EU aims to abolish planned obsolescence
Content link | Reddit Link
r/technologyu/modigliani88 (36282)

Comments (2807)

Everyone is talking about smartphones and other electronics, but this an issue in almost all consumer goods. Appliance companies have started working planned obsolescence into all sorts of things like washing machines and dishwashers.

It's so frustrating to have no other choices either.

I saw a post earlier by a person with a 40 year old dryer! A whirlpool, by the way. And much of the conversation was about this planned obsolescence bullshit.

My grandmother had a 35 year old washer dryer set she bought when her house burned down. Still works, and she died a year ago

What would happen if appliances started lasting for 40 years? Hell even 20 or 10

I don't think we can go backwards like that, I'd love to read a well thought out answer to that hypothetical that didn't just scratch the surface

Well, shareholders won't like that since they need a return on their investment, and lower sales means less profit. However, it's possible people would flock to the first company to do this properly out of frustration with the pieces of crap they have now.

And if history is any indicator, that company that does it properly will be bought out by their biggest and worst competitor as soon as it gets popular enough to notice. Then one year later they're producing the competitor's products with a different skin. Like Lifeproof vs. Otterbox.

Toyota is still running just fine

Cars, planes, boats and other things you trust your life to don't really count. People tend to put a lot more thought into those purchases and longevity is an important aspect of the decision.

[removed]

[deleted]

Chinese manufacturers build exactly what their customers tell them to build.

10+ years ago it was a different story but not any longer.

The made in china build quality is by design. There is nothing wrong with chinese manufacturing, the companies just don't want to pay for better materials to make higher quality products. They are delighted that the product only lasts a few years and then forces you to go by a new one. Has nothing to do with China's ability to make a quality product. They're making them to a lesser standard intentionally.

100%

With Chinese manufacturing, as with almost everything else, you get what you pay for. Simple as that.

Exactly this. China certainly has the capability, quality is just not the thing companies are going for when they outsource to China.

I think within the next 10 years we'll see high quality Chinese ~~goods~~ brands. They're making huge strides in manufacturing in China right now and their government is investing heavily. But as of right now I can't think of too many "quality" brands coming out China. We saw the same complaints about quality with Korea and Japan when they started to rapidly industrialize, and now look at those countries.

Yes, I would like to add that I own a Chinese made acoustic guitar called Blueridge that is assembled by hand using all solid wood in the style of particular Martin guitar. Mine cost around 1200 bucks, the Martin in question is 3 or 4 times the price.

Mine sounds pretty damn good. Good enough that I cant justify wanting the Martin guitar.

I've got an iPhone 5 that lasted 5 years (and still alive today, it's just that I wanted to change it for something a bit faster and got a good deal on an iPhone 7). It lasted quite long. Few scratches on the screen and the back of the iPhone has some cosmetic issues but otherwise, everything is fine.

Just note that the phone is only assembled there. 95% of the parts are from other countries like TaĂŻwan, Japan, Germany, etc ...

They actually already have high quality brands! It's genuinely just that we don't know about them. A friend of mine is from China and when they buy things there they are actually aware of what grade the product is (as in AAA etc) and the stuff we get is about as low tier as you can get. It's just that the immigrants that came left china realised that if they wanted to start bussinesses with small capital it was worth just selling the cheap stuff and since that became chinas selling point there isn't room for the high quality stuff overseas. It's definitely changing now though since brands like Huawei and Lenovo are showing that Chinese made doesn't mean cheap quality. We're also going to soon be accustomed to seeing chinese logos in our blockbuster movies and by that point people will start having the idea that things made and designed in china can be good. We're likely to see their high end products coming over at that point and I wouldn't be surprised if they'll start using hollywood movies to push internationalization.

Exactly. I buy from China. Their manufacturing is as high or low quality as you want it to be. China is perfectly capable of making things that meet typical manufacturing standards if you’re willing to pay closer to typical manufacturing costs.

... Huawei makes great phones. Ime equivalent of or better than Samsung

...until repair time...

My S7 Edge needs a new screen. The OLED screen has "burn in" and I can see where apps I use a lot are wearing out pixels.

$247 for a replacement screen.

My previous Huawei did not need repairs during the contract period unlike the my previous Samsung. That is why my current phone is a Huawei

The only reason I disagree with that assessment is that I don't see much future demand for quality goods. We like complaining about planned obsolescence, but in reality, we love it. Shiny new products every year advertised to us by geniuses, delivered to our homes hassle-free for only a small one time payment of $Derptey-derp.Derpity-doo.

People want high quality goods. It's just difficult to prove how long the good will last.

It's easier and testable to market high end performance products.

Agreed. I have a custom battery that was built in China by a Chinese company that's very high quality - but it was priced to match that quality.

Not necessarily true. I work for a us company that outsources to China. I travel there 4 times a year or so. We demand quality products from the factories we deal with but the major problem is they will do anything to save a penny. I'm talking shit like using left over screws on a product rather than buying the correct ones. I see it first hand. If we don't go there and baby sit them the products get slowly worse. Their save every last penny mentality my company has been fighting for years and is what keeps me employeed.

That's not unique to Chinese companies, though. I know from personal experience that homegrown American small businesses can be exactly the same way, and I fight my boss on it day in and day out 😑

But in the USA, it's a crime to commit product replacement in a lot of circumstances so it happens a lot less.

They make to the lowest standard they can get away with. They can ( presumably ) do better, but they choose not to.

Completely agree, but cost is not the only consideration. When you send a design to China you acknowledge that your intellectual property will be stolen. So you maybe don't send the really good designs.

People sleep on the “Made in China” brand.

While china can certainly make decent consumer products, there are actually things they don't have the ability to manufacture. Jet engines are a prime example. Even with china now building their own passenger planes, they haven't been able to make competitive engines and have to buy American ones. The country only even figured out how to produce ball point pens last year, there's plenty of precision manufacturing that they can't do.

Recently, I overread something like the precision goals for your typical German Screw manufacturer are something like 10 times more precise than the Chinese or even American Equivalent. And because the parts are made less precise to specification, they cause the whole thing to break faster. But at least they are 50% cheaper...

Now I don't know if this is true, but what I know is that my Dad and my Grandad always told me to spend the extra penny on screws, nails, wood and the likes and nothing they ever build broke like modern appliances. My grandad built a swingset for my Dad 40 years ago out of wood and steel. The wood is only now starting to get brittle. If something they build ever breaks, it's usually a single easy to replace part or completely irreparably broken.

My dad always complains about how he used to be able to fix a washing machine himself but nowadays they use special non-standard screws or glue everything together. Even our village technician who we call whenever my Dad or Grandad can't fix something complains about this. I myself notice the same. It's just not Appliances but laptops. You used to be able to replace most parts of a Laptop rather easily but some modern Laptops you can't even open without destroying the thing.

You used to be able to replace most parts of a Laptop rather easily but some modern Laptops you can't even open without destroying the thing.

And laptops used to cost thousands of dollars in the past and now I can go to Walmart and get an acceptable quality laptop for under $400. If you want maintainable laptops, then pony up the cash. They still exist and are used everywhere in the business world.

I have two laptops around, both ten years old, both sub 1000€. Both consumer products and both with easily replaceable parts. But just two years later things at that price range started to be glued in way more often. The difference in price wasn't so high and business laptops cost more for more reasons than just replaceable parts. Also, even business laptops aren't safe nowadays. I'll give it a few more years until you have to actively look laptops with replaceable parts in either category. Also, maybe that's a regional thing but you don't get acceptable quality laptops for under 400 here. They're good for checking emails once a week or looking something up now and then, but that's about it. Well, maybe my clients just have higher expectations.

I just ssh into servers so literally anything works for me.

Yeah. They treat their employees like any first world company. /s

Don't know why you are being downvoted. I have seen countless articles on workplace conditions for a lot of these places and it is really really sad.

That's why it's so cheap!

But not why it's crappy. Those are 2 different problems.

Chinese manufacturing is currently superior to American manufacturing in most areas (e.g. clothing, electronics, fireworks) for a few simple reasons: first, they have the work force and capacity to get just about anything done in shorter amounts of time. They have more vertical integration in place. And most obviously, they’ll do it cheaper.

When people think of poorly made products and connect the made in China label, they’re probably looking at something that was purposely made to be cheap by companies based all over the globe (e.g. anything sold at Walmart, Harbor Freight Tools, fast fashion companies). But lots of high end/well made goods are also made and assembled in China that nobody thinks twice about it because the brand they associate with said product is likely something assumed to be reputable (computer parts, book printing, electronics, etc).

My source is that I worked on a documentary film that discussed global wealth and we visited many factories in China and talked to CEOs of American and Asian companies.

Another part of the issue is, many American companies that still manufacture in the US are reluctant to retool their plants, and are getting by on the "Buy American" tagline. They could be running 20, 30, 40 year old equipment.

One example I've personally come across. Bruce Flooring. Used to be a top shelf hardwood maker, and was purchased by Armstrong several years ago. Now I steer clients away because the milling is piss poor, and I don't want to be blamed for it.

Right. Another example is general worker attitudes in the United States. From this week’s NY Times about Carrier.

Instead, employees share a looming sense that a factory shutdown is inevitable — that Carrier has merely postponed the closing until a more politically opportune moment.

So low morale because the company treats employees like shit.

Some workers cite illness, while others claim days under the Family and Medical Leave Act, saying they are taking care of sick relatives.

And management not accounting for people using legally guaranteed benefits and then bitching about it. If you want to do business in the USA, then you've got to play by the rules. If the line is shutting down mid-day because people are using benefit hours or legally guaranteed time off, then you don't have enough workers to begin with.

It’s true that the company has been running the factory hard — up to 60 hours a week with mandatory overtime, six days in a row — and some absenteeism could be due to sheer exhaustion, Mr. Roell allowed.

I've done 60 hour weeks for months on end as a white collar worker and I was just about ready to quit my job if anyone bitched about the quality or speed of my work because I was so exhausted. I can only imagine how these employees who are on their feet and doing heavy manual labor all day feel.

The company is literally paying 2x wages for every single employee. They could just knock people down to 55 or 50 hours and easily cover their staffing issue with just a bit more out of pocket costs.

[removed]

It’s out now in theaters! Called Generation Wealth by director Lauren Greenfield.

My rather limited experience was you had to find the right company that understood what you wanted. Most Chinese companies assumed you wanted it as cheaply as quickly as possible regardless of end product quality. You needed to find one that would do it to your specs then you were fine but it took some doing since the mentality was a little different.

Faulty white goods can & do catch fire with fatal consequences.

[removed]

Fridges, freezers, washing machines etc.; so-names because they are often white.

Made in china build quality, but also keeping up with the Joneses in terms of trends and styles. 20 years ago everything had to be black, then it was stainless, now gunmetal grey is taking over.

Cars are a lot more expensive now than in the 70's, compared to similar goods.

Modern cars are also much safer, more efficient, and overall perform a lot better than those built in the 1970s. It's not terribly surprising that they've become more expensive.

more efficient, and overall perform a lot better than those built in the 1970s

The same is true of most home appliances.

Not to mention they last longer- even in the 90s 100k was about the lifetime of your average car, especially for the big 3. It was very common to see a used car ad that said "body 120k, engine rebuilt at 90k".

Starting in 2004 quality in general started going up; now seeing a ford with almost 200k isn't too surprising. And while repairs are more expensive they are much rarer- and breakdowns even more so.

I have a 1985 Dodge with the original engine without a rebuild at 297,000 miles that would like to have a word with you.

That's a survivor! I've had a few that beat the odds also. Was it maintained particularly well over it's life?

Yea, with anything that's lasted this long, its been pretty well kept up, but obviously shows its age. (Dents/cracked dashboard etc.) Ironically I bumped into someone on reddit yesterday with the same car/same age/same engine and my cousin has one as well that had 266,000 before it was smashed into by a Dodge Ram, so that does tell me that it was a particularly well built car.

There's a lot of luck involved (material purity defects, what if anything was used on slippery roads in your area, how drunk the engine assembler was that day) but overall I've found the survivors are generally very well taken care of. Not just oil changes when needed but all the maintenance done on time, no "it drives okay still" issues left for long. Even something as simple as checking the fluids regularly.

Essentially, fixing and keeping up small issues helps prevent larger ones. No idea how true it is but it's inspired me to try to keep my cars in as good nick as I can. The Malibu has gone through more parts than I'd like in the last couple of years but it's solid and paid for so she'll do.

I always thought the opposite because so many cars before 2000 have so many miles while newer ones tend to have issues. I think that's due to survivorship bias tho

Major survivorship bias- compounded significantly by where you live. I live in a nicer area of a city and you almost never see anything made between 1980 and 2005. Go to the little depressed town I grew up and they're everywhere.

It's a persistant trope though! Especially in car circles where change = bad and electronics or emissions = the devil, so new cars = super devil.

I have a 12 year old Malibu with 160k on it. It has been taken care of but not babied and it still runs fine and feels like a modern car. Imagine driving a 1990 Lumina in 2002. And that's just style and ride... Check out the crash testing.

I'd much rather be in an accident in a modern car than one from the 70s.

1959 Bel Air vs 2009 Malibu crash test: https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck

Spoiler: it doesn't end well for the Bel Air.

[deleted]

It would still be on the losing end of a crash with a Volvo.

Are you trying to tell me things wouldn't go well if I'm rear ended in my Pinto?

[deleted]

And that Civic will be a god damn tank that will likely outlive you if you take care of it. Mine is nearly a decade old that has lasted me tons of driving and still runs like the day I bought it. And that’s after a number of deer casualties that only resulted in cosmetic damage.

Buy a deer whistle, if you haven't already. It'll give you some piece of mind.

Unadjusted median household income in 1980 was $17,710 according to the census bureau. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-income-households/h11ar.xls

7k would hit harder. And interest rates were high.

2003 little sedans can still be okay today.

Add in all the "value added" taxes that we have today then it isn't hard to see where all the extra costs are coming from.

There are also laws setting standards for things like cars, planes, and boats and the manufacturer can be held liable if a defect in their product causes issues. Not so much for things like a dishwasher or tv

False, if your dishwasher causes a fire or floods your home be 100% sure the manufacturer is going to feel it.

Cars count... they have the ability to make cars that will last a helluva lot longer than they do now. Cars built currently are not made to be around for the next 20 to 30 years. If car companies made quality cars, it is not a good business model because being built to last does not mean repeat buyers. If the car industry makes cars to last approximately 10 years, the car company just needs to make sure the majority of their cars last for 10 years and they aren’t seen as a crappie company. Once the car craps out, economically it doesn’t make sense to pay for repairs that cost more than the cars worth. So the buying cycle starts again. A lot of this can be avoided with higher quality parts and labor.

Here is a link to an article discussing planned obsolescence in cars: article

Ah yea that's valid point but still. Reliable can also mean affordable. But an example that actually agrees with your statement would be how Kia owns Hyundai. So it does happen in the auto industry some

It’s the other way around, Hyundai owns Kia.

Ah my b. For some reason I thought Kia was the parent. I was test driving some the other day and they're basically the same car. I drove an elantra then an Optima. Interior was identical

Lots of cars nowadays are packed full of garbage parts, but only the parts that can't result in injury, like shitty thin cheap windshields, and AC systems that explode at 130k miles, taking out other components in the engine.

Not really. However governments demands that your car is insured to be allowed on the roads, and insurance companies don't want to pay out for lost limbs. So safer cars gets a lower premium.

Lower premium = more sales. Money rules the world, it just happens to be more profitable to make quality cars.

Of course, should have known. Had a lapse of cynicism, I guess.

The safety parts are pretty much not designed to fail. However, there is plenty of shoddy stuff on cars that fails pretty early. Also, it costs almost 10 times as much to buy all of the parts for a car and assemble it than it does to buy it brand new.

Planned obsolescence goes in the cars as well. It’s just with less relevant things such as the AC or a broken window knob or electronic issue.

Or dealerships adding a “hack to the computer system of the car after warranty that affects the fuel air mixture making the vehicle seem like it “not running like it used to”. You trade it in they remove the hack and resell your perfectly good vehicle that you have been tricked into thinking its not so good anymore.

Toyota of today != the Toyota of 22Re pickups.

[deleted]

Oh wow a brand new car runs well? Shocking

Still are. Toyota and Lexus are perennially #1 and #2 in reliability rankings the last decade. They stick to what works.

Not quite. Those jd power rankings put Buick and Porsche in the 2 and 3 slots. More importantly, the gap between Toyota and others had narrowed considerably since the days of the 22r and 1999 Lexus million milers. I’m a 100% Toyota fanboy, and my wife and I own only Toyota’s, but they aren’t that outstanding anymore. Everyone makes great cars and Toyota has had many high-profile engineering and product design missteps in the past decade or so.

JD power rankings are silly. They are based on initial quality which is number of incidents in the first 90 days. American car manufacturers are straight up predatory when it comes to conserving their initial quality rating, they'll let a car sit on the lot for 5 days so it falls outside the 90 day window. Consumer reports is a much more accurate model, in which Buick and many other falsely inflated brands are much further down.

The last 3 cars I bought were Chrysler cars... but I've been in enough Toyotas and GMs in this time period to say that the Toyotas were still built better than the GMs.

Buick is quality, I’ve owned 2. Sold 1 at 180k miles and another at 260k

Had a 22re in my 84 celica as well. I sold it before it died but the people who had it after me abused it heavily and it still managed to make it to 295,000mi.

350k miles strong!!

Even when you dont want it to.

Sure, if you can find one that doesn't eat oil.

(At least the late 00's Camry 4-cyl did.)

'97 corollas are sick. They rust before they break down. I had a couple who were customers of the garage I used to work in. They had one each. They never serviced their 1.6 corollas and the cars would only ever fail their MOTs on consumable items; wipers, tyres etc. Post 2002 toyotas aren't the same though in my experience.

I'm still driving my 2004 Corolla with ~300 000km on the counter. The rust is beginning to destroy it, but everything else is still in great shape.

That's why I will be loyal to Toyota/Lexus as long as they continue this. Fuck companies like BMW (German engineering LOL) where you can't spot anyone driving their car that's older than 3 years.

Love my 4runner. It is a workhorse. My previous Honda had over a 100k miles and only ever needed oil changes. I will never buy another American made car/truck for the reason that I don't think they are reliable and will wind up needing a lot of work done on them.

What happened in Lifeproof vs Otterbox?

Lifeproof was an independent company that made great waterproof iphone cases. They start getting popular, Otterbox buys them out, takes over product design and production, product goes to shit. You can still buy Lifeproof cases but they are way uglier, way less durable, and aren't even actually waterproof in my experience.

Otterbox is shit. Last one I bought couldn't last the 2 year phone cycle. I switched to ballistic cases. I wish they made them in more brands.

I've been using a UAG case for years now, between my current and previous phone. No added waterproofing but it has kept my phones intact, despite dropping them on concrete often.

Yeah but with how ugly and bulky they are...

All of the UAG cases I've seen/used have been pretty slim. I don't think I've ever seen a UAG that is as thick as a shitterbox. My current favorite brand though is Obliq. Their slim series phone cases are good quality and look nice. I've thrown mine across the street and it only got a small nick.

They’re not bulky at all. My plasma case for my iPhone 8 Plus is slimmer in the dimensions that matter for comfort and usability in-hand and more solid feeling than any otterbox I’ve put it in. The styling is unique but just industrial, not ugly.

What is the good alternitive?

My S7 have had 2 lifeproof and they just fall apart.

[deleted]

As someone who does manual labor and has never broken their phone, I agree to an extent. But as someone who has a phone that was manufactured to be water resistant, taking your phone into the shower with you or not having to worry about it maybe getting wet when you go swimming, etc., is a game changer.

don't take your water resistant phone swimming. chlorine and other chemicals in pool water can still corrode the phone's internals.

Thanks. I don't mean that I knowingly dip in the water or anything. I just like to be able to know that if it does get a little wet that it isn't the end of its time here.

Definitely. just warning you, since a lot of people do like to go swimming with their phones! :)

I agree. I was thinking about getting a new phone and it didn't have an ip water resistants rating and then I realized that I used that feature literally every day. I know that taking your phone into the shower isn't necessarily great because the steam can still potentially get into the phone but it still works after 2 years so I'm just hoping it will be fine.

I had a Galaxy S7 for over 2 years before I upgraded. It was in the shower with me most days. Never had any moisture issues, just normal battery degradation and screen burn on those AMOLED screens.

I still use mine just for showers. It's cracked and broken in like ten places but somehow stays waterproof and keeps chugging along like nothing's wrong.

You guys must have some luxurious big bathrooms. I just place my phone on the sink outside the shower and it is in arms reach, why bring it inside? Not knocking it just wondering what the gain is, unless you have some fancy enclosed shower that blocks sound.

Why would you take your phone into the shower? And why would you need it when you're swimming?

I'd imagine your wallet is more important than your phone. Do you take it in the shower? Do you take it when you go swimming? Or do you leave it in a nice, dry place where it can't get wet?

Because my shower is a nice place to be. I also have a waterproof speaker that I sit in this cubby hole in the tile and use to rock out with my cock out. It's nice.

I take it floating down the river with me sometimes, too, which is also nice.

The better question is why do you hate freedom? Why not let innovation give you more options and more security?

I don't hate freedom.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. That's something you should learn as a child.

So when I see and hear people doing something that doesn't necessarily need to or should be done, of course I'm going to judge them. All actions have consequences. You have the freedom to take your phone into the shower with you, and I have the freedom to question that action because of how silly it is, which I will do as a consequence to your action.

It's worrying that people literally can't be without their phones for a second. Bathroom, shower, pool, etc.. It's clearly an addiction or crutch, which does affect me going forward because it's changing the world I live in.

people doing something that doesn't necessarily need to or should be done

Like, for example, literally every hobby or form of entertainment?

I'm not sure you noticed the part where I said I use it for music in the shower, which I also said I apparently use therapeutically. So I'm not just in the shower for functional purposes. I am there to relax. It is how I occasionally spend my free time, just like you occasionally spend your free time bitching about what other people do with theirs.

So about that... why are you here making comments on reddit if you think everything needs to be purposeful and dignified? Is that really necessary? Is it a constructive use of your time? Have you used this moment to consider the fact that as a result of all this stuff you're judging that you now also have the capability to have a more durable phone in your life, whether you would use it as a crutch or knowingly put it in danger? Accidents do happen, you know.

Wouldn't it be nice to know that your phone wouldn't be destroyed if you were caught in a torrential downpour? How is that a negative?

Hey everyone, look at Mr. I-Don't-Drop-Things-Or-Sit-Down-Or-Get-Pushed-Into-Pools-Ever.

I don't get pushed into pools on the reg because I don't live in a movie.

[deleted]

What is it like to be a superior being? Are you the same species as Mark Zuckerberg?

[deleted]

The bars or aliens?

It's easy to never drop or break a phone when you have no friends and never leave your house and room.

[deleted]

Thank you for confirming!

Have you tried showering, then leaving your house/room?

[deleted]

Yeah, I'd recommend you stay in that room then. Chemical warfare is illegal now. You don't want to get in trouble!

I never dropped my Gameboy in water, and I was 5 when I got that.

How are you even more careless with your ~$500 phone as an adult than I was with a $100 Gameboy as a 5-year-old?

Yeah, I'd imagine the mentally undeveloped could hold an old school gameboy that was the size of 7 college textbooks put together (vs the smaller, slimmer, made-of-glass modern smartphones) pretty well, so it's not surprising you didn't drop it! Congrats, your caregiver must be so proud! I hope they gave you a sticker! 👍

I also got a gameboy at 5. When I was about ten we were walking on ice covering a pond when my neighbor's 150 lb dog came and plopped right next to me. He fell through the ice and I jumped back and managed to stay dry but sacrificed my gameboy in the process. Shit happens. Yes, our parents let us walk on thin ice covering a shallow pond, without helmets. It was a different time.

What... What would the helmets do if you fell into the thin ice?

They would probably protect our heads.

I am working on a highrise building. My phone is constantly being assaulted. Concrete dust gets into ports, impossible to test our pipes without splashing some water on yourself, I've dropped pipe wrenches and hammers onto my thighs while kneeling, most common for us is a chance of the screen shattering when it gets hit by a weld spark that burns it's way through your pocket. We all share a power source in the middle of the building, so if I have to plug it in to recharge for an hour, I'm trusting about a hundred other people who are also mainly focused on getting their task done to notice it sitting there and not accidentally kick it down the elevator shaft for a 50 storey freefall. Also I have kids at home and you can't control them 100%. The glass covering my rear camera cracked about a year ago and I honestly have no idea how. Luckily, it doesn't affect my photo quality. Some people need protection for their devices because their lifestyle calls for it. There is nothing wrong with that.

Literally, my anxiety increased with each line I read of your job description.

That would explain the random anxiety I experience on a day-to-day basis lol

I guess you’ve never been caught in a rain storm on a motorcycle. As a daily commuter I pack everything of value to me in waterproof containers or dry sacks even on sunny days.

If you kept your phone in your pocket, it'd be fine. I imagine your wallet doesn't get soaked whenever you're caught in a rainstorm while on a motorcycle, so why would your phone?

I haven’t sprung for a goretex jacket, so yes my wallet does occasionally get soaked even in my jacket pocket. But there isn’t anything in it that would be damaged so I don’t care. The few bills I carry will dry out with time, but otherwise it’s leather and plastic. I keep my phone in the mirrored breast pocket on the other side of my jacket, so I definitely definitely need the waterproof case. I keep my laptop in a waterproof rucksack. I’ve used that rucksack as a dry bag/flotation device canyoneering so I’m fairly confident in it. But I still even use a neoprene sleeve because laptops are expensive.

I'm not sure what's wrong with all these people needing seatbelts, just don't get into those goddamn accidents, is all. /s

Right, because that's a fair comparison.

I don't believe that you've never dropped any object you've ever held in your hand.

You must lead a very boring life.

My medicine makes me just a general clutz honestly. My depth perception is pretty off.

Clearly, you don't have kids.

company that does it properly will be bought out by their biggest and worst competitor as soon as it gets popular enough to notice. Then one year later they're producing the competitor's products with a different skin.

He just said

The concept behind a Rolls Royce was it was so expensive because all the maintenance was pre-included, forever. Oil changes, tires, everything. You could literally, never have to think about a car payment or maintenance again after you bought a Rolls. It was done and solved forever

That is until Ford bought the company and decided to stop honoring it.

.........

Maybe you're thinking of Aston Martin. RR was bought by BMW.

Rolls Royce Motors went bankrupt in 1971 and sold to Vickers in 1980 and then sold to VW in 98. In 2003 BMW acquired the rights to use the RR name from RR holdings and the rights to use the signature grille and spirit of ecstasy from VW.

Good to know. I tried to Google to corroborate but the original source is listening to the old timers at the 11-99 Foundation talk about their cars and money.

What about aircraft engines? I thought that aircraft still used rolls Royce engines.

That is a separate division. Around the time of the bankruptcy they split off the automobiles into Rolls Royce Motors and separated from the airplane engines which are still used on several different aircraft.

I don't remember all of the specifics as this is just what I remember reading so if someone wants to fact check and correct this they can. I will not be embarrassed to admit if I am remembering this wrong.

Yup, separated in 71.

Any chance you have a source on that? It sounds like one of the many apocryphal tales of the marquee brand, such as the "never breaks down" story.

What seems more likely is a program like they include now where all maintenance is included for a period of time after purchase. It looks like the current time is 4 years and can be extended up to 9 years.

To answer your question (I'm not OP) it's a half truth, it was the original concept of the company from the founder, but it was never a truth. RR never had a "no charge maintenance" contract, however certain portions of the concept still exist today. They were the only company for a long time that did "pick up" maintenance. Now every super car/million dollar vehicle company does it like Bugatti and Ferrari,but originally only RR did it. If you needed new tires, oil change, whatever done RR would show up at your house whenever was convenient for you with a flat deck, pick up your car, and drop it off when it was done. They always charged for it, but even now it's a no extra privelage of owning a RR.

Neat! Yeah RR definitely was luxo. Sounds like the founder's dream got filtered through the accounting department lol

50 years later and Ferrari will sell you a car you can't take home. How the world changes.

privelage

Check your privilege.

^^^BEEP ^^^BOOP ^^^I'm ^^^a ^^^bot. ^^^PM ^^^me ^^^to ^^^contact ^^^my ^^^author.

When in the fuck did Ford buy RR? Stop making shit up and misinforming people.

Optima batteries is the best example of this ever.

Could you expand on the lifeproof vs otterbox? Edit: nevermind, saw your answer

Solution: Don't get bought out. Publicly traded companies are a fucking disease.

You say that like companies have to accept being bought out.

A private company selling out is just as common as a public company getting bought out. As much as I hate when it happens, I won't claim that I would definitely have the willpower to say no if someone came along and offered me a billion dollars for the company I built.

And conservatives would have you think that a free market inspires competition, when in reality, big companies who monopolize the market can simply buy out any competition.

They're so afraid of government regulations but have no problem letting these companies have all the power.

Hooray capitalism?

What happened to life proof and otter box?

Which was better, Lifeproof or Otterbox.

That's why they are planning to legislate it...

Lifeproof vs. Otterbox

What's the story here?

> that company that does it properly will be bought out

They could be a privately owned company.

Wait, what about Lifeproof vs. Otterbox?

Or Fisher & Paykel and Haier, F&P was an iconic kiwi whiteware brand that built stuff to last decades but as soon as Haier, a Chinese outfit, bought it out they've gone to shite.

Wait is that why otter box from the s8 onwards is a piece of shit?

I feel like thats why Toyota/Honda now have such a massive presence in America now, they made vehicles that were stupidly reliable.

Yup, my '95 camry is at 240k miles and the engine light isn't even on. It runs great. The door handles have broke from use but it was a $5 replacement I could do myself.

The ACs are made to fail as a whole though. My Honda is great but I've replaced the AC at least twice now, $1200 each time.

That’s not so much made-to-fail as that new, environmentally-friendly systems in cars sometimes aren’t as efficient, or bits cost more or don’t work as well. Cooling systems in HVAC systems for cars, buildings, and refrigerators must now use a more environmentally friendly refrigerant that doesn’t cool as well or last as long. Cars now use environmentally friendly wiring insulation; side effect is that rodents think it tastes great. Automotive paint is now more environmentally friendly, but it’s not quite as tough. And so on. Just like lead-free solder in electronics isn’t quite as good over the years. The question must be asked: can we figure out ways to do both?

Yes! After leaded paint was no longer permitted, there was about a decade and a half of bad paint. It just couldn't adhere as well. That problem was slowly fixed, and some of the paint effects are even superior now; many premium paint colors are fantastic. But it's still more costly than the leaded paint was. This is legitimately an improvement, but it didn't come automatically or for free.

Thank you for the knowledge! That's really cool to know.

Same for my Camry

Do you remember to run it every couple of weeks, whether you need it or not? If you let it sit unused the tubes dry out or whatever and the lifespan drops drastically.

Modern Honda is nowhere near reliable as people think they are. They are somewhere in the middle of reliability rankings the last 5 years or so. Even some American brands are higher.

Some American brands have improved a lot though

[deleted]

It's not some huge secret. Honda is mediocre by almost any metric.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/car-brands-reliability-how-they-stack-up/

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-reliable-car-brands-according-to-jd-power-ranked-2018-2

At what mileage though?

At ~100k and 130k, 2 years apart or so

That's because you're doing something wrong. AC for these cars aren't meant to break, period.

Or he just lives somewhere hot and it runs more than normal?

What do you mean more? It's designed to run 24/7.

I did something wrong? Was I asking for it? Should I have dressed less provactively? Did I lead them on? Come on man.

How can you use a car AC wrong? You literally just set the temperature and press auto.

The only thing i can think of is not running it all year. Which just lets it get funky smelling. Should run it in winter (for defogging) and summer.

Lots of ways, one of them being not running it always.

Imo, cars are distinct from other consumer goods for a couple of reasons though. The first is price, as someone's car is usually the most expensive thing they own other than their house. The other as I see it would be resale value. Is there any other household good which is as commonly resold?

Lifetime costs arent that much different on a lot of makes and models, you just pay for quality upfront vs repair costs.

that were stupidly reliable.

Sure, if you ignore Hondas automatic transmissions made out of glass and Toyota pickups rusting in half (literally to the point of forced recall to replace the chassis) No company is perfect. People just act like Honda and Toyota are.

I doubt it. Its all about upfront cost. The first company to do this and be very bold about offering a 10/20 year warranty would also be charging way more than the average consumer could afford to pay. It would be come a niche item.

Miele in Europe has a 10 year warranty. They cost about three times as much.

[deleted]

It blows my mind that any appliance would only last 2 years. It's been about 10 years now, but my parents' fridge from when they got married was still running when they sold the house I grew up in (they left it in the house). It was about 25 years old at the time and never had any issues.

[deleted]

True, but according to that chart, a fridge from 25 years ago would be using about 850 kWh/year. The average price of electricity in the US is 13.15 cents/ kWh, so that fridge would cost $111.77 to run 24/7 for a year (based on the nationwide average). According to the EnergyStar website, the most efficient medium sized (20+ cu ft. I use that number because 25 years ago most fridges were 21-26 cu ft, so it’s the smallest comparable size) fridge/freezers on sale use 386 kWh/ year, costing $50.75/year to operate (a savings of $61/year. Larger fridges all use more power, and also cost more).

Given that those fridges start at about $600/year, but most are quite a bit more expensive, it would take 11+ years of energy savings to pay for a new fridge (one of the cheapest, most efficient models), which based on these posts sounds like more than you should expect a modern appliance (that’s for a cheap fridge with no features like a water/ice dispenser. More like 16-23 years for an average fridge or 35+ years to make up the cost on some of the more pricey models). Doesn’t sound like much (if anything) in terms of economic savings, and given the environmental impact of manufacturing and distributing a new fridge and disposing of an old one, I doubt getting a new fridge poses much environmental advantage (if any) either.

Edit: forgot to factor in the cost of running the new fridge over the years

You're actually weighing the environmental cost of producing new refrigerators as well and the environmental costs of recycling the old one assuming it can be recycled as well as the source of the energy.

This is assuming of course that you're talking about environmental impact and not just personal savings.

Neighbour across the street had a Samsung fridge, seven years old, that had a problem with the ice maker. She had to buy a new one because there were no parts, anywhere, to repair it. 150kg of scrap metal.

Yea I'm not sure how much you think washers have advanced in the last 40 years

when my parents’ Mieke washing machine broke down after 20 years, the Miele service guy said he could fix it if they wanted, but that a new one would be much more energy-efficient. (they got a new one)

Ours is from the 80's it's in the basement now because it couldn't hold enough but its survived two samsung replacements.

Just make a subscription already.

Our family had the same fridge growing up, as well as a chest freezer. They upgraded when I guess the fridge wasn't big enough anymore. We have a separate fridge and freezer that are a pair, aside from new seals there really hasn't been any major problems in the past 17 years and that's with a few house moves as well.

Energy efficiency of new fridges is through the roof though. A fridge in 1975 used about 2200 kWh/year of energy. A modern one uses less than 460 kWh/year — less than a 100w lightbulb.

Source: https://bigchill.com/blog/inspiration/blog/refrigerators-through-the-decades/

Yeah but how many people still have fridges from the 70s? The 25 year old fridge seems like a more realistic comparison, and I already did the math on that in another comment.

If you have a really old, really inefficient fridge, it probably makes more sense to replace, but otherwise it seems like you're just spending several hundred or even upwards of thousands of dollars on an appliance that probably won't last long enough to pay for itself with energy savings. Of course, there's an environmental argument to energy savings as well, but that's largely offset by the manufacturing and distribution of the new appliance and disposal of the old one.

Also, the efficiency of these newer appliance isn't an excuse for such poor reliability, which is the issue at hand.

Dude. Sorry we both did math. That’s suboptimal use of gray matter. If it makes you feel better I’m going to punish my brain with beer right after sending this.

And to planned obsolescence? Yeah - it’s a sad con game. Everyone should vote with their wallets, but the con is long and deep with consumers - and our goddam poor cursed planet - paying the cost.

I don't know what's up with the passive aggressiveness or why you're sorry, but I do feel good about your beer. Hope you enjoy it.

Have a good night!

One of my friends first apartments had a fridge from the early 1960s. That thing is probably still there and going strong ten years after she moved out.

You have to buy the 10 year guarantee. https://m.miele.de/haushalt/garantieverlaengerung-479.htm

I know this isn't the case in all of Europe, but in the Netherlands a company legally has to give warranty for as long as one can reasonably expect a device/appliance to last (with a minimum European warranty of 2 years).

Which would mean that a washing machine with only 2 years warranty generally isn't allowed here.

one can reasonably expect a device/appliance to last

A problem with planned obsolescence is that you expect a washer to last you 2-5 years at this point.

It depends on the price of the washer in question, I guess.

If you buy the cheapest washer, you could argue that you can't really expect it to last more than 5 years. But if you buy an expensive washer from e.g. Miele, it won't be hard to argue that you could have reasonably expected that washer to last 10+ years.

We have similar laws in the UK, but it is a pain to actually use those laws, and you'd have to go through small claims

Quebec (yes, this idiocratic sub-segment of Canada) has a similar law on the books. Funny that we have strong consumer rights here but lack many basic human rights.

New Zealand has a similar law under the consumer guarantees act, typically the govt department will go after companies if you make a complaint about them under the act. I'm not sure how effective it actually is on the warranty part

Funny thing is, Miele does not manufacture fridges, they sell rebranded Liebherr fridges (which tend to be the best around, although you can be unlucky) Nb For built-in equipment liebherr offers 7 years warranty (not sure if Miele does this) and there is always the European law saying you should expect a reasonable lifetime and for a fridge this is more than 2 years... that’s why they gave you a new one (and to keep a good brand name)

And my brandless fridge is going on strong after 10 years, you just can't not know these day.

Dad had a very rich client some time ago, his kitchen was pretty much 70% decked out in Miele and similar brands. Very reliable products.

Edit: apparently not anymore, quality has gone downhill.

Not so much anymore. Parents have had really bad experiences with new Miele appliances in the last 10 years or so. They always get them fixed for free, but the hassle they have to go though every time is depressing.

I have a hard time explaining to my parents that Miele is no longer the Mercedes of the washing machines.

I don't know if my folks have just had bad luck... but if so, they aren't the only ones:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/3932745/do-not-buy-miele-appliances-unreliable

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.miele.co.uk

Not anymore.... Had a full Miele kitchen in my last appointment. Microwave, fridge, dishwasher, oven etc.

Dishwasher broke down after 3 years. Thought : it is Miele! Just call an electrician! He came, saw the model, said : forget it, the heater pump thingy or so is broken. Known issue. Pointless and too expensive to repair. I said wtf? I spent a ton of money on that thing! So I asked what is reliable today?

You know what he said? Get a cheap beko and replace every few years when it breaks. Much cheaper in the long run.

I moved and got a new kitchen. Guess what I don't have anymore?and now I have only super old Miele stuff. (washing machine from Miele like 15 years old, which is now getting close to 20 years a super old Bosch fridge etc.

I didn’t know they made other products than dishwashers. I’ll have to check that out!

Wolf and sub-zero are the real high-end brands.

They cost more because the workers are generally paid a living wage. Buyiing made in China is voting for sustandard wages; ie, modern day slave labour. Its akin to voting for communism. After all, we vote with our wallets.

This already exists.

https://www.speedqueen.com/products/top-load-washers.aspx

For a washer, this is the longest lasting. They build washers for laundromats. Will last 20 years for a normal house.

I have the 2017 models... coming from LG front loaders.... it's like a fucking dream.

The LG's were absolute trash, too complicated, would take 2 hours to do a load, a ton of vibration and noise, extremely expensive to repair.

My Speed Queen wash a big ass dirty load in 30 minutes, there's like 3 or 4 options, very simple and IF they break I can easily repair them myself. They also have a 5 years warranty.

I'm on my second set of LGs. I hate them so much.

I'm sure your 3rd and 4th sets will be better.

I’ve got a speed queen washer and dryer, best damn appliances I’ve ever owned. If they made fridges I’d own one.

So you're saying we just need to buy appliances that suit our personal needs!? We don't need to strong arm our decisions onto other people!? /s

People are always willing to pay for something that lasts though. If you can prove it’s potential and get good word of mouth circulating, people will buy it. It’s like Craftsman tools, sure you pay a premium but fuck, if you own one you’ll have that same tool until the day you die and then your kids will have it.

Edit: I guess I am misinformed. I have my grandfathers craftsman tools and those fuckers are indestructible so I assumed the quality was still there.

Pretty sure Craftsman is Chinese junk now, and has been for a couple decades.

As for paying for something that lasts, yes pretty much everyone does, but in the US there's a whole lot of us that can't afford to anymore, regardless of what we would like.

they even ripped off this dudes design for a robo grip type wrench and then made it in china and under cut his price. https://www.google.com/amp/www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bionic-wrench-sears-loses-patent-lawsuit-0517-biz-20170516-story,amp.html

Glad they won.

They lost :(

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-sears-bionic-wrench-patent-lawsuit-20180724-story.html

Well shit. That sucks.

Can confirm. I was in the process of removing a stubborn screw with one of their newer screwdrivers and the bit deformed.

I'm convinced Craftsman's entire line is now useless trash.

I hate to break it to you, but Craftsman tools are no longer the real mccoy. They did away with their lifetime guarantee made in the USA stuff and now they're cheap made in China tools.

Harbor Freight makes better hand tools. They are not the best finish, but they offer a free lifetime guarantee in case they do break.

No they aren't, because generally they can't afford it. If the choice is between a five hundred dollar appliance or a two thousand dollar appliance, the initial cost of entry is going to shut a fair number of people out right there. The fact that it's much better long term value doesn't enter into their equations, because they can barely afford even the low-quality items.

It's a tricky problem, as you'd have to solve it through government action. The market can't really deal with it. But at the same time, cheap, low-quality manufacturing is part of the reason why our standards of living have improved so much over the last half-century.

