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The warranty should be optional, though, since otherwise people who properly care for their phones will be paying to repair/replace phones of people who abuse t

The warranty should be optional, though, since otherwise people who properly care for their phones will be paying to repair/replace phones of people who abuse them.

xoa 7y ago
This is silly, as I stated "under normal usage" can perfectly well be a condition of protection (and already is). Fall damage, water, and so on are not manufacturing defects. Signs of abuse (and it's generally quite clear) are grounds for being made ineligible. Furthermore, all mass manufactured products always have a defect rate, period. Quite a few 9s can be chased in manufacturing and QA, but 100% doesn't happen, and when we're talking millions of devices a small rate still adds up to a lot. Gambling that you won't be the one to roll snake eyes and thus subtracting in from the upfront price is simply letting the manufacturer improperly externalize that failure rate cost onto its customers.
- zrm 7y ago
  But then we're back to it being about repair again. If you drop your phone on the concrete and break it, it's completely reasonable that that isn't covered under warranty, but you still want to be able to repair that phone rather than throw it away.
  - xoa 7y ago
    >but you still want to be able to repair that phone rather than throw it away But I don't agree that this "want" should be a legal requirement. I think it's perfectly acceptable and reasonable that it's possible for someone to cause a level of damage to their property that will destroy said property, leaving it totaled/unsalvageable. In general, where it won't hurt anyone else, that's a matter for individuals. It can be dealt with via insurance, or by buying products that cater to it through higher durability (or conversely just plain being cheaper, spend 1/10 as much and expect to replace them more often). But that involves tradeoffs and costs which are subjective in value, so I don't think it should be the subject of legislation. The principle I'm stating is fully generalizable, it's not an electronics thing it covers everything. Everything you buy should last under regular use for a reasonable lifetime given the price, no tricks with secret information that the manufacturer knows but that the customer does not. That's foundational to functioning markets. But think about what you're saying, how would it apply to the many beautiful but more fragile decorative things many of us like to buy? Many of those make use of hard but brittle materials like glass. It's reasonable to expect they'll perform as advertises in regular environmental conditions, and not just shatter from regular indoor temperature differentials for example. But if they are dropped and smash parts may not be repairable, and that's fine. Also, I want to note that as I said in another reply I can fully see and support an exception for any purely soft restrictions like encrypted components. A company shouldn't be able to prevent you from attempting any repair or modification you like on a product you bought from them. I absolutely support a law requiring that at time of purchase you be offered root hardware keys, root software keys, or both (on some devices I'd want both, on some only software). But I'm not in favor of the more generalized arguments for "repairability" that I've seen, and I think it wastes a big opportunity to try to fix a major market failure in America at least. 90 day/1 year standard warranties are utter bullshit.

The warranty should be optional, though, since otherwise people who properly care for their phones will be paying to repair/replace phones of people who abuse them.

xoa 7y ago

This is silly, as I stated "under normal usage" can perfectly well be a condition of protection (and already is). Fall damage, water, and so on are not manufacturing defects. Signs of abuse (and it's generally quite clear) are grounds for being made ineligible. Furthermore, all mass manufactured products always have a defect rate, period. Quite a few 9s can be chased in manufacturing and QA, but 100% doesn't happen, and when we're talking millions of devices a small rate still adds up to a lot. Gambling that you won't be the one to roll snake eyes and thus subtracting in from the upfront price is simply letting the manufacturer improperly externalize that failure rate cost onto its customers.

zrm 7y ago
But then we're back to it being about repair again. If you drop your phone on the concrete and break it, it's completely reasonable that that isn't covered under warranty, but you still want to be able to repair that phone rather than throw it away.
- xoa 7y ago
  >but you still want to be able to repair that phone rather than throw it away But I don't agree that this "want" should be a legal requirement. I think it's perfectly acceptable and reasonable that it's possible for someone to cause a level of damage to their property that will destroy said property, leaving it totaled/unsalvageable. In general, where it won't hurt anyone else, that's a matter for individuals. It can be dealt with via insurance, or by buying products that cater to it through higher durability (or conversely just plain being cheaper, spend 1/10 as much and expect to replace them more often). But that involves tradeoffs and costs which are subjective in value, so I don't think it should be the subject of legislation. The principle I'm stating is fully generalizable, it's not an electronics thing it covers everything. Everything you buy should last under regular use for a reasonable lifetime given the price, no tricks with secret information that the manufacturer knows but that the customer does not. That's foundational to functioning markets. But think about what you're saying, how would it apply to the many beautiful but more fragile decorative things many of us like to buy? Many of those make use of hard but brittle materials like glass. It's reasonable to expect they'll perform as advertises in regular environmental conditions, and not just shatter from regular indoor temperature differentials for example. But if they are dropped and smash parts may not be repairable, and that's fine. Also, I want to note that as I said in another reply I can fully see and support an exception for any purely soft restrictions like encrypted components. A company shouldn't be able to prevent you from attempting any repair or modification you like on a product you bought from them. I absolutely support a law requiring that at time of purchase you be offered root hardware keys, root software keys, or both (on some devices I'd want both, on some only software). But I'm not in favor of the more generalized arguments for "repairability" that I've seen, and I think it wastes a big opportunity to try to fix a major market failure in America at least. 90 day/1 year standard warranties are utter bullshit.