts for their goods on the open market.
It is natural to phrase it as a right. People have been able to do this for the entirety of human history, every moment in every civilization repairing things has been legal. In fact, it has been celebrated, respected as something obviously good. It is not good for the profit of some large corporations so it is now, for the first time, being banned.
It was never thought of as a right before because it is so obviously acceptable and good that nobody had even conceived that somebody might try to deny it.
Planned obsolescence is why I will never invest more than 100 euros into a phone. I will always wait to buy low-priced, fast enough for me hardware.
I still remember how my macbook pro started to be slow and unusable after OSX updates.
My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore.
I don't like Apple products, but it surely is funny that they realized they were making durable products and started to see it as a problem.
In my recent experience, my Mac has got faster after each macOS update. They seem to be putting a lot of effort into performance.
I'm just not seening the evidence of this "planned obsolescence". I would put it on the level of a conspiracy theory. Little hard evidence in favour, but anecdoes accepted as fact by those inclined to believe them.
As a counter-anecdote, as it happens I'm typing this on my 2011 Mac mini, my main work machine, which is still going strong. Just upgraded to High Sierra - the seventh major OS version this machine has seen. It's working well and and no sign of Apple trying to force me to buy anything new.
What? Apart for ink cartridges, for which some manufacturers are know to have some hard counters, this list is beyond ridiculous. Planned obsolescence means a conscious design to fail at a certain mark, a carefully evaluated MTBF in order to extract financial gain.
1. Just a description: "planned obsolescence" is wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers.
2. Some ink cartridges are know to have hard counters, so that's one OK, but the recommendation is about taking a risk: third party ink might not be up to spec and clog things up (happens).
3. Backwards compat on SNES would have meant including the NES hardware into the SNES, driving costs up. Plus this happened in a modular way with addons such as the Super Game Boy. Also, the PS2, X360 and PS3 shelf life are a testament to the dedication of keeping things up and running. Also also, suddenly not keeping the old hardware around to throw it away somehow contradicts later claims of "buying used instead of new".
4. This is only valid with the cooperation of lazy teachers: "refer to exercise 4 on page 32". I've been using 10+ years old books to learn and teach math, physics, french, history... New editions strive to streamline the experience, fix mishaps, and comply with legal requirements and state-mandated education programs.
5. Fashion, by definition, is zeitgeist. Culture and style evolve, there's no conspiracy at play, this is human nature creatively plowing forward.
6. What's the benefit for MS to make people buy new computers? I don't see the logic here. If anything, people are less inclined to buy new software if it makes them buy a new computer. Do you really think there's a shady deal between Adobe and Dell so that Adobe makes its software hungrier and receive a cut on sales because Dell sales would go up? Maintaining old versions has a cost, and unless you want to ceaselessly accrete dead weight like a black hole you have two choices: go forward and cut dead weight at some point, or not go forward and be stuck in the past (because obviously everything was better back in the day, y'know). Also, software is made by people, and those people need to eat (even FOSS folks!), plus increasingly said software rely on services that need to be kept up running, and that has a cost too. Nothing entitles you to receive a lifetime of upgrades after paying a couple bucks (if at all). Expecting (almost coercing!) people to do what you want for free has a name: exploitation.
7. Nothing prompts you to buy a new car every year. People would be surprised at the number of common parts cars share if they were even remotely interested in mechanics. Not only the whole statement contradicts 3. but how would you buy used if nobody bought new cars and resold them? Also, there's not just old cars pollute more and are less safe.
8. I've yet to see a battery that outright disables itself after a set number of cycle use. Batteries are designed to last at least a given number of cycles, not at most. LiPo, which has taken the world by storm due to its lack of memory effect and outstanding performance and durability, is extremely dangerous to handle. Requirements as well as improvements in hardware have been plateauing, which makes it less appealing to have things componentized for upgrades. Hardware durability has dramatically increased too. The whole thing contributes to people changing stuff less often instead of more because it just works, for longer stretches of time. Again there is no wilful intent to cripple things. There is one egregious case that can be made about Android phones, but that's got more to do about lack of focus, misguided bullet-point differentiation strategy and subsequent lack of resource to keep phones up to date than a grim large scale scam.
