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Just about every proposed regulation in this article would dramatically increase the selling price of nearly all goods, and dramatically hinder new entrants fro

Just about every proposed regulation in this article would dramatically increase the selling price of nearly all goods, and dramatically hinder new entrants from selling new products by increasing the burden to get started. If that's the set of tradeoffs you want to make, ok, fine. But be up-front about it. Consumer goods, by and large, are not markets with massive profit margins. They're markets of incredible scale with slim margins that generate large revenue as a result. You're not going to get better, more repairable products out of this. You're going to get fewer, more expensive products.

WWLink 3y ago
> dramatically hinder new entrants from selling new products Armchair product engineering thoughts: A lot of kickstarters seemed to set themselves up for failure by trying to make a hermetically sealed apple-style product and have it produced in china without ever considering if they could build it locally, if they could get it produced in smaller quantities - if at all.... I get the whole "it can't be made at a competitive price if you don't build for an economy of scale" - but what seemed to happen is a startup would attempt to sell a widget with a design that was all hopes and dreams, immediately fly out to china, and spend a whole bunch of time and money coming up with something that looked great on paper.... but then had a fundamental flaw that required them to throw away all of the initial batch of products - maybe even the first few batches, burning up every penny they gathered in their funding campaign. "Hold on there cowboy" is my take on this - it's easy to throw a design together that looks slick and ends up quickly becoming ewaste... startups (and startup-like projects) are usually some of the worst offenders. Think of things like Ouya or (lol) Google Stadia or any of a plethora of IoT crap that sounded cool, didn't quite achieve the desired results, and ended up in the landfill. I'd argue that all this "bureaucratic red-tape" would help limit how much ewaste gets produced, at least a little bit.
- jkestner 3y ago
  I’ve made a conscious effort to build our (Kickstarted!) stuff domestically. With the exception of one product in China, which was still an educational PITA. Can’t claim the things are Made in America when a critical component is fabbed overseas, but it’s great to talk with people in my time zone. Going to be even better to drive over to the injection molder to dial in fit and finish. OTOH, the examples you cite and many more are junked not because they’re made in China but due to a lack of software support/remediation. I’m not sure if there’s a business model that incentivizes this, so I’m rooting for the regulations that are slowing coming along on this.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    Ah, software is a big one but I was thinking of a few products that involved no software at all. Stuff like mechanical keyboards, that one PC case that looked like the current Mac Pro, there was some other hardware widget or two that I can't quite remember right now. They all had these neat ideas, spent a lot of money getting it engineered & produced, and oops... the end result wasn't what we hoped it would be...... In some cases they actually shipped the defective product out, because hey, getting something is better than nothing. But it fell pretty far short of what people were hoping they'd get lol. Edit: But I do commend your efforts! Great job!
stavros 3y ago
> You're going to get fewer, more expensive products. That last much longer.
- financypants 3y ago
  Problem is sometimes you can get by with an off-off-brand product (it’s hit and miss). Many folks don’t buy the “spend more and you will get something MUCH better that will last you for years!” sales pitch. Also a lot of people wouldn’t be able to start fronting (or financing) more money for a better, more repairable product.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Yes they would, because there would be a lot of used items that fill the exact same role as a new junk item.
    - financypants 3y ago
      Good point. The used market would likely be much more active and valuable.
    - herbst 3y ago
      Swiss here. I would argue we have a big 'buy good, don't buy twice' community because a high percentage simply can. Can confirm that our second hand markets are filled with great, high quality, often well taken care of, products.
- sparker72678 3y ago
  Possibly! I just think we should be clear about what tradeoffs are being proposed. This isn't all fairy dust and magic, and the average person doesn't have the background to understand the impact of proposals like this.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    > the average person doesn't have the background to understand yes agree - so there must be manufacturing standards and product testing. Similarly it is established law that some products are inherently unsafe. The law must always adapt to new techniques, materials and chains of distribution.
pas 3y ago
It should be tied to market share or revenue. Apple and Bosch and others are not small sweatshops barely scraping by.
- sparker72678 3y ago
  That's certainly one way to implement it, no doubt. I have my doubts that unrepairable, failing products are produced by few enough manufacturers that holding a handful of large ones to these rules would make a big dent in waste. But, maybe I'm wrong! (Also, good luck convincing people to spend 4x on a vacuum because it's "repairable" when the no-name brand is not. Most people will roll the dice and save the money today.)
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    One of the largest failings of the market is everyone refusing to act in their own long term best interests if there is a short term cost.
  - Lio 3y ago
    If repairable was mandated by law the price for it would fall fast. Desktop PCs, for example, are both cheap and repairable because of standardisation. People will happily roll the dice on dangerous products if they’re only slightly cheaper. That’s why we have regulations, to stop bad products using price to drive good products out of the market.
Aurornis 3y ago
The real impact would be that those products wouldn’t be offered in those markets. It’s a big world with a lot of customers out there. If one region demands a substantially higher bar for entry with only marginal increase in customer base, it gets delayed for a later revision. We already saw this happen with a lot of GDPR regulations and sites that decided it was easier to block those regions than spend all of the money to confirm their products didn’t put them at risk of violations. We’re also seeing consumers make these decisions in real-time with things like Amazon knockoffs. I know a lot of people who swear they’re “buy it for life” people but will buy tools from Harbor Freight and get cheap knockoff things from Amazon all the time. It’s easy for all of us to say we’d gladly pay more for extra quality or upgrade ability, but when it’s time to get the wallet out the decision criteria change.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I am “buy it for life -or- buy it for this one job”. I’ve got both SnapOn and Pittsburgh (HF Brand) tools in my tool chest. “After a year, every Harbor Freight tool is a hammer” is less true than it used to be, but even when it was, there are times you need a tool for one job and if it isn’t in the trash bin afterwards, that’s just a bonus.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  >I know a lot of people who swear they’re “buy it for life” people but will buy tools from Harbor Freight Have you bought any tools from Harbor Freight in the last 5 years or so? Their hand tools (socket wrenches, etc.) are quite good, and are made in Taiwan. They're actually quite fantastic tools for weekend mechanics and an excellent value. I can't think of anything that's better for a home mechanic if you live in the US.
m463 3y ago
market forces can help too. If the OEM doesn't provide parts, they should provide specifications for aftermarket parts to be created and sold. I believe I read somewhere that after 13 years car parts become available from third parties.
lnxg33k1 3y ago
I mean there has been a new entrant in the past few years, the fairphone, which arrived with a vision and an ethics, and is slowly getting market share, and better products, that are repairable, or new entrant like frame.work, which arrived with a vision, ethics too, and is slowly improving and getting market share. I am not sure why as a society we need to accomodate small vendors who arrive without a plan or anything selling shit shipped from China that is going to last 30 days and just become e-waste, like PinePhone or Librem comes to mind, I am not sure why society needs to accomodate any cowboy who wants to become a manufacturer to sell low effort china phones
AnarchismIsCool 3y ago
That's a feature, not a bug. If we build things to last a bit longer at the expense of a slightly higher cost we can save massive amounts of waste from being produced and use fewer materials. We don't need to crater everything but we also don't need as much -stuff- as we currently buy. Yes there are implications for lower income folks but that's a symptom of a problem that cheap plentiful flimsy shit isn't going to fix at the expense of the planet.
herbst 3y ago
> You're going to get fewer, more expensive products At this point researching a single electronic device you never looked into before can easily take hours. For example kitchen electronics was a topic for me recently. I honestly would be happy to have way less choice, may even pay more in general, but can be sure that these products fullfil all EU standards. My mini Ofen with crazy good isolation, according to recent EU standards, that preheats in less than a minute, will surely pay for itself in power cost :) that's the hardware I want to choose from, f* those 200+ throwaway, mostly relabelled china brands, products in the same category.

