4 ms·

and I always thought, capitalism needs market transparency. Why not write it down and see what the customer does then, huh?

by fock 7y ago

Consultant32452 7y ago
Companies do write it down, in the form of warranties.
- close04 7y ago
  Warranty and expected lifetime are different concepts. The first is just a service that offers free repair/replace within a period of time. The second is how long you can expect the product to be in use, with or without repairs, until it reaches the end of its life. This can be either due to catastrophic malfunction, no available servicing parts or skills, or obsolescence. Think of a car that may have 3 years warranty but a service life of maybe 10 or more years.
  - benj111 7y ago
    What should we as consumers expect the practical difference to be? If my kettle has a warranty and breaks down, it's on the manufacturer. If it's only within the design lifetime? What if 10% don't last the design lifetime, wheres the cut off if relevant? If I buy a kettle that lasts the design lifetime, but is deemed not to for the purposes of the law, do I get compensated? These are genuine questions, I am in favour of publishing this kind of information, it occurs to me that poorly thought out rules would be useless though.
    - fock 7y ago
      if it fails prematurely, you have bad luck, report it to some consumer advocacy group and buy a new one just as you did today. It's really funny to see the backlash on demanding such a basic premise of capitalism as information transparency in a forum like this.
      - benj111 7y ago
        If it's just about information transparency, how do you enforce honesty? What's to stop me saying that my kettle is designed to last 1000 years?
        fock 7y ago
        if you lie, said consumer advocacy group will sue the company and the company's chapter will be revoked? seems quite easy.
        benj111 7y ago
        "company's chapter" Chapter? But my point is, what is lying? If a kettle is designed to last 10 years, it's reasonable to expect that 100% won't last that long, so what percentage should we reasonably allow to break in that time, 10%? 20%? 50%?. If the manufacturer was found to be lying, do I with my still working kettle get compensated? And your answer raises other concerns, who is this consumer advocacy group that's going to lead this? Is it reasonable to assume some proportion of people are going to direct their complaints there? This to me doesn't seem like an easy thing to police at all.
        fock 7y ago
        the company is dissolved, when it lies. bad for shareholder value, and a very good incentive to be honest, but this doesn't seem to fit too well into todays corporate scheme. If there's reasonable doubt (ie a large number of complaints about the kettle failing), the manufacturer has to provide sales statistics and test results and will be judged accordingly. As for the consumer advocacy groups: it's pretty standard in Europe to have these (and they are the only ones to initiate something like class-action). As for the metrics: everything is measured, I'm sure, we can come up with a sensible metric?!
    - close04 7y ago
      > If it's only within the design lifetime? Depending on the law some EU countries already expect the manufacturer to be able to fix or replace products that failed due to hidden defects within the average service life. So a manufacturer has a vested interest in declaring realistic figures because they are expected to support them. The "1000 year kettle" would have to have spare parts available for the period.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    A warranty is a signal to the consumer about expected lifetime. And different manufacturers offer different warranties. For example, Kia/Hyundai offer 10 year, 100k mile warranties.
    - close04 7y ago
      Correct. So in some cases the warranty can be the same as the expected service life but that is a choice the manufacturer makes to send a message to potential buyers. The legal warranty is just a minimum duration imposed by law, while the service life changes from product to product. In some EU countries the law mandates that manufacturers clearly state the warranty period and the average service life (where you can use the product reasonably within the original parameters). So the manufacturer must be able to fix/replace (not necessarily for free) the product if hidden flaws caused it to fail within the average lifetime period. This means only manufacturers who are certain their product is up to the task will declare a longer life and charge a premium but also guarantee that period of support. Most products have warranties that are far shorter than their expected service life. Clothes may have as little as 30 days warranty but the reasonable expectation is for a far longer expected lifetime.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- fock 7y ago
  ooh yeah. so the expected lifetime of my computer is ... 1 year. sorry that's ridicolous as assuming that a household appliance should live only 3 years? (I'm quite sure a lot of consumers are not prepared to buy everything anew every 3years, because it's so cheap)
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    A warranty isn't the same as a life expectancy, but it is a signal to consumers about life expectancy. As a general rule, a product with a longer warranty will have a longer life expectancy.
    - adamlett 7y ago
      That's a very different and much weaker statement than the first one you made.
  - leni536 7y ago
    I always assume that such a short warranty period is for catching manufacturing defects and shipping damage and not amortization from normal use. Essentially a 1 year warranty is not much better than a 1 month or a 1 week warranty for a laptop.
- adamlett 7y ago
  That doesn't hold up, when you think about it. Most companies don't offer any warranty outside of what is required by the law, which is usually between 0 and 2 years for consumer products, depending on where you live. By your argument that is how long we should expect most products to live.
  - dagw 7y ago
    Most companies don't offer any warranty outside of what is required by the law And parallel to that there are also companies adverting their 10,15 or 25 year warranty[1]. Now you can choose who you want to give your money to. That being said I have no problem per se with forcing companies to offer long warranties. [1] a further thing to look at is of course what these warranties actually cover and how likely you are to actually get help when your appliance breaks 17 years after you buy it. A 25 year warranty is useless (and should probably be illegal to advertise) if it's so full of loopholes and caveats that no one can practically make any claims against it.
    - adamlett 7y ago
      That's a different point than the one I was addressing, which was that warranties can be taken as indicators of how long products can be expected to last. What products that have extended warranties usually have in common is that they are expensive and represent significant investments for the average buyer. If you buy a car, a fridge, a washing machines, etc, you want a guarantee that you will be able to amortise that investment over as long a time as possible.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It absolutely holds up, I'm not sure why Consultant32452 is being downvoted. No one stops a manufacturer from offering a product with a 5 year warranty, and in fact they do. Shop for products made for businesses and you will find 5 year warranties. However, they cost much more, and consumers are choosing not to pay more for the products with 5 year warranties, and instead choosing to go with the 1 year warranty. Miele was known for making very durable products, however, even they over the years had to acknowledge that consumers were opting to purchase cheaper products from competitors, so they had to do the same to stay in business.