Would the price need to be 4x? The improvements that could be made for 2x would be substantial. We should be able to engineer the and longevity as 40 years at a greatly reduced price thanks to better manufacturing and computer simulations. The same engineering that gives us planned obselence should be about to give us something that reliably lasts 10 or 20 years at the minimum cost possible

It’s not just engineering something it’s also making enough of them to get scale. At the end of the day many people complain about longevity and planned obsolescence but when their money was on the line they went with the cheap shit. There’s no reason to believe it’s different now.

I researched my appliance purchases extensively and what I came up with was all brands were equally unreliable, even the models that were 5-10x the price don't show a significant difference in reliability, I went with the cheapest based on the assumption that it will last just as long and cost be less. I would happily have paid double for something that would last 10 years. (I have a blendtec blender and a bosch stand mixer based on research that showed that they are significantly better engineered than other options)

I think Craftsman tools aren't as good as they used to be, they cheaped out and hoped people would still buy them for their old reputation. Family in construction and car repair have said they basically buy their tools over again every couple of years as nothing lasts anymore.

You have to find the current best in class supplier.

Once upon a time craftsman was good, American made is still a reputation of quality but it will cost more than its probably worth. The best of anything is never cheap.

I'm mostly buying German tools now, knipex and wera in particular.

No love for Snap-On?

As opposed to?

I'm sorry, but this is the stupidest gimmick account I've ever seen. Like 1/20 of the posts you reply to make sense to have the question asked, "As opposed to?"

Are you a bot? I can't even tell. Bad bot

I'm of financial resources now where I'm really glad that I can do this to the extent that I can; its cheaper to have more money (often even over a few weeks/paychecks)

That's true in pretty much all areas of life.

Wealthy people can invest money to make more money with their money. Poor people that live paycheque to paycheque cannot.

Wealthy people can afford a deep freeze and a house with enough room for one and buy for in bulk saving money. Many poor people cannot.

etc, etc

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand how expensive it is to be poor. For instance, I got a "free" car with 250k miles on it. Sure it was free, but I've had to repair it 5 times since getting it. I'm learning a lot about repairing cars. I don't currently have the funds to switch cars so I'll just keep limping it along. I'm getting a divorce so it isn't a great time to take out a loan or anything. Getting a divorce should make my financial situation a lot better real soon, I hope.

If people were willing to pay for durability, companies would offer it.

If only that were still true about craftsman.

Not sure if Craftsman is actually "Chinese Junk" now, but your point definitely applies to Cornwell, Matco, and Snap-On

No, they're literally not. People with money are willing to pay more, but all people are not willing to pay more for something that lasts. That's why companies began designing lower quality products in the first place--cost

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Terry Pratchet

I just can't say it any better. Quality costs money that most people just don't have.

Depends on how much. I'm not paying 10k for a fridge I don't care how long it lasts. What if I move?

There are a few companies that are popular for having long lasting items. The companies that come to my mind are vorwerk, Miele, wmf, le creuset....

I know were talking about appliances but Toyota is a prime example. Many cars have planned obsolescence but Toyotas last forever and are cheap. I dont understand that guys argument that it would be more expensive

I’ll drive anything made by Honda as well

I was looking at a v6 accord recently actually. Great cars as well.

I wouldn't say Toyota's are "cheap" or inexpensive anymore...

[deleted]

In Canada the Yaris is just a rebadged Mazda 2.

I'd gladly pay a bit more up front but know that no matter what the company will stand by the product for 10-20 years. Having an appliance break after 5-7 years and making the decision about trying to repair it for X money, or replace it for 2X money, is agonizing.

On most products especially electronics that is bs. Its all about preventing heat. Thats most times only an investment of less than 1 dollar per product.

Maytag has a line of appliances with a 10 year warranty. They're not the super-fancy, all-digital, every feature under the sun, but they work great.

Have you ever seen anyone with a stand mixer that's not a KitchenAid? Those things are, and always have been tanks; and yeah, of course they're expensive. It's just so well known for it's quality that it has a virtual monopoly.

Kia became a real car company by selling good, cheap, reliable cars with a 100,000 mile warranty. Even the service intervals weren't that expensive which did need to be done in order to keep the warranty. If you make a good product that won't break you can slap whatever warranty you want on it.

The company could basically be designed to be self destructive. "Our product is expensive because we are giving you spare parts as well. Enough that you should be set for 20 years of operations. We expect in under ten that we'll be bought out or otherwise closed down."

Well now the jobs of the people who make appliances would be fewer because you need less

You would also (likely) need small appliance repair men, the appliances would need to be worth enough that they're worth getting repaired

That's just the start

We already have appliance repairmen. However, I think something people don't take into account is energy efficiency and product improvements.

I recently replaced a 25 year old washer and dryer unit in my rental property with a brand new one. The old one had a pump that crapped out after 25 years. Replacing it would've cost $40 for the part and probably $100 for labor. I opted to replace it entirely with a new unit because the 25 year old washer and dryer was loud, inefficient, and had a really small capacity. My new one uses less water, less electricity and less detergent. It completes the cycle faster and cleaner and quieter. Takes up less space too!

This is why I think probably any appliance designed to last more than 10-15 years would be pretty worthless really because of the massive improvements that would happen in that time.

I didn't even think about the angle of what improvements can be made in the span of something that lasts over 10 years

Such a massive amount of angles to think about, that's why I was saying it would be a good read if someone managed to scope it out

You don't need near as much detergent as you are using to get clothes clean. On your next load try using half as much as usual and see if you can tell the difference.

how can you discern that from their post?

I’m assuming they are filling some receptical on the machine all the way up and noticed it changed size when he upgraded the machine. That or he got a high efficiency machine that uses different detergent. Either way he’s probably using more than he needs if he isn’t just using pods.

lol just shut up

I get that a lot...

My new one uses less water, less electricity and less detergent. It completes the cycle faster and cleaner and quieter.

That may well be but so far my experience has been that at the same time the clothes seem to not be quite as clean. Tradeoffs.

Yes. Many washers now for energy efficiency reasons won't do a hot wash and rinse even though if you are washing something like baby diapers that's what you want-- hot water wash to sanitize, and hot rinse because it more effectively rinses out the detergent which otherwise could irritate the baby's skin.

The jobs equation would likely result in a net positive for the EU, as repair people would have to be locally sourced labor. Whereas the labor for appliance manufacturing is almost always in China or some other East Asian country. Also, if people plan to keep their appliances, they will likely have to hire local movers or rent larger moving trucks when they move, both of which are net positives for the local economy.

You are right about the repair costs though, people would have to be willing to spend more upfront for higher quality appliances in order to justify repair costs down the road. Our consumer culture at the moment doesn't reflect that reality.

small appliance repair men

'Member the Maytag Man? I 'member.

So essentially, our whole economic system cannot handle a sustainable business model. Unlimited growth with finite resources may work short term, but will not work long term. But fuck it, as long as the next quarter is good, fuck the people, the planet, the animals, the flora.

And how would we know they did that? Trust them when they say they have? Wait ten years to find out which machines work still?

Lmao I don't know man I was just musing.

Not strictly true.

Look at washing machines.

Speed queen, do not use planned obseleance. Their washers last for decades and come with ~10 year warranties.

However, what do most consumers buy? Samsung, LG, whirlpool.. the cheap ones that will break in a couple of years.

Ask any one in the washing machine business who'd they buy, it's speed queen. Ask average Joe, and he's probably never even heard of them..

It comes down to this, your average Joe will rather buy a $400 washing machine with all these cool LEDs and wifi and stupid shit that breaks, rather than a $900 washing machine that's mechanical and just has a couple of dials and will last decades.

Hmm our last washing machine being a hot point lasted about 10 years. It was maybe ÂŁ400

Our current one is a Samsung ecobubble. I think that was ÂŁ400

Assuming it lasts the same amount of time, it is cheaper to not bother with speed queen

My current speed queen is 35 years old.

You're talking about replacing a 400 GBP washing machine every 10 years (if you're super lucky) against a 900 dollar (600 GBP) washing machine, every.. 40+ Years.

You're going to be very lucky if a modern GE, Samsung, Whirpool lasts you even 10 years with no maintenance or repairs. Very lucky

[deleted]

Your conversion varies depending on how shit the pound is at this time.

Also you are assuming a modern wahsing machine lasts 10 years, which it doesnt.

Go buy a GE or a Samsung for $400-500 and just pray, because that is not going to last you 10 years without breaking.

On their website it says they last 25 years. They also cost ÂŁ1500 here in the UK.

It's therefore reasonable to think they'd last the amount they say and that's not even considering energy costs. Our new TV costs ÂŁ100 less to run every year. Our drier costs ÂŁ60 less to run every year

Do you understand economics? If you did you'd know that things are priced differently in different markets, and people will buy other products because over time energy efficiency tends to improve. A product from 35 years ago may well cost more than a decent appliance, in just running costs over three years, giving you huge incentive to replace it.

Your machine has ran for 35 years, and with UK prices that's ÂŁ42/year. Similarly the other washing machines are costing us just ÂŁ40/year and there'll be efficiency gains too

On their website it says they last 25 years.

On their website it says they are tested to last 25 years. They last longer.

They also cost ÂŁ1500 here in the UK.

That's because in the UK you have 20% sales tax and import duties. These machines are designed and manufactured in the USA. Cost me $900.

It's therefore reasonable to think they'd last the amount they say and that's not even considering energy costs. Our new TV costs ÂŁ100 less to run every year. Our drier costs ÂŁ60 less to run every year

Energy costs? They run at the same amount of energy as any other washing machine. Also, energy costs for a TV vs a washing machine doesn't not translate... You may watch 80 hours of TV a week, or even leave it on. A washing machine is used maybe 2 hours a week?

Do you understand economics? If you did you'd know that things are priced differently in different markets, and people will buy other products because over time energy efficiency tends to improve. A product from 35 years ago may well cost more than a decent appliance, in just running costs over three years, giving you huge incentive to replace it.

Again, see above comment on energy. My 35 year old speed queen costs maybe $10 a more permanent year to run that a HE machine.

Your machine has ran for 35 years, and with UK prices that's ÂŁ42/year. Similarly the other washing machines are costing us just ÂŁ40/year and there'll be efficiency gains too

How has a $900 washing machine cost me 42 pounds per year? That makes no sense. It's cost me $25 per year, so about 18 pounds depending on how bad the pound is due to Brexit right now.

.but hey buddy I guess I'm not going to convince you. There's a reason that speed queens are used by big business, and laundromats, it's reliability... I'd rather spend my money on a machine that's going to last and has resale value rather than a crappy washing machine that has a PCB and wifi that's going to break.

As I said before you're going to be VERY lucky to have a consumer Whirlpool, GE, Samung washer last 10 years without breaking. vERY lucky.

I doubt it. It'd be more expensive. People want cheap ass appliances. This is how they make them so cheap. Its just as much a response to consumer demand as it is shareholder profit. Also, 40 year old appliances are wildly inefficient.

I'm ok with stuff not lasting forever, as long as it's not designed in such a way to make repair needlessly difficult. That's a much bigger problem, IMO.

There is no way that making appliances that last 10x as long won't come with a price increase and/or a reduction in features. So while some people may go for it, the masses won't. That's why FCA is still in business.

Why don't they sell mods and add-ons instead?

There are companies in certain sectors that still offer amazing quality to price. I'm thinking of clothing specifically. A quick google search of clothing/apparel companies that offer lifetime warranties is evidence of this. I only really wear Orvis pants from EBay for this reason. But yes, tech and wireless should strive for quality/value over quarterly sales as well. If the technology updates quickly enough, the consumer will want to purchase the newest product anyway.

an only speak for myself but I would happily pay a hell of a lot more if it meant the product was built properly.

The entire supply chain of middle men, all the way down to Home Depot (or wherever), is vested in this not happening. Why would they ever stock such a product?

Hence why an economy built on constant growth and profit is antithetical to ecological sustainability.

Maybe we should just hang anyone that's a shareholder in any company, would probably make the world a better place.

It's almost like it's broken by design, the whole system is planned obsolescence

Lower sales and higher cost parts. No way the stock market would allow it.

Maybe. Would people be willing to pay the higher price for something that will last? Currently in some markets there are good quality long lasting products still, but people flock to the crap that lasts 6 years because it costs less and has unnecessary bells and whistle features that everyone seems to crave. The option that will last 30 years vs 10 might cost twice as much and doesn't have leds or a touch screen, so people stay away.

Please bring back traditional tied spring mattresses instead of the foam boxes they just throw a bunch of polyester wrapped springs into that deform in 1-2 years.

How about raising the price? If an appliance is made of high-quality and long-lasting materials and is designed to last at least ten years, wouldn't this merit an accompanying high price?

Which is why it's hard to believe that the market really wants a dryer that lasts 40 years. Because someone could make it and clean house. I wonder if the functionality and price would just be unpalatable.

I think a lot of people in IT put hope to services connected to the devices around us. I heard that very few tv-manufacturers update their tv-sets firmware. Not long ago the tv's didnt die before 20 years, now with the software inside they go obsolete after say 3 years at best.

I would gladly pay for extra software-features and updates and keep the device for longer.

It's not just shareholders. If we were to magically move to a world where an iPhone works well and even updates up to par with new models for decades, a lot of people will probably lose jobs from the scale proportionately set by today's market and standards. People don't talk about this a lot but once you take any classes past Intro to business this is talked about in passing note for several semesters until more advanced accounting class.

I mean this is what we want but if every tech company did This, They would report much weaker numbers and in return would also affect total GDP. I hate planned obsolence too but I mention this because people mentioned whirlpool laundry machine that lasted longer than few decades. How many of those companies are still going strong today?

And conservatives would have you think that a free market inspires competition, when in reality, big companies who monopolize the market can simply buy out any competition.

They're so afraid of government regulations but have no problem letting these companies have all the power.

Even successful companies can be "too" successful. Take Gopro for example. They make great sturdy cameras that last for many years. But it also means people who buy/use Gopros(a niche market) don't need to replace them often. That lowers the sales and causes financial problems years down the line.

then it would become about quality and productivity rather than resale.

What would happen if appliances started lasting for 40 years? Hell even 20 or 10

What appliances don’t last 10 years? My whole kitchen is older than that.

Mostly smaller shit. You can generally, not always, expect your fridge, oven, and dishwasher to work for a long time, but coffee makers, microwaves, toasters, blenders, they tend to come and go.

Yeah, when I was a kid we had a blender that could blend concrete probably and the thing still works.

Meanwhile I went through 3 blenders after I started living alone. One had it's motor die on a banana smoothie lol

Seriously, we went through 2-3 blenders before we found a good one that could actually handle ice. they do make badass $300+ commercial blenders that are amazing, but that's a bit ridiculous if all you want is to make smoothies.

We got a commercial grade beehive blender at Sam's club for $60, it's a real workhorse.

That's survival bias though too, isn't it?

Sure, the old cheap stuff sometimes lasted longer, but I remember the 10% that lasted and forget the 90% that didn't.

Like I used to buy cheap clothes and shoes that didn't last as long as some of my older clothes. Then I actually put the research and money into buying decent stuff and it lasts way better.

With a lot of things, you get what you pay for. If I buy a shirt for a few euro, I don't expect much. People tend to want things to be cheaper, then complain when they're not as good as the other things that were often way more expensive.

Sure, there are things like Apple products that are expensive AND don't last, but if you do a bit of research you'll usually find that there's a decent albeit more expensive option.

I mean, maybe I was just extremely lucky but the stuff at my grandma's place has been going for +30 years, and I mean all of it.

Stove, fridge, blender, etc.

And it's not some expensive industry level stuff, it's just some cheap items.

Meanwhile I go through smaller items like candy.

Don't breathe this.

If you invest in good quality appliances they will last for a long time. Take moccamaster, they come with a five year warranty, and I know plenty of people with 10+ year old moccamasters that still work perfectly.

Yeah it's a drip coffee brewer that can cost over 300$, but that shit is built to last. Most people though, they buy a cheap plastic POS for 20$ that will break in a year or two.

This holds true for a lot of small appliances. People are much more willing to buy a dozen cheap appliances than to invest in one high quality and long lasting device.

So I could buy a coffeemaker for $300 today, expecting it to last 15 years; or I could buy a $20 coffeemaker today, expecting it to last a year. Either way I'm spending $20/year for a coffeemaker (barring something unusual like hyperinflation). But, as coffeemakers improve, I will continually get a fancier/more durable coffeemaker every year if I choose a $20 coffeemaker today. And I don't have to pack it if I decide to move.

All in all, most people, as sad as it is, will opt for the cheaper coffeemaker. Even if they're sure that its a cheap POS that is substandard in every way. Welcome to consumerism.

Yeah I know, and I totally agree. However when I see people saying and complaining that modern stuff doesn't last as long as some shit from 70's, they're ignoring the fact that shit is also cheaper.

You can get long lasting appliances, clothing, shoes, anything, if you're willing to invest enough money into it. But talking how expensive stuff from the past outlasts the cheap shit you can get now, is just silly

All in all, most people, as sad as it is, will opt for the cheaper coffeemaker. Even if they're sure that its a cheap POS that is substandard in every way. Welcome to consumerism.

That has nothing to do with consumerism imo. And how is it sad? I mean you have to draw the line somewhere, people cant just buy the best most durable version of every product they own...

Consumerism is buying a new phone every year even though your current one works perfectly fine.

It might depend on your definition. Miriam Webster, in it's first definition in the link below, describes consumerism as "the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; also : a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of consumer goods". Therefore, one could use the word consumerism to describe the condition of people buying cheap goods that will inevitably lead to greater consumption.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consumerism

You're right in that we can't expect people to opt for the most durable version of every product they own. The reason we can't expect that is because our modern understanding of economics leads us to believe that increased consumption leads to greater economic output, ie. higher GDP. To increase consumption, we don't factor in the societal expense of increased pollution and other external costs of increased consumption. Pigouvian taxes could change this, as well as the regulations that the EU is considering imposing after finding a definition of planned obsolescence.

$20 coffee maker last for one year, 300$ coffee maker last for 10 years. 15 $20 coffee makers thag last one year each for a cost of $300. 15 years ...

A 300$ machine can last you for over 30 years.

Current Moccamasters are built pretty much the same as they were 30 years ago. Those machines will last for a lifetime.

However the thought process you described is why we have these cheap appliances that break quickly. It's much easier to spend 20$a year on something, than it is to spend 200$ on something once.

On average even these cheap garbage appliances last significantly longer than 1 year for most people who buy them. It's not like they are ticking time bombs that self destruct immediately at the end of the warranty period. My $15 coffee pot has served my wife well enough for 2 years. If it broke tomorrow I'd be looking at a 40 year break even point compared to a $300 machine, assuming that it would also manage to work that long without any maintenance or repair. Then you have to factor in opportunity costs. Sometimes cheap stuff is good enough, no matter how much people like to pretend they want things that last forever what they demonstrable tend to want is a balance of convenience, cheap enough, and good enough.

How does a drip coffee maker even break? Most don't have any moving parts besides "on" and "off".

I got my current plastic pos for something like $40 and its still doing fine 5 years later

That's not entirely fair though, how many people can actually afford to drop $300 on their coffee maker?

It's expensive to be poor. And we haven't really realised it yet, but as far as our modern first world society is concerned, if you're middle class or lower, you're poor.

I feel like the term middle class was made to convince people they aren't as poor as they are.

Middle class should be: you can buy a house wherever you are (not a fixer upper but not the nicest one), own a new car, not stress about paying bills and also be able to save and go on vacations.

Instead, it seems like you're considered middle class if you and a roommate or two can barely afford a cheap apartment and own a ten year old Honda Civic.

I'm not saying anyone should drop 300$ on a coffee maker, my point is that if you want your appliances to actually last for a long time, you have to invest in quality.

You can't expect a 20$ device to last you for 10 years, that's just not realistic at all.

Maybe if you’re buying cheap microwaves, toasters, can openers, and blenders then yeah, they'll fall apart soon. Buy quality and they last.

My current can opener, for example, is the kind that detaches the lid of the can rather than cutting it open. No sharp edges. It’s around seven years old now and still works perfectly. It was more expensive than the cheapie Walmart brand, but it was more than worth it.

Depends. Do you buy low cost or very high-end stuff?

I don't think I've ever had to replace any of those things (because they broke)... But my oldest appliance is probably around 5 years now, so there's still time.

I've got a toastmaster toaster that's going on 60 I cleaned up a couple years ago. I've restored and use electric fans that are 80 and I fixed up milkshake machine my parents use that's probably around 70. If you don't abuse your appliances and they are designed well they can last a long time.

I'm still using a Black & Decker toaster I bought at Farm & Fleet in the late 1980's. I inherited my blender from my grandmother, she bought it in the early 1970s'.

Moved into current house 15 years ago - fridge, electric oven, gas hob, dishwasher are all from the previous owners (no idea how old before that). Replaced washing about 10 years ago and is fine since then

You don’t vacuum do you? If I could find one vacuum cleaner that would last more than 2 years...

Look up the vacuum guy AMA. Or just buy a miele canister vac because that's what he says.

When I moved out I was stunned that my mom was able to gift me a working vacuum cleaner that I remember from my childhood. Hell I think she's owned it since before I was born making it a 25+ year old functioning vacuum cleaner.

Kirby vacuum owner. Fucker lasts forever. I bought it 9 years ago and it still works as well as the day I bought it,

Get a Kirby. Parts are easily replaceable, and they're built like tanks. I got a used one on eBay a few years ago for about $500 bucks, if I had stuck to the typical crap I would have already had to buy 2 or 3 vacuums at $200+ each. Probably never have to buy a new one again.

Riccar vacuums, pricey, but it can handle messes (and my laziness of not wanting to pick up every piece of lizard/snake bedding), long hair, and salt from winter roads. I'll never get a bag-less vacuum again.

The wife and I purchased a Miele awhile back. It's actually amazing and I highly recommend it to everyone who vacuums regularly.

We've bought used Dysons pretty cheaply, and they've lasted more than five years, after we've bought them second hand

I’ve got a 15 year old Dyson uptight that I just now had to replace a hose for like $15. I’ve read that quality has declined but I’m happy to have gotten so much use out of something I paid a butt load for

Lucky that you haven't had to replace anything in the past 10 years. It's ALL garbage now. EVERYTHING has bloody circuit boards in them now, all sharing the same cheap crap parts with the one common guarantee that something on it WILL fail sooner rather than later.

And it'll usually cost you a good 1/3 or so of the cost of the entire product to replace any faulty circuitry.

You can't even tell anymore if the mechanical portions of appliances are built well because the damned machine won't last long enough to find out anyways.

Someone that went from solid used appliances that never failed to all new appliances in my first house ~15 years ago. Every single one of which has been replaced at least once, most twice, some three times since then.

The only appliance I have I'm happy with is my stove. Gas, zero electronics, could probably expect to be able to pass it down to my grand kids some day.

My small kitchen appliances are mostly Kitchen Aid and they've been going strong. Got a blender I bought 14 years ago that still works great.

A majority of appliances are lucky to last 2 years. Seriously. Maybe 5 if you buy the higher end version of those products. I sell'em. I know all the issues.

There is a reason sears pushes so hard to get you to buy their Protection Agreement. It's expensive, yeah, but it's 30% the cost of the product, a lot cheaper than in 3 years when your fridge/washer/whatever shits the bed and now you're out over 50% the cost of the product. It's comprehensive, and totally free service, parts, and labor.

When people don't want to pay $700 for a 5-year warranty on their $2200 fridge, I get ya. That's almost an extra grand. In 4 years when something goes out you're gonna be real fuckin' salty that you don't have the warranty and "sears won't stand behind it's product." Yeah we won't. We fucking told you it was build like shit when we explained the 1-year warranty. Nothing has a lifetime guarantee. Everything is built to break in as short a time as possible, and force you to replace it.

Home depot and Lowe's have cheap warranties, that don't fucking cover anything. It's why they're cheap. Even top end Samsung and Kitchenaid appliances don't last. And with high-end brands like that, good fucking luck getting them repaired at all without the extended warranty.

Are you saying this is a recent phenomenon? That it’s only appliances sold in the last few years that go bad in 2 years?

Most modern appliances seem to last 5 years on average from the statistics I've been able to find. There's always someone who will have theirs last 20 years, many people will only get 2

Now that I need (ok, want) a new washer and dryer after almost 15 years, everyone is scaring me that new machines only last 6-8 years these days.

Appliances are made to break every 2-4 years.

I’ve had the same coffee maker since my first year of college 11 years ago. I got a nice vitamix over 5 years ago. My microwave is the built in from when my house was built in 2008. If you buy the cheapest shit it may break in short order but quality stuff still lasts.

I’m calling BS. In my life I’ve never seen a fridge “break”, unless it was some old clunker I bought used for $50. Same for an oven… it’s such a simple machine there’s really nothing to break. Microwave… same thing. Maybe a bulb burns out, but I wouldn’t count that as the microwave breaking. Water heaters last for the life of the house, it seems. I’ve never seen a television break either, unless it was dropped or something. Even toasters seem to last forever… I get bored and buy a new one every 4-5 years, but my old ones still work.

Name one appliance that regularly breaks every 2-4 years.

EDIT: Ok, I just thought or can-openers. Crappy ones do tend to break down after a few years… but if you buy a good one they last forever, too.

Water heaters last 10-15 years, which is really fun if it’s mounted in the attic.

My current water heater is 40 years old. The one in the house I grew up in was the same age when the place was torn down. I’ve never seen a water heater go bad in my life, and I’m 50.

Good lord I wish I had your luck. I’ve had to replace 2. One was 12 years old the other was around 20.

My mother's fridge and dishwasher. Not breaking completely but after the 30 or 40 year old ones my parents house came with when they bought it died, she's had one problem after another with them. In the 5 years she's had the new ones I know both have needed serviced several times.

I also recall back when I was in highschool she got a new HE washer and dryer to replace the ~30 year old ones that were starting to go, not even sure if those lasted 2 years before she needed a new ones and the replacement she got now sounds like it's gonna break any minute and it's less than 10 years old.

Just as a disclaimer: I can't recall the brands they were..washer and dryer I think we're whirlpool but not positive. Nor can I speak of what "tier" they were. Just that they were gotten new, were well-known brands, and didn't really last.

Most likely if this seems bizarre to you, you either have older stuff that wasn't built with planned obsolescence or you had the financial freedom to get higher end models. (I would bet the ones my mom got as replacements had to be mid to lower end models just judging by everything else going on around those times.)

Most likely if this seems bizarre to you, you either have older stuff that wasn't built with planned obsolescence or you had the financial freedom to get higher end models.

We remodeled our entire kitchen around 13 years ago, and we didn’t buy anything particularly “high end”, but we didn’t bargain-shop for the cheapest pieces of crap we could find, either.

Break, as in needing repair. Generally the electronic components / control boards. I’m a realtor, can’t even describe how shocked people are when the ice machine, dryer control unit, and AC all break in the second year. That’s on high end appliances.

In all my years I’ve never had to replace electronics or control boards in any of my appliances. I’m 50, btw, and I renovated my kitchen 13 years ago. I think you guys are vastly over-stating the planned obsolescence problem.

If your items are older, they may not be victim to the electronics that allow for planned obsolescence.

My parents, grandparents, and brother all have new homes in the same neighborhood. New construction, high end. In the 3-4 years since these 3 homes were built the following have broken and required repair: 2 garage door openers 1 sink disposal 2 ice makers 1 dryer control panel 2 AC units

The electronic control boards are made to last about 2 years according to the repair guys for ice machines, washer, dryer, garage door.

I’m a realtor and always recommend a home warranty.

Shit, I didn't realise my entire kitchen was broken - and several times over at this point for some of those things.

The thing is as technology advances, things get more efficient. People will post pictures of old refrigerators that have been working for 50 years. They fail to realize that that fridge uses a ton more electricity than a modern fridge. So it would actually be cheaper to buy a new fridge.

They use more elextricy but not a ton more. My 2 year old Kenmore costs about $13 a month in electricity which is less than the $18 a month my 50 year old Westinghouse costs. We aren't breaking the bank running the old one instead of replacing it with a modern unit.

[deleted]

The Westinghouse is smaller, but not a lot. I installed some usage monitors on both fridges after having an argument with the wife on if we should keep using it or not.

[deleted]

Been on for multiple months, getting pretty consistent monthly results. In MN, but my understanding is electricity is pretty cheap locally.

All else being equal the old fridge uses 40% more electricity. Now scale it up for millions of homes and that’s significant.

All else being equal the old fridge uses 40% more electricity.

source?

18/13=1.38 about 38% more energy

Simple math.

it is not cheaper.

The only thing that use electricity in fridge are the compressor and the lamp. Shut your bullshit.

Next thing you'll say is that there's no difference between a F250 and Honda Accord because they both use fuel and have wheels.

[deleted]

You also need to consider the energy it takes to produce the devices.

And the energy it takes to handle and recycle all the extra waste.

Which right now is one of the hidden costs that is not payed by the producer in most cases. Very often not even by the consumer

I think if planned obsolescence is outlawed, there will be more buyback programs where they give you a discount on a new appliance in exchange for the old working one. Plenty of people get new cars every five years even when the cars will be economically viable for 15-20. Some people just like new stuff

Or not at all 😑

not yet

You could also call it the gift that keeps on giving, or a loan with very high interest

It's paid by everyone, just isn't a line item.

But it is not calculated as costs of the product by the producers, it is capitalism's dirty little secret that in many cases is a gift that keeps on giving

And energy used earning the money for replacements.

[deleted]

That would require modular designs and companies hate modular designs in consumer goods because it opens the door to 3rd parties. This is why we can't have nice things.

[deleted]

Sure, but they're not cheap. I actually am a software engineer at a CNC controller manufacturer, and the hobbyist control board itself is ~300 dollars and that's before motors, servos, probes if you want to do anything precise, etc.

And then you have to consider that the primary consumer of CNC equipment isn't hobbyists but an army of aging machinest who still want it to be the DOS days. It's a messy situation without any really clean answers.

[deleted]

Hey man, I'm on board but you have to keep in mind that the startup cost if you want a legit mill is going to run somewhere around $50k at least for all the equipment, and then you have to consider the cost of materials. How many people are going to spend hundreds on steel ingots? Sure, you can mill plastic pretty cheap but...there's really not much you can make out of carved plastic that's super useful. Not useful enough to justify the startup and maintenance cost. If people break the mill, it can run another few tens of thousands easy.

And even if you set those up, you still don't have anything to make PCB's which means literally no computer parts. It still costs millions to tape out a photomask and get a foundry rolling on production.

I'd love for it to be a thing, but it's just a huge investment for no gain because, let's be real, almost no one would use it. 3D printers sure, but how many people do you really think are going to learn G-Code to the point of using the mill without destroying something.

100%. There was a Danish study that found that each of the reusable plastic shopping bags, their impact was the same as 1,000 plastic bags.

I’d wager a guess that the improved “energy efficiency” could go fuck itself when compared to the non efficiency of buying the model more often (shoes that last 10 yrs vs new pair ever year). Plus the toll on the environment of garbage plus the tine picking out the new products, time that’s so scarce and “expensive”.

What do you think wastes more energy overall, a machine that works for 40 years or having to build new ones every 2 years?

Genuinely curious.

Depends on how much efficiency improves. In the past 40 years, I'd certainly bet on the single machine.

If we give the alternative a 20 year lifespan though, the two machines might be better.

What if you could replace certain parts without having to worry about patents

It really depends.

Thanks to recycling and reprocessing, the real cost for some materials is approaching "almost energy free", especially in plastics. You make what you're going to make, from petroleum, use it, recycle it, use the recycled stock, then when all that is over burn it for power and you're only slightly down from what you'd have gotten just burning it for power in the first place.

Metals take a bit more effort because reprocessing is harder, but it's still quite energy cheap, especially if you're starting with recycled materials.

At some point you end up punishing companies for their lack of clairvoyance...

Refrigerators now have wifi. So if a company is making refrigerators now, would they need to make them able to have wifi installed? A blank panel in case a tablet needs installed in the door? What if that's just a fad and it dies off? What if refrigerators start using a new refrigerant? Do they need to make the refrigerator cross compatible with many kinds of refrigerant or can they design it to be only compatible with the refrigerant they are currently using and purchasing in bulk? What are the penalties?

I know this is a slippery slope argument and I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea - planned obsolescence is one thing, but making not 'future proofing' a product illegal seems really... unenforceable.

Edit: people are missing the point. I don't think refrigerators need wifi either. Just use an Ethernet cable, duh.

Most of the planned obsolescence is inserting computers where they don't need to be and then not supporting them long term or making them easy to fix. I don't need a tablet in my refrigerator. I need it to keep my food cold, that's all.

When I see wifi advertised on a refrigerator it makes me roll my eyes to the point that I don’t want it. I want my food to stay cold, a light and some shelves would be nice too.

Some consumers actually like it as a feature.

Then the company who sells it should price it appropriately to update it and keep it running.

Why would they need to update it if it still functions? Unless your fridge requires the company to run a service for the wifi to function they really shouldn't have to do anything. Fixing a bug within warranty period I can see. Updating and adding features, I can't.

Requiring companies to update a product until the end of time is kind of silly. Technological advancement in a pumps? They now have to update every washing machine they've cover made. New screen technology released? Every TV in the past 50 years needs to be retrofitted with the new technology. This even works for cell phones. Requiring companies to do this is very silly. If they choose to create programs like this that's up to them.

People have been whining about planned obsolescence for longer than fridges had WiFi.

Refrigerators don't fucking need wifi and I won't buy a "smart fridge"

[deleted]

I don't want everything in my device connected to the internet and spying on me, and I'm a CompSci major

[deleted]

I meant to say everything in my house

In order to know when each batch of milk will expire, won't the fridge have to request information from a central server? Now that server has a vague idea of what product brands you buy and how often. Maybe also information about what time of day you typically place new groceries in the fridge, and/or what day of the week.

There would definitely be privacy-conscious ways to implement that sort of feature, but it takes extra work and explicitly gets rid of analytics (which, seeing how much current companies seem to go out of their way to hoard, would be a really tough sell to management), so it would take government regulation to protect privacy in those instances. And then intelligence agencies will ask for a private meeting from anyone who tries to propose such regulation, because that fridge is actually announcing both the number of occupants and their cultural backgrounds in a roundabout way, which might possibly help identify spies and groups of people with foreign connections that are having secret meetings (and other channels suggest they are actually trying to keep the meetings secret, so there's something actively interesting). Except it's not the "might possibly" that means "actually does, but you don't have clearance and/or need to know", but the one that means "we pursue many leads based on 'that sounds like a plausible idea' on the off chance that they actually work out and nobody could come up with a reason this one likely wouldn't".

[deleted]

How expensive is it to encode additional data into the RFID? Would that require custom batches to be manufactured for every change in expiry date? Wouldn't that mean that any excess chips left over at the end of each day go entirely to waste?

Alternatively, how much added cost would come from making them factory-programmable? How much to design the machine that programs each chip as it passes?

I don't know the details on how RFID works, but if it adds any cost or production line complexity to customize each unit beyond product ID, will the manufacturers include that data on the off chance an unrelated company can make it profitable?

I think most people wouldn't consider a fablet a requirement for a fridge. As long as you can replace the door and the cooling unit I think they're probably safe.

A refrigerator has absolutely zero need of wifi, touch panels, docking stations whatever. You're screwing yourself for thinking this is reasonable in any way and buying the damned thing.

I do however agree with your overall point on the problems with expecting total futureproofing of products.

Energy efficiency upgrades have diminishing returns. If you go from 65% efficient to 95% efficient then that is a huge gain. Once you are already in the 90s then it doesn't make a big difference going from 95 to 98%. Any gains after that point means you need to change the fundamental mechanism that causing something like a clothes dryer to work because there isn't a lot of value left to be found in cost/energy savings on the old model.

Even if energy efficiency was a concern, with long lasting products you're still free to dispose of old equipment and buy new. With planned obsolescence you're forced to do it.

You're mixing up terms now... regarding technology, energy efficiency isn't improved by planned obsolescence in any way... if you're thinking about batteries, you can design parts to not function and go bad early, so it might drain the battery slower, but then it's because the product is still becoming worse, and people need to swap it, despite the fact that sure, it uses less power now!

Instead, just make replacing batteries easy....

But for example the case about apple, where they said they reduced performance intentionally to make the battery last longer, it ended up using more power compared to the performance, it was really just apple with some shitty excuse that doesn't mean anything.

The only positive aspect of planned obsolescence is profit for the companies.

I kind of don’t understand how prolonging the useful life of appliances or, for that matter, anything is a step backwards, or how is it bad, but let me try to give an answer. First of all, prices will probably go up, as companies will have to recoup the lost revenue from future sales, although the final consumer will eventually be paying higher for a higher quality. This will be especially visible in the printer market, where companies bank on you buying a new printer every few years at zero profit for them and get the real money from ink sales.

In spite of higher prices, I think that appliances will become more affordable: competition may lower the repair costs and prolonged warranties may lead to less repairs needed.

One field where we’ll see a great change is e-garbage. If appliances last longer, people will be buying fewer products and fewer garbage will be generated. The increase in repairability will also mean that we’ll be able to dispose of the faulty piece instead of the whole machine. This, again, will change many businesses who bank on the consumer buying a new machine every time the old one breaks, because repairs are more expensive than a new product.

Of course, many companies will try to argue safety concerns to keep repairs at a minimum, but the longer warranty periods and lower repair costs may also lead to increased security, as not as many people will have to use faulty products because they can’t afford repairs.

This regulation may in turn generate a lot more gimmicks in consumer products to get the clients to buy a new one even when their old product works perfectly. The second hand market will grow greatly, with more durable products sold for higher prices.

This regulation, however, may be hard to enforce, as more products than ever are sold over the internet from companies overseas, so if you buy a product from a company in China it may follow lower quality and warranty standards than one sold through an European retailer.

They're saying it's a step backwards because back in time, products were made with great quality and designed to last. Nowadays, that's not the case, and companies would rather not revert to those ways because it means less money.

Not to discredit you or any of your response. That's just an explanation on what they mean by "step backwards."

They also cost considerably more. Which is why we are where we are.

One problem is a number of manufacturers who used to build with this kind of design life, went out of business. Once the long.lasting products reach a certain point of market saturation you can't sell another one for 40 or so years.

[deleted]

Did I say all of them?

Big companies also prevent users from repairing the products they buy as well with illegal clauses like the warranty is void if opened, gluing the devices shut instead of screws, non replaceable batteries, a proprietary software in things like farmers' tractors that prevent diagnosing or repairing their own machinery.

How big does your yacht have to fucking be before you're satisfied?

They we would have more money to buy other things, or maybe not have to work 40hrs a week to just get by.

But then again, the only thing older than war is greed.

People wouldn't buy it. American consumers consistently prefer cheap crap to expensive quality products. Otherwise the market would quickly solve this.

Maybe manufacturers can make a product last forever with a subscription.

Never mind. I described a maintenance contract

it's SAAS but with hardware, so HAAS??

For starters wages haven't kept up with inflation. Companies cut corners with their products in part to keep upfront costs down so goods are more immediately affordable, even if they cost more in the long run. If they started using lasting materials and halfway decent construction, upfront costs would likely soar to something most people wouldn't/couldn't pay.

My fridge is from the late 80s and it’s terribly inefficient but it works fine because I don’t think appliance companies really started doing this until the 90s?

If you want to pay , you can buy high quality goods that will last you forever...but you'll pay for it. If you compare prices of goods that were available now and in the 60s (for example), you'll see when adjusted for inflation and earning power, things were 10x more expensive in the 60s. It's like you could only buy premium items, whereas now you could buy premium grade or slightly lower grade, or mid grade all the way down to shitty-but-super-cheap grade.

I'd probably buy more expensive higher range models of whatever appliance/gadget I needed, as it's easier to justify a purchase like that if it lasts longer because it can easily be repaired.

I’m 14 years into my washer and dryer with a single service call.

Some people are always going to want the newest features or a more efficient appliance. Sure a 20 year old dishwasher might still get the dishes clean, but the new ones are so quiet you can't tell whether it's running.

I've got a 70 year old gas boiler in my house. A new one would burn a lot less fuel but they cost so much by the time I hit my ROI it would be time to replace it again.

I don’t understand this. I have the most normal Kenmoore washer & dryer that are 15+ years old. In that time I replaced a $25 part on the dryer and cleared a sock out of the pump on the washer. Still going strong.

I dont know how it would be in recent times, but the sound company B&O almost went bankrupt in the.. 70'ies? 80'ies? Because their products were of quality that didnt really break - so people never really bought new stuff. I dont remember the details and Im on the train atm, but if youre interested in stuff like this I think that would be an interesting case to look at.

appliance do last, dryer is 15 years old and still work but outdated, consume way too much electricity. I had 20 years old washer (so 2000 ish) and worked just fine. My last laptop was 8 years old and still worked, we have cars here that are 30 years old and work. But yeah I do take care of them, the same way back in the 50s people took care of their shit.

at work we use Hobart mixers. the things are indestructible. we've been using the oldest for maybe 30 years and we bought it used. we don't even take it in for regular service once a year like they ask us to, it just won't stop running.

if they made washers and dryers like that they would start selling service and parts to make money. and then the international market would probably open up because people would want BIFL quality products

people would buy the one that lasts 5 years because it would be far cheaper. All for geting rid of intentional defects, but cutting corners means cutting prices. things used to last forever because they were overengeneered because we didn't have supper great models for tolerance, now we've got good enough models that we can push the tolerance further.

Features and competition. People buy a new phone every X years not just because their old one broke but because the new one does something different.

I would like a washer that loads itself, folds my laundry, does both wash and dry etc etc. Why innovate when you just guarantee it dies in 5 years.

I think part of the problem is that technology is advancing so quickly nowadays. New hardware-based features are popping up every year and everyone wants them.

The way to make appliances last longer would be to make everything modular. Want this new pressing machine (just making shit up here) in your dryer? Take out part X and replace it with the presser. Want to put this new smart screen on you fridge? Remove panel Y.

Same with phones. New faster processor, just take out one of the 10 removable chips. More durable screen? Etc etc etc.

