16 ms·

Repair is as important as innovation

598 points by sinak 8y ago

arthurofbabylon 8y ago
I have the concern that - as the pace of tech development increases - the timeframe of designers, planners, and stake-holders shrinks. The advantage of this trend is obvious (why invest in tools that will be greatly improved upon in coming years?), but the pitfalls are less apparent and less exciting. The perspective needs to be broad. Honestly, some rudimentary technology (physical infrastructure, financial instruments, computing solutions) is rather effective and oftentimes elegant. Why not lean into these artifacts and design around repair/maintenance/continued-use?
- llukas 8y ago
  You mean tech companies want everyone to buy almost identical phone every two years? If anything pace of tech development plateaus after technology gets commoditized.
  - snuxoll 8y ago
    Up until recently mobile devices had been getting ludicrously massive performance gains year over year, much like traditional PC's had before ~2012. Going from my iPhone 6 Plus to iPhone 7 Plus two years ago was an absolutely massive leap in terms of even day-to-day performance, meanwhile outside PC gaming I'd have a hard time justifying a replacement or upgrade of a mid-range or better laptop or desktop made in the past 6 years. Times have changed however, had my iPhone 7 Plus not died on me I wouldn't have bothered to upgrade to an iPhone XS (I had an extended warranty through T-Mobile and got the device swapped just to trade it in for a $300 credit) - it was still stupidly fast and I certainly wasn't missing any of the gimmicks in the newer devices. This is probably why T-Mobile is now testing 3 year financing options with the iPhone XS and Galaxy Note 9.
    - marssaxman 8y ago
      I really don't understand why phones needed those performance gains. What on earth are people doing with their phones to make use of multiple cores, anyway? The form factor makes their utility so fundamentally limited that increased compute capacity doesn't seem to change anything.
      - drchickensalad 8y ago
        Have you seen the code people write for mobile apps lately?
        marssaxman 8y ago
        No, I have no contact with any of that ecosystem, and I use very few mobile apps since most of them seem like pointless skins over poorly designed websites. What do you have in mind?
- qwertay 8y ago
  It also leaves less time for reverse engineers and hackers to work out the device. By the time you have worked out the 300 step process to replace the power button on the latest iphone without triggering the security chip its too late and no one has that phone anymore.
burlesona 8y ago
This is one of the core messages of Strong Towns (strongtowns.org). In general humans get really excited about building new and transformative things, and we have a big blind spot to ongoing maintenance. In particular we've come to utterly depend on the things that were "shiny and new" back in first generation of suburbanization (50s - 70s), while many of those things have been poorly maintained, and in many cases the economic returns on that infrastructure don't actually justify the ongoing maintenance cost. It's a dangerous drag on the economy, but we're stuck with it now, and the lesson learned is we should prioritize maintenance in our thought process and make sure we're getting a positive return out of the infrastructure liabilities we already have before creating new ones.
- krrrh 8y ago
  That’s really interesting. The point has been made about individual variance on the big-5 (OCEAN) personality traits, specifically openness and conscientiousness. Those with higher openness are good at starting new businesses or projects, while those with higher conscientiousness are better at running them once they are past the startup phase. The argument goes that, as with business, you need both types of personalities to make society function. But in terms of political and infrastructural projects, getting both styles of thinking interacting in early stages, in a less linear process than we see in startups, would be constructive. This is unfortunately rare. JJane Jacobs comes to mind as a rare thinker who could integrate ideas of perservation/maintenance and renewal/innovation, which is probably why she has been lauded by both hard lefty types as well as market libertarians.
- ataturk 8y ago
  So obvious where I live. Most of the home were built in the 80s and 90s and are now falling in to disrepair because most owners just can't understand maintenance and the cost of upkeep. I spent $30K renovating our master bathroom. I don't think I'll make it back when we sell the house, but the 80s master was just done. All the phone lines in the house are inop, I had to run new ones, mostly outside of the walls. Siding, roof, furnace, multiple water heaters, water softener, garage doors, sliding doors, windows, wiring updates, new driveway, landscaping, back fence. I'm also restoring an older car. It's not really even worth it except I learned a lot. Rust buckets should just go to the crusher. iPads should be easily repairable, at least the glass and battery...
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
Intellectual property protection is a major inhibitor of repair. When only one organization can legally produce replacement parts, repair becomes relegated to outlaws. Companies default to closed source, guaranteeing that at some point what they produce will all end up in a landfill unless it can be recycled. It’s an obscure position but I believe that intellectual property protection increases material waste and accelerates the destruction of the natural world. It’s an issue that sadly few people think much about, and one that I believe is invisibly harming the earth. Recently I met Neil Gershenfeld from MIT, who advocates for research and development in to universal machinery that can assemble itself, perform its duties, and then disassemble itself back in to parts when complete. [1] As he says, “there is no trash with LEGO, and there is no trash in a forest.” It’s a far off idea it seems, but intriguing nonetheless. In the near term, we as consumers can help avoid this waste by refusing to buy proprietary materials that will eventually become landfill waste. Don’t buy cheap Halloween decorations at the dollar store that