I just bought a used sewing machine. It cost less than a new one. It's 98 years old, and with a minimum of care will last another 98. It was built to last.
This notion of "bury the throwaway culture one repair at a time" treats symptoms, not roots: there is nothing persuading manufacturers to make stuff which will last. Should the movement take hold, manufacturers may very well respond by making stuff even cheaper, as the effort to make things so inexpensive it utterly undermines the movement is easier than making things robust and durable. I appreciate the movement's intentions, but think they should seek means of persuading production of durable goods, not eeking another 20% of life out of something having a very short lifespan to start with.
Occurs to me that the only durable products made today are firearms. Ironic.
The manufacturer responded by replacing the Linux firmware with a proprietary real-time operating system. That allowed them to use hardware that was less powerful than the original both in terms of electricity consumption and computational performance. Furthermore, most people have better things to do than reprogramming their wi-fi routers.
Reading Cringley's predictions in that article is cringeworthy.
A big reason manufacturers don't produce durable devices/clothes is because durability is invisible at purchase time. It is also hard for a manufacturer to signal durability to customers who care about it.
It is similar to the reason for which all restaurants being unhealthy --- because the healthiness of a meal is invisible. A meal may have lots of vegetables and nice-looking meat, but also lots of salt and transparent sauces that are unhealthy but tasty.
I wouldn't say that firearms are the only durable product. I recently bought a Jet Mini lathe, and every piece of it has a part number and can be reordered from the manufacturer. It was a lovely feeling to know that it's build to last.
I would say that consumer items are primarily built to be thrown away.
> the only durable products made today are firearms
I don't think that's quite true. You can seek out many "made in America" products at a higher price point and with a lifetime warranty. I recently ordered a Duluth Pack bag. It cost triple the walmart/target equivalent. But it will likely last the rest of my life, and if it doesn't it is guaranteed.
I have had my two pairs of Allen Edmonds (made in America) shoes resoled a few times. They've lasted many years and will probably last another 10, perhaps even the rest of my life. Likewise my Red Wing boots are tanks.
A lot of high quality, made to last stuff is available. It's just expensive and people are stupid cheap. And Americans are especially stupid cheap. Why buy a crap $250 suit that will disintegrate in a matter of years? Shell out for the fly made in America Hickey Freeman suit that will last forever, man.
When Mr. van den Akker put the iron back together,
two parts were left over — no matter, he said,
they were probably not that important. He plugged
the frayed cord into a socket. A green light went
on. Rusty water poured out. Finally, it began to
steam.
The risk is significant and far outweighs any benefit gained.
"Nothing is allowed unless its completely perfect" is a dangerous attitude. Its made a lot of people homeless, closed a ton of the soup kitchens and shelters those homeless might have sought refuge in and IMHO prevented a great deal of innovation from seeing the light of day.
Its possible that this pervasive bit of anal retentiveness has made some(1) individuals marginally safer, but its super dangerous to societies.
(1) Except for the aforementioned homeless. They're not safer.
When you sell products for a customer, you have to be really careful to make them not-dangerous if used by an idiot. If you fix/build stuff yourself, you get to know the ins and outs of the thing you're working with. So it doesn't matter that much if something may be a little dangerous if misused, you should know what to do with it.
One or two screws missing, it's a whole lot better than buying a new one and wasting raw materials and energy and creating waste.
If the producer would share the design of the iron with the world, the risk would be reduced significantly. The leftover parts could be identified by crowdsourced databases as nonimportant, or as risky to leave out.
I'm a firm believer that everything can be repaired cost effectively. You just have to know what you are doing, know when to give up, know how to spot a lemon and start from the right end of the problem. That is the art.
The main trick is to start with the broken item, not an item that you paid full price for and broke...
i.e. I don't mean buying a $1000 item new and when it breaks spend $200 on fixing it.
I mean buying a $100 broken item to start with and spending $200 fixing it, resulting in not spending that extra $700 on the new item in the first place.
