In the future, it will be considered unbelievable that repairing a product used to be more expensive than buying a new one

Comments

• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  How far into the future? Cuz it seems more like we are going the opposite way rn.

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  • EditsHisComments@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Repaired a TV I found on the sidewalk, paper taped to it said free so mine it was. It’s a FireTV which, have awful designs, but are decent TVs if you have a Prime account already.

    But it was a 1hr, $40 backlight job, complete with additional grievances against Amazon. My partner acted like I was a wizard when we were able to watch a movie on it lol

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  • muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    My theory is that we going solarpunk utopian society but it’s gonna take a long period of cyberpunk dystopia to get there.

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  • Pierre121000@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I.d.k., 50 years ?

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    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Even without software lock in making repairs difficult, I imagine the same trends of the past century will continue. Repair will likely to continue to become more impractical. It’s always going to be easier to automate the production of goods than the repair of goods.

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    • gibmiser@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      … :/

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• xorollo@leminal.space ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Funny you use a computer mouse as an example. I have repaired my computer mouse recently, and they make switches and some of the hardware pieces and sometimes button kits that you can swap out heavily worn stuff. It’s worth it to me, often if others would say it’s not worth the money. It feels good to fix something. My mouse was probably only $70 when I bought it over a decade ago, but they really don’t make them the same any more. My buttons show hardly any wear because of the material they’re made of, and the plastic is still in good condition. And now they’re like over $200 which makes me want to barf especially considering it feels like a downgrade to me.

  Anyway, my point is that if you open something up, you often find it is made of parts you can replace. That’s not to say that it’s easy, and it would be great if it was easier. E waste is a huge problem for sure.

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  • Pierre121000@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I looked into buying a DIY kit for making a mouse recently in order to easily repair it(, and eventually improve/customize it i.d.k., at least understand it better), but there’s not much choice so i gave up and bought one at 30€.

    you often find it is made of parts you can replace

    But good luck to find these parts, they have a serial number but from my experience with a computer screen, the circuit board is really expensive and takes a long time to ship, so they told me to just buy a new one. That’s probably why most objects are just thrown away and people don’t even attempt to repair them(, if it was cheaper that practice would probably be more widespread)

    I have repaired my computer mouse recently

    You opened it and found a spare part online for a cheap enough price ?

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    • papalonian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      You don’t always need to replace the part with something the manufacturer offers as a replacement. Something like a screen board might be hard/ impossible to find an alternative for, but things like buttons or sensors inside of mice are rarely something made specifically by the mouse manufacturer. They can almost always be replaced by an equivalent generic part. Hell, my 3D printer motherboard took a shit on me a couple years ago, and I bought an aftermarket board and installed 3rd party firmware on it to get it up and running again.

      Like you said it’d be great if it were just easy for everyone to do these things, but as devices get more advanced they’re gonna require more advanced knowledge to work on, and not everyone has the time, interest, or resources to learn how to diagnose and repair stuff.

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• SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  This is how we got to become a society of “disposable” culture.

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• JelleWho@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I have opened and tried to fix all my things. Including multiple cheap mouses. Although I have not always been successful, I mostly see it as an experience, and as a learning moment. It’s broken anyway, so it could only get better. Quite often I’m able to improve on it too! (add USB C charging to a mouse)

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• sharuum@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Why would that be the case in the future? It was in the past, when people used to maintain whatever they made/bought and use it until it was completely unusable, because they were too poor to buy a new one

  Industry and automation made production way more cost efficient, but didn’t do the same for repairing, probably because it’s not as predictable and automatable as making stuff from scratch

  You can repair a lot of stuff, but you usually have to pay more than the price of buying a new item

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  • Pierre121000@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Industry and automation made production way more cost efficient

    It should be cheaper to build a new part(, and change that part,) than a new whole(, and buy that whole).

    And i.d.k. if it’s the only reason : the cost of producing is much cheaper outside the west, it’s cheaper for westerners to buy from non-westerners, and conversely.
    If i keep the example of the computer mouse, it couldn’t cost 20€ if it was produced locally, if only because it takes much more than 2 cumulated hours to build one, at a minimum wage of 10€/h.
    Conversely though, it’d mean that it’d be very expensive for a non-westerner to buy products made in the west, which is the case, but we can still manage to sell them because we have a monopoly on new technologies(, with e.g. Japan or South Korea, but then again their minimum wage is high as well so it’s the same remark), such as planes or softwares.

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    • jacksilver@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Just look at houses or cars (which are designed for repairability) and you’ll see that building new is almost always easier and cheaper (although that doesn’t mean it’s never worth it to repair).

      A good example is any electrical or plumbing work in a house. You need to identify the issue, access the problem area, fix the problem, then patch the area back up. This is why repair and maintenance is such a huge part of home ownership.

      Sadly as things become more complex and minituraized the ability to repair them also becomes more difficult. You can sometimes cannabilize multiple pieces of electronics to create a functional one, but it’s almost impossible to repair a motherboard/circuitboard for a tv/laptop/electronic. And that’s not even getting into plastics, which are almost impossible to work with after they’ve been finalized for a product.

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• Etterra@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Will it though?

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• pipi1234@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  That would be ideal, but is not the reality right now, and several things would have to change in order to get there.