will fill up the dump. Don’t buy cheap Christmas presents for the short term amusement they provide. We can point fingers at manufacturers for producing goods they know will become trash, but we are just as complicit for buying those things from them. Support producers who believe in repair and you will be doing the earth and all its future inhabitants a favor. [1] https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Intellectual property protection is a major inhibitor of repair. Notice that this is only a problem as a result of excessive copyright terms and patent thickets/evergreening. If you buy a product halfway through its twenty year patent term and then have to repair it after ten years, no problem, by then the patent is expired and anyone can make parts. Unless by then the manufacturer has stopped making new software/firmware for the device and the old version has security vulnerabilities or isn't compatible with modern systems, yet no one can fix it because the old unsupported software still has an unexpired copyright even though the vendor has abandoned it.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Who does believe in repair? I'm a strong believer in it, but I don't remember ever finding producers listing it as a feature. I know there are guides like iFixit, but I'm never sure those producers actually consider it or just used a design thst happened to be more repairable than others.
mario0b1 8y ago
non-paywalled link: https://archive.fo/TIWAi https://archive.fo/TIWAi
- berti 8y ago
  Thanks, unfortunately it didn't work (SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP on FF 63.0b10).
  - draw_down 8y ago
    It works fine
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    Firefox 62.0.3 (64-bit) on Windows 10 seems to load it ok.
  - whyagaindavid 8y ago
    https://outline.com/nWt5uF https://outline.com/nWt5uF
collinf 8y ago
Freakonomics did a Podcast on this if anyone wants a pretty good listen. I listened and couldn't stop thinking about all of the applications to software in it. freakonomics.com/podcast/in-praise-of-maintenance/
danans 8y ago
> The discipline’s most prominent statistic, gdp, is gross (as opposed to net) because it leaves out the cost of wear and tear. Net domestic product is an interesting concept that I haven't considered before. The Fed appears to track it somehow, despite the difficulty in measuring it, as the article mentions. Here is a graph I configured on the St Louis Fed site that compares GDP to NDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT In general, it seems to track GDP pretty well, although recently it appears to have gotten closer to GDP, though I don't have any idea why. The article's comparison of "wear and tear" as a % of countries' GDP is interesting. Since lower income countries (China, India) often have a lower standards for acceptable maintenance level in both the public and private realm than wealthier ones, it kind of makes sense that they spend less of their GDP on wear and tear. Also, a lot of the expensive modern infrastructure (airports, freeways, etc) in those countries is relatively new, so a big repair bill might just be further down the road (no pun intended). Britain in this view is an anomaly, being a high income country with low maintenance spend as a % of GDP.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  I'd say there are three main reasons for Britain's lower maintenance spending: 1) Compared to France and Germany the climate and environment is a lot simpler. We don't have lots of mountains with tunnels, the temperature barely dips below freezing. Even though we have roughly the same population size, we have roughly half the length of motorways [0]. 2) In the 80s a lot of public infrastructure was privatised. Taking the railways as an example, First Group is a company listed on the London Stock Exchange which owns a large majority of train and local bus services across the country [1]. Infrastructure projects are still funded by the government, but they are often funded in the way of loans, that at some point they expect to be repaid, so don't impact the GDP. 3) After the financial crisis, fixed capital spending was greatly cut (as well as public spending in general), but as a % of GDP it still hasn't returned to its 2008 levels [2]. I suspect a lot of what was cut was really improvements and new projects that have been shelved. If we were to compare it to other countries over a greater timeframe, I'd expect to see the spending closer to that of France and Germany. It'll be interesting to see what happens after Brexit as a large percentage of both the construction labour force and building supplies are imported from Europe. [0] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Road/Motorway-length http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Roa... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstGroup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstGroup [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gross-fixed-capital-formation-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gross-fixed-capi...
hectorr1 8y ago
The US military sells itself on being incredibly capable thanks to developing and fielding cutting edge weapons technology. It is actually capable because it is extremely effective at logistics and maintenance.
- madeuptempacct 8y ago
  I think that's very subjective. The USSR actually led the way on some innovation: * IRST on MIG-29 and helmet-targeting for infrared missiles * Titanium welding for high-speed submarines * Super-cavitating torpedoes * Stealth theory * Air dropped vehicles * Urban tank support vehicles (BMPT) * Radar targeting for individual machine guns * CIWS * Reactive armor * Lots of other stuff I can't think of right now. It's also questionable whether the US military efficiency over opponents scales with budget over opponents. So its both questionable that it leads in innovation and that this leads to superiority.
  - dbuxton 8y ago
    I think you misunderstand the parent, which is precisely arguing that the "boring" things about the US military are actually the things that give it strategic superiority - not innovation. In fact your point is totally consistent with the parent - others may have innovated well, but that's no guarantee of success.
    - madeuptempacct 8y ago
