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I have a totally unsubstantiated theory that a big chunk of the stress of modern life comes from this sort of thing. People own more appliances and gadgets tha
by Nition 7y ago
I have a totally unsubstantiated theory that a big chunk of the stress of modern life comes from this sort of thing.
People own more appliances and gadgets than ever, but for each one you're expected to worry about planned obsolescence, often high maintenance, and treat them as fragile. A world where everything is always threatening to fall apart around us. Compare with life 100 years ago. It wasn't like this.
The maintenance instructions alone are often ridiculous - you'd probably be spending 100% of your free time on maintenance alone if you followed what every manual actually recommends for everything in your home. And it's impossible to know what's actually important and what's just covering their ass legally. Like, my garage door manual says to wipe it down every two weeks - what? No-one's doing that. But the idea that you should be doing all this stuff still contributes to stress, even if you try to ignore and it just get on with life until your stuff finally breaks or explodes.
Or things require more work due to fragility, like non-stick pans you can't scrub clean. Or things are just cheaper or fashionable but they don't work as well, like touch buttons instead of knobs on cooktops. Or things just get broken because they're made of cheap plastic.
Warranties are a joke. Two years on a fridge? It should be 15. 10 years on aluminum window frames for your house? It should be 50. And the waste from all these obsoleted appliances is ridiculous on its own. There is a case for not overengineering things that users will want to throw away and replace anyway, but larger appliances rarely advance so far that you can't at least sell your old working one to someone (the most recent true obsolescence I can think of is CRT TVs).
I'd vote for a law that says all major appliances must have a 10+ year warranty, with minimal maintenance performed. And maintenance recommendations should be displayed alongside the product.
- jjoonathan 7y agoThe latest trend I've observed is straight up not honoring the warranty. In the span of 2 years, I had a $300 fitbit, a $700 acer monitor, and a $300 TCL TV fail, all within their warranty period. All three companies flaked, all with a dubious excuse, correctly gambling that I wouldn't care enough to take matters to small claims.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jjoonathan 7y agoYep, that's exactly what I've done: reduce my exposure. This is an iterated game, and if I buy into a luxury product tier and find garbage products and garbage service, I just retreat from the luxury tier. Fool me once.
- crgwbr 7y agoI’ve run into this too. Earlier this summer I dropped $500 on a new LG air conditioner on Amazon. Out of the box it was covered in a layer of oil, probably from the compressor. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Despite that, Amazon refused to accept it as a return and LG is yet to agree to refund me the purchase price. Amazing how little these companies are willing to stand behind their own products.
- e40 7y agoOn what grounds did Amazon refuse the return? I've returned many things to them, within the 30 day window and never had a problem.
- jjoonathan 7y agoAmazon is usually pretty good, but I did run into an exception recently. I bought some "green paint stripper" that didn't work at all and the return was denied because hazmat. It wasn't shipped hazmat in the first place but try arguing that to the machine :) I bet there are other exceptions like it. Maybe there are size restrictions or heavy equipment restrictions? The "green paint stripper" is a fun tangent in and of itself. Based on the texture (textured cream), coloration (granite), scent (lavender), lack of solvent smells, lack of flammability, and neutral pH, I suspect it was actually some kind of cosmetic that failed skin compatibility tests, or something, and an enterprising fraudster figured out they could get away with selling it as "green paint stripper." No need to ship it hazmat, because it isn't, but it's plausible to tell Amazon it's hazmat, so no returns. Clever. Now my paint-stripping policy is that if I can't find a MSDS listing dichloromethane, dimethylcarbonate, or acetone, I don't bother.
- josho 7y agoI’ve been warming up to the idea of municipalities invoicing manufacturers for disposal fees. Eg. Most garbage dumps sort appliances into a separate area to recycle the metal. So there should be a guy there that takes note of the manufacturer and sends them a dumping invoice every quarter. So manufacturers that produce junk that ends up in the dump have to lay for the externalities that today they don’t have too.