Companies could keep charging out their ass too, just a little bit less, and people would be much happier with the ability to choose what they want most.

This is the thing though, kitchen/washing appliances really did last that long if you bought good ones in the 80s n shit. My dad has a microwave from 1985 that works just fine. Hell his kettle is from 1990something. I bought a kettle last year and it's already got a broken handle and drip issue, because it's cheap plastic chinese trash.

My Samsung dryer is 10 years old. Recently thought it had a belt problem, took it apart and discovered it had sucked a sock into it's intake.

Turns out the lower end models are using the same designs as the old ones and are super easy to service.

Miele supports their machines with replacement parts for 15 years.

Probably a massive loss in production and layoffs. There was a documentary somewhere about light bulbs and how they quickly realized they wouldn't make money if they lasted forever. Apparently all the light bulb companies got together to agree upon a life span of a light bulb, after some inventors were making Uber long lasting bulbs. Apple takes it to another level though,pretty soon their phone cycles will be quarterly or something with how aggressive the obsolescence is. I see the need for it in a capitalist society, but they don't make them like they used too.

Yes we can.....life had the potential to be so efficient that we were working 25, 30 hours a week as full time by now....but instead we work even longer than before to buy the stuff that will break again eventually.

People are made to work more than they really should be, and at the same time at office jobs there's so much downtime it's ridiculous.

Just buy a 30-40 year old dryer. If it doesn't work, troubleshoot and fix it. They literally have a minimal number of parts and it's all very very easy to fix and the parts are fairly cheap. There are thousands of youtube videos showing how to fix things like this

Edit: an old washer is a little more complicated... but not by much. The hardest part would be taking it all apart to clean out any mold and making sure rust isn't an issue

OK How about this idea: Require manufacturers to retake possesion of goods once they outlive thier usefullness. Manifacturers would ideally then design thier products in such a way as to be easily stripped of thier most abundant and valuable materials. This would provide manufacturers with a virtually free source of raw materials with which to design thier newest models. Cutting down on the need to source raw materials while drastically reducing waste.

What do you think?

Pay attention to lightbulbs. This is the one place we’re going for planned obsolescence (incandescent bulbs lasted 1,000 hours of use) to something that lasts a long time (LEDs last 20,000-50,000 hours of use). Of course, we’re also going from a cheap easily replaceable consumable to all to frequently needing to replace the entire fixture.

Ours are ~20 yrs old. I’ve had to replace a few mall parts but nothing major. Still rockin’

But how the fuck else do I justify getting a refrigerator that has a touch screen and Spotify and takes pictures of my food for me if my current one doesn't break down in 3 years?

The economy around the item would change -- it would shift away from new purchase and replacement costs and lean into a leasing or maintenance economy.

This is honestly what a lot of companies USED to do, anyway. You weren't about to buy a $1500 vacuum cleaner, but you might lease-to-own one for $15/mo., or you would buy one with a maintenance plan from the manufacturer that came with a 5 year contract that you had to pay yearly on.

This would be good for the consumer (in theory) because companies would be highly motivated to create the BEST product rather than the CHEAPEST product on the backend, because they will lose profit off the contract each time they had to do a housecall to fix something broken. It would also destroy the "quarterly earnings" mentality that has poisoned modern business.

Thats when you will see quality being sacrificed for quantity.

Let me put it to you another way:

What will happen if we don't go backwards like that.

We're finding that out right now, all projections show that our high consumption lifestyle is not sustainable as is, never mind if the rest of the world (majority of our population) start consuming at similar levels.

We will be forced to go backwards one way or the other. We can either choose to optimise our consumption ourselves, or be forced into a much much more primitive society than we currently enjoy.

The saddest part is that we make these choices. We are choosing to buy crap with fancy buttons over solidly made products that will actually last.

What would happen if appliances started lasting for 40 years?

Incredible prices because that sale needs to last and possibly unemployment because low sales mean less to do?

People would still buy new stuff, because you get new features.

I have a 70 year old refrigerator/ freezer that works beautifully. It doesn’t have a defroster, so the energy usage is pretty low and it doesn’t take very long to defrost. The motor will probably run another 100 years. My oven is from the 40s, only has a 5-8 degree temperature swing when baking - modern ovens usually have about a 20 degree swing because it’s too expensive to engineer now. To get that quality I’d have to spend 7000 dollars, and I got my oven for 400z

I have a dozen sewing machines from the 30s-1990s. Things really went to shit after that era when manufacturing moved to China , but nothing breaks on these machines. They just work, the engineering was better and parts are fantastic. I’ve learned how to service them myself.

Whenever I can, I find and refurbish older stuff. Textiles, leather goods, raw materials, design, EVERYTHING was far better even 25 years ago. I’m able to reduce my waste and consumption significantly, live a lot more frugally. Plus my shit looks cool. I HATE the disposability of our culture and products. If the EU pulls this off, i will pay the difference to get quality products and imports however I can. Infusing new technology with higher quality goods would be one of the most globally and environmentally responsible things we could do.

You only think that because you believe capitalism is the only viable system.

Backwards? You mean the environment isn’t at risk?

In my strong opinion the limited use-> throw away cycle is simply killing us. Not our planet, only us. I guess I am stating the obvious.

Imagine that our natural habitat is a system. Therefore, whatever we create in it is just a subsystem. Our economy is a subsystem. You can not grow a subsystem infinitely if the system that holds it is finite. Our natural habitat is finite.

When you build an appliance for 3 years use instead of 30 years, you increase the resource uptake 10 fold to achieve the same output. The only thing that changes for the better is that a few people/corporate owner (who already have enough to live the high life) will earn more short term. Their earnings are virtual anyway: Money today only exists as 1s and 0s on the computer systems of banks.

So basically you take our and our children's natural habitat and turn it into virtual money for the short term benefit of a few factory owner on ten fold speed.

I don't think we can go backwards like that,

That is exactly where we need to go.

Think of the landfills. Throwaway economy is ruining the planet.

(I am not even a treehugger)

What would happen if appliances started lasting for 40 years? Hell even 20 or 10

They would start costing ~10k per. Then you get into regulatory bull shit that also drives certain design conditions.

Back in the 70's and 80's, there wasn't any real need to be energy efficient. So, you could prioritize the design to make it last.

Just as a general example, most washing machines use water, centrifugal force, and agitation to clean.

In the 70's and 80's you could probably have built the drum out of all 316SS and heavy duty supports, and used a bigger motor to drive it. You could also cut down on mechanical agitation needed by dousing with say 50 gal to get the desired cleaning.

Well, here comes energy efficiency regulations telling you to drop the motor size and cut back on water? So what do you do? The physics of the thing haven't changed. So, to get the motor requirement, heavy still bits get replaced with plastic or lesser metals, while simultaneously you now have to agitate the clothes harder because you can't dilute more.

So now because of regulations, you're stressing your motor more and having it run more cycles per load at higher stresses.

Welcome to the world of engineering. If you want a robust system that will last 60 years, you have to pay for it. If you want to prioritize one aspect of the system, then others will have to be deprioritized.

You do realize we have to go that way because of global warming?

EDIT:don't take away mah capitalism

Exactly, if you could have the longevity of older appliances, with the efficiency of newer ones, it would be amazing. But the problem is that then you only buy one appliance every 30 years, instead of 3-5.

They’re surprisingly easy to maintain, mine is ~30 y/o and I found it on the side of the road.

I have a 3 year old samsung dryer that needed some pulley thing replaced, twice.

My house belonged to a 96 year old woman before me. The appliances are all from the 60-70s and work fine. The only new item is my HVAC, and that's cost me over $3k in repair costs in the past 5 years.

We've got a dryer upstairs that we believe is somewhere between 40-45 years old. It belonged to my partner's grandad, who passed it onto his sister, who passed it on to us. My daughter is adamant she wants it when she moves out because it's literally a family heirloom at this point.

Incredibly, it's also far cheaper to run than some modern dryers, despite only having two heat settings (hot and surface of the sun simulation).

It's hard to find now a washer that won't break coincidently just one day after the guarantee runs out.

I bought a used old Maytag pair years ago. They maybe old and all my neighbors have nice shiny new front loaders but ours keeps on running while they all constantly call appliance repair men out.

My parents have a 30 year old Kenmore washing machine that they bought used and only had some issues recently but nothing major and a 30 year old GE dryer that was used as well and only had the belt burst once and the element had to change once.

I hope I could afford to do a proper restoration on them eventually as I have no plan to throw them away and hope to keep them running for as long as I can.

What about all of the other appliances she bought 35 years ago? Did they also survive?

I mean, yeah, except the fridge.

and she died a year ago

I wish humans did not come pre installed with planned obsolescence...

I mean, in fairness, 35 year old washers didn't have circuit-boards and precise electrical equipment. That shit is inherently fragile. The simpler an appliance is, the more likely it to last, like a basic heating coil hotplate compared to a microwave.

Do you really want a washer/dryer that does not have temperature gauges and internal emergency shutoffs to prevent fires and flooding? Dryers are the eighth BIGGEST cause of housefires. Do you really want to cut out all the sensitive equipment and hope it won't burn your house down just so you can keep it an extra 10-20 years?

r/buyitforafterlife

I'm sure they're much less energy efficient, though.

In my great grandmother's old house we still have the first (and only) refrigerator she owned set up in the kitchen, and it's still keeping our stuff cool when we're round those parts. I don't even know how old it is, but it must be pushing 50 - 60 years at least.

My grandma’s cabin has 35 year old dishwasher, range, washer & dryer set which all still work! The washing machine has only recently developed a rusted out hole in the wash tub, so it leaks. Matching (avocado green, of course) fridge died about 10 years ago.

We had a microwave that was my grandmother's that lasted 50 years. But when she bought it it was like 15 thousand dollars in today's dollars. Unless consumers are willing to pay more this is here to stay.

These dryers were not to built last forever, despite there being several of them that are very old. They were built to be easily and cheaply be fixed. Mine is probably closing in on 30 years old, Whirlpool as well but there are several that are just as good. It works the same as new, but I have replaced the belt and pretty much every mechanical part except the control panel. Each time it is anywhere from $5 to $30 and half an hour to an hour of time, including learning what to do. The tools required are screwdirvers or a wrench.

My point is, it isn't so much that they were built to last long, but they were built to be easily fixed.

Definitely! Our washer broke after only two years, and instead of just replacing one small part, the whole gearing system is an enclosed unit, and must be replaced as such. The part that failed was small, and would have likely been $10-$15 alone, but the large piece I had to purchase was $200.

If I were a repairman, yeah, it would be an awesome situation, as the labor to fix it was very minimal, but required just enough skill to be over the head of the average consumer.

I’ll be the contrarian - most people won’t fix it themselves and the labor part is much more expensive than the parts. Where I live, you can’t get a repairman to show up for less than $150-$200, then you’re paying almost as much hourly. It’s cheaper to pay $200 for the part so the repairman is in and out in less than an hour.

Definitely, which was kind of my point. A repairman basically has to show up, spend 20 minutes swapping out a part, and then charges you their minimum fee on top of the cost of parts. That's pretty easy money.

I've got a 20 year old Miele dryer. It broke down last year.

I opened up the top and front panel and quess what... the "start" button got a bit loose inside. Took off the button part and it works perfectly again. Just need to press directly on the circuit board where the little plastic connector is.

I've replaced many parts on my washer and dryer with the help of YouTube. It isn't hard.

But a "modern" dryer will have tech built into it to make it run more efficiently. The last dryer I bought can sense when the load is dry and starts cooling off automatically. The dryer before it was set for a specific time, so it would run longer than needed or sometimes not enough, and the new one almost always has the clothes come out perfectly dry.

My laundry load size and type of clothing is pretty consistent week to week. Via trial and error I have established drying times that are pretty good. I'm sure the modern stuff is still better, but with how cheap natural gas is the discrepancy is not worth it.

Mine is probably closing in on 30 years old, Whirlpool as well but there are several that are just as good. It works the same as new,

It might work the same as it was new, but not the same as a new drier. The technology now is completely different, it dries better and uses much less energy.

Yes that is what I meant.

were they built to be easily fixed?

Or were they build using the most economical process at the time of manufacture, being joining pressed steel parts with bolts or screws?

Easily fixable and replaceable is probably more a function of what was avalible that a deliberate choice.

They were definitely built to be fixed, Maytag Service Men were a big money maker. As easy as they are to fix, it is not super obvious how to for someone with no resources. But, with the internet being a thing, it is pretty damn easy for anyone. Before then though there was good money to be made being a repair man.

You're misguided by survivorship bias.

The products that happened to last the longest are the ones that we actually notice and count. Nobody posts a photo stating "Here's my junky piece of crap washing machine that broke after 1 year and I'm about to throw out."

So you are forming your opinion about past appliances solely based on the sample you have available, which is going to be the ones lucky enough to survive, NOT a reflection of all appliances built back in the day. It could be that 99% of the washing machines broke after two years, but the ones that broke get thrown out and forgotten, not posted to reddit. The 1% that keep chugging do get posted.

Just because a few relics managed to survive to the modern era doesn't mean that the ancestors actually built better appliances.

You'd have to count all the ones that broke to make that assessment.

"The products that happened to last the longest are the ones that we actually notice and count."

Good point.
On the other hand, we don't notice and count the old appliances that get thrown out that were still in perfect working order.

As someone who used to deliver and install appliances a lot of the old units I replaced still worked fine. They were cosmeticically outdated. That orange, yellow, red, brown or green appliance might have looked groovy back in the day. Now? Not so much.

Yeah I rarely hear people talking about their awesome minidisc players that lasted 20 years

I've got a betamax player that still works. Can't say we ever use it but it's around.

Probably the reason why it lasts, because you never use it.

I'll see your Betamax player and raise you an RCA Selectavision CED Videodisc player that still works, and a library of movies for it.

Got one of those myself! Really interesting technology and a lot of fun to show people who're used to DVDs. Unfortunately I have one of the most basic players, but it still does the job. :P

I have a VHS player

[deleted]

Mine broke after 3-4 years. Was pissed cause I spent so much on the damn discs but by that time it was getting obsolete so didn’t want to but a replacement

[deleted]

Sony MZ-R30. I loved the thing but it dying made me jump to mp3

[deleted]

Haha yeah I remember trying to find a toslink cable for my stereo

Let me show you my laser disk collection

[deleted]

Old cars that have a following... Like the ones you see at car shows... have replacement parts readily available.

Modern cars are built much better (for the most part), but are also a lot more complex and computerized than ever before. In turn I think that makes people mistakenly believe that regular maintenance is optional. If you properly care for a modern car, it'll last a lot longer than a classic with all original parts.

Hell, even maintenance got better. Modern oils can be used for way longer than old ones for example.

Just don't mention how much of a shit show it can be to move in and around under the hood with a modern car.

But that’s one of the reasons cars are getting so expensive: it is one of the few products where quality continues to improve. A couple decades ago, you could expect a car to last in good shape for 6-8 years or 100,000 miles. Now you have the same likelihood of the car staying in good shape for 10-12 years or 200,000 miles, and some go much more

And you won't die when you get into a car accident.

Good point on the survivorship bias. Another factor is that people often are comparing early models intended for a high end users to low end models targeted for people who don't care much about reliability. e.g. Early computer keyboards were mechanical keyboards that can often last decades. You can still buy similar keyboards today, but they cost significantly more than the cheap membrane keyboards that most people use.

There are certainly manufacturers that design niche highly durable products, but most people essentially want something more reliable without paying any more for sturdier design. You can buy a milspec laptop that will take a beating, but most people won't even consider it once they see the prices. Very few people complaining about reliability of hardware will put their money where their mouths are. You can invest in something that will last decades, but you can't expect it to ever be price competitive with something designed to last a few years.

A laptop that can take a beating is still obsolete in a few years. There's a good reason people don't consider those.

Lots of people get mechanical keyboards and, actually a cheap membrane keyboard can still last a really long time. Mostly they just get filthy.

I think many homeowners would go for appliances that cost more but had, for example, better serviceability and longer lifespans.

Yeah, but we know this. Fridges used to last forever. Seals worn out? Replace them. Compressor failed? Replace it. What's left? Nothing.

Modern fridge: Transistor blown on some board? Scrap the entire POS, buy a new one. They don't even last long enough for any of the cheap plastic parts to fail.

The fridge of Theseus...

Ship of Theseus

In the metaphysics of identity, the ship of Theseus — or Theseus's paradox — is a thought experiment that raises the question of whether a ship—standing for an object in general—that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

Well, we know some products used to last longer, the most famous example being the light bulb, where we know that they used to last way more hours... well until recently, with LED bulbs causing them to once again last a decent amount of time.

FYI, everyone should really replace every single bulb they have with an LED one.

[deleted]

Oh, but no lead or asbestos so that's a perk.

I've got news for you... https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-asbestos-707642/

[deleted]

it's real; /r/nottheonion

You realize this policy actually restricts the usage of asbestos, right? It's shifting from a blacklist to a whitelist. Asbestos has continued to be used in manufacturing since we started -- yes, including under the Obama administration. This just makes companies get EPA approval for novel uses.

This (hopefully) won’t change jack shit, for two reasons:

1) Liability. Enough said.

2) Regulatory uncertainty. Next administration will change it right back.

There's people who think that Trump will "make America great again"... And he's actually the president. There's nothing so blatantly evil that I'll assume isn't possible anymore.

Pine is a fast-growing softwood, it's easily farmed. Redwood is a slow-growing hardwood.

That one is just matter of sustainability and saving the expensive stuff for where it is most useful...

[deleted]

That's fair, there are other structural alternatives though, redwood these days, when you can get it at all, is typically used as an aesthetic wood or accent.

They were also likely super inefficient and needlessly overbuilt.

Edit: Who blew $4 putting a gold star next to my comment? Why?

[deleted]

I see you're new to reddit

Claiming the opposite without enough data isn't a valid argument, either.

[deleted]

You insist on arguing over something, yet not enough data is provided. Nobody provided enough. No claim can be validated without real data. You're making a claim based on argument from fallacy.

Argument from fallacy

Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false. It is also called argument to logic (argumentum ad logicam), the fallacy fallacy, the fallacist's fallacy, and the bad reasons fallacy.Fallacious arguments can arrive at true conclusions, so this is an informal fallacy of relevance.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

You need to read about the null hypothesis.

I'm aware of how null hypothesis works. Perhaps look into how you arrive at what should be the null hypothesis instead of pulling p-values out of your ass to flip-flop based on how you feel so you can have a debate on something with only a single, theoretical, data point.

It's senseless to take something so petty this far, but then again, this type of thing is commonly abused when you have agenda driven data gathering. For instance: X company makes a new product and nobody knows if it's safe, but people are uneasy about it unless it's proven to be safe. The company pushes for a null hypothesis to be that it's safe unless proven otherwise and the public insists that it be shelved unless it can be proven, without a doubt that it is safe. X company invests time and money to cherry-pick data to support their agenda and wins the right to their choice of a null hypothesis. Historical examples: Asbestos, cigarettes, Agent Orange, radium watch dials, tetraethyl lead.

Well, you will have to go argue with the people at the used appliance store we got our dryer from. He talked about all of the different models with us quite a bit, and it was clear that the new washers (for the most part) were cheap as hell compared to pretty much all of the dozens of older models. He said a lot of the new ones you can't even repair easily.

Sort of how all the classical music you tend to hear is the good stuff, and few people realize how much plain, boring classical music was written.

Same goes for 60s and 70s music that people now look back upon with nostalgia, and claim that pop music isn't as good as it used to be.

Well, you can objectively measure Rock and Pop and distinguish the two of them, so I'd argue that isn't as much an equivalence. Pop music isn't written by the singers (for the most part), and the studios use dynamic compression to make everything sound louder even though you have the volume controls, and pop music uses objectively fewer types of instruments.

Here's one guy talking about it: https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII?t=419 but there are many such descriptions. Some of his points are kind of what you're saying (like, even rock had some songs with shit lyrics), but you can actually measure the quality in some ways. Listen to pop music and you'll hear the "Eee oh Eee oh" at least one out of three songs.

I'm not sure why you linked to the part about songwriters, but from my experience at least, having lightly followed the pop music scene, people who are actually interested in the music are quite aware of the songwriters, producers, etc. behind the artist, and people such as Max Martin and Jack Antonoff are well-known and respected for their songwriting. (As is Dr. Luke, though his reputation has now been tarnished by the whole Kesha thing.)

As for the rest of the video, these reddit comments on Thoughty2's video express my thoughts on it far more eloquently than I ever could:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/6sw1cr/nonmusic_video_why_is_modern_pop_music_so/

TL;DR the Loudness War is irrelevant now, music is subjective, he cherrypicks, much of his complaints are the same as those in the past generations, he conflates complexity with quality and ignores the ways contemporary pop music is more complex, etc.

And being a Thoughty2 video, he naturally claims "researchers" back up his claims without actually citing any sources, a thing he seems to have a habit of doing, looking at other videos of his that people have scrutinized and debunked.

why you linked to the part about songwriters

Someone a few years ago told me the difference between Pop and Rock is that Rock singers wrote their own songs. I didn't believe it until I found third-party confirmation. :-)

Anyway, my purpose wasn't actually to say one was better than the other, but more to point out there are objective ways of judging. It's not 100% just a matter of taste.

I'll take a look at your link. Sounds interesting, thanks!

Someone a few years ago told me the difference between Pop and Rock is that Rock singers wrote their own songs. I didn't believe it until I found third-party confirmation. :-)

We aren't comparing pop music to rock music though, but rather the popular music of different time periods.

Regardless, I don't see how you found third-party confirmation in this case. Referencing some examples of prominent pop music songwriters doesn't demonstrate anything about rock music songwriters.

Commercial music is a collaborative effort, and this holds true in both older and newer time periods. Older mainstream music was often produced in a similar way, with teams working on music under the control of record labels, perhaps even more so since there weren't as many options for independent musicians. It is true that many prominent artists in the past, particularly in rock, were known for writing their own music, but even this isn't a hard and fast rule since many of those same singers/bands used outside songwriters.

Furthermore, while "true auteurs" in music may be more impressive, it doesn't objectively make the quality of the music any better or worse. Not everyone is simultaneously a good composer, lyricist, singer, and performer, so collaboration arguably helps improve music by making up for artists' weak areas. This is part of why even prominent singer-songwriters will often have other songwriters in their writing credits; it's good to have someone else to bounce ideas off of and help refine them.

Anyway, my purpose wasn't actually to say one was better than the other, but more to point out there are objective ways of judging. It's not 100% just a matter of taste.

And part of my purpose was to point out that these ways of judging are still subjective even if you quantify them. First off, as I said in the previous comment, complexity and quality are two very different things, and most "objective" measurements of music quality seem to somehow not realize this. To take your example, using fewer instruments isn't necessarily a bad thing; minimalist accompaniment is often praised in pop (and to take a more extreme example, solo violin/piano or acapella is obviously not objectively any better or worse just because it uses only one instrument).

Furthermore, contemporary pop music is far more complex in some ways (such as tighter arrangement and greater experimentation with non-traditional sounds), which supposedly "objective" measurements ignore, which makes sense because these measurements are ultimately based on taste and depend heavily on what the person deems to be bad and good in music.

You're misguided by survivorship bias bias. You heard the fancy words on the Internet once and now you can't help but puke them up whenever anything with even tangential relevance is mentioned, so you can feel smart.

Long ago, appliances were genuinely built to last indefinitely, and not honed down to minimum cost. This was when a fridge cost half a year's rent, etc. Then there was a period when there was a variety of options, some of which were better than others, and we still have surviving examples. Now almost everything's as cheap as possible, and held together with string and the hope that maybe it'll last out the two-year warranty.

Survivorship bias is a real thing, but it's also a hammer when not everything you see is necessarily a nail.

You're misguided by survivorship bias.

You're just assuming that. He presented an anecdote, which shouldn't be taken as fact, but doesn't prove survivorship bias and certainly doesn't support your detailed -yet fully made up- assumptions as to how he formed his opinion.

Plenty of studies have been shown that appliances don't last as long as the used to. Here's one link.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/appliances-really-dont-last-as-long-as-they-used-to-021715.html

It may be partially survivorship bias, but it's definitely also rooted in fact. But what often isn't accounted for is the complexity of modern appliances, how much more efficient they are, or how comparatively inexpensive they are compared to products made a half century or more ago.

One thing to keep in mind is the concept of survivorship bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

It may be that 40 years ago dryers were just made better. It could also be that they were mainly junk and most are in landfills somewhere, and your grandma owns a well made outlier. This would imply that what you as the casual observer can see today is only the extreme exception so we need to reference more objective data to determine if dryers are more or less well made today relative to the past.

There’s a lot of technology today that has greatly improved in the last 4 decades in terms of reliability. The manufacturer of your grandmas dryer likely tested it for some number of cycles and it’s exceeded any expectations by many multiples now. If it had broken down exactly 1 cycle after it’s designed work life grandma might be upset but we could argue that the manufacturer carried through on their commitment as well. This is not an example of planned obsolescence though.

If the manufacturer put code in the dryer to break down or produce worse results after a length of time, this is an issue. As consumers we expect that things will wear out in a normal use case in a reasonable period of time. We don’t expect the manufacturer to accelerate that failure though. Determining what is shoddy design or intentional is going to be the challenge though, as different parts wear out at different rates. This is a laudable goal though, not just for consumers but for our future landfills as well.

There’s a lot of technology today that has greatly improved in the last 4 decades in terms of reliability.

Yup. And today's average or below average dryer has more technology, features, and energy savings than likely a high-end dryer from 1978. There are also far more points of failure on a piece of technology built today.

If a dryer had one point of failure 40 years ago and part reliability was at 95%, I believe at 6 points of failure, a dryer with a 99% parts reliability would be more likely to fail. If I did the math wrong, somebody please correct me.

Assuming independence the dryer with six failures would fail with probability 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 = 0.941 (94%). So you're quite right, that's less reliable.

What do you mean no other options? A year or two ago I bought a Speed Queen. No fancy electronics, top load, mechanical dial, will probably be passed on to my kids!

Mechanical dial will wear through. Pipes will clog with zeolites/whatever they're adding to the washing solutions these days.

You really need to be ready to do deeper maintenance on this stuff to make it last, very few consumers have time/ability/willingness to do that.

Now I should go and change that triple solenoid on MIL gifted Miele W830 from -90's. Also the bearings on that decade younger LG..

Everything has a life span but it'll certainly last a lot longer and hopefully be easier to fix when needed.

The washing machine it replaced was a maytag Neptune and that thing was nightmare. I replaced a couple wax motors, some resistors on the circuit board, a drain pump, a door lock sensor. We probably got 10+ years out of it from the initial crippling defect.

Yeah, when resistors burn, it means the whole design is all kinds of fuckered up (unless they burned along with some other component).

I can't recall. It was the very first issue we had with it back when my parents owned it. They wanted a lot of money to replace the entire board but the problem was so prevalent that there were plenty of component kits available to fix the issue on the board. Never had that specific problem again, just a host of others!

edit: I just remembered one of the biggest issues! The main bearing seal whent out and ruined the bearing. I machined a tool to pull the bearings and replace them. That was a big job.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Yeah my Miele C3 is an awesome machine.

My dyson is only a few years old, but I have no doubt that thing is going to go a long way. The way it is constructed is quite smart and easily fixable.

Really? I like my dyson cordless but the battery pack discharges a lot of heat (obviously) and I’m wondering how soon I’ll be replacing those cells. A better design would have had a modular battery pack.

Mines the dyson ball upright. I'm not a big fan of cordless.

We moved from a large house in Maine with a central vac to a small home in SF. We have the V8 Animal and it's surprisingly good in both settings - the former when you just want to clean up a room and not drag the whole hose+attachments out for the central, and here in SF, you can do most of the living space on one charge (or half in max mode).

If this thing isn't dead in 5 years - or more specifically, the battery pack isn't fried - I'll declare it the best vacuum ever. If not, I just hope it's using a common set of cells that I can attempt to replace myself.

[deleted]

I know, I suspect there's a well paid marketing team looking for these types of comments...

Thing is, I like the product. It's hands down the best cordless vac I've ever used. It just doesn't have anything in place to keep the cells cool and in max mode it discharges very quickly, so I hope that when I have to crack it open to replace them, it's something standard like 18650s or similar.

They will if you don’t cheap out, I feel like the same could be said 50 years ago too.

My grandmother and her husband were passed down a mini-fridge when they got married over 65 years ago. The fridge was already at least a decade or more old at the time.

She still has it in her basement, it still works.

Everyone should watch the light bulb conspiracy documentary when they get the chance

[deleted]

And thicker filaments mean dimmer bulbs or higher energy costs. Thinner filaments are hotter and brighter. Light bulbs are cheap cheap cheap. And in almost all cases the cost of the power used is orders of magnitude larger than the bulb cost. Everyone who bitches about lightbulbs neglects the electricity cost.

Thanks for the info, i edited the parent comment

But the cartel also allowed for consistency in design and use. Bases are all compatible so that all bulbs work in all fixtures and a consumer can have a reasonable idea of a bulbs lifespan.

That's why we have standards.

Its 100% bullshit. There are examples of planned obsolescence. The incandescent bulb is NOT one of them. Bulbs that last ~10000 hours exist. They are used in things like traffic lights and industrial equipment. They draw several hundred times more power/ or are very dim. Its a (relatively) straightforward engineering tradeoff.

Wow if that's true, someone needs to make a documentary called The Lightbulb planned obsolescence conspiracy to fake a Conspiracy about the people who made this documentary to fake a conspiracy theory

Thx, interesting

O.MG. I have just wanted the whole video and it is disguising what the large corporation do to stimulate spending by making items that still work “obsolete” through design and software manipulation... these men should be in jail!

Except now people are saying the whole video was made by people who conspired to fake a Conspiracy theory

1

2

Well, I wouldn't call it a conspiracy. More that this "documentary" was made by people with an agenda.

They show more than the lightbulb. Stuff like shirts, toasters, etc. What they fail to realise is that "back then" you had the 50$ toaster and the 100$ toaster, both solid because manufacturing wasn't as advanced and you had to basically overengineer stuff to get a decent product. Simply put, the precision and materials weren't there to make cheap stuff, because that would just fall apart.

Compared to the 50 and 100$ toasters of old, you now have 10, 15, 20 30, etc. dollar toasters with (generally) increasing quality and features.

So yeah, the 10$ toaster or 2$ shirt falls apart quickly, but it's also a fucking 10$ toaster. You buy cheap shit, you get cheap shit.

He'll, nowadays there's probably a toaster enthusiast community with a Kickstarter for the world's best toaster engineered by nerds, so well built that you can gift it to your grandkids and it will still outperform all others on the market, and durable enough that your grandkids can bash your head in with it to collect that sweet inheritance and still make great bread for your funeral. The only sad thing is that it's probably gonna cost 100$ and few people will buy it because they rather get the 10$ one and complain when it break.

More that this "documentary" was made by people with an agenda.

So a group of people got together and conspired to make a documentary about something that was only half way Truthful, in order to deceive the public?

Sounds like a conspiracy to me.

I have a 40 year old Maytag, first washer i ever owned, got it from my mother when i first moved out.

Works a treat. I've had to take the kids socks out of the drain hose a couple times, and that's the closest thing to a repair it's ever needed in the twenty years or so I've had it.

Thing weighs like 250 lbs, but will probably still run after I'm dead.

It’s important to remember that survivorship bias has a major impact on our perception of the quality of old things.

What people dont get is 40 years ago, not everyone could afford a dryer. They were made with pretty sturdy parts that cost money.

Well, they made dryers cheaper so another class of people could afford them. More people had dryers because they are a one time cost that arent so high. Companies caught on that they could sell more if marginal cost was cheaper so they asked what it would take to cut costs.

50 iterations later, we have things that wouldnt last a quarter of the time the old ones could, but the majority of people can afford them.

No one wants to pay what people in the past paid for a well built steel appliance with crappy energy efficiency. Everyone wants tons of features and green technology at low low prices. And then they whine and run to their rulers demanding that magic spells be cast to satisfy their outrage because their every whim isn't satisfied at those prices.

I have a mixer, I use it every few days and it still works fine, which is one year older than I am. I am 39.

My parents had the same washing machine for like, 30 years. It was there when they bought the house from my grandparents.

Since replacing that one, they have gone through like 3 more.

Copper lined water heaters would last 50 years. Hard to find anymore.

That's hilarious. My dryer and washer is at least that old. Concrete base and everything. The washer started to go. Then I called a guy on Craigslist and he fixed it for 40 bucks. Don't get me wrong. Their loud and sometimes they want to race each other. But they work just fine.

There are still a couple models that are buy it for life type models. Speedqueen is a good brand

You parents still have the same washing machine they had before I was even born. It works perfectly.

I'm picturing a weird Logan's Run remake with washing machines instead of people.

I purchased a 2017 Speed Queen washer and dryer last summer.

Coming from an LG set of front loaders, fuck that trash, never again.

I have a 30+ year old dryer and washer bought this house few years back from a elderly couple that were going into a retirement home. They left us all the appkiances. The stove and fridge are from early 2000's the shit is in pieces barely working (hanging in there till tax season) the old washer and dryer like a god damn champ only issue I recently had the timer part of the dryer go so I have to manually turn it off but thing works amazing. Guy I know that doesn't appliance repair told me keep those they will out live everything made today

We have two washers (don't ask why). We've replaced the 'modern' one 4 times in 12 years. The old one is 31 years old and still going.

One thing to counter the argument though is my Samsung D6530 46" TV. It's now 7 years old and it works just as well as the day I bought it. Granted the smart features are useless as most providers don't support the apps anymore but as a TV it's been flawless. I also have a Beko 15" CRT TV in the loft that's still functional but no set top box or console uses aerial connections anymore so it's as good as useless.

It's not uncommon. My grandma has had the same oven, washer, drier, fan, and fridge since before I was born. They've had a few repairs, but they still work. It feels like everything my parents purchased growing up just fell the fuck apart within 5-10 years of ownership. I know the more advanced technology accounts for some of the higher failure rate, but I don't need my fridge to play Skyrim, I just want the thing I spent a full paycheck and could have gone on a 5 day vacation on, to not have to be replaced in a few years.

My oven is pretty old, I bought it used and my parents had the exact same (which is now in my sister house). Mine broke down recently. F1 error, the whole electronic had to be replaced, 150$ to replace (I bought my oven, fridge, washer and dryer "refurbished" and delivered for 800$ so that cost was pretty steep). I knew theses were basic so I opened the board, it's clearly less than 10$ of parts, so I could replace it easily a few if needed without breaking the bank. The issue was simple, the 240 volts trace was pretty close to the ground and a short circuit happened which burned a little bit of the board. That's like circuit design 101 not to have a trace that carry that much power bare close to another one. They should have made it further or at least create a channel and put plastic there. That was pretty unsafe (and turns out they did a recall in 2009 on theses ovens, I feel like this is why and I should try to see if I can get a new board out of it.

That oven was working fine (and still is after cleaning up all the carbon) for a pretty long time. The one from my parent is pretty old too and still working, clearly has the same flaw.

I know I wrote a lot for this simple thing, but my point is that what made them last wasn't good design to avoid obsolescence because the circuit. They are lasting a long time because they were simple design, that's it (and survivor bias).

The one that you buy know comes with a ton of feature and each component can failed. That's all. Adding features isn't planned obsolescence.

My nan gave me a cooker she brought in the early 80s, it was still going strong but the energy consumption is huge.

We bought a new washer-dryer set 20 years ago when my mom's 30 year old set crapped out and it would cost more to fix than replace.

They were the cheapest, most basic models on the market and I didn't think they'd last. I hated the washer because it never balanced properly no matter what we did to it. But, it lasted 19 ka-chunking years. The key was maintenance. Clean out the gunk and the fluff regularly.

Yea my grandma still had the original dryer from when she bought her house in the 70s until about five years ago.

The dryer I have was a gift to my parents for their wedding in 1981. The blower fan broke 2 years ago. Was a 30$ part and 2 hours of time. Still dries clothes perfectly. Never getting rid of it.

For washers you can get a speed queen. Supposedly they are tanks.

My wife has her grandmother's kitchenaid stand mixer, she keeps asking for a new one and I keep telling her the current one will last forever. Sure accepts that fact but still wants a red one.

yeah but who wants a 40 year old anything? her clothes probably get hammered while using way too much water.

40 year old dryers are hugely inefficient compared to modern ones, so the government's next step would likely be to ban these old appliances that use too much energy which is bad for the environment.

Hey my fridge has my age, an Im gonna be 30 this year

It's so frustrating to have no other choices either.

Build your own, and maybe even start a competitor. Careful with heat though.

It also probably used 10 times the water and power as newer models.

I think with home appliances, there is a real reason to get something newer every 10-15 years. Efficiency and features will finally get to a point where it’s worth it.

My dad has a microwave from 1985 that still works just fine. It's a bit big compared to modern counterparts and it's only 650 watts whereas modern ones are often 900+ ... but still it works fine.

All the appliances in my parents' house are from the 70's and 80's. and working flawlessly.

Meanwhile, everything in my house can be expected to start going wrong within 2 years. They're obviously designed to fail.

Only way is to be able to repair things or bring the appliance for repair at a reasonable cost.

I have a hair dryer from 1989. Works perfectly fine , doubt that thing will break anytime soon . I got lucky with my pc too it seems , gigabyte motherboard,amd cpu and wd hdd still work perfectly ..bought them in 2009. GPU died a few months ago(to be fair I never cleaned that thing) . Power supplies on the other hand ..this is my 4th

We had a fridge from before i wa born, I am now 25 and we still use it as a dogs' meat freezer. Also my uncle, whose age I am not sure but based on greying hair must be pretty old, has a watch which was was handed to him by grandpa and if you are to believe him, its never had a battery change.

You do have a choice. Wash your dishes in a sink. Wash your clothes by hand.

I have a 20 year old whirpool microwave that my family bought when I was young.

It only needed repairs once

Exactly! My parents bought a deep freezer in late 80's and it still works perfectly. Of course things were slightly simpler then as well. All these smart devices seem really nice and fancy now but do you think that the makers are still gonna keep servers going to communicate with your smart appliances? At some point the updates run dry and become incompatible with key services. The hardware will likely still work and they'll follow this rule but at that point you will lose all the smart features. Sure you might say you'll deal with it but will you really pass up having a fully connected IoT home in the future? You dryer or washing machine has it's associated app removed from the app store (or updated to the point of incompatability) and your fridge suddenly can't auto-order goods from your grocery store... after a few years of being used to those small features you'll want a new one.

You can get a very very long lasting, repairable and heavy duty dish washer if you are willing to pay an astronomical price for it. Large apartment complexes and businesses are willing but not average people so you don't see the featured unless you know where to look.

I have a 35 year old washer and dryer. It's the same model my mom had when I was a kid. Runs like a champ. I've been living in an apartment for the last two years and they provide a washer and dryer so mines currently in storage. I've had nothing but issues. Granted the apartment probably bought the cheapest available, but I've had more issues with this washer and dryer (including them replacing both units) in two years than I've had of the previous 10 with mine.

Not sure if its planned or just cheaping out on parts. Plastics where metal used to be and so on, but not even close to the quality of my old puke green units.

A lot of that is survivor bias. The ones that died in 5-10 years are forgotten. Also many appliances are made to be cheap and have a metric fuck-ton of features. Think about a washing machine. New machine is meant to be lower power, lower water usage, and has tons of custom settings. Old machines just dumped in a bunch of water and used whatever power they needed to. Also 3 water temp settings and 3 wash settings. The new machine costs $400 dollars and people expect it to last forever, but never to maintain it. Old machine cost $400 in 1980 and people would pay to get it serviced because it was worth it. Now it is almost as cheap to buy a new washer. Learn to fix things and planned obsolescence goes away.

Jaysus Christ! That's unbelievable. I used to work in retail almost two decades ago, and Whirlpool, Indesit, Hotpoint (all actually one company) were considered shit that you would absolutely avoid trying to sell to anyone unless you wanted issues you had to deal with once they took it home and started complaining about it. I've heard legends about the time when Whirlpool was considered a good brand but never seen it with my own eyes

You would think a 40 year old dryer is really good, but whether it's still worth having though? Many old appliances are ridiculously inefficient, to the point where a new appliance pays for itself well within a year. There's embodied energy and then there's energy when it's used, and raw materials. Perhaps a dryer, but not necessarily a washing machine, or a freezer or a vacuum cleaner would still work well.

My parents had an 80+ year old freezer they had to leave in our is house about 20 years ago.. wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still running. A lot of companies had gone out of business for making such great products.

My dad still uses a 30 year old microwave. The only thing that doesn't work is the reset button, which hasn't worked for 25 years

You can find old machines on eBay or thrift shops or yard sales or just driving around watching the curb for thrown out goods. It takes a bit of effort to find them and a bit more to repair them but it’s well worth it.

My washing machine and dryer are both 8-10years old. Found the dryer on the curb in a neighborhood. Guy just wanted to get rid of so he let me take it for free. Took a $20 thermometer on the back, screwdriver and pliers were the only tools I needed. Washing machine I got from a thrift store for 50$ and it just needed a new plug.

You don't make money off shit that don't break

I inherited my grandmother's appliances she's had since the 70s (she's not dead, just moved into a smaller place) and they still work. Now they are yellowed and have wood paneling so initially I was thinking I could make due until I could afford nice looking stuff, but then I thought if these are still running I might as well keep them until they break down, because the new stuff will just break down in a few years anyway.

It makes me want to start my own company to make quality goods for the people. Almost like newtons own were the profits are to extend to other markets instead of charity.

Yep, I refuse to buy a new dryer because my 45 (!) year old dryer still has parts available for it through Sears and I'm afraid a new Samsung or LG would last < 10 years even if it is more efficient.

Edit: for the curious, it looks very close to this https://goo.gl/images/qssvLz . It says "Solid State" on the side in that 1960's/1970's cursive style

I have a dryer in my house from 1976. Still going. The door clasp broke at some point, but that was a $2 part and easy fix. The dryer is that lovely “harvest gold” (yellow ochre) from the 70s. The matching washer died about 10yrs ago.