9. Ah, light bulbs. Great example. You know, if you get cheap, badly engineered crap, it has a high probability of both being less efficient and not last long. That's not a grand evil scheme, that's just "Want cheap? Get crap."
So, we get it, turning a profit is bad, corporations are evil and conspire to exploit the masses. Because that's what "planned obsolescence" is about: wilful design into failure that makes one turn a greater profit at the expense of consumers. How cynical a view is that, pushed by people that have no clue about what engineering is: designing within terrible, unfathomable physics, monetary and human constraints the best product you can. Abusive practices do exist, but seriously, most of the time it's just cost pressure or bad design (probably one driving the other). This kind of list is way too superficial and does nothing to make things better.
"New editions strive to streamline the experience, fix mishaps, and comply with legal requirements and state-mandated education programs."
True story: I was ICDCS '98, perusing the textbooks with my advisor and some of his ex-students, and see the new (6th?) edition of Silberschatz's OS book. "Oh, yeah", one of my advisor's older students says, "Avi does have another kid going to college this year."
My laptop (Thinkpad X60) is over 10 years old and still works well for what I use it for. There's even an FSF-approved free BIOS for it.
My desktop is approaching 8 years, and I haven't found it limiting either, only buying more storage for it over time.
I also have a backup server that's nearly 20 years old. All it does is serve disks so it doesn't need to be very fast either.
It really depends on what you do and how you do it. Someone with more hardware demands or just using more bloated software would find systems of my specification unbearably slow, but they'd probably say the same of the very latest today.
I have found that dual-core+ desktop machines from the mid-2000s last quite awhile. Laptops can be a mixed bag depending on how upgradable the internals are / how powerful the internal GPU is.
I gave my sister recently a T420s that I had lying around, and the thing still screams.
> My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years. I know software is evolving quickly, but there comes a point where I don't think you need to upgrade your hardware, the hardware is just fast enough to do certain things with today's software. At one point, software should stop changing so often. Then maybe we won't need to toss hardware anymore.
I just sold a 4.5 year old 15" MacBook Pro for A$1550, it was originally A$3500. That makes the TCO equation look very nice indeed. And we only replaced it because my wife got a 12" for travel.
I have the next model along 15" MBP (still 2013) and I'll keep it until it is a year out of macOS updates, then sell it. It's done pro-level photo and video editing, still plays Starcraft etc just fine, and is a great dev machine.
I just repaired a 2009 iMac (hard drive failure), and it's also still supported by the latest macOS.
Just got a 4 year old iPad repaired for $A90. It's stuck on iOS 9, and slow for web browsing, but still works fine as a PDF reader, note taker, and a few games for the kids.
I can see a day coming where the same will be true of phones. But I get new iPhones now: to play with the newest tech, it's my primary camera for documenting family life. The "newest hardware" in iOS devices is supporting stuff like running neural net image recognition over entire photo libraries, doing 4K video capture and editing, and of course running whatever latest web monstrosity is out. People who don't want those features are fine to stick with older phones; I know quite a few family members still on iPhones 4S and 5.
My desktop is 7 years old, admittedly that is a 3.3GHz Phenom II X6 with 16GB RAM, the highest available configuration on that socket/motherboard. It's still going strong, though of course it struggles with some newer games, which isn't as relevant to me as it used to be.
My laptop is a refurb T420, around 5-6 years old. Runs Linux Mint and all the apps I need with no issues at all, still gets 5+ hours on battery.
Computers have been "fast enough" for a long time.
My desktop is an old Optiplex 760, apparently made in 2008, and its my main "home office" computer. I bought it from a public auction web site from the local university for around $20-30. I wiped Windows XP and installed Ubuntu. I upgraded the RAM to 6 GB for next to nothing (the limit is 8, I think). I've used it for nearly 3 years for daily use, general computing, and sometimes computationally intensive, days-long numerical experiments for research. Is it a top-of-the-line machine? No, but for grad student with virtually no budget, it suffices quite nicely.