Despite the cost of repair in cash and time, the gain usually runs in favour of your own time, satisfaction and knowledge. It also makes you less of a slave to the credit facilities which when you consider interest, results in a lot of time spend earning to pay back.
I will repair anything and everything rather than buy new.
My latest win: Sony Bravia 26EX smart OLED TV. Paid 25GBP as it was completely dead and just out of warranty. 30 mins diagnostics with a Fluke multimeter (which cost me 10GBP that I repaired) pointed to duff PSU. 30 mins on the Tektronix scope (which cost me 30GBP that I repaired) pointed to a problem with a VRM. Replaced VRM in PSU from Farnell order (12GBP incl delivery) - was a bit fiddly as it was an SMD component. Works fine now and the kids have a nice TV.
Also don't buy any old consumer junk. If you can't remove the battery it's not likely to want to be repaired (yes you Apple).
So you're some sort of electrical engineer, then. You need to factor in all the time, energy, and resources it took you to get to this point of self-sufficiency.
For me to fix a dead TV safely, I'd need a few semesters of college or a solid month of shadowing an expert, if I was just interested in TV repair alone. Or just pay you the 700 dollars to do it.
Apple decided to not make the battery bay quick swappable to exchange the space and weight cost of a battery bay for more battery. The battery is rechargeable, replacing a battery is a once 2/3 years affair for %90 of users. Replacing an apple laptop battery is pretty easy in practice. The popularity of apple devices also gives us the very well made ifixit guides:
With tech gear, I think it comes down to finding cheap parts.
I once salvaged two Xerox Star dedicated wordprocessors creating one working unit. They were ancient when I fixed it. Had never seen one before or since. But this person was still doing contract wordprocessing with it (which is so boss).
Counter example...
I dropped a coffee mug onto my Powerbook G4, breaking the motherboard (thru the 'O' key). I kept that brick for a long time, waiting for logic boards to come down in price. At no point was the repair cost lower than the replace (with the latest greatest) cost. In order for this to have worked, I'd have to horde broken and dead Powerbooks.
FWIW, re Apple products, I've repaired my iPod (HDD), iPhone (battery), and laptops (screens, touchpad, DVD). In general Apple products aren't designed to be repaired. Not like a corporate issue Dell or HP. I haven't cracked open my unibody model yet, so don't know if that's improved. But the tear downs of iPad show that it'd be trivial to repair.
> When Mr. van den Akker put the iron back together, two parts were left over — no matter, he said, they were probably not that important.
A week later the owner of the iron was electrocuted. Just kidding.
The culture of discard and buy another really comes about from items being pretty cheap and the repair costs being pretty high. I personally have this biased opinion that a repaired item is likely to break again. This is almost certainly wrong but it was an idea I was brought up with and is difficult to shake.
I really like what these people doing. I would certainly get more items repaired if it could be done cheaply. A repair shop as a place to gather is cool.
I do think though there is a limit to what is worth repairing. Things like hoovers, irons etc are worth repairing. Technology really doesn't move that fast and paying £20 to have a hoover patched up is far better than buying a new one.
Computers though. If they fail within the warranty you are already covered. If they fail after that then it really depends what the computer cost. If brought a computer for £3-400 you may find the repair cost is 50% of what you paid for it. In this case there is a strong argument that this £200 could go towards a higher spec computer.
I have a laptop which overheats, it isn't worth much but it is - or should be - pretty handy. The cost to investigate the fault would cost me £75. This is before a repair is made. I was told if the problem is what he thought it might be then the cost to repair would be a £100 on top of that. In the end I just brought a new netbook for £300.
I have a little problem with my iMac. The harddrive is faulty. It has some bad sectors or something which causes programs to crash. Do you know tricky it is to replace the harddrive of an iMac? Its ridiculous. To be honest pretty much all Apple devices are terribly inconvenient to repair. Its a shame that one of the worlds biggest companies isn't doing more to prevent consumer waste.
> The culture of discard and buy another really comes about from items being pretty cheap and the repair costs being pretty high.