Harvest gold kitchen aid mixer, mom gave me because she hated the color. 1976 again, still going, no issues.

Planned obsolescence is bullshit. There’s too many of us to keep making shit and dumping it into landfills.

we just bought a washer/dryer like less than a year ago. we had a maytag dryer from like 1990 and an LG from like 2006. The LG was on its way out. Called a washer repair man because the thing stank to high hell (previous owner i guess would just fucking leave her wet ass clothes in there for however long) and the guy told us some unfortunate news.

he said he COULD try to repair it, but he'll keep having to replace more and more parts as he opens it up, and at the end of the day it will still stink. He said the reason for the stink is because if you dont follow the maintenance TO THE FUCKING LETTER on a front load washer, all the bullshit from your clothes just gets spin-cycled and stick to the inside of the outer drum. He said he would be wasting his time trying to repair it because if i happened to see what that inside drum looked like while he replaced the (moldy) tub seal, i'd be horrified, want a new washer anyways, and still be out the repair cost.

i asked him what he'd replace it with and he said it literally doesnt matter anymore, everythign is designed to fail. Buy the warranty, keep renewing it, and try to buy a washer/dryer that has parts stored in the US so you at least dont have to wait weeks for some random korean part to ship.

We ended up with a Kenmore, since sears is really good about sending people out and having parts on hand. We sprung for the biggest model they had, and so far no regrets. But i can tell right now the balance mechanism is going to fail and cause a rather hefty repair within the next year or two.

I have a Dyson vacuum cleaner, the thing is an absolute tank - clearly made to last decades, with replacement parts available if you need them. 5/7 would buy again.

When i bought my first home, it had a natural gas hot water from 1983 in it.

I lived in that home for seven years, and never had an issue. No dip tube problems, no leaking, no corrosion. It just worked.

I purchased a used Sub-Zero refrigerator for $250 from 1989. It's running in my kitchen as I type this. It shows no signs of problems,and is quite easy to repair

I wish I could purchase appliances with the confidence that they are made to last. I feel like durable goods should actually be durable.

My Grandma had a 40-year-old Washing machine until 5 years ago. since then she had 3 new ones. She didn't go for the cheap ones either. She went with the high price, known quality brands because she was anticipating something like this with cheaper brands. 40 years ago she bought an expensive Miele for a single monthly Salary of my granddad. Now, for the same price, she gets this crap. Granted, her Washing machine is running all day, since she does the Laundry for what feels like half the neighborhood, but 5 years of heavy use should be possible no?

Genuine question: if appliances used to last so long, how come we aren’t still using them? It seems to me that while there are some high end solidly built items that lasted a long time, they are outliers and not reflective of the short life span of most appliances from all time.

There are a couple of reasons.

  • New features. There are many ways unrelated to reliability that new appliances are better. They clean better, use less water, use less energy, and are quieter.

  • Growing demand. As populations have increased and a larger share of the world has reached a middle class lifestyle, the number of appliances in use has skyrocketed. Even if every appliance from 40 years ago was still in use, there would still be more newer appliances.

  • Repair part availability. Old appliances didn't run forever without service. The difference was that when a part broke, just that part could be replaced. Now manufacturers have started doing things like using rivets instead of bolts to make replacing individual parts harder. Old appliances still depend on having parts replaced and those parts are getting hard to find.

  • Sabotage. Sony retroactively dropped support for my $700 4K display from the PS4. One day it worked, then the PS4 got a software "update," then it didn't and I had to buy a new one. There was outrage on the internet but Sony was too big to care. Fortunately the price of 4K displays halved in the meantime, but still. Ouch.

Social media pressure: You have be in trend.

They bought a newer model, we need to do that too.

Your third point is addressed by the second in most cases.

I think you missed his point. His point was to answer the question "If the old appliances were so much more durable any easy to repair, then why do we not see them everywhere still being used?".

Answers were: * there are reasons to buy new ones besides durability * there are more people so new ones must be built regardless * old ones become impossible to repair because you can't get replacement parts

[deleted]

Survivorship bias

Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias.

Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

Also factor in that many people buy new appliances for esthetics, functionality, energy efficiency, etc, and not because the old ones broke. I bet most of the appliances that are thrown away actually work but the homeowners wanted something new.

Yes, and their market research has told them that. They know that any money spent to extend the devices working life too far beyond that point becomes total waste, because virtually no customer will see a benefit from it. You can buy industrial and commercial grade fridges that last forever. They're super expensive.

Well, CFC in old fridges are now outlawed, so that's one reason for that particular applicance.

But in most other cases, it's greed. Why sell a customer 1 item that they can leave to their grandchildren, when you can instead sell the same customer 10 items and join the .1%?

As much as I'm not pro-corporate-overlord you have to blame Joe Blow consumer for their part as well. People that will drive across town because something $3 cheaper at Walmart.

You can't expect a manufacturer to design, test, build, and certify (UL or whatever) something substantial and then turn around and sell it for $125 then complain it shits the bed after 2 years. "We" asked for this by short-sighted purchasing and consumer demand decisions.

These same people will buy 10 pairs of shoes over 3 years and spend 2x more on one pair of good quality shoes that last even longer.

So it's a combination of the two ...

You can also not expect the customer to pay $600 for a fridge/washer/whatever instead of $300, if they don't have a reasonable assurance that it will actually last longer.

I tend to buy the cheap stuff, because yeah, sometimes it breaks faster, but sometimes it also turns out to just be a very good deal, and sometimes, the $600 thing turns out to just be an overpriced version of the $300 thing with no better quality. And it hurts a lot less to get unlucky with a $300 purchase than it does with a $600 purchase. If I go with the $300 one, I get two tickets to the "is this the good or the shit one" lottery at possibly slightly worse odds. At $600, I may have better odds, but all I get is one ticket.

Even relying on brand names does not help nowadays as many brands "sell out" their good name they built in the past by selling overpriced garbage now.

Totally agree and this is where I think there is a big problem with manuf. If $200 is entry level and $800 is the "premier" version it better damn act like it

But he's usually not making those frugal decisions because he wants to but because he needs to because the financial math doesn't make sense otherwise. It's easy to say he should spend more now, when you're not considering that spending more now might mean not eating. Poverty charges interest.

The shoes wear out and you need new shoes today because you can't go to work barefoot, and the only ones you can afford are the ones that won't last long.

If only you had a little bit more money so you could save up and buy things that lasted, but no, the corporations have taken care of that (just like every ruling class has done to the working class before them).

This explains why a company would create planned obsolescence. I’m just not really convinced that’s a genuine thing. Because appliances have always had short lifespans. Hence why we had to replace them by buying these supposed shit ones. Isn’t it possible that those 40 year old still working appliances are exceptions and not the rule. If every appliance made 40 years ago was built to last, we’d still mostly be using old appliances.

Because new appliances have better performance, enticing consumers to buy them and ditch the more durable things of the past.

One of the easiest things is to compare energy efficiency: newer appliances consume way less energy throughout engineering refinement. But because they also have planned obsolescence, you are forced to buy them more often. Think of power tools.

So is it planned obsolescence a necessary trade-off for the better things that we use today, compared to the past?

We need to look at things that must not have planned obsolescence: space stuff.

Satellites grew bigger, better and more efficient over time, yet their expected operational life haven't decreased (in some instances it greatly increased).

The Mars rovers have no PO design and because of that one of them is still running. Satellites last ten times longer, the only ISS components that need to be replaced are civilian-grade, such as laptops.

If you could have the same air-condition system of ISS installed in your underground bunker, you would be sure that it would not fail even after a century of continuous use. Yet the same type of appliance, made in same factory by the same engineers and workers, but for the consumer market, will inevitably fail after a few years.

Perfect. So all we need to do to get better performance and durability is the budget of NASA. Sounds reasonable.

Low cost, high performance, durable: pick two.

This is really it. People bitch and moan about their $100 vacuum falling apart and planned obsolescence, but show them that $1500 Miele and they scoff at how that is just a waste of money. Truth is you get what you pay for, and you have to cut a lot of corners to get that price down that much. The first question to come up when someone wants to cut costs is "how long does it have to last?" Planned obsolescence might happen in some cases but in a lot of cases it's just building to an expected lifespan because people will ditch it by then, and people basically only care about cheap.

People bitch and moan about their $100 vacuum falling apart and planned obsolescence, but show them that $1500 Miele and they scoff at how that is just a waste of money.

And they're probably right. The Miele would have to last for 30 years without maintenance to be cheaper than the $100 ones even if every single one of them broke 1 day after the 2-year legally required minimum warranty (in Germany). And since quite a few of the 15 "cheap" ones I'd iterate through will happen to last longer, buying the cheap one is cheaper, even in the long term. And if you get unlucky with one of the $100 ones, it's not a big deal, but if you get unlucky with the $1500 Miele, you're SOL.

Who talked about NASA? The Indians have a fraction of their budget and still maintain the same operational lifetime of them.

Cubesats of <10kg have a 1.1 years operational lifetime expectancy.

We are talking about a thing subject to ×100 more stress, that has to perform ×100 more and still lasts more than a common electronic appliance.

There doesn't seem to be a marked difference between lifetime of spacecraft built by universities and those built by the private sector.

A cubesat costs 8000$ (launch and orbit insertion included), 0.8 $/g.

An IPhone 8 costs 700$ for 148g or 4.72$ (launch and orbit insertion not included)

I m not exactly impressed by a 11 year lifetime for any product. iPhones can last more than 5 years easily. Most people either drop them or replace them because they want something shiny and new.

Still, I’m not sure why we are comparing satellites to earthbound consumer electronics. My point stands, low cost, high functioning, durable: pick 2.

Still, I’m not sure why we are comparing satellites to earthbound consumer electronics. My point stands, low cost, high functioning, durable: pick 2.

And again, I tell you: objects combing low cost, high functioning and extreme durability exist and are widely used by you, this very moment.

consumer products have planned obsolescence that forces you to pick one of them.

But they aren’t durable. They last little more than a year according to you. They only satisfy two of the three.

One year of operational lifetime for a LEO satellite built by students at an university makes it incredibly durable.

If the same standards were applied to the manufacture and design of your smartphone, it would outlast you.

There is a proliferation of satellites right now. The tech is actually quite straightforward I understand. If these students were designing from scratch I'd be super impressed. But I'm pretty sure they are following existing plans and templates.

In any event, I really don't think there is any correlation between satellites and phones but I think you are just being hyperbolic. If you genuinely think you are speaking truth, I think you're going to have to show you math on this one.

On the other hand, for the price of the ISS air conditioning system, you could probably get a new cheap one installed every year for the next century.

feels like you are on the younger side. i've been around for a while and it's not nostalgia, shit used to last longer. some of it is planned obsolescence, some of it is using cheaper materials - everything made out of crap plastic these days.

people don't use the old stuff for a multitude of reasons, when do you go shopping for things in a second hand store rather than amazon or wallmart? what second hand store do you know that has the space to keep a bunch of old washer/dryers and fridges around? and then there is the fashion aspect, people don't want old things.

It's planned, because the same appliance made for industry can easily last a lifetime. A corporation wouldn't stand for a machine breaking down every few years, but consumers have been convinced that it's ok.

Another side of it is perhaps that when patterns like "Moore's law" allowed for the reliable prediction of technological advancement, it gave a reason to escalate things as well. And now, it's actively used to plan the shortest possible time for a product to become obsolete, and still the consumers think that it's ok.

It's very good that people are starting to fight back now.

Yeah but that corporation pays 4-5 times as much for the same appliance. I don’t think necessarily that consumers are being cheated out of high quality products so much as they have bought into the concept of always paying less. Without always recognizing how much long term value they might get out of a more expensive one. So companies offer lower quality consumer models.

I can buy a microwave for like$20. But my company sells $400+ microwaves that no consumer would ever consider. But because we sell business to business that is what we stock.

Right, but why is that? Because the ruling class have never offered fair compensation to the working class, since basically the dawn of history.

That's why socialism is still so scary to many people. But these days most societies aware of the fight for racial equality, gender equality, sexual equality... perhaps soon, the time will come for economic equality too.

That's hardly planned obsolescence though

I see no difference.

If you want to talk semantics, you're missing the bigger picture.

Moore's law was all about manufacturing precision. It's less about planned obsolescence and literally about the limits of production. Look at yield numbers for modern CPU's. 80% of chips coming off the line being usable is considered good. And even within that 80% you have to bin chips because some of them were made with non-fatal but performance affecting manufacturing flaws. And even within those bins, there are chips that lost the "silicon lottery" and are barely within the bin.

The i7 in my dev machine at work requires overvolting to work within spec and it's unstable at even 100 Mhz above max turbo. That's just how it goes when we're carving features into silicone that are 1/4 the wavelength of the light we're using to carve it. Moore's law only broke because we didn't crack Ultraviolet Lithography in time.

Also, fuck Intel for other unrelated reasons.

Simply, most of the old appliances were junk. They've long since been put out for scrap. Only the "good" old appliances or those that have been looked after or seen extremely light duty still survive to this day. Often with repeated repairs and replacement parts. It's survivor bias, basically. You only see the survivors and never the many, many, many losers.

I think, you need to understand the difference between lasting 35 years and lasting forever.

You also need to understand that not everyone wants 35 year old washer dryer sets. They also want appliances that last 5 years.

I am of course only speaking to the experience as to why you would still buy new appliances, as 35 years ago there was no connectivity as we know it today on the internet.

Well that’s just the point. We act like nothing lasts these days when mostly we just are trigger happy to replace. I know people with 10 year old phones because they aren’t interested in replacing them. I’m not convinced that today’s phones are designed to break after 2 years. We just aren’t interested in keeping them because something newer and faster comes along.

People conveniently ignore increased efficiency. I can pretty much guarantee replacing a 30 year old refrigerator would pay for itself faster than you would expect.

Serious answer: They didn't. What we're seeing here is an example of survivorship bias. The truth is that the average durability of old appliances is actually lower than that of modern appliances. However, since manufacturing tolerances were higher, the durability of old appliances also had a significantly higher standard deviation.

Survivorship bias

Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias.

Survivorship bias can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because failures are ignored, such as when companies that no longer exist are excluded from analyses of financial performance.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

I think you may have used the word durability a few too many times. You post doesn’t quite make sense.

Perhaps a diagram would make more sense. The failure distribution of old appliances looks like the orange graph. The failure distribution of new appliances looks like the blue graph.

That to me seems to perfectly illustrate planned obsolescence. There's no reason improved materials and manufacturing processes would lead to sharper marked failure distributions.

Seriously? If things are more identical, then they should fail at more identical times. That's not exactly hard to grasp.

Yes, but you conveniently overlook the age at which they fail, solely focusing on the span in which they do is misleading.

If I program a device to fail after 3 years, then your graph will look like that, would you attribute that to a similarity of components as well?

If I program a device to fail after 3 years, then your graph will look like that

No it wouldn't. If the device was actually programed to fail, the graph would look more like this.

Yes, because people would be stupid enough to have them fail on the same day. You're absolutely right.

Uh what are you on about. First you say it's bias and that durability was lower on average, and then you end with "the durability had a higher durability"?

Also, that Wikipedia link doesn't prove anything, it just explains a phenomenon, that does not mean older things were less durable, just that the opposite is sometimes an illusion.

Can you provide any evidence for your claim?

Uh what are you on about. First you say it's bias and that durability was lower on average, and then you end with "the durability had a higher durability"?

That was a typo. Should have been "standard deviation"

Can you provide any evidence for your claim?

How about an example? In the 60s and 70s, cars were not expected to last anywhere near 100k miles. Now, car companies regularly give out 100k mile warranties.

How about an example?

Well how about if I use phones as an example? Would that be fair to argue the point of planned obsolescence?

A lot of people don't like the aesthetics of these older products.

Those that don't mind and were lucky enough to have them, still have them.

My mother is 63 and she still has the electrolux vacuum cleaner she got as a wedding gift when she was 22.

And it's still better than most other vacuums currently on the market.

But it looks like this

It’s a bit retro bust definitely stylish. I dont think most people would be opposed to having that in their home. Especially since it’s a product you mostly keep in a closet anyway.

lol her's isn't nearly as in good condition as that one.

1/4 of the paint job has flaked away and one of the wheels broke and was replaced with a toy wheel years ago.

Nope. Most of them were thrown out because they were avocado green or orange or pink and the householders wanted to replace them with a nice modern white/black/aluminum one. Either that or they dropped a screw or lost a latch and the owners couldn't be arsed to replace the screw instead of getting whole new washer and dryer.

I bought a house 3 years ago with a stove purchased in 1971. Everything still worked but if I turned on the oven my meter would spin like a top. I replaced it with a modern glass top and will save more in electricity over its life span than it cost me.

Many people are using them. My parents have had the same washing machine since before I was even born.

Many people just replaced their things for newer models that are supposed to be "better".

My mom is one of these. She still uses a 40 year old oven and refuses to buy a new one because she’s convinced it won’t last or be reliable. Meanwhile she has an oven and stove top that cooks unevenly; takes forever to heat up, probably horribly inefficient and a drain on electricity. It’s a shit machine well past it’s expiration date but technically it still works so it’s a gem. Oh and it was top of the line when it was new so it’s not like any bargain basement machine would have survived this long. I’m sure she could get a quality product if she shopped around but she also complains it is too expensive. I’m guessing she will get a midlife product eventually and complain it doesn’t have the longevity of her top of the line old product.

Basically I believe most of this complaining about planned obsolescence is survivorship bias.

We recently bought a house built in the 70s. The AC / water heater are original to the house (46 years old). They kind of work but man are they limping along. That being said anything you buy now will not last 40 years.

Kind of weird feeling when your AC is older than you are.

How do you know that? Don’t we have to wait 40 years to find out?

I’m willing to bet that 40 years from now I will hear people complaining about how shit products are and that they don’t build them like they used to in 2018 when someone bought an air conditioner that is one of the last 2018 air conditioners still functioning.

I care less about tvs/phones they advance quickly anyway. But washer a dryers and fridges I want to have for 10-20 years.

tvs

I'm still using the Sony display I bought almost 10 years ago because it's HD and works great. Every time I happen to look at what newer TVs are doing it's "smart" this and "motion smoothing" that, neither of which I have any interest in or willingness to pay extra for. I just need a dumb monitor to connect to everything else. Point being, TVs are as advanced as they really need be without gimmicks being added to try and push new models.

Yeah most of their smart software is garbage too. The resolution increase,HDR, and refresh rates have become much better on tvs though. I upgraded my pc monitor from 1080p to 1440p last year and was blown away by how much better it looked.

I'm of the opinion that for computer monitors, 1440p and 144hz and all that jazz are ideal.

But for TVs... Well my uncle just down-graded from 4k back to 1080p because he and his family found things look kind of crappy in non-native resolution.

And don't even get me started on the soap opera effect...

But for TVs... Well my uncle just down-graded from 4k back to 1080p because he and his family found things look kind of crappy in non-native resolution.

Then he either had a TV that upscaled terribly, or it's all in his head.

Oh I agree. I'm just contributing an anecdote, I never saw it myself. He said it looked "blocky" which sounds like bad upscaling to me.

From what I've heard, upscaling is almost always terrible

You have heard incorrectly.

That soap operas effect is able to be turned off in settings on every tv I have ever come across. Sometimes is called motion smoothing, somethings reduce jitter, or other gimmicky names.

I hate it for movies and tv though for video games and sports I’m ok with it.

There’s no need to downgrade from 4K to 1080 the tv just outputs whatever signal is sent to it.

Every time I go to a friends house with a new tv I turn it off for them unless they “like it”

People who like soap opera mode... shudder

All I'm saying is that for TV use, extra hz aren't worth it and I'd gladly save my money and get a "crappier" TV and play games on a computer monitor.

Yeah I think it’s gross too. And I use a monitor for gaming on my pc but have a big ass tv to watch shows on and that reduce motion jutter is off and will stay off.

I bought a 4K tv and can’t tell the difference between 4K and 1080p :(

A modern TV will have a vastly superior picture quality than a model from 10 year ago. This is true even before sticker features like resolution increases and HDR. Each year, picture quality improves noticeably; over a decade the difference is substantial.

Depends on the tv, though. I mean if you have a 10 year old LED 1080p tv and you get a new LED 1080p tv, they’re going to look pretty similar.

You won't though. Tv's weren't led then, they were lcd. They used more power and had shittier panels

Most TVs still use LCD panels, and LED backlights were definitely a thing in 2008. That's not to say that pixel technologies haven't improved, though.

[removed]

What world do you live in? I have a 10 year old flat screen still going strong, a 4 k that is at least three years old. Haven’t seen an issue with it.

Everyone complains of planned obsolescence, I work in the industry and just don’t see it. People take care of their things and they last. While people that don’t take care of them and treat them poorly wonder why it has planned obsolescence, bitch you broke it. But a new one or fix it.

Also just like the alternator in my car they die from time to time after wear and tear.

It’s amazing how people just don’t know how much goes into research and development around designing these amazing technologies. Fuck a single transistor which there are millions of in the processor in your phone are nearing the size of a single molecule. Shits gonna break from time to time.

Design something better if you think you can.

Meh, it's not anything that makes such a difference I feel like I am missing anything. Picture still looks great. That's only stuff you notice when everything is side-by-side.

[deleted]

Were they in similar price range?

Everything is cheaper these days. I got a 32 inch lcd insignia from best buy back in 08 for $500 (which still works perfect) and replaced it with a 42 inch samsung led for $300. Picture is about 30 times better. Still use the insignia in a different house.

Yeah, but does that really matter? What I have is fine, it looks good and I'm happy with it.

Why should I drop a few hundred dollars on a new tv if I don't NEED it?

"There's not much difference" and "I'm happy with what I have" are totally different arguments though. You can see that newer technology is way better, even if you don't feel the need to buy it.

I never said that though. I'm not the same guy you were talking with.

I just said "why should i buy something I don't need?"

Yes, it looks better, but if mine works perfectly and looks decent, why should I change?

Because you care about visual fidelity or modern features. But if you don't then no one's forcing you to upgrade. This is why your old tv still works.

Kinda the same reason some people have nice cars when the majority of us could be fine in a Honda Civic. Because people like nicer things sometimes?

I'm not particularly fond of smart tvs insofar as that there is no guarantee that your service of choice will support that TV in a few years and then you will need a box to use that service, but there certainly have been some improvements in TVs whereas energy efficiency. Many older plasma displays used dramatically more power. I don't foresee dramatic improvements from this point forward, but as energy rates go up the benefits of replacing older devices isn't just improvements in the technology.

One big thing to worry about is that smart TVs will lose support over the years, and not be kept up to date with security patches. I have a friend that had to block his older smart TV from getting on the internet because one day it started having a lot of constantly heavy and suspicious network activity. Turns out his model had a large security hole and was remotely "patched" when it tried to phone home for an update and got added to a botnet instead. Not much you can do to fix that on a smart TV, especially when it's several years out of warranty, on top of the lack of company support. He fortunately didn't care for any of its smart features, so isn't taking a hit in what he bought the TV for.

What frustrated me the most is that todays tv's take a while to turn on and even install updates when I just want to hit the button and watch the game/race.

Yea, I'll never connect my TV to the internet.

HDR is the single biggest thing to happen to TVs. It's incredible and gives you close to plasma level colour on an LCD/OLED panel.

Wouldn't really say it's the "biggest thing to happen to TVs". Maybe biggest in the last 5 years.

That, OLED, and full array local dimming for non-OLED.

I'm still rocking my plasmas which just hit 7 years. I'm hoping I get another 3+ out of them to allow OLED and such to decrease in price. These tvs are hot as fuck but damn do they look good.

OLED looks very similar to plasma and also gets 4K resolution. I've got one of the LG ones we got it on a holiday sale. OLED are coming down in price a lot so hopefully your plasma will last until you see a good deal. Watching UHD Bluray on it is amazing.

I've never really experienced 4k. Not sure how much of a difference it will be over good quality 1080. Also, most of my media is only 1080P right now and for foreseeable future so unless it has some killer conversion I don't think I'd benefit much.

4K probably not a huge difference over Bluray quality 1080p but UHD Bluray have HDR video which does make a big difference imho

Thanks. I def need to check it out one of these days. These plasmas aren't going to last forever!

Motion smoothing looks like shit. I hate when people have it on.

Nah, HDR on a good set (either OLED or LED with good local dimming) is a game changer. Coupled with 4K it's even better. Glad your old set is still going strong, but the new sets are night and day to the old ones.

I'm still using the Sony display I bought almost 10 years ago because it's HD and works great.

I hear ya.

When I got my current job 10 years ago and moved out of my parents, I went to Best Buy and bought the cheapest 47" 1080p TV they had - a Westinghouse for $900 or so. My plan was I would replace it in a few years because I knew it was a cheap-o piece-o-crap.

Well I'll be dammed if that TV is still working 10 years later. I thought about giving it away and replacing it but why? It just works. It's thick compared to my 55" LG in my livingroom, but it works fine in the bedroom. That, and it has a crap ton of connection options - 4 HDMI, Component, Composite, VGA, Coax, etc that my newer TVs just lack and it pisses me off.

Heh. I still have a Trinitron that gets daily use that I bought in the 90s.

Most of the smart features you can just buy in a separate product and plug into the TV.

How will you still receive security firmware updates for our smart washers/dryers/fridges 20 years from now when hackers are spreading malware to them which sets houses on fire?

Just wear your foil hat you’ll be fine

Smartphones in the last decade have improved so dramatically that I'm skeptical anybody would care about a smartphone that could last a decade. Appliances though you make a good point that any improvements are far more evolutionary than revolutionary. A newer washer might be a smidge more energy efficient, but it isn't going to completely change how you wash your clothes.

not a decade but if you expect that a phone should have 2 additional full software updates (so 3 versions in total) and each version is 1 year apart, I would expect at least 3 years usage out of a phone (1 year fir each update, 1 year leading to the update you won't get.... where you could replace your phone)

Apple in recent history seems to release OS upgrades beyond 3 years. iOS 12 seems to support all the way back to the iPhone 5S, which is almost 5 years old. While some people through gentle care and cost aversion manage to hold onto phones sometimes longer by that point a significant percentage of phones sold are no longer in active use. Since Apple gets a cut of app sales there isn't as strong of motivation for planned obsolesce as other smart phone mfg.

With the exception of Google's own phones no Android vendor I am aware reliably provides updates after 2 years and on many lower end model stop providing updates earlier. Historically considering many people swapped phones after 2 year contracts that made some sense, but as the 2 year contract is fading in popularity I imagine that there may be more demand for vendors to support their devices longer. The way many people got a subsidized upgrade after 2 years discouraged people from holding to perfectly usable phones beyond 2 years. With the costs of phones more transparent to customers and the differences with new models less obvious I imagine that longer term support is going to become a bigger factor in customer buying decisions. Smartphones are starting to enter into market maturity where upgrade cycles are going to start getting longer.

"advance" quickly

Well yeah. Smartphones didn't exist 10 years ago and HD tv either. Washer/Dryers/fridges has had similar tech for a while.

HDTV most definitely did exist in 2008.

You're right, but besides screen resolution, the TV's of ten years ago are junk compared to today. Huge bezels, much thicker and heavier, no smart features, lower general picture quality,more power consumption, no 3d or 4k or hdr, and a 1080p set was prohibitively expensive for most people

Who really uses the "smart" features or 3D, though?

3d almost noone, which is why they aren't sold anymore.

smart features i would guess a lot of people, since it's almost impossible to buy a tv without it these days. if there wasn't demand, they'd stop selling them or scale them back into certain models

but that's not the point anyway. just that these are advances that didn't exist in tv's 10 years ago

I do. I loved 3D.

Idk the picture on my 10 year old plasma looks fine. You're probably right on the thickness and weight and power consumption on it though

I remember the first time one of my college buddies got an HDTV in 2008...took out and maxed his first credit card to do it, ha.

We would watch golf just because the water and trees looked incredible.

But most of those appliances are in landfills. There is a lot of survivorship bias in this thread.

Buying a super high end appliance will promote it's longevity. It doesn't mean it'll last 40 years. Or even 10.

N=1 here, but my Panasonic Viera plasma from 2010 is still kicking and great. Doubles as a space heater in the winter. Still has fantastic black levels. The only thing that comes close is OLED.

The thing is there are fridge and stove brands that last 20-30 years — see Miele or Wolf/Subzero — it’s just that the vast majority of consumers don’t want to pay $5,000 for a range stove.

These options exist. But putting longevity requirements will only drive up prices and result in decreased access to goods for most consumers.

People love talking about Kitchen Aid stand mixers that last 30 years, but they also don’t want to pay $600 which is what it would cost today to produce/buy one that lasts that long.

Washer, driers and fridges also evolve though.

I wouldn’t want to use the fridge my parents used, temperature control was a mess, compartiments were peculiar compared to what we need nowadays, and it was horribly electricity inefficient.

People who think these appliances should last decades usually don’t really care about the job done or see them with rose tainted glasses IMO.

Even knives have become better in significant aspects, I would seriously doubt anyone positing that a man made objects has no relevant improvement path.

There's a different though between being able to last 10+ years and being designed to last 10+ years. I shouldn't be forced to upgrade every few years, I should be able to upgrade when I want to.

That’s a trade-off that you are still free to take. It’s just not the mainstream choice anymore and will costs 10x times more than before.

Perhaps compare this to using long range telephones. There’s part of the world where you only get 3G phones with fast but short range waves, your PHS won’t work anymore. It sucks if you wanted to keep using then, you’ll have to switch to way more expensive gear if you wanted to solve the same problem because most people aren’t affected.

And in 10 years I wouldn’t expect my current phone to be compatible either, but under the premise that most people will benefit from the newer standard.

Basically I think people are angry at what they think as arbitrary, while makers mostly adjust their product lifetime to what matches the market. If it was that much different from the natural cycle more people would be paying extra to have the better products, and it just doesn’t happen or gets reajusted the next cycle.

I’m still pissed off about the washer I had which died about 3 or 4 years after purchase. Something with the control circuit board went bad and the replacement costs more than half what I paid for the whole thing. I researched DIY solutions and found no way to fix it (seemed like a common problem.) Circuit boards should not break down that easily. Instead of repairing it, I went out and bought a Speed Queen mechanical washer - no circuit boards!

Don't want circuit boards and low lifespan appliances? Don't support conservation policy on efficiencies. Personally I think them a net detriment to the environment anyways. The majority of the time, durable and efficient are mutually exclusive without unrealistic cost.

Don't want circuit boards to fail early? Then you have to support using toxic substances. Capacitors used to use a group of carcinogenic chemicals. They got banned, now capacitor failure causes a huge number of board failures.

They removed lead from all solders, not just portable water pipes. The lead free solder is responsible for a lot of board failures as well.

Personally, I accept the trade offs on toxic chemicals, less so on efficiency. Then again, I'm also don't subscribe to the "planned obsolescence" conspiracy as most of reddit, at least as much as is mentioned.

Ereplacementparts.com is the place to go to keep your appliances running for a long time.

Not as true as you think.

Electronics are developing slower and slower every single year, and they like to use tricks to make it seem their benchmarks are going up faster than they are.... even though they always say that this phone is now twice as fast as the last one, that is under special conditions nobody can achieve, while in fact the development is halting, and has been for phones, tvs and pcs for over half a decade.

Basically, you should replace your electronics much slower than you did from the late 90s to 2010, because prizes are actually going up in many categories, while performance is barely increasing.

My previous fridge came with a 10 year warranty on the compressor, it started failing when it was 11 years old. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or annoyed with how they timed that.

You're correct. I bought some headphones back in 2003 that worked for a month. I pulled them apart to try and figure out what was wrong, they connected the wires in the headphone with a small piece of masking tape.

I remember being pretty upset about that. I also remember that despite management making those decisions, we all have a duty to act ethically.

*edit spelling error.

I don't think that's planned obselescense, you just got a lemon there.

Lack of durability is not planned obsolescence.

[deleted]

The manufacturer intentionally implemented a design that is made to fail quickly so you buy a new unit

why do you have to take such a cynical view on everything? you're entirely dismissing the possibility of the manufacturer making the design choices to save money. where do you draw the line between "making a low-end product" and "planned obsolescence"?

Intentionally using non-replaceable,non-durable parts only or primarily to limit the lifespan of a product is one way to plan obsolescence.

But really thats planned brokenness. It doesn’t require the existence of new versions at all.

Your device becomes obsolete when the world around it changes. When the software you need is no longer guaranteed or widely available.

The burden of an anti-planned obsolescence law would fall more on the software makers than on the hardware makers. They’d have to, for example, maintain 32 bit versions of their software with the same updates, when the new systems switched to 64 bit.

It would work to strongly discourage significant rewrites of the code base, or updates to take advantage of increased processing power or new device capabilities.

An intentional weak spot that breaks first is planned obsolescence. Wires connected with tape in headphones is definitely an intended weak spot. The extra cost of properly connecting the wires is minimal.

Its a shitty practice, but your headphones didn’t become obsolete. They became broken.

You don’t need to buy a new version, but a new copy of the same version.

Fragility is not planned obsolescence, and being broken is not being obsolete.

Intended fragility is the exact definition of planned obsolescence.

That's what planned obsolescence is.

Collins dictionary definition:

the policy of deliberately limiting the life of a product in order to encourage the purchaser to replace it

Merriam Webster:

the practice of making or designing something (such as a car) in such a way that it will only be usable for a short time so that people will have to buy another one

I think you need to read up on what planned obsolence is, it's not limited to models becoming outdated. Planned brokenness = planned obsolence.

It's the start of it

Hmm. Would soldering the wires have worked?

Probably anything would have been better.

Sounds like with a small amount of solder you could have fixed it.

The most effective way to discourage that is minimum legal warranties. Most of "thing broke because it was built in a flimsy way" isn't "break it ASAP so we can sell another one" (the other one will probably be from a different brand anyways), it's "make it half a cent cheaper to build".

Product breaks within 2 years and there's evidence that the defect was there from the beginning (e.g. because many products of this specific model break that way)? The seller gets to replace it (and can then deal with the manufacturer).

It's hard to design a product to last just above two years just by cutting corners, so a vendor would have to actually put a "break after X time" chip in there to get that effect. Otherwise, the products will break within the warranty for heavy users, costing you more money than you can make from the cost-cutting.

I aggressively buy low-cost products, and I do keep my receipts. And I will insist on a warranty return if the product I'm sold is of shit quality. I've returned phones that had the battery performance drop to unacceptable levels, I've even returned shoes where parts wore out way too quickly.

Ah, the free market working for the benefit of the consumer, as always

Shareholders lives matter! ✊

To a large extent, in this case, it is meeting the expressed demand of the market.

Consumers have over and over sorted by price and gone with the least expensive product that "seems" to do the job. I just bought a microwave and I took one that seemed good enough over another that seemed good enough because of a $20 price difference. That $20 could have been the difference between a metal and a plastic part.

It is massively easy to compare prices between products and between retail locations now, and price seems to be the main thing consumers (myself included) actually care about often.

A large part of that comes from how much easier it is to gauge price than it is to gauge long term reliability. But part of that, in turn, has come from our turn from sources like consumer reports to sources like Amazon reviews that get posted 1 month after purchase.

Also, my microwave hasn't gone up in price since 1977, so if I was willing to pay $1200 (inflation adjusted) for a less powerful model.... I could probably find one that would last longer.

Yeah you see this all the time. People go buy a windows PC and complain its shit, so they go buy an apple. What they don't talk about is that they bought a cheap-ass piece of shit 400$ windows PC while spending $1600 on the apple. Like which do you think is gonna be better?
This is also probably why apple doesn't have any "budget" products, so that nobody can associate them with bugginess/breakage.

cheap ass-piece

^(Bleep-bloop, I'm a bot. This comment was inspired by )^xkcd#37

That's all good and nice but they are talking about planned obsolescence, as in designing for failure as in intentionally using weak capacitors, adding chips that are faulty after specified lifetime. That's just malicious and has no place in no market if you ask me. I get what you're saying but I felt like it's no excuse for planned obsolescence.

as in designing for failure as in intentionally using weak capacitors, adding chips that are faulty after specified lifetime.

They don't just buy weak capacitors/chips so it fails early, they also do it because it's cheaper and allows them to put a smaller price on the end product. You buy the weak design for less money, then it fails because you gave a low amount of money for a shit product.

The interesting question is whether high end products suffer from the same early failure issues.

Id also add maybe there is a non-nefarious side to planned obsolesce. If companies are taking devices that last 8 years but 90% of consumers replace it within 3 years... Why would you continue investing in longevity? Clearly the customer demand shows that the extended life isn't needed, so why not build something that lasts 3 years and saves everyone money?

There's also the whole issue of wage stagnation to consider. Most people don't have the amount to blow on a microwave that they used to, which is why price is such a big issue for consumers.

Once again, price has nothing to do with planned obsolescence. It's amazing how right-wing websites like Reddit will bend over backwards to defend corporate greed.

If you think Reddit is right wing... you are living in a dreamworld.

price has everything to with it.

Also, people like to confuse actual planned obsolescence with companies following the market trends.

Someone comes out with a fridge that's $200 cheaper but has 1 year less warrenty, if it's selling like hotcakes other companies will follow suit. That's what people want, that's what they get.

Nah man, planned obsolescence. Nothing to do with being made of less expensive parts like God Dan aluminum transformers

Appliances are cheap and shitty because consumers, by and large, only care about price. Flights are a great example of this. Everyone complains about legroom but then go right on to buy the cheapest ticket available no matter how shitty the leg room is.

The problem isn't the free market. It's consumers that by and large don't care and just want cheap stuff.

Also consolidation is limiting consumer choice. Most appliance brands have been bought by 4 companies.

The entire argument is that the market (consumers) should go to the better products for them.

This is predicated on the false belief that consumers are informed. Consumers are not informed. Only a tiny percentage are.

Therefore his statement that the market doesn't work - is correct.

The market is working just fine. The people are getting what they want, cheap goods. You think that you can have the government control everything so tightly that only top quality goods are manufactured at affordable prices so everyone can have a perfect outcome without the need to be the slightest bit informed?

The people are not getting what they want - cheap goods.

They are not aware of the lifespan of the things they are purchasing and are not aware they are spending far far more than they would be spending if the obsolescence did not exist.

Those savings could go towards other purchases instead of buying a new hairdryer or vacuum cleaner every year or two.

You think that you can have the government control everything so tightly that only top quality goods are manufactured at affordable prices so everyone can have a perfect outcome without the need to be the slightest bit informed?

To an extent. Yes. That is what we think in Europe.

We're probably not going to see eye to eye on this. I want the government to have as little control over my life as possible as these types of things are never free and the government has a terrible track record of unintended consequences.

Because the big bad government stopping companies from fucking over consumers is such a scary and abuseable thing?

You should probably have more of this. If you ditched this attitude you might not have only 1 ISP for people to use in tonnes of areas.

Instead of a government for the people you've got a government for the businesses because you fight against every instance of anyone and everyone trying to pull it in the other direction.

haha, thats an ironic example because the reason we have so few ISP's is because of the government. I live in a rural area and when I contacted one of the wireless internet providers they told me they were prohibited by law from providing me service because I was in an area serviced by another company.

Please tell me again how the all powerful government is here to look out for us?

You've missed the point.

When you've got good people in charge, you fight against them doing good things. So they don't happen.

When you've got bad people in charge, you fight them but they don't give a fuck so they do bad things.

The result? Shit only moves in the bad direction.

Hence the "ironic" example of you having a government that seems to be on the right, fucking the people in favour of corporate interests, while we have one that's in the middle.

Your attitude may be a good one on paper, but in the way governments are designed to function all you do is hurt yourself.

oh sweet summer child

In several hours when you cool off and realise that this was an insult you wrote because you actually had nothing of value to say you should really consider re-thinking the beliefs that you've never actually thought about and just dogmatically followed your whole life.

I'm going to assume you're very young because it doesn't take long to realize that nobody in washington is looking out for anyone but themselves and their own postitions. You simply don't get to that level of politics string free and an alltruistic public servant.

You are the one who appears to be following the dogma of "My party just wants to help everyone and if it weren't for the party that disagrees with me everything would be great!"

You just did the same thing again, wrote an insult, but with more words.

Attack what people say. Not a made up image of them you have in your head. I'm in my thirties, head of marketing in a server company, living in london.

What party are we talking about again? Are you forgetting that I literally told you I'm not American several comments ago?

I voted Conservative.

Any other assumptions that need breaking down here? Anything else that you've made up about me in your head that won't match the reality? I'm also a woman if that matters at all. Probably does as you assume everyone you speak to online is male.

I made no statements about your political affiliations or your gender. It is unfortunate that someone in their 30's hasn't realized yet that the government (any government) isn't concerned about what's best for you. Even if they were don't you want to be responsible for you're own future instead of dancing to the tune of your government officials?

For about 5 comments now and god knows how much wasted time you have completely failed to offer anything substantive that actually explains why good policies that do good things should be fought against.

All you have done is promote a fearful mindset that suggests you are afraid of some mystical ulterior motive behind the good policies that would be bad.

I am sorry that you are afraid of positive consumer policies. We aren't.

As this is just a big old waste of time I'm going to go ahead and stop responding to you now. I hope you have a good day though.

Make fewer assumptions about the person you're taling to in future and throw fewer insults. Stop wasting everyone's time and offer something that has substance instead of endless amounts of regurgitated white noise. Stop regurgitating buzz phrases and fearful nonsense. Justify your beliefs instead of simply spouting something you've heard a bunch without an explanation.

Your regurgitated nonsense does nothing to explain why good policies should be fought against.

Goodbye.

Just to frustrate you further, I'm not even going to read that wall of text you just wasted far too much time on. Good luck in dream land.

You have so few because lobbying allows companies to bribe politicians to maintain a monopoly. But we are a democracy, stop electing shitty government.

"Stop electing shitty government" isn't an answer.

It will never be an answer.

Shitty government will always get elected.

The shitty governments will do what they want regardless of how you fight them.

But these people fight the good governments trying to implement good things. So the result is a slide to the bad direction all the time. The bad governments getting more bad shit done than good governments get good shit done.

