8 ms·

Consumer grade products are deliberately designed to fail. This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE&t=833s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8

Consumer grade products are deliberately designed to fail. This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE&t=833s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE&t=833s If you're older, like really old, you can actually remember a time where products were of a much much higher durability before the industry figured out that low durability products were more profitable. So in actuality some of the suggestions on that site aren't necessarily overkill as industrial products aren't deliberately engineered to fail.

kube-system 5y ago
“Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” Engineering is an exercise in prioritization. If 90% of consumers buy the cheapest blender on the shelf, the blender made with the cheapest materials wins. Hobart still exists, and still makes good blenders. Consumers just started buying new designs that were more cost efficient. If you look at the prices of mid twentieth century appliances in some old periodicals, and adjust for inflation, they’re about the price of commercial appliances today. Before value-engineering, people didn’t have a kitchen full of appliances, they went without. Value engineering is often criticized, but the plain truth is that it is primarily responsible for the high standards of living we enjoy today.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  the shop vac pro i bought had a one-time current fuse soldered down (not replacable with a holder). over time all of these machines get a little friction in the fan assembly and blow this fuse. yes, you could argue that making this fuse replaceable would add $0.05, but we all know that its not because 99% of the purchasers wont crack it open, figure out whats going on, and short the fuse. you can argue that by keeping the volume up shop vac can lower prices. but i dont think you can argue that efficiency has been gained.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    The 1% of people who try to fix their shop vac are probably the same 1% who are comfortable using a soldering iron. Reducing part count is value engineering 101. The number of consumers who buy a shop vac based on whether it has a socketed fuse is negligible. It’s simply a feature with zero commercial value. It’s all cost with zero benefit.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      > It’s all cost with zero benefit. Only because a good chunk of the true costs are externalized. If the vendor would have to pay for disposal of their product, suddenly that socketed fuse would become a cost-cutting measure.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        Yes, of course. Companies(/people) make choices based on the laws they are subject to.
    - neonological 5y ago
      The cost is negligible, mere cents. A decision such as this is indeed done to deliberately shorten the life span.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        For one item maybe, but every item on a BOM for a mass manufactured product is (hopefully) multiplied by many thousands or millions of units. If these types of features mattered to consumers, then one would expect we’d see success from the companies who prioritize it. These companies and products do exist, but they are niche.
        neonological 5y ago
        These features do matter to consumers. What consumer wouldn't want a vac that can be fixed easily by putting a new fuse in a socket? The issue is the consumer doesn't know about this possible fix. The Company Engineers this fact into the product AND into the marketing and into the warranty length. Common sense. A human is irrational and lacks knowledge, but a human made aware of his irrationality will usually choose the rational choice. Companies are just taking advantage of a consumers lack of knowledge, awareness, and intelligence. If you were perfectly aware of two competing vacs and all the actual technical specifications of course the one with a replaceable fuse would be counted as a positive feature. The problem is that companies that try to market the fuse as a feature will have a hard time communicating this fact to the consumer especially. Thus it is in the interest of every company to engineer shorter lifespans into their products as consumers can't see past 2 years at the point of sale. Industrial products on the other hand are usually massed purchased and reliability is measured from an accounting perspective. This makes industrial owners more knowledgeable and able to make more rational choices as they have quantitative metrics that effect their profits during accounting time.
  - yarcob 5y ago
    If that fuse blows, does swapping it help? Wouldn't the blown fuse typically mean the fan bearings are broken and a new fuse would just blow soon again?
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      i my case I shorted it and have been using the vacuum for another 10 years. there was dust in the fan bearings, but i sluiced it out with mineral oil.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item. For the 99% of people who don’t attempt electrical repairs on their vacuums, that fuse socket would be sitting inside of a vacuum in a landfill. Drive around any US suburb on trash night and pick up a couple of appliances. Most of them either still work 100% or have trivially fixable issues. People (US consumers especially) don’t fix stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I love fixing things myself. I’ve probably saved $10,000 over the past 5 years by fixing things people were throwing away instead of buying. The ease with which this is possible to do demonstrates how few people attempt repairs themselves.
