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> But the real key is the fight against crap: you sell a mixer with a plastic gear, easy to speculate that will break after few year, ok, you are allowed to do

> But the real key is the fight against crap: you 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: as much as durable and repairable is your device you pay less. For a mixer that means: 30% of the sale price as tax if it's expected lifetime is less than 10 years of normal usage. So the cheaper mixer is now as expensive as the better built one. This means there's no more cheap mixer on the market. How is getting a single mother of three to pay 30% extra taxes to fund some civil servant's pension fund helping anyone? > Another fraud is "spare parts available ONLY to 'certified technicians'" witch means repair is as expensive a get a new gear. Thanks to the internet, this problem tends to solve itself. The factory in China will generally happily sell you some. > anyone who can prove planned obsolescence, like technicians from inside the OEM, get rewarded SIGNIFICANTLY for their publication and the OEM so badly sanctioned that the whistleblower get no issue if is cut off some market, the company loose so much that no one want even try. The problem is what's the bar for proving it? Every design has a component that will wear out first.

majormajor 4y ago
> > But the real key is the fight against crap: you 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: as much as durable and repairable is your device you pay less. For a mixer that means: 30% of the sale price as tax if it's expected lifetime is less than 10 years of normal usage. > So the cheaper mixer is now as expensive as the better built one. This means there's no more cheap mixer on the market. How is getting a single mother of three to pay 30% extra taxes to fund some civil servant's pension fund helping anyone? Is it better to have an invisible "poor tax" that makes your single mother spend 2-3x the price of the cheap one over 10 years since it breaks so much faster instead of having to save up longer initially for the one that probably won't break in ten years? Could do an escrow/deposit style thing so you can get your money back if your cheap shit actually doesn't break faster. So there's an incentive to make things cheaper only if you are confident in your long-term business model and reliability.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > Is it better to have an invisible "poor tax" that makes your single mother spend 2-3x the price of the cheap one over 10 years since it breaks so much faster instead of having to save up longer initially for the one that probably won't break in ten years? "stop whining about gas prices and just buy a Tesla. It's way cheaper in the long run" > Could do an escrow/deposit style thing so you can get your money back if your cheap shit actually doesn't break faster. So there's an incentive to make things cheaper only if you are confident in your long-term business model and reliability. The capital requirements to implement that would be absolutely out of this world.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Cheap crap that constantly breaks is a poor tax. The difference between luxury prices and cheap prices are not driven by that single crucial worm gear that in plastic costs a penny and in steel costs a dollar. They still would have put in the plastic one if the prices had been reversed. If people were offered the chance to buy something that would last for a 25-50% premium over the stuff that won't, they'll jump for it. Instead they're offered a choice between crap and heavily marketed luxury items which could also be crap, because their premium is not proportional to the quality of the materials or engineering. > "stop whining about gas prices and just buy a Tesla. It's way cheaper in the long run" It would have been better to choose an example that was true.

majormajor 4y ago

> > But the real key is the fight against crap: you 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: as much as durable and repairable is your device you pay less. For a mixer that means: 30% of the sale price as tax if it's expected lifetime is less than 10 years of normal usage. > So the cheaper mixer is now as expensive as the better built one. This means there's no more cheap mixer on the market. How is getting a single mother of three to pay 30% extra taxes to fund some civil servant's pension fund helping anyone? Is it better to have an invisible "poor tax" that makes your single mother spend 2-3x the price of the cheap one over 10 years since it breaks so much faster instead of having to save up longer initially for the one that probably won't break in ten years? Could do an escrow/deposit style thing so you can get your money back if your cheap shit actually doesn't break faster. So there's an incentive to make things cheaper only if you are confident in your long-term business model and reliability.

908B64B197 4y ago
> Is it better to have an invisible "poor tax" that makes your single mother spend 2-3x the price of the cheap one over 10 years since it breaks so much faster instead of having to save up longer initially for the one that probably won't break in ten years? "stop whining about gas prices and just buy a Tesla. It's way cheaper in the long run" > Could do an escrow/deposit style thing so you can get your money back if your cheap shit actually doesn't break faster. So there's an incentive to make things cheaper only if you are confident in your long-term business model and reliability. The capital requirements to implement that would be absolutely out of this world.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Cheap crap that constantly breaks is a poor tax. The difference between luxury prices and cheap prices are not driven by that single crucial worm gear that in plastic costs a penny and in steel costs a dollar. They still would have put in the plastic one if the prices had been reversed. If people were offered the chance to buy something that would last for a 25-50% premium over the stuff that won't, they'll jump for it. Instead they're offered a choice between crap and heavily marketed luxury items which could also be crap, because their premium is not proportional to the quality of the materials or engineering. > "stop whining about gas prices and just buy a Tesla. It's way cheaper in the long run" It would have been better to choose an example that was true.