Because idiots fight good policies in favour of a ridiculously shit ideal that doesn't work in reality.

Bad and good need to work against each other to result in balance. When you get people fighting the good stuff not because they think it's bad but because "we don't want government" then the good ones don't shift things away from the bad quickly enough and the balance skews.

They are hurting themselves.

The bad governments even know this, and promote this ideology while completely ignoring it. Because it favours them for idiots to be fighting the good governments who will participate in good-faith while they will not.

Because an all powerful government can legislate against government (at any level) being allowed to legislate local monopolies.

Instead, in the US, you seem to allow corporations to lobby themselves into these kind of situations.

He's one of the breed here that will happily get fucked by a company, often asking to be, defending their right to do so, but don't you dare suggest the government could protect him from that.

[deleted]

The healthcare market hasn't been a free-market in decades. Government interference has been rampant.

When every device maker does it, the consumers can't do shit about it. I'd gladly pay a premium for premium products, but I cannot: No matter which (example) kitchen machine I buy, they all have some planned obsolescence feature built in, no matter whether the thing is $100 or $1000. Worst of all: I don't even know which one will break first, because all companies replace their products every couple years with identical but slightly different versions, so no long term review can even exist.

You know why people prefer cheap shit? Because we all got burned enough times on expensive shit that wasn't a lick better. I've bought furniture from every major maker in my country, and the only piece of furniture that was used for more than ten years is an ancient sofa my parents bought: Because thirty years ago, furniture was made with a higher quality standard.

Sure, someone might tell me that the NV-854/J is great, but annoyingly I can only but the NV-855/J or the NV-854/G, which are both significantly different.

Free market only works for goods that are easy to compare and verify. It fails for anything where the customer cannot make an informed decision.

My favorite piece of furniture is a coffee table my wife made in her Highschool shop class. It needs its finish touched up, but it’s solid cherry so I know I can sand it down and refinished it one of these days without a problem. I’m hoping the blanket chest I designed and am building right now for her turns into her favorite piece. If you’re not satisfied with consumer furniture you can build your own. And it doesn’t have to be expensive, because you can buy second hand tools on Craigslist and eBay for reasonable prices. And personally, I think it’s infinitely more interesting and rewarding than whatever garbage tv I would have watched at night instead.

Great. Those tools and projects will fit perfectly in the spare workshop I don't have.

I love building redundant work spaces because cooperation and sharing are myths for kindergartners and not real things.

It's not just cost, it's also ergonomics. Apple could build an easily repairable iPhone that doesn't use glue to secure the batter and whatnot. But it'd be significant thicker and heavier. Compare a Galaxy S5 (a phone that had a removable battery) with an iPhone o the same generation. Research and the market shows that customers want thin, light phones and are okay with replacing phones more frequently.

Jeah well, you know that the consumer is an integral part of the free market. You cannot consider them separate.

Simply pointing out that consumers get what they want. They want stuff to be cheap so what they get is cheap stuff. In America I hear people talk about cheap Chinese stuff all the time but they don't want to pay the premium that comes along with goods that are made in a country without cheap labor.

Dullard. We have no choice in this matter.

oooo, good one. Really nailed me there.

No, the problem is not "not the free market" and it's not consumers, the supply side of the market is making shit products and consumers can't make educated decisions on purchases other than on price and vague feature lists because there is a huge information asymmetry that manufacturers are not legally obligated to do anything about.

Really? The age of the internet when we have access to more information than at any previous point in history as well as the opinions of countless other people and consumers can't make informed buying decisions?

I know right? It's sad. Not only do manufacturers not publish the kind of spec sheets required to make informed decisions on a huge amount of products, you also have shill reviews, paid reviews, amazon merging products that do not literally have the same specs under the same listing, reliable review sites selling out to new owners, etc.. Information asymmetry is a really huge problem.

This is interesting to me. I consider myself to be a typical consumer and I find it incredibly easy to be an informed buyer. Fake reviews are easy to see through for the most part. Even if I buy from a local store I still pull an item up online to read reviews and see what the shortcomings are or how many people are using a particular item. If I'm particularly worried about an item I'll go to a smaller specialty store where I trust the opinion of the owner instead of a big box store where I know they have special sku's specific to their store that have been made cheaper.

The information is at our finger tips and if consumers don't know about it that's hardly the fault of the free market. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

If I'm particularly worried about an item I'll go to a smaller specialty store where I trust the opinion of the owner instead of a big box store where I know they have special sku's specific to their store that have been made cheaper.

The information is at our finger tips and if consumers don't know about it that's hardly the fault of the free market. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Those two statements contradict each other. The information is freely available (it's actually not) but you feel the need to trust the opinion of some mom-n-pop seller because you think the bigger store is secretly cutting corners into some undocumented manor (and they certainly are)?

You literally just described negative externalities of information asymmetry and defended it by suggesting you could work extra hard to figure out who's secretly lying and who's not.

This is exhausting

The auto industry has to be the worst. Crucial components breaking right after your warranty expires is almost as funny as it should be illegal.

I'm not sure about that. As someone who's family does all their own car maintenance, and we have had many vehicles, our Toyotas from the last 10-15 years have required a mind-boggling minimal maintenance. Biggest difference I've seen in vehicle maintenance is how much longer water pumps, tires, and brakes last. Used to be I could count off in my head how often each of those would need replacing on each car and now I can't remember the last time I did any of them.

Fair enough. I do all the work on my cars also and unfortunately with the german manufacturers it's a different story. My old BMW was a tank, basic maintenance was all you needed to take care of for a happy car. My newer one is a different story, same deal with my dads newer Mercedes. It's a real shame because when I first got into cars I looked to the German car makers as an example of quality manufacturing, pride in the machinery. The goal has clearly moved from making a beauty of a machine to making a pretty penny.

Brakes and tires have definitely improved though, no question about that. It's amazing how a top shelf tire will completely change how your car feels.

Similar story with my dad's '86 SEL420. That thing was fantastically reliable.

The '99 ML320 they got after that was the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen. Interior was okay, not great. Mechanically it was a nightmare. They replaced the entire power train, the alternator (which "never goes bad" and had to be shipped in from Germany), a part of one of the axels.....the list goes on.

My parents bought both of these second hand so no warranty. I'll probably never buy a German vehicle based on these experiences; though the recent consumer reports reviews of Audi is starting to make me rethink that sentiment.

And now, in the US, most of these “German” cars are made in some Southern state like Alabama. As I told my employee when his newer Benz’s transmission failed right after the warranty expired.. “German engineering is no match for Alabama manufacturing”.... :)

Lol, yep. What's weird is that the stuff from Mexico seems to have a much better product quality than the stuff from Alabama. Idk if it's a tribal knowledge thing where the people in Mexico have just been doing it longer or if it's that the workers in the US South are shit, but it comes out in the testing.

Yeah Japanese is the way to go unless you can get your hands on an older Benz diesel or a W126.

Toyotas are a different breed. They’re not perfect but they more often than not are made with care for the person who owns the car after the warranty. I think the only companies with similar motivation are Honda, and less successfully, Hyundai/Kia. Honda is self explanatory and Korea really seems to by trying but just doesn’t have decades of experience.

[deleted]

They guarantee that it will last at least that many years is the point.

The planned obsolescence comes from how they set the warranty right below when they expect those parts to give. Couple that with how a lot of newer vehicles are requiring make specific tools to service them and boom. You got after warranty service flooding into your dealerships

Then why buy these brands that are known to be wallet time bombs?

Industry standard? ¯\(ツ)/¯

Of course the warranty is going to be set at a bit less than the expected lifetime. That is exactly the point of a warranty. It is supposed to protect you if you get unlucky and get a lemon that lasts shorter than it is expected to. It's not supposed to just give you a free replacement when the item reaches its expected lifespan.

They didn't choose a warranty and then design the part to fail right afterwards. They made the part, figured out how long it will last and then set the warranty to a bit less than that.

If we're talking used cars, people usually sell them just before they can be expected to start having problems.

simple.

I think it is tiome to tax the sale of products from all companies who feature planned obsolescence x % extra, except when they take in the ammount of recycled waste and put it back in their products.

For example:

I have the choice between two mp3 players.

1 is the bare bones modell, with a slot for a battery, and 8gb.

2 is a modern top flat modell, with an internal battery, no possible repair options, ect.

Now, company 2 would, under my system, cost 10 % tax more, except when they sign a recycling agreement, that states that all the waste produced by planned obsolescence will be shipped to their facilities, and be recycled by them.

I mean, the place with planned obsolescence is stealing waste space from regular people.

Now, this may be fun and games with the book binder, whop switches to a different glue that makes books fall apart after 20 years, where he can just throw those books in the burner, but if you are thinking entire PC's,

I may be alone in this, but I think that place should be forcefully put out of business.

First, you are conflating waste and recycling with a different issue entirely.

I think it is time to tax the sale of products from all companies who feature planned obsolescence

The problem with solutions from an average person is that that average person only relegates a few moments to the issue at hand, resulting in things they may not consider.

Making things easier to repair = great idea. The implementation might not turn out so great though, we'll see.

But, there is no company on the face of the earth, or that ever did business, that does not pass on expenses to the customer. That's how business actually works BTW, all expenses are passed to the customer and the result is hopefully profit. No matter how you word it, or which end you tax it, the price of whatever they are selling goes up 10% or by whatever margin you decide to tax them. You cannot force a company to make only 'x' profit or no profit.

Taxing a company for doing x is not going to hurt or punish their business model, it hurts consumers. Further following your plan, requiring the company to cover shipping and the recycling of said products to save 10% on a tax is ridiculous, even if it somehow magically wasn't passed to the consumer, shipping and recycling would cost a lot more than 10% and then they'd get yet another set of tax deductible business expenses. You would also be adding all those shipping methods and transport/handling to the carbon footprint. But I can see how this could be paraded around as a jobs creator...

That said, with your specific example, the majority of people would still pick the better performing option, so the point is altogether mute. Also, what about the bare bones model makes it less obsolete and the high end one less so? Batteries change, adapt, memory cards change and adapt, our needs change and adapt. Being able to replace a shitty battery or a low end memory card does no one any good. In fact, it's already planned by the consumer, the lower priced model with hardly any space and a crappy battery gets thrown in a drawer as their music collection grows and they eventually buy option 2 anyway, the new model you can tweet and wipe your ass with.

BTW, would your tax plan include CPU and video card makers? Media players and TV's, consoles, cars and everything else that gets improved on in a rapid pace? Or would it just be a MP3 player? How about tools? Can Black and Decker make an improved drill? No? Can Samsung make a new washer that uses 2x less water? No? My refrigerator is 10x more efficient than my grandmothers old Frigidaire and it does things. Same with the washer and dryer etc..

Your idea here is kinda ill-conceived all around. Which is what happens when you devote 2 minutes of thought into a subject you're not familiar with.

What the EU is doing is asking manufacturers to make things easier to repair, it's not really the same thing as planned obsolescence, if this goes through and it has teeth, expect your repair parts to cost as much as buying a new one, which while I guess is a good thing for the environment overall, won't fly with consumers either. You may want a repairable iPhone 8, but when iPhone 12 comes out, everyone will still rush to buy it.

I mean, the place with planned obsolescence is stealing waste space from regular people.

You said "I mean" but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean...

I may be alone in this, but I think that place should be forcefully put out of business.

Maybe just don't buy from whoever you think is the bad guy? You try to go down this path and you'll eventually have two colors to choose from, black and black.

I sell appliances and people are surprised their $1,400 washer dryer set is only expected to last around 8 years.

as they should be

All systems fail. It’s an intrinsic property of the universe

Entropy is an inescapable part of the universe, true. But you should be able to repair a broken washer by designing cheaper parts to fail rather than replace an entire motor and drum assembly because the manufacturer designed the bearing that failed to be fused into the drum in the first place.

All systems fail, but some of them last a hundred years while some break two weeks after the two year warranty ends

Murphy’s law

But the fact that a product has a limited lifespan is not the same thing as planned obsolescence.

Tires don’t last 20 years (neither do lots of individual parts of a dishwasher). They’re not going to be obsolete.

There's a difference between maintaining high wear parts and a system as a whole that won't survive that long without significant repairs.

This is the thing that people don't understand. There's a difference between designing something to fail and not designing something to last.

I would rather have markets dictate how long a product's lifecycle is than a government. Like with phones, part of the reason we have such rapid advancement is because the development cycle is so short.

And who in the market decides? Because that power is exclusive to suppliers who make more money by keeping it short. The only ability consumers have to demand longer lifespans is by calling for govenment force.

The consumer decides. If the manufacturer makes a shitty product that doesn't last, it's in your power to buy something that will last longer. In aggregate, if a market decides that product lifespan is more important than other features, the manufacturers will answer that demand.

Oftentimes that comes with higher prices, and you see consumer products organized in tiers. It's the difference between buying something at Ikea or Ashley's. Both have consumers, but one does more business. It's not the government's job to regulate which of those models is a winner.

I'm of the belief that short lifecycles arent inherently better than long lifecycles, I've worked at businesses with design cycles less than a year and those where they last 5-10 years. Both models work, both have advantages and disadvantages, and at the end of the day it depends on what the customers want.

The consumer decides. If the manufacturer makes a shitty product that doesn't last, it's in your power to buy something that will last longer.

By that logic, the ISP market in the US is perfectly fine.

If no one offers the thing I want, getting it isn't a choice.

Government approved or otherwise natural oligopolies don't follow the same trends as competitive markets, like consumer goods. You have many, many choices in most cases where you are free to buy something that lasts longer.

But you've already spent money on the product that didn't last, and what do you then do when there is no alternative on the market that both can compete to other brands in terms of specifications and be built to last?

Even if a product seems like it will last, with brand new products you do not know this for sure.

And you're overestimating consumers, people don't truly think and prioritize what's good for them or their environment when buying a new product.

It isn't so simple as you portray it, sounds like you just read a book about the benefits of capitalism.

Well there's the rub. You can't build something to be state of the art and last forever, or at least not for the price most are willing to pay. So they don't do it, at least not for low prices.

What you can do as a consumer is start spending more on brands or products you know will last longer. Shop at Ashley's instead of Ikea. Buy good knives and tupperware. Buy an unlocked device in the highest tier, not a cheap carrier locked device. Don't buy cheap computers or parts, get higher specs than you need today. Don't fall for fashion items with high prices or "lifestyle" brands. Research before you buy, and leave reviews when you do.

There's always an option to buy something better, and lifespan generally tracks price.

And this isn't like I read a book on capitalism, this is my experience in design planning and review and meetings where we discuss product lifecycles for a few different industries (some consumer, some not).

Edit: I also don't agree with your assessment of consumers. I'd rather think them capable of deciding how they spend their money than trusting a government to nanny corporations into making certain kinds of products because the consumer doesn't understand what's good for them. The markets make what people want, it's not that complicated.

There's a difference between designing something to fail and not designing something to last.

In some cases, but not in all. Many parts may only have a rated life of a couple of years, so if you fill a product with non-replaceable parts with a low rated life, you are essentially designing it to fail, although it could be defended as "not designed to last". Essentially in that case they are the same thing.

Beyond that is the problem that the markets are a poor way of generating a long-lifetime products. What tends to happen is a bait and switch with companies that get a reputation for building solid products changing management style and cashing in on the name, selling rubbish for high prices.

Technically, this is the market deciding what they want. If people push lawmakers to prohibit planned obsolescence, that is the voice of the people no?

Well firstly, planned obsolescence is already illegal under certain conditions. You can't design something to break or fail intentionally, and companies (looking at you HP) should be held accountable for malicious practices. There's also good reason for minimum lifetime requirements for consumer safety (like car brakes or tires).

But when it comes to actually defining and enforcing this stuff in practice, it comes down to the government picking winners. Take software support. People get pissed at companies discontinuing support for old hardware. But to continue support companies need to dedicate resources for something that doesn't make money. If they don't support at all, no one buys the products again. If they support it forever, they can't survive as a business or make anything new. So you have to strike a balance, but where is it? The answer is it depends, and the consumers decide how important that feature is when they buy things.

Why should the government decide what a life cycle should look like? Are they engineers or product managers? Do they understand the markets, product viability, or even technical limitations? How do you define the line between "planned obsolescence" and effective life cycle management? How do they respond to rapidly changing industries that pivot in a quarter when they can't adjust laws for years?

It's just ludicrous to think that regulation can be effective in the general case. If consumers want things to last longer, they should start caring about that in the checkout line or on Amazon.

This would make sense in a vacuum.

Unfortunately, since corporations are now people, their lobbying power outweighs the voice of consumers. And this is especially true if all manufacturers move to the same business model of making products that only last a set number of years. As long as the competition plays along, they are fine. However, when a competitor tried to offer something better, it is often the case that companies use litigious means to fight back. (Comcast vs smaller ISPs/ car manufacturers vs Tesla/ oil companies vs solar / monsanto vs everyone).

These companies work the system to create the type of economy that forces consumers to buy their products every year. They edge out competition, buy up patents via lawsuits and financial strong arming, and blur the line between legal and illegalmonopolies. The end result is a consumer with no other choice but to buy from 3-4 main brands of goods, all produced by a corporation that has prospered via planned obsolescence.

I could go on and on about how fucked patent and copyright law is, but you've got it backwards. It's exploited in response to current market trends, not the cause of it.

Consolidation is a real issue in certain industries and the threat of oligopolies to consumers is certainly real, but we're not there yet and it doesn't really deal with planned obsolescence. Even back in the day when AT&T was vertically integrated down to the phone dials, they were able to innovate while delivering products that lasted for years. It's the huge competition and benefits of being first to market, followed by the desire of consumers for newer and cheaper stuff that drive short lifecycles, not oligopolies.

I understand what you're getting at, but it's a different issue than planned obsolescence. I would go so far to argue that regulation of lifecycles would hasten consolidation and make consumer choice worse, since it would starve out the smaller guys.

Corporate personhood is necessary to the existence of corporations. It's the exact concept of what a corporation is.

But by all means, if you want to abolish your right to sue corporations and stop them from entering into contracts, abolish corporate personhood.

If you're referring to Citizens United, that is entirely unrelated to corporate personhood, and you're revealing yourself as a useful idiot if you think it does.

The issue is that companies will never work for the good of the consumer, if a change happens to be beneficial to both parties they will do it, but if it effects their bottom-line and they calculate that the good PR generated by the change will be less beneficial financially than the status quo then they won't. Morality and money don't mix, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but at that level if it's between one or the other, the choice is a no-brainer for corporations.

The only one we have advocating for consumers on an ethical level is the government, unfortunately since money is speech and corporations are people even this fails quite often as trusted officials are bought or goaded into abusing their positions for private interests.

The market at this point is less of "What would customers pay more for?" which would be indicative of quality, innovation, style, positive aspects of a product, and is now more of "What will consumers endure? What's the most we can reap from doing the least?". You'll never get quality from a company just for having a good name, once any company reaches a certain level where minor changes result in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars worth of difference, their entire model is dedicated to mitigating loss by way of cuts from other areas, the product tends to be the first on the chopping block if not the employees.

I generally agree with you but from a different angle, and disagree that this particular point is a consumer protection issue.

Consumer protection is most needed when customers have the fewest choices, or the consumer of the product is not the customer of the supplier.

The latter is more of a grey area, since incentives get warped when goods/services are bundled by middlemen or the consumer pays nothing directly.

In consumer goods though, the people have a voice that is much louder than a government and when it speaks, manufacturers listen and adapt quickly. It's just that more often then not they shout "cheap and new!" not "last forever!"

I also disagree with your analysis of how large businesses operate, especially in consumer goods and electronics where people complain about this stuff the most. They're driven by innovation and disruption, not by cost cutting. Except in some areas, but it's a case by case basis and existing protections are just poorly enforced.

Yet my grandmother's Whirlpool washer dryer set lasted 30+ years of heavy use in a large family...

Tires literally abrade themselves away over time, that is why they are considered consumables.

That is not the case for washers and dryers. Maybe replace the bearings but that's the point. You can't by design in newer models.

Exactly. Consumables = Replaceables, and if that isn't the case then there is planned obsolescence at work

Oh c'mon, you know how high the markup is on those? It's insane, that's why it's one of the few retail things still sold on commission. Don't blame consumers that don't know it's really a $600 unit cost.

The markup after year round sales averages 5-15% which isn’t much. Appliances where I work are to get you in the door we actually make more money if you look and don’t buy but buy something else. After you get a appliance delivered we’re effectively losing money.

$1400 for the pair? Or $1400 each?

A $1400 pair I'd be shocked if it lasted 5. $1400 each I'd expect close to a decade.

There’s an answer to that, which is well explained in this video: https://youtu.be/ZKLip7Q_Y0s

Hate to be that guy, but source? I've never seen any evidence to suggest that this is more than just computers breaking down naturally. Has there ever been an instance of a company getting caught doing this?

I think it's one thing to pick crappy parts that you know will break after so long. It's another thing to make a sw update that breaks a device. The former is about quality which could be a competitive advantage for another company. The latter is a deliberate effort to sabotage your device.

What's the difference between 'planned obsolescence' and creating goods at different price points? For example, you could buy a high-quality $150 hammer that you could pass on to your grand-kids, or you could buy a $3 hammer that will last you 1 year. Are you going to mandate only high-quality $150 hammers be sold?

The main difference is the repairablity of items. In the hammer example let's say it's well understood that the $1 handle will be the first thing the break on the cheap hammer. In a normal design the handle is readily available and easy to remove, so for $1 in parts and $0.10 in labor you have a working hammer again. In a planned obsolescence design, the handle will be attached in a way that takes hours to get off, and handles aren't sold separately.

In a normal design the handle is readily available and easy to remove, so for $1 in parts and $0.10 in labor you have a working hammer again.

See, I don't think so. I think manufacturing with repairability (and durability) in mind will increase the prices of the item, which changes the psychology of how people interact with it. So if you buy an expensive hammer, you will want to repair it if something goes wrong, and in fact, with expensive tools and appliances, you can replace or repair individual components. If you buy a $2 hammer, you're not going to bother - you'll go out and buy another $2 hammer if something breaks. In the latter case the manufacturer would rather use (for example) a single mold and sell the tool for $2 rather than $5 or $10. Does that strike you as true, because it does to me.

I think the 'obsolescence' is an overstated phenomenon. Durability, is an aspect of quality and adds to the underlying cost (and therefore the price) of the item. In the modern world, we have choices that we didn't have in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s. We can buy high quality expensive goods, or we can buy low quality, cheap goods, or anything in between. The sweet spot tends to be in the middle, where the price you pay vs the quality get tends to be at a maximum ... higher premium items tend to have diminishing returns and the prices goes up dramatically with each 'quality unit' increase.

It's like a balance between how much is good enough?

I need a hammer to hit things once in a while vs I need a hammer that will last me for years of daily use.

Nowadays people can live minimalistic lives with few belongings and I wonder how they do maintenance. It feels more common nowadays for people to just go pay someone to come out with their tools to fix a problem instead of having a storage space for expensive tools and needing to gain some know-how to do the job.

[deleted]

Sacrificial gears are not planned obsolescence. They protect the other more expensive parts.

That would be true if you could buy replacement parts

Assuming that the end user can easily source and replace the sacrificial gear. Also assuming they're even aware that it's easily repairable when it fails.

my car door window broke, the frame is metal, the rails are metal, the clip that attaches to the window is metal, the piece that attaches the clip to the frame is plastic and broke into 3 pieces. $50 in parts later dad and i fixed it.

Do you have any evidence that Washing machines and such having planned obsolesence? I bought a new washer and dryer from Home Depot in the last 3 years. Got low end models. I do not see how these can have planned obsolescence. I expect them to last me 15 years if I get it repaired. I only replace them when its more expensive to fix them.

I live alone so I dont use them as much.

Look at for designs that make the appliance harder to repair. Things like using rivets instead of screws, or cases that are glued shut to make them difficult to open without breaking.

What do you mean started? I am pretty sure my parents G that is 10 yrs old is still going strong. My 2 year old E just took a giant pile of steaming crap.

It’s not planned obsolescence. As the complexity of a device increases, so does the failure rate. The consumer demands connected home. More advanced technologies in all their appliances. While also maintaining the same costs. Developers use cheaper materials to hit price points while also incorporating more technology. It’s a recipe for things to break.

Blame the consumer, not the manufacturer.

There has been a slow decline in quality for decades. It affects all things. The bar is so low now, no one remembers a time when they use to buy shit and expected it to outlast themselves. It’s almost all garbage.

My father’s tools are a half century old and have a lifetime warranty he’ll never need to use. You can still buy items with the same name, but they’ll only last a week or two with real use.

Seriously, how hard is it actually to make a screwdriver that doesn’t fall apart when you twist it?

We live in a time where image is more important than integrity. As long as a company has a reputation for quality in the past, they will proudly produce disposable shit juxtaposed with nostalgic images of quality items they used to make.

I’m talking about basic shit, like hammers. You’d think we’d have perfected that tool by now. You can find decent ones at Home Depot, but not like mine. They don’t make that one anymore. Mine was built to last and it has.

I have eight Craftsman C-clamps. Four of them were my grandfathers, probably purchased in the early 1950s. Four of them I purchased a few years ago when I was working on a project that needed more clamps. They look identical, but when you pick them up and start using them, the quality difference is noticeable. Grandpa's clamps have smoother threads so they're easy to close the initial gap. The new clamps seize in a couple of spots and you have to crank like you're tightening the clamp even though the initial gap hasn't been closed. The handle on the new clamps is weaker and I've already bent one.

Al these people throwing that term around because they’ve had an issue with something or know somebody who has, but where’s any proof? Can you even explain how a manufacturer would even do that? Nah, it’s easier to just accuse every manufacturer of every device in your home of implementing “planned obsolescence” in their devices.

If you think appliances and electronics from 30 years ago were of higher quality than today, you’re already on the wrong side of the argument.

My parents still have the same Maytag washer & dryer set that’s got to be between 35-40 years old. They were around well before I was. Years ago, I found an identical set at a second hand store for $300. Bought it. Used them for a couple of years. Sold them for $300. Wife didn’t like the set because they were almond colored and “didn’t match the paint.” Should have kept the set. I’ve had more trouble with new Whirlpool washers than I care to think about, especially ones with that stupid freaking electric actuated brake that starts squealing like bloody murder after about 5 years.

I love technology but some things you shouldn’t fix if it’s not broke. Throw away culture sucks ass and it is perpetrated equally by manufacturers who will shave off anything to make a little more profit at the expense of quality and consumers who will not generally demand or pay for better quality merchandise. They’ll bitch about it all day long but at the end of they day they’ll just go buy another cheap crummy appliance to replace the broken one. They know it and manufacturers know it.

I work in healthcare technology and planned obsolesence exists in your medical equipment as well. Its ridiculous how expensive some parts are that break so easily.

Yeah washing machines are a real joke these days. You either buy an 'affordable" one, which is actually between a huge number; the minimum of ~200Euro and 1000+ Euro. (You're better off buying the cheapest you can find, you won't buy more quality even for 300+ extra) Or buy a Miele which is the only one still refraining from planned obsolescene.

You see it everywhere:

I have owned 5 of the same Steelseries Mice, on which the scroll button kept breaking. It's the best formed mouse for my hand so I kept buying it anyway.

One time I opened it up, and saw the block that the scroll button was moving over, was very soft plastic square and very bound to shaving off too much and become unusable with wear, 100% designed to fail as soon as possible with everything around it being much harder materials.

It is interesting though that Miele only gives 1 year of warranty, while the cheap brands often have 5 years of warranty.

It's so frustrating to have no other choices either.

I saw a post earlier by a person with a 40 year old dryer! A whirlpool, by the way. And much of the conversation was about this planned obsolescence bullshit.

[removed]

Survivorship bias has fuck all to do with it when you are literally trying to measure survivability! How can the things that survive be seen to be observed because the observer is biased towards only seeing the things that last longest. That is an absurd paradox when something existing and operating for a long time is actually the desired outcome.

Survivorship bias has everything to do with it. How many tens of thousands of that model were made? How many have survived? At this stage probably a fraction of a percentage. I'm sure forty years from now someone will slap the side of a machine made today and say "they sure don't make them like this anymore".

I repair apppliances all thebtime snd this is the case with nesrly all of the whirlpool washer and fridges. They are way bettrr thsn what is bring made today in terms of how long they last.

I don’t disagree that planned obsolescence is occurring, but survivorship bias could still be in play here.

Imagine a machine that is produced and has a normal distribution of survival: few break extremely quickly, most break after an average length of time, and few don’t break for an extremely long time. If we look at all of the machines still operating after a very long time (aka the “survivors”), then we might incorrectly determine that the machines produced back in the day were extraordinarily durable. However this is an incorrect assumption as we are not taking a representative sample of all of the machines originally produced. We only see the small fraction that survived far longer than the average for the product.

We also compare those old machines to machines being produced in our own time. If we assume that they have an identical normal distribution of survival as the old machines, then we see only the few that break very quickly and the majority that break after an average period of time. We haven’t had the time to observe the extremely long surviving machines so we also have a non-representative sample. We incorrectly assume that these newer machines are junk and will never last as long as machines built in the good old days.

No, it has everything to do with measuring survivability. The definition from wiki is this:

Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to false conclusions in several different ways.

The point is that only focusing on things that did last doesn't give an accurate picture of how many things from back then actually lasted well. False conclusions being the idea that "things from back then lasted better, look at the ones still around today" whilst ignoring all the examples that didn't last.

It's a statistically unsound way of trying to reach a conclusion, and you'd need to look at actual failure rates at a larger scale to make assertions of this nature. Talking about some random person's single example of a product that lasted 40 years counts for nothing.

OK, but planned obsolescence of consumer goods is a real thing.

I never said otherwise. I was responding to a particular example and pointing out that it, in itself, doesn't mean anything.

Planned obsolescence is a a real thing. But saying “my grandma has a 40 year old washing machine, that means old washing machines used to be made better”. Makes about as much sense as “saying I met someone named Kevin and he was an ass, that means everyone named Kevin is an ass”

You’re right that a single example is meaningless. But there are facts to back up the assertion that older products, especially appliances, last longer than current models. Just look at the materials they’re made of; on older mechanical products you expect to see just about everything made of metal, whereas newer products will use as much plastic as they can get away with. And of course metal is going to wear better than plastic over time.

I never argued otherwise, I was simply pointing out that specifically flawed argument with regards to their example. People have apparently read that as me defending corporations who do engage in planned obsolescence, when that was not my intention.

If we're going to push back against companies doing this, we need to focus on identifiable trends, not engage in wistful rambling where we assume things being from X era automatically makes them well built, and that things being from the present automatically makes them poorly built.

Show me one washing machine from the early 2,000s that still works you corporate bootlicker

I mean, to be honest, the Washer and Dryer set my mom has is from 2003 or so? Maybe 2004? And it works fine.

A friend of mine has his Washer Dryer set as well as his Fridge from 2007 and both are working well. That ones a little newer, but still.

I'm pointing out an objectively flawed argument, not defending corporations in general or arguing against the fact that many do engage in planned obsolescence. If you can't tell the difference, the point of being actively offended, that's a pretty poor reflection on you.

Mine are from 2001.

the washing machine and dishwashers are the worst since it is shit like this one tiny part that is undersized broke i can't buy a new one since the maker wants almost the cost of a new machine for this one tiny plastic part.

i think laws around the sale of replacement parts and the costs are what is needed. that would mess up every company doing it. it would also majorly mess with what apple is doing when it comes to replacement parts.

I first learned of this when I was younger. My grandma had an old sewing machine with all metal parts, I believe it was a Ward brand? It still works even though she had tried the newer machines that were mostly plastic and broke often.

I’m not sure if it was planned obsolescence or cheaply made orrrr a mix of both, but this experience had me thinking about quality of non-cheap items.

Cars have belts and washers meant to break over time too

We bought a brand new washer and dryer 8 years ago and have had to buy a new washer and dryer two times since then. Well, the first time it was under warranty so we exchanged, but the second time it wasn't.

Sears still sells all the parts to pretty much everything they sell. While chips arent DIP anymore, and you are unlikely to replace anything but the main caps, the completed control boards are available. Few people with the skill to rework your old board would be cheaper than buying the part new anyway.

Now, whether its worth repairing is another story. Dumping 30% of the cost of a new machine into an old one is always a tough sell.

It’s just going to make it so the EU has different production lines of the same appliances.

Heck most of them already make a separate Walmart line with products with even more inferior parts to sell cheapest at Walmart. Adding another line for the EU will be just as easy.

Yep I'm rocking a 20+ year old Kenmore washer and dryer and will keep fixing the infrequent problems myself as long as I possibly can.

Automotive especially, yeah we have obdII for engine diagnostics, but not any other system such as abs, airbags, etc. So you're stuck going to the manufacturer or pirated software just to get trouble codes for those systems.

Worst offender are light bulbs. Far as I know light bulb producers invented the concept. Intentionally weakened the filaments so they break more easily. Old model lightbulbs would last for ages so they sold less.

Huge issue in agriculture where someone plans to buy a tractor and have it last a couple generations. Instead, John Deere has to make a buck or two off you every year instead.

Even Tractors... lol

The light bulb as we know is due to planned obsolescence. Its been around for a while, and the EU is taking the right steps to correcting this but we’ll see how far this goes.

And fridges, don't forget the disposable fridges they make these days.

i always keep my lights on and straight up all my light bulbs stopped working within the same 2 days.

It's crazy, plastic drive gears In washing machines, stuff just planned on destroying itself.

The worst offender is printers

Those are just cheap.

Kettles are the worse.

I've not had a kettle last longer than a year.

To be fair I just return it after 6 months anyways and get it replaced.

I never had a kettle break ... It's a heater and a switch.

Has it stayed as quiet as it was the day you brought it? Mine start off sounding good and then it's like standing on Heathrow runway after 6 months

My family has MayTag washing and drying machines that have worked for over 20 years. I know what company is gonna get my money when I need to buy one in the future.

About 12 years ago, Maytag got bought by Whirlpool. They're now just one Whirlpool's 25+ brands.

Yea, but, honestly. How many people u know. who buy new TV, phone etc after the previous one brakes? Another thing. Sure, we can push companies to make products last much longer. What will be the outcome? Higher prices. And if not higher prices then less workers needed, because less products manifactured etc.

How many people u know. who buy new TV, phone etc after the previous one brakes?

That's a relatively recent thing. TV repair shops were pretty common until the mid 90s.

Honestly, 90% of everyone i know. And i worked many years in company like amazon..we know how customers are shopping. Almost everyone buys new technology before the old one gets broken. First of all, it doesnt brake that fast really...tv last years and years

Exactly, this would be massive for consumers.

Basically every appliance has some sort of planned obsolescence designed in it. I don't know if vehicles do too, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Yeah, washing machines and dishwashers immediately came to mind. They use sub par electronic components that just burn out after a couple of years. There is even a small market for people who solder new (better) electronics back in for a couple of bucks.

Non a Dishwasher and Laundry maschine should be changed every 5-10 years, depending on the savings in energy and water! Using them longer is bullshit for our environnement Do not mix up the subject with software or other incompatibilitys which are forced

Are car also part of it?

I had a Blaupunkt color-tv for over 35 years. My parents gave it to me (they bought a new one) for me to watch smurfs and the likes on VHS when I was. I brought it to the junkyard, but mind you - it was still working, and pretty darn well at that.

Hit up youtube most washers amd dryers use the same guts all the way back to the 90's and there surprisingly easy to fix

How do washers and dryers experience planned obsolescence?

My stove came with the house, it was installed in 1965. This year I had to replace a washer, dryer, dishwasher, all of which had multiple repairs since first purchased 10/15 years ago.

Imagine how much pollution will still happen if we have green energy and electric cars but everything has to be repurchased and made every other year.

My Vizeo TV of 4 years just stopped working yesterday. No damage had ever been done to it.

Which is why we spent stupid money on Miele appliances 10 years ago and haven't had to worry about spending another ÂŁ1000 to replace them every 5 years. Cheaper in the long run.

Does that include cheap stuff?

Famous example was the light bulb cartel.

The first thing that came to mind after I read the title was washing machines, fridges and water heaters actually. I've had those break way more than any phone. And I use my phone a lot

started? not only has this been happening a VERY long time, but now they are moving to 'software based obselecence'

ie forcing software upgrades for a stream of constantly upgraded apps that eventually refuse to work on equipment more than 2 years old.

2000 mazda mpv mini van. It was given to me so my parents wouldnt have to drive to and from high school. Anyways, one of the doors broke and would not open. Took off the side panel of the door to see the mechanism and saw what happened. There was this little piece of plastic that was supposed to be round but after repeated use, was filed down on one side and just fell through its little hole. The fix was turning it and gluing it in place. This was over 10 years ago and was my first experience when planned obsolescence. The door was literally designed to break by having 2 pieces of plastic rub against each other every time the door was opened or closed.

My parents have had their fridge for 30 years and the only thing it's ever needed was a new magnetic seal. These new fridges have an expected useful life of 10 and cost probably twice as much

Started?

It's been common practice in US industry since the 1950s.

And commercial tractors.

More like Appliance manufacturers don't spend great deals of money making machines that significantly outlive the warranty period.

On anything other than electronics, the design requirements to actually cause failure at a specific time are insane. They just don't put bearing that last 10 years on a machine with a 2 year warranty. Because every component is like that, everything fails at around 3 years, and repairs are not economic.

I don't think these laws will actually change much outside of tech devices.

Yes. We need to focus more on real planned obsolescence. Many people seem to confuse the issue. For example the "light bulb cartel" is brought up a lot and it is nonsense. Or when people complain that some new advanced software won't work on their 10 year old device.

If companies are intentionally leaving users behind for no good reason then that is an issue. But being left behind because your hardware or operating system can't handle a new version is acceptable.

But a lot of people overlook the fact that appliances seem to have gotten worse in the last couple decades. Dryers, dishwashers, water heaters, etc. Things that used to last 20+ years with little maintenance are now lucky to last 10 years. There is NO reason for this to happen other than companies doing this on purpose. I hope this blows up on these shitbags like the automobile diesel scandals we have seen recently.

Things that used to last 20+ years with little maintenance are now lucky to last 10 years.

But they are not the same things. Technology in most of these appliances are completely different than in the old ones. So newer ones do their job (cleaning, cooling, washing, drying, ...) better, they are quieter, much more energy efficient, have more features, ... and usually even cost less than their predecessors.

It’s good and bad. It makes tech more affordable for the poor, but may end up costing more in the end. I think there is a place in the market for both options.

*cough PRINTERS

My oven is just over 40 years old and still working fine, I'd like to see any new one last that long, my friend in the past 15 years is already on his second and the timer has broken on that. I have teo black and white TVs still working fine that I've hooked up to a dtv box, not that I'd use them but try find a modern set as repairable as they are.

This sounds like abolishing all development and improvement? What’s the aim of this?

Why would this abolish all development and improvement? Customers are still free to buy a new machine if they think the features are worth it. This just prevents having to buy a new machine that does the same thing as the old one because the old one can't be repaired.

Oh ok. So they have to make everything repairable? Would make devices a lot more expensive?

Most things, even cars are made to be serviced only by the manufacturer or dealer nowadays for the sake of costs, competition, customer experience etc. Making them more easily reparable would be great for gearheads but probably a lot more expensive to build in the first place...

Or is this legislation only for gadgets?

Our front loading washer eventually broke and when I looked up the issue it turns out it was designed in a way that the two different metals when submerged in water would deteriorate the cast aluminum because of a galvanic effect. It's a known issue but washers are still made this way by multiple companies.

I visited appliance store recently, Groupe SEB brands (Moulinex, Rowenta, Tefal) advertise 10 year repairability.

Exactly. Not only are most major appliances designed for a ~10 year lifespan (I'm sure some study by the manufacturers determined 10 years is the minimum?), they now make most the parts into sub -assemblies that can cost nearly the same price as a new machine. One can no longer just replace the faulty part. Now add in some unnecessary software BS, like some hot water heaters have now, and get some real obsolescence built in.

Been that way for a LOOOONG time too.

I fixed my dryer last night which had a plastic pulley wheel to keep tension on the belt. It had seized and the belt melted half way through the wheel before the belt snapped. First off it was just an oil light bushing (not a bearing) that allowed it to spin. The bushing was greased... in a dryer... full of lint and dust...

Also, water heaters. There’s a reason they make them out of steel and not plastic...

Let’s not forget vehicles! Those things break down so easily and quickly. It should be illegal for how much we pay. Old cars run forever.

It's a terrible business model for consumers, but sadly makes them a bunch more money over time

The biggest cock rammed up our asses is how quickly central Ac systems take a shit. I've fixed mine more than 5 times in the last 5 years. Shits not cheap

For major appliances you can usually replace the plastic bit that was designed to fail with a metal bit.

And if they try to make it illegal, think of this scenario:

You're a business making a product. Someone is presenting optional steps you could take to extend the life of the product, mainly replacing parts which tend to break after frequent use with more reliable versions. These all, of course, come at a cost, and a higher cost for longer life. Your product testing has shown that while reliability and longevity are high on the list of things your customers say they want, in actuality when you implement things to make them more reliable and raise the price accordingly, they buy your competitor's cheaper product instead. Seeing as raising the price will cost you sales, you opt to keep the price low instead, choosing options which will mean shorter life expectancy.

Is that planned obsolescence? Or are you just choosing to make a cheaper product aimed downmarket?

I guess it’s a good thing they’re finally planning the obsolescence of planned obsolescence.

I work with vacuums and get calls daily and get calls daily from people with ones from the 50 and 60s. Today you would be like to get 15-20 years from a vacuum and that is with going high end with brands like Miele or Sebo. Vacuums from places Walmart are good for a year or two max.

Maybe there should be a standardized warranty requirement for items. Like major household appliances (stove, fridge, washers, etc) need a warranty of 5 years, household electronics (computers, phones, etc) of 3 years, gas powered equipment (lawnmowers, wheedwhippers, etc) or 2 or 3 years, so on and so forth.

like washing machines and dishwashers

This is not planned obsolescence, per se. It is the result of nanny-state regulators forcing negative cost/benefit standards on these products all in service of efficiency.

