[baroffoos]

I don't mean to suggest that this is a simple problem to solve. But the importance of this is far to great to ignore.

>How much stock should they keep around for the 10 extra years after 3 years on the market? (and what happens if they underprovision, will they be sued, or overprovision, throw it all in the bin? they can't sell it, or the 10 year clock starts again)

There is no reason they need to replace parts with the exact same chip they came with. If newer CPUs/chips are available they could put a new model in. There will likely need to be more standardization so individual parts can be replaced/upgraded but this is not impossible and is very common for parts like GPUs and pci cards.

There are also mountains of these parts floating around after sale. The OEM could encourage the return of unwanted electronics and then gut them for parts to use in repairs after they have been tested. Any leftovers after 10 years can be sent to recycling.

>vendors sold thinner and thinner devices, and customers preferred them over the others.

Customers preferences need to take a back seat over environmental needs. A customer can live with a 1mm thicker phone. They can't live without air and survivable weather.

None of this is trivial and it will be a massive shakeup to the status quo but there is no other alternative. In the end we will all be better off.

[pgeorgi]

> There is no reason they need to replace parts with the exact same chip they came with. If newer CPUs/chips are available they could put a new model in. There will likely need to be more standardization so individual parts can be replaced/upgraded but this is not impossible and is very common for parts like GPUs and pci cards.

The tighter integration of components (instead of routing everything through pluggable buses) reduced power consumption.

Every time a data line passes through a connection (solder joint, connector) you have to crank up power a bit to make sure that the signal makes it. Every time you have to decrease clock a bit, which means more parallel connections (with higher physical requirements == more waste at some point) for the same throughput.

At some point there's a trade-off to be made between inherent eco-friendliness (because it runs on much lower power) and replacability.

> There are also mountains of these parts floating around after sale. The OEM could encourage the return of unwanted electronics and then gut them for parts to use in repairs after they have been tested. Any leftovers after 10 years can be sent to recycling.

Return programmes already exist (although they generally end up in recycling, not as reused parts), and some countries mandate them (e.g. WEEE in the EU, plus RoHS to eliminate troublesome compounds).

Reuse can be troublesome since quality control is so much harder than for parts in factory fresh condition: All the paranoia here (and elsewhere) about three letter agencies tampering with devices during shipment? Multiply that by some large number because supply chain attacks just became trivial.

I'm all for designing products in an eco-friendly way, but a 2019 laptop is so much better in that regard than a 2009 model, that the decision doesn't seem simple to me at which point the 2009 model shouldn't be refurbished any longer.

> Customers preferences need to take a back seat over environmental needs. A customer can live with a 1mm thicker phone.

I agree and a thicker phone has more room for longevity (eg. sufficient shock absorbance built into the frame simply by virtue of being larger than the components inside) than a thin one that I long for a robust device. The majority of customers seems to prefer other aspects though.