4 ms·

> back in the windows mobile and blackberry days Back in the day, phones were improving so fast that upgrading often was naturally incentivized. These days, th

by kibwen 3y ago

> back in the windows mobile and blackberry days Back in the day, phones were improving so fast that upgrading often was naturally incentivized. These days, the tech has plateaued and phones are a commodity. How often does the average person replace their fridge? How often does the average person replace their hot water boiler? That's how often I want to replace my phone; closer to every ten years than every two years.

kube-system 3y ago
True, and people still do not repair their own fridge when it breaks. They either call the warranty line, an appliance repair shop, or an appliance store.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The device still has to be repairable in order for the repair shop to do it affordably, and the same is true even if you then choose to buy a new one, because an old appliance that can be repaired and resold has a higher trade in value. The lack of repairability costs you money whether you do the repairs yourself or not.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    In most of the US, I would bet that skilled labor willing and able to do the job of going to people’s homes to do appliance repairs will be expensive enough such that any ~$1,000 appliance just gets replaced. My brother in law just called his 3 year old washer’s extended warranty line, and they didn’t even want to verify the issue. Immediately told him they were sending him a check for the amount he purchased the washer for, and all that was left was for him to buy a new one. I imagine the labor itself costs $100 per hour, and including travel time, you are looking at $300 just to diagnose the issue. Then a couple hundred for the part, and if they have to wait for it, come back, that’s another $300. And you are already losing money. I imagine that is why Citibank got rid of their 4 year Costco appliance warranty.
    - monocasa 3y ago
      That's for the new stuff that isn't designed to be repaired. My circa 1990s freezer broke a couple years ago. First guy quoted us "not worth repairing". Second guy did the job for two hours of $100/hr labor and a $60 part. Told us that if it were a modern device it wouldn't have been worth it because of the labor, but the freezer was old enough that everything that can break was designed to be easily and quickly repaired.
      - nuancebydefault 3y ago
        The unfortunate irony in this story is that repairing stuff usually helps the environment, but in this case probably not, since older freezers consume quite a lot of energy, they were built when electricity was cheaper and using less optimized technology. That being said, I'm fully in favour of repairable phones, the energy cost is not such an issue for such low power device. I also think that todays dishwashers, washing machines, cooking plates, which are typically thrashed witin 10 years would benefit a lot from repairability if they are built to last.
        monocasa 3y ago
        It's a hard to say, but it's generally better to keep something at the consumer level running because of the cost of carbon manufacturing and shipping the product. Additionally I happen to live in an area with a very heavy use of renewables, so the carbon cost is even lower.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      But now you're just making the argument for repairing it yourself. How many people could make enough money in even a full day to recover the replacement cost of a $1000 appliance, rather than spending up to that long to fix it themselves? And the parts are only hundreds of dollars because the appliances aren't repairable. Obviously if you have to replace a third of the appliance instead of just the bearing because that isn't sold as a separate part, repairs will be much less cost effective.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Mainstream phones today can generally be repaired commercially, even if they are devices criticized as not being self-repairable. > the same is true even if you then choose to buy a new one, because an old appliance that can be repaired and resold has a higher trade in value. The lack of repairability costs you money whether you do the repairs yourself or not. TCO is a complicated subject. A more repairable device does not necessarily have a cheaper TCO. Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. And they tend to depreciate logarithmically. Based solely on TCO, there is an optimum expected lifetime, and it mathematically isn't "as long as possible"
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > Mainstream phones today can generally be repaired commercially, even if they are devices criticized as not being self-repairable. Doing this raises the labor cost to the point of making it uneconomical in many cases that it wouldn't be otherwise. It also raises the parts cost (and the amount of waste), because a failed logic board that has every chip in the device soldered to it is going to cost more to replace than a card with only the bit that failed on it. > Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. Which ones scale exponentially? How come a Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than an iPhone? > And they tend to depreciate logarithmically. Depreciation on existing devices is precisely because they can't be upgraded or repaired. If your phone has a 3G cellular modem in it, it stops being useful as a phone when they shut down the 3G towers -- unless you can replace the modem. Compare this to PC components that don't depreciate quickly, like a standard ATX chassis or power supply or monitor. Or an AM4 system board that could have been purchased in 2016 yet supports 2022 CPUs that could viably still be in use for five or ten more years. And a decline in value of a component only makes the repairs more affordable. A Ryzen 7 2700X has lost half its value over 5 years, which only means that if you should need to replace one it costs half as much -- or can be replaced with a faster model in the same system.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        >> Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. > Which ones scale exponentially? How come a Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than an iPhone? Nothing that they've chosen. The Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than other phones because it really isn't dramatically different. They don't have any modular parts that aren't already available on other phones in various combinations. They are just offering a slightly different box of COTS parts with a promise to support it. This is relatively cheap to do. It still suffers from some of the problems you mention and more: the logic board is all soldered, the modem is not modular, the software support promises are reliant on third parties, etc.