      Good point, I totally misread.
  - shoo 8y ago
    > It's also questionable whether the US military efficiency over opponents scales with budget over opponents That's a good point. Apparently the US military funding accounts for 36 percent of global military funding, with 3x as much funding as the country with the second highest spend, China. I have no idea if the US military is particularly efficient. Even if it was half as efficient as competitors, the US military could still have an advantage due to the sheer volume of resources dedicated.
meej 8y ago
I would like to point out the Portland Aerial Tram as an example of an infrastructure project that has an extremely strong focus on maintenance and repair (understandably so). Here's a nice video from Oregon Health & Science University featuring the Tram's maintenance supervisor talking about the maintenance program and the impact it has on the Tram's performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I I don't think all infrastructure projects require this level of maintenance, but it's nice to see what's possible when it's baked into a project from the beginning.
ctoth 8y ago
"Because the thing about repairing, maintaining and cleaning is, it's not an adventure." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU
kellysutton 8y ago
In the same vein of repair and things having a long life, I'm experimenting with the idea of giving unused things new homes. We own many things that are not utilized often, so why not move those things better homes? https://cultofless.com https://cultofless.com
anfractuosity 8y ago
I thought this was quite interesting: Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w
noobermin 8y ago
Is there not some irony here that The Economist, a rag if any is more associated with neoliberalism is running this story? Repair and maintenance is one of those things that is completely overlooked by neoliberal, modern capitalism. As they state in the article, GDP and economic analysis in general doesn't take into account wear and tear, amongst a number of other things. If anything, the drive away from things like interchangeable/universal parts and the ability to repair things you own in the first place is directly tied to rise of unfettered capitalism.
jelliclesfarm 8y ago
[..] In March California became the 18th state in America to introduce a bill supporting the “right to repair”, by obliging manufacturers to make manuals more widely available to customers and independent repair shops. [..] Patently untrue. More here: https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/. https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repa.... At least for CA farmers [..] a big California farmers’ lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers’ right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software. As an organization representing 2.5 million California agriculture jobs, the California Farm Bureau gave up the right to purchase repair parts without going through a dealer. Farmers can’t change engine settings, can’t retrofit old equipment with new features, and can’t modify their tractors to meet new environmental standards on their own. Worse, the lobbyists are calling it a victory.[..]
- kwiens 8y ago
  (Author of the linked piece here.) The Economist is technically correct. The bill was introduced, but did not pass. We're going to try again next year.
  - etatoby 8y ago
    If you use words to suggest something untrue, you are a liar. "Technically correct" is something best left to lawyers, whose job entails just that, by its very nature. Everybody else, especially those whose job is to inform people, don't get to use a "technically correct" free pass. They're either telling the truth or lying. In this case, the unnamed coward journalist is lying.
    - orloffm 8y ago
      But isn't that what "introduce" is for?
      - crtasm 8y ago
        "Attempted to pass" might be clearer?
stretchwithme 8y ago
I suspect a legislative process not dominated by industry lobbyists would ensure that people have the right to repair everything. I think countries that use proportional representation rather than winner-take-all elections aren't as hijacked by such lobbyists. I know there was an effort in the EU to ensure the right to repair.
- oldandtired 8y ago
  See my comment above, unless there are changes in all sorts of areas, "right to repair" will only have partial success because there will still be no incentive to make products that are repairable, making the cost of repair more than the cost of just replacing.
- eldavido 8y ago
  I think you're looking at this totally wrong. Making things repairable has real costs. They have to be designed in a modular way so they can be taken apart. Given the choice, most people want sleekness and better industrial design over the ability to repair. This is why products like the iPhone, which feature seam-less industrial design and no externally-visible screws, are so popular. In order to make something maintainable, the design must be stable, it must be designed to be serviceable, it must be built with serviceable parts, and it must have a long enough lifetime where maintenance is worth it economically, and a buyer who cares. None of these are typically true for huge segments of what consumers buy.
  - lambertsimnel 8y ago
    I think the distinction between the right to repair and the ability to repair is important. I think you're addressing the latter and stretchwithme is addressing the former. As the article suggests, the lack of recognition for the right to repair is one of the phenomena inhibiting repair. Where the right isn't enforced, it's possible for manufacturers to make things repairable, while also imposing a monopoly on repair, thereby inflating repair costs and inhibiting (legal) repair. Please see this Vice article about tractor repair https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-americ...
umeshunni 8y ago
The article does a good job of differentiating between repairing high fixed cost items (like a bridge or house) and low fixed cost items (like electronics). It's also worth thinking about the labor cost of repairing vs manufacturing, especially in a world where manufacturing is automated and repairing is a very labor intensive process (diagnosis, sourcing replacement parts, performing the repair, verifying functionality post-repair etc). This is probably the reason why repairing is generally more common in low labor costs markets than in the developed world.
