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> no business is taking advantage of this to steal business from the incumbents Some are, but on the margins because they are either not part of the mass distr

> no business is taking advantage of this to steal business from the incumbents Some are, but on the margins because they are either not part of the mass distribution networks (grande distribution), or don't have enough $$$$ to spend considerable resources on advertising. Facom hardware for instance is very durable. They used to have lifetime warranty, now it's 60 years which is already pretty good. Facom hardware is anywhere from 2 to 5 times the price of discount hardware, as the difference in raw material prices greatly affects tooling. But you don't find Facom in most hardware/DIY stores, and when you do they will not be marketed as "something cheaper is just utter crap that you'll have to buy again and again and again and will cost you a lot more in the long run". For more complex mechanics/electronics, the price difference doesn't have to be so great. Investing a few more cents/euros overall for better components, alongside with better design, will improve durability by years. Infamously, LED lightbulbs could have much greater lifespans with slightly-better electronic parts. > I’ve always bought mid to higher end TVs and they have never died on me. Good for you. That's just not the experience of average consumers nowadays. I don't know where you live, but here in France it's really common to find abandoned flatscreens on the streets just because a single component has died. Samsung in particular was denounced for placing capacitors in their TVs near the heatsinks, which is conscious sabotage as any electronician can tell you that will greatly reduce their lifespan. > the solution to this is increasing taxes on fossil fuels and other sources of pollution and imports from countries with lax environmental and labor regulations. That makes entire sense, but designing a tax system that does not overwhelmingly affect the poorest is hard. That was part of the debate with the carbon/fuel tax in the past decade, that rich people don't care to pay more but poorer folks will certainly loose a lot of buying power with something like this. > How are you projecting labor costs over 60 years? I'm not, i was giving a (very) high estimation of hardware costs, not including labor costs which you can get for free from local associations/hackerspaces (which could also be a public service) or for cheap from an electronics shop if there's one nearby. > People buy cheap garbage because they either can’t afford the more expensive, higher quality products That is correct, but durability is not evaluated and presented to consumers, so they cannot make informed decisions. Many people would be happy to pay twice the price for 10 times durability if they only knew for sure. But many times, putting more money (as a client) in a product doesn't rhyme with better durability, so people are reluctant to invest more. That european law only mandates 2 years warranty for hardware doesn't help. 10 years is slightly less worse. But we really need to aim for 50-100 years if we want to tackle environmental challenges as a society. That, or dismantle the entire industry before it's done polluting everything and we can't even breathe/drink anymore.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>That makes entire sense, but designing a tax system that does not overwhelmingly affect the poorest is hard. That was part of the debate with the carbon/fuel tax in the past decade, that rich people don't care to pay more but poorer folks will certainly loose a lot of buying power with something like this. I think we're both talking about the same goal, but differing on how to get there. I don't think it's realistic to expect legislate device longevity, nor to expect consumers to opt for it. People knowingly spend tens of thousands of dollars extra for cars that are not repair-able. Everyone has the choice of buying a Toyota, but for whatever reasons, they still buy other brands. Therefore, my solution is to simply make people pay for consumption. It doesn't matter if you're poor or your rich, the knock on effects of consumption are the same. The matter of poor people not being able to consume as much as the rich, or the rich consuming too much compared to poor people is a different problem, easily solve by wealth redistribution, aka give poor people money. But sufficiently high taxes on goods that we deem harmful to society is what will be the easiest way to solve the problem of over consumption. Unfortunately, I don't think it's achievable politically.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

>That makes entire sense, but designing a tax system that does not overwhelmingly affect the poorest is hard. That was part of the debate with the carbon/fuel tax in the past decade, that rich people don't care to pay more but poorer folks will certainly loose a lot of buying power with something like this. I think we're both talking about the same goal, but differing on how to get there. I don't think it's realistic to expect legislate device longevity, nor to expect consumers to opt for it. People knowingly spend tens of thousands of dollars extra for cars that are not repair-able. Everyone has the choice of buying a Toyota, but for whatever reasons, they still buy other brands. Therefore, my solution is to simply make people pay for consumption. It doesn't matter if you're poor or your rich, the knock on effects of consumption are the same. The matter of poor people not being able to consume as much as the rich, or the rich consuming too much compared to poor people is a different problem, easily solve by wealth redistribution, aka give poor people money. But sufficiently high taxes on goods that we deem harmful to society is what will be the easiest way to solve the problem of over consumption. Unfortunately, I don't think it's achievable politically.