My previous MacBook worked 8 years - needed a battery replacement and an upgrade to a SSD. Granted it was a sluggish last year using it.
My current MacBook has lasted me 3 years already and unless something drastic happens I can see it lasting another 3 easily. Only issue is the battery replacement might be more costly (old MacBook had a removable battery). HDD performance shouldn't be a bottleneck for me either, but who knows what's around the corner in tech.
Obviously a gaming computer or something meant for advanced computing isn't going to last that long.
"My real wish is that one day, computer or smartphone hardware might last at least 5 or even 10 years."
My current System76 Gazelle is going on 6 years old. The battery has been mostly dead (I can change outlets without shutting down but not much more) and the NVidia graphics have never actually worked right under Linux, but with 16GB and a 2800MHz i7 it's fine for development and I haven't found anything to replace it with.
I'm going on 10 years with my gaming rig now. I've given it 2 video card upgrades. (It has a i7 965 Extreme, and cost a lot new, but I only paid $150 for it, and it's been amazing.) I do resent that I can't do such things with a laptop.
"In the future, repairability is likely to become even more of an issue, says Kyle Wiens, iFixit's chief executive. Not only do firms want customers to use authorised dealers, but a growing number of products are also no longer stand-alone devices, but rather delivery vehicles for services that generate additional revenues."
Hey, you think this is bad - look at enterprise networking gear. Cisco and Juniper try to convince people it's illegal to use "grey market" (resold) equipment because the software license is "non-transferrable", so even if you "own" the hardware you don't have a license for the software attached to it. Of course, this flies in the face of the first-sale doctrine and established case law, but they don't care.
Just wait, somebody is going to try it with consumer devices sooner or later.
So MegaCorp A buys a huge amount of Cisco gear to modern their internal networks in all their infrastructure.
Two years later OmniCorp B enters into a deal to add them to their portfolio for whatever price they agreed upon. OmniCorp B now owns the physical Cisco gear but doesn't have a license to use it?
Having started to use a safety razor recently, I'm starting to think that the impetus for moving to cartridge razors was just to make the refills harder to interchange and less of a commodity.
I said "fuck it" and bought a $30 corded trimmer, 5 years ago. It's still perfectly sharp enough to take of my beard and hair, it just needs a drop of oil once in a while.
Since male-pattern hair loss runs heavy in my family anyway, I decided to just buzzcut myself once a week on the lowest setting. For the limited shaving I do (sometimes my head, but usually just the edges of my beard), safety razors are so much better than cartridges.
They're cheaper, they last longer and it's so much easier to do accurate beard edges.
Along similar lines, if you get isopropyl alcohol (I use 90% grade, but 70% may also work), after using your razor, dry it off, and spray your razor with the alcohol, the alcohol displaces any remaining water and sanitizes at the same time. It makes the razor last longer. Works on electric razors, too.
Way back when, someone in school did some sort of senior project along these lines. Yeah, as I recall, most of the accumulated damage to razor blades is associated with corrosion rather than wear from cutting.
The interesting bit for me is that safety razors are nearly impossible to find in normal shops probably because they would be less profitable for the shops too.
Sell a pack of 5 cartridges that last MAYBE a week each (pushing it, you suck it up because they’re so expensive even though they’ve already lost their edge after a single use) for $5-10, or a box of 500 blades that you can change for every shave for over a year for $5. Yeah, retailers love this garbage
It's still doable, and lots of great online guides and videos on how to repair smartphones, laptops etc.
I replaced my smartphone earpiece, following an ifixit.com guide. Was initially daunted, given the expense of the handset, but it just took a set of mini screwdrivers and a wedge, 20 minutes, and has been working good as new for the last 3 months. Very satisfying experience.
I had a similar experience, with my iPhone 6 wifi/bluetooth/GPS antenna. Started seeing degraded connectivity and Googled around till I had it narrowed down to that antenna. Was nervous about ripping it apart so first took it to the Apple store with my diagnosis - they said the only choice was to buy a new phone.