What was wrong with dishwashers? Nothing, they cleaned the dishes and by every study, in much less water than hand washing. Now, it takes 2+ hours and many times need to be washed again, you know, to actually get them clean. Sounds silly? check these out...

The Hill

Dishwasher Rebellion WSJ

CFact

Yeah i want cars manufacturers like Mercedes to make their over engineered designs as strong as they were in the 80’s.

Three months ago, I replaced an LG dishwasher after only two years. Last week, I replaced a Maytag oven coil after only 3 years. By contrast, when I was a kid, my grandmother gave my mother an oven that was already 20 years old, and it lasted for at least another 30 years. For all I know, it's probably still working, but my mother gave it away.

Case in point, the digital display on my combination stove/oven. The display is extremely dim and occasionally flakes out. This is a known issue, the capacitors used in the board are heat sensitive. It turns out that if you use the back two burners on your stove, the heat causes the oven display to fail.

The heck! It's a gas stove/oven. There's no reason it shouldn't last for decades.

Imagine if consumer goods reached a garbage point that reach a recycling point where China as a whole decided it didn't want most of it anymore.

This could be very positive, even outside of the EU.

It might force companies to make available replacement parts, as well as bring back removable batteries.

The Right to Repair movement will be overjoyed if this makes it into actual law.

even outside of the EU.

A lot of EU initiatives have effects worldwide. RoHS and the "universal" phone charger schemes are global standards by sake of companies going "fuck it, just do it everywhere"

In the States, this has happened as well when large states like California or New York passing significant laws.

It’s more of a headache to produce things in multiple ways than to just bite the bullet.

Current Net Neutrality war is a good example. Many of us are hoping because the FCC said “sorry lol not a federal regulation” now the states will do their own, and they won’t all align so the big telecoms can go eat their own butts.

[deleted]

Do you mind if you could provide a source of this? That way I can share this with more people.

[deleted]

u/U77654 — It wasn't California, it was Oregon. The bill was passed and goes into effect next year. This article mentions it in passing.

Basically they said any ISP that charges and/or gives preferential treatment to certain content, or throttles certain content, cannot do business with the state.

Which could basically lock them out, depending on how it's written, e.g. The companies can't use public property to host the cables, can't service municipal or state buildings, etc. The latter is harsh, but if it also includes the former, it basically blocks the companies from operating in Oregon, period.

Much more effective method than just requiring neutrality in their own state, too.

I think car emission standards are the more obvious example. You used to have the Japanese manufacturers making one kind of car for CA, and another for the rest of the country, until they just said "the logistics cost more than the emissions controls."

I believe telecoms are now pressuring Congress to make it illegal for states to enforce their own NN laws.

Never, ever let a Republican congressperson tell you they are pro small government. They aren't.

No no, Republicans are absolutely pro-small government, in the way that:

  • Cutting regulatory bodies reduces the size of government

  • Cutting social safety nets and their regulatory entities reduces the size of government

  • Cutting public funding to education and healthcare initiatives will reduce the size of government

See, look at all the ways that republicans are pro small government.

Exactly. When Repubs say small government, they mean the extent to which federal laws govern what businesses can't do and its ability to move wealth from those who have it to those who don't. They don't actually mean they want to defer to state regulations, because they know some states have the fiscal muscle to institute regulations that would affect the country.

They're only pro-$$

STATES RIGHTS MOTHERFUCKER

So you are anti-GOP and pro small government? Can we be friends?

I am all for making the environment better but whoever in California thought it was a good idea to shove those new stupid-ass gas can spouts down everyone's throats should be beaten with one. They wanted to make them leak less gas fumes, but instead they made it worse. They don't pour worth a shit, and I end up spilling way more than I used to with a normal spout.

So I just take the spout off and pour it into a funnel, which I am sure helps immensely with keeping the fumes from getting out, right?

Good job, California Air Relations Board.

So like Texas and school textbooks?

they won’t all align so the big telecoms can go eat their own butts.

They care zero about every state having their own regulation, they already deal with that. NN regulations being disparate between states is a lunch time meeting to come up with a strategy to handle.

If your think this is what will stick it to big telecom, you have a lot to learn about the telecom industry.

Damn millennials eating ass

Wow the snake people extension is already paying dividends!

Lmao I to just enabled that.

Please explain

There is an extension for chrome that changes "Millennials" in anything you browse to snake people.

Oh, that’s funny.

[deleted]

I mean, we are doing some things right, but there is plenty of other shit that we could do better

Great things are built brick by brick.

Not great cars though.. I mean.. a brick car seems like a terrible idea.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhegFsPp_l0

"That is a complete mystery to be honest..."

Risky brick of the day

This fucking better be Top Gear.

The grand top tour gear.

Top gear gave that one a shot. Didn't last long.

I love how even though they are The Grand Tour now, everyone still calls them Top Gear. #onetruetopgear

Well they had the name for close to 20 years.

Why'd they change their name?

Because Jeremy Clarkson punched one of his co-workers at BBC and was fired for it. Thee rights for top gear rated with BBC.

Well Lego seems to be doing okay with those.

Ah the old reddit car-aroo

Hold my transmission, I'm going in!

Idk, I'd download one.

Phone brick does not fly either. I mean it can fly, but ... ah! screw it!

Did I just find Butch Jones's Reddit account?

I regret saying this but...like a wall?

But not on a wobbly foundation

............like a wall? Strange how /r/world news thinks the USA should be the only first world country on this planet with illegitimate borders.

... figuratively.

"boohoo the others are worse!!"

good moral compass to have, especially on a global scale

[deleted]

Agreed. As a web dev, I like the idea behind the cookie warning, but I resent the implementation. It helps nobody.

The proper way to deal with this would be to design and enforce a privacy protocol at the browser level. Basically in the same way that you have permissions on mobile devices, cookie use should, by government privacy agencies, be grouped in to different logical categories that you, as a user, should be able to set in your browser and then make exceptions for specific sites if you want.

Rough example:

www.reddit.com

- allow login sessions [x]

- allow retargeting (ads from www.reddit.com on other websites) [ ]

- allow screen recorders (for UI analytics) [ ]

- allow navigation recorders (like Google Analytics) [ ]

- allow personalized ads (retargeting from other websites) [ ]

This should then be put into an HTTP header that is sent when you connect to the site. The site must respect your browser preferences. If they want more permissions, they must require them first. Enforcement agencies can then crawl websites and test for compliance. E.g. they'll send an HTTP header that implies they disallow screen recorders and then check if Hotjar (popular screen recorder) is used on the page.

Combine efficient compliance tracking with some hefty fines and you'll have actual privacy protection, instead of this popover madness.

That's actually pretty similar to the different "purposes" in the GDPR. Many websites allow you to select some subset of the purposes.

But my experience tells me we are using lots of websites on lots of devices and the last thing we want to read verbose privacy policies. There is no technical reason why YOUR (as in you, the user) privacy policy cannot be set in your browser preferences once and for all. And then websites that have incompatible policies can refuse to serve you, give a degraded experience or bear with your tracking reluctance. The choice is yours and theirs. Today it's very much theirs.

That's a fair point, but I'm not sure that every website should have access to the same information or purposes. Maybe being able to set a default level in the browser but adjust it per-site could work.

Which is what is happening now. You can set a universal do-not-track request, which is then conveniently ignored by most companies over the preferences you set.

Right, I did think of that, but last I heard/remember the DNT header isn't legally enforced anywhere.

Unfortunately this seems to be implemented only slightly better than the cookie warning.

Typically a pop up, that allows you to easily agree to all tracking and stuff, with a slightly hidden button that allows you to disable individual parts of it(individually of course, no easy way to say no to everything). There's a term for that, but I can't remember it ATM.

Either way, it's really annoying.

I think you mean dark patterns. Most of them don't conform to the GDPR anyway, so I'm hoping to see some of the major offenders fined heavily enough to discourage it.

Yes, that was the term.

I really hope fines will be handed out, cause it's so damn annoying if you actually care about it. :(

[deleted]

It would initially have a negative effect..

But assuming the protocol was properly designed, you can engineer it into your website and incentivise users to consent. For instance, you could offer fewer and/or shorter video ads, if you give permission for personalized ads. You can give users early access to new features, if they consent to being recorded. You can communicate your intrusive tracking as something like "Be part of the next-generation Nielsen's ratings. Allow us to track your interactions with our site and we'll give you a VIP pass to test our new features first.", the whole point here is consent and transparency and not the current bullshit disclaimers which say "We use cookies to optimize your experience" which is obscenely vague.

Almost all your examples are explicitly forbidden by GDPR. You cannot hide features behind a cookie policy unless they are required for them. A perfect example would be giving out VIP passes for functions; if tracking is not absolutely necessary fora feature, you cannot disallow users from using it just because they don't want to be tracked.
Most cookie notifications are already not in accordance with GDPR (I can't wait for the first wave of fines so that the sites realize that they need to take it seriously), and those measures would just make it a lot worse.

I'd imagine they could still serve general ads instead of targeted or personalized, so as long as you don't mind getting senior living center ads instead of ads for Corsair mechanical keyboards, it's probably not a huge deal.

I don't see why you can't do all of that at the browser level. Most of it's just incognito mode.

Because the amount of existing JavaScript code out there is staggering and there is no categorization. You can't really tell what lines of code belongs to what "permissions" and therefore must be blocked/allowed. From a browser perspective, what you can enforce is API usage, which basically means "what features of the browser can you use". The browser already enforces this kind of thing. The website needs a permission to use the camera feature, it needs a permission to use notifications, it needs a permission (although it has it by default) to use cookies.

But that is your granularity - a granularity built around a technical interface and not around a privacy model. It's either all or nothing for these features. And the way we want to control our privacy doesn't necessarily correspond to an API. We may be OK with giving them permissions to send us notifications, but we don't want them to use that permission to send ads. It may be OK for them to use cookies, but we don't want them to tell partners or third parties that we've been to their site.

So for the first generation of privacy controls, you would need the individual websites (and their programmers) to honor your privacy preferences and program their website accordingly. It would be their job to figure out what JavaScript code or backend code needs to go when you say "No geographical tracking, thanks."

This is, of course, not bulletproof at all. It's like asking the fox to care for the chickens. The only way it's going to work is if government agencies regularly visit popular websites and test for compliance. Failure to comply must result in harsh fines.

Having the browser ENFORCE your privacy policy (and not just supply it to visiting sites) is impossible, because privacy control is not just about what browser features a website can use, but about how they collect and treat data on the individual user.

There's also the question of people wanting to have different permissions on different websites; I'm okay with some of reddit's tracking, but I wouldn't allow the same for a news site, a tech blog or google for that matter.

Set your cookies to reject by default and add the sites you trust to a white list. The granularity is there, it's just a bad UX because it's buried in the options. Still no reason to leave it up to the site owners.

We can enforce that on the browser with extensions to some extent; it's a bit of work if you keep visiting new sites frequently though, there are a lot of sites that break if you block too much stuff, and it is not always obvious what each URL does.

Yes, the ad blocking extensions do impressive work, but blacklisting urls (which is their main strategy) isn't really a solution for enforcing a general privacy model on websites.

There’s too many headers as it is, doesn’t really make sense from a privacy standpoint.

I don't know what you mean? There is the DNT (Do Not Track) header, but it doesn't have any granularity. What headers are you thinking about?

In general HTTP is getting polluted in general, the more “standard” headers that are added/expected, the overhead is getting out of hand. I have a feeling that HTTP headers account for the majority of web traffic on most sites.

You could also just enforce those things in the browser. Nothing the website does dictates whether a cookie is actually sent or received by the client. You can just not send a submission packet, and drop a received packet without copying it to persistent storage.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. Cookies are an application level concept in websites, while packets typically refer to IP traffic. By submission I'm assuming you mean ACK.

Anyway, if you take a look at all the shit your average websites is slinging at your browser, it's impractically for you to review every little record stores in cookies. And cookies are only a part of the problem. They can still collect lots of data about you without cookies.

Take a look at something like this: https://sprout24.com/hotjar-alternatives/ - tools like these are used on most commercial websites.

And before you say "I can just block this thing with tool x", I will say "I can just circumvent your block by changing how I include the tracking script".

A technical arms race here is not the solution. The solution is legal enforcement of a standardized privacy model with hefty fines for failing to comply.

[deleted]

I think that’s an area of improvement though. It’s a step in the right direction, but the average user may not have the knowledge you do

Many browsers already give you the option to be notified of and the ability to accept or reject each cookie.

It was one of the original features from decades ago. No EU law needed.

[deleted]

If you're a poweruser, you would have those cookie warnings already blocked automatically.

You'd think, but nowadays sites are fighting back against the likes of uBlock and Ghostery by bundling the ad scripts with the main content of the page. So you have to turn them off and view the ads or otherwise you'll just see a blanked out page. It's a recent innovation that I imagine will eventually be overcome in time, but it's frustrating now.

[deleted]

If there's no need for a session, there's no need for the website to be storing cookies. If I'm just accessing a website with no login or user preferences, I don't need a cookie. If it puts a cookie I assume it's being used for advertising tracking.

California does the same thing. There are signs everywhere saying "we may be using dangerous chemicals." Because nobody wants to take the time to figure out which dangerous chemicals are being used, and the law doesn't specify a minimum quantity of dangerous chemicals below which you don't have to warn people, so if you have something built with Elmer's Glue, you have to warn people because you can drown in Elmer's Glue.

Not pointless. Enough sites now offers levels of tracking cookies. Also I skip sites that use too many cookies.

For most people they are pointless they just click accept all as quickly as they can. I just want to be able to accept all by default

[deleted]

Well in that case, you should stop using the entire internet.

How did you think imgur was paying for being the biggest high speed, unlimited image hosting site on the internet while being free to use?

websites can't really function without them

That's not true in the slightest. Plenty of pages that serve static content have no need for cookies, yet when they're disabled, the site is laughably broken. Want to view a product page for an EVGA graphics card? Better have cookies enabled. Want to read a news story? Better have cookies enabled. Reading a recipe on a cooking website? Cookies.

The onus shouldn't be on users to just allow any kind of cookies for basic functionality, the onus should be on websites not hardcoding basic functionality into having umpteen cookies available.

I’m sure most people don’t understand it and just randomly click accept anyway. It has made me think about it and try to not click accept or try and read the content anyway without clicking anything.

I’m sure most people don’t understand it and just randomly click accept anyway. It has made me think about it and try to not click accept or try and read the content anyway without clicking anything.

Ugh, the thing is ... you don't even need to warn about those cookies.

If you can't opt out then its non compliant and they may as well have nothing, so I wouldnt blame the eu for that.

Also, in my experience you usually can opt out, although it's often hidden behind a bunch of dark pattern stuff. Joke's on them though, I consider "how quick can I click through the bullshit and opt out" to be a sort of game.

Exactly, it's the sites being dick's about it. Websites like polygon encourage me to not use them

websites can't really function without them

Cookies websites 'cannot function without' are exempt from consent according to the EU advisory body on data protection and include:

  • user‑input cookies (session-id) such as first‑party cookies to keep track of the user's input when filling online forms, shopping carts, etc., for the duration of a session or persistent cookies limited to a few hours in some cases
  • authentication cookies, to identify the user once he has logged in, for the duration of a session
  • user‑centric security cookies, used to detect authentication abuses, for a limited persistent duration
  • multimedia content player cookies, used to store technical data to play back video or audio content, for the duration of a session
  • load‑balancing cookies, for the duration of session
  • user‑interface customisation cookies such as language or font preferences, for the duration of a session (or slightly longer)
  • third‑party social plug‑in content‑sharing cookies, for logged‑in members of a social network.

Source

Websites asking for consent are either playing it safe, doing it to abide with legal requirements, or simply throwing a tantrum hoping to annoy users and get them to hate the new regulations.

that is actually quite an issue many are at odds with, not only in regards of cookies. The question about how the EU handles information in regards to consumer-protection was a main theme of a lawyer-conference I was in university (the german lawyer-days, basically the main conference for german law).

The issue of the EU is that they consider that the best way to protect the consumer is by dumping as many information on them as possible, causing an exessive amount of information for everything that nobody can ever even hope to process. The disclaimer for cookies that probably has some terms&conditions put into it, but nobody ever bothers to read.

Some informations are important, as long as they can be reasonably easy comprehended, but what the EU demands for information to be given for the better of the consumer is just useless paperwork.

Yeah, bit of unscientific legislating on GE crops for example.

I'm a Canadian, but I'm always so jealous when I read about Europe social programs, education, etc.

Also on an environmental front, you guys are fantastic (compared to most of the world at least).

If you are talking about America nothing is going right atm.

Of course, the EU still has 14 different wall power outlet standards....

But outside of the UK, you can use the same power cords everywhere, despite them being slightly different. Same power cables are also usable in most all of Asia.

[deleted]

It’s far too large.

And I speak as someone who grew up and lived using it for thirty years before moving elsewhere.

It's also massive.

The safety is nice, but not uncommon at all in EU sockets, the only current plus point for the UK plug is the included fuse, which may be pointless anyway(not everything needs it, and the things that need it will usually have one).

The Danish one you can just as easily reach the fuses, and you won't get shocked either...

And lets be honest, our British brothers are the special needs kids of the Europan family when it comes to standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europlug

That is not what most devices use here in Portugal (the sockets are compatible with the europlugs, but the plugs are fat, and got a pair of ground pads on the rims, wont fit on sockets meant for the europlug (unless it's those sockets that got the holes for the pins right on the surface instead of on the bottom of a recessed hole).

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#CEE_7/3_socket_and_CEE_7/4_plug_(German_%22Schuko%22;_Type_F)

Eh, no, the continent uses the same plugs. The Brits do something else simoly because they want to be different.

Or we electrified our homes with safer shit before a common standard arose.

I usually agree with the Brits being different because their silly but this case I don't.

But which is the best? Hard to convince everyone to go to one country's standard. Or I suppose we could start from scratch.

And now there are 15.

To convert to a single standard you (country) require that new builds use the new standard and that all appliances come with the new standard. You then subsidize adapters for a decade until everyone either has adapters or gets their sockets swapped out.

Or you can be like Norway and just tell everyone "do this" and expect consumers to pay for some bullshit legislation that some asshole political party decides is 'best for everyone'.

Interestingly enough, EU doesn't face most of the "all appliances" problem. Most EU appliances come with CEE 7/7 or Europlug, and both are compatible with many EU socket types.

The UK's is by far the safest and best in all regards except the level of pain inflicted if you accidentally step on one.

And it's massive, and you can only plug it in one way

Yeah as someone who moved to the UK over 10 years ago, I still despise the plugs. Not to mention the "shaving" plugs which make no sense since there is barely any more houses with that build in anymore. (lived in 6 different areas so far, none of them had it, only one B&B in wales)

These are good features from a safety perspective.

No. The UK plug is a mandatory ground and polarized plug, but;

  1. Grounding is not necessary in all cases. If the device is double insulated, grounding offers no safety advantage, and yet due to how the UK receptacle works, the ground pin is still required to open the shutters.

  2. Polarization is likewise not always required. Toasters for example usually have double pole switches, so both neutral and hot are disconnected when the toaster is off, so a polarized plug is no necessary.

Most of the rest of the world does their plugs and receptacles correctly, meaning grounded and/or polarized plugs are only used for devices when those features actually improve safety.

Lastly, statistically, the UK plug is not safer. Per capita, there are fewer electrical fires and electrocutions in the US compared to the UK, despite all the bullshit about our plugs/receptacles being so "unsafe".

I suspect that the per capita safety figures may be driven by the lower voltages used in the USA. It would also be interesting to see your sources.

I don't understand how?

If you can only plug it in one way, you lose the risk of trying to shove a plug in upside down and fucking up your outlet/shocking yourself. I got a shock a few times when I was a kid.

Their size is also pretty convenient because you're not going to easily bend the little prongs (I don't know what the word is) like you can here in the states. So that's nice.

Comparing to the US plug, sure. I was comparing it to the Schuko plugs used in a large part of Europe, which can be inserted both ways, the prongs can not be bent by a normal human, and they are not huge.

Fair enough. I didn't really think about that since it's been a while since I've seen a European outlet.

Either are a step up from the ungodly monstrosity we've got here in the states lol.

What's wrong with our plug? New outlets are tamper resistant and upside down, safer for grounded plugs. Can be polarized if needed. Better than the GIANT UK plug.

Maybe I've got more of a problem with the shitty outlets in the places I've lived, but I don't think I ever had a single problem with outlets or plugs while I lived in Europe.

My biggest complaint is probably with the prong doodads being so prone to bending and not reversible.

EU are very thick so they don't bent easily and plugging them in upside down still works! They are type F: https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/ They are also still grounded for safety.

Plugging in either way is not a good feature though... in the event of a wiring fault you can energize the wrong side of your circuit and suddenly have things electrified that you really dont want. Sure, gfi's and other modern fault detection tools can help that but making a plug bidirectional isn't a great idea still.

What are you talking about? The electricity network is in AC so it doesn't matter the slightest in which way you plug something in...?

The hot wire within the BS1363 plug is shorter than any other wire within the plug. If the wire is yanked hard enough to overcome the grip the pins (and the cable grip) have on the cable, the pin connected to live will always disconnect before the neutral, which will always disconnect before the earth wire.

This design feature is impossible with a reversible plug. You could only ensure that the earth has the most stable physical connection - you could still have ac voltage within a "dead" device.

Why? There are two neutrals one on each side in the plugs here? What makes it so you can't have longer wires connecting to neutrals with F-plug?

Those are earth/ground. There are 2 holes in the socket, one is live and the other is neutral.

Got it. Thanks.

A waiting vault?

But it's still best.

Very subjective

From an engineering and safety perspective it fixes several of the shortcomings of a US-style plug. Ground first, shielded pins and wire pull safety are all objectively better.

That being said, modern materials and design have obviated the more egregious problems in many ways and the UK plug is SO DARNED BIG.

Wire pull safety is included in other designs. Check out the Australian plug for example.

Ground first

US plugs have the ground longer so that it enters first

True, but only a few mm. A little angle on the plug and ground contacts last.

It's a minor feature, comparatively.

UK plugs also have a built in fuse so that current doesn't destroy the appliance but just a little fuse instead (or at least they did when I was a lad).

It’s necessary because UK wiring uses ring main topology, which is less safe...

Per-device fusing is nice but iirc that started because early house wiring and only 2-3 circuits. Obviously that's better now, and appliances are more electrically safe.

And people are way less capable of something as maintenance and troubleshooting-heavy as changing a blown fuse...

Most other countries have far better safety measures to stop babies from getting shocked.

Like what?

My own country, Denmark, it's just as safe, and our plugs work in close to half the world.

What are the better safety measures though? I'm genuinely curious.

At least one is that you can only plug stuff into both the sockets at the same time. If you just jam a screwdriver into one socket the shutter stays shut.

Also, just like in the video, only the tip of the plug is conductive.

More importantly though, Danish sockets are happy! https://res.cloudinary.com/evoleska/images/f_jpg,t_ItemLarge,d_webSiteNoPhoto.jpg/product/1083831/stikkontakt-dansk-mj-enkelt-8736100917-8736100917-1083831

Those are all the same as the British plug, which is presumably where they got those ideas. The person I replied to was claiming that there were much better safety measures than the ones found on the British plug.

Well, they don't destroy your foot if you step on them. We compensated by inventing LEGO, though.

EU type F plugs are also pretty good. They are grounded, don't easily bend and can be plugged in upside down.

https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/

The single biggest safety measure are RCDs/GFCIs. Mandatory in some countries. Nobody ever died from electrical shock with those fitted.

It's really not though.

Schuko is definitely one of the best outlets, and you can use both Europlug (low power, ungrounded, very common in EU) and CEE 7/7 plug (high power, grounded, very common in EU) with it.

It's so good it became a standard in Russia and most of ex-USSR entirely on its own, despite not being compatible with some USSR plug types. It's used in Germany, and in most 220v networks worldwide.

Chances are, it's going to displace other plug types on its own, given enough time.

Sounds like Britain's plan.

Britain's plan sounds a lot better than that. It sound beautiful, melodic, almost haunting.

This is what Britain's plan sounds like

Similar to how the rest of the world benefits from the United States military and pharmaceutical research

And we decided we wanted Brexit. Go figure.

Sounds similar to American made pharmaceuticals

Now if they could just get BMW to ban the phrases “you’re driving/riding it wrong” from their tech’s list of reasons not to fix my vehicles.

It beats colonialism.

Every patriot of any country seems to think like this

"reap the rewards from us" makes it sound like the rest of the world is taking something from the EU. In reality, the EU benefits from widespread adoption of such standards too - it's really a win for everybody when the right regulation is put in place.

We appreciate your sacrifice.

As someone who repairs phones for friends and family at cost of the replacement parts, I would like to thank my friends from across the pond for continuing this fight.

Yea take it for now, just like rabbits in Australia seemed like a great idea.

Yeah, we may miss them when they tear themselves apart over immigration and a currency union that fucks over everyone but Germany.

The EU is recognizing that it's becoming the next top superpower as the US goes through a schizophrenic decline and China says "nah, I'm good" and becomes more autocratic and isolated.

China is not looking to become more isolated. Look up the Belt and Road initiative.

Eh, that's more of a neomercantilist program and a bid to win over more allies in Eurasia. Look at China making it's president a de facto emperor and its willingness to engage in tariffs against its largest trading partner, when it really, truly would've been better off turning the other cheek.

None of that makes them isolated. If anything, they might weather the trade war better than the US.

Good joke. Do you always enjoy talking out your ass?

You could start by giving a simple comparison to our stock markets, and continue by reading articles about just how close China is to having their debt blowup in their face. They are desperately trying to prevent a financial crisis and Xi has taken a lot of flak for engaging the US.

The warning signs of another global financial crisis are quite clear. The overinflation of the US stock market is one of them. The debt crisis of both countries is another one. I don't think any countries will come out unscathed, but I also doubt a result will be China becoming more "isolated".

China is basically cannibalizing Africa for raw resources at the moment. They are definitely pining to win the superpower race with Europe.

Europe gives the world consumer protection. America gives it medical research dollars and a stable super power with no military equal.

LOL if the "right thing" is spiraling into deficit then yes, the EU is "doing shit right" lol.

This is how California works in the US as well.

I'd rather not have 500 cameras spying on me everywhere I go.

This is the EU, not America, don't worry.

[deleted]

Regardless of political views or being American, you can't say the EU hasn't done at least some stuff right. Their laws are part of why sites on the internet are "only" harvesting as much data as they do now instead of being even worse

[deleted]

overall anti democratic tone of the EU council

I wish one day we'll have a parallel web where everyone is allowed except americans. Reading the shit you people say is just tiring.

[deleted]

I bet you're in the strawmen building national team.

World class performance, what a talent!

[deleted]

You started the conversation by claiming that the EU doing anything at all right is laughable.

If you honestly believe that to be true, I'm not going to bother. Clearly you don't care for actual facts.

Or the EU could be locking us into sub-par standards that are reducing efficiency and hurting innovation yet we'd never know because we would no longer have the ability to compare between competing options/products.

Either/or.

You mean something like having to buy multiple dongles to plug stuff into your computer/phone that was not needed on the previous iteration?

I mean that the 'one size fits all' approach to standardization assumes you can pinpoint the actual best standard for every use-case and user.

And if you can't, then you've made it harder to actually find said best standard.

Extra 'convenience' for the consumer =/= the best standard, and making it universal and mandatory is necessarily going to stifle innovation.

So a potential theoretical slight decrease in velocity of innovation, in exchange for a definite increase in consumer advantage. Seems like a worthwhile trade to me.

And the kind of "innovation" we're losing here is manufacturers innovating in how they can best lock consumers into their ecosystem. Proprietary platforms that offer little to no benefit over the standardized solution except to increase the company's profits. So really, nothing of value is lost at all.

I think manufacturers would consider all the facts before they collectively agree on a standard rather than just selecting something on a whim and that doesn't bar them from improving upon that standard in the future. Think of the amount of standards currently used on a smartphones: cellular encoding, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, USB, AES encryption, keyboard layouts, etc, etc, etc. Could you imagine how costly it would be if manufacturers all designed and implemented different methods in parallel with one another? How difficult it would be to connect all these devices to one another? It would be madness, which is why standards were agreed upon in the first place.

But wasn't it a brave change tho

I don't think you understand how competition and innovation work.

hahahahahahahaha

The US is doing everything right too right guys?

Guys?

Right?

Edit: jesus, do you all really need me to type /s?

I mean its because the very companies the EU are regulating have successfully bought outright the governments of the other nations of the world and pay them to specifically not implement the very policies being discussed here.

Especially in the US which has become the de facto world capital of corporate hegemony.

They're not doing everything right...

What sort of backend news source is that?

Also that didn’t go through

Unlike the American net neutrality destruction 🤣

It's techdirt, a good tech news source. And it didn't go through because there was a huge backlash in the industry and among consumers due to it being a poorly thought out law that sounded good to people who don't have much experience with the thing they're trying to regulate.

That didn't go through, try to keep up...

Don't say this in the EU. People might get upset if they can't blame it for everything.

I shouldn’t have said this while in the EU 😐

You probably get burned at the stake now. Really sorry for you.

We blame America tbh 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yeah I like that better myself

Welcome to California. :-)

So the EU is the new America then? I'm cool with letting you guys take over for a while.

[deleted]

I assume you believe that should also apply to other entities?

Let's scrap the US government for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords.

Could you please, actually?

This but unironically

Why?

Probably because he's either a troll or an idiot. Or maybe there is some serious argument as to why the EU is wrong. Nothing that I know of supports that though.

This is not my opinion but how it feels when politicians (sverige demorakterna for example) and other people talk about EU. I'm from sweden and pro eu.

Da, because moose and squirrel

They take the memes!!!!11 /s

Sounds like Union work to me!

And that is why the EU is so powerful and necessary for Europeans. It gives a powerful position for any sort of deal, something which an individual country won't. Take a hint Britain

Speaking from an austrians point of view it feels like our politicians can blame the eu and whine about how they force things down our throat but secretly they're happy finally someone is doing something for a change and they didn't have to stand up for it.

Yes but bureacrats

How is this necessary? It isn't - it's classic over-regulation of the market and it's great that the UK is leaving.

The phone charger thing is an especially good example because it didn't work. Phone makers did exactly what they were going to do anyway, including Apple who just laughed and said "yeah no" by shipping a dongle nobody ever takes with them, thus ensuring iPhone users and other phone users can't share adapters in practice albeit not in theory.

While I do appreciate the removal of lead from solder on an environmental level, RoHS compliant electronics are significantly more prone to failure in the long term due to microwhiskers of tin expressing from solder joints.

In a lot of ways RoHS standards contribute to shortened lifespans.

https://www.ecnmag.com/article/2011/12/was-lead-free-solder-worth-effort

Wow, that was eye opening actually.

Never realized the environmental impact from high purity tin refinement.

Ty for the link.

You’re totally correct about this, except once a product is made compliant, it’s usually much cheaper to produce those in larger quantities than to make a separate non compliant product for specific markets.

Then there is (passenger safety) regulations in the car industry...

...Which means that EU cars are not road legal in the US AND vice versa, so manufacturers has to make three types of a single model if they want to sell world wide (one US spec, one EU RHD spec and one EU LHD spec).

We can only hope though. Look how long it took the US market to get away from contracts and availability to switch carriers without a fee if we own the phone. Wasn't that standard for years in the EU before it finally came here?

Its called the brussel effect

I have legit never wanted a removable battery in my life. I want it sealed. I want it as big as possible and it want my phone to remain thin. There are other things in a phone I want but never has it been a removable battery.

Pretty sure we can return steam games now because of the EU

That makes it sound like the EU is the worlds California

It'll be interesting to see how the EU balances RoHS with this plan to abolish planned obsolescence. Very serious compromises had and have to be made for RoHS compliance.

Hope enough places ban loot crates that this starts applying to video games.

Exactly. A good example of this is CARB (California Air Resources Board) and how they have been the defining air quality standard for cars in the US, even though it is a state standard. If you have enough people on a standard it will become a defacto standard eventually.

Almost like the EU is the biggest market in the world or something.

It's almost as if careful regulation can have positive results.

Certainly not the phone charger thing.

Hopefully it's cheaper to do it everywhere

I believe it was China who enacted laws that all mobile phones must have USB for power delivery. At this point I wish it were a law all phones have usb type-c for power delivery. There are some things about the EU that are a bit imposing, for example Parmesan cheese, or Champagne. If the EU got it's way, no other cheese or sparkly wine would be allowed to use the original name. It's hilariously absurd, for example one of the largest "Parmigiano-Reggiano" factories in Italy was apparently growing, and needed to expand into a new factory. So a new factory was build right across the river, but was no longer in the provinces of Parma, and thus no longer producing "Parmigiano-Reggiano". The very laws designed to protect that factory was now hurting the factory. Anyways, I digress, but the issue here is kinda similar in that the EU wants to control the terminology of "obsolescence", regardless if planed or otherwise. Forcing companies to extend warranty periods is rather invasive, and arbitrary. It's more of an economics issue since warranties cost money. So I guess companies operating in Europe could offer to sell the warranty separate from the product, passing along the cost to the European consumer. I guess what I'm saying is this proposal is nice and all, but has the potential to make things more expensive for Europeans. When it comes to phone batteries, it's a weird topic, because those things don't last forever... it's not like it's "planned obsolescence" because a repair shop can (and they do) replace the batteries. Water resistant phones are a thing, so sealed phones are a feature... the consequence is more difficult (but not impossible) repair. So I think there is a lot of fuzz here.... it will be very hard to define obsolescence in a meaningful way that protects consumers.

What's the deal with the phone charger thing? It seems like Apple still isn't compliant

A recent EU law that came into effect this year screwed a lot of industries. It affects the average working person (by not having the resources to do their job effectively) and the consumer/business (by paying more hourly for the service the working person is trying to provide) the worst.

[deleted]

You sound very young. I remember my mom's motorola charger being different from my dad's sony ericsson charger and my bosch charger. The change was a relief. That stupid stack of chargers we had...glad it changed.

[deleted]

Or maybe you're just not talking about the same thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

Common external power supply

In 2009 a European Commission initiative resulted in the specification of a common external power supply (common EPS) for use with data-enabled mobile phones sold in the European Union. The external power supply is the AC power adapter that converts household AC electricity voltages to the much lower DC voltages needed to charge a mobile phone's internal battery. Although compliance is voluntary, a majority of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers agreed to make their applicable mobile phones compatible with Europe's common external power supply specifications.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

[deleted]

Literally first line of the link says it was a European commission initiative...

[deleted]

His point is that it was still a consequence of EU. Here you tried to imply it had nothing to do with EU. Here you tried to claim that EU only influenced it in 2014 when it was codified, when in reality the USB charger standard came to be because of the commission initiative. As said, literally the first line of the linked article:

In 2009 a European Commission initiative resulted in the specification of a common external power supply (common EPS) for use with data-enabled mobile phones sold in the European Union.

[deleted]

In this particular thread of this conversation, they asked if we were talking about different initiatives/bills.

In this particular thread of this conversation, you implied that EU initiative could not have caused the standardization, because the bill was passed in 2014.

In a reply to your comment it was linked that the 2014 law was not the first time EU pushed for standardization.

To that one you replied as if the voluntary agreement by the industry was independent of EU. As if EU didn't drive standardization because the industry already made an agreement in 2009 when the EU passed a law only in 2014.

Your tone has been that because one law was passed in 2014, EU could not have been responsible for the agreement of 2009, and EU should not be credited for initiating the agreement of 2009.

If this is not the case, do you agree that the 2009 agreement came from an EU initiative?

[deleted]

My point was that I think the agreement was rather hollow considering how many manufacturers were already using USB in their phones.

But they weren't using it as a charger. To quote another comment you must have read already:

USB Implementers Forum, the body responsible for developing USB itself says (slide 3) that:

Broad international adoption of USB Battery Charging standard for mobile devices

China, Europe drove standardization as a means to increase charger reuse and reduce electronic waste

This slideshow by Nokia (slide 5) also attributes the USB-charger to the agreement:

The MoU has done it’s job well and markets are almost 100% compliant with the common charger.

The Telegraph article from 2009 says this:

Until now, most mobile phones have used proprietary chargers that will only work on one kind of device, leading to cupboards full of unwanted chargers in homes across the country.

But now 10 companies, including Apple, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, have submitted a Memorandum of Understanding to the European Commission pledging to start making phones that can be charged using a single charger.

Also an article from 2010 says this:

In response to citizens' demand for a common charger, the Commission invited manufacturers to agree on a technical solution making compatible the chargers of different brands.

As a result, world leading mobile phone producers committed themselves to ensure compatibility of data-enabled mobile phones, expected to be predominant in the market within two years, on the basis of the Micro-USB connector.

So, yea, all theses attribute the correlation to causation from EU initiative. EU pushed for a global change.

the "universal" phone charger scheme

Did this one actually do anything outside of the EU? Pretty much every smartphone except iPhones used USB already. Apple changed their connector, but onto on the EU...

Back in the olden days before smartphones, and probably in the very early days of smartphones, each phone manufacturer had a different plug for charging. Some phones also used the charging port for the headphones, so you had to get an adapter if you wanted to use third party headphones. It sucked.

It was exactly what Apple is bringing back now.

Well the scheme came into effect in 2010. Blackberries were the major smartphone back then and they used a weird cable. Feature phones from Samsung, Sony Ericsson etc had different cables too but were switching to micro USB.

Apple provided an adapter so they were compliant.

[deleted]

Are we talking about the same thing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply

[deleted]

What's your complaint? That the 2014 law isn't needed because the EU was already so effective at convincing manufacturers to switch to micro USB in 2009?

[deleted]

Everyone accepted it in 2009 because EU pushed them to do this. The 2009 agreement was the initiative of EU.

[deleted]

Go Google a list of best smartphones of 2008. With the exception of the iPhone, they're all already using mini or micro USB.

That's already two different ports. The 2009 agreement agreed on one charger port.

Secondly, "best smartphones of 2008" isn't every smartphone of 2008. Before the agreement, EU had over 30 different charger plugs. The whole reason for the agreement was specifically because the charger ports were so varied.

Thirdly, if you make a claim, it is your job to google a list of best smartphones of 2008 which demonstrates the charger plug is unified. It is your job to present evidence for your claim. You cannot demand me to find proof for your claims. Claims which are presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. You presented no evidence for your claim.

[deleted]

It's pretty representative. And pretty indicative that the industry had already made a commitment to doing that before the EU initiative.

What "it"? You didn't provide any list of best smartphones of 2008.

The claim here was the the EU charger initiative caused global change. So... No, actually, the burden of proof is on the people making that claim to show not just correlation, but causation of extra EU change linked to the initiative.

USB Implementers Forum, the body responsible for developing USB itself says (slide 3) that:

Broad international adoption of USB Battery Charging standard for mobile devices

China, Europe drove standardization as a means to increase charger reuse and reduce electronic waste

This slideshow by Nokia (slide 5) also attributes the USB-charger to the agreement:

The MoU has done it’s job well and markets are almost 100% compliant with the common charger.

The Telegraph article from 2009 says this:

Until now, most mobile phones have used proprietary chargers that will only work on one kind of device, leading to cupboards full of unwanted chargers in homes across the country.

But now 10 companies, including Apple, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, have submitted a Memorandum of Understanding to the European Commission pledging to start making phones that can be charged using a single charger.

Also an article from 2010 says this:

In response to citizens' demand for a common charger, the Commission invited manufacturers to agree on a technical solution making compatible the chargers of different brands.

As a result, world leading mobile phone producers committed themselves to ensure compatibility of data-enabled mobile phones, expected to be predominant in the market within two years, on the basis of the Micro-USB connector.

So, yea, all theses attribute the correlation to causation from EU initiative. EU pushed for a global change.

Don't you remember when a 'universal' charger looked like a octopus with tumors.

Every company had their own charge port and you needed a multi headed monstrosity to charge everything with a single device.

edit: https://i.imgur.com/kDb8b8h.jpg

Or you'd go to the store to buy a charger and have to read the back of each box to see if it was compatible with your phone.

[deleted]

[deleted]

In that case, if I don't have to sacrifice not worrying anymore if my phone gets wet, would love to have removable batteries back.

I'd still question if it can retain that rating. A removable battery means a moving part which means it needs a gasket, which will fail eventually.

Depends on the engineering. My first android phone was a Motorola Defy, also waterproof with a removable battery. I took that thing I to the shower almost every day, went swimming, even took it into the ocean, and despite it being dinged up and a slow piece of shit by now it still works like new. It had a pretty thick gasket that was pretty much fool proof.

I'm pretty sure that people would be replacing their phone before the gasket would fail. In most cases..

Not true with the galaxy s5. I'm typing on one now. I've been gentle with the charging cord cover, but it broke off within a year on my last one. It's common that they break off and they are no longer water resistant.

Ah, gotcha.

Don't have a waterproof phone, so I just do what the rest of us normies do and don't throw it into lakes =p

Me either. But my old s5 had lost the cover, it broke off and I had kept track of it for a few months. Eventually it disappeared. Then I had a vodka bottle tip over incident. That killed it. Replaced it with an HTC desire, that was a pile of shit. Bought a refurbished s5. Good enough.

Oh jeeze.

I'm still keeping a look out for a decent replacement the day my G4 kicks it. Until then, it's buying new batteries for this guy!

You don't realise the kind of speed you are missing out on. The performance is like day and night between the new phones and that LG G4!

No.. Stop.

I need no temptation! I am already looking for a new watch. Let me keep some money

GoPro's have a removable battery. It's possible, it just adds bulk.

GoPros require an external dive case, to be waterproof, so that hardly counts.

Or at least they did last I looked at them.

The latest models do not! I believe they are IPX8 without the case, although diving beyond 10m still requires one.

[removed]

[deleted]

Are you an ass or just intentionally strawmanning?

How do watches manage it for so long? Screws and a gasket is a great design

Watches and GoPros arnt having their battery compartments opened constantly. From what i see people dont want removable batteries to change out every 2 or 3 years when they go bad.

