3 ms·

It can be legislated away by requiring all appliances of certain kinds to have 15 or 20 year warranties, perhaps with some extra safeguards to prevent Hollywood

It can be legislated away by requiring all appliances of certain kinds to have 15 or 20 year warranties, perhaps with some extra safeguards to prevent Hollywood accounting tactics from being used. This seems like a much neater solution than a right to repair. By making all repairs free for consumers, the repair costs are shifted onto the initial price. This allows for much easier repairability comparisons when shopping (items with high repair costs just become more expensive). It also forces manufacturers to consider product quality much more seriously, as unknowingly releasing a faulty product onto the market, without factoring the repair costs into the price, can significantly affect their profits. It would also significantly help with the "the servers have disappeared and my device is now a brick" issue by forcing manufacturers to keep the appropriate IT infrastructure operational. Another less radical version of this idea is to force manufacturers to prominently feature a "yearly cost of use", which is basically the price divided by the number of years under warranty (we assume here that the product is designed to be thrown away immediately after the warranty expires). This gives manufacturers an incentive to extend warranties, which also forces more repairability. The EU kind of sort of does this already, most electronic devices there have a mandatory warranty period, but it's only two years.

paulmd 3y ago
I’m a fan of this too, essentially the idea would front-load the cost of repairs into the product as a consumption tax at the point of sale. This internalizes the externalities of this planned obsolescence. But of course it’s not really a fixed price and the manufacturer is tacitly encouraged to compete in total lifecycle price rather than to do the “cheap out on a structural part to save 2 cents” thing. Which is the ultimate goal. If what you want is for products to last a while, thats the way to do it. Legislate the lifecycle you want and let vendors compete on optimizing their products for that lifecycle. The free market will happily give you planned obsolescence, we are already in a market failure, and it’s not going to work itself out by just “making consumers more informed” or whatever pablum - if that worked you wouldn’t be in a market failure to begin with. Staying the course and “spreading awareness” has always been a vote against actual change.
morsch 3y ago
I wonder if the result of a twenty year warranty would be sturdier devices that are easier to service, or even flimsier devices that are cheap to replace a couple of times. Resources and manufacturing being cheap, labor costs being high. I'm all for trying, though, don't get me wrong.
arantius 3y ago
Part of me loves this idea. I've had things fail, and would have been happy for warranty coverage. But: * What about the market for truly inexpensive things? Do I get e.g. my plastic knife replaced every time it gets dull, for 20 years? Does a consumer still have the option to buy a truly inexpensive (and low quality) specialized tool, that they know(/expect) they'll only need once? (Or will they all be expensive, because it's now illegal to make something that won't last for 20 years?) * How does this affect expensive things? What will a car cost, if I have to pay for all the possible issues that will come up with it over 20 years up front? * How will this be enforced? Just form a corporation that "goes out of business" every year or two, and is magically replaced by another distinct corporate entity. Sure the warranty lasts 20 years but if the company servicing the warranty doesn't ... (The even more significant proliferation of e.g. HOOLEEZOO branded items?)

paulmd 3y ago

I’m a fan of this too, essentially the idea would front-load the cost of repairs into the product as a consumption tax at the point of sale. This internalizes the externalities of this planned obsolescence. But of course it’s not really a fixed price and the manufacturer is tacitly encouraged to compete in total lifecycle price rather than to do the “cheap out on a structural part to save 2 cents” thing. Which is the ultimate goal. If what you want is for products to last a while, thats the way to do it. Legislate the lifecycle you want and let vendors compete on optimizing their products for that lifecycle. The free market will happily give you planned obsolescence, we are already in a market failure, and it’s not going to work itself out by just “making consumers more informed” or whatever pablum - if that worked you wouldn’t be in a market failure to begin with. Staying the course and “spreading awareness” has always been a vote against actual change.

morsch 3y ago

I wonder if the result of a twenty year warranty would be sturdier devices that are easier to service, or even flimsier devices that are cheap to replace a couple of times. Resources and manufacturing being cheap, labor costs being high. I'm all for trying, though, don't get me wrong.

arantius 3y ago

Part of me loves this idea. I've had things fail, and would have been happy for warranty coverage. But: * What about the market for truly inexpensive things? Do I get e.g. my plastic knife replaced every time it gets dull, for 20 years? Does a consumer still have the option to buy a truly inexpensive (and low quality) specialized tool, that they know(/expect) they'll only need once? (Or will they all be expensive, because it's now illegal to make something that won't last for 20 years?) * How does this affect expensive things? What will a car cost, if I have to pay for all the possible issues that will come up with it over 20 years up front? * How will this be enforced? Just form a corporation that "goes out of business" every year or two, and is magically replaced by another distinct corporate entity. Sure the warranty lasts 20 years but if the company servicing the warranty doesn't ... (The even more significant proliferation of e.g. HOOLEEZOO branded items?)