nimbius 8y ago
speaking as an engine mechanic by trade, I agree 100%. But manufacturers have another tactic that needs to be reigned in. Namely, fabricated service bulletins and procedures. Example: reporting a bad transfer case bearing as a service bulletin. This is normal, as customers have detected the fault and the manufacturer has identified it as a problem. What isnt normal is the manufacturer insisting the part cant be repaired, and instead of a $50 part you need to chuck the entire thing and pay $2500 for a new assembly. Sure, bearings are a hard example, but ive also encountered manufacturers who demand their brake calipers cannot be re manufactured (Porsche and BMW, im looking at you.) and instead of a $119 rebuild, you'll need to buy a one thousand dollar caliper straight from germany or the entire car will explode.
- etatoby 8y ago
  See Apple for the equivalent fraudolent behavior in the computing world. https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns
aloukissas 8y ago
Not if you ask Tesla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ
fouc 8y ago
Realistically, repair & sustainability is far more important than innovation largely driven by our fossil fuel dependency, which is going to run out in the next 50 years anyways.
saudioger 8y ago
More important. The only innovative thing I can come up with to avoid having to fix my leaky toilet is shitting in the yard.
- giardini 8y ago
  1) Start eating meals at regular hours, 2) join a gym, 3) get a part-time job to fill your empty hours. Voila, no need for a toilet of your own. (No thank-you required) But seriously, hold your nose and fix your leaky toilet - this is one of the easiest things in your house to repair. There's such a thing as being _too_ lazy.
qwerty456127 8y ago
Indeed.
choonway 8y ago
The real change will come when my handphone can repair itself. Screen cracked? no problem just throw some sand on it and the nanobots will do the rest.
jokoon 8y ago
The problem is short term versus long-term profits. It seems it's more expensive to make products that are more easily repairable or can last longer, because obviously brands benefit from making products that break, although I'm curious if consumers really know how to switch brand when one break early, and if consumers can really understand why and how a product will last longer. There should be regulations about how products are made and how their parts can break. I saw some broom vacuum cleaner's break because of a flexible plastic air canal. It requires buying a big piece. It's either intentional, or bad design. Those designs should be regulated, inspected and fined.
marenkay 8y ago
Just establish worldwide regulation that favours any approach with the least amount of resource consumption. Would not force people into replacing/fixing. It would always favour the approach best for all of us. Simple solution IMHO
vicpara 8y ago
Repairs need to be part of the business model to become a priority. Currently, the manufacturers see repairs only as a mandatory service they need to offer as imposed on them by the local law. The market doesn't impose any further requirements on these products. 2 years are just about as far in the future humans can anticipate and foresee things. Robust design is a feature that doesn't do good to your business. Soviet product design, as laughable it seems to one, was really incredible and produced products that would rarely break and when they do so parts were always available. But in that market model getting rich was never the goal. Quite the contrary! For example, my grandmother still has a radio that weights 7 kg built in 50s that works despite all things. I can listen to Radio Moscow from my kitchen 2000km away. The antenna is broken and that radio hangs near the cooker, it is already filled with a lot of dust and grease. Just like your extractor fan. That's just one example. Kalashnikov, Russian tanks, cars, soviet home electrical appliances like tvs, washing machines or vacuum cleaners etc. They all work today. In a capitalist economy only the regulators can impose repairs as a requirement. Most humans are beyond their ability to think critically at what happens in 2-5 years time.
Pica_soO 8y ago
Im still wondering if the natures approach to repair- aka, discard after respawning a replacement, is after all maybe the best approach, even for tech. Because, catching all scenarios in programming is running against YAGNI. So if the replacement boots up, does its job for a second, fails gracefully and spawns a replacement to the very same, all meanwhile improving over generations, maybe that is not some sputtering failure, but instead something - that makes tech more lifelike. Think of your work not as a immortal statue, standing there for eternity, but more of something growing, maybe with the helps of guardians- or maybe- long forgotten, some long dead embedded controlled lawn sprinklers in a old house, saving some animals from a wildfire.
contingencies 8y ago
While I am coming to this discussion after most have moved on, as a software guy who has moved toward hardware I think a substantial point not made here is that manufacturing processes are not like software. Lego works for reassembly because it is a one-part item: standard interface, bulky, light, strong, simple. A typical circuit board by contrast is centrally fabricated by high-end robots as an extremely high density sub-assembly including tens, hundreds or thousands of components. It's not easy to repair because it requires relatively specialist knowledge and tools to do so, and there are so many different components available. In a similar way, many products have been explicitly designed to be smaller, lighter, simpler or cheaper instead of being reassembly-capable. Injection molded plastic is a classic example, so is assembly by glue or snap-in vs. screws. These are powerful techniques and valid trade-offs. This does not excuse, for example, companies like Canon and Nikon requiring customers to pay extortionate amounts for repairs and replacements of simpler mechanisms and refusing to supply replacement parts to independent service people.