WWLink 3y ago

> dramatically hinder new entrants from selling new products Armchair product engineering thoughts: A lot of kickstarters seemed to set themselves up for failure by trying to make a hermetically sealed apple-style product and have it produced in china without ever considering if they could build it locally, if they could get it produced in smaller quantities - if at all.... I get the whole "it can't be made at a competitive price if you don't build for an economy of scale" - but what seemed to happen is a startup would attempt to sell a widget with a design that was all hopes and dreams, immediately fly out to china, and spend a whole bunch of time and money coming up with something that looked great on paper.... but then had a fundamental flaw that required them to throw away all of the initial batch of products - maybe even the first few batches, burning up every penny they gathered in their funding campaign. "Hold on there cowboy" is my take on this - it's easy to throw a design together that looks slick and ends up quickly becoming ewaste... startups (and startup-like projects) are usually some of the worst offenders. Think of things like Ouya or (lol) Google Stadia or any of a plethora of IoT crap that sounded cool, didn't quite achieve the desired results, and ended up in the landfill. I'd argue that all this "bureaucratic red-tape" would help limit how much ewaste gets produced, at least a little bit.

jkestner 3y ago
I’ve made a conscious effort to build our (Kickstarted!) stuff domestically. With the exception of one product in China, which was still an educational PITA. Can’t claim the things are Made in America when a critical component is fabbed overseas, but it’s great to talk with people in my time zone. Going to be even better to drive over to the injection molder to dial in fit and finish. OTOH, the examples you cite and many more are junked not because they’re made in China but due to a lack of software support/remediation. I’m not sure if there’s a business model that incentivizes this, so I’m rooting for the regulations that are slowing coming along on this.
- WWLink 3y ago
  Ah, software is a big one but I was thinking of a few products that involved no software at all. Stuff like mechanical keyboards, that one PC case that looked like the current Mac Pro, there was some other hardware widget or two that I can't quite remember right now. They all had these neat ideas, spent a lot of money getting it engineered & produced, and oops... the end result wasn't what we hoped it would be...... In some cases they actually shipped the defective product out, because hey, getting something is better than nothing. But it fell pretty far short of what people were hoping they'd get lol. Edit: But I do commend your efforts! Great job!

stavros 3y ago

> You're going to get fewer, more expensive products. That last much longer.

