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I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devi
by fridek 6y ago
I can't describe how much I hope something comes out of it. Not because I have some illusion of this tackling corporate greed, or helping the environment - devices will likely become more expensive and bulkier as a result, supply chain of replacement parts is generating heaps of waste too.
I simply am surrounded by tens and hundreds of sort-of-broken devices that don't force me to replace yet, but are not fixable either. The laptop overheats, phone compass never works properly, one port in the TV is dead, there is no light in the fridge (but it still works). The list goes on. I just want a world where stuff lasting a lifetime exists.
- emteycz 6y agoBut it exists - it's not that stuff is worse now than it was before, you just have to spend the value (not amount) of money you spent back in the 60's. Our family houses are full of stuff that lasts a lifetime and/or can be easily fixed - you just can't buy the first thing the ad in TV suggests.
- vagrantJin 6y agoThat manufacturers are actually hostile towards end users says a lot about our current state of helplessness.
- emteycz 6y agoI had multiple manufacturers of kitchen appliances send me schematics so I could fix it myself instead of paying for a service visit. Many vendors have service guides online, including lists of parts. That's not hostile at all. You have to choose what you're buying, but it's not hard to buy from a solid company.
- Scoundreller 6y agoI had to fix my circa 2005 Kenmore dryer and it had a folded up paper schematic behind the panel!!! Note: whenever throwing those things out, save the knobs. They’re like $10+ each.
- emteycz 6y agoIndeed, a lot of appliances have the schematics embedded. My ETA oven does too.
- fridek 6y agoDisagree. I'm willing to throw heaps of hard earned money to recover my time spent being bothered by such problems. I researched and tried many "premium" brands, with minor exceptions they proved to be planned for obsolence too. I had good experience with small companies/kickstarters. Once they grow to the point of being "popular", economies of scale and CFOs show up to the table and eat your cake. In all of the following I got a new thing looking for some new feature or because I could I guess, and had the older device outlasted the newer one: Bose headphones, any mobile phone really, Thinkpad laptops, Audi cars, Brother printers, any and all household appliances.
- emteycz 6y agoWell... My headphones are 10 years old, my phone is 3 years old and all my previous ones including my Galaxy S2 (my first smartphone) are still in use by family, my kitchen doesn't have anything younger that 15 years - most stuff is 25+ years old - except the fridge, I replaced it because of power efficiency and the old one is at the cottage, nearly 35 years old. None of it was bought from a kickstarter as most of that stuff predates internet. I really don't see the problem. Like you're saying people are buying new stuff because they want the new stuff, not because old is broken. There are tons of extremely cheap second hand things that could do the job and yet people keep buying new things. How will this right to repair change anything? How much money was spent making it reality that could've been spent productively?
- mc32 6y agoPart of the problem with electronics is often a brand new unit costs less than replacing a faulty part on an old unit due to miniaturization and having everything on chip combined with economics of scale. Still it’s a worthwhile pursuit. At some point pocket PCs/phones will be good enough, just as for many a 2014 laptop is still good enough.
- onli 6y agoThey already are. Phones from 2016 for example feel completely usable today. That goes for the repairable ones at least, like the LG G5, but even the older LG G3 holds up well. If all modern phones were as repairable as those we could eliminate so much garbage!
- syshum 6y agoMy phone today is completely usable but the carrier has decided to stop issuing updates to the phone.... This is the worst kind of planned obsolesces
- onli 6y agoRight. Repairable hardware is just the one side, security updates needs to be available as well. We need mandated open sourcing of device software (including firmware and drivers + unlocking of the bootloader) after the support timerange, or at the very least alternatively the obligation to continue security updates for decades.
- martinald 6y agoWho is actually going to update this even if it is open source though? There are so many drivers and firmware in a smartphone, nevermind the tens of thousands of models of smartphones out there. It would require an army of people to patch, test and distribute everything. That's even if you can figure out all this code.
- 6y ago
- bengale 6y ago> there is no light in the fridge (but it still works) I normally find these types of appliances make parts readily available. I just replaced the locking mechanism on my washing machine for example, it was cheap and easy to order the parts I needed.
- rusk 6y agoPretty sure these are usually standard bulbs ...
- echelon 6y agoNot modern fridges. That trend has become ubiquitous: cars, laptops, phones... Nothing is designed to be fixed at home anymore. If there were regulations that required it, we'd still have the same advanced tech, but it'd be repair friendly.
- neop1x 6y agoFor example HP Elitebooks ond Dell business class laptops have most parts replaceable and the keyboard is secured by screws. HP Pavilion gaming, ASUS ROG Strix and newer Macbooks have keyboards secured by melting topcase plastic pins or bolts so you can't easily replace keyboard, you need to replace the whole topcase. And the keyboard is something which degrades by use and can easily be damaged by liquid...
- fridek 6y agoTrust me I'm an engineer? But always happy to have HN debug my fridge, so here we go: turns out the light bulb, when replaced, keeps overheating and even metled the surrounding casing. Some electrical issue I'd have to take the fridge apart to debug. I might be unfair with this one though, it's a 20 year old fridge and is probably serviceable.
- rusk 6y agoKeeps melting .. in a fridge ... it should never be on more than 30s at a time surely? I guess you’ve tried a lower wattage bulb ...
- globile 6y agoPhone unlocking doesn't get much attention, but it is an integral part that no one wants to address or get their hands dirty with. There are many more locked phones in drawers or acting as mere paperweights than people actually care to disclose. Several years back we ran a poll to understand lifetime recycling habits. People aren't proud of dropping a phone and shattering the screen, but they are less proud of having thrown a phone into a drawer because they couldn't be bothered to run the obstacle course set up by their telco to keep them in check. Phone right-to-repair should be EXPLICITLY INCLUSIVE of unlocking, otherwise it is only solving a part of the problem.
