4 ms·

Your statement is valid for individuals. But as a society, we could value reparability. And laws are there to enforce what the society values, not the selfish i

by pjerem 5y ago

Your statement is valid for individuals. But as a society, we could value reparability. And laws are there to enforce what the society values, not the selfish individuals you and me are part of.

chrisseaton 5y ago
But we know society doesn’t value repairability as they don’t prefer repairable devices in practice.
- shadilay 5y ago
  I as an individual hardly have a choice. If they offered a version of the next samsung phone with a removable battery I'd probably buy it.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Just know it’ll be at least 2x as thick if not more.
    - morsch 5y ago
      https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=10001&idPhone2=9536&idPhone3=9848 https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=10001&idPhone... 10 mm vs 7-8 mm for class leading phones. Maybe the Xcover Pro is rugged enough to use it without a case/sleeve ("Drop-to-concrete resistance from up to 1.5 m"), so it might end up being thinner in practice.
    - bombela 5y ago
      Google Pixel 3a XL: 7.6mm Samsung X Cover: 10mm (replaceable battery) It's definitely thicker. But not double.
    - shadilay 5y ago
      My S4 with a removable battery seemed like the same thickness as my S8 without a removable battery.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    If that’s what you want then you be the one to build it or pay someone else to build it. Why should the rest of us pay for your preferences?
    - LadyCailin 5y ago
      If there was no e-waste, you’d have a point. The problems come when negative externalities are not priced in. Then we’re forcing people to pay those costs, though they may be distant in time or space.
    - cybernautique 5y ago
      This is an odd question. There are "losers" and "winners" with the state of any market. Currently, those of us that prefer repairability are the "losers" in the smartphone market. I therefore put your question back to you. Why should _we_ pay for _your_ preferences?
      - google234123 5y ago
        Because you lose the vote (we voted with our wallet the other way). Anyway, there’s plenty of room for niche companies to serve your market.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        The current situation is people providing the products they want to. Yours is the position of applying state force to make them do something they don't want to - the burden to justify is entirely yours.
        morsch 5y ago
        Why do you think the market is providing people the products they want? This may be self-evident for you; it isn't for me. Markets are useful, but they don't work well. People want to be forced to spend an extra buck for guaranteed free returns and another extra buck for minimum warranties, and maybe another buck for 7 year of updates. They also want the resulting costs to be distributed amongst everyone, which makes them trivial. This isn't a particularly unusual idea in a continent that has tended to embrace socialized healthcare. A big enough majority of people wants it, anyway, to vote for representatives that write these laws. I'm sure there is a small minority of oppressed Randians who suffer terribly from all of this.
  - selectodude 5y ago
    https://www.samsung.com/us/business/mobile/phones/galaxy-xcover-pro/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/mobile/phones/galaxy-xco... There you go.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ho_schi 5y ago
  Society is looking only one immediate issues: Is it comfortable. Only later the notice the long term consequences. That is the reason why Microsoft was able to dominate the desktop market. Now wonder, the number of professionals on the desktop market is low. Despite the harmful effects of the UNIX-Wars, Linux managed slowly to take leadership of servers, super-computing and some professional devices (Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Developer Edition). Naturally some consumer test boards would hint on long term effects and consumers would adapt ("Don't buy car X from Z, it has problems with the engine after 40.000 km.") computing is very fast changing and one bad decision can bound you for years. A large base of Windows users cannot switch, they are not able to switch because they bought sadly hardware from a vendor with not open drivers, or a specially crafted bureaucracy. Of course XMPP existed and was more secure but WhatsApp was more comfortable. And even despite Signal is better, they sheer group pressure is extreme. And your Apple-Music account and all the invested money on the App-Store and your GMAIL-Account... Interesting enough, if you don't buy the most expensive device you get replaceable batteries. If you buy rough phones ("professional") you get replaceable batteries. Industry is quite good teaching leymans what the have to buy "blingbling" and then just lock-in the buyers. Of course they would appreciate repair ability - they just don't know it better at time. It actually US which fail to help them before they are in the next trap. Schools now using foreign clouds and Zoom. Holy...why we failed to show them Matrix and Jitsi? Why we didn't improved comfort?
matz1 5y ago
Society is a collection of individuals. >But as a society, we could value reparability Only if there is large enough individuals who value reparability. >And laws are there to enforce what the society values That laws exist when there is enough individuals to support it.
908B64B197 5y ago
Something that's hardly ever discussed is reliability; having less parts and fewer points of failures typically means that devices can last longer.
rsj_hn 5y ago
> But as a society, we could value reparability That is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Yes, free repairability would be fun, but as everything comes with a cost, values are encoded as trade offs between desirable outcomes, rather than the desirable outcomes themselves. When some desirable outcome is not obtained in society, almost always the reason is that there are other tradeoffs being made. So society values affordability, competition, performance, longevity, quality, repairability, customizability -- and that's just on the product side. Then these product trade offs compete against things like labor market protections, use of resources for competing products, etc. When Apple decides to solder RAM into the motherboard, it is making a trade off between performance and repairability. When Tesla chooses megacasting that might result in a fender bender totaling your car, they are choosing reliability and lower production costs over repairability. Just bemoaning that some product is less repairable and that society values repairability so therefore some dark force must be working to subvert society's values is not a useful or insightful analytical approach. Everything boils down to tradeoffs.