Not necessarily. A big part of it is simply our broken economic system. Many, many, many items are made to break.[1]
I hope we start to rent more things as a service instead of paying for them. If we paid a flat fee every month to have our houses lighted, I bet our light bulbs would be durable as heck. Obviously this is not going to be feasible for a while.
But why can't we pay a flat fee to have a usable Mac? Apple stores can be found all around the world. The incentive for Apple would be to use durable hardware and write highly optimized, a little more portable software.
I think gov'ts should force companies to think more about the long term by enforcing a longer minimum warranty for hardware, and force vendors to release security updates for at least 10 years. (All 32-bit Macs will have _zero_ professional use cases once Apple stops patching 10.6. Meanwhile, my mom has owned her XP Word machine for almost a decade.)
Agree with hoovers. I nicked a Dyson DC07 out of a skip. It cost me 30GBP in bits and has done me for about 5 years now :)
WRT computers, it depends on the computers and the availability of spares. You're screwed if you have a Mac as the parts are expensive due to scarcity. if you buy Lenovo, you can get every individual part on ebay for very little and they have published FRM and diagnostic manuals which are very good. An overheating T61 will cost me 15GBP including investigation...
> items being pretty cheap and the repair costs being pretty high
I wonder if it's possible to get some of those items to places where the labor costs are low enough, and product prices high enough to make it worthwhile to fix stuff.
I think we need to distinguish between the concept of "repairable" vs. "user repairable." An iMac hard drive is designed to be very repairable; but it's not designed to be easily user-repairable.
The participatory/social aspect of this is pretty interesting beyond repairs. It seems like a plausible low-barrier route to learning something more about how things work, by getting some help from someone who knows how to disassemble and explain the innards of a particular item.
But, seems like it'd work better for older stuff, unfortunately. A lot of newer stuff is just not made to be dis/reassembled or to have parts replaced, so it's much more difficult to do. I tried to repair a toaster recently, and as far as I can tell you can't even open it without some serious hard-to-reverse effort, because unlike older toasters, the housing isn't closed with removable screws, but is stamped/crimped together somehow.
I bought a clothes steamer a while back (Jiffy Steamer), and I was pleasantly surprised that it had a full circuit diagram and component list included in the instruction book. I can take that sucker apart, fix things, and put it back together.
(well, maybe not me, but somebody could).
I am willing to buy more products like that. Where do I find them?
A lot of people I know simply throw away things. It hurts sometimes. However, sometimes it is tough given that technology simply becomes old so fast.
I do think that there are certain electronics that can last along time. In particular, it annoys me when people buy LCD TVs and one year down the road throw it away because it stopped working. The manufactures give limited warranty and suggest to buy another one. I purposely bought a TV with a much longer warranty, three years. It did cost 3x as much as a cheaper one from costco. It does look wonderful and function nearly 4 years after I bought it.
Right, it's a matter of perception and quickly changing "fashion". Many people regard devices of a year old already as very old. So they choose in favor of replacing it, even if it is a minimal problem that is easy (and cheap) to fix.
I do suspect that financial pressure (due to increasing resource prices) will cause this to change around in the near future, and make people hold on to their devices for longer. In some circles, like described in the article, I'm already seeing this happen. Also, many skilled people are out of a job and have time enough to do basic repairs for each other.
cstross mentioned the extraordinary cost of stuff in a recent post. A pair of jeans was fantastically expensive. People had no option but to repair things.
> Studies of retail pricing indicate that, after correcting for inflation, a good pair of workmans' trousers -- jeans, in other words -- would have cost the equivalent of roughly $400 in 2001 dollars in 1901. A reasonable quality man's suit would have cost the equivalent of $2-3000.
I get annoyed by jumpers[2] that get holes after a year or two, and try to darn or patch them. I'd be really angry if that jumper cost me £400.
See also semi-disposable scandinavian furniture. It sort of looks okay, and it works alright so long as you don't move it. But a bit of solid wood is nicer (and probably better for the environment) than chipboard and veneer, and will last a lot longer, but is a lot more expensive.
I'm not sure society will be comfortable with children that cannot afford to move out (or who will be without almost any possessions) when that same society cannot cope with light bulbs that need a few seconds to warm up.