So, I borrowed my buddy's pentalobe driver set and about an hour later had pulled the logic board out, replaced the antenna, and buttoned it all back up. That's been about a year ago and it's still working perfectly. And the new antenna was something like $6 on Amazon...
...and chances are that was simply a solder joint or similar that cracked from the vibration of normal use, since antennae absolutely do not "wear out" from just transmitting or receiving.
Oh absolutely, it uses an attachment that is kind of like a very tiny 9-volt battery terminal, with a nub on one side and a circular spring clip on the other. The one of the four spring clips on the antenna broke off and remained attached to the logic board as I recall, so just had to pop the now-orphaned clip off the logic board after removing the antenna and snap the new one into place.
Yep. I replaced my Nexus 4's USB connector (and the separate little PCB it's mounted on). It was really easy. The hardest part was getting the case open, which took some patience.
I really get frustrated at how many small appliances I end up throwing out. It just doesn't make sense to repair a food processor that breaks. This stuff that's made with a plastic housing doesn't last more than 5 years in my house.
Then I look over at my Kitchenaid mixer. You know the iconic one that would look right at home in the kitchen of the 1960s. It's constructed durably, it's repairable, and people go out of their way to spend more to get it. I can get it repaired if it breaks. Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer?
At this point, I'd be glad to pay double for a washer, dryer, refrigerator, or microwave that lasted more than 7 years. But no matter the gamut of models available at Sears or Lowes, they're all made by the same few manufacturers, and they're all crap. The only option is to pay TEN times as much for commercial-grade units.
Supposedly Miele's white goods are better than most other brands. They're on average 3-5x times more expensive, so they have plenty of margins to make durable products.
> Why can't all appliances be like my Kitchenaid mixer?
Because people don't like to spend extra for quality products. For most appliances, there are brands that sell quality versions which will last for years, but lots of people just look for the lowest priced one with the features that they want, and buy it.
Why don't we just pay for services instead of buying products? This pushes the problem of maintenance to the service provider, thus making it more efficient and thus cheaper and more environment-friendly. Also, it completely eliminates the problem of planned obsolescence.
There are some downsides, such as that usage of the service outside the contract becomes impossible, so contracts should be sufficiently broad (and not targeting just the average people). And you don't "own" your product (which could be a psychological problem). But I guess that's about it.
Now, when Steam decides that you have violated their ToS in some way, they will close your account and lock you out of everything you bought. This happens, rarely, but happens.
Do you want to be dependant on an idea of a corporation that they will treat you fair?
Are you OK to give away your washing machine and oven just because you had troubles with finances and you missed one payment?
We're more dependent on corporations when we buy things, since we have given them all the money upfront. A service model gives us more leverage.
As someone who had to throw away a washing machine because the company wouldn't service it, I would have very much preferred a rental model where the loss would have been theirs.
To flip your question: Are you okay not being able to buy a washing machine because you couldn't make a significant one-time payment? Are you okay with your investment going waste because the company wouldn't service it? I would say no to both.
> We're more dependent on corporations when we buy things, since we have given them all the money upfront. A service model gives us more leverage.
No, we aren't and no, it doesn't. Buying things up-front means your interaction with a corporation is brief and to the point. With service model, they get to gouge you for money and restrict the things you can do with the item you now don't own, but rent.
> Are you okay not being able to buy a washing machine because you couldn't make a significant one-time payment?
There are plenty of ways to amortize that using third parties that have no interest in limiting your control over the washing machine.
Also, it's you who get to choose when to do the purchase. Once you enter a contract, you'd better have a stable paycheck for the entire duration of it, or you'll be SOL.
That's wrong. A service model gives me leverage — I stop paying the rent whenever I want and return the washing machine. Maybe you have a different service model in mind, like a contract, in which case we'd naturally disagree, but I'm not talking about such a model.
Neither do I care about my flexibility to modify my washing machine. All I care is that it washes my clothes well.
> That's wrong. A service model gives me leverage — I stop paying the rent whenever I want and return the washing machine.
It's more inconvenient to you not to be able to use a washing machine when you need it than it is for a service provider to have a random customer unable to pay them on time.