        neonological 5y ago
        >So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item. You joking? You realize houses and cars have socketed fuses that can be replaced almost turnkey. This is a simple solution to build into the product a UI that let's the user know a socket was blown and allow the user to replace a fuse like replacing a AA battery. FUSES are designed to fail and be replaced. Making those FUSES inaccessible is ALSO a design choice because it's contradictory. There was a point in time where every phone had a replaceable battery. You think that replaceable batteries disappeared because companies wanted to save costs? Sockets for batteries have been part of the design philosophy for consumer products for decades, the fact that these sockets are removed from phones is not a cost saving measure. This issue is much more widespread than you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
- gregmac 5y ago
  The ironic part of that is that often people will end up spending more on crappy stuff, as they end up buying several {thing} over the time period one more expensive one would have lasted. This is also an example of why it's expensive to be poor. I did this with office chairs. I was buying a new mediocre chair every few years before finally buying a Herman Miller several years ago. It was expensive compared to anything else I'd owned, but (1) it's an order-of-magnitude better chair, and (2) I had probably spent about the same money on several crappier chairs over the prior decade. I am still sitting in this chair now, and it's still just as good as the day I bought it.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    It depends on duty cycle. If you’re often using a computer chair (as many of us do use in a commercial setting), you probably legitimately need a chair with a high duty cycle. Meanwhile, I have a $7 toaster that’s 10 years old. I don’t make toast very often. Even if my toaster fails today, a low-end commercial toaster wouldn’t pay itself off over my lifetime. Poor people also have alternatives. Much of the world doesn’t worry about the repair bills for their clothes dryer or their dishwasher, because they hang their clothes on a line and wash their dishes in a basin.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    A.k.a. “Vimes’ Boots”
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” No. Of course, a part of potential lifetime loss is due to price. Manufacturing a case in plastic instead of carbon fiber is simply far cheaper and most consumer will go for that. However, we see cheaped out components even in high-priced or prosumer gear, while the existence of this market already pretty much proves that price is not everything to every consumer. Additionally, there are many examples of behaviors that save no money or are actually more expensive, but help the bottom line by forcing people to buy new (see the Phoebus cartell [0] or the slowing down of older iPhones by Apple). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Yes, true planned obsolescence has happened. But it’s a lot less common than people think, and often prohibited by law. Even the “slowing down of old iPhones” is an example of that. This was a bug fix for crashing due to current demand that exceeded the battery’s capability.
    - neonological 5y ago
      Most people aren't even aware of planned obsolescence. There's also very little data on how much of this actually happening as no company will admit to this practice. So really no one can make a statement on whether it's common or uncommon without a big data gathering effort. The statement we can make that is very realistic is that companies are incentivised to do do "planned obsolescence" and because of this "planned obsolescence" has happened, is happening and will continue to happen in the future.
- Jiro 5y ago
  Something "engineered to fail" may be cheaper because materials that don't last so long are cheaper. But it's also possible that the material isn't cheaper at all, but the manufaturer gains because if the part wears out sooner they can sell a replacement sooner. That isn't a case of "consumers prioritize price". For instance, manufacturers have tried to sell printers which refuse to print when there is still quite a bit of ink left in the cartridge. Printers which refuse to let you use all the ink are engineered to fail, but they aren't cheaper than printers that do let you use all the ink. The manufacturer is relying on the fact that obtaining good information is costly; testing printers to rigorously prove this takes resources, and even when it gets discovered, many consumers won't know that the printer is doing this, so they won't use that information in comparing otherwise similar-looking printers.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    The “razors and blades model” you’re referring to isn’t really the same thing as obsolescence. People know these items have consumables when they purchase them, and the original item doesn’t “break”, it just inherently requires another product. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model
    - Jiro 5y ago
      The ink cartridge isn't actually consumed. The printer falsely reports that the cartridge is consumed so that the consumer has to purchase another one.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  > “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” Yes, and prioritizing price is short term and stupid. Prioritize total cost instead and buy high quality items, it's much cheaper in the long run. Also, high standard of living is not about having your kitchen "full of appliances", it's about health, education and security.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Value engineering is not a idea known only to kitchen appliances engineers. This was just the example at hand. Many of the products and services that people buy to support their health, education, security, etc have been made more accessible by value engineering either directly, or in their supply chain.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Sure, but when is having lots of cheap stuff related to standard of living? I still maintain that access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security are what determines standard of living, not the amount of stuff you have.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        The human activities that enable someone to have access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security make use of value-engineered products.