They want them to swap out throughout the day because they run them down so fast. This used to be normal with Blackberry and early Android phones.

Yeah but if you didn't make sure every single one of the like 14 clips were in, bye bye phone from the next splash.

It had one clip on the charging port, but back then basically no water resistant phone had a naked charging port. A new version could adress that problem.

I'm talking about the back that came off to access the battery, SIM, and MicroSD slot. This would still be required to have a removable battery.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. I will agree that the S5 was not the most reliable waterproof phone, but i think the back panel could have been improved as well. Maybe a SIM tray, and the cover only covering the battery.

Now there are a lot of water proof phone with charging port.

The s5 neo is that new version by the way. Standard rugged microusb port. No flaps.

Yeah except it was really unreliable and the charging port cover always broke off.

I will agree that it wasn't very reliable, but the port cover was common on water resistant phones back then, a newer version could address that. The back cover was kinda shit as well but a new version could improve the situation. Itcs not impossible to do.

They could make it flexible this time...

Can confirm, I am still using this phone and it is pretty much still the best phone to date. I have ten batteries for it and an external charger. I was really worried about popping the back on and off every single day for years, but it still seals fine. Parts are really cheap now, too.

I used to have one but I dropped it and the screen died, so I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. I might be able to get an S5 with a dead motherboard and fix mine in the near future.

That looks like a really awesome phone! I see it just got Android 9 ported to it, too. I am on Verizon so I've never been able to play with international phones due to lack of band support, but they're shutting down their 2G network in 17 months and LTE is nearly ubiquitous, so these phones are slowly becoming an option for me.

It really is pretty cool, the battery life and the performance especially. I don't plan on trying custom ROMs while i have warranty tho. I live in a small EU country where a lot of budget phones are sold, so there are quite a few Xiaomi and Huawei phones out in the wild.

Watches were waterproof and had replaceable batteries. It's possible with 1990's era tech.

External batteries are such a waste of space. It’s a sacrifice that almost everyone is willing to make for a more sleek and waterproof phone.

Replacing batteries on a sealed phone isn’t even difficult. An experienced person can safely and cheaply change a battery if your battery is two years old and getting lazy.

Could always make like LG. Internal battery but I took a G5 apart and replaced the camera and screen with zero experience working on phones. Took maybe 45 minutes. Could have easily replaced any part on it, including the battery. Parts are easily sourced for it as well. I hear the other G series phones are much the same way. That's a good enough middle ground for me.

Nah, bullshit. Batteries are glued in place, and that glue is a bitch to get off. There are basically two methods to getting a battery out. First, a heat gun, I hope I don't have to explain why that isn't exactly an ideal method. Or you just pry it out. Well, "just", as it requires quite a bit of force. The glue is strong, the gaps are tiny and it's basically impossible to do this slowly and carefully on some phones.

Some phones are better, some are worse, but generally removing a battery from modern phones is a pretty risky thing to do, to the point that you shouldn't ever try it without multiple methods to deal with the fire at hand.

Using a hair dryer to warm the glue isn’t too difficult unless you try to explain it in the most dramatic way possible or go at it like a barbarian. I know the glue is strong, but it’s not permanent.

Yeah, the problem is that you're heating the battery, too. You usually have to heat the glue "through" the battery. That's not exactly an ideal scenario for something you should never, ever get too hot because it will bust into flames pretty violently.

There’s a large gap between glue softening heat and battery igniting heat. If you take your time there really isn’t too much to worry about. Going slowly will allow the heat to transfer through the battery into the glue and case, so it’s really not getting that hot.

Yeah, if you’re an idiot and point a heat gun at a battery and then start prying with a screwdriver then you deserve to get an angry battery. Its like jump starting a car, a lot can go wrong very quickly but it’s very simple to do it safely.

I mean, of course you can do it safely, that's not the point. But lithium batteries have a potential to go up in flames and harm you, everything around you and worst case burn your house down. That's a pretty high level of danger with a relatively high chance to fuck up. I don't think there are many other things people usually deal with that are comparatively dangerous.

So yes, do it properly and carefully and you're fine in 99% of cases, but I wouldn't trust most people to actually do it properly.

It’s a sacrifice that almost everyone is willing to make for a more sleek and waterproof phone.

I work in tech and have talked to a lot of people and anytime phones come up in conversation, people mention wanting a removable battery and how they'd be willing to have a thicker phone to accomplish it. I even know people who have gone back to their old phones after upgrading to get that feature back. So when you say 'almost everyone' I really wonder who you're talking about.

Most phones are not (advertized as) sufficently water resistant for this to be a problem. Secondly, there is nothing a o-ring cant fix about water not getting to the removable battery.

I’m fine with non quickly removable batteries if it was a few screws and not cemented with glue. Devices last all day nowadays.

Same. Portable chargers are fine if needed, so just being able to replace my battery once every 3 years is okay.

I literally don't want removable batteries. I like my phone looking like a solid sealed piece

Engineering is a thing. If done right, you can have both.

Bringing back removable batteries and making stuff repairable by the unexperienced customer is unfortunately not always a good idea. In smartphones, having this heavily limits the design of the phones and would make phones much worse and limit the technological advancements of them.

This is the same for all of these super thightly packed electronics, like smartwatches or super-thin laptops.

I straight up don't give a shit about removable batteries. Battery tech is so advanced now that they pretty much hold their charge for years and years.

I see where you're going, but I disagree.

The inexperienced will remain inexperienced because they can't even get replacement parts.

If I would open up my phone, the glass back would probably break. No replacement is available. Result: I won't attempt to repair.

But the main difference will be for repair shops, who could get genuine parts, and schematics, making the overall quality of repairs higher.

This still brings revenue to the device manufacturer, and they have a higher chance of keeping you buying their devices because the previous device was easily repaired.

But the devices we have today, which are a feat of engineering would not be possible if constraints to make it repairable would be implemented. I'm not sure that I understood your point.

[deleted]

The batteries are not sealed, they are screwed on with some adhesive stickers which you can remove and replace very cheaply from sources like iFixIt. They are already not to inaccessible.

The problem is that is you want to make it easier, Apple can not do things like having an L-shape battery, or other fancier shapes in the future to optimise space, in a stacked design. This is constraining progress.

Just look at the MacBooks they make, the reengineered batteries completely to fill up some little space on the device to use the space as efficiently as possible and make the device as thin as possible. These new laws would make something like this much more difficult, if not impossible to create.

This is why I am opposed to these laws (Except the providing of replacement parts, this is good, but laws that interfere with the design of the phone to obligatorely have repairability in mind is awful).

How is it progress if we're not allowed parts to fix our devices?

It allows for much more compact devices with much greater use of space, as well as a nicer, more solid design that doesn't break apart. I prefer having a super sleek iPhone with amazing use of space and the best build quality there is than a modern phone built like an S5, which was extremely ugly, badly and cheaply built with poor use of space (so much thicker for the same components) but repairable.

And the only people that would actually want to repair their devices themselves would be techsavy people that can use already existing iFixIt guides to repair them. Very few people actually care about repairability, it's not worth doing for a company.

Samsung S5 still had removable battery, extra IR sensor, a headphone jack (touchĂŠ), top of the line processor and ram, and was still water proof.

Let's not buy into everything we get thrown by the companies, eh?

A S5 is not comparable to modern smartphones. What was top of the line then is the bottom of the line today. It was much less densily packed than todays smartphones, and on top of that the screen was as bright as a candle.

I have an IR sensor and headphone jack, and never ever use them, "top of the line" doesn't mean it performs well today, and if you want to, there are plenty of iFixit guides to change the battery of any smartphone if you still want to do it today. The easy access was permitted by the cheap and unattractive plastic design, today's glass slabs can not have such an easy opening.

You're completely missing my point...

At the time S5 was out, iPhone already had none of the features that I mentioned, all with the excuse you're giving now. Yet, Samsung was able to get all of that and still be as good as iPhone.

What do you mean by IR sensor? Like we had on gameboys in the late 90’s?

Because IPhone still had headphone jacks and really easy to replace batteries after the S5 came out.

The S5 was definitely not as good as the iPhone. Just looking at the two phones would tell you this. Apple includes what you need, not what you want, because it is often not what you need.

Right to repair should benefit the true examples planned obsolescence. However I actually get frustrated by examples of cell phones as a planned obsolescence issue.

There are printers, lightbulbs and cars which are designed to fail at a point in their life. That is planned obsolescence. Cell phone turnover has more to do with competition for faster devices and the software updates that support the hardware cycle. Also a computer that is easily dropped will always have high turn over.

Right to repair is good for phones, But it wouldn’t have the same impact as it would for things like printers or appliances. Swapping out batteries and cameras on a phone is helpful, but your never going to be able to upgrade the silicone to keep up with the ongoing changes in software features. There is no way to do that on devices so small. The trade offs in engineering wouldn’t work out.

Aren't we too far gone at this point for removable batteries? Unless you want to sacrifice waterproofing and more quality materials phones are better off being sealed imo. A few years ago there was no excuse but now flagships couldn't be built any other way

I've never had a waterproof phone, and never lost a phone from liquid damage. I could do without.

But for what it's worth: you can waterproof a phone and still have the battery accessible.

As far as I know there isn't a waterproof flagship with a removable battery. You cannot get an ip68 waterproof seal if the back of the phone is removable, it's literally impossible. So the internals would have to be waterproof, and the contacts of the battery would somehow have to be protected. If it existed I'm guessing it would have to look something like the Galaxy active series, where the phone is twice as thick and essentially has a built in case.

We need better energy solutions and better optimization of power, not removable batteries.

it is possible, but not something companies want to put effort into.

I do agree about batteries, and power consumption should improve. Hopefully graphene is the magical material it is claimed to be.

My only concern is that this might be used to force companies to design in longevity and support that really isn't required due to the nature of the product and/or the changing market it is being sold into.

Smart phones have matured enough now that keeping you phone for 3-4 years isn't unreasonable

Is it unreasonable now? I kept my iPhone 4s from launch up until last November. Of course it got slower over time but it still worked fine and that was over 5-6 years I think

As of this year Apple’s iOS is supporting more phones further generations back in its development timeline.

Clearly this situation screams for heavy-handed regulation from Europe. 🙄

I'm usually a big fan of how aggressive EU regulators are about checking corporate power. But stuff like this just strikes me as small potatoes and something the free market is eminently capable of solving for itself. If a lot of customers really value the guarantee that they can repair their own devices for the next decade, then money will go to devices that are repairable to that extent.

But it hasn't because it turns out most people just don't care. So I'm not sure what the problem is that needs solving.

I'd much rather see regulators enforce a minimum lifetime for security updates to try and head off the coming botnet nightmare that will be the Internet of Things. A regulation requiring manufacturers who ship internet-connected devices to include a software update mechanism, obligations to ship timely security patches in response to critical vulnerabilities, etc. would address an actual market failure.

I don’t disagree with anything you said. I agree people would rather have smaller waterproof devices than something they can “get under the hood”with.

One challenge with devices that run mostly server side like IoT, is what to do when companies can no longer afford to support dev cost of older gen devices, or even support current devices if they run into financial troubles? It’s a pickle for sure.

Yeah that one is very tricky. It may be that the only answer is caveat emptor or creating incentives for manufacturers to run software on-device. Or maybe it just won't even turn into a problem in practice. Regulators should probably wait for an actual widespread market failure before worrying about that one.

I don't think anybody except for those who stand to profit from obsolescence would ever complain about a product lasting too long.

This is true from a hardware standpoint. But not true for any product that has ongoing software updates with new features.

The software might support new features, but that doesn't mean that it has to leave older hardware that doesn't support that one feature behind.

The iPhone 5S running the latest iOS is a good example, I think.

That is a god example. Your point is well made. Apple seems motivated to support further back generations of phones which is great. But most companies are not so large that they can afford the immense amount of software development it takes to support a hardware line that large and complex, think how big the windows or android team is.

I think we are going to see this be even more of a problem with IOT enabled appliances in the future. Software outpacing hardware. And small companies that can’t keep supporting old hardware but must update features in new generations to compete.

As long as the device can still do what it was advertised to be able to do, there's no issue with a company discontinuing support for older devices. Planned obsolescence is far different than moving along with the times and taking advantage of new technology.

Your not wrong and there examples that will fit this model, like a fridge, there is no reason a fridge can’t keep keeping things cold long after it’s software is not supported. But these new IoT devices in the works (and even phones) rely on software living partially if not mostly in the cloud for their new tech to work. That server side software still needs support and maintenance, security fixes, or what happens of the company goes bankrupt. These are “the times” that are ahead of us. This is the kind of tech companies need to have to compete.

Yeah, but you know what that means? Renting. Not actually owning a product. Corporations won't just go and make things that last a long time.

The Right to Repair is probably going to hate this.

Wouldn't work in the EU. The mentality of the people doesn't allow it.

I can only hope so. To me personally it would be a living nightmare.

Same. I don't even buy my phones with contract, as it feels too restrictive.

removable batteries.

For current smart phone batteries all they would have to do is use the little push clip connectors that the wifi antenna uses to claim removable battery. To get to the battery you would still have to pull apart the entire phone but technically it's a removable battery.

as well as bring back removable batteries.

Removable batteries are why my Galaxy Note 2 lasted so long, and why my brother is still using an S3.

My S7 Edge works as well and lasts as long as the day I bought it almost 2 years ago, however-I've been very impressed with the longevity of the battery life. The only reason I'm even considering upgrading to the Note 9 (assuming there are some Black Friday deals) is to help my brother upgrade to my S7. And he'll probably use it for the next 4-5 years.

Exactly. Being able to replace [arts means you won't have to throw away the device within 3 years.

Would also make things more expensive though wouldn’t it?

Considering a $1000 iPhone costs about $300 to manufacture, It really shouldn't.

Same goes for many other devices.

Yes R&D is a thing, but even then it's ridiculous how much profit these companies make.

Say bye bye to water proof phones if you force removable batteries, and warranties that are actually worth while.

Oh And guess what? the companies will find a way to make certain parts irreplaceable by 3rd parties and will then charge an arm and a leg to "fix" your device to the point where it's more cost effective to just buy a new phone.

The companies will find a way to screw you over in the long run. Always.

So you suggest we just let them do as they please?

Yes, actually. Government needs to get their hands out of everything. Just let the market and competition take its course.

How do you like AT&T and Comcast? Because you're going to get more of the scummy business practises that they apply.

as well as bring back removable batteries

So now the law will mandate that phones have to be thicker and less water resistant?

No you silly duck! It will make them more repairable.

You can easily make them just as flat, and just as water resistant.

Take a look at your average digital watch. See how the back can come off for you to replace the battery? And note how you can go swimming with it, even after changing the battery?

Technology sure is amazing, isn't it?

I really hope for more devices with removable batteries, especially if they're AA or AAA, since I've got like 20 rechargeable batteries of each. But I'll gladly buy some other types if need be.

I think it'll be mostly lithium polymer batteries, as they pack more power in their form factor. But I would gladly buy a thicker phone if it had user-replaceable 186500 batteries.

So you want manufacturers to keep making outdated technology forever just to repair outdated items?

The world isn't black and white. How about 4 years? With an average upgrade path of 1.8 years, that would mean that people who buy their phone real late in the cycle, could still find [arts after ~2 years.

This could be very positive, even outside of the EU.

It could also be economically devastating. Many things are only affordable for the average person because of planned obsolescence. We need a full proposal available before we can say it will be good or bad.

That's clearly something that needs to change.

And if you could get a second hand device, and be able to replace batteries and screens, it would last longer.

This is a major win on so many levels. So happy a super large market is doing this.

Bad for the American economy as it is today. Our nation’s economy is based in people working a dead end job, buying stuff, throwing that stuff away after it breaks, and buying new stuff.

If people buy parts for those phones, then how is that a bad thing for the economy?

Not only that, but who really benefits from selling new over old devices?

I hope so, considering most problems are solved by a simple battery pull.

That sounds horrible. You can’t force a company to supply parts and instructions. That has nothing to do with freedom.

The us does it to automakers.

I'm sorry that you feel that way, but laws are made to protect the weak from the strong.

Regulations are there for the people, not the conglomerates.

Freedom is a matter of perspective. When rights of companies are pitted against rights of individuals.

It could also cause prices of everything to rise.

That's ok if stuff lasts longer.

If stuff lasts longer, it’s generally speaking going to be at least someone what more expensive. If not much more expensive. If there was a big enough market of people who cared about this, it would be more prevalent. The reality is people like cheap things and the cost of entry is among the main consideration.

We’d still have brick rotaries that lasted greater than 30 years otherwise. Those companies went out of business,when the technology was still relevant, to cheaper options that lasted say 2-5 years and could be bought again for less than the price of that 30 year one AND with a more modern style.

People like to drum up planned obsolescence, but few know the engineering process. Certainly anyone making laws about it. I would be shocked if any of the major players said, “This phone will be useless in 3 years so those idiots have to buy another.” The actual conversation is “This phone is only supportable for X years, this is the break point so we keep the shirt on our backs and do not hemorrhage money, and in that time frame we have X block of latest technological features we plan to add so the upgrade is worthwhile and people buy our product over our competitors.”

People buy for those block upgrades. And not enough want phones to be cars/legos/modular or the technology isn’t there yet. Replaceable batteries are great, but it’s a design trade-off to a problem easily solved elsewhere.

Modern technology, especially in the mobile space, generally moves fast. That 4 year old pc you bought is the equivalent of your great grandparent. It may still be working, but it’s lost a little something in its spry step. The same is true of phones, except in this case you have a shorter life-span and many different dissimilar types. Eventually you can’t support it in a financially feasible way.

This is a good point. Also, we're often comparing luxury items of the past to the cheapo level of today.

[deleted]

I don't need my smartphone to last ten years as my daily driver. However, it would be nice if my phone still turned on, and did what it can do today in ten years, instead of becoming a paperweight that cannot be safely disposed of easily.

Your comment is insane. Let me break it down, just to show how insane it is:

"It's okay if phones cost more if they last longer."

You: "That's not true. They shouldn't last a long time, because technology moves too quickly. Buy the latest phone, it's better. If people make better phones, they'll last longer, but they'll be more expensive!"

You okay? Do you work for Samsung?

Maybe he's just one of the majority of customers that buy phones every two or three years whether they break or not just to keep up with software development. It's not unreasonable for him not to want to pay a premium for the phone last far longer than he needs it to. In your mind it's apparently insane to prefer 100$ today over an obsolete but functional phone in ten years.

Also, from a technical standpoint, this will hurt battery and charging times as well. If you target enough battery cycles to last only a couple of years, you can pull more energy out of it, and you can charge it really hard. If it has to last ten years, you can't really get away with that.

Phones can be designed with replaceable batteries and batteries can be designed to be recyclable.

Source: I'm writing this from a galaxy S4 on its fourth battery. Phones working great.

Yeah, but consumers are idiots and value sleekness over modularity and repairability. Then they stuff the whole thing in a 15$ plastic case.

User replacable batteries. No reason i can't put in a new battery every 2 years.

What is this primitive technology you speak of?

Someone raises an alternate opinion and you accuse them of being a corporate shill? What?

I think his point is that it is pretty much guaranteed that extending the operable lifespan of a lot of tech devices is likely to drastically increase the price of the devices such that the average person may not even be able to afford them anymore. This is different than most standard appliances because toasters aren't doubling in efficiency every couple years so they can and should be built to last.

Since tech improves at an extremely high rate, it makes more sense to build devices to be affordable such that a consumer can upgrade every 2-5 years rather than stick with one increasingly outdated device for ten. You're suggesting that a person should expect their Pentium D Computers to work reliably in the modern day despite improvements in chip architecture and software, rather than just upgrading to more modern hardware. Why?

There's probably even market research showing the average consumer upgrades their devices every X years on average and they build around that expectation, rather than the few who try and stretch out their device's lifespan.

So it is entirely possible that these sorts of rules could increase prices and reduce innovation for everyone to 'benefit' the 10% of people who it actually harms.

OR we could just have separate options where people who want long-lasting devices can just buy the more expensive, longer-lasting devices while those who intend to upgrade often can keep doing so.

Simply offering a alternative opinion on your comment and nothing more.

You mention that costs would rise too much for most consumers so that's your comments big claim as to why reliable smartphones that last isn't a good thing for people.

Hypothetically speaking, if this were the case then manufacturers might adjust to the market and create reliable, long lasting, and easy to repair smartphones that are also relatively cheap because they would implement older specs.

Personally, one of the best phones I've ever owned was a Samsung Galaxy S6 Active edition. This phone had a functional form factor, good radio antenna, bright screen, durable body, good battery life, fast and snappy processor for everything not related to high end mobile gaming, and a decent camera.

My point is that smartphone technology has been in an acceptable spot regarding performance for a while. I realize that everything is getting better constantly; however, just like high end gaming pcs, there seems to be a law of diminishing returns regarding price vs performance.

I like the S8 Active more, though it's a little larger unfortunately. Gave my S6 Active away when I upgraded rather than take the 50 dollar credit, and it's working fine for my older co-worker who was using a flip phone.

The point is that there's just no significant market demand for phones that are user-serviceable composed of interchangeable parts. By and large, the smartphone market is working great for customers. They're largely affordable, there's a ton of competition, and there's a lot of innovation happening year after year. I have no idea who looks at the smartphone market and thinks "Boy something's really wrong here because a few dozen Right to Repair Randos just aren't happy!"

This is forcing the creation of long-lasting products simply for it's own sake, not because such a thing would actually be valuable.

Designing a product to last 10+ years is just a fundamentally different engineering endeavor than designing it to last 4 or 5, especially when modern electronics are involved. Companies can't "just" make existing products last longer. They'd have to make fundamentally new products that would arguably not serve the market anywhere near as well as what's shipping today because customers would not get new features as quickly (because the engineering effort must go toward ensuring that the phones can be shot into orbit or whatever the requirement is). That means fewer new features coming to market, which means less intense competition, which means less innovation.

It also has a double-whammy of shrinking the overall smartphone market because people will hang onto their devices forever, so the audience of people who are buying smartphones every year will get smaller. Which means there's less money to be had. Which means companies won't invest as much effort in this space. Which kills innovation and competition.

All of this in the name of longevity that the market just isn't demanding. This would be like regulators disallowing car manufacturers from using ECUs because they're not friendly to hobbyists.

What do you personally look for in a good phone?

  1. Security.
  2. Snappy UI.
  3. Easy to use.

I don't remember my Note 3 with removable battery costing $10,000, so I don't know what you're going on about.

Making a phone "built to last" isn't some wacky future concept. It's something phone manufacturers just stopped doing.

Or we should support policies that discourage disposable electronics because popular practices of "upgrading" devices every other year is completely insane from a sustainability standpoint.

Do you wish you still had a T Mobile G1 (the first Android phone was just about 10 years ago)? 3G wireless! 192 MB RAM, 256 MB internal storage SD card slot though, up to 16GB of storage! 3MP camera! 1150 mA battery! (on a side note, that physical keyboard is kind of nice) https://www.electronicsforce.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=56024

Yeah, it would make a great security camera. Or baby monitor. Or emergency phone.

[deleted]

Bluetooth 2.0 might not work with anything either.

I think Apple would have been a safer guess.

[deleted]

All of that is true. It still doesn't explain why a device's lifespan SHOULD be directly tied to its battery life.

Listen, I'm not arguing that ten-year-old devices are very useful. I'm saying that if I bought a desktop computer tomorrow, I wouldn't be throwing it away in two years. Or three. Maybe ten, sure. But, the fact that it can last me until I'm ready to upgrade is something that should not be taken for granted.

Years 1-2 are expected. Years 8-10 are overkill. But years 2-6 might be extremely important, especially with diminishing processor speed returns in regards to average use.

That's not necessarily true for every item. A smartphone doesn't need to last 10 years, as there's always new ones coming out with faster CPUs, bigger and better displays, etc.

But it is true for most things including smartphones as some of us don't need better phones because we use them as a phone and not as a mini gaming computer, i and many others only use it for things like sms, calls, emergency internet access, wake-up clock/alarm and etc there is no point in replacing it for better specs when there really is no need as it is wasteful so being able to use it for longer than just a few years is absolutely needed.

Smartphones are nearing the end of their evolution, they're not improving nearly as much year over year.

This proposed measure could make the second hand market a lot more viable, if you could replace the battery and get basic security updates most new phones now could go a very long way for someone on a budget (or in a developing market). Right now I can't recommend a second hand phone to anyone because the battery will be shit, if you can even replace it the replacement is likely to be a chinese knock-off fire hazard, and worst of all you're running an Android version that is vulnerable to all the latest exploits from 2016 and has been completely abandoned by the manufacturer.

The improvement pace in smartphones slowed down quite a lot in recent years.

Heck, many manufacturers don't even advertise with storage capacity and performance (CPU, GPU, RAM) anymore. I usually buy new phones for battery improvement, as newer models live slightly longer and my old phone would have it's battery degraded by that point.^1

5 years would be a reasonable lifetime manufacturers should aim for.

^(1: And one of my phones with a replaceable battery crapped out on me after warranty.)

If manufacturers just delivered phones with a raw Android version it would be unnecessary to change phone every two years.
In the mid-high end phones, i find it very hard to notice real improvements which justify spending hundreds of dollars of you own a good phone from 2016. Even if one could say the cameras got better, it's mostly software stabilizer that improves things.

So I think you're getting it backwards. It's not because the technology got better that you feel the need to change phone every couple years, its marketing and business practices.

Just to compare two flagship phones that are 3 years apart: https://youtu.be/UJkWFcPG6-k

Sure I agree, I mean it's a balance. It's fairly pathetic how downvoted I've been. Regulated products to this extent is bound to cause cost rises at some level.

[deleted]

Lol.

More like, pay 25% more for having it last 3-4 times longer.

[deleted]

Any?

This isn't even washing machine specific. This law would revert longevity to what it was 10-15 years ago, it's not forcing something new on any company.

I mean, how can you be against this?

[deleted]

I wouldn't worry about that. There is a team of lawyers on the wording I'm guessing.

I am not arguing with you about washing machines mate. This isn't even about just washing machines.

If you want anecdotes, I'll indulge you.

I have two freezers in my home. One is as old as the house, some 23 years now. The other one is a newer one, already replaced. It's predecessor had 3 years of warranty and died last month on year 4. Took one simple part to fix, but that part (some sort of thermometer) wasn't made seperately. Boom, 800 euros down the toilet.

This happens with every machine on purpose, which is horrible. Trash and costs are tripled for no reason except company profits.

I thought planned obsolescence was a smartphone centric idea . . Because of software that needs to be optimized for older hardware

The term planned obsolescence predates smart phones.

Smartphones are just the latest iteration of it. In the 2000s planned obsolescence was a big issue with computer hardware, like optical drives that conveniently failed weeks after your service warranty expired. Before that it was household appliances like refrigerators, microwaves, and, indeed, washers and dryers.

In the 2000s planned obsolescence was a big issue with computer hardware

A big problem was with capacitors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Planned obsolescence became a thing because of women's stockings and razor blades, I don't remember the year.

Basically, back in the day nylon stockings were extremely durable and easy to repair, while razor blades could be sharpened. Then companies realized that they were making less sales because their product lasted way longer than expected, and came up with the concept of planned obsolescence.

Then the concept found its home with consumer electronics. Smartphones are only the tip of the iceberg, it's everywhere (washing machines, printers and ink cartridges, headphones and even clothing).

Planned obsolescence is older than the microchip. Back when they made flashlights that ran on D batteries, before they had LEDs in then, planned obsolescence was what they called it when they engineered the light to burn out in less time than it took the batteries to drain. It is a concept that is far older than computers of any kind.

Interesting. . I never knew this

Smart phones didn't invent capitalism.

I don’t get why you’re being downvotes that is 100% a legitimate statement.

$100 for a product that lasts 2 years or $300 for one that lasts 10

Purely speculation.

Anything to back up this notion?

[deleted]

That's the cost to improve it not what companies will charge.

[deleted]

Company b still needs a revenue stream after the initial purchase, with 2 year obsolescence they get $20 per customer every 2 years over a 10 year period that's $100. That $100 has to be built into the initial price.

[deleted]

You just don't see all the costs, over a short period you are correct, a company could come in and undercut the competation. After the initial wave of sales there is not enough revenue to sustain a company, the only solution is to have a higher profit margin.

Being poor is expensive...

It's funny how people perceive I've stated an opinion that I haven't.

This doesn’t apply to all kinds of products. Phones are not mechanical things, they have software updates and battery chemistry. If your talking about a coffee maker maybe. Or a set of kitchen knives then yes! But you can’t apply the notion of your expensive, well made knives lasting a long time, to ask the question why doesn’t my phone last longer by throwing more money at it.

Phones are the perfect example, rechargeable batteries can last more then 2 years but they are not designed with longevity in mind, replacement of batteries used to be possible but internal batteries are stopping that. Software updates are pushed by the manufacturer and are part of their planned obosolescence.

I disagree about software updates being pushed as a part of planned obsolesces. Intense competition drives the need for new software features, people want devices that can do even more for them and are more secure. That story has been happening since the 80s in all computers. You can’t support all devices forever, it takes a huge amount of development resources to do so.

As far as batteries are concerned, unless you are an expert on battery chemistry I don’t think either of us can comment on the trade-off between capacity and longevity. Or even if there is one. Capacity is always more competitively advantageous.

Edit: added a sentence to clarify

Updates after 2 years for phones are unheard of, new features are not the reason. As far as batteries go it's the pick 2 approach, size, capacity, and longevity. A 20% larger battery would give you 2x the longevity.

Sorry, to clarify not longevity as in the hours it will give you after one charge, but longevity in how many charge cycles before the chemistry begins to break down and you need a new battery. I don’t think making it larger fixes that.

With the upcoming iOS 12 Apple will be supporting 6 years back in their phone line up. New features including security actually is the reason.

Not sure why you’re down voted. You are absolutely right.

No he is not, with software enabled devices more money doesn’t make for a longer lasting product. It’s not like buying a nicer pair of boots, it’s far more complicated.

And the pace of advancement to decline.

It’s a double edged sword for sure.

Oh please, last years phones or even the phone from two to three years ago aren't significantly worse. If people only got phones every three years, manufacturers would have to actually innovate to sell theirs.

I got my iPhone 6 4 years ago and it still runs smooth as silk. I don’t plan on upgrading unless I absolutely have to.

But this is how often people update. And manufactures are working furiously to innovate because competition is high. I don’t understand your point here? Obi-one is correct. There would be an engineering trade-off that would occur, even with right to repair.

[deleted]

Some people do. Most of us are happy with our phones and cannot afford to replace them until they break.

You mean the phones designed with planned obsolescence in mind?

Again, not sure why you are down voted. This is a reasonably accurate assessment from a layman’s view. Best case scenario is technology advances in a different path. The reality is an awful fragmented mess of technology.

2 valid points are downvoted because the truth hurts. People want to have their cake and eat it too.

There ARE pros as well as cons to planned obsolescence regardless of how people vote.

Yes, costs and benefits, which will probably come down to enforcement of the law rather than the law itself.

You are not wrong and don’t deserve downvotes. It is indeed a simple trade off.

I like water proof phones....so I’d rather not have removable batteries.

Edit: The galaxy s5 was only waterproof with the flap that usually fell off within a year. Also, the phone had issues with the O seal on the removable back coming off as well which kept it from being waterproof.

Huh? My Samsung Galaxy S5 has both a removable battery and is waterproof.

Thing is getting a bit old for me, which is a shame, but matter is, both isn't impossible.

Unless you broke the charging port flap off. Which was insanely easy.

That doesn't have to do much with the removable back cover though, which is the primary part needed for removable battery.

Though, yes, the the cover is flimsy, I didn't break off mine in 4 years but I can see how fragile it is.

Yeah, it's almost as if giving consumers options makes sense huh?

I mean generally I like removable batteries, but when I'm out on my boat I rather like having a waterproof option and it's not hard to swap my sim for the day.

There are options. There are ZTE,LG, and HTC phones with removable batteries

Yep, that's one of the reasons I'm still hanging on to my LGG4.

Why not both? Its not like that hasn't been done before.

The galaxy s5? Which was only waterproof with a charging port flap that broke off easily. Or is there another one I don’t know about?

Back then there weren't any sealed USB ports available as components to the manufacturers. Now there are so that wouldn't be a problem. The first waterproof Android phone was the Motorola Defy AFAIK.

Motorola defy had the same USB port flap though. And it was just water resistant not water proof.

I’m not convinced there isn’t a manufacturing issue with creating a removable battery water proof phone. If there was the ability to make it then it would exist. There is always a market for something; especially something so sought after as removable battery phones.

So are they going to force android manufacturers to support their devices for more than 18 months after launch?

At a minimum not actively break old devices with an update that starts killing features.

Nah, that's a really low bar and they could just update fuck all and let people dwell in the older version of the software. They should update it until it's literally impossible to do so, at least with security updates.

That could help with device longetivity because they would think twice about releasing a new device every year if they have to support it for 20

Project Treble makes it a lot easier to do that though

Eli5?

Essentially making phones like PC, making it easier for OEMs (and custom ROM developer) to do OS updates without worrying about drivers.

The base for Android version Oreo going forward is more modular, so updates and the like should be much easier to manage from manufacturer perspective. Devices that upgraded from Nougat to Oreo won't get this due to the way previous versions upgraded.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/what-is-project-treble-google-android-updates-fragmented-2949099

Have a read

Ah, I remember when that was said about PhoneBloks.

That dissapeared into the aether.

Would hurt your pocket though because then the 20 year support would be added to the device

Unless it becomes a ponzi scheme, they have to release new phones to pay the price of supporting older ones.

It takes a lot less to support a device than you think

That genie is out of the bottle and is never going back.

Constant rolling updates that you cannot prevent are becoming ubiquitous everywhere, especially considering how popular Software as a Service has become.

Software designers have a vested interest in everyone being up to date to minimize their support profile and reduce time engineering in backwards compatibility. Just look how much web devs bitch about having to support older versions of I.E.

Now that everyone just accepts the fact that they're going to have to update their software every few weeks/months, no major dev house in the world is ever going to go back to the old way.

And system security is usually the excuse they use but when an actual serious security vulnerability like heartbleed gets found, you can see what their response is like.

try doing web dev and you'll bitch about it too

I dabbled in html and php back in the day but quit when CSS became ubiquitous because that shit is just evil.

So you code for the RFC standard and if Microsuck can't handle it owell, put a link on the error page to download a real browser.

Constant rolling updates is a good thing. There are too many dumb fucks who don't update their software, myself included.

this comment is definitely going to bite me in the arse in 10 years.

[deleted]

Unreliable and sometimes just plain sketchy.

So many older custom Android ROMs were nothing but malware factories.

[deleted]

Believe it or not the ROM community at one point didn't have the kind of provenance history that they have today.

Early on, ROM shopping was a lot like getting pirated games. Some were fine, some were deliberately compromised, and it took a while to determine who the ethical actors were.

[deleted]

Shit son I've been pirating games and in the warez scene since the 1980s, there is literally nothing you can tell me about the subject. And I don't mean the modern-day wishy washy meaning of literal as figurative. I mean actually fucking literally.

I got my first pirated game on a motherfucking cassette tape.

Do you even know that programs used to come on cassette tapes?

Have you ever cracked copy protection on your own with nothing but a hex editor and a calculator? Because I fucking have.

But please, go on, tell me about how ignorant I am about pirated software.

I bet your shit is rootkitted right now as we speak.

I don't think the IE analogy is very good here. Web developers "bitch" about it because if you are using ie 6 or 7 or 8 or even 9, you are literally the problem. It's free to upgrade.

No it isn't and it never was.

I have MSIE 8 because I'm on Windows XP.

Neither are usable out of the box, but you can change the settings to regain a sane user experience. This is not the case with newer versions of Windows and IE because they've removed all settings to make things usable, and then they go from insane to full-on trash fire with Windows 8 where they've essentially trashed Windows, pissed in the face of the past 50 years of UX research and development, and half-replaced it with Windows Phone OS. (I say half, because half of your programs and settings are still there and the other half are in the full-screen MS-DOS-like "Metro apps"!

If you're really using ie8, please destroy your virus ridden computer when you're done.

I LOVE the IE 8 / Windows XP anger and hate; I've been getting it for years at this point, so bring it on! 💕❤

P. S.: I got a virus in like 2008, at a time when both were fully supported (which I practically fought off with my bare hands) and haven't seen any kind of infection since, and I'm probably safer at this point since the market share has dropped off! 😎

I have MSIE 8 because I'm on Windows XP.

So you are the problem. Windows XP is not even supported by Microsoft anymore, so making software compatible with that is actually bad practice.

LOL!

What a ridiculous premise and conclusion!

Have you actually even read the comment you responded to?

Clearly not!

Also, the most basic principle of the Web is that pages can be read by any user agent, any kind of machine, no matter how old, no matter if you have literally no graphics support, no matter if your don't even have a fucking computer monitor!

Go do a bit of research on the Web and get back to me!

the most basic principle of the Web is that pages can be read by any user agent

You can read the pages easily from any agent - but your agent might not be able to parse what it sees. If you tr and load a website on an outdated browser, one of three things can happen:

  • The site loads, because it doesn't depend on anything that your browser lacks
  • The developer was lazy, and you get a broken version of the site with modules not working or not loading all together
  • The developer has excluded your agent, and redirects you to a "browser not supported" page

I can try and curl a website that uses extensive js/css to style themselves, but I shouldn't be surprised that all I get is broken text.

Building websites that work on all (old) platforms is silly and pointless. There is a reasonable expectation that the user is not using agents that have been officially deprecated by the supplier years ago, so going out of your way to support that is not only a waste of time, but might be opening you up vulnerabilities that don't exist on the newer systems.

Go do a bit of research on the Web and get back to me!

I think as a software engineer (working on a web based platform) I have done enough research to qualify to answer you.

So then why support them at all? Just put an error page in that says 'Upgrade your browser doofus, here's the link'.

Well at big corporate places you can't do that. Like a big banking site wants to make sure that everyone single person that visits their site is satisfied, and there are millions of people who are too tech illiterate to update and may be on an older browser.

But like a SaaS company that makes b2b software is probably more likely to force users to update. Or if you're making a site for the general public like for a game or something, you can probably assume users are mostly literate and only support newer versions with an error page like you mentioned

Just look how much web devs bitch about having to support older versions of I.E.

That's because Internet Explorer has certain features it doesn't support. Why do you think Google made Chrome in the first place?

You know, I talk to some of these web devs on Discord.

> We don't support any microsoft browser officially, Chrome/FF if it happens to work in Edge great, if you submit a bug and it says you were using edge we close it with - we don't support microsoft browsers, please use Chrome or Firefox

> is edge that awful?

> They still some janky ass shit in it

> from the development side, that is

and we don't trust those assholes to not go the IE route eventually yet we write everything in C# :smile

mind elaborating on the IE route? (yes, i could probably google this)

> Having to write different JS for every version of the browser nightmare

> wait, every single edition of IE?

IE6 doesn't work with IE7, and vice versa, etc, throughout up to 11 that does it's own weird shit. They ditched IE for Edge with 10 and built it on a fork of Chromium

It support really well the cash grab pricing model.

​

Which kills the userbase as they find something less toxic.

It's high time we got a new OS.

[deleted]

That would imply that every single piece of software you use in the system has already been updated to work, or will work without updates on the new version.
I have been putting off both my Windows and iOS updates for a long time now due to incompatibilities with stuff I use.

Having filterable update packages would be the fix - when Windows still had this you could just exclude the packages you knew would break something, and still keep a relatively up-to-date system.
Now I had to completely block the win10 update service, otherwise it forces an update in the middle of the night, promptly followed by the OS crashing on login and needing to roll back.

As an IT admin, rolling updates fuck over our infrastructure more often than security vulnerabilities.

Remember 2 years ago when most GPO pushed network printers and shares stopped working because Microsoft 'fixed' their GPUPDATE view security and didn't tell anyone?

Yeah it almost cost me my job.

Eventually though you have a limited amount of resources, and how many developers you allocate to continually patch/update old software to work with old hardware, and how many you allocate to design new software for new hardware has to come to a head.

That's stupid. Just because an update is "possible", doesn't mean it's suitable.

Do you care that much about getting an update if your device can't take advantage of half the new features and it makes your phone slower overall?

Security updates, sure, but it's stupid to get the government involved because you didn't get as many features updates as you wanted

You overestimate the demands of features that are added year after year. Does it burden older devices more, sure, but you can easily disable features known to overburden older devices and place it behind a toggle.

Which has a cost, which I don't want to pay, neither do most people (and you I guess).

You would buy it if they sold the updates? (Which they should, it's more works)

Considering that iOS does this as a part of buying the device (or just having it, really), and both Windows and MacOS have long term support for security patches and feature updates in the cost of the machine/OS, no, they are an expected part of the product.

You overestimate the hardware diversity of many manufacturers product lines. Fun fact, much of Motorola's Droid lineup and the Atrix HD shared about 70% of the base hardware, and the rest were small differences in features like battery size. Updates were pretty easy to tweak between devices for Motorola. With Treble in place now, it's even easier to tweak source updates since you don't need to nuke and pave certain parts of the OS anymore. The hard parts of pushing updates are no longer a concern.

Ubuntu developers does free works, should I expect my wage to get to 0? Don't know your works field, but most probably I could find someone that does it for free too, should I tell your boss that you are getting overpaid? A work need to be paid for. I don't want your new facial recognition, pay for it yourself.

The fact that iOS does it doesn't means it HAS to be done or it's the right thing to do.

Security updates is a whole other things and you may think it's for you but it's actually for themselves. They actually save cash by having more people secure. The easier it is to build a bot net, the harder their servers (and their client servers) are getting hit.

You clearly underestimate the cost of QA. I added a feature recently on my company software, in total, about 4 hours of works, could have been faster, only a selection box with different orders. It's impact meant about 3-4 days of QA. That's only on 1 browser in 1 environment.

If you think that that in the $800 ballpark price tag of a flagship phone, you shouldn't get extended updates built into the device cost, you're out of it. I didn't say that it should be free, I agreed that I shouldn't have to pay for it to be a part of the phone.

