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1. Consumers have no choice, so they better prefer it. 2. These anti-repair practices are anti-consumer, because they're specifically designed to make the proc

1. Consumers have no choice, so they better prefer it. 2. These anti-repair practices are anti-consumer, because they're specifically designed to make the process more difficult and expensive for consumers. 3. This is sort of along the lines of planned obsolescence. The reality is that making your product shittier on purpose is actually a viable business strategy when you have decent market share. It shouldn't be.

charcircuit 1y ago
1. They do have a choice. No one is forcing them to buy a specific product. 2. A product who is more complicated and expensive to repair is not necessarily a worse product. This could be a trade off in favor of something consumers value more. 3. It's normal to target a lifespan for a product. For mature products ignoring it is a sign of amateurs. This is not the same thing as making a product bad on purpose.
- Zak 1y ago
  There's some significant information asymmetry involved such that it's a lot of effort to know how repairable a new product is. The consumer may not even be the one to perform the repair; there are a lot of independent repair shops replacing things like smartphone displays. It would be a nasty surprise for someone who got their screen replaced for $80 on their last phone to learn it's first-party-only and $300 on their new one a couple years into ownership.
- const_cast 1y ago
  1. Choice isn't binary, there's infinite levels of choice. Other comment mentions information asymmetry, that's part of it. Not all choices are clear, some choices take unrealistic amount of time to make, some of them are incompatible with work or contracts, and on and on. 2. Sure, but this is not why it's being done. It can be a trade-off, but we have to be honest and acknowledge that a lot of products are specifically made worse because you can make more money that way. Anti-repair is a racketeering scheme first, any other "benefits" are secondary. That doesn't mean they aren't real benefits, but it does mean that they were never the intention. 3. Planned obsolesce is the same as making a product worse on purpose to make more money. That doesn't mean that targeting a lifespan is bad. But when you shift from making washing machines that last 20 years to ones that last 5, that's an intentional choice to get more money from consumers.

charcircuit 1y ago

1. They do have a choice. No one is forcing them to buy a specific product. 2. A product who is more complicated and expensive to repair is not necessarily a worse product. This could be a trade off in favor of something consumers value more. 3. It's normal to target a lifespan for a product. For mature products ignoring it is a sign of amateurs. This is not the same thing as making a product bad on purpose.

Zak 1y ago
There's some significant information asymmetry involved such that it's a lot of effort to know how repairable a new product is. The consumer may not even be the one to perform the repair; there are a lot of independent repair shops replacing things like smartphone displays. It would be a nasty surprise for someone who got their screen replaced for $80 on their last phone to learn it's first-party-only and $300 on their new one a couple years into ownership.
const_cast 1y ago
1. Choice isn't binary, there's infinite levels of choice. Other comment mentions information asymmetry, that's part of it. Not all choices are clear, some choices take unrealistic amount of time to make, some of them are incompatible with work or contracts, and on and on. 2. Sure, but this is not why it's being done. It can be a trade-off, but we have to be honest and acknowledge that a lot of products are specifically made worse because you can make more money that way. Anti-repair is a racketeering scheme first, any other "benefits" are secondary. That doesn't mean they aren't real benefits, but it does mean that they were never the intention. 3. Planned obsolesce is the same as making a product worse on purpose to make more money. That doesn't mean that targeting a lifespan is bad. But when you shift from making washing machines that last 20 years to ones that last 5, that's an intentional choice to get more money from consumers.