I get very annoyed by clothes and shoes that do not last. I'm lucky to get a couple of years out of shirts and shorts. The only thing that seems to last is levis jeans - I've been faithfully buying them for decades and the style goes before the fabric does.
As for disposable furniture - it's frustrating as it deterioates quickly if moved around. I learnt to make my own furniture. Very rewarding but painstakingly slow. But then, if you plan to keep something for 50 years, what's a couple of months to build it? Everything I have built myself (with help from my Dad, who hands down the knowledge and tools) is still in perfect condition. That's because it's made properly in the first place, from quality materials.
I've also taken up my own car maintenance. Cars are big complex devices, and debugging one can be fun if you know where to start. Modern mechanics can't possibly keep up with all the various models and if they can't diagnose something in 30 minutes they won't, and just start replacing parts at random. Armed with a home data port program, an analytical eye and plenty of internet research, it's possible to track down problems yourself for a fraction of the cost.
The root cause of the "throwaway culture" seems to be the assembly line: Stuff becomes cheap when it can be produced in a series of simple, non-varying steps.
Stuff just doesn't break in a consist way. If every repair were identical, we could fix stuff on an assembly line, and we would no longer constantly run into ridiculous situations where it costs less to buy a whole new widgit than to repair your old one.
Yes and on top of that a lot of products are "designed for assembly" which often means using parts that 'click' together, instead of using screws. This means they're fast to assemble, but almost impossible to take apart again, making repairs overly difficult and costly.
It's also important that assembly lines can be offshored, whereas a lot of repairs really need to be done locally by someone who can interact with the consumer to understand the problem. Countries where labor is cheap relative to imports don't have the same throwaway culture, because in those circumstances it's economically viable to repair things rather than replacing them.
I think the cause is the move to doing stuff on PCBs, doing logic in proprietary controllers rather than electro-mechanically with relays, limit switches, etc, and consumer demand for lower prices, which generally leads to lots of molded plastic and other similar cost-cutting methods, rather than use stamped metal or other more expensive processes.
There's a few comments here about old appliances and the cliche that "back then," things were built to last. Barring contrary statistical evidence, sentiments like those can largely be attributed to survivorship bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
i always regret that i didn't take my parents valve radio when the house was cleared and sold over a decade ago. it was bulky, inefficient but worked perfectly. had a lot of fond memories of that radio as a kid. they got it as a wedding present in the early sixties. the valves would eventually need replacing but there are still places selling the parts if you know where to go.
but my favourite bike as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s was a bsa bike that had been built in the early forties. that thing was a tank. it's probably still out there in use every day. completely indestrucible with a little light maintenance.
now however things are not built to last. ignoring electronics or computers which date fast. casettes, vcrs. analog mobiles 8bit, 16bit and now even 32bit computers are edging towards obsolescence for desktop use. a crappy tin opener still needed for those tins still sold without a prestressed ring pull will die in less than a decade. the bullhead tin opener in my parents kitchen seems to have been one of the first types sold in the late 19th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BullOpener.png
i like to think that growing up with ancient hardware gave me an appreciation for well designed and easy to maintain items. i try to avoid flashy insubstantial items.
It's entirely possible that the extra material required to make items that can be repaired, wastes more material than making objects that are "disposable"
Modern manufactured goods have -huge- volumes (there are a lot of people on this planet) and low failure rates.
If serviceability takes more material, it will probably be more waste, than otherwise.
Another facet to consumption culture is the cost of ownership. After a tipping point, your stuff owns you.
Having stuff and clutter makes me feel anxious.
I've been unloading everything that's not essential. eg, I only used my microwave to heat water for tea. And it was pain in the ass to clean within and around. So it went to the curb, snatched up within minutes.
I think buying new things is great, not only in that you get something new and shiny to play with, but it also has great social benefits, stimulating economic growth, rewarding entrepreneurism and people who create things, and creating jobs.
So I applaud the throwaway culture that loads of people seem to complain about. We need more of it!
