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Conflict-of-interest. If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything tha

Conflict-of-interest. If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model. And while it's something to have marketable trust-building by taking some responsibility for the waste and longer life-span, that also invites people to start thinking about how bad the fundamental business model is. If you get people to actually care about this stuff, that's building demand for a different business model, something closer to Fairphone. At this point, the only really scalable way to solve repairability and e-waste is probably to mandate it legally. Force the costs to be internalized. Require a deposit on all electronics, like some states do with bottles. Adjust the numbers at each end to actually discourage waste and to actually cover real-world recycling costs. And figure out how to require companies to unlock unsupported devices. It doesn't work to have one company do these things while others don't. That puts the one company at a competitive disadvantage.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gumby 5y ago
> If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model. You’d think more companies would skip that model: bmw and Apple benefit from the high sale value of their devices, in part due to continued support. It doesn’t hurt that California and Germany have pushed part of the lifecycle cost onto the manufacturers, with some success.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Samsung gives the impression that they'd love their business model to look like Apple or BMW and be a "lifestyle brand" (if not quite a "luxury brand"). My immediate thoughts from the article was wondering how much Samsung regrets being tied to Android at this point. The timing of the project suggests to me that maybe there may have been some hope at Samsung that they could use "upcycling" as a trojan platform for migrating older hardware to a larger Tizen install base as devices aged out of Android support just before realizing that being chained to Android's continual software obsolescence also chained them to wild shifting winds of Android's hardware strategy (and getting Tizen drivers from some of the "mandatory" Android partners). Android as a platform in general, with its wild fragmentation and ever moving software goal posts, seems almost cruelly designed almost entirely for the artificial obsolesence path and that path alone.
  - BayAreaEscapee 5y ago
    It's true that Google has made quite a bit of awful and customer-hostile decisions about the path of Android. But what is Samsung's alternative to Android? There is none. All alternative operating systems (PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry, etc) have failed. A new, proprietary OS from Samsung would almost certainly fail. They can't chain their cart to Apple. Android is the only possibility.
    - j16sdiz 5y ago
      Samsung have Tizen. It is still being used in smartwatch
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  My Poco cost me €349. In two and a half years I'll replace it for something new. Long term support isn't even a concern, for that price who gives a shit?
  - bzzzt 5y ago
    Not giving a shit _is_ the problem: Poco doesn't have to pay for all those 349 euro phones going to the recycler after just 2,5 years (while probably the components could last years longer).
- virtue3 5y ago
  Idk about that. I'm pretty sure that people who constantly want a new BMW just lease. BMW has this real awful spot with their 5yr warranty so a lot of people buy a pre-owned BMW off a lease and then drive it for 3 years and then get absolutely wrecked by the maintenance costs. Apple's business model is reliant on people buying a WHOLE NEW PHONE for ~1000$ every 2-3 years. And you get to sell your old phone for what? like 200$ trade in? Apple also constantly locks you out every 5-6 years of iOS updates and then you can't run, say, spotify on your old ipod touch because you can't update the OS. I actually find it hard to believe your propping Apple up here with their huge fight against right to repair.
  - ramphastidae 5y ago
