Consumer protection laws prevents businesses following this to it’s extreme. For many businesses the ideal would be to just sell stuff that immediately breaks down as soon as it’s sold. It has the fulfilled its purpose from their point of view
I run sous vide cookers 24*7, and they uniformly break within 90 days or less. But they don't like to admit their smaller duty cycle, so they don't, and keep sending me warranty replacements instead. I keep buying different brands looking for one with a longer life. I'll bet most people do that when their gadgets die, and purposely making products that die as soon as sold isn't often a successful business model.
That’s not a small cycle count for a normal household.
90 × 24 = 2,160 total hours.
I sous vide now and then, about twice a week for 6 hours each, so around 12 hours a week.
That works out to roughly 15 years of usable machine time for the average person.
A friend of mine gets new headphones/headsets every six to eighteen months, and hasn’t bought a pair entirely out of pocket in years. For him it’s all down to buying the Microcenter protection plan every time they’re replaced. They fail, he takes them back, he gets store credit for the purchase price, and he buys a new set and a new plan. He doesn’t even care about the manufacturer’s warranty anymore.
Personally, most of my headphones I look for metal mechanical connections instead of plastic and I buy refurbished when I can. I think I pay about as much as he does or less, but we haven’t really hashed out the numbers together. I’m typing this while wearing a HyperX gaming headset I bought refurbished that’s old enough that I’ve replaced the earpads while everything else continues to work.
Computers and computer parts often have, in my experience, a better reliability record competently refurbished than when they first leave the factory too. I wonder if sous vide cookers would.
delichon|5 months ago
rlander|5 months ago
I sous vide now and then, about twice a week for 6 hours each, so around 12 hours a week. That works out to roughly 15 years of usable machine time for the average person.
Not bad at all.
cestith|5 months ago
Personally, most of my headphones I look for metal mechanical connections instead of plastic and I buy refurbished when I can. I think I pay about as much as he does or less, but we haven’t really hashed out the numbers together. I’m typing this while wearing a HyperX gaming headset I bought refurbished that’s old enough that I’ve replaced the earpads while everything else continues to work.
Computers and computer parts often have, in my experience, a better reliability record competently refurbished than when they first leave the factory too. I wonder if sous vide cookers would.
hnuser123456|5 months ago
account42|5 months ago
- the product doesn't break and you don't buy a replacement from them because you still have a working product
- the product breaks and there is a greater than 0% chance that you will buy a replacement product from them
Of course in practice it's more complicated but I wouldn't be so quick to declare that the math doesn't work out.
FuriouslyAdrift|5 months ago
Or if you want something even beefier: https://sammic.com/en/smartvide-xl
muzani|5 months ago