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 t

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.