5 ms·

I think people should rephrase it to "not engineered to last/repair". This is a much easier metric to point out and is about equivalent (though, less nefarious)

I think people should rephrase it to "not engineered to last/repair". This is a much easier metric to point out and is about equivalent (though, less nefarious) to what they mean. If you use that metric, it's insanely easy to quantify. Just look at the average refrigerator today, compared to one from the 50s-70s. It's a fraction of the cost, but it's built from cheaper/less reliable parts in a repair-unfriendly (but quick to produce) manner. The idea being that you'll buy a new fridge every 8-12 years and recycle (ideally) the old one, versus spending the cost of a car on one and keeping it for a generation or two. This is what planned obsolescence means, usually. The only nefariously intended to "break" items that I can think of are electronic devices that are unrootable and rely on third-party networked services.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
Oh, I completely agree with you on that. Most consumer items are built to a price point. If you're building to sell at a low price, you have to keep Bill of Materials cost low to make selling the thing worthwhile, so it's not surprising that, e.g., a cheap riding mower is made from thin stamped steel chassis whereas a commercial one is mostly heavy weldments that hold up to being banged around for hours each day. I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement.
- derefr 3y ago
  Honestly seems to me that some BOMs (and therefore some practically-achievable price-points) should be illegal, then. You shouldn't be allowed to market something as a mower, if it's built such that the act of mowing gradually shakes the mower apart. Yes, a change like this would mean that, in the short term, there'd suddenly be no "consumer" version of many products. But that'd only be the short term. In the medium term, I'd expect heavy pressure for innovation in materials science, with all these companies that were fine with plastics before, suddenly investing money and labor into operationalization of e.g. scaling carbon-fiber production.
  - ultrarunner 3y ago
    This sounds like me like an inquiry into "quality" and an attempt to make illegal those products lacking a certain quality. I generally call these products "<thing> shaped objects", e.g. a helmet shaped object that has all the outward appearance of an actual helmet, but does little to protect the wearer in the event of a crash. "DOT standards!" you might object, but DOT is generally known to be the worst standard in the world, often holding the industry back instead of moving it forward. If the department of transportation is unable to properly regulate safety equipment like helmets, I'm not sure I expect better results from a government committee intended to regulate the quality of nearly everything. This, of course, assumes that one can not only define "quality", but determine a threshold on a spectrum that delineates legality. Or maybe we'll just accept Tsars that "know it when they see it."
    - derefr 3y ago
      Yes, there is no general definition of "quality." But every industry and product has its own internal, domain-specific definition of quality. For hard drives, "quality" is MTBF. For batteries, "quality" is measured in loss of charge capacity per charge cycle. Or let me put it this way: the commercial/industrial versions of these products do some things differently. Why do they do those things? To increase "quality." If the industry didn't know what its "quality" metric was, then it would be impossible for them to make the commercial/industrial product "better" for long-term commercial/industrial use than the consumer one. In any industry where the commercial/industrial version of a product — one that lasts decades in heavy use — is already an existence proof for the possibility of "quality" in the product category, you can simply regulate that the consumer version must also be made to last at least N years of regular consumer-duty use. Doesn't matter how they accomplish that. Maybe they can't accomplish that, with positive margins, at a price point anyone is willing to buy, at first. Oh well. Keep trying. Compare/contrast: FDA stage-3 drug trials — the trial phase that tests drug efficacy. It's up to the drug's manufacturer to declare to the FDA what effect the drug is supposed to have — it's the very same effect the company is applying to the FDA to be able to market the drug as having. An efficacy trial, is simply the FDA demanding, from a drug's manufacturer, proof positive of its own planned marketing claims about the drug. That efficacy proof uses metrics specific to the pathology that the drug treats — and likely metrics invented by the drug manufacturer themselves, while researching the problem. But crucially, the manufacturer, before even starting the trial, has to convince the FDA that these metrics are sensible ones to measure efficacy by; and also has to work with the FDA to reach a consensus on what would constitute a satisfactory level of efficacy for their drug (i.e. what metrics thresholds are meant by a marketing claim like "relieves headaches.")
- deaddodo 3y ago
  > I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement. I agree with you. I think people mean something else entirely, colloquially. Which is why I distinguished for clarity. I think the people who came up with the concept of "planned obsolescence" meant something entirely different to the zeitgeist meaning. That is, building something cheap with the intention of consistent replacements versus building something expensive with support/operational costs ongoing. One guarantees you return to them, the other you're just as likely to seek services elsewhere. The zeitgeist took that and morphed it into "they actively engineer/design parts that will fail after two years".

