7 ms·

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole. And I think that only "right-to-repair" can make things correct and reduce those disposable electronics.

s1512783 7y ago
> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  > (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it. But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life. And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer. And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable. I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs. What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke. I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk... When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip. Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".
  - s1512783 7y ago
    > I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I understand that you're angry about your HP printer not working, I also agree that the 'protection' measures in printers are ridiculous, especially on ink cartridges. I also agree that planned obsolescence is terrible for the environment, as are business models like those for inkjet printers, where the device is given away for nothing just so they can sell you overpriced ink refills. I was just pointing out that sometimes it makes sense for replacement parts to be really expensive, even more than the original product, and that enforcing a law that would prohibit such practices would be counterproductive, not to mention that it would be very hard to implement in practice. For one, how do you even calculate the real value? If you'd have a device that is intended to last a long time (as we would all like), say 20 years you can't just take the amount of dollars you paid originally. You'd have to take into account inflation, changing plant and labour costs etc. This would quickly get messy, and, IMO, would not produce much final benefit. Having said that, I think we're on the same page, I would also love to criminalise making products that are designed to fail after a certain amount of time. But this is also super hard to legislate. For example, how do you tell malicious intent from bad design? If my car becomes uneconomical to repair after 100,000 miles because the chassis starts to rust, how do you know whether the manufacturer designed it that way to sell me a new one quicker, or because they made a mistake? It's easy to tell when they specifically program a microcontroller to stop working after a certain date, and I think that such obviously bad practices should be outlawed. But as a design engineer, I can tell you that it's super easy to design things to fail in much subtler ways, so that it looks like it's a simple mistake. Especially since making your design last longer usually involves adding features like strain relievers on cords etc. This costs money, and you can easily pretend that you're "saving costs for the end consumer". I think that, after the most basic right to repair legislation is in place, "soft" practices, like encouraging people to buy stuff from companies that have real warranty programs, and which advertise their "built to last" business models would be much more effective than trying to legislate away every aspect of repair. I love how some outdoor equipment companies (Osprey, MSR, Cumulus) handle this. They sell really expensive stuff, but with excellent after-sales support, and openly encourage people to send products in for repair. Of course this would be very hard to implement in a "tech" environment, where the USP is usually "newer, faster, better". Although, as Bunnie Huang said, with the slow-down of Moore's law, we may slowly be reaching the point of a "heirloom" laptop. I'd love to see that one day.
- solatic 7y ago
  > Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. Leave delivery costs out for a second; all that you're really arguing for is that instead of warehousing/inventorying old parts, it should be much easier to order individual parts on-demand from local boutique fabrication suppliers. Sure, that costs more per-part than the original (which benefited from the cost reduction of mass production), but as much as the whole? My gut is pretty doubtful on that.
- neop1x 7y ago
  I don't think it is dangerous. If manufacturers were required to sell parts at price loser than the whole they would have to adapt. Worst case, they can disassemble whole products back to spare parts!
Aromasin 7y ago
>no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I love right to repair policy as much as the next man, but I don't entirely agree with this statement. Certainly from my experience in the aerospace industry where some of the hardware is 20+ years old, the company might not have produced the product for the past decade and have none of the machines/molds/designs to make the part any longer, and it's a niche item so there are no spares. In that instance, we could well be looking at paying them upwards of £20k for something like a lighting bracket which we initially bought for £500, because we're effectively paying them to buy/build the machinery, redesigned the product, and replicate said part without any of the economies of scale they had initially - and it needs to be done because otherwise instead of a £20k bracket you're looking at a full multi-million pound redesign for something as minor as an obsolete part. You can't expect people to pay stupid money to pay for spares, but likewise you can't expect businesses to keep equipment to manufacture products from decades ago for when the spares run dry, or expect them to have the gift of foresight to predict how many spares they'll need years down the line.
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  Ok, but even in your example your thinking in spending $20k for a $500 piece for being able to use something that costs much more than $20k. Perhaps I should made it clear in the original reply: what I expect is to own the thing I buy. And owning it means that I should be able to do whatever I want with it, including fix it using third-party suppliers. Of course, if we think of extremes, I think that SpaceX will charge much more for providing me a replacement noozle than it actually costs, but in this case we will be talking about rocket science.
  - Aromasin 7y ago
    Poor example then, but I have worked with aircraft where we've paid hundreds for a bolt, which is more than the price of the thing we're fixing, just so we don't have to go through the pain of replacing the whole unit - even though it would be cheaper. Again, I don't think when it comes to spares we should expect a company to continue to support a legacy product indefinitely. I don't expect Apple to continue producing parts for the Apple 2 just in case someone sends theirs back for repairs. I'm not disagreeing with you as to your second comment, but that's not how I read your first comment at all. Something as sweeping "no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole" has so many issues with it that putting it into practice would be beyond detrimental for manufacturers.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
You got a dirt cheap printer because you're paying with supplies. Printer heads are the normal price.
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  And that's why there are anti-dumping laws. And I assure you it wasn't the cheap version of the printer....
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > You got a dirt cheap printer because you're paying with supplies. Give me one good reason why this particular business model - base subsidized by consumables - shouldn't be straight up banned. I can't think of any.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    Freedom of choice on consumers and suppliers. Why should supermarkets be able to offer discounted products, sometimes below their cost, as loss-leaders to get people into the store? Why should airlines be allowed to give away free flights via frequent flier programs? If Gillette wants to sell me a $5 razor handle for $2 because it can only use $1 blades from them, why should that be barred as an offer on their part that I accept?
    - quanticle 7y ago
      Because it causes massive unsustainable externalities when that business model is applied by many firms across the economy as a whole? The only reason that manufacturers can get away with planned obsolescence is because they don't have to pay any disposal fees to recycle/remanufacture their equipment. If they took a hit to their bottom line every time a consumer threw out their product, I'm willing to be they'd design products to be a lot more durable and repairable.
      - cycrutchfield 7y ago
        ... how much do you think device disposal actually costs?

