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I think people who look for or read laptop repair manuals is an insignificant percentage of their customer base. Case study: Apple starts using pentalobe screw

I think people who look for or read laptop repair manuals is an insignificant percentage of their customer base. Case study: Apple starts using pentalobe screws on the iPhone 4. This did not correlate with a decrease in sales, in fact sales have gone up a lot. Ask random iPhone users what the word "pentalobe" means to them, they probably don't know, nor care.

davidhyde 7y ago
Good point about Apple. Self repair seems out of the question. About your first point, maybe it is naive of me to assume that repair shops acquire laptop repair manuals as soon as they come out and then keep them in case they need to repair a certain model. If this were the case then the only people affected by toshiba’s actions are self repair individuals of which there are few as you point out. If the repair shops rely on databases of these repair manuals then I guess that they are unlikely to tell their disappointed customers that they cannot repair their laptops because they can’t get hold of the manual because the vendor removed them all from the internet.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
Apple is never a central example. If your iPhone breaks and can't be repaired and you want another one, you have to buy a new one from Apple, because Samsung doesn't make iOS devices. Meanwhile the fact that old iPhones get minor damage and then cost more to repair than they're worth increases the "I can afford an iPhone" signaling value of having one because they become less common and cost more to maintain in a state of good repair. In other words, it's a Veblen good. That doesn't work for commodity markets like Android devices and PC laptops because it's all fungible commodity hardware and it all runs the same software. And then even if the user has no idea what "pentalobe screws" are, they do know that their laptop broke after the first year and all the repair shops told them it was unrepairable junk and recommended a different brand. Meanwhile even Apple is playing a dangerous game here, because eroding repairability increases their new sales in the short term, but it also damages their reputation with technical people over time. So you get more sales, but more of the sales are to douchy investment bankers who then stand around holding your logo in their hand while telling girls they're fat and firing people's dads and bloviating about how much better they are than you because they drive a BMW. And on top of that, there is a trade off between more sales and more users. When your platform's devices don't last as long you may get more sales, but it lowers your installed base because the devices fall out of it faster. The fact that a used iPhone is more than a new Android phone pushes more people away from your platform. But the number and quality of the apps people make for your platform is proportional to your installed base. This is how Windows got so sticky on the desktop -- it's Office, but it's also the long tail. That line of business app which is only used by 2% of people except that there are sixty of them and they're each mostly a different 2% of people, so 90% of people need Windows. Apple has a long-term problem if that's what accumulates over time with Android, but it's a direct trade off against short-term exclusivity.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  Agree 100% but unfortunately it seems that lots of other manufacturers are emulating the same bullshit. They took my removeable battery but they will never take my headphone jack! Oops, I mean freedom!
  - away_throw 7y ago
    Even Samsung took away the headphone jack recently :(. I might as well buy a classic iPod for music listening now-a-days.
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      I have a separate mp3 player already, but I use the headphone jack to watch youtube videos on the phone. I'm waiting a bit to upgrade my phone. I've always had a Samsung up until now, but I won't be buying one without a headphone jack. Hopefully they'll come to their senses. Bluetooth is a painful joke.

davidhyde 7y ago

Good point about Apple. Self repair seems out of the question. About your first point, maybe it is naive of me to assume that repair shops acquire laptop repair manuals as soon as they come out and then keep them in case they need to repair a certain model. If this were the case then the only people affected by toshiba’s actions are self repair individuals of which there are few as you point out. If the repair shops rely on databases of these repair manuals then I guess that they are unlikely to tell their disappointed customers that they cannot repair their laptops because they can’t get hold of the manual because the vendor removed them all from the internet.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

Apple is never a central example. If your iPhone breaks and can't be repaired and you want another one, you have to buy a new one from Apple, because Samsung doesn't make iOS devices. Meanwhile the fact that old iPhones get minor damage and then cost more to repair than they're worth increases the "I can afford an iPhone" signaling value of having one because they become less common and cost more to maintain in a state of good repair. In other words, it's a Veblen good. That doesn't work for commodity markets like Android devices and PC laptops because it's all fungible commodity hardware and it all runs the same software. And then even if the user has no idea what "pentalobe screws" are, they do know that their laptop broke after the first year and all the repair shops told them it was unrepairable junk and recommended a different brand. Meanwhile even Apple is playing a dangerous game here, because eroding repairability increases their new sales in the short term, but it also damages their reputation with technical people over time. So you get more sales, but more of the sales are to douchy investment bankers who then stand around holding your logo in their hand while telling girls they're fat and firing people's dads and bloviating about how much better they are than you because they drive a BMW. And on top of that, there is a trade off between more sales and more users. When your platform's devices don't last as long you may get more sales, but it lowers your installed base because the devices fall out of it faster. The fact that a used iPhone is more than a new Android phone pushes more people away from your platform. But the number and quality of the apps people make for your platform is proportional to your installed base. This is how Windows got so sticky on the desktop -- it's Office, but it's also the long tail. That line of business app which is only used by 2% of people except that there are sixty of them and they're each mostly a different 2% of people, so 90% of people need Windows. Apple has a long-term problem if that's what accumulates over time with Android, but it's a direct trade off against short-term exclusivity.

brokenmachine 7y ago
Agree 100% but unfortunately it seems that lots of other manufacturers are emulating the same bullshit. They took my removeable battery but they will never take my headphone jack! Oops, I mean freedom!
- away_throw 7y ago
  Even Samsung took away the headphone jack recently :(. I might as well buy a classic iPod for music listening now-a-days.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    I have a separate mp3 player already, but I use the headphone jack to watch youtube videos on the phone. I'm waiting a bit to upgrade my phone. I've always had a Samsung up until now, but I won't be buying one without a headphone jack. Hopefully they'll come to their senses. Bluetooth is a painful joke.