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Well it's not just a feeling. It's a conscious strategy that was developed by the industry after the first world war, because they were afraid over-production w

Well it's not just a feeling. It's a conscious strategy that was developed by the industry after the first world war, because they were afraid over-production would lead to some kind of unprofitable luxury communism. It all started with the Phoebus cartel in the 1920's and what we nowadays called "planned obsolescence" is a worldwide strategy by the industry. A fridge is capable of lasting way more than 15 years. Many people use fridges or washing machines that are over 50 years. Anything that's not built to be repairable and last decades is just harmful to users and the environment. For example IoT is really something that should never exist.

jen20 6y ago
Have you looked into the energy consumption of a 50 year old refrigerator vs a modern one to determine that the modern one is an environmental harm?
- southerntofu 6y ago
  Well i don't have links at hand but there's been plenty of studies in different fields (computers, cars) and overall the environmental costs of new hardware are always (to my knowledge) greater than the environmental costs of keeping inefficient hardware around. For example, it will without any doubt take more energy/ressources to build a Raspberry Pi than to keep your old desktop computer powered. However, from an economic perspective the opposite is true because as consumers we pay energy far greater prices than the industry does. Which means i can buy a raspberry pi for the price in electricity that my desktop would consume in a few years. That device will then use a lot less energy to run, but took so much to produce it's meaningless. That is, without even taking into consideration recycling concerns. Recycling for electronics mostly doesn't exist (see open-air landfills with children taking metals apart using dangerous chemicals), and in any case also requires energy/resources and produces pollution. We are economically incentivized to destroy the planet. All those "buy a new car" programs are not meant to save the planet, they're meant to save big corp profits by keeping everyone buying new stuff. That's what is really worrying in my view.

jen20 6y ago

Have you looked into the energy consumption of a 50 year old refrigerator vs a modern one to determine that the modern one is an environmental harm?

southerntofu 6y ago
Well i don't have links at hand but there's been plenty of studies in different fields (computers, cars) and overall the environmental costs of new hardware are always (to my knowledge) greater than the environmental costs of keeping inefficient hardware around. For example, it will without any doubt take more energy/ressources to build a Raspberry Pi than to keep your old desktop computer powered. However, from an economic perspective the opposite is true because as consumers we pay energy far greater prices than the industry does. Which means i can buy a raspberry pi for the price in electricity that my desktop would consume in a few years. That device will then use a lot less energy to run, but took so much to produce it's meaningless. That is, without even taking into consideration recycling concerns. Recycling for electronics mostly doesn't exist (see open-air landfills with children taking metals apart using dangerous chemicals), and in any case also requires energy/resources and produces pollution. We are economically incentivized to destroy the planet. All those "buy a new car" programs are not meant to save the planet, they're meant to save big corp profits by keeping everyone buying new stuff. That's what is really worrying in my view.