        neonological 5y ago
        There's no doubt "value engineering" occurs. Your claim is that early obsolescence is not planned but rather a side effect of value engineering. There's nothing in the universe that stops a feature that meets a design goal of lowering value from also meeting the design goal of planned obsolescence. So it's 100 percent possible that a company still has two design goals: making a cheaper product and obsolescescing that product. So if you claim that it's basically not happening. Tell me in what way is a company not incentivised to plan the early obsolescence of a product and what evidence do you have that this is basically not happening as a deliberate design decision? Your evidence is only an example that a company can both meet the goal of obsolescence and lower value with a singular feature of cheaper materials. I have stated that this is not evidence because a company can still have the design goal of obsolescence while meeting that goal with a singular design feature intended to make the product cheaper as well. You need to counter this reasoning because it invalidated your evidence.
- neonological 5y ago
  Did you watch the video? It's not just about cheap materials. It's literal design decisions made for the express reason so that the product will fail. The iphone not having a replaceable battery is a design decision, it doesn't make the phone cheaper. You are taking two independent phenomenons and trying to group them together as if they are the same phenomenon. Yes making a product cheaper has the side effect of reducing its' lifetime but the video and what I'm talking about is DIRECT engineering decisions for the purpose of shortening lifetimes NOT making things cheaper. You obviously didn't watch the video.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I did watch it. (And I have watched it once before years ago.) Design is also an engineering constraint. All of these constraints are interconnected. None are wholly independent. The “fashion” argument is particularly silly. Fashion and style are concepts that have existed as a part of human nature longer than manufacturing, corporations, or even money itself have even existed. Having the latest flashy accessories to show off to potential mates is something that was literally invented (at least) 75,000 years ago by Neanderthals, not GM or Apple.
    - neonological 5y ago
      > Design is also an engineering constraint. All of these constraints are interconnected. None are wholly independent. Did I say they weren't interdependent? My response to you LITERALLY stated an interdependency. Also when does "design" being an engineering constraint have to do with anything? Are you talking about aesthetic design choices made by an artist/product designer that an engineer has to take into account? You should be more specific because engineers "design" solutions around constraints as well, and the statement makes no sense when viewed from the engineering perspective. >The “fashion” argument is particularly silly. Fashion and style are concepts that have existed as a part of human nature longer than manufacturing, corporations, or even money itself have even existed. What fashion argument? You say the "fashion" argument is "silly" but I'm over here thinking, what "fashion" argument? I NEVER made such an argument. What's silly here is that you're talking about some weird imaginary tangent that I never even touched upon. If you actually did watch that video or even read my posts I'm thinking you read it really quickly and you skimmed that video. I think you skipped some words and sentences and made a huge assumptions about what I'm talking about. > The part of my response that you didn't even address is that I'm saying FAILURE is engineered into the design DELIBERATELY. It's not a side effect of creating a cheaper product. It's a actual design choice making the consumer more likely to buy a new product. You realize that the filament for those bulbs weren't picked because the filament was cheaper. A deliberate R&D effort was created to pick filaments that were roughly the same cost but failed quicker. That's counter to your entire argument. R&D costs money so costs are actually INCREASED to make the product fail quicker.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Does the following scenario often happen with value engineering or is it just my mind playing tricks on me? A product category exists at around $450–500 and there are plenty of household who do without. It gets value engineered down to a $100 product and sees mass adoption. However, 90% of the market for the original $500 product also chooses the half-broken $100 version, leading to the $500 quality moving upmarket (such that it now costs $1000) or disappearing altogether (or moving to a commercial appliance that is unfit for household use).
  - kube-system 5y ago
    For sure it does. But it’s also common for technologies to mature as they gain widespread use. When I was a kid, something like a preset for popcorn, or a turntable, was an a feature you’d get on a very expensive microwave. Many luxury features of yesteryear are now standard.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      I think that scenario may be why so many people have a hatred for value engineering: once cheaper becomes available, the market bifurcates into value-engineered wares for people who don’t care and the high-quality end becomes higher quality and three times the price it used to be. The choices of other customers deny you the continued availability of the optimal price+feature set for your needs & budget.