  As a person that repairs everything I own as a hobby (I would love it to be my job but sadly it pays much less), I can tell confidently the following:

  The reason why repairing things nowadays tend to cost equal or more is due to manufacturers actively making products harder to repair.

  Soldered parts instead of connectors, glued chassis, glass parts that are imposible to remove without breaking, spare parts that are hard to find, or outright impossible due to being proprietary, and a long list of etc…

  Furthermore, manufacturers factor in unit turnover for subsidising unit prices.

  Ex. They’d rather charge you 300 for a TV that will last 4 years than 500 than one that will last 10.

  Why? Simple math and “Maximising shareholder value”.

  300/4 = 75 500/10 = 50

  You dont know it but everything you own is a subscription service provided by the manufacturing companies.

  This is aggravated by a never ending chain of improvements, new models, new trends that keep you in the loop of consumption.

  Why would I try to repair my 3 years old phone when I can buy this new shiny one?

  They are getting richer by the minute while the rest of us is digging an early grave for ourselves, by polluting the world and consuming non renewable materials at a insane speed.

  Not everything is bad though.

  In Europe they introduced a “Right to repair” law, that force manufacturers ensure spare parts for at least 10 years and provide repair service at a reasonable price.

  That’s a great measure that should incentivice companies to make products more repairabld!

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  • elephantium@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    manufacturers actively making products harder to repair.

    Possible counterexample: My dishwasher. The drain pump is super easy to replace – unplug it, disconnect the hoses, and pop it off the little metal piece that supports its weight. It takes longer to bail out the water in the pan and wiggle it out from under the counter than it does to replace the faulty pump.

    (At the same time, it’s a pretty crap model. We’ve had to replace that drain pump 3 times since 2019)

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    • pipi1234@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Granted some appliances are harder to replace and due to that are expected to last longer.

      No the case for smaller ones that are full of plastic parts that are imposible to source replacements for.

      I think 3D printing will help a lot with that.

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• SuDmit@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Maybe, if for some reason we stop manufacturing things with complex shapes via injection molding (which is, like, super cheap on big scale) or similar processes, and come back to “constructing them from a lot of generic parts, preferably easily recycleable”. Also semiconductor components (actual microcontrollers, or displays, and in some cases whole boards if they are tiny enough, because of how many effort they require) are not really repairable, you just replace broken components.

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• DaddleDew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It would have been unbelievable in the past as well. We are in the unusual period where the forces of capitalism have stopped incentivizing quality and efficiency.

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• kboos1@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I will repair something if it’s swapping out a part and considering if what I’m repairing is overall worth repairing. Something’s just aren’t worth disassembling and attempting to fix and now lots of things are built in ways that cause them to break even further if you tried to disassemble it. A lot of things are glued together or have fragile clips that break.

  Being handy isn’t hard, you just have to try and then go buy a new one if you can’t fix it. The worst parts are getting the tools, buying is fun but expensive, and then if people find out that you can fix it then they will start asking for favors.

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• pipi1234@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  In Europe they introduced a “Right to repair” law, that force manufacturers ensure spare parts for at least 10 years and provide repair service at a reasonable price.

  That’s a great measure that should incentivice companies to make products more repairabld!

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• ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I think the opposite is going to be true. One thing I noticed when I moved recently is that’s it’s getting cheaper to throw out perfectly good stuff and then buy it again rather than paying to have it shipped long distance too.

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  • Pierre121000@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Wow

    It also reminds me that it was apparently cheaper to destroy most of the military equipment when leaving Afghanistan than rapatriating it.

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• janus2@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  it’ll either be Star Trek (“repair? just put it in the matter reclamator and replicate a new one!”)

  or Mad Max (“of course you repair! wait, what’s a ‘new thing’?”)

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• XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Only if we level the global payscale, living conditions, and economy. Otherwise, as long as wealthy nations have vastly more disposable income than poorer nations, they will continue to be exploited. The cost of labor to commercially repair something in the EU or North America is typically higher than the cost to have someone build a new product in India or China, ship it there, warehouse it, and ship it to your door.

  I fix things. I always have. I tinker everywhere. It’s not profitable. I can only do it for myself or for friends and family for free. If overall functionality is already lost, I always try to figure it out. I saved a nice gaming monitor from a friend’s trash by finding the capacitor on the main power port hadn’t seated right before soldering, so it was temperamental. Took 2 disassemblies and 3 hours to find and fix, but has now been running for 6 years flawlessly. When it malfunctioned, it had NO life at all, which likely narrowed it down to between the power socket and the main board. I bet your local labor price on ~2 hours plus risk/profit fee is comparable a new low end monitor.

  I do lots of automotive repair for myself. It’s annoying as shit in forums to see people complain “there’s no good mechanics anymore, they’re all parts replacers now” and in the next reply say “just buy a new brake drum/rotor because it costs the same to have yours turned (refinished)”. As if the “parts replacers” can do the refinishing for free. They’re mad about the inflation/exploitation combo but taking it out on some other person suffering the same market imbalance.

  There is a reason all the cool hack and repair videos now largely come out of Asia. It’s not just sheer population numbers, they’re activities that largely don’t happen in NA/Eur anymore.

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• PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If that’s the case, it probably means you just get to “own” products as a subscription; which collectively covers supposed “refurbished” product replacements when they break.

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