and I always thought, capitalism needs market transparency. Why not write it down and see what the customer does then, huh?

by fock 7y ago

and I always thought, capitalism needs market transparency. Why not write it down and see what the customer does then, huh?

Consultant32452 7y ago

Companies do write it down, in the form of warranties.

close04 7y ago
Warranty and expected lifetime are different concepts. The first is just a service that offers free repair/replace within a period of time. The second is how long you can expect the product to be in use, with or without repairs, until it reaches the end of its life. This can be either due to catastrophic malfunction, no available servicing parts or skills, or obsolescence. Think of a car that may have 3 years warranty but a service life of maybe 10 or more years.
- benj111 7y ago
  What should we as consumers expect the practical difference to be? If my kettle has a warranty and breaks down, it's on the manufacturer. If it's only within the design lifetime? What if 10% don't last the design lifetime, wheres the cut off if relevant? If I buy a kettle that lasts the design lifetime, but is deemed not to for the purposes of the law, do I get compensated? These are genuine questions, I am in favour of publishing this kind of information, it occurs to me that poorly thought out rules would be useless though.
  - fock 7y ago
    if it fails prematurely, you have bad luck, report it to some consumer advocacy group and buy a new one just as you did today. It's really funny to see the backlash on demanding such a basic premise of capitalism as information transparency in a forum like this.
    - benj111 7y ago
      If it's just about information transparency, how do you enforce honesty? What's to stop me saying that my kettle is designed to last 1000 years?
      - fock 7y ago
        if you lie, said consumer advocacy group will sue the company and the company's chapter will be revoked? seems quite easy.
        benj111 7y ago
        "company's chapter" Chapter? But my point is, what is lying? If a kettle is designed to last 10 years, it's reasonable to expect that 100% won't last that long, so what percentage should we reasonably allow to break in that time, 10%? 20%? 50%?. If the manufacturer was found to be lying, do I with my still working kettle get compensated? And your answer raises other concerns, who is this consumer advocacy group that's going to lead this? Is it reasonable to assume some proportion of people are going to direct their complaints there? This to me doesn't seem like an easy thing to police at all.
        fock 7y ago
        the company is dissolved, when it lies. bad for shareholder value, and a very good incentive to be honest, but this doesn't seem to fit too well into todays corporate scheme. If there's reasonable doubt (ie a large number of complaints about the kettle failing), the manufacturer has to provide sales statistics and test results and will be judged accordingly. As for the consumer advocacy groups: it's pretty standard in Europe to have these (and they are the only ones to initiate something like class-action). As for the metrics: everything is measured, I'm sure, we can come up with a sensible metric?!
  - close04 7y ago
    > If it's only within the design lifetime? Depending on the law some EU countries already expect the manufacturer to be able to fix or replace products that failed due to hidden defects within the average service life. So a manufacturer has a vested interest in declaring realistic figures because they are expected to support them. The "1000 year kettle" would have to have spare parts available for the period.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  A warranty is a signal to the consumer about expected lifetime. And different manufacturers offer different warranties. For example, Kia/Hyundai offer 10 year, 100k mile warranties.
  - close04 7y ago