by kibwen 3y ago

kube-system 3y ago

True, and people still do not repair their own fridge when it breaks. They either call the warranty line, an appliance repair shop, or an appliance store.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The device still has to be repairable in order for the repair shop to do it affordably, and the same is true even if you then choose to buy a new one, because an old appliance that can be repaired and resold has a higher trade in value. The lack of repairability costs you money whether you do the repairs yourself or not.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  In most of the US, I would bet that skilled labor willing and able to do the job of going to people’s homes to do appliance repairs will be expensive enough such that any ~$1,000 appliance just gets replaced. My brother in law just called his 3 year old washer’s extended warranty line, and they didn’t even want to verify the issue. Immediately told him they were sending him a check for the amount he purchased the washer for, and all that was left was for him to buy a new one. I imagine the labor itself costs $100 per hour, and including travel time, you are looking at $300 just to diagnose the issue. Then a couple hundred for the part, and if they have to wait for it, come back, that’s another $300. And you are already losing money. I imagine that is why Citibank got rid of their 4 year Costco appliance warranty.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    That's for the new stuff that isn't designed to be repaired. My circa 1990s freezer broke a couple years ago. First guy quoted us "not worth repairing". Second guy did the job for two hours of $100/hr labor and a $60 part. Told us that if it were a modern device it wouldn't have been worth it because of the labor, but the freezer was old enough that everything that can break was designed to be easily and quickly repaired.
    - nuancebydefault 3y ago
      The unfortunate irony in this story is that repairing stuff usually helps the environment, but in this case probably not, since older freezers consume quite a lot of energy, they were built when electricity was cheaper and using less optimized technology. That being said, I'm fully in favour of repairable phones, the energy cost is not such an issue for such low power device. I also think that todays dishwashers, washing machines, cooking plates, which are typically thrashed witin 10 years would benefit a lot from repairability if they are built to last.
      - monocasa 3y ago
        It's a hard to say, but it's generally better to keep something at the consumer level running because of the cost of carbon manufacturing and shipping the product. Additionally I happen to live in an area with a very heavy use of renewables, so the carbon cost is even lower.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    But now you're just making the argument for repairing it yourself. How many people could make enough money in even a full day to recover the replacement cost of a $1000 appliance, rather than spending up to that long to fix it themselves? And the parts are only hundreds of dollars because the appliances aren't repairable. Obviously if you have to replace a third of the appliance instead of just the bearing because that isn't sold as a separate part, repairs will be much less cost effective.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Mainstream phones today can generally be repaired commercially, even if they are devices criticized as not being self-repairable. > the same is true even if you then choose to buy a new one, because an old appliance that can be repaired and resold has a higher trade in value. The lack of repairability costs you money whether you do the repairs yourself or not. TCO is a complicated subject. A more repairable device does not necessarily have a cheaper TCO. Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. And they tend to depreciate logarithmically. Based solely on TCO, there is an optimum expected lifetime, and it mathematically isn't "as long as possible"
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Mainstream phones today can generally be repaired commercially, even if they are devices criticized as not being self-repairable. Doing this raises the labor cost to the point of making it uneconomical in many cases that it wouldn't be otherwise. It also raises the parts cost (and the amount of waste), because a failed logic board that has every chip in the device soldered to it is going to cost more to replace than a card with only the bit that failed on it. > Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. Which ones scale exponentially? How come a Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than an iPhone? > And they tend to depreciate logarithmically. Depreciation on existing devices is precisely because they can't be upgraded or repaired. If your phone has a 3G cellular modem in it, it stops being useful as a phone when they shut down the 3G towers -- unless you can replace the modem. Compare this to PC components that don't depreciate quickly, like a standard ATX chassis or power supply or monitor. Or an AM4 system board that could have been purchased in 2016 yet supports 2022 CPUs that could viably still be in use for five or ten more years. And a decline in value of a component only makes the repairs more affordable. A Ryzen 7 2700X has lost half its value over 5 years, which only means that if you should need to replace one it costs half as much -- or can be replaced with a faster model in the same system.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      >> Some of the costs of building and/or repairing a device scale linearly, and some scale exponentially. > Which ones scale exponentially? How come a Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than an iPhone? Nothing that they've chosen. The Fairphone isn't dramatically more expensive than other phones because it really isn't dramatically different. They don't have any modular parts that aren't already available on other phones in various combinations. They are just offering a slightly different box of COTS parts with a promise to support it. This is relatively cheap to do. It still suffers from some of the problems you mention and more: the logic board is all soldered, the modem is not modular, the software support promises are reliant on third parties, etc.