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Yes, we hate value engineering because of this bifurcation (it's real, and I've been whining about it for a while too). But I see it somewhat differently than you described: > value-engineered wares for people who don’t care You say it like there is a choice involved here. There isn't. This is something that needs repeating - customers choose out of what's available on the market, not out of the space of all possible products. So all products that are hard to make and sell yourself are primarily vendor-driven. If a market bifurcates like this, I can't announce my preference for the missing middle at all. The split may have happened against my preferences, or it may have happened before I cared, or it may have happened before I was even in the market for that product category. But once it happened, people who'd prefer something better than barely-fit-for-purpose can't get it. > high-quality end becomes higher quality and three times the price it used to be If it becomes higher quality. As you mentioned higher up, it frequently becomes different, as it's no longer targeting a large audience. > The choices of other customers deny you the continued availability Yes, but again, what choices? These things stick in a feedback loop, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it doesn't take people choosing the lower-tier option. It takes a company choosing a somewhat lower quality this year than they did the last year, because if done gradually people won't be able to quickly tell (the very job of marketing is to confuse customers about this). I hate "revealed preferences", I consider them mostly bullshit given the lack of actual choice - but if we want to frame the situation like this: the bifurcation doesn't require that most of the middle-tier consumers "actually prefer" the cheaper option over the middle one. A company will attempt this even if it meant losing middle-tier customers altogether, as long as they believe the expanding lower-tier customer base will make up for it. What's even more maddening is the interplay with economies of scale - the middle-tier product could've gotten better and cheaper over time, if its broad customer base wasn't stolen by the low-quality option. So the households that couldn't afford the quality option yesterday, would be able to afford it tomorrow - and today would be making use of used ones, because there is such a thing as a market for used goods, which works best when items are durable. But companies often do try to sabotage it, too. Also: the downwards quality spiral doesn't stop at a reasonable point, it stops at the lowest point where the customers can be duped en-masse, unless stopped by regulatory means either. I'll happily argue that, for most products, the lowest-priced options shouldn't exist in the first place, because they deliver negative value (after accounting for total use costs, with possible future replacement, which most people don't) and endless frustration. I see them as an environmental disaster.

kube-system 5y ago

“Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” Engineering is an exercise in prioritization. If 90% of consumers buy the cheapest blender on the shelf, the blender made with the cheapest materials wins. Hobart still exists, and still makes good blenders. Consumers just started buying new designs that were more cost efficient. If you look at the prices of mid twentieth century appliances in some old periodicals, and adjust for inflation, they’re about the price of commercial appliances today. Before value-engineering, people didn’t have a kitchen full of appliances, they went without. Value engineering is often criticized, but the plain truth is that it is primarily responsible for the high standards of living we enjoy today.

convolvatron 5y ago
the shop vac pro i bought had a one-time current fuse soldered down (not replacable with a holder). over time all of these machines get a little friction in the fan assembly and blow this fuse. yes, you could argue that making this fuse replaceable would add $0.05, but we all know that its not because 99% of the purchasers wont crack it open, figure out whats going on, and short the fuse. you can argue that by keeping the volume up shop vac can lower prices. but i dont think you can argue that efficiency has been gained.
- kube-system 5y ago
  The 1% of people who try to fix their shop vac are probably the same 1% who are comfortable using a soldering iron. Reducing part count is value engineering 101. The number of consumers who buy a shop vac based on whether it has a socketed fuse is negligible. It’s simply a feature with zero commercial value. It’s all cost with zero benefit.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    > It’s all cost with zero benefit. Only because a good chunk of the true costs are externalized. If the vendor would have to pay for disposal of their product, suddenly that socketed fuse would become a cost-cutting measure.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Yes, of course. Companies(/people) make choices based on the laws they are subject to.
  - neonological 5y ago
    The cost is negligible, mere cents. A decision such as this is indeed done to deliberately shorten the life span.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      For one item maybe, but every item on a BOM for a mass manufactured product is (hopefully) multiplied by many thousands or millions of units. If these types of features mattered to consumers, then one would expect we’d see success from the companies who prioritize it. These companies and products do exist, but they are niche.