598 points by sinak 8y ago

I have the concern that - as the pace of tech development increases - the timeframe of designers, planners, and stake-holders shrinks. The advantage of this trend is obvious (why invest in tools that will be greatly improved upon in coming years?), but the pitfalls are less apparent and less exciting. The perspective needs to be broad. Honestly, some rudimentary technology (physical infrastructure, financial instruments, computing solutions) is rather effective and oftentimes elegant. Why not lean into these artifacts and design around repair/maintenance/continued-use?

llukas 8y ago
You mean tech companies want everyone to buy almost identical phone every two years? If anything pace of tech development plateaus after technology gets commoditized.
- snuxoll 8y ago
  Up until recently mobile devices had been getting ludicrously massive performance gains year over year, much like traditional PC's had before ~2012. Going from my iPhone 6 Plus to iPhone 7 Plus two years ago was an absolutely massive leap in terms of even day-to-day performance, meanwhile outside PC gaming I'd have a hard time justifying a replacement or upgrade of a mid-range or better laptop or desktop made in the past 6 years. Times have changed however, had my iPhone 7 Plus not died on me I wouldn't have bothered to upgrade to an iPhone XS (I had an extended warranty through T-Mobile and got the device swapped just to trade it in for a $300 credit) - it was still stupidly fast and I certainly wasn't missing any of the gimmicks in the newer devices. This is probably why T-Mobile is now testing 3 year financing options with the iPhone XS and Galaxy Note 9.
  - marssaxman 8y ago
    I really don't understand why phones needed those performance gains. What on earth are people doing with their phones to make use of multiple cores, anyway? The form factor makes their utility so fundamentally limited that increased compute capacity doesn't seem to change anything.
    - drchickensalad 8y ago
      Have you seen the code people write for mobile apps lately?
      - marssaxman 8y ago
        No, I have no contact with any of that ecosystem, and I use very few mobile apps since most of them seem like pointless skins over poorly designed websites. What do you have in mind?
qwertay 8y ago
It also leaves less time for reverse engineers and hackers to work out the device. By the time you have worked out the 300 step process to replace the power button on the latest iphone without triggering the security chip its too late and no one has that phone anymore.

burlesona 8y ago

This is one of the core messages of Strong Towns (strongtowns.org). In general humans get really excited about building new and transformative things, and we have a big blind spot to ongoing maintenance. In particular we've come to utterly depend on the things that were "shiny and new" back in first generation of suburbanization (50s - 70s), while many of those things have been poorly maintained, and in many cases the economic returns on that infrastructure don't actually justify the ongoing maintenance cost. It's a dangerous drag on the economy, but we're stuck with it now, and the lesson learned is we should prioritize maintenance in our thought process and make sure we're getting a positive return out of the infrastructure liabilities we already have before creating new ones.

krrrh 8y ago
That’s really interesting. The point has been made about individual variance on the big-5 (OCEAN) personality traits, specifically openness and conscientiousness. Those with higher openness are good at starting new businesses or projects, while those with higher conscientiousness are better at running them once they are past the startup phase. The argument goes that, as with business, you need both types of personalities to make society function. But in terms of political and infrastructural projects, getting both styles of thinking interacting in early stages, in a less linear process than we see in startups, would be constructive. This is unfortunately rare. JJane Jacobs comes to mind as a rare thinker who could integrate ideas of perservation/maintenance and renewal/innovation, which is probably why she has been lauded by both hard lefty types as well as market libertarians.
ataturk 8y ago
So obvious where I live. Most of the home were built in the 80s and 90s and are now falling in to disrepair because most owners just can't understand maintenance and the cost of upkeep. I spent $30K renovating our master bathroom. I don't think I'll make it back when we sell the house, but the 80s master was just done. All the phone lines in the house are inop, I had to run new ones, mostly outside of the walls. Siding, roof, furnace, multiple water heaters, water softener, garage doors, sliding doors, windows, wiring updates, new driveway, landscaping, back fence. I'm also restoring an older car. It's not really even worth it except I learned a lot. Rust buckets should just go to the crusher. iPads should be easily repairable, at least the glass and battery...