If person A throws away his widget which could have been repaired for $2 and buys a new, identical widget for $10 his balance sheet shows $10 of assets (scenario A). If person B repairs his widget, he now has a widget worth $10 plus the $8 cash he saved - his balance sheet shows $18 of assets. Thus, person A destroyed $8 of assets by behaving irrationally/inefficiently.
One may say person A's frenzied purchasing of widgets drives R&D dollars into the development of better widgets. A good counter-argument is that it was more important to develop things other than widgets and that by focusing so much on accelerating widget development scenario A forsook technological progress in more productive areas.
We saw this happen with the construction industry across the developed world siphoning dollars and talent away from other areas that would have produced more long-term benefit.
Broadly I see what you're saying and agree with you. When it is more efficient to produce a new thing on an assembly line than fix it, we actually all benefit. But knowing where that crossover is is tough. You can't use the same rule for everything.
The worst case of throwaway was the 'cash for clunkers' scheme. That saw wholesale destruction of large amounts of serviceable vehicles, with replacements being created on production lines. It was wealth destruction all around and benefited nobody but a couple of car salesmen who got better comission checks that month.
I'd love someone to make a tank of a laser printer. Like just clone an HP LaserJet 6 (the pinnacle). Make the internals open source, the paper trays modular, and boom.
Most printers are sold on price. But I think a small niche player selling durable printers with low consumable costs could do well.
I'm pissed when things brake. But:
Repairing things is an opportunity to save your own money. And to save your own planet. And possibly explore and learn something new, or at least harvest some spare parts. And just enjoy the fun of disassembling stuff.
[+] [-] ctdonath|14 years ago|reply
This notion of "bury the throwaway culture one repair at a time" treats symptoms, not roots: there is nothing persuading manufacturers to make stuff which will last. Should the movement take hold, manufacturers may very well respond by making stuff even cheaper, as the effort to make things so inexpensive it utterly undermines the movement is easier than making things robust and durable. I appreciate the movement's intentions, but think they should seek means of persuading production of durable goods, not eeking another 20% of life out of something having a very short lifespan to start with.
Occurs to me that the only durable products made today are firearms. Ironic.
[+] [-] winestock|14 years ago|reply
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2004/pulpit_20040527_0004...
The manufacturer responded by replacing the Linux firmware with a proprietary real-time operating system. That allowed them to use hardware that was less powerful than the original both in terms of electricity consumption and computational performance. Furthermore, most people have better things to do than reprogramming their wi-fi routers.
Reading Cringley's predictions in that article is cringeworthy.
[+] [-] is74|14 years ago|reply
It is similar to the reason for which all restaurants being unhealthy --- because the healthiness of a meal is invisible. A meal may have lots of vegetables and nice-looking meat, but also lots of salt and transparent sauces that are unhealthy but tasty.
[+] [-] arethuza|14 years ago|reply
Unless it has been scrapped for it's (not inconsiderable) scrap value I suspect that thing will probably survive the next ice age.
[We also had a typewriter from the same "Forth Rail Bridge" school of over-engineering and conspicuous iron consumption - possibly an Underwood?]
[+] [-] jwn|14 years ago|reply
I would say that consumer items are primarily built to be thrown away.
[+] [-] specialist|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubashov|14 years ago|reply
I don't think that's quite true. You can seek out many "made in America" products at a higher price point and with a lifetime warranty. I recently ordered a Duluth Pack bag. It cost triple the walmart/target equivalent. But it will likely last the rest of my life, and if it doesn't it is guaranteed.
I have had my two pairs of Allen Edmonds (made in America) shoes resoled a few times. They've lasted many years and will probably last another 10, perhaps even the rest of my life. Likewise my Red Wing boots are tanks.
A lot of high quality, made to last stuff is available. It's just expensive and people are stupid cheap. And Americans are especially stupid cheap. Why buy a crap $250 suit that will disintegrate in a matter of years? Shell out for the fly made in America Hickey Freeman suit that will last forever, man.
[+] [-] 5deadaccounts|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dhx|14 years ago|reply
A classic example of poor risk assessment.
