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>You can have the good toaster, the good mixer, etc, but it sure looks like people don't actually want that. The pattern of product offerings in your average st

>You can have the good toaster, the good mixer, etc, but it sure looks like people don't actually want that. The pattern of product offerings in your average store suggests people want something affordable, and it doesn't particularly matter whether it is good at its job. I've always wondered if we could fix this through legislation that forces manufacturers of consumer goods to provide an estimate of product lifetime according to some agreed standard - the same way that manufacturers of large appliances have to provide information about energy and water use. As it stands, it's really hard for the consumer to know whether or not the $1000 coffee machine is actually better quality than the $500 one, or whether they're just milking a fancy brand name and relying on FUD.

UncleMeat 5y ago
Cheap toasters today don’t have a shorter lifetime than this one. In fact, they have fewer moving parts.
gambiting 5y ago
>>I've always wondered if we could fix this through legislation that forces manufacturers of consumer goods to provide an estimate of product lifetime according to some agreed standard We can, but again, I feel like a lot of customers don't want that. Even here on HN I hear people saying that well, if I want to buy a $200 washing machine that falls apart in 3 years, then it should be my god given right to do so. If consumers want better appliances then they can just buy them without the need for regulation. I don't really agree with that mindset, but I think it's common enough to prevent the change you're talking about.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  I'm not arguing that we ban washing machines that break in 3 years, just that they're properly labelled.
  - paledot 5y ago
    Why not?
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      Because providing this information to the consumer would be much easier to implement, face much less resistance and have an arguably greater effect (if there's a law saying that every washing machine must last at least 5 years, for example, that doesn't incentivise manufacturers to make something that lasts for 20). Also, to be honest, it just seems "neater" mathematically/economic to not set hard borders anywhere.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  > if I want to buy a $200 washing machine that falls apart in 3 years, then it should be my god given right to do so The $200 unrepairable washing machine has a massive negative externality for the planet. Most people don't think in those terms (especially when the budget is tight, or they are landlords and just need to put checkmark items in the apartment), that's why we should have strong regulations to prevent mass-creation of electro crap. Regulation is good, because it sets a baseline. W/o regulation it's race to the bottom so if company X does something better but it's $50 more expensive, the cheaper company Y. If you have baseline, they both will figure out a $250 machine which is better. Companies who can't create durable items do not have god given right to exist and sell crap which harms the planet. Thankfully EU has been working on this recently, and will require the vendors to offer N years of spare parts availability. > If consumers want better appliances then they can just buy them without the need for regulation. See above. I have a low-repairability fridge whose rubber-magnet got old. Fix? Replace whole door, which costs as much as the new fridge. I don't think my landlord was taking weeks to research repairability and warranty rules for the fridge, because why would they? The law should provide reasonable defaults. I do hope we'll move towards fewer long-lived models with good repairability, even if it costs more short-term, than 7 new fridge model each years with half-life of 2 years. It's nuts. Another thing we have in EU is power-hungriness of devices (they get labeled prominently A, B, C, D, E). IMO should be the same with warranty / spare parts availability length: One year = E, ten years = A etc.
  - mark-r 5y ago
    In the U.S. the manufacturers have figured out that they can make more money selling an "extended warranty" than they can selling the product itself. So the included warranty is as short as they think they can get away with, to encourage you to pony up for the upgrade. It's actually in their best interest for you to believe the item will die the day after the warranty expires.
jschwartzi 5y ago
I want legislation that the manufacturer has to publish, online and in a conspicuous place, full board-level schematics, parts lists, and service notes for household appliances no later than the day after the first unit of a model goes out of warranty. Or that such documents are placed prominently in the packaging the product arrives in and that installers are required by law to provide it to the customer. You can sell something that breaks in 3 years but you have to give me the documents I need to repair it including the logic board. My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on.
- grkvlt 5y ago
  how do you imagine this working for the manufacturers of, e.g. hardware security modules? in fact, for any product, the manufacter can just claim the product consists of one 'part' and the service notes state 'obtain new part', adjusting for whatever level of granularity/number of parts they feel is optimal, unless you want to get into a game of definitions and semantics that will always be incomplete and incorrect and unenforceable...
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on. In my experience, the more expensive washers/driers (e.g. >$1000) are actually higher quality and last 5 times longer than the cheap, or even mid range ones.
  - pureliquidhw 5y ago
    I have had the exact opposite experience. The cheap ones with physical buttons and timers last longer and are way cheaper to fix if it does break.
    - wiether 5y ago
      The issue with those products today is that some are more expensive because they include new tech like AI, wifi and crap like that. The core or the product is low to mid range but the adding (useless) tech means that it will be high priced. If you buy a low tech/high range product, you'll be able to serve it easily and it will outlast you.
grkvlt 5y ago
> legislation that forces manufacturers of consumer goods to provide an estimate of product lifetime according to some agreed standard isn't this exactly what a guarantee or warranty is? we have this now, where the manufacturer is legally obligated to provide a device that performs/operates/works according to the published specification for at least that long. of course, it doesn't work since consumers will then complain about 'planned obsolescence' when products actually live up to these estimates...