TaylorAlexander 8y ago

Intellectual property protection is a major inhibitor of repair. When only one organization can legally produce replacement parts, repair becomes relegated to outlaws. Companies default to closed source, guaranteeing that at some point what they produce will all end up in a landfill unless it can be recycled. It’s an obscure position but I believe that intellectual property protection increases material waste and accelerates the destruction of the natural world. It’s an issue that sadly few people think much about, and one that I believe is invisibly harming the earth. Recently I met Neil Gershenfeld from MIT, who advocates for research and development in to universal machinery that can assemble itself, perform its duties, and then disassemble itself back in to parts when complete. [1] As he says, “there is no trash with LEGO, and there is no trash in a forest.” It’s a far off idea it seems, but intriguing nonetheless. In the near term, we as consumers can help avoid this waste by refusing to buy proprietary materials that will eventually become landfill waste. Don’t buy cheap Halloween decorations at the dollar store that will fill up the dump. Don’t buy cheap Christmas presents for the short term amusement they provide. We can point fingers at manufacturers for producing goods they know will become trash, but we are just as complicit for buying those things from them. Support producers who believe in repair and you will be doing the earth and all its future inhabitants a favor. [1] https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> Intellectual property protection is a major inhibitor of repair. Notice that this is only a problem as a result of excessive copyright terms and patent thickets/evergreening. If you buy a product halfway through its twenty year patent term and then have to repair it after ten years, no problem, by then the patent is expired and anyone can make parts. Unless by then the manufacturer has stopped making new software/firmware for the device and the old version has security vulnerabilities or isn't compatible with modern systems, yet no one can fix it because the old unsupported software still has an unexpired copyright even though the vendor has abandoned it.
icebraining 8y ago
Who does believe in repair? I'm a strong believer in it, but I don't remember ever finding producers listing it as a feature. I know there are guides like iFixit, but I'm never sure those producers actually consider it or just used a design thst happened to be more repairable than others.

mario0b1 8y ago

non-paywalled link: https://archive.fo/TIWAi https://archive.fo/TIWAi

berti 8y ago
Thanks, unfortunately it didn't work (SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP on FF 63.0b10).
- draw_down 8y ago
  It works fine
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Firefox 62.0.3 (64-bit) on Windows 10 seems to load it ok.
- whyagaindavid 8y ago
  https://outline.com/nWt5uF https://outline.com/nWt5uF

collinf 8y ago

Freakonomics did a Podcast on this if anyone wants a pretty good listen. I listened and couldn't stop thinking about all of the applications to software in it. freakonomics.com/podcast/in-praise-of-maintenance/

danans 8y ago

> The discipline’s most prominent statistic, gdp, is gross (as opposed to net) because it leaves out the cost of wear and tear. Net domestic product is an interesting concept that I haven't considered before. The Fed appears to track it somehow, despite the difficulty in measuring it, as the article mentions. Here is a graph I configured on the St Louis Fed site that compares GDP to NDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT In general, it seems to track GDP pretty well, although recently it appears to have gotten closer to GDP, though I don't have any idea why. The article's comparison of "wear and tear" as a % of countries' GDP is interesting. Since lower income countries (China, India) often have a lower standards for acceptable maintenance level in both the public and private realm than wealthier ones, it kind of makes sense that they spend less of their GDP on wear and tear. Also, a lot of the expensive modern infrastructure (airports, freeways, etc) in those countries is relatively new, so a big repair bill might just be further down the road (no pun intended). Britain in this view is an anomaly, being a high income country with low maintenance spend as a % of GDP.

fyfy18 8y ago
I'd say there are three main reasons for Britain's lower maintenance spending: 1) Compared to France and Germany the climate and environment is a lot simpler. We don't have lots of mountains with tunnels, the temperature barely dips below freezing. Even though we have roughly the same population size, we have roughly half the length of motorways [0]. 2) In the 80s a lot of public infrastructure was privatised. Taking the railways as an example, First Group is a company listed on the London Stock Exchange which owns a large majority of train and local bus services across the country [1]. Infrastructure projects are still funded by the government, but they are often funded in the way of loans, that at some point they expect to be repaid, so don't impact the GDP. 3) After the financial crisis, fixed capital spending was greatly cut (as well as public spending in general), but as a % of GDP it still hasn't returned to its 2008 levels [2]. I suspect a lot of what was cut was really improvements and new projects that have been shelved. If we were to compare it to other countries over a greater timeframe, I'd expect to see the spending closer to that of France and Germany. It'll be interesting to see what happens after Brexit as a large percentage of both the construction labour force and building supplies are imported from Europe. [0] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Road/Motorway-length http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Transport/Roa... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstGroup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirstGroup [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gross-fixed-capital-formation-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gross-fixed-capi...

hectorr1 8y ago

The US military sells itself on being incredibly capable thanks to developing and fielding cutting edge weapons technology. It is actually capable because it is extremely effective at logistics and maintenance.

madeuptempacct 8y ago
I think that's very subjective. The USSR actually led the way on some innovation: * IRST on MIG-29 and helmet-targeting for infrared missiles * Titanium welding for high-speed submarines * Super-cavitating torpedoes * Stealth theory * Air dropped vehicles * Urban tank support vehicles (BMPT) * Radar targeting for individual machine guns * CIWS * Reactive armor * Lots of other stuff I can't think of right now. It's also questionable whether the US military efficiency over opponents scales with budget over opponents. So its both questionable that it leads in innovation and that this leads to superiority.
- dbuxton 8y ago
  I think you misunderstand the parent, which is precisely arguing that the "boring" things about the US military are actually the things that give it strategic superiority - not innovation. In fact your point is totally consistent with the parent - others may have innovated well, but that's no guarantee of success.
  - madeuptempacct 8y ago
    Good point, I totally misread.
- shoo 8y ago
  > It's also questionable whether the US military efficiency over opponents scales with budget over opponents That's a good point. Apparently the US military funding accounts for 36 percent of global military funding, with 3x as much funding as the country with the second highest spend, China. I have no idea if the US military is particularly efficient. Even if it was half as efficient as competitors, the US military could still have an advantage due to the sheer volume of resources dedicated.