s1512783 7y ago

> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. I once went to a lecture given by someone from Boeing. He said that when they use an obscure electronic part in their aircraft, and it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock they can get hold of, store it in a very secure location, and charge a lot for it. The real value of this part is way larger than the original manufacturing costs would imply. It doesn't cost as much as a plane, but if your plane cannot fly without it, then it's pretty darn close.

woliveirajr 7y ago
> (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it. But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life. And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer. And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable. I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs. What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke. I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk... When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip. Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".
- s1512783 7y ago
  > I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I understand that you're angry about your HP printer not working, I also agree that the 'protection' measures in printers are ridiculous, especially on ink cartridges. I also agree that planned obsolescence is terrible for the environment, as are business models like those for inkjet printers, where the device is given away for nothing just so they can sell you overpriced ink refills. I was just pointing out that sometimes it makes sense for replacement parts to be really expensive, even more than the original product, and that enforcing a law that would prohibit such practices would be counterproductive, not to mention that it would be very hard to implement in practice. For one, how do you even calculate the real value? If you'd have a device that is intended to last a long time (as we would all like), say 20 years you can't just take the amount of dollars you paid originally. You'd have to take into account inflation, changing plant and labour costs etc. This would quickly get messy, and, IMO, would not produce much final benefit. Having said that, I think we're on the same page, I would also love to criminalise making products that are designed to fail after a certain amount of time. But this is also super hard to legislate. For example, how do you tell malicious intent from bad design? If my car becomes uneconomical to repair after 100,000 miles because the chassis starts to rust, how do you know whether the manufacturer designed it that way to sell me a new one quicker, or because they made a mistake? It's easy to tell when they specifically program a microcontroller to stop working after a certain date, and I think that such obviously bad practices should be outlawed. But as a design engineer, I can tell you that it's super easy to design things to fail in much subtler ways, so that it looks like it's a simple mistake. Especially since making your design last longer usually involves adding features like strain relievers on cords etc. This costs money, and you can easily pretend that you're "saving costs for the end consumer". I think that, after the most basic right to repair legislation is in place, "soft" practices, like encouraging people to buy stuff from companies that have real warranty programs, and which advertise their "built to last" business models would be much more effective than trying to legislate away every aspect of repair. I love how some outdoor equipment companies (Osprey, MSR, Cumulus) handle this. They sell really expensive stuff, but with excellent after-sales support, and openly encourage people to send products in for repair. Of course this would be very hard to implement in a "tech" environment, where the USP is usually "newer, faster, better". Although, as Bunnie Huang said, with the slow-down of Moore's law, we may slowly be reaching the point of a "heirloom" laptop. I'd love to see that one day.
solatic 7y ago
> Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs could easily make parts cost more than the original item. Leave delivery costs out for a second; all that you're really arguing for is that instead of warehousing/inventorying old parts, it should be much easier to order individual parts on-demand from local boutique fabrication suppliers. Sure, that costs more per-part than the original (which benefited from the cost reduction of mass production), but as much as the whole? My gut is pretty doubtful on that.
neop1x 7y ago
I don't think it is dangerous. If manufacturers were required to sell parts at price loser than the whole they would have to adapt. Worst case, they can disassemble whole products back to spare parts!