    Correct. So in some cases the warranty can be the same as the expected service life but that is a choice the manufacturer makes to send a message to potential buyers. The legal warranty is just a minimum duration imposed by law, while the service life changes from product to product. In some EU countries the law mandates that manufacturers clearly state the warranty period and the average service life (where you can use the product reasonably within the original parameters). So the manufacturer must be able to fix/replace (not necessarily for free) the product if hidden flaws caused it to fail within the average lifetime period. This means only manufacturers who are certain their product is up to the task will declare a longer life and charge a premium but also guarantee that period of support. Most products have warranties that are far shorter than their expected service life. Clothes may have as little as 30 days warranty but the reasonable expectation is for a far longer expected lifetime.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
fock 7y ago
ooh yeah. so the expected lifetime of my computer is ... 1 year. sorry that's ridicolous as assuming that a household appliance should live only 3 years? (I'm quite sure a lot of consumers are not prepared to buy everything anew every 3years, because it's so cheap)
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  A warranty isn't the same as a life expectancy, but it is a signal to consumers about life expectancy. As a general rule, a product with a longer warranty will have a longer life expectancy.
  - adamlett 7y ago
    That's a very different and much weaker statement than the first one you made.
- leni536 7y ago
  I always assume that such a short warranty period is for catching manufacturing defects and shipping damage and not amortization from normal use. Essentially a 1 year warranty is not much better than a 1 month or a 1 week warranty for a laptop.
adamlett 7y ago
That doesn't hold up, when you think about it. Most companies don't offer any warranty outside of what is required by the law, which is usually between 0 and 2 years for consumer products, depending on where you live. By your argument that is how long we should expect most products to live.
- dagw 7y ago
  Most companies don't offer any warranty outside of what is required by the law And parallel to that there are also companies adverting their 10,15 or 25 year warranty[1]. Now you can choose who you want to give your money to. That being said I have no problem per se with forcing companies to offer long warranties. [1] a further thing to look at is of course what these warranties actually cover and how likely you are to actually get help when your appliance breaks 17 years after you buy it. A 25 year warranty is useless (and should probably be illegal to advertise) if it's so full of loopholes and caveats that no one can practically make any claims against it.
  - adamlett 7y ago
    That's a different point than the one I was addressing, which was that warranties can be taken as indicators of how long products can be expected to last. What products that have extended warranties usually have in common is that they are expensive and represent significant investments for the average buyer. If you buy a car, a fridge, a washing machines, etc, you want a guarantee that you will be able to amortise that investment over as long a time as possible.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It absolutely holds up, I'm not sure why Consultant32452 is being downvoted. No one stops a manufacturer from offering a product with a 5 year warranty, and in fact they do. Shop for products made for businesses and you will find 5 year warranties. However, they cost much more, and consumers are choosing not to pay more for the products with 5 year warranties, and instead choosing to go with the 1 year warranty. Miele was known for making very durable products, however, even they over the years had to acknowledge that consumers were opting to purchase cheaper products from competitors, so they had to do the same to stay in business.