4 ms·

Some ambitious targets there, but I support your general attitude. > sell a mixer with a plastic gear, easy to speculate that will break after few year, ok,

Some ambitious targets there, but I support your general attitude. > sell a mixer with a plastic gear, easy to speculate that will break after few year, ok, you are allowed to do so, but you get a progressive tax A poor quality tax, like a sugar tax, seems interesting. Don't sell crap. Measurement and enforcement isn't so easy. Quality of design isn't trivial to assess. Maybe simple MTBF of finished product. Punish excessive returns. > Another fraud is "spare parts available ONLY to 'certified technicians'" I see that in the US outfits like Tesla and John Deere hide behind "safety" as a shield. "Right to repair" needs to kerb-stomp that whole conceit. Prove that only a highly skilled technician could possibly perform the repair and that otherwise the consequences are extremely likely to be lethal. > must be made of standard parts Mechanical interoperability and "class" part tolerances aren't so unreasonable. The entire electronics industry is built on standard component pitches and package layouts with equivalent component classes published in most cases. Take the 741 op-amp package and you'll find hundreds of pin-compatible devices in any catalogue. We totally can do that for electro-mechanical assemblies. > all spare parts on sale from the company website, at a reasonable price No. I don't like the idea of compelled sales. I don't like compelled anything. How about a law that says if you refuse to manufacture and sell parts at a reasonable price you simply lose your patent/trademark and cannot stop any other business making the part for which there is demand? > ALL software MUST BE open sourced Gets my vote! :) > anyone who can prove planned obsolescence Not sure. Planned obsolescence isn't always a bad thing. It can be a good design trade-off. Comes back to the quality expectations thing. But remote kill switches and "updates of death" should be punished mercilessly.

adamc 4y ago
How do you know MTBF for recent (new) products? If they get a waiver, why wouldn't manufacturers make every product model-year-specific to avoid such a requirement?
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  If it is anything like hard drives, then you just make up a big number that no one ever actually sees in the real world.
bobthepanda 4y ago
As far as enforcement, one could create a disposal tax chargeable to manufacturers. High quality items should need to be disposed of less frequently. This kind of tax already exists for recycling programs, so it has to be at least somewhat possible.
kkfx 4y ago
> Measurement and enforcement isn't so easy True, that's why we need such extreme and exaggerate sanction that the other side know it's a large net fishing so most fishes pass through but only one caught is so expensive to being not worth the risk. That's the most classic strategies we have seen few times in the past, and back than it works... > I see that in the US It happen also in EU, for instance in France it's mandatory to provide washing machines spare parts for 5-7 years (I do not remember exactly the terms) BUT such parts are only sold to "certified repair centers" witch are generic repair shops who have paid "specific training" on yearly basis and so are "eligible as certified repair shop for $YouNameItBrand", they do not even use much excuses, the laws allow them to restrict part supply... > No. I don't like the idea of compelled sales Consider a thing: spare parts in many cases are not profitable to be sold directly to customers. For instance a pump manufacturer for dishwashers might have some private agreement with some top brands that they buy it's pumps only if they are not on sale abroad. If you mandate "sell disassembled and assembled anything" any OEM are trapped: they can't made cartels, because parts prices must sum up not too much more than the complete device with the sole exception of reasonable packaging/shipping fees. If you leave a formally open market for some parts you'll have it, for others no. > Not sure. Planned obsolescence isn't always a bad thing. It's not IF you can recycle, like there is no issue in planning a car for just two years of good quality service if the used car can be disassembled and recycled, otherwise the trade off between the initial lower costs and the obsolescence to push innovation vanish in waste as we see today... It's not wrong saying "since thing improve more or less regularly it's a good thing pushing new one even if they are only a bit better, not enough to convince most customers to made the switch, but it's good only if you have solved the circularity of the supply chain issue IMVHO. Like some here say: "the plastic gear is a sacrificial part" a cheap one, perhaps easy to replace, who happen to avoid bigger damage, sure it can be. But hey we know better safety. For instance in my country we have dropped cheap fuses for AC home electricity for far more expensive thermal and differential switches just because they last decades and you can re-switch them as you wish while fuses might last equally ONLY if no overpower/short happen. Such switches can be recycled not fully but "a bit". The game is the same. If my mixer can last 10+ years, I can change blades as needed, there is no need for sacrificial parts, it's better produce far less, having them more expensive and keep them for a decade. In 10 years they have not improved much, there is no benefit in a quicker market since there is no circularity.

adamc 4y ago

How do you know MTBF for recent (new) products? If they get a waiver, why wouldn't manufacturers make every product model-year-specific to avoid such a requirement?

stonemetal12 4y ago
If it is anything like hard drives, then you just make up a big number that no one ever actually sees in the real world.

bobthepanda 4y ago

As far as enforcement, one could create a disposal tax chargeable to manufacturers. High quality items should need to be disposed of less frequently. This kind of tax already exists for recycling programs, so it has to be at least somewhat possible.

kkfx 4y ago

> Measurement and enforcement isn't so easy True, that's why we need such extreme and exaggerate sanction that the other side know it's a large net fishing so most fishes pass through but only one caught is so expensive to being not worth the risk. That's the most classic strategies we have seen few times in the past, and back than it works... > I see that in the US It happen also in EU, for instance in France it's mandatory to provide washing machines spare parts for 5-7 years (I do not remember exactly the terms) BUT such parts are only sold to "certified repair centers" witch are generic repair shops who have paid "specific training" on yearly basis and so are "eligible as certified repair shop for $YouNameItBrand", they do not even use much excuses, the laws allow them to restrict part supply... > No. I don't like the idea of compelled sales Consider a thing: spare parts in many cases are not profitable to be sold directly to customers. For instance a pump manufacturer for dishwashers might have some private agreement with some top brands that they buy it's pumps only if they are not on sale abroad. If you mandate "sell disassembled and assembled anything" any OEM are trapped: they can't made cartels, because parts prices must sum up not too much more than the complete device with the sole exception of reasonable packaging/shipping fees. If you leave a formally open market for some parts you'll have it, for others no. > Not sure. Planned obsolescence isn't always a bad thing. It's not IF you can recycle, like there is no issue in planning a car for just two years of good quality service if the used car can be disassembled and recycled, otherwise the trade off between the initial lower costs and the obsolescence to push innovation vanish in waste as we see today... It's not wrong saying "since thing improve more or less regularly it's a good thing pushing new one even if they are only a bit better, not enough to convince most customers to made the switch, but it's good only if you have solved the circularity of the supply chain issue IMVHO. Like some here say: "the plastic gear is a sacrificial part" a cheap one, perhaps easy to replace, who happen to avoid bigger damage, sure it can be. But hey we know better safety. For instance in my country we have dropped cheap fuses for AC home electricity for far more expensive thermal and differential switches just because they last decades and you can re-switch them as you wish while fuses might last equally ONLY if no overpower/short happen. Such switches can be recycled not fully but "a bit". The game is the same. If my mixer can last 10+ years, I can change blades as needed, there is no need for sacrificial parts, it's better produce far less, having them more expensive and keep them for a decade. In 10 years they have not improved much, there is no benefit in a quicker market since there is no circularity.