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That is utterly infuriating. Stuff like this really shakes my faith in capitalism. To think that someone in charge at Bosch has actively decided to 1. Screw ov

by J-dawg 10y ago

That is utterly infuriating. Stuff like this really shakes my faith in capitalism. To think that someone in charge at Bosch has actively decided to 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. I honestly wonder how they sleep at night. The market clearly can't fix this issue, so regulation must be the only option.

vidarh 10y ago
Markets can fix the issue. But the market may need regulation to ensure externalities are captured. E.g. taxing energy and recycling costs, and taxing based on expected lifetime (e.g. a tax that reduces the longer full repair warranty you offer). For the "taxing recycling cost" we have an example in the case of bottles. Norway for example has a reducing bottle tax that starts at a certain rate for non-recyclable drinks containers or containers that are recyclable but aren't. The tax rate then drops proportional to your proven recycling rates, and falls away completely if your rate is high enough. Having distributors take back failed products is great, but it's insufficient in that they have no reason to encourage consumers to return broken products, and often have a strong disincentive to (they end up having to pay or the transport and recycling). Basically, we should expect companies to either make society good for environmental externalities related to their products, or pay what it costs society to make other arrangements, so that these costs end up getting priced into the products so we can make our buying decisions accordingly.
icebraining 10y ago
To think that someone in charge at Bosch has actively decided to 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. Alternatively, they know that very few people did repair the old versions (barely anyone know how to do it themselves, and labour costs in the developed world make it uneconomical to call someone) and they decided to reduce waste (and costs, win-win) by cutting down on the number of screws. I don't know what actually happened, but it's unproductive to assume malice. The reality is that for the most part, markets optimize for what's valued for the consumers, and "easily repairable" is not a feature people value that much.
pjc50 10y ago
Bosch were, I believe, one of the external contractors implicated in the VW "defeat device" scandal. > 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. Those are both tremendously effective ways of making money in a capitalist system. That's why so much is spent on lobbying against regulation.

by J-dawg 10y ago

vidarh 10y ago

Markets can fix the issue. But the market may need regulation to ensure externalities are captured. E.g. taxing energy and recycling costs, and taxing based on expected lifetime (e.g. a tax that reduces the longer full repair warranty you offer). For the "taxing recycling cost" we have an example in the case of bottles. Norway for example has a reducing bottle tax that starts at a certain rate for non-recyclable drinks containers or containers that are recyclable but aren't. The tax rate then drops proportional to your proven recycling rates, and falls away completely if your rate is high enough. Having distributors take back failed products is great, but it's insufficient in that they have no reason to encourage consumers to return broken products, and often have a strong disincentive to (they end up having to pay or the transport and recycling). Basically, we should expect companies to either make society good for environmental externalities related to their products, or pay what it costs society to make other arrangements, so that these costs end up getting priced into the products so we can make our buying decisions accordingly.

icebraining 10y ago

To think that someone in charge at Bosch has actively decided to 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. Alternatively, they know that very few people did repair the old versions (barely anyone know how to do it themselves, and labour costs in the developed world make it uneconomical to call someone) and they decided to reduce waste (and costs, win-win) by cutting down on the number of screws. I don't know what actually happened, but it's unproductive to assume malice. The reality is that for the most part, markets optimize for what's valued for the consumers, and "easily repairable" is not a feature people value that much.

pjc50 10y ago

Bosch were, I believe, one of the external contractors implicated in the VW "defeat device" scandal. > 1. Screw over the customer 2. Impose a massive external cost on society and the ecosystem. Those are both tremendously effective ways of making money in a capitalist system. That's why so much is spent on lobbying against regulation.