financypants 3y ago
Problem is sometimes you can get by with an off-off-brand product (it’s hit and miss). Many folks don’t buy the “spend more and you will get something MUCH better that will last you for years!” sales pitch. Also a lot of people wouldn’t be able to start fronting (or financing) more money for a better, more repairable product.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Yes they would, because there would be a lot of used items that fill the exact same role as a new junk item.
  - financypants 3y ago
    Good point. The used market would likely be much more active and valuable.
  - herbst 3y ago
    Swiss here. I would argue we have a big 'buy good, don't buy twice' community because a high percentage simply can. Can confirm that our second hand markets are filled with great, high quality, often well taken care of, products.
sparker72678 3y ago
Possibly! I just think we should be clear about what tradeoffs are being proposed. This isn't all fairy dust and magic, and the average person doesn't have the background to understand the impact of proposals like this.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  > the average person doesn't have the background to understand yes agree - so there must be manufacturing standards and product testing. Similarly it is established law that some products are inherently unsafe. The law must always adapt to new techniques, materials and chains of distribution.

pas 3y ago

It should be tied to market share or revenue. Apple and Bosch and others are not small sweatshops barely scraping by.

sparker72678 3y ago
That's certainly one way to implement it, no doubt. I have my doubts that unrepairable, failing products are produced by few enough manufacturers that holding a handful of large ones to these rules would make a big dent in waste. But, maybe I'm wrong! (Also, good luck convincing people to spend 4x on a vacuum because it's "repairable" when the no-name brand is not. Most people will roll the dice and save the money today.)
- plagiarist 3y ago
  One of the largest failings of the market is everyone refusing to act in their own long term best interests if there is a short term cost.
- Lio 3y ago
  If repairable was mandated by law the price for it would fall fast. Desktop PCs, for example, are both cheap and repairable because of standardisation. People will happily roll the dice on dangerous products if they’re only slightly cheaper. That’s why we have regulations, to stop bad products using price to drive good products out of the market.

Aurornis 3y ago

The real impact would be that those products wouldn’t be offered in those markets. It’s a big world with a lot of customers out there. If one region demands a substantially higher bar for entry with only marginal increase in customer base, it gets delayed for a later revision. We already saw this happen with a lot of GDPR regulations and sites that decided it was easier to block those regions than spend all of the money to confirm their products didn’t put them at risk of violations. We’re also seeing consumers make these decisions in real-time with things like Amazon knockoffs. I know a lot of people who swear they’re “buy it for life” people but will buy tools from Harbor Freight and get cheap knockoff things from Amazon all the time. It’s easy for all of us to say we’d gladly pay more for extra quality or upgrade ability, but when it’s time to get the wallet out the decision criteria change.

sokoloff 3y ago
I am “buy it for life -or- buy it for this one job”. I’ve got both SnapOn and Pittsburgh (HF Brand) tools in my tool chest. “After a year, every Harbor Freight tool is a hammer” is less true than it used to be, but even when it was, there are times you need a tool for one job and if it isn’t in the trash bin afterwards, that’s just a bonus.
shiroiuma 3y ago
>I know a lot of people who swear they’re “buy it for life” people but will buy tools from Harbor Freight Have you bought any tools from Harbor Freight in the last 5 years or so? Their hand tools (socket wrenches, etc.) are quite good, and are made in Taiwan. They're actually quite fantastic tools for weekend mechanics and an excellent value. I can't think of anything that's better for a home mechanic if you live in the US.

m463 3y ago

market forces can help too. If the OEM doesn't provide parts, they should provide specifications for aftermarket parts to be created and sold. I believe I read somewhere that after 13 years car parts become available from third parties.

lnxg33k1 3y ago

I mean there has been a new entrant in the past few years, the fairphone, which arrived with a vision and an ethics, and is slowly getting market share, and better products, that are repairable, or new entrant like frame.work, which arrived with a vision, ethics too, and is slowly improving and getting market share. I am not sure why as a society we need to accomodate small vendors who arrive without a plan or anything selling shit shipped from China that is going to last 30 days and just become e-waste, like PinePhone or Librem comes to mind, I am not sure why society needs to accomodate any cowboy who wants to become a manufacturer to sell low effort china phones

AnarchismIsCool 3y ago

That's a feature, not a bug. If we build things to last a bit longer at the expense of a slightly higher cost we can save massive amounts of waste from being produced and use fewer materials. We don't need to crater everything but we also don't need as much -stuff- as we currently buy. Yes there are implications for lower income folks but that's a symptom of a problem that cheap plentiful flimsy shit isn't going to fix at the expense of the planet.

herbst 3y ago

> You're going to get fewer, more expensive products At this point researching a single electronic device you never looked into before can easily take hours. For example kitchen electronics was a topic for me recently. I honestly would be happy to have way less choice, may even pay more in general, but can be sure that these products fullfil all EU standards. My mini Ofen with crazy good isolation, according to recent EU standards, that preheats in less than a minute, will surely pay for itself in power cost :) that's the hardware I want to choose from, f* those 200+ throwaway, mostly relabelled china brands, products in the same category.