      - neonological 5y ago
        These features do matter to consumers. What consumer wouldn't want a vac that can be fixed easily by putting a new fuse in a socket? The issue is the consumer doesn't know about this possible fix. The Company Engineers this fact into the product AND into the marketing and into the warranty length. Common sense. A human is irrational and lacks knowledge, but a human made aware of his irrationality will usually choose the rational choice. Companies are just taking advantage of a consumers lack of knowledge, awareness, and intelligence. If you were perfectly aware of two competing vacs and all the actual technical specifications of course the one with a replaceable fuse would be counted as a positive feature. The problem is that companies that try to market the fuse as a feature will have a hard time communicating this fact to the consumer especially. Thus it is in the interest of every company to engineer shorter lifespans into their products as consumers can't see past 2 years at the point of sale. Industrial products on the other hand are usually massed purchased and reliability is measured from an accounting perspective. This makes industrial owners more knowledgeable and able to make more rational choices as they have quantitative metrics that effect their profits during accounting time.
- yarcob 5y ago
  If that fuse blows, does swapping it help? Wouldn't the blown fuse typically mean the fan bearings are broken and a new fuse would just blow soon again?
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    i my case I shorted it and have been using the vacuum for another 10 years. there was dust in the fan bearings, but i sluiced it out with mineral oil.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item. For the 99% of people who don’t attempt electrical repairs on their vacuums, that fuse socket would be sitting inside of a vacuum in a landfill. Drive around any US suburb on trash night and pick up a couple of appliances. Most of them either still work 100% or have trivially fixable issues. People (US consumers especially) don’t fix stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I love fixing things myself. I’ve probably saved $10,000 over the past 5 years by fixing things people were throwing away instead of buying. The ease with which this is possible to do demonstrates how few people attempt repairs themselves.
      - neonological 5y ago
        >So, the end result of having a soldered fuse was exactly the same as a socketed one: it was successfully repaired. I don’t see the justification for the extra BOM item. You joking? You realize houses and cars have socketed fuses that can be replaced almost turnkey. This is a simple solution to build into the product a UI that let's the user know a socket was blown and allow the user to replace a fuse like replacing a AA battery. FUSES are designed to fail and be replaced. Making those FUSES inaccessible is ALSO a design choice because it's contradictory. There was a point in time where every phone had a replaceable battery. You think that replaceable batteries disappeared because companies wanted to save costs? Sockets for batteries have been part of the design philosophy for consumer products for decades, the fact that these sockets are removed from phones is not a cost saving measure. This issue is much more widespread than you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
gregmac 5y ago
The ironic part of that is that often people will end up spending more on crappy stuff, as they end up buying several {thing} over the time period one more expensive one would have lasted. This is also an example of why it's expensive to be poor. I did this with office chairs. I was buying a new mediocre chair every few years before finally buying a Herman Miller several years ago. It was expensive compared to anything else I'd owned, but (1) it's an order-of-magnitude better chair, and (2) I had probably spent about the same money on several crappier chairs over the prior decade. I am still sitting in this chair now, and it's still just as good as the day I bought it.
- kube-system 5y ago
  It depends on duty cycle. If you’re often using a computer chair (as many of us do use in a commercial setting), you probably legitimately need a chair with a high duty cycle. Meanwhile, I have a $7 toaster that’s 10 years old. I don’t make toast very often. Even if my toaster fails today, a low-end commercial toaster wouldn’t pay itself off over my lifetime. Poor people also have alternatives. Much of the world doesn’t worry about the repair bills for their clothes dryer or their dishwasher, because they hang their clothes on a line and wash their dishes in a basin.
- teddyh 5y ago
  A.k.a. “Vimes’ Boots”
Sebb767 5y ago
> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” No. Of course, a part of potential lifetime loss is due to price. Manufacturing a case in plastic instead of carbon fiber is simply far cheaper and most consumer will go for that. However, we see cheaped out components even in high-priced or prosumer gear, while the existence of this market already pretty much proves that price is not everything to every consumer. Additionally, there are many examples of behaviors that save no money or are actually more expensive, but help the bottom line by forcing people to buy new (see the Phoebus cartell [0] or the slowing down of older iPhones by Apple). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
- kube-system 5y ago
  Yes, true planned obsolescence has happened. But it’s a lot less common than people think, and often prohibited by law. Even the “slowing down of old iPhones” is an example of that. This was a bug fix for crashing due to current demand that exceeded the battery’s capability.