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
Its possible that this pervasive bit of anal retentiveness has made some(1) individuals marginally safer, but its super dangerous to societies.
(1) Except for the aforementioned homeless. They're not safer.
[+] [-] exDM69|14 years ago|reply
One or two screws missing, it's a whole lot better than buying a new one and wasting raw materials and energy and creating waste.
[+] [-] generateui|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gouranga|14 years ago|reply
I'm a firm believer that everything can be repaired cost effectively. You just have to know what you are doing, know when to give up, know how to spot a lemon and start from the right end of the problem. That is the art.
The main trick is to start with the broken item, not an item that you paid full price for and broke...
i.e. I don't mean buying a $1000 item new and when it breaks spend $200 on fixing it.
I mean buying a $100 broken item to start with and spending $200 fixing it, resulting in not spending that extra $700 on the new item in the first place.
Despite the cost of repair in cash and time, the gain usually runs in favour of your own time, satisfaction and knowledge. It also makes you less of a slave to the credit facilities which when you consider interest, results in a lot of time spend earning to pay back.
I will repair anything and everything rather than buy new.
My latest win: Sony Bravia 26EX smart OLED TV. Paid 25GBP as it was completely dead and just out of warranty. 30 mins diagnostics with a Fluke multimeter (which cost me 10GBP that I repaired) pointed to duff PSU. 30 mins on the Tektronix scope (which cost me 30GBP that I repaired) pointed to a problem with a VRM. Replaced VRM in PSU from Farnell order (12GBP incl delivery) - was a bit fiddly as it was an SMD component. Works fine now and the kids have a nice TV.
Also don't buy any old consumer junk. If you can't remove the battery it's not likely to want to be repaired (yes you Apple).
[+] [-] digitalsushi|14 years ago|reply
For me to fix a dead TV safely, I'd need a few semesters of college or a solid month of shadowing an expert, if I was just interested in TV repair alone. Or just pay you the 700 dollars to do it.
[+] [-] mahyarm|14 years ago|reply
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac
The pentalobe screws are pointing to not wanting to be repaired by non apple techs although.
[+] [-] specialist|14 years ago|reply
I once salvaged two Xerox Star dedicated wordprocessors creating one working unit. They were ancient when I fixed it. Had never seen one before or since. But this person was still doing contract wordprocessing with it (which is so boss).
Counter example...
I dropped a coffee mug onto my Powerbook G4, breaking the motherboard (thru the 'O' key). I kept that brick for a long time, waiting for logic boards to come down in price. At no point was the repair cost lower than the replace (with the latest greatest) cost. In order for this to have worked, I'd have to horde broken and dead Powerbooks.
FWIW, re Apple products, I've repaired my iPod (HDD), iPhone (battery), and laptops (screens, touchpad, DVD). In general Apple products aren't designed to be repaired. Not like a corporate issue Dell or HP. I haven't cracked open my unibody model yet, so don't know if that's improved. But the tear downs of iPad show that it'd be trivial to repair.
[+] [-] bobsy|14 years ago|reply
A week later the owner of the iron was electrocuted. Just kidding.
The culture of discard and buy another really comes about from items being pretty cheap and the repair costs being pretty high. I personally have this biased opinion that a repaired item is likely to break again. This is almost certainly wrong but it was an idea I was brought up with and is difficult to shake.
I really like what these people doing. I would certainly get more items repaired if it could be done cheaply. A repair shop as a place to gather is cool.
I do think though there is a limit to what is worth repairing. Things like hoovers, irons etc are worth repairing. Technology really doesn't move that fast and paying £20 to have a hoover patched up is far better than buying a new one.
Computers though. If they fail within the warranty you are already covered. If they fail after that then it really depends what the computer cost. If brought a computer for £3-400 you may find the repair cost is 50% of what you paid for it. In this case there is a strong argument that this £200 could go towards a higher spec computer.
I have a laptop which overheats, it isn't worth much but it is - or should be - pretty handy. The cost to investigate the fault would cost me £75. This is before a repair is made. I was told if the problem is what he thought it might be then the cost to repair would be a £100 on top of that. In the end I just brought a new netbook for £300.