UncleMeat 5y ago

Cheap toasters today don’t have a shorter lifetime than this one. In fact, they have fewer moving parts.

gambiting 5y ago

>>I've always wondered if we could fix this through legislation that forces manufacturers of consumer goods to provide an estimate of product lifetime according to some agreed standard We can, but again, I feel like a lot of customers don't want that. Even here on HN I hear people saying that well, if I want to buy a $200 washing machine that falls apart in 3 years, then it should be my god given right to do so. If consumers want better appliances then they can just buy them without the need for regulation. I don't really agree with that mindset, but I think it's common enough to prevent the change you're talking about.

AussieWog93 5y ago
I'm not arguing that we ban washing machines that break in 3 years, just that they're properly labelled.
- paledot 5y ago
  Why not?
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Because providing this information to the consumer would be much easier to implement, face much less resistance and have an arguably greater effect (if there's a law saying that every washing machine must last at least 5 years, for example, that doesn't incentivise manufacturers to make something that lasts for 20). Also, to be honest, it just seems "neater" mathematically/economic to not set hard borders anywhere.
jakub_g 5y ago
> if I want to buy a $200 washing machine that falls apart in 3 years, then it should be my god given right to do so The $200 unrepairable washing machine has a massive negative externality for the planet. Most people don't think in those terms (especially when the budget is tight, or they are landlords and just need to put checkmark items in the apartment), that's why we should have strong regulations to prevent mass-creation of electro crap. Regulation is good, because it sets a baseline. W/o regulation it's race to the bottom so if company X does something better but it's $50 more expensive, the cheaper company Y. If you have baseline, they both will figure out a $250 machine which is better. Companies who can't create durable items do not have god given right to exist and sell crap which harms the planet. Thankfully EU has been working on this recently, and will require the vendors to offer N years of spare parts availability. > If consumers want better appliances then they can just buy them without the need for regulation. See above. I have a low-repairability fridge whose rubber-magnet got old. Fix? Replace whole door, which costs as much as the new fridge. I don't think my landlord was taking weeks to research repairability and warranty rules for the fridge, because why would they? The law should provide reasonable defaults. I do hope we'll move towards fewer long-lived models with good repairability, even if it costs more short-term, than 7 new fridge model each years with half-life of 2 years. It's nuts. Another thing we have in EU is power-hungriness of devices (they get labeled prominently A, B, C, D, E). IMO should be the same with warranty / spare parts availability length: One year = E, ten years = A etc.
- mark-r 5y ago
  In the U.S. the manufacturers have figured out that they can make more money selling an "extended warranty" than they can selling the product itself. So the included warranty is as short as they think they can get away with, to encourage you to pony up for the upgrade. It's actually in their best interest for you to believe the item will die the day after the warranty expires.

jschwartzi 5y ago

I want legislation that the manufacturer has to publish, online and in a conspicuous place, full board-level schematics, parts lists, and service notes for household appliances no later than the day after the first unit of a model goes out of warranty. Or that such documents are placed prominently in the packaging the product arrives in and that installers are required by law to provide it to the customer. You can sell something that breaks in 3 years but you have to give me the documents I need to repair it including the logic board. My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on.

grkvlt 5y ago
how do you imagine this working for the manufacturers of, e.g. hardware security modules? in fact, for any product, the manufacter can just claim the product consists of one 'part' and the service notes state 'obtain new part', adjusting for whatever level of granularity/number of parts they feel is optimal, unless you want to get into a game of definitions and semantics that will always be incomplete and incorrect and unenforceable...
Aeolun 5y ago
> My biggest fear in getting a new washer/dryer is that it starts my wife and I on the same junk treadmill everyone else is on. In my experience, the more expensive washers/driers (e.g. >$1000) are actually higher quality and last 5 times longer than the cheap, or even mid range ones.
- pureliquidhw 5y ago
  I have had the exact opposite experience. The cheap ones with physical buttons and timers last longer and are way cheaper to fix if it does break.
  - wiether 5y ago
    The issue with those products today is that some are more expensive because they include new tech like AI, wifi and crap like that. The core or the product is low to mid range but the adding (useless) tech means that it will be high priced. If you buy a low tech/high range product, you'll be able to serve it easily and it will outlast you.

grkvlt 5y ago

> legislation that forces manufacturers of consumer goods to provide an estimate of product lifetime according to some agreed standard isn't this exactly what a guarantee or warranty is? we have this now, where the manufacturer is legally obligated to provide a device that performs/operates/works according to the published specification for at least that long. of course, it doesn't work since consumers will then complain about 'planned obsolescence' when products actually live up to these estimates...