  - neonological 5y ago
    Most people aren't even aware of planned obsolescence. There's also very little data on how much of this actually happening as no company will admit to this practice. So really no one can make a statement on whether it's common or uncommon without a big data gathering effort. The statement we can make that is very realistic is that companies are incentivised to do do "planned obsolescence" and because of this "planned obsolescence" has happened, is happening and will continue to happen in the future.
Jiro 5y ago
Something "engineered to fail" may be cheaper because materials that don't last so long are cheaper. But it's also possible that the material isn't cheaper at all, but the manufaturer gains because if the part wears out sooner they can sell a replacement sooner. That isn't a case of "consumers prioritize price". For instance, manufacturers have tried to sell printers which refuse to print when there is still quite a bit of ink left in the cartridge. Printers which refuse to let you use all the ink are engineered to fail, but they aren't cheaper than printers that do let you use all the ink. The manufacturer is relying on the fact that obtaining good information is costly; testing printers to rigorously prove this takes resources, and even when it gets discovered, many consumers won't know that the printer is doing this, so they won't use that information in comparing otherwise similar-looking printers.
- kube-system 5y ago
  The “razors and blades model” you’re referring to isn’t really the same thing as obsolescence. People know these items have consumables when they purchase them, and the original item doesn’t “break”, it just inherently requires another product. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model
  - Jiro 5y ago
    The ink cartridge isn't actually consumed. The printer falsely reports that the cartridge is consumed so that the consumer has to purchase another one.
Grustaf 5y ago
> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” Yes, and prioritizing price is short term and stupid. Prioritize total cost instead and buy high quality items, it's much cheaper in the long run. Also, high standard of living is not about having your kitchen "full of appliances", it's about health, education and security.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Value engineering is not a idea known only to kitchen appliances engineers. This was just the example at hand. Many of the products and services that people buy to support their health, education, security, etc have been made more accessible by value engineering either directly, or in their supply chain.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Sure, but when is having lots of cheap stuff related to standard of living? I still maintain that access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security are what determines standard of living, not the amount of stuff you have.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      The human activities that enable someone to have access to healthy food, good education, healthcare and security make use of value-engineered products.
      - neonological 5y ago
        There's no doubt "value engineering" occurs. Your claim is that early obsolescence is not planned but rather a side effect of value engineering. There's nothing in the universe that stops a feature that meets a design goal of lowering value from also meeting the design goal of planned obsolescence. So it's 100 percent possible that a company still has two design goals: making a cheaper product and obsolescescing that product. So if you claim that it's basically not happening. Tell me in what way is a company not incentivised to plan the early obsolescence of a product and what evidence do you have that this is basically not happening as a deliberate design decision? Your evidence is only an example that a company can both meet the goal of obsolescence and lower value with a singular feature of cheaper materials. I have stated that this is not evidence because a company can still have the design goal of obsolescence while meeting that goal with a singular design feature intended to make the product cheaper as well. You need to counter this reasoning because it invalidated your evidence.
neonological 5y ago
Did you watch the video? It's not just about cheap materials. It's literal design decisions made for the express reason so that the product will fail. The iphone not having a replaceable battery is a design decision, it doesn't make the phone cheaper. You are taking two independent phenomenons and trying to group them together as if they are the same phenomenon. Yes making a product cheaper has the side effect of reducing its' lifetime but the video and what I'm talking about is DIRECT engineering decisions for the purpose of shortening lifetimes NOT making things cheaper. You obviously didn't watch the video.
- kube-system 5y ago
  I did watch it. (And I have watched it once before years ago.) Design is also an engineering constraint. All of these constraints are interconnected. None are wholly independent. The “fashion” argument is particularly silly. Fashion and style are concepts that have existed as a part of human nature longer than manufacturing, corporations, or even money itself have even existed. Having the latest flashy accessories to show off to potential mates is something that was literally invented (at least) 75,000 years ago by Neanderthals, not GM or Apple.