    So ... what’s your example of a company besides Apple currently providing first-class mobile OS support for their 5+ year old devices?
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      Wait Android phones can get updated?
    - virtue3 5y ago
      It's five years. Not 5+ (according to their website). I don't have to provide a counter example because that wasn't even remotely the argument I was making (that no companies really do this because their objective is to SELL NEW DEVICES).
- ppf 5y ago
  I don't understand how BMW hold on to their reputation for making cars that run reliably for years. In recent years, their cars are largely shiny toys for the lease market, with an excess of gadgets and value engineering.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
seventytwo 5y ago
The solution is for elected government to impose rules for this kind of thing. This kind of “tragedy of the commons” is one of the downsides of a market system. There are all kinds of other guard rails we put in place to limit the downsides of unfettered capitalism. With air pollution, the market has never solved that problem. Regulation addressed it. If there had been a market solution invented, why is air pollution still rampant in unregulated regions? The market won’t solve any other niches of the waste problems either (recycling, other pollution, carbon emissions, etc.) until it’s too late. The equilibrium point where the incentives to address waste are as strong as the incentives to produce waste exists at a point which would be untenable for human living. Proof? We have millions of people all over the world who basically live in garbage dumps, and there’s not some magical incentive for them to clean things up. They live off it. If there’s not an incentive that’s developed for them, then the point at which the incentive equilibrium exists is beyond even that.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  Yes, everything you say, indeed. Market failure is a real phenomenon. We need effective regulation here. To get there, we need consciousness-raising first. Politicians act mostly only when there's already massive public demand for it.
tootie 5y ago
I don't think that's really the issue here. The upcycling program was based around repurposing old phones. Not keeping them in use as phones. In fact, this likely helps them sell more phones because fewer end up in the secondary market and the Samsung ecosystem becomes more valuable because the old phones can make up whatever IoT network they had dreamed up.
- quadrangle 5y ago
  I did clarify my suspicion that any sort of concern for the "what happens later" question is fundamentally in opposition to the entire mindset, the premise of a business based on people constantly upgrading to the latest devices. There's some fundamental cognitive dissonance in being part of a business that thrives specifically (not incidentally) on externalizing the costs of the constant turnover of devices and somehow also keeping in mind concern for this. As soon as you take on the tiniest slice of care about the issue, the cognitive dissonance comes on board. If e-waste or longer life-cycle of products is a PROBLEM, then how can we justify X Y Z A B C… the entire business model being questioned is the logical conclusion. Far easier to belittle and minimize the whole issue, pretend it's nothing, make minor half-assed programs like the one they are actually doing. The business model does not permit of actual responsibility around these things.
wolfretcrap 5y ago
As someone who works in export/import business, here in India people make a lot of money importing Ewaste from foreign countries. Some villages in Delhi are filled with mountains of garbage brought from foreign countries, it's literally poisoning our under ground water, creating cancer but authorities don't do much about it. Stupidest things is, there are millionaires in India who live in the same place where this work takes place or atleast spend 5 hours a day at their factory and drinking same ground water maybe processed with RO but I am not sure how good is RO at removing heavy metal and other toxic contamination.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gumby 5y ago