It seems that I didn't explain the model I have in mind: the washing machine would be installed in my house, and I pay them a monthly fee, which I can discontinue any time, at which point they'll come take away their washing machine.
In this model, I have the washing machine to use whenever I need it. If it breaks, or if I need a bigger capacity model, or I'm not happy with its performance, I can immediately switch to another supplier. Paying for the entire machine up front closes my options. They already have my money, so they can offer poor service and get away with it.
The entire point of the article is that you (or a local technician) should be allowed and able to repair your washing machine and not rely on the company exclusively to fix it. Having to throw it away is exactly because you don't really own it without the right to repair. You "own" a machine that it is impossible and illegal to fix or modify, which is not ownership at all, which means you already are renting it as a service, the company has just lied to you by redefining ownership in a way that makes them more money.
Not true — it's neither impossible nor illegal to get someone to fix my washing machine. It's just that I don't know who's reliable, and will it cause severe problems, like a flood. Or will it break up when rotating at high speed, hurting whoever is next to it? I merely chose to throw it away and buy another one.
The point of my comment above, and amelius's if I understand correctly, is that a service model eliminates this risk from the buyer. I'll be able to get another washing machine without incurring a financial loss.
What matters at the end of the day is having a working, safe, reliable washing machine. Having a right to repair is only a means to this end, and not an end to itself. A service model is another means to this end. Don't confuse the means for the ends and entertain only one means.
Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people.
Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
> Goods and services are always (and will always be) separate for those at the top of the economic food chain. Why should it be different for those who are less privileged? Looks like a likely avenue for exploiting or at least taking control/power/freedom from other people.
Can you come up with a concrete scenario?
> Don’t count on service quality laws to make up the disparity caused by losing the right to full ownership of one’s property.
Yeah, but now we're fighting for the "right to repair". And we need to fight for the "right of a clean environment". And a "right of no planned obsolescence". Seems much more complicated to me than just getting the incentives right in the first place.
I am afraid this solution could kill second-hand market with "service providers" not happy to dispose of old products to keep the prices high.
Would iPhone allow the second-hand market for their phones? Not likely, thus keeping a huge part of the less fortunate population out of the possibility to get hands-on premium products.
Your model could be an addition to the current service model, not a replacement.
The current events cited in the article serve as examples.
There aren’t a lot of universal human “rights” that are self-evident in the context of common law, but the few that are ought to be held as absolutely sacred and inalienable. Property ownership is one of them.
You can say that again. Just look at the John Deere debacle that's been happening for an exceptionally good example of why this is a terrible idea. Physical good = ownership = full end-user control. Anything less is dangerous for consumers.
The problem is that keeping things the old way apparently doesn't work out too well for the environment. Moving to services aligns the incentives such that the environment can benefit, and the use of products can become cheaper too.
So, imho, what we should do is give customers who use services better rights.
Yeah, companies forcing people to buy new crap all the time because the old stuff is discontinued and customers are locked out from fixing it themselves is definitely good for the environment.
I don't know why you are being downvoted for asking a question, but I think it's incredibly important to educate people on the dangers of your proposal, i.e. to answer it.
A short answer is "everything Stallman has ever warned us about (most of which has already come to pass)."
A longer answer contains many, many reasons, so I'll just throw out some paragraphs.
Ownership is more than psychological, it's about your right and ability to do what you want with your stuff. It's also about whether your stuff is designed to help you or to work against you. "Do what you want" includes modifications, repair, and any usage that you might want even if not officially sanctioned by the company. If you don't own your stuff, you can't control whether it's tracking you and sending back data about you. You can't control whether one day the company goes out of business, or gets bought by a new owner, or decides for liability reasons or whatever that they should remotely disable or recall the product (maybe at the moment you need it most).
There's also a reason that "rents" are a hugely important concept in economics. In general, the renter is open to exploitation by the rentee who continually makes money not by creating additional new welfare/value but due to a historical circumstance, i.e. being the one who originally owned the thing being rented.
More issues: paying for services actually accentuates the problem of planned obsolescence, because it gives the service-provider the ability to terminate or alter terms of the deal at intervals (or immediately via software update) thus virtually forcing an upgrade.