meej 8y ago

I would like to point out the Portland Aerial Tram as an example of an infrastructure project that has an extremely strong focus on maintenance and repair (understandably so). Here's a nice video from Oregon Health & Science University featuring the Tram's maintenance supervisor talking about the maintenance program and the impact it has on the Tram's performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I I don't think all infrastructure projects require this level of maintenance, but it's nice to see what's possible when it's baked into a project from the beginning.

ctoth 8y ago

"Because the thing about repairing, maintaining and cleaning is, it's not an adventure." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU

kellysutton 8y ago

In the same vein of repair and things having a long life, I'm experimenting with the idea of giving unused things new homes. We own many things that are not utilized often, so why not move those things better homes? https://cultofless.com https://cultofless.com

anfractuosity 8y ago

I thought this was quite interesting: Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w

noobermin 8y ago

Is there not some irony here that The Economist, a rag if any is more associated with neoliberalism is running this story? Repair and maintenance is one of those things that is completely overlooked by neoliberal, modern capitalism. As they state in the article, GDP and economic analysis in general doesn't take into account wear and tear, amongst a number of other things. If anything, the drive away from things like interchangeable/universal parts and the ability to repair things you own in the first place is directly tied to rise of unfettered capitalism.

jelliclesfarm 8y ago

[..] In March California became the 18th state in America to introduce a bill supporting the “right to repair”, by obliging manufacturers to make manuals more widely available to customers and independent repair shops. [..] Patently untrue. More here: https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/. https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repa.... At least for CA farmers [..] a big California farmers’ lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers’ right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software. As an organization representing 2.5 million California agriculture jobs, the California Farm Bureau gave up the right to purchase repair parts without going through a dealer. Farmers can’t change engine settings, can’t retrofit old equipment with new features, and can’t modify their tractors to meet new environmental standards on their own. Worse, the lobbyists are calling it a victory.[..]

kwiens 8y ago
(Author of the linked piece here.) The Economist is technically correct. The bill was introduced, but did not pass. We're going to try again next year.
- etatoby 8y ago
  If you use words to suggest something untrue, you are a liar. "Technically correct" is something best left to lawyers, whose job entails just that, by its very nature. Everybody else, especially those whose job is to inform people, don't get to use a "technically correct" free pass. They're either telling the truth or lying. In this case, the unnamed coward journalist is lying.
  - orloffm 8y ago
    But isn't that what "introduce" is for?
    - crtasm 8y ago
      "Attempted to pass" might be clearer?

stretchwithme 8y ago

I suspect a legislative process not dominated by industry lobbyists would ensure that people have the right to repair everything. I think countries that use proportional representation rather than winner-take-all elections aren't as hijacked by such lobbyists. I know there was an effort in the EU to ensure the right to repair.

oldandtired 8y ago
See my comment above, unless there are changes in all sorts of areas, "right to repair" will only have partial success because there will still be no incentive to make products that are repairable, making the cost of repair more than the cost of just replacing.
eldavido 8y ago
I think you're looking at this totally wrong. Making things repairable has real costs. They have to be designed in a modular way so they can be taken apart. Given the choice, most people want sleekness and better industrial design over the ability to repair. This is why products like the iPhone, which feature seam-less industrial design and no externally-visible screws, are so popular. In order to make something maintainable, the design must be stable, it must be designed to be serviceable, it must be built with serviceable parts, and it must have a long enough lifetime where maintenance is worth it economically, and a buyer who cares. None of these are typically true for huge segments of what consumers buy.
- lambertsimnel 8y ago
  I think the distinction between the right to repair and the ability to repair is important. I think you're addressing the latter and stretchwithme is addressing the former. As the article suggests, the lack of recognition for the right to repair is one of the phenomena inhibiting repair. Where the right isn't enforced, it's possible for manufacturers to make things repairable, while also imposing a monopoly on repair, thereby inflating repair costs and inhibiting (legal) repair. Please see this Vice article about tractor repair https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-americ...

umeshunni 8y ago

The article does a good job of differentiating between repairing high fixed cost items (like a bridge or house) and low fixed cost items (like electronics). It's also worth thinking about the labor cost of repairing vs manufacturing, especially in a world where manufacturing is automated and repairing is a very labor intensive process (diagnosis, sourcing replacement parts, performing the repair, verifying functionality post-repair etc). This is probably the reason why repairing is generally more common in low labor costs markets than in the developed world.

