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One thing I suspect has tipped the scales in favour of less repairable products is the massive decline in social capital. 30-40 years ago, if your lawnmower br
by AussieWog93 3y ago
One thing I suspect has tipped the scales in favour of less repairable products is the massive decline in social capital.
30-40 years ago, if your lawnmower broke down you'd ask Dave from two doors down to come and have a look at it.
Now, you'd either take it to a professional repairman (and get it back 2 weeks and $100+ later), try to work it out yourself via online tutorials, or just throw it in the bin.
Either way, it's far more painful for a product to bee temporarily out of service these days than it once was.
- mikrotikker 3y agoWhat's responsible for that decline in social capital do you think?
- AussieWog93 3y agoPersonally, I have no idea, and don't think you could even pinpoint a single cause. There's a book that goes over it called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, but that is two decades old now and clearly didn't capture everything.
- svachalek 3y agoIt's been captured, packaged, and commoditized. Dave's time doesn't belong to you anymore, it probably doesn't even belong to himself.
- ip26 3y agoThere’s clearly some of the baumol effect at play. The small engine repairman hasn’t gotten much more productive, which is part of why it’s so expensive to hire out repair.