- Nextgrid 6y agoCarrier locks are an absolute scam. The argument is that it allows carriers to offer subsidised phones and “repossess” them if the customer defaults on their bill by making it unusable. However, in reality, not only does the carrier not mind if the phone keeps being used (as long as it’s on the carrier’s network) but the lock doesn’t expire once the customer pays off their plan. Furthermore the process for unlocking a phone is intentionally made convoluted. Until recently, you couldn’t even figure out which carrier an Apple device was locked to without playing brute-force with all the carrier’s SIMs in the entire world and even Apple support couldn’t be of any help. And when you finally figure out which carrier it is, getting in touch with them is a pain and some have stupid policies like keeping the device on their network for 30 days before being able to request an unlock (a scummy attempt at getting some people to give up and just keep using their network past the deadline, or revenge against someone who doesn’t intend to do so by essentially making their device unusable for 30 days).
- globile 6y agoAbsolutely. Remember the "2014 Obama Unlocking Law" [1] ? It was supposed to not only not make it ilegal to carrier unlock a phone, but also forced all carriers to adopt a specific code of conduct to assist users with unlocking. Fast forward 6 years, and it is much harder to unlock a phone than it was then. The whole thing backfired for consumers. It was actually easier to unlock a phone in a "non-legal" way before the law than it was right after. This whole new code of conduct for carriers actually made them convert their SIMlock departments to be more like a customer retention lifecycle. This mainly applies to US carriers (in the US and Latam), and there certainly are exceptions in Europe where EVERY cell phone is unlocked from day one, regardless of your contractual status. [1]: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/08/15/heres-how-cell-phone-unlocking-became-legal https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/08/15/heres-h...
- titzer 6y ago> I just want a world where stuff lasting a lifetime exists. I think this is part of the point you are trying to make, but everything requires maintenance. Not sure what model fridge you have, but a bulb replacement should be not too hard to pull off on your own.
- interestica 6y ago'maintenance' requires maintainable/replaceable parts.
- iamsb 6y agoI sincerely hope that providing upgrades to software is also included as part of this. The only device I have which I dont actively use or give away is a Samsung galaxy tab which never received a single Android OS upgrade. I think it is reasonable for a consumer of a software+hardware integrated device to expect upgrades of software for say 3-5 years.
- Nextgrid 6y agoI think a better approach would be to force manufacturers to provide everything necessary for someone (the user or a third-party company) to develop alternative firmware. This means source code, datasheets of the hardware, and a way to bypass locked bootloaders or other code signature checks. Essentially, if you can't provide updates yourself, you should be giving away everything that's necessary for someone else to do it.
- iamsb 6y agoThat is a brilliant suggestion.
- reegnz 6y agoGuaranteed upgrade cadence is not enough. I think what would be regulated is that they MUST open source afther that 3-5 years. Just as we have with pharma patents, after a protection period it should be free game, and they should open-source if they don't intend to continue pushing updates, say evety 6 months or so.
- throwaway3699 6y agoWith China clamping down on E Waste imports, the EU may actually be happy to push for something that's pro-environment. I think aligning the incentives properly will be a great thing long term.
- nolite 6y agoI just had my 4000€ MacBook Pro (2017) die, 5 months out of warranty, because of a blown capacitor. (probably a $0.20 part tops) They have to change the whole motherboard, lose all my data. Price of a new machine... grumble, grumble
- bmn__ 6y agoGo with third-party repair. It's cheap and fast.
- evilos 6y agoSounds like a job for Louis Rossman: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos
- gsich 6y agoPlanned obsolescence.
- neop1x 6y agoSoldering SSDs on the motherboard is a crime! Data storage modules should always be replaceable: 1. because they can fail easily (limited write counts), 2. because people need to wipe data before selling I have seen a "for parts" Macbook on eBay with bad motherboard where the seller drilled through SSD and T2 chips to "wipe data". While drilling they damaged the topcase as well.
- paradox242 6y agoCommon things that existed 20, 30, or even 40 years like refrigerators, coffee machines, dishwashers, washers, and dryers, often lasted 10 or 20 years in some cases, and could be repaired. We have witnessed the steep decline of device reliability in my lifetime, and our expectations are so low that the latest appliance we buy we consider lucky if no problems develop in 2-3 years. Anything serious requires you to usually toss it out and buy a new one.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoMiele appliances (for example) still last decades and all efforts are made by the manufacturer to find you spare parts if you need. But they cost 3-4x more than a budget appliance. That's a key aspect of the market here: People tend to compare on purchase price. If manufacturers have to compete on price, of course something has to give in order to make cheaper appliances... The market tends to give consumers what they want. It's not all bad, though, because this also puts pressure on manufacturers to optimise, including by using less material. Appliances tend not to be that bad either unless perhaps if you buy really cheap cr*p.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago> The market tends to give consumers what they want. The market tends to give consumers what they buy. This is distinct from what they ask for, which too is distinct from what they want, which too is distinct from what they like (and, while we're at it, from what they approve of).
- BurningFrog 6y agoIt's very hard to know what people, including yourself, really want. So best we can do is observing "revealed preferences", which is what Economists call "what people actually choose".
- TeMPOraL 6y agoAnd "revealed preferences" are mostly bunk, because of what GP alludes to. It's evaluating people's choices out of options available on the market, not what they would buy if they could freely optimize the feature/price matrix. Another way to put it: "revealed preference" is just what one considers the least bad of the bad choices available.