When products are built to actually last, buying is perfectly environmentally-friendly. If you look at a mid-20th-century family's home, almost everything in it was built to last for decades -- furniture, appliances, vehicles, even clothing (with appropriate repairs). That was a result of the purchasing equilibrium. Many people have had to move toward the renting equilibrium where they don't expect to own things permanently, and the stuff they own is crap.
I'll stop there, but reiterate that the number 1 issue is ownership and control. I suggest you try the thought experiment of placing goods on a scale from "most ownership" (purchased for long-term reasons, customizable, repairable) to "least ownership" (comes with terms and conditions, may be updated or changed by the company at any time), and evaluate each good by how long it lasts, environmental-friendliness, how much it respects the rights of the user versus the wishes of the producer, and how much it is subject to planned obsolescence. (Starter: the iPhone is on the far end in all categories.)
So you don't think that we can capture all of what you said in laws that protect the consumer?
Also, how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you. E.g. paying someone to do your laundry instead of buying a washing machine. The person you hire can choose any means of doing your laundry, including putting a washing machine in your home.
If that's causing problems with exploitation, isn't that a fundamental flaw in our economy, rather than with the idea of preferring services over products?
> Also, how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you. E.g. paying someone to do your laundry instead of buying a washing machine. The person you hire can choose any means of doing your laundry, including putting a washing machine in your home.
It isn't, and this illustrates another problem: with service model, you're much more tied to having a stable income source. If you're temporarily not able to pay someone, they won't come to do the work for you. If you're not able to keep paying for the service, the provider will remotely suspend or terminate it. Whereas, if you own a device, you can keep using it even though you're 3 months out of a job, with no new one in sight.
> So you don't think that we can capture all of what you said in laws that protect the consumer?
I'm not saying it's impossible to picture a society where this happens, but it's not very reachable from where we are now. We're struggling to get down basics like repairing your own devices. Nor is it a particularly desirable society compared to a society where everyone owns and controls all their own stuff.
> how is using a service different than paying someone to do a job for you
I'm not sure what this question has to do with what I wrote. I don't want either one. I want to pay once for a quality washing machine that I can repair, use when, where, and how I want to. For another example, I want a bicycle that fits my exact size, style, speed, and safety preferences, that I can pay for once and keep repaired and in good condition and resell later on, rather than throwing money at some company year after year to ride awful one-size-fits-none rent-a-bikes. Those bikes are useful for many scenarios but a bad replacement for long-term ownership.
(edit) For example in the washing machine scenario, the service I employ to launder clothes can easily decide to hike their rates for all clothes not purchased from Banana Republic, or they can sell data about my clothes preferences to advertisers, or they can make me sign terms of service that give bad compensation for damaged clothes or delayed washing. Their incentives are often misaligned from mine; they aren't usually acting in my best interests. I guess you'll say "but competition will magically fix that", however, if we look at the real world, most markets don't have enough competition for that to be true.
> If that's causing problems with exploitation, isn't that a fundamental flaw in our economy, rather than with the idea of preferring services over products?
I don't understand what you're saying here. It sounds akin to arguments that roads should all be privatized, where the fact that nobody would build roads to rural homes gets written off as some problem with the economy rather than a flaw in the idea itself. Or similarly, sounds like you're advocating a system that you know clearly wouldn't work because you are able to picture some idealized version of society where it might.
I had this album on Spotify or Deezer, one of my favourites. One day something happened and it became un-listenable. It's like Sony came and picked a CD from my shelf. Well luckily there is YouTube. But with actual tools, like tractors, it's different. Tools tend to get personalised/modified to fit the particular routines of their users.
Because then there would be no products. And no, it would not eliminate so-called "planned obsolescence" (which isn't a real issue with quality products like Apple's anyway); it would just shift any such motives and actions to a different income stream and a different company.
Does anyone know what the best, most-serviceable laptop is in 2017? Looking for something with decent hardware and Linux support. It seems like the trend is toward soldered-on parts.
