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Thanks, I didn't really consider this part of the problem. I thought, for "gadgets" (pc, smartphones and small electronics), DRM was a limited problem (I heard

by Fradow 11y ago

Thanks, I didn't really consider this part of the problem. I thought, for "gadgets" (pc, smartphones and small electronics), DRM was a limited problem (I heard about coffee machines and cat litterbox DRM, and that's it). But it may well becomes a problem, if manufacturers find that people repairing gadgets reduce their revenue, which pre-suppose a non-negligible part of potential consumers are motivated to repair instead of buying new (I am not sure it's really a lot right now). For limited access to parts, it depends what "parts" we are talking about. If it is an electronic part (capacitor, microcontroller etc...), most gadgets use off-the-shelf components, that are easy to find, provided you know where to search. If it is a black-box with very specific requirements (screen, battery, whole PCB ..), access to parts may indeed be a problem. While I like the political right to repair, we have to be careful about what this mean. How does it affect small companies, that may not have the time to produce documentation, or very integrated products that can't really be repaired (which, if there is an exception, becomes a loophole big companies will use, of course).

Retric 11y ago
Printers also use DRM resulting in ridiculous ink costs or people that treat printers as disposable items. Even some water filtration systems have started to use DRM.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  I think this is a slightly different, though related, point. Built-in artificial obsolescence, where an otherwise perfectly usable device is deliberately crippled at some point by some sort of unnecessary software or hardware barrier, is never in the customer's interests. This one has an easy solution, though: manufacturers and vendors should be compelled to prominently disclose exactly what the nature of any such behaviour will be before the sale is finalised, so customers can vote with their wallets and there is awareness in the market if anyone wants to compete on the basis that they have no (or at least less customer-hostile) artificial limitations. Fail to do so and be on the hook for whatever the normal compensation would be for a device breaking at the time the limitation kicks in, up to and including a partial or full refund of the purchase price or even paying additional compensation for any consequential losses.
  - emp_zealoth 11y ago
    All you need to do is require 5 years of warranty that is not crippled beyond reason. It would fix most of the problems within a year. Anything non-consumable broke? Fix it. It is getting unbearable: washing mashines, fridges, phones, laptops dying within few years.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - Silhouette 11y ago
      Five years is still an arbitrary interval though, so I'm not sure that really does fix most of the problems. For some devices, five years might be well into the range where a significant proportion of devices would be expected to fail even without artificial breakage. For example, it might be unreasonable to expect a minimum 5 year warranty on a typical consumer hard drive being hulked around in a laptop. It's possible to build more reliable drives with better components and more robust cases with improved physical protection for those who need better resilience, but it makes the products more expensive, and the market has already provided for this with a range of different product types at different price points. On the other hand, I have plenty of white goods in the kitchen of my home that have been working just fine for a decade and there's no reason they shouldn't be. Fixing a 5 year warranty period regardless of context might have been an open invitation to the manufacturer of my fridge to build in something that would break after 61 months (which seems a lot closer to what you seem to get with more modern kitchen white goods today). I still think full disclosure is probably the best way to fight this trend. You can artificially cripple your device if you want, but like the warnings on cigarette packets, you have to use at least 30% of the space on your packaging prominently warning users that your product is deliberately broken and explaining exactly how so they can make an informed decision about whether they still want to buy it. I'm going to guess a lot fewer manufacturers would be so keen on nerfing their products if they also had to come clean about it to their prospective customers before they got their money.

by Fradow 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

Printers also use DRM resulting in ridiculous ink costs or people that treat printers as disposable items. Even some water filtration systems have started to use DRM.

Silhouette 11y ago
I think this is a slightly different, though related, point. Built-in artificial obsolescence, where an otherwise perfectly usable device is deliberately crippled at some point by some sort of unnecessary software or hardware barrier, is never in the customer's interests. This one has an easy solution, though: manufacturers and vendors should be compelled to prominently disclose exactly what the nature of any such behaviour will be before the sale is finalised, so customers can vote with their wallets and there is awareness in the market if anyone wants to compete on the basis that they have no (or at least less customer-hostile) artificial limitations. Fail to do so and be on the hook for whatever the normal compensation would be for a device breaking at the time the limitation kicks in, up to and including a partial or full refund of the purchase price or even paying additional compensation for any consequential losses.
- emp_zealoth 11y ago
  All you need to do is require 5 years of warranty that is not crippled beyond reason. It would fix most of the problems within a year. Anything non-consumable broke? Fix it. It is getting unbearable: washing mashines, fridges, phones, laptops dying within few years.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    Five years is still an arbitrary interval though, so I'm not sure that really does fix most of the problems. For some devices, five years might be well into the range where a significant proportion of devices would be expected to fail even without artificial breakage. For example, it might be unreasonable to expect a minimum 5 year warranty on a typical consumer hard drive being hulked around in a laptop. It's possible to build more reliable drives with better components and more robust cases with improved physical protection for those who need better resilience, but it makes the products more expensive, and the market has already provided for this with a range of different product types at different price points. On the other hand, I have plenty of white goods in the kitchen of my home that have been working just fine for a decade and there's no reason they shouldn't be. Fixing a 5 year warranty period regardless of context might have been an open invitation to the manufacturer of my fridge to build in something that would break after 61 months (which seems a lot closer to what you seem to get with more modern kitchen white goods today). I still think full disclosure is probably the best way to fight this trend. You can artificially cripple your device if you want, but like the warnings on cigarette packets, you have to use at least 30% of the space on your packaging prominently warning users that your product is deliberately broken and explaining exactly how so they can make an informed decision about whether they still want to buy it. I'm going to guess a lot fewer manufacturers would be so keen on nerfing their products if they also had to come clean about it to their prospective customers before they got their money.