> If your business model is based on artificial obsolesence and 100% of the cost of e-waste and disposal is externalized, then anything that truly encourages effective continued use of older models is directly opposed to the business model. You’d think more companies would skip that model: bmw and Apple benefit from the high sale value of their devices, in part due to continued support. It doesn’t hurt that California and Germany have pushed part of the lifecycle cost onto the manufacturers, with some success.

WorldMaker 5y ago
Samsung gives the impression that they'd love their business model to look like Apple or BMW and be a "lifestyle brand" (if not quite a "luxury brand"). My immediate thoughts from the article was wondering how much Samsung regrets being tied to Android at this point. The timing of the project suggests to me that maybe there may have been some hope at Samsung that they could use "upcycling" as a trojan platform for migrating older hardware to a larger Tizen install base as devices aged out of Android support just before realizing that being chained to Android's continual software obsolescence also chained them to wild shifting winds of Android's hardware strategy (and getting Tizen drivers from some of the "mandatory" Android partners). Android as a platform in general, with its wild fragmentation and ever moving software goal posts, seems almost cruelly designed almost entirely for the artificial obsolesence path and that path alone.
- BayAreaEscapee 5y ago
  It's true that Google has made quite a bit of awful and customer-hostile decisions about the path of Android. But what is Samsung's alternative to Android? There is none. All alternative operating systems (PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry, etc) have failed. A new, proprietary OS from Samsung would almost certainly fail. They can't chain their cart to Apple. Android is the only possibility.
  - j16sdiz 5y ago
    Samsung have Tizen. It is still being used in smartwatch
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
My Poco cost me €349. In two and a half years I'll replace it for something new. Long term support isn't even a concern, for that price who gives a shit?
- bzzzt 5y ago
  Not giving a shit _is_ the problem: Poco doesn't have to pay for all those 349 euro phones going to the recycler after just 2,5 years (while probably the components could last years longer).
virtue3 5y ago
Idk about that. I'm pretty sure that people who constantly want a new BMW just lease. BMW has this real awful spot with their 5yr warranty so a lot of people buy a pre-owned BMW off a lease and then drive it for 3 years and then get absolutely wrecked by the maintenance costs. Apple's business model is reliant on people buying a WHOLE NEW PHONE for ~1000$ every 2-3 years. And you get to sell your old phone for what? like 200$ trade in? Apple also constantly locks you out every 5-6 years of iOS updates and then you can't run, say, spotify on your old ipod touch because you can't update the OS. I actually find it hard to believe your propping Apple up here with their huge fight against right to repair.
- ramphastidae 5y ago
  So ... what’s your example of a company besides Apple currently providing first-class mobile OS support for their 5+ year old devices?
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    Wait Android phones can get updated?
  - virtue3 5y ago
    It's five years. Not 5+ (according to their website). I don't have to provide a counter example because that wasn't even remotely the argument I was making (that no companies really do this because their objective is to SELL NEW DEVICES).
ppf 5y ago
I don't understand how BMW hold on to their reputation for making cars that run reliably for years. In recent years, their cars are largely shiny toys for the lease market, with an excess of gadgets and value engineering.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

seventytwo 5y ago

The solution is for elected government to impose rules for this kind of thing. This kind of “tragedy of the commons” is one of the downsides of a market system. There are all kinds of other guard rails we put in place to limit the downsides of unfettered capitalism. With air pollution, the market has never solved that problem. Regulation addressed it. If there had been a market solution invented, why is air pollution still rampant in unregulated regions? The market won’t solve any other niches of the waste problems either (recycling, other pollution, carbon emissions, etc.) until it’s too late. The equilibrium point where the incentives to address waste are as strong as the incentives to produce waste exists at a point which would be untenable for human living. Proof? We have millions of people all over the world who basically live in garbage dumps, and there’s not some magical incentive for them to clean things up. They live off it. If there’s not an incentive that’s developed for them, then the point at which the incentive equilibrium exists is beyond even that.

quadrangle 5y ago
Yes, everything you say, indeed. Market failure is a real phenomenon. We need effective regulation here. To get there, we need consciousness-raising first. Politicians act mostly only when there's already massive public demand for it.

tootie 5y ago

I don't think that's really the issue here. The upcycling program was based around repurposing old phones. Not keeping them in use as phones. In fact, this likely helps them sell more phones because fewer end up in the secondary market and the Samsung ecosystem becomes more valuable because the old phones can make up whatever IoT network they had dreamed up.

quadrangle 5y ago
I did clarify my suspicion that any sort of concern for the "what happens later" question is fundamentally in opposition to the entire mindset, the premise of a business based on people constantly upgrading to the latest devices. There's some fundamental cognitive dissonance in being part of a business that thrives specifically (not incidentally) on externalizing the costs of the constant turnover of devices and somehow also keeping in mind concern for this. As soon as you take on the tiniest slice of care about the issue, the cognitive dissonance comes on board. If e-waste or longer life-cycle of products is a PROBLEM, then how can we justify X Y Z A B C… the entire business model being questioned is the logical conclusion. Far easier to belittle and minimize the whole issue, pretend it's nothing, make minor half-assed programs like the one they are actually doing. The business model does not permit of actual responsibility around these things.

wolfretcrap 5y ago

As someone who works in export/import business, here in India people make a lot of money importing Ewaste from foreign countries. Some villages in Delhi are filled with mountains of garbage brought from foreign countries, it's literally poisoning our under ground water, creating cancer but authorities don't do much about it. Stupidest things is, there are millionaires in India who live in the same place where this work takes place or atleast spend 5 hours a day at their factory and drinking same ground water maybe processed with RO but I am not sure how good is RO at removing heavy metal and other toxic contamination.