Look into Clevo/Sager resellers. Places like System76. They can be hit-or-miss - I've had one excellent machine that lasted 6 years, but also one terrible experience with a borked GPU that put me off of them more or less permanently. Getting any sort of support or repairs for parts that you can't replace yourself is difficult.
Still, they tend to have highly modular, easy-to-swap-out parts. Hard drives, wireless cards, RAM, keyboards, battery, it's usually all removable and they sell spares for custom parts like the keyboards. Many of their devices even have a full CPU socket on the motherboard, so you could keep a good one running for a very long time.
Those also tend to be very large, gaming-oriented, desktop replacement "laptops", so not ideal for everyone looking for something they can actually keep on their lap for any length of time. They're so modular because they're designed like a desktop, with lots of full-size parts and little emphasis on thinness.
If by "borked GPU" you're referring to the nVidia BGA failures, those weren't the fault of the laptop manufacturer. HP and Toshiba, among others, were affected severely by that too.
It's been a little while since I looked, but they did used to make smaller and more portable models even though their lines definitely skew towards hulking powerhouses.
I remember the 11" W110ER fondly; it was tiny, but it still had a discrete GPU. Those were the days...as much as I love the small ARM Chromebooks, they do lack power for most sorts of realtime rendering applications.
I'm not sure what the exact issue was, but I got a new machine with a card that hung under reproducible conditions (as well as seemingly random ones) over several operating systems and use cases. I thought that BGA issues mostly came after a little while of thermal stressing on the boards and the footprint. But you never know; shit happens.
Thinkpads still seem to be the best. The documentation is still amazingly thorough, and there is a wide range of models from ultraportable (parts soldered on) to "portable workstations" (big thick chassis).
They are coming out with an "anniversary edition" Thinkpad that looks like it's a refresh of a T400 series chassis. It seems promising.
If you're not scared of dropping some more cash on it, you should look into the Dell XPS line. The basics are very serviceable and it has very decent specs and performance.
Mine's been running Arch for almost a year without any hardware issues so far. I also manage to pull roughly 8 hours of development out of a full battery.
I can recommend my HP Elite X2 1012 G1. Clunky name but user-replaceable SSD, battery, and screen, along with no moving parts, makes me a happy camper. They have a newer faster version now too.
These are complex consumer taxing drip feeds of information, upgrades, service faults, repair services and so forth. It seems to mostly feed dumps.
Slightly industrial grade hardware is often field repairable. I go for new or refurbed durable low depreciation tools worth mastering. Emacs, weather sealed camera gear or even cookware are examples.
Otherwise I use low power almost disposable Chromebook, Chromecast and Moto-G away from a Linux box with cheap reasonable dumb screens and bluetooth speakers.
The haptics of consumer tools are churned far too easily for business models. Windows XP showed how too slowly depreciating good enough assets in the field upset vendors. Constant maintenance and futzing are taxes outside actually advancing any state of the art. I don't drive living in a midstory DC building together saving about +50% of typical American transport and HVAC power budgets. And I don't sport shop or even eat energy intensive packaged food mysteries.
Good and operationally efficient habits can go well enough with software and city living.
Can't read the article, but for the folks in London or around in the UK, you should check out this company, they organize events to promote repair culture and workshop (also as company events) where experts will teach you how to fix common problems: https://therestartproject.org/
This is really cool, the data collection part reminds me of those water fountains at airports that tell you how many plastic water bottles they've kept out of landfill - that kind of feedback is very motivating.
Would love to know if something like this exists in New York.
Won't the issue take care of itself if:
1) Companies are taxed for the all the environmental pollution they case and
2) The minimum warranty period is 5 years. If the device fails before that, the company should lend you a replacement for the remainder of the warranty period, or refund a prorated amount.
Why 5 years? Why not 4 or 6?
Actually, I think the warranty period should increase, always. For example by one month every year.
So a product sold in 2017 has a warranty of 2 years (24 months).
A product sold in 2018 would have a warranty of 25 months.
A product sold in 2019 would have a warranty of 26 months.
And so on...
This would encourage (force!) companies R&D to always improve products, but at a sustainable speed.