  - neonological 5y ago
    > Design is also an engineering constraint. All of these constraints are interconnected. None are wholly independent. Did I say they weren't interdependent? My response to you LITERALLY stated an interdependency. Also when does "design" being an engineering constraint have to do with anything? Are you talking about aesthetic design choices made by an artist/product designer that an engineer has to take into account? You should be more specific because engineers "design" solutions around constraints as well, and the statement makes no sense when viewed from the engineering perspective. >The “fashion” argument is particularly silly. Fashion and style are concepts that have existed as a part of human nature longer than manufacturing, corporations, or even money itself have even existed. What fashion argument? You say the "fashion" argument is "silly" but I'm over here thinking, what "fashion" argument? I NEVER made such an argument. What's silly here is that you're talking about some weird imaginary tangent that I never even touched upon. If you actually did watch that video or even read my posts I'm thinking you read it really quickly and you skimmed that video. I think you skipped some words and sentences and made a huge assumptions about what I'm talking about. > The part of my response that you didn't even address is that I'm saying FAILURE is engineered into the design DELIBERATELY. It's not a side effect of creating a cheaper product. It's a actual design choice making the consumer more likely to buy a new product. You realize that the filament for those bulbs weren't picked because the filament was cheaper. A deliberate R&D effort was created to pick filaments that were roughly the same cost but failed quicker. That's counter to your entire argument. R&D costs money so costs are actually INCREASED to make the product fail quicker.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Does the following scenario often happen with value engineering or is it just my mind playing tricks on me? A product category exists at around $450–500 and there are plenty of household who do without. It gets value engineered down to a $100 product and sees mass adoption. However, 90% of the market for the original $500 product also chooses the half-broken $100 version, leading to the $500 quality moving upmarket (such that it now costs $1000) or disappearing altogether (or moving to a commercial appliance that is unfit for household use).
- kube-system 5y ago
  For sure it does. But it’s also common for technologies to mature as they gain widespread use. When I was a kid, something like a preset for popcorn, or a turntable, was an a feature you’d get on a very expensive microwave. Many luxury features of yesteryear are now standard.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    I think that scenario may be why so many people have a hatred for value engineering: once cheaper becomes available, the market bifurcates into value-engineered wares for people who don’t care and the high-quality end becomes higher quality and three times the price it used to be. The choices of other customers deny you the continued availability of the optimal price+feature set for your needs & budget.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Yes, we hate value engineering because of this bifurcation (it's real, and I've been whining about it for a while too). But I see it somewhat differently than you described: > value-engineered wares for people who don’t care You say it like there is a choice involved here. There isn't. This is something that needs repeating - customers choose out of what's available on the market, not out of the space of all possible products. So all products that are hard to make and sell yourself are primarily vendor-driven. If a market bifurcates like this, I can't announce my preference for the missing middle at all. The split may have happened against my preferences, or it may have happened before I cared, or it may have happened before I was even in the market for that product category. But once it happened, people who'd prefer something better than barely-fit-for-purpose can't get it. > high-quality end becomes higher quality and three times the price it used to be If it becomes higher quality. As you mentioned higher up, it frequently becomes different, as it's no longer targeting a large audience. > The choices of other customers deny you the continued availability Yes, but again, what choices? These things stick in a feedback loop, a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it doesn't take people choosing the lower-tier option. It takes a company choosing a somewhat lower quality this year than they did the last year, because if done gradually people won't be able to quickly tell (the very job of marketing is to confuse customers about this). I hate "revealed preferences", I consider them mostly bullshit given the lack of actual choice - but if we want to frame the situation like this: the bifurcation doesn't require that most of the middle-tier consumers "actually prefer" the cheaper option over the middle one. A company will attempt this even if it meant losing middle-tier customers altogether, as long as they believe the expanding lower-tier customer base will make up for it. What's even more maddening is the interplay with economies of scale - the middle-tier product could've gotten better and cheaper over time, if its broad customer base wasn't stolen by the low-quality option. So the households that couldn't afford the quality option yesterday, would be able to afford it tomorrow - and today would be making use of used ones, because there is such a thing as a market for used goods, which works best when items are durable. But companies often do try to sabotage it, too. Also: the downwards quality spiral doesn't stop at a reasonable point, it stops at the lowest point where the customers can be duped en-masse, unless stopped by regulatory means either. I'll happily argue that, for most products, the lowest-priced options shouldn't exist in the first place, because they deliver negative value (after accounting for total use costs, with possible future replacement, which most people don't) and endless frustration. I see them as an environmental disaster.