nimbius 8y ago

speaking as an engine mechanic by trade, I agree 100%. But manufacturers have another tactic that needs to be reigned in. Namely, fabricated service bulletins and procedures. Example: reporting a bad transfer case bearing as a service bulletin. This is normal, as customers have detected the fault and the manufacturer has identified it as a problem. What isnt normal is the manufacturer insisting the part cant be repaired, and instead of a $50 part you need to chuck the entire thing and pay $2500 for a new assembly. Sure, bearings are a hard example, but ive also encountered manufacturers who demand their brake calipers cannot be re manufactured (Porsche and BMW, im looking at you.) and instead of a $119 rebuild, you'll need to buy a one thousand dollar caliper straight from germany or the entire car will explode.

etatoby 8y ago
See Apple for the equivalent fraudolent behavior in the computing world. https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns https://youtu.be/o2_SZ4tfLns

aloukissas 8y ago

Not if you ask Tesla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ

fouc 8y ago

Realistically, repair & sustainability is far more important than innovation largely driven by our fossil fuel dependency, which is going to run out in the next 50 years anyways.

saudioger 8y ago

More important. The only innovative thing I can come up with to avoid having to fix my leaky toilet is shitting in the yard.

giardini 8y ago
1) Start eating meals at regular hours, 2) join a gym, 3) get a part-time job to fill your empty hours. Voila, no need for a toilet of your own. (No thank-you required) But seriously, hold your nose and fix your leaky toilet - this is one of the easiest things in your house to repair. There's such a thing as being _too_ lazy.

qwerty456127 8y ago

Indeed.

choonway 8y ago

The real change will come when my handphone can repair itself. Screen cracked? no problem just throw some sand on it and the nanobots will do the rest.

jokoon 8y ago

The problem is short term versus long-term profits. It seems it's more expensive to make products that are more easily repairable or can last longer, because obviously brands benefit from making products that break, although I'm curious if consumers really know how to switch brand when one break early, and if consumers can really understand why and how a product will last longer. There should be regulations about how products are made and how their parts can break. I saw some broom vacuum cleaner's break because of a flexible plastic air canal. It requires buying a big piece. It's either intentional, or bad design. Those designs should be regulated, inspected and fined.

marenkay 8y ago

Just establish worldwide regulation that favours any approach with the least amount of resource consumption. Would not force people into replacing/fixing. It would always favour the approach best for all of us. Simple solution IMHO

vicpara 8y ago

Repairs need to be part of the business model to become a priority. Currently, the manufacturers see repairs only as a mandatory service they need to offer as imposed on them by the local law. The market doesn't impose any further requirements on these products. 2 years are just about as far in the future humans can anticipate and foresee things. Robust design is a feature that doesn't do good to your business. Soviet product design, as laughable it seems to one, was really incredible and produced products that would rarely break and when they do so parts were always available. But in that market model getting rich was never the goal. Quite the contrary! For example, my grandmother still has a radio that weights 7 kg built in 50s that works despite all things. I can listen to Radio Moscow from my kitchen 2000km away. The antenna is broken and that radio hangs near the cooker, it is already filled with a lot of dust and grease. Just like your extractor fan. That's just one example. Kalashnikov, Russian tanks, cars, soviet home electrical appliances like tvs, washing machines or vacuum cleaners etc. They all work today. In a capitalist economy only the regulators can impose repairs as a requirement. Most humans are beyond their ability to think critically at what happens in 2-5 years time.

Pica_soO 8y ago

Im still wondering if the natures approach to repair- aka, discard after respawning a replacement, is after all maybe the best approach, even for tech. Because, catching all scenarios in programming is running against YAGNI. So if the replacement boots up, does its job for a second, fails gracefully and spawns a replacement to the very same, all meanwhile improving over generations, maybe that is not some sputtering failure, but instead something - that makes tech more lifelike. Think of your work not as a immortal statue, standing there for eternity, but more of something growing, maybe with the helps of guardians- or maybe- long forgotten, some long dead embedded controlled lawn sprinklers in a old house, saving some animals from a wildfire.

contingencies 8y ago

While I am coming to this discussion after most have moved on, as a software guy who has moved toward hardware I think a substantial point not made here is that manufacturing processes are not like software. Lego works for reassembly because it is a one-part item: standard interface, bulky, light, strong, simple. A typical circuit board by contrast is centrally fabricated by high-end robots as an extremely high density sub-assembly including tens, hundreds or thousands of components. It's not easy to repair because it requires relatively specialist knowledge and tools to do so, and there are so many different components available. In a similar way, many products have been explicitly designed to be smaller, lighter, simpler or cheaper instead of being reassembly-capable. Injection molded plastic is a classic example, so is assembly by glue or snap-in vs. screws. These are powerful techniques and valid trade-offs. This does not excuse, for example, companies like Canon and Nikon requiring customers to pay extortionate amounts for repairs and replacements of simpler mechanisms and refusing to supply replacement parts to independent service people.