I have a little problem with my iMac. The harddrive is faulty. It has some bad sectors or something which causes programs to crash. Do you know tricky it is to replace the harddrive of an iMac? Its ridiculous. To be honest pretty much all Apple devices are terribly inconvenient to repair. Its a shame that one of the worlds biggest companies isn't doing more to prevent consumer waste.
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|14 years ago|reply
Not necessarily. A big part of it is simply our broken economic system. Many, many, many items are made to break.[1]
I hope we start to rent more things as a service instead of paying for them. If we paid a flat fee every month to have our houses lighted, I bet our light bulbs would be durable as heck. Obviously this is not going to be feasible for a while.
But why can't we pay a flat fee to have a usable Mac? Apple stores can be found all around the world. The incentive for Apple would be to use durable hardware and write highly optimized, a little more portable software.
I think gov'ts should force companies to think more about the long term by enforcing a longer minimum warranty for hardware, and force vendors to release security updates for at least 10 years. (All 32-bit Macs will have _zero_ professional use cases once Apple stops patching 10.6. Meanwhile, my mom has owned her XP Word machine for almost a decade.)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
[+] [-] gouranga|14 years ago|reply
WRT computers, it depends on the computers and the availability of spares. You're screwed if you have a Mac as the parts are expensive due to scarcity. if you buy Lenovo, you can get every individual part on ebay for very little and they have published FRM and diagnostic manuals which are very good. An overheating T61 will cost me 15GBP including investigation...
(Sitting here on a recycled 2007 Lenovo T61).
[+] [-] davidw|14 years ago|reply
I wonder if it's possible to get some of those items to places where the labor costs are low enough, and product prices high enough to make it worthwhile to fix stuff.
[+] [-] snowwrestler|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|14 years ago|reply
But, seems like it'd work better for older stuff, unfortunately. A lot of newer stuff is just not made to be dis/reassembled or to have parts replaced, so it's much more difficult to do. I tried to repair a toaster recently, and as far as I can tell you can't even open it without some serious hard-to-reverse effort, because unlike older toasters, the housing isn't closed with removable screws, but is stamped/crimped together somehow.
[+] [-] cschneid|14 years ago|reply
(well, maybe not me, but somebody could).
I am willing to buy more products like that. Where do I find them?
[+] [-] vinayan3|14 years ago|reply
I do think that there are certain electronics that can last along time. In particular, it annoys me when people buy LCD TVs and one year down the road throw it away because it stopped working. The manufactures give limited warranty and suggest to buy another one. I purposely bought a TV with a much longer warranty, three years. It did cost 3x as much as a cheaper one from costco. It does look wonderful and function nearly 4 years after I bought it.
[+] [-] wladimir|14 years ago|reply
I do suspect that financial pressure (due to increasing resource prices) will cause this to change around in the near future, and make people hold on to their devices for longer. In some circles, like described in the article, I'm already seeing this happen. Also, many skilled people are out of a job and have time enough to do basic repairs for each other.
Hopefully this will reduce the e-waste problem...
[+] [-] DanBC|14 years ago|reply
> Studies of retail pricing indicate that, after correcting for inflation, a good pair of workmans' trousers -- jeans, in other words -- would have cost the equivalent of roughly $400 in 2001 dollars in 1901. A reasonable quality man's suit would have cost the equivalent of $2-3000.
I get annoyed by jumpers[2] that get holes after a year or two, and try to darn or patch them. I'd be really angry if that jumper cost me £400.
See also semi-disposable scandinavian furniture. It sort of looks okay, and it works alright so long as you don't move it. But a bit of solid wood is nicer (and probably better for the environment) than chipboard and veneer, and will last a lot longer, but is a lot more expensive.
I'm not sure society will be comfortable with children that cannot afford to move out (or who will be without almost any possessions) when that same society cannot cope with light bulbs that need a few seconds to warm up.