Of course the figures given above should be tweaked better, maybe start at 3 or 4 years warranty very soon, increase by 1, 2 or 3 months per year, I don't know.
Maybe it can be 6 instead of 5. That's an unnecessary detail for you to obsess about at this point. Instead focus on the larger issue, which is that governments should force companies to give a much longer warranty period than the typical 1 year. That will make companies design for longevity, reducing costs for customers and environmental damage.
Where do I find all this mythical stuff that I want?
I want a new car with no software, no computers, no GPS, no radio, no power windows, no keyless entry, no thermostat. Where do I find it? Realistically I can only chose between crap I don't want.
And if I buy an older car, not only I have to deal with problems that would otherwise be avoidable if I bought a new car, but the government doesn't want me to use old cars. Great freedom of choice. What a life.
You know what? I got your answer, I have this beautiful 0-mile device without all those gadgets and crap. No keyless entry, no GPS, no radio, no (power)windows, no thermostat, minor software and computers (just to control the engine and emmissions). If you want add-ons you add them yourself:
- GPS -> mount your smartphone
- Thermostat -> more/less clothes
- Radio -> get a bluetooth headset for your helmet
- The list can go on and on...
You just described my motorcycle! Beautiful 0-miles engine (took it out of the dealership this week). It has no unnecessary stuff and that's what I love the most about it. I do pretty much all the maintenance myself and the community of motorcycle riders is very supportive and helpful to do so.
Now... Why isn't there a car company that builds cars on the same level of complexity? I know comfort/luxury sells. But there should be a tier of cars that are easily serviceable.
Meanwhile, I highly recommend you get a motorcycle :)
I also ride a motorcycle. Just got a new sportster and love it. I'll agree that it is wonderful not ever having to adjust a damn radio, roll windows up or worry about broken AC. It's great for all the reasons you described.
I also agree with your point that there __should__ be a market for a no-frills car of the same design philosophy.
However, I would NEVER recommend that someone get a motorcycle. You and I both know the risks. Literally every time we roll out we can be killed or maimed brutally. I think it's actually pretty irresponsible to recommend them to other people.
I think it's actually pretty irresponsible to recommend them to other people.
I disagree. It's the old freedom vs. security/safety argument. I have no qualms about recommending motorcycles or even just older and simpler cars, because safety is not the only factor and a lot of the time it's used as an argument to take away freedom. You can be perfectly safe by spending your entire life locked away in a jail cell... and you'll still die.
It's not that I think people should not ride motorcycles. It's that WE are aware of the heightened level of danger, extra things to watch for, etc. Most people are not and recommending motorcycles casually to people who may not grasp the risks is setting them up to get fucked, pardon the language.
I do think an amendment to my original statement is needed, though: I would NEVER recommend them to other people without firmly impressing upon them the value of safety courses and the risks involved.
The base Jeep Wrangler looks like that, but in fact, it has anti-skid braking, stability control, and electronic engine control. Everything is too integrated. In the first year, I had a bug where the software would crash and restart going uphill in hot weather. The engine would stop and restart, the transmission would downshift, all the lights on the dashboard would light up momentarily, and the CD player would reset.
Not sure about the US but in Europe there are some cheaper cars that have basically no "extras" in the cheapest model. You'll end up with some softwares and computers but probably close to what you'd get in any 10y old car. And it's cheap, the Dacia Sandero costs <£6,000 as a new car (~$8,000).
But you'll also end up with a less secure car probably.
Claim:Tesla institutes a strict no suit policy in tech to promote adoption of electric cars.
Supporting evidence:
+ all their patents are open for that reason.
+ Elon has said personally that it is of no use to be the last human standing on a sinking ship.
Personally, I think they may actually fancy people doing their own repairs.
All of this electronics churn is environmentally terrible, and it's frustrating that, as with carbon energy products, the entire world is forced to pay for the environmental externalities rather than the actual tech users.
You can make an accelerationist argument about not discouraging tech development and dealing with the problems using more efficient tech in the future, I guess. But I'd honestly rather have electronics cost a bit more and know that manufacturers had a financial interest in maintaining rather than replacing.