5 ms·

Goods used to be expensive and labour cheap. So you called a repairman, people even had their ovens serviced. Now goods are cheap but labour is expensive so you

Goods used to be expensive and labour cheap. So you called a repairman, people even had their ovens serviced. Now goods are cheap but labour is expensive so you replace it...

southerntofu 6y ago
Yes but there is nothing "natural" about this. It's just the resulting incentives produced by multinational supply chains without social/environmental regulations. We could (should) come back to the previous balance, and that would probably have a better environmental impact than all the (broken) promises of our governments.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  You are never going to get enough people voting for a government that will make TVs expensive enough that they're worth repairing on a component level
  - southerntofu 6y ago
    As an anarchist i don't believe in choosing our masters (elections) as a viable strategy for anything, really. People in power have only ever been compelled to do good by popular pressure. But arguably a lot of people would support candidates/measures that introduced actual environmental/social regulations for products (driving prices upwards) if it were counter-balanced by a public program providing free repairs to all your utilities for decades. A such public program would certainly cost a lot less than repeated public funding of new technology. Take cars for example. Most cars/trucks from the past century could be repaired given public support for that. That would be a strong ecological measure. However, governments around the world have invested billions of euros in "buy new cars" programs in the name of environment protection.. bringing even more ecological damage in the process. For most products, the bulk of pollution and energy usage is related to production, not daily usage.
- gandalfian 6y ago
  Absolutely, I'm all for greater repairability. BUT the natural historical solution to labour costs is a peasant class living more basic lives and cheaply supporting their betters. I don't want that solution and I'm not sure there is an easy alternative. I'm not suggesting things couldn't and shouldn't be better, but possibly don't get your hopes too high for the results...
- diggernet 6y ago
  I'm not sure how we can get back to the previous balance. Fundamentally, the cost of an item is a combination of materials and labor to manufacture (setting IP issues aside). Goods are now much cheaper compared to repair labor because automation has dramatically reduced the amount of manufacturing labor required. To make things cheaper to repair than to buy, we'd need to either make them artificially more expensive (thus making them unavailable to many people) or make repair cost a pittance. Since troubleshooting and repair is inherently less automatable than manufacturing, the only way to significantly reduce the cost of repair is to pay people much less for repairs. And then who will want to do repairs for you?

Goods used to be expensive and labour cheap. So you called a repairman, people even had their ovens serviced. Now goods are cheap but labour is expensive so you replace it...

southerntofu 6y ago

Yes but there is nothing "natural" about this. It's just the resulting incentives produced by multinational supply chains without social/environmental regulations. We could (should) come back to the previous balance, and that would probably have a better environmental impact than all the (broken) promises of our governments.

kalleboo 6y ago
You are never going to get enough people voting for a government that will make TVs expensive enough that they're worth repairing on a component level
- southerntofu 6y ago
  As an anarchist i don't believe in choosing our masters (elections) as a viable strategy for anything, really. People in power have only ever been compelled to do good by popular pressure. But arguably a lot of people would support candidates/measures that introduced actual environmental/social regulations for products (driving prices upwards) if it were counter-balanced by a public program providing free repairs to all your utilities for decades. A such public program would certainly cost a lot less than repeated public funding of new technology. Take cars for example. Most cars/trucks from the past century could be repaired given public support for that. That would be a strong ecological measure. However, governments around the world have invested billions of euros in "buy new cars" programs in the name of environment protection.. bringing even more ecological damage in the process. For most products, the bulk of pollution and energy usage is related to production, not daily usage.
gandalfian 6y ago
Absolutely, I'm all for greater repairability. BUT the natural historical solution to labour costs is a peasant class living more basic lives and cheaply supporting their betters. I don't want that solution and I'm not sure there is an easy alternative. I'm not suggesting things couldn't and shouldn't be better, but possibly don't get your hopes too high for the results...
diggernet 6y ago
I'm not sure how we can get back to the previous balance. Fundamentally, the cost of an item is a combination of materials and labor to manufacture (setting IP issues aside). Goods are now much cheaper compared to repair labor because automation has dramatically reduced the amount of manufacturing labor required. To make things cheaper to repair than to buy, we'd need to either make them artificially more expensive (thus making them unavailable to many people) or make repair cost a pittance. Since troubleshooting and repair is inherently less automatable than manufacturing, the only way to significantly reduce the cost of repair is to pay people much less for repairs. And then who will want to do repairs for you?