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago

Oh, I completely agree with you on that. Most consumer items are built to a price point. If you're building to sell at a low price, you have to keep Bill of Materials cost low to make selling the thing worthwhile, so it's not surprising that, e.g., a cheap riding mower is made from thin stamped steel chassis whereas a commercial one is mostly heavy weldments that hold up to being banged around for hours each day. I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement.

derefr 3y ago
Honestly seems to me that some BOMs (and therefore some practically-achievable price-points) should be illegal, then. You shouldn't be allowed to market something as a mower, if it's built such that the act of mowing gradually shakes the mower apart. Yes, a change like this would mean that, in the short term, there'd suddenly be no "consumer" version of many products. But that'd only be the short term. In the medium term, I'd expect heavy pressure for innovation in materials science, with all these companies that were fine with plastics before, suddenly investing money and labor into operationalization of e.g. scaling carbon-fiber production.
- ultrarunner 3y ago
  This sounds like me like an inquiry into "quality" and an attempt to make illegal those products lacking a certain quality. I generally call these products "<thing> shaped objects", e.g. a helmet shaped object that has all the outward appearance of an actual helmet, but does little to protect the wearer in the event of a crash. "DOT standards!" you might object, but DOT is generally known to be the worst standard in the world, often holding the industry back instead of moving it forward. If the department of transportation is unable to properly regulate safety equipment like helmets, I'm not sure I expect better results from a government committee intended to regulate the quality of nearly everything. This, of course, assumes that one can not only define "quality", but determine a threshold on a spectrum that delineates legality. Or maybe we'll just accept Tsars that "know it when they see it."
  - derefr 3y ago
    Yes, there is no general definition of "quality." But every industry and product has its own internal, domain-specific definition of quality. For hard drives, "quality" is MTBF. For batteries, "quality" is measured in loss of charge capacity per charge cycle. Or let me put it this way: the commercial/industrial versions of these products do some things differently. Why do they do those things? To increase "quality." If the industry didn't know what its "quality" metric was, then it would be impossible for them to make the commercial/industrial product "better" for long-term commercial/industrial use than the consumer one. In any industry where the commercial/industrial version of a product — one that lasts decades in heavy use — is already an existence proof for the possibility of "quality" in the product category, you can simply regulate that the consumer version must also be made to last at least N years of regular consumer-duty use. Doesn't matter how they accomplish that. Maybe they can't accomplish that, with positive margins, at a price point anyone is willing to buy, at first. Oh well. Keep trying. Compare/contrast: FDA stage-3 drug trials — the trial phase that tests drug efficacy. It's up to the drug's manufacturer to declare to the FDA what effect the drug is supposed to have — it's the very same effect the company is applying to the FDA to be able to market the drug as having. An efficacy trial, is simply the FDA demanding, from a drug's manufacturer, proof positive of its own planned marketing claims about the drug. That efficacy proof uses metrics specific to the pathology that the drug treats — and likely metrics invented by the drug manufacturer themselves, while researching the problem. But crucially, the manufacturer, before even starting the trial, has to convince the FDA that these metrics are sensible ones to measure efficacy by; and also has to work with the FDA to reach a consensus on what would constitute a satisfactory level of efficacy for their drug (i.e. what metrics thresholds are meant by a marketing claim like "relieves headaches.")
deaddodo 3y ago
> I'm not being difficult. When I read "engineered to fail" that's not the impression I get from the statement. I agree with you. I think people mean something else entirely, colloquially. Which is why I distinguished for clarity. I think the people who came up with the concept of "planned obsolescence" meant something entirely different to the zeitgeist meaning. That is, building something cheap with the intention of consistent replacements versus building something expensive with support/operational costs ongoing. One guarantees you return to them, the other you're just as likely to seek services elsewhere. The zeitgeist took that and morphed it into "they actively engineer/design parts that will fail after two years".