[1] (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3934728)
[2] sweater? A woollen garment with sleeves and not buttons up the front.
[+] [-] brc|14 years ago|reply
As for disposable furniture - it's frustrating as it deterioates quickly if moved around. I learnt to make my own furniture. Very rewarding but painstakingly slow. But then, if you plan to keep something for 50 years, what's a couple of months to build it? Everything I have built myself (with help from my Dad, who hands down the knowledge and tools) is still in perfect condition. That's because it's made properly in the first place, from quality materials.
I've also taken up my own car maintenance. Cars are big complex devices, and debugging one can be fun if you know where to start. Modern mechanics can't possibly keep up with all the various models and if they can't diagnose something in 30 minutes they won't, and just start replacing parts at random. Armed with a home data port program, an analytical eye and plenty of internet research, it's possible to track down problems yourself for a fraction of the cost.
[+] [-] wtracy|14 years ago|reply
Stuff just doesn't break in a consist way. If every repair were identical, we could fix stuff on an assembly line, and we would no longer constantly run into ridiculous situations where it costs less to buy a whole new widgit than to repair your old one.
[+] [-] hencq|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronkaplan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TylerE|14 years ago|reply
I think the cause is the move to doing stuff on PCBs, doing logic in proprietary controllers rather than electro-mechanically with relays, limit switches, etc, and consumer demand for lower prices, which generally leads to lots of molded plastic and other similar cost-cutting methods, rather than use stamped metal or other more expensive processes.
[+] [-] sedachv|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moylan|14 years ago|reply
but my favourite bike as a kid in the late 70s and early 80s was a bsa bike that had been built in the early forties. that thing was a tank. it's probably still out there in use every day. completely indestrucible with a little light maintenance.
now however things are not built to last. ignoring electronics or computers which date fast. casettes, vcrs. analog mobiles 8bit, 16bit and now even 32bit computers are edging towards obsolescence for desktop use. a crappy tin opener still needed for those tins still sold without a prestressed ring pull will die in less than a decade. the bullhead tin opener in my parents kitchen seems to have been one of the first types sold in the late 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BullOpener.png
i like to think that growing up with ancient hardware gave me an appreciation for well designed and easy to maintain items. i try to avoid flashy insubstantial items.
[+] [-] jpeg_hero|14 years ago|reply
Modern manufactured goods have -huge- volumes (there are a lot of people on this planet) and low failure rates.
If serviceability takes more material, it will probably be more waste, than otherwise.
[+] [-] specialist|14 years ago|reply
Having stuff and clutter makes me feel anxious.
I've been unloading everything that's not essential. eg, I only used my microwave to heat water for tea. And it was pain in the ass to clean within and around. So it went to the curb, snatched up within minutes.
[+] [-] alexkearns|14 years ago|reply
So I applaud the throwaway culture that loads of people seem to complain about. We need more of it!
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|14 years ago|reply
If person A throws away his widget which could have been repaired for $2 and buys a new, identical widget for $10 his balance sheet shows $10 of assets (scenario A). If person B repairs his widget, he now has a widget worth $10 plus the $8 cash he saved - his balance sheet shows $18 of assets. Thus, person A destroyed $8 of assets by behaving irrationally/inefficiently.
One may say person A's frenzied purchasing of widgets drives R&D dollars into the development of better widgets. A good counter-argument is that it was more important to develop things other than widgets and that by focusing so much on accelerating widget development scenario A forsook technological progress in more productive areas.
We saw this happen with the construction industry across the developed world siphoning dollars and talent away from other areas that would have produced more long-term benefit.
[+] [-] brc|14 years ago|reply
The worst case of throwaway was the 'cash for clunkers' scheme. That saw wholesale destruction of large amounts of serviceable vehicles, with replacements being created on production lines. It was wealth destruction all around and benefited nobody but a couple of car salesmen who got better comission checks that month.
[+] [-] JoachimSchipper|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] specialist|14 years ago|reply
Most printers are sold on price. But I think a small niche player selling durable printers with low consumable costs could do well.
[+] [-] Teapot|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noonespecial|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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