Aromasin 7y ago

>no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I love right to repair policy as much as the next man, but I don't entirely agree with this statement. Certainly from my experience in the aerospace industry where some of the hardware is 20+ years old, the company might not have produced the product for the past decade and have none of the machines/molds/designs to make the part any longer, and it's a niche item so there are no spares. In that instance, we could well be looking at paying them upwards of £20k for something like a lighting bracket which we initially bought for £500, because we're effectively paying them to buy/build the machinery, redesigned the product, and replicate said part without any of the economies of scale they had initially - and it needs to be done because otherwise instead of a £20k bracket you're looking at a full multi-million pound redesign for something as minor as an obsolete part. You can't expect people to pay stupid money to pay for spares, but likewise you can't expect businesses to keep equipment to manufacture products from decades ago for when the spares run dry, or expect them to have the gift of foresight to predict how many spares they'll need years down the line.

woliveirajr 7y ago
Ok, but even in your example your thinking in spending $20k for a $500 piece for being able to use something that costs much more than $20k. Perhaps I should made it clear in the original reply: what I expect is to own the thing I buy. And owning it means that I should be able to do whatever I want with it, including fix it using third-party suppliers. Of course, if we think of extremes, I think that SpaceX will charge much more for providing me a replacement noozle than it actually costs, but in this case we will be talking about rocket science.
- Aromasin 7y ago
  Poor example then, but I have worked with aircraft where we've paid hundreds for a bolt, which is more than the price of the thing we're fixing, just so we don't have to go through the pain of replacing the whole unit - even though it would be cheaper. Again, I don't think when it comes to spares we should expect a company to continue to support a legacy product indefinitely. I don't expect Apple to continue producing parts for the Apple 2 just in case someone sends theirs back for repairs. I'm not disagreeing with you as to your second comment, but that's not how I read your first comment at all. Something as sweeping "no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole" has so many issues with it that putting it into practice would be beyond detrimental for manufacturers.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

You got a dirt cheap printer because you're paying with supplies. Printer heads are the normal price.

woliveirajr 7y ago
And that's why there are anti-dumping laws. And I assure you it wasn't the cheap version of the printer....
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> You got a dirt cheap printer because you're paying with supplies. Give me one good reason why this particular business model - base subsidized by consumables - shouldn't be straight up banned. I can't think of any.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Freedom of choice on consumers and suppliers. Why should supermarkets be able to offer discounted products, sometimes below their cost, as loss-leaders to get people into the store? Why should airlines be allowed to give away free flights via frequent flier programs? If Gillette wants to sell me a $5 razor handle for $2 because it can only use $1 blades from them, why should that be barred as an offer on their part that I accept?
  - quanticle 7y ago
    Because it causes massive unsustainable externalities when that business model is applied by many firms across the economy as a whole? The only reason that manufacturers can get away with planned obsolescence is because they don't have to pay any disposal fees to recycle/remanufacture their equipment. If they took a hit to their bottom line every time a consumer threw out their product, I'm willing to be they'd design products to be a lot more durable and repairable.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      ... how much do you think device disposal actually costs?