I agree, but ideally, the high fee should be proportionate.
Cement is about $130/metric ton. A 30% surcharge seems comfortable. A 100%, I won't squirm at. An 800% surcharge feels punitive, rather than good policy.
I'd like far more surcharges for consumer-unfriendly and environmentally-unfriendly actions, but mostly in the 1-5% range. That's enough to impact most margin-constrained firms, but not so much as to avoid innovation or distort strategy.
Examples:
- Make products repairable
- Provide service manuals and full schematics
- Provide parts at no more than e.g. 2x cost of the product (e.g. if I wanted to buy all the parts for my washing machine to build a new one, it might cost $1000 instead of $500)
- Provide long support lives for e.g. security updates and parts
- Make firmware / software open-source (consider my air conditioner, rather than Microsoft Office)
- Use standard batteries and chargers
- Avoid plastic
- Minimize packaging
... etc.
In a commodity market (like basic air conditioners), a 5% surcharge is way more than enough to influence behavior. On the other hand, if I have a genuinely better battery, or something super-confidential in my firmware, I can still keep it secret at modest cost.
Cement is about $130/metric ton. A 30% surcharge seems comfortable. A 100%, I won't squirm at. An 800% surcharge feels punitive, rather than good policy.
I'd like far more surcharges for consumer-unfriendly and environmentally-unfriendly actions, but mostly in the 1-5% range. That's enough to impact most margin-constrained firms, but not so much as to avoid innovation or distort strategy.
Examples:
- Make products repairable
- Provide service manuals and full schematics
- Provide parts at no more than e.g. 2x cost of the product (e.g. if I wanted to buy all the parts for my washing machine to build a new one, it might cost $1000 instead of $500)
- Provide long support lives for e.g. security updates and parts
- Make firmware / software open-source (consider my air conditioner, rather than Microsoft Office)
- Use standard batteries and chargers
- Avoid plastic
- Minimize packaging
... etc.
In a commodity market (like basic air conditioners), a 5% surcharge is way more than enough to influence behavior. On the other hand, if I have a genuinely better battery, or something super-confidential in my firmware, I can still keep it secret at modest cost.