by pjerem 5y ago

Your statement is valid for individuals. But as a society, we could value reparability. And laws are there to enforce what the society values, not the selfish individuals you and me are part of.

chrisseaton 5y ago

But we know society doesn’t value repairability as they don’t prefer repairable devices in practice.

shadilay 5y ago
I as an individual hardly have a choice. If they offered a version of the next samsung phone with a removable battery I'd probably buy it.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Just know it’ll be at least 2x as thick if not more.
  - morsch 5y ago
    https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=10001&idPhone2=9536&idPhone3=9848 https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=10001&idPhone... 10 mm vs 7-8 mm for class leading phones. Maybe the Xcover Pro is rugged enough to use it without a case/sleeve ("Drop-to-concrete resistance from up to 1.5 m"), so it might end up being thinner in practice.
  - bombela 5y ago
    Google Pixel 3a XL: 7.6mm Samsung X Cover: 10mm (replaceable battery) It's definitely thicker. But not double.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    My S4 with a removable battery seemed like the same thickness as my S8 without a removable battery.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  If that’s what you want then you be the one to build it or pay someone else to build it. Why should the rest of us pay for your preferences?
  - LadyCailin 5y ago
    If there was no e-waste, you’d have a point. The problems come when negative externalities are not priced in. Then we’re forcing people to pay those costs, though they may be distant in time or space.
  - cybernautique 5y ago
    This is an odd question. There are "losers" and "winners" with the state of any market. Currently, those of us that prefer repairability are the "losers" in the smartphone market. I therefore put your question back to you. Why should _we_ pay for _your_ preferences?
    - google234123 5y ago
      Because you lose the vote (we voted with our wallet the other way). Anyway, there’s plenty of room for niche companies to serve your market.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      The current situation is people providing the products they want to. Yours is the position of applying state force to make them do something they don't want to - the burden to justify is entirely yours.
      - morsch 5y ago
        Why do you think the market is providing people the products they want? This may be self-evident for you; it isn't for me. Markets are useful, but they don't work well. People want to be forced to spend an extra buck for guaranteed free returns and another extra buck for minimum warranties, and maybe another buck for 7 year of updates. They also want the resulting costs to be distributed amongst everyone, which makes them trivial. This isn't a particularly unusual idea in a continent that has tended to embrace socialized healthcare. A big enough majority of people wants it, anyway, to vote for representatives that write these laws. I'm sure there is a small minority of oppressed Randians who suffer terribly from all of this.
- selectodude 5y ago
  https://www.samsung.com/us/business/mobile/phones/galaxy-xcover-pro/ https://www.samsung.com/us/business/mobile/phones/galaxy-xco... There you go.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ho_schi 5y ago
Society is looking only one immediate issues: Is it comfortable. Only later the notice the long term consequences. That is the reason why Microsoft was able to dominate the desktop market. Now wonder, the number of professionals on the desktop market is low. Despite the harmful effects of the UNIX-Wars, Linux managed slowly to take leadership of servers, super-computing and some professional devices (Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Developer Edition). Naturally some consumer test boards would hint on long term effects and consumers would adapt ("Don't buy car X from Z, it has problems with the engine after 40.000 km.") computing is very fast changing and one bad decision can bound you for years. A large base of Windows users cannot switch, they are not able to switch because they bought sadly hardware from a vendor with not open drivers, or a specially crafted bureaucracy. Of course XMPP existed and was more secure but WhatsApp was more comfortable. And even despite Signal is better, they sheer group pressure is extreme. And your Apple-Music account and all the invested money on the App-Store and your GMAIL-Account... Interesting enough, if you don't buy the most expensive device you get replaceable batteries. If you buy rough phones ("professional") you get replaceable batteries. Industry is quite good teaching leymans what the have to buy "blingbling" and then just lock-in the buyers. Of course they would appreciate repair ability - they just don't know it better at time. It actually US which fail to help them before they are in the next trap. Schools now using foreign clouds and Zoom. Holy...why we failed to show them Matrix and Jitsi? Why we didn't improved comfort?

matz1 5y ago

Society is a collection of individuals. >But as a society, we could value reparability Only if there is large enough individuals who value reparability. >And laws are there to enforce what the society values That laws exist when there is enough individuals to support it.

908B64B197 5y ago

Something that's hardly ever discussed is reliability; having less parts and fewer points of failures typically means that devices can last longer.

rsj_hn 5y ago

> But as a society, we could value reparability That is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Yes, free repairability would be fun, but as everything comes with a cost, values are encoded as trade offs between desirable outcomes, rather than the desirable outcomes themselves. When some desirable outcome is not obtained in society, almost always the reason is that there are other tradeoffs being made. So society values affordability, competition, performance, longevity, quality, repairability, customizability -- and that's just on the product side. Then these product trade offs compete against things like labor market protections, use of resources for competing products, etc. When Apple decides to solder RAM into the motherboard, it is making a trade off between performance and repairability. When Tesla chooses megacasting that might result in a fender bender totaling your car, they are choosing reliability and lower production costs over repairability. Just bemoaning that some product is less repairable and that society values repairability so therefore some dark force must be working to subvert society's values is not a useful or insightful analytical approach. Everything boils down to tradeoffs.