The S9 MSRPs at $720, with the S9 Plus at $840. iPhone 8+ retails at $700 for the 64GB model and has those updates packed in. Given the market share being similar between the two, Samsung can more than afford longer security and OS upgrade support with Treble in place, especially when you consider that the screen, one of the more expensive parts in the new iPhones, are sourced from them. E: I neglected that the majority of iPhones use Samsung DRAM and NAND flash storage as well.

We're not talking about one off devices, were talking about devices that stand at the top in terms of market share.

“Update fuck all”... great use of “fuck all” I haven’t I haven’t quite mastered the use of the phrase but I love seeing it used well hahaha

That would be an improvement over what Apple does now.

You mean well optimized for older phones? Seriously, iOS 11/12 performs better than their older software on older phones.

I love to reaffirm my believe that Android phones are the best, but when it comes to software Apple are ahead in some department.

I was more talking about how notorious Apple is for forcing planned obsolescence down peoples' throats, and even admitting to it in court:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/12/22/apple-faces-lawsuits-admitting-slowing-older-iphones/

It's generally agreed that it was done for a good reason, but badly executed. On older Android, we often see how phone will die/reboot even when there's +40% of the battery left. This is due to the lower wattage the battery put out being old. What Apple did is to prevent that from happening, by slowing down the phone.

Why they did it perfectly made sense, and the original speed comes back when you swap a new battery. What they stupidly did is not telling their customers about it.

So yeah, even on /r/Android it is agreed that what Apple did made sense.

As long as we’re all cool with paying way more for the phone.

Can I just take a moment to gripe about a 40 inch Samsung Smart TV I bought a few years back? Out of the box, it was great! Had a YouTube app, had Plex, a web browser, and an App Store where I was able to get a few fun little games and screen savers. About a year after I bought it, the YouTube app was removed with an update. About 6 months after that, the App Store was replaced by some new store that didn’t have near the content the old one did. A couple months after that a new Samsung media app was installed with an update and at the same time, the Plex app stopped functioning. Within 2 years, almost all of the original smart features were removed by updates, some of which were replaced with Samsung branded inferior versions. I finally ended up buying a Roku for it, so I could reclaim the out of the box functionality I was missing with my now 2 year old TV.

I was not a Samsung hater. In fact, this was my 3rd Samsung TV over the past 20 years, and the 2 TVs that came before that one were excellent for their time. Thanks to Samsung’s downgrading update BS, I will never buy any Samsung branded device again.

This is why I wish smart TVs would stop being a thing. A set top box does it all way better and stays up to date much much longer. I've been using my shield tv box for like 3 or 4 years now and I haven't lost a single feature, but I've gained plenty of awesome ones. Nvidia is really great with staying up to date on patches too.

Never ever buy a "smart" anything if you can help it. Maybe a phone, if you don't really need a phone per se.

I’ve put a lot of time and money into a smart house. All the TVs in my house are running Rokus now (which are freaking awesome btw), I’ve got smart lights, a home security system I built myself, my appliances can be controlled remotely, my plugs monitor power usage and shut themselves down based on time schedules to help stop energy seep, I have a solar system that keeps my electricity bills low, I even have an electric car. I’m embracing the future, and it’s fabulous. I will not support any company removing advertised features like Samsung did to my poor TV however. Our TVs around the house are all Vizio or Sony now, and they’ve been excellent.

I’m enjoying a smart home future, but Samsung is not a part of that future for a good reason, at least in my own opinion.

I mean, you do you, but I would put $5 that at a minimum half the things that haven't been replaced in five years will have gone boing, either the way that smart TV did or worse.

I had Samsung TV die on me just under a month after the warranty ended... I'm still salty about it.

Can SmartTVs be rooted?

I’d imagine so, especially considering how poor most IOT devices are at keeping security up to date. At this point though it’s a spare TV in my home office that maybe gets turned on twice a month, so it’s not really worth the effort.

LG os is great. I've had my tv some 4-5 years and am still getting updates. Netflix and other stuff works great.

I see the same where I work.
There are some apps full of features
and now they are planning to make a new app that has less features,
but has built in capability to price all the features separately.

I updated mine on Friday and now my battery only lasts for about 4 hours. 6 on battery saving mode.

Yeah, this is the actual reason that companies don't like to update a phone too much. In the span of only 1 year, mobile tech leaps by quite a bit. Either the existing software doesn't take advantage of new features and new power, or it falls behind the competition. Android itself is no exception. My phone came with Android 6. It's on 8 now, and the battery life after each update was significantly impacted.

I can relate to that. Apparently, my old phone (Sony xperia tipo) started requiring Google Play services for apps to run. Things started slowing down, it took a lot of my internal memory, battery life went down.

Turns out it's not required by most apps and after I uninstalled it and ignored the phone whining about "x app requires google apps services to run!!!", the app still works and does it even faster than usually. I have no idea why it has to be so invasive up to a point of displaying warnings in my push notifications

You can go into advance settings and block all apps from doing push notifications individually

I love how Google play music always thinks I want to stream music now instead of just playing the same thing from my phone's memory.

That alone should be illegal and carry real financial penalties.

My Nexus 5x (a Google designed phone) that was bricked by an Android update, a pretty common issue 🙄

There are multiple engineering reasons for doing things that look like that, but none of them have to do with forcing you to buy a new phone.

Idk about other phones but for my Google Pixel the most recent Android OS release actually improved my phone. It runs better than ever now.

Like Apple does?

[deleted]

Not only is it on the latest version, but it's going to remain on the latest version for another year. So an iPhone from 2013 will support software from 2019, meanwhile LG G5 from 2016 was left on Android 7.0... Software from 2016.

I have a V20 and just got Android 8.0. Are you telling me don't expect any more updates?

Sadly it's very unlikely, considering the V10 stopped after 7.0.

Does it not run super slowly?

iOS 12 dramatically improved performances of older phones.

[deleted]

My experience as well. I travelled to Europe recently and just popped in a local sim and was surprised at how well my 5s held up.

For your main every day iOS phone; you can generally regain the slow down by resetting to factory and then restoring from backup. It takes about an hour but when restored will be exactly how you left it and closer to top performance.

Be careful not to do that too often, that can potentially wear down the NAND flash memory faster than you'd think, especially if they use lower grade flash memory. This goes for Android and iOS devices alike.

Apple uses top of the line NAND and custom controllers that reduce write wear, it shouldn't be an issue. There is one thing that Apple unquestionably has every manufacturer trumped on in every regard and that is their storage. IIRC the iPhone 5s uses SLC NAND with a custom PCI-E bus, that stuff isn't getting write wear anytime soon.

Even the 256gb iPhone 7? I heard it had potential hardware problems off a friend and not heard much else about it.

I think that uses TLC NAND

Less reliable?

Yeah, it wears out much much faster because each memory cell holds 3 bits of data instead of 1. So if you are changing any of those bits you have to rewrite all 3(might be wrong on that).

It makes it wear out extremely quickly comparatively, especially if you are filling it up and emptying it.

Yeah, good warning. It’s definitely a yearly or bi-yearly thing.

My 5S is also running iOS 11. It’s slowed down a little but I had the battery changed and updated it to iOS11 and it’s been like before. It’s my backup phone though.

[deleted]

What version of Android are you running? If it isn't Oreo, then tbh, it isn't really running "fine."

Android and it's OEMs need to be capable of pushing out the latest version of Android on day1 or at least month 1, it's pretty unacceptable that it takes a year+ to get the newest version, if you get it at all.

[deleted]

Recently, it's not that bad as on other phones/brands. However Android 8.1 came out in December and if it gets it, it will be likely its last update.

The S6, a 600 dollar phone had 3 years of support. On contrast The iphone 5s a phone that's 5 years old still will get the latest unreleased iOS. It will be at least 6 years old by the time its support its discontinued.

Also this is the security update support. It shows that unless you buy a flagship phone Samsung will throw you under the bus.

https://security.samsungmobile.com/workScope.smsb

[deleted]

A Galaxy is not cheaper than an iPhone. An iPhone SE series is cheaper than most budget Android phones.

No one is forcing the constant churn of bad android phones. Make a phone, stick to it for a year, give it updates.

[deleted]

No they aren't. They really really aren't. The iPhone SE costs $50 from carriers, $350 full out. That is cheaper than a good chunk of mid tier Android phones. And that is a phone with high end specs.

Are you comparing against phones that were also released a few years ago?

The SE was updated this year. The specs are better than most flagships, and it costs $50 on most carrier plans. It is not expensive.

The SE is a slightly towned down 6s. All that happened in 2017 was a doubling of storage options from 16GB and 64GB to 32GB and 128GB. It kept everything else from the 2016 launch. It's a flagship phone from 2015. Any phone that is better than the 6s is better than the SE.

[deleted]

The A9 is still faster than the majority of Qualcomm chips on the market. I think you are vastly underestimating the mindblowing gap that Apple has in CPU performance speed.

If you really want a phone with 8gb of storage, and think that is an actual modern smartphone, then you know what recommend that $50 smartphone. We both know that isn't a realistic purchase in 2018.

Edit: A OnePlus 6 is literally 2x the price, and barely beats the SE in performance, high value android specs.

They often can't, because chip makers don't give out updated binary blobs, so they can't update the kernel.

(Basically, the "drivers" for some of the chips only work with an old version of the "core" of the operating system, so you can't update the core)

That doesnt sound quite right?

Even a device like the galaxy J5 (released in June 2015) which samsung only ever updated to Android 6.0.1 has Android 7.X and 8.1 custom roms available.

The Xperia Z Ultra, released in June of 2013, that only recived official updates for Android 5.1 has Android 6.x and 7.x custom ROMs available.

So, its mainly OEMs being horribly lazy with software support

custom roms

Those often don't update these parts and claim that it's all updated anyways.

At this point id like a source to that claim. Because that sounds rather outlandish.

https://youtu.be/413cminL7c4?t=249

That's about vendors (which may include custom ROMs), not custom ROMs specifically. I'll see if I can quickly dig up something more specific.

My 6s still runs like new. I can’t justify getting one of the newer phones, not enough new features in any phone that is coming out.

I have a 5s. Which would be 4? Years old I guess. I don’t have a contract. My wife has no problem with contracts so when she gets a new iPhone I just take the old one.

My only problem with the old phones is they charge like shit. And probably need new batteries which is expensive on the iPhone.

[deleted]

6 was the cutoff for that deal. I too have a 5s and was excluded.

That said, a 3rd party battery kit with all tools is around that on amazon.

My note 5 works just fine and I got it the day it came our.

the funny thing is... the Google phones are the ones who got obsolete faster, not even google would gave them alonger lifespan.

smartphone market is ridiculus, we get phones many times more powerful than a crapbook, 8 cores, 8gb of ram, yet they get obsolete after 1-2 year and SLOW.

I would like to know how can an app that has been running fine since day 1 has to dramatically feel slower (even after a factory reset) when you update the OS. it makes NO sense to me

(I'm talking both Iphone and Android)

Google already made a huge impact in that regard. Any device that ships with Oreo needs to support Project Treble which is a requirement to make sure all low level device files are stored in one location. These files are things to make devices like modem, wifi, camera, sensors, etc work properly. Then as long as you have unlocked your devices bootloader you can load a Generic System Image and it should "just work" (it's not 100% but dang close)

There's also unofficial treble projects out there too. My phone (Moto G5S+) has unofficial support and I can run Android Pie on it even though it hasn't gotten official Oreo.

Google already made a huge impact in that regard

Relative to what? Supporting Project Treble is no guarantee of extended support for updates.

This is the underlying picture: Google is friendly to manufacturers and carriers, which is why Android took over the world within a few years. Expect more of the same shitshow. From Google's perspective, this hasn't been a problem to be solved, it's the business model.

Unless i completely missunderstand how project treble works, it should make community support for those devices a lot easier?

Yes, but the motivations remain the same.

support Project Treble which is a requirement to make sure all low level device files are stored in one location

Thought linux normally did that.

Android isn't Linux though. Most drivers are blobs that are closed source. No drivers = no updates aside from the OEM. Having the drivers in a dedicated partition with the documentation to use them means third parties can update the phone beyond the manufacturer support

Android isn't Linux though

Oh. Idk why I thought it was linux based.

Linux based the same way the cheap Chinese digital picture frames you find for $5 at a thrift store are Linux based, or how ddwrt is Linux based. It's not Linux proper though. Hell, even Linux proper has trouble with drivers. It's why gaming hasn't gone well, why wifi used to be a pain, etc. Drivers don't have to be released with the sources so they usually aren't. Google's treble just makes sure e drivers are all in one place with common names so you can run a generic system image on the device without worrying that your camera or cell service won't work

They could start by supporting them at all. I still can’t believe that the Galaxy S9 still hasn’t received any updates since launch. The phone came out in March, yet it’s still on the February security update and running 8.0.0 even though there are monthly security updates for Android in general and 8.1.0 came out last year! FFS Google, force manufacturers to support the products. As it stands right now, I can’t recommend any Android unless it’s a Pixel 2. The rest get no OS love.

I'm on a Galaxy S9+ with the June security update. Does the S9 not get the same updates or could it be your carrier?

Updates are usually managed by your carrier. I'm guessing this guys carrier is garbage, because I also have been getting updates.

Yes, AT&T is garbage.

Ah yes. Lets be dependend on 3 parties for software updates. Who thought that is a great idea

Yet ironically Samsung's unlocked phones get updates slower than some of the carriers.

It does, they are either lying or don't pay attention. My s9 has received a bunch of updates already. Plus a lot of the additional features on top of android are just apps now so they are updated without OS updates.

I’m looking at my AT&T right now. It says there are no updates and I’m on 8.0.0 with the February security update.

I've got an S9+ with Rogers and I've recieved several updates

Funny because I have an s9 on att with a June security patch

Cool bro, I just popped my sim in my S9 again, checked for updates and there are none. Still on February. I guess that means there’s still an issue with the software.

Out of curiosity, when you turn on your S9, are you greeted with the AT&T logo animation? Because saying your S9 “is on AT&T” could imply that you bought the carrier unlocked S9 and happen to use it with AT&T.

[deleted]

Like what? I go to the setting, check for updates, and it says I’m on the latest one, yet the info says the versions I mentioned before.

This is probably because of your carrier

That’s dumb. The carrier doesn’t make the phone, OS, or security patches. Why the hell do they need to be the gate keeper in all of this? Fuck AT&T.

Modifications to the binary post release from Samsung to them. There are a number of things they need to add, and then a lot of bloatware, and then some truly puzzling decisions (disabling Hardware Test Menu with Verizon and USC?), but yeah.

Why doesn’t these same number of things they need to add not affect iOS updates that rollout whenever Apple wants?

Because from the beginning Apple told each carrier to pound sand if they want to customize iOS.

Because Apple has more clout, and generally far less variance in their devices, as they use a single line. Probably better negotiators than Samsung/LG/Lenovo(Motorola).

Then the manufacturers/google need to grow some stones and tell the carriers that they can't customize their OSes anymore. Switch to the iOS model, put all carrier firmware into every single update.

the manufacturers/google need to grow some stones

Do you really think they are offering custom OSes because they are cowards?

That is a lot more work, they are doing it because it means more money. Custom OSes costs extra.

Yes. They are bowing down to carriers because they want their phones pushed hard. If you go into a carrier store, they aren't going to push an iPhone on you, they are going to push a Galaxy, because they make more money, put a ton of bloatware on it, and get more analytics.

Samsung should say "Nah we aren't letting you do that" but they don't.

The security update has nothing to do with bloatware. Those extra apps are updated separately anyway.

Sure it does. That bloatware works based on how the OS works. If the OS changes, it could break the bloatware, and possibly the phone.

Therefore the provider needs to have the security update before the consumer to ensure it wont break their customers phones.

It's irrelevant, it is indeed dumb, but the carriers who are allowing these updates have the last say as it goes on their network/because they negotiated it as such.

Not really dumb, just annoying.

It actually makes sense if you think about it. Each provider normally have customized firmware, software, and bloatware that they have on the phones they offer.

If you got an update straight from samsung, it could break a lot. This means your provider needs to ensure their stuff doesnt break from any updates from the OS, before letting the consumer update. Therefore they get update first, test it against their stuff, fix what they need, and then push the update for the OS and and updqtes they needed to make to their software together.

Because they handle returns.

The carrier adds their software and has to verify that the phone works on their system, its why i have a bunch of att apps preinstalled that i cant ever uninstall

It's a joke. I want to like Android, but how can you recommend an OS that doesn't take security or updates seriously on nearly every OEM besides the Pixel line.

My iPhone 5s i use for a spare phone has the iOS 12 beta, it runs great. My iPhone 6 that I use for testing has iOS 12, it runs great. My iPhone X has iOS 11, it runs great. The Galaxy S7 we use at work for testing network compatibility has a year old version of Android Oreo. WTF? Why can't the biggest Android OEM in the world support a 2 year old phone?

It's frankly unacceptable. It's not like these Android updates are inconsequential. It took almost a year+ for phones to get encryption updates... that is a big fucking deal for literally every single user. It took years for users to get the update that switched from the JVM to native code, that is a HUGE deal. It will take years, if it even happens, for S7 and S8 users, to get Pie.

That's why the nexus phoes were so great while they lasted. Google is fucking it up with Pixel, though.

Pixel 2 here. I would no use any other Android phone. Supposedly Google is working on a new OS that will be as you say. Every phone with the OS will be running the same OS. Google does not like the current fragmentation.

[deleted]

I haven't missed it at all. Bought a high quality Bluetooth Headset with aptX HD and never looked back.

When ear buds can provide excellent sound, microphone quality, and a battery that lasts for over 72 hours without a charge I'll make a switch. Lets add in the connection not disconnecting or being unclear when simply in my pocket, not across the house.
Until then, I daily have to switch from a bluetooth Level U to my standard 3.5mm headphones which provide better audio quality anyway.

The connection problems have to do with not being Class 1 Bluetooth. Battery life isn’t as much of an issue wince I have to charge everything else every night already. It just becomes one more thing I plug in at night.

However what I’m not a fan of is tossing a Li-Ion battery pack in everything I own. They can catch fire and the mining practices are extremely bad for the environment and workers.

That's weird, right now I have one to install overnight, says it's a July 1st security update.

Didn't Pixel 2 require the use of a dongle now? :/

Only if you want to use analog headphones. I’m all Bluetooth now.

That's a deal-breaker for me, I'm afraid.

Ironically the EU is trying to make this worse by forcing Google to allow Android phones to become more fragmented with different app stores, updates, etc

Eh that’s a little bit different. What app stores get pre loaded on a phone is not the same as getting security updates in a timely manner.

yet it’s still on the February security update

Maybe try updating your phone, bro, you're way behind.

Also, the S9 is still on 8.0 because it will almost certainly get an upgrade to Pie when the new Galaxy is released since Samsung usually saves large OS updates for their newest release.

Would love to but it says there are no updates available... bro.

Then that's an issue with you and your carrier and has nothing to do with the phone or Samsung.

The instructions literally tell you just to press your finger without sliding it around. Did you do that when setting it up too?

Nothing to do with my phone or Samsung? BS. If Samsung cared about their user experiences, they would force AT&T to get their shit together and support users with updates the day Google makes them available.

You literally have no idea how it works if you think it's just Samsung being a dick.

Go buy an LG phone, you'll be even more behind than Samsung. Go buy anything but an iPhone, you'll probably be behind.

I didn’t say it was just Samsung’s fault. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Seriously though, Samsung has more power than me to do anything about it. If Blaine lies on AT&T, than Samsung needs to start public ally blaming them or at the very least they should be pressuring AT&at to do better than they are right now.

Well you don't seem to be laying the blame at anyone else's feet, you just keep harping on the fact that Samsung needs to correct the situation while ignoring the fact that literally all manufacturers have this problem except for phones released directly from Google. That is why they're the only phones out with the latest Android right now.

Then you have selective reading skills because I literally accused AT&T of not having their shit together.

But you said SAMSUNG needs to force them to get their shit together. It's not Samsung's place to do that and no other manufacturers are either.

Yes... I did say that... I made a statement that implies both sides are not doing enough.

Who's place is it then? Is it just up to the consumor to call into AT&T and hope that the lowest level employee at AT&T actually takes down notes to send up the ladder? At this point it makes them both look bad.

It's Samsung's agreement with the carrier that allows the carrier to delay the updates. Samsung most definitely does not get a pass there.

That is not at all a Samsung issue. All Android device manufacturers suffer from delayed updates because the updates have to be specifically tested and design for each and every model that is specific to each and every carrier. That doesn't happen with apple because instead of letting carriers control the phones Apple maintains very strict control over their entire ecosystem. They don't have to worry about making nine different versions of an update because there's not nine different versions of their phones.

Since you dumb assholes just like to downvote things you disagree with: https://www.howtogeek.com/163958/why-do-carriers-delay-updates-for-android-but-not-iphone/

Except your entire premise is false. The S9 has been getting regular security updates

Except I’m looking at my settings right now and there are no updates.

They're typically pushed automatically. Check what patch you're on.

its cause he bought the carrier version

Yeah... and I’m automatically still on 8.0.0 and February security.

[removed]

The Nexus 6P and 5X came out in late 2015. It hasn't even been 3 years, let alone 4.

iOS 12 will support the iPhone 5s, which came out in late 2013, 5 years ago.

Part of the reason I stopped running Android was because my phones would just slowing down right around the one year mark. This was 2011-2014 and I didn't run any Samsung phones .

Kinda sucks that only a handful of Android devices have decent software support.

They should. Look at Apple. When they release iOS 12 this September, they’ll be supporting devices as old as the iPhone 5s and iPad Mini 2, which were released in 2013. Not only that, but developers specifically optimized these older devices to get more use out of them. By the time iOS 13 comes out, that’ll be close to seven years of support, and they’re likely to continue this tradition with every iteration of iOS. It’s incredible. You get your money’s worth.

Nah google should just step it up and create generic drivers. When you get a windows pc all your component's play without the need to install anything from drivers. Their performance may be garbage but they work. Then parts manufactures should release their drivers online preferable to the same online repository.This means you can always get the latest android in your phone regardless of manufacturer

And the fact that security updates to android happen via carrier is stupid.

It's their choice to create new models, but they shouldn't have to support them if they don't want. They just shouldn't actively break a perfectly acceptable device like they are doing now with sw updates.

Lol, what support.

Or at least stop voiding warranty for hardware faults because you installed another ROM that's actually up to date and not filled with bloatware. Though even if it does pass my hopes arent very high with how much companies piss on magnuson moss.

IIRC that's illegal in EU.

Its supposed to be illegal in the US too, but loopholes and millions of dollars in lawyer teams means it does jack shit for your average consumer.

The flip side of this is the iPhone problem: when you give everyone updates, the older phones will get ~~slower~~ worse in some way, and people with those phones will get angry if you don't tell them that first.

Edit: Changing "slower" to "worse"

[removed]

I've mentioned my thoughts on performance elsewhere. I'll about "slower" was probably a bad word choice. Having said that though, is the performance gain in iOS 12 free? Are they sacrificing stability or battery health to get it? Does an older device running iOS 12 discharge just as quickly as its release version? Can it handle an equal amount of tasks? And on top of the various firmware tweaks: are you still able to download the latest version of your favorite apps if you don't update your phone to N-2?

This is the problem with trying to define planned obsolescence with electronics. The battery throttling implemented in 11 (which is the most notable contributor to difference in performance between 11 and 12) was actually implemented to prevent crashes. If they hadn't added it, and people's phones started crashing after two years because of battery health issues, people would also be calling that planned obsolescence. Maybe they increased performance now, but in 1-2 years I can guarantee people with older devices will be complaining about something else instead (My battery only lasts 6 months now, so I needed to buy a new phone! My charge only lasts 4 hours now, so I needed to buy a new phone!).

The problem is that electronics are rapidly increasing in their abilities, and companies are releasing yearly updates with that in mind. So your choices are to give everything the new update and let the older devices suffer, or stop updating devices you haven't optimized the new OS for so that you don't have to deal with customers who are angry that an update made their phone "unusable."

[removed]

I don’t use one of the older phones, but everything I’ve read has been “The phone is better in every way”.

That's some pretty ridiculous marketing. It's not physically possible to be better than 10 on legacy devices "in every way" with all of the new features they added in 11. Either you have your CPU running more often to perform the new background features (which consumes more power), or the CPU will be running just as often and things will take longer. Your best case scenario is that your battery life will take a hit, (which I have read in several reviews of older devices). Which would be a good reason to say, implement a failsafe that throttles processing when your battery is no longer able to produce enough power to perform a new functionality you added for a more powerful device.

But that has slowed down dramatically in the last few years. Mobile technology has matured and you can more easily focus on refinement and stability.

This is another load of marketing crap. The iPhone X's specs are improved over it's previous generations just as much as it's predecessors were at their release. Since Apple's theme for iOS 12 is "performance" they just threw in a bunch of claims like this. All they're saying is "We added more stuff in than usual iOS 11 to make the X look good, so we're going to focus less on features this year and more on refining last year's features."

There is a heap of difference between security updates and feature updates. The latter creates a majority of the system impact towards a planned obsolescence model than the former.

That's a good point. I'm not aware of the difference between Google and iOS policies on security updates (or the difference between Google's policy and Android phone manufacturers'). Usually people encourage getting the new feature updates because of the added security updates, but I'd agree that's probably a bad model.

That was true last year, but isn’t anymore.

It will always be true. Every OS update will come with increased performance requirements which will cause it to run ~~slower~~ worse on older machines. This isn't just an iOS/Android issue, the same is true for Windows and OS X. Try to run Windows 10 on a prebuilt machine from 10 years ago and compare it to an equally priced prebuilt today. One will be much ~~slower~~ worse because the hardware is dated.

You're probably thinking of of the battery thing, which was Apple's attempt to mitigate one of those issues (slow down the device even more rather than letting it draw more power than is available and crash). I'd argue that feature was the exact opposite of planned obsolescence. They were trying to make older phones work longer. The bigger problem was that they didn't tell people that getting their battery replaced would fix the issue.

Edit: Changing "slower" to "worse"

The speed of iOS 12 disagrees with you.

[removed]

Yep. Even iOS 12 beta 1 is faster than 10

Hmm, still slower on my iPhone 6S at work. It is significantly faster than 11, since it's a test device we haven't replaced the battery on. But definitely not significantly different from 10. Must be a defect!

[deleted]

Looks like the iPhone 6S I use at work was faulty then!

While I agree that support for updates beyond even 2 years to me seems reasonable, I also realize that support should end at some point, and I don't know whether that should be put at 4, 5, 10 years. Technology is moving way too fast to know how far back devices can be reasonably supported, especially wrt New features. Security patches I see as another matter entirely. Those definitely shouldn't stop after just a few years.

But even if they do, the phone likely still works in the same capacity as when purchased for years to come. The bigger issue now seems to be with things like batteries.
This ties in somewhat with the right to repair, but ultimately if they design a phone where the battery is essentially non-replaceable due to needing specialized tools (heat gun, suction cup spreaders, solvents, esd tweezers) just to access it, and even then knowing it can't be put back together in pristine condition and they know that due to aggressive charging/discharging policies (quickcharge & high drain from screen/cpu/gpu/etc.) the battery's expected lifespan is just a few years, then that's effectively planned obsolescence as well.
But unlike the software situation, this actually leaves you with a device that either refuses to power on/charge or shuts down hard unexpectedly as the energy storage may still be there, but the battery can't deliver the oomph required. It's unlikely we ever go back to a slide-off back with a consumer-replaceable battery - hell, cameras are probably next in line after many laptops no longer have the 18650-based battery packs - but there's a middle ground that I swear they're actively avoiding for no good reason.

Better solution: force unlockable bootloaders and let people manage their own damn operating system.

It would be fucking amazing if continued security support for (internet-) connected devices becomes part of the new warranty rules in the EU.

Now that I think about it I should see if I can Submit that somewhere as a suggestion.

I would be happy if the manufactures just made their phones ROM friendly. I'm still rocking a Galaxy S II with a custom ROM. I'm trying to get 10 years out of it. Been through three batteries, but the phone is still going strong.

18 months? Holy shit. Motorola never supported their phones that long, even when Google owned them.

We don't know any details.

If they do you will have to start paying for updates. Someone has to pay the programmer at the end of the day and these companies won’t be making as much money as they are now because not as many people are buying their flagship devices.

There's a big difference between planned obsolescence and not getting updates. If you don't get any updates to your phone, it's just as usable as a phone as the day you bought it. They definitely should but it's not like the phone is broken because there's something better out there that you don't have

The reality of technology is that cutting edge tech today will be obsolete 2 years from now no matter what laws you make.

When it comes to a car and IC engines, there's a limit to how efficient they can get or how much power you can extract... And we've been butted up close to that limit for a long time. Cars in the 70s had about the same power as cars today... But noone cared about efficiency.

With electronics, however Moores Law is very real and an enemy of any consumer who expects their $800 phone to last five years.

Except hardware plateaus. Desktop CPUs have had similar performance for years now. Smartphones are also getting to that point. Stuff is lasting longer and longer because all the easy improvements have been made.

If we're approaching the limit of Moore's law, I haven't heard about it.

I work in optics and photolithography and I know those machines are able to cut smaller and smaller transistors every year... Eventually that will stop, but the next step is DUV which we're still working on right now.

If the hardware is performing similarly from year to year, it is not because the hardware isn't advancing much, but because the software cannot use everything

I never claimed this was because of Moore's law...

Stuff plateaus because all the low hanging fruits for optimizations have been done already and it's not worth the money to go after what's left.

So are they going to force android manufacturers to support their devices for more than 18 months after launch?

Never going to happen.

Developing software updates isn't free and no legislator in their right mind will pass a law that forces companies to work for free.

This would be really hard to enforce.

When you but a product there is an implicit contract between customer and company. And I don't think the contract includes the fact that the product is supposed to include the features that are not existing at the moment of the sale.

As I said in an other comment, it would be nice to enforce this because it's the main reason people change phone every couple years.

It's actually really easy to enforce. Tell companies they have to provide updates and upgrades to the latest version for 2 years after the purchase date, or they have to provide a full refund. Practically that means 3-4 years support for each model, or else.

This is a law that will potentially be good, but will have to be created with care. The big problem is right there in the article: their next job is to define planned obsolescence.

The problem is, what is planned obsolescence to one person is a feature to another. For instance, not having a removable battery vs having a waterproof phone. Not soldering on RAM to an ultra-portable laptop vs having a very portable laptop. Having a TV I can repair for a decade vs having the latest and greatest TV tech for under $500.

I'm not saying there isn't an answer out there on how to make this law work, but it is more difficult than what a lot of these comments seem to think it will be. Because the fact is, most designs are not there to inherently have a planned obsolescence, but are created to meet a series of requirements.

My thoughts exactly. Things aren’t simple as with the lightbulb where they could have made the filament 20% thicker and ran it indefinitely.

Even the lightbulb isn't a great example, since the thicker the filament the more power it takes to run.

The lightbulb is especially a bad example, since they can't be sold in the EU because they don't meet the efficiency standards.

I'm pretty sure that lightbulbs below 60(?) watts are still legal. When I was in Russia in 2012, they even had 100W bulbs still for sale.

Russia is not member of the EU.

In the EU classic lightbulbs can only be sold for special uses (like in ovens), some types of halogen lamps also still can be sold.

Incandescent are only available for sale for special usages like hovens where the high heat resistance is important. All other usages are banned even for low low power incandescent bulbs (like 10W night lights). You can still find some illegal imports in Chinese shops though.

Lightbulbs are a good example of planned obsolescence. Manufacturers, among them Philips, conspired to make them last shorter.

There is an article on Wikipedia.

Phoebus cartel

The Phoebus cartel existed to control the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs. They appropriated market territories and fixed the useful life of such bulbs. Corporations based in Europe and America founded the cartel on January 15, 1925 in Geneva. The and intended the cartel to last for thirty years (1925 to 1955).

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

[deleted]

You seem like you're trying to argue otherwise.

They're potentially useful during the winter as the extra power to run them is lost as heat. I live in Canada, and I keep a few tungsten fillement bulbs to use in a couple of lamps I've got in my apartment

They're horribly ineffecient for that purpose though.

Just get something like a radiator, a thing explicitly made to radiate heat.

They give out 95% of there energy as heat.

And they don't produce light, so if it's particularly cold at night, you can keep your lights off.

So buy a LED then? More durable and more efficient.

And 20x more expensive than incandescent bulbs

And they're supposed to last at least twenty times longer, for a quality bulb.

Does it though? The main thing an incandescent bulb has to do is heat up to the point where it's black body radiation is visible light. You could even make it so the only way for it to lose heat would be to radiate it away as light to increase efficiency. The light bulb may not even have to have electricity running through it constantly, only when it needs to heat up more. As a result, making the filament thicker wouldn't decrease the efficiency one bit. Just make it last longer.

Now, I'm no incandescent lightbulb expert here, but I am extremely certain (due to simple physics) that thicker wire = higher current carrying capability. The reason why wire glows is because it is "close" (ish? My knowledge here is admittedly not fantastic) to the wires maximum current limit (so the wire doesn't melt or something.) On the other hand, your thought about:

only way for it to lose heat would be to radiate it away as light to increase efficiency

Is rather... uneducated. I don't mean that in the rude way, but the entire basis of an incandescent lightbulb is to waste energy as heat until it gets hot enough to glow. What you're really thinking of here is an LED which still wastes some (usually about 10%) of its energy as heat. The laws of thermodynamics would also be rather displeased with any attempt to make something 100% efficient.

The laws of thermodynamics would also be rather displeased with any attempt to make something 100% efficient.

Well you could call a light bulb a heat lamp and suddenly it is 100% efficient.

Almost true! It would be wasting about 3% of it's energy creating light.

And what happens to that light after it is absorbed?

It generally becomes heat, but that depends on what absorbs it. Some portion could become electrical potential energy, chemical potential energy, or kinetic energy.

I mean I made the comment half in jest. We can go down the pedantic rabbit hole, but the point is that ultimately all forms of energy end up as heat.

Imaging you have a ball of lava floating in a vacuum. The ball of lava can't lose heat via thermal conduction because it isn't touching anything. So, how the fuck does it cool down?!?!?! It emits black body radiation!!! As a result of this, lots of photons are emitted in the visible spectrum. Lots are also emitted in the infrared spectrum too. These emissions continue until the ball cools down sufficiently. This could take a while since the ball has no other way to cool down.

Now let's start again but now the ball of lava is surrounded by a medium with a low temperature, high thermal conductivity, and a high heat capacity. The ball glows for 0.3 seconds before it's surface is too cool to emit black body radiation in the visible spectrum. It's almost like the ball of lava is able to convert it's thermal energy into visible light much more efficiently when it's in a vacuum as opposed to submerged in that medium. How could that be?!?!?!?!!?

What I'm thinking of is not a LED, it's a thermally insulated incandescent bulb. You clearly are no incandescent bulb expert. In an incandescent bulb the filament glows because it's really hot and it's black body radiation includes the visible spectrum. That is all. Ideally in an incandescent bulb you would want the filament to only lose heat to radiation so as to minimize the amount of electrical energy needed to be converted into thermal energy.

Please do me a favor and read up on black body radiation so you can become educated in how incandescent bulbs actually work.

Just to address the last part first I said:

entire basis of an incandescent lightbulb is to waste energy as heat until it gets hot enough to glow

So please read my comment before sassing me on it. And please read about incandescent lightbulbs, they are all vacuum sealed. Maybe not a perfect vacuum, but definitely not filled with air by any means.

Just because you want it to work a certain way does not allow physics to work that way.

That's not how physics works.

If bulb manufacturers did that, then a replacement would be very expensive. Accidentally break a bulb? It costs you 4x more than a planned obselesce bulb, because now you're spreading more overhead over less bulbs. Also makes it harder for less wealthy to purchase. Capitalism isn't perfect but it usually gets this type of thing right.

To be fair, solder-down RAM can run faster, is easier to design the PCB for, and has lower EMI.

Can, never does. The size and durability argument of it though...

The reason it "never does" is because motherboard designers have to use more expensive board materials to make the non-solder down RAM work. So consumers end up eating the cost of that more expensive board material. You can make the argument that you would gladly pay for that extra cost, but the majority of people would rather pay less money for less upgradeability because the average consumer is far more discerning on price than anything else.

It never does is because with soldered ram, its usually laptops or prebuilts where they have locked down BIOS where you cant overclock and they stick to clock speeds that is officially supported by the CPU (so right now, no more than 2933MHz). Custom builds however is a market where people want the upgradability for ram, and upgradability in general, this is also the same market where what is officially supported, no body cares about. so people gladly run ram at speeds way above what is officially supported. The board material is also not more expensive, there is a cost in adding the DIMM slot, yes. But the materials itself is not more expensive. The speed of RAM however, as you can see, is nothing about soldered or not soldered, and all about supported or not supported

Connectors and add in cards have more loss and more reflections than solder down chips. If you are on the edge of your loss budget, you have to buy higher end PCB materials to account for the extra connectors and routing length.

Even if you are correct. Soldered on RAM is never faster than socketed ones for the reasons i mentioned.

Soldered on RAM is literally soldered down on your "socketed" RAM - you know that right? Just because manufacturers have reliability and longevity requirements that force them to lock down the clock speeds, and custom PC builders don't, doesn't mean that socketed RAM is faster. It means that custom PC builders don't care about the longevity and reliability of their PCs, so they willfully operate out of specification so they can get more performance. If you had an unlocked BIOS on a soldered-down DRAM, the hypothetical performance would always be better than a socketed version.

I know that the ram chips are soldered onto the DIMMs. But technicality is not the reason for why soldered ram is faster. What is officially supported is the reason it isnt. Soldered and socketed ram as a result are run at the same speeds, hence the performance is the same since they follow what is officially supported, which doesn't change whether the ram is socketed or soldered.

Could you explain why it's easier to design for? Why not use the already universal DDR4?

I am a motherboard designer, and we are using DDR4, but we take the DDR4 DRAM parts that are on the DIMMs and use them directly on the motherboard (AKA the black chips on this DIMM ). The reason they are easier to design for is that whenever you have an Add-in Card (in this case a DDR4 DIMM) with a connector like a DIMM Connector, it makes the high speed signals perform worse because connectors introduce signal discontinuities that add noise ( i.e. signal reflections).

In a given signal path, you have a maximum amount of noise the signal can tolerate before the path simply fails. If we are operating the DIMMs at high frequencies, that additional noise forces us to use more expensive, higher performance printed circuit board materials to meet signal/reliability requirements. Additionally, if you want to force motherboard manufacturers to support DDR4 DIMMs rather than soldered down parts, it means motherboard manufacturers have to bear the cost of perpetual qualification of new DIMMs rather than just qualifying a few DRAM chips.

So taking out the fact that using individual DDR4 Chips reduces the physical size of the design and increases reliability, using the "Universal DDR4" DIMMs adds cost to the product by way of more expensive board materials and more expensive sustaining qualifications. So the net-effect of some kind of legislation aimed at ending "planned obsolescence" in the computer industry is going to raise prices for the end consumer, increase the physical size of electronics, and not really increasing the reliability of the device.

Personally, I would love to have easily upgradeable phone batteries, but I understand that having anything consumer serviceable is a huge can of worms because China can and will pump out sub-par replacements that will inevitable cause higher failure rates / higher warranty costs.

What this guy said about PCB design is spot on. Thanks for saying that better than I ever could.

How do you plan for adding more RAM?

You make a new board.

Which ultimately is a lot more expensive and wasteful than having replaceable RAM.

Buying a slightly more expensive laptop is a lot cheaper than having to buy a new board (more likely a new laptop) for something as minor as a RAM upgrade.

That was the point.

Where did I disagree with you?

Where did I say you did?...

It also helps manufacture to charge $200 for a 8gb RAM upgrade. So all hail soldered RAM.

Running signal traces for RAM is almost more of an art than a science. Having physical contacts is much harder to work with than a continuous path.

Maybe but my PC still run faster when I'm able to replace said RAM with RAM that has double the power after a few years...

Only if your CPU/chipset can support those higher speeds.

Ha, no. RAM doesn’t double in “power” over the course of a few years.

Not really. Ram speeds have almost no impact on performance. Different generations do but if your CPU and mobo support DDR3 they won’t support DDR4.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/75sg9m/coffee_lake_benefits_greatly_from_faster_ram/

Read the comments in that link. Ram is still a minor thing compared to CPUs and GPUs. Obviously if you've maxed out those two you can... get more by maxing out other things but fast ram won't help a slow cpu or gpu bottlenecked system

Ram speed is almost mute compared to other things that prob slow your PC down. Also that's assuming the CPU can handle it. It's not a planned failure if the ram cant come out, you can buy modular labtops but they are massive,bulky, and expensive

Yeah... Faster...

Just like any regulation, they definitely have to be mindful of all that when they write it. I think they'd be better off outlawing the individual aspects of planned obsolescence that are egregious rather than trying to define it as a whole. Build into the law an easy mechanism for adding practices to it over time.

I dunno. In what way does planned obsolescence really negatively impact our lives? And I mean specifically. A lot if comments here are talking about removable batteries in phones, but as the parent comment pointed out, this is a feature to some. I honestly can't think of an example of planned obsolescence that isn't really just a trade off for another feature/benefit (eg: a lesser purchase price).

I've bought really cheap tools that aren't made to last simply because I only needed the tool for one job and maybe a few small projects in the future. Is that planned obsolescence or just a cheap tool?

I'm not saying planned obsolescence isn't a thing. I just can't think of a way in which it so negatively impacts our lives that it would need to be prevented by law.

The smart phone example is indeed a bad one. Planned obsolescence is a much bigger issue for things like dish washers, where the inner parts (engine, etc) are designed to last shorter. It makes the whole build cheaper but last shorter. And the end consumer usually doesn't worry about things like the engine shaft radius/thickness of screws/alloy purity when buying their washing machine...

Agreed. But that's my point. The trade off there is pricing. If someone wants to buy a 20 year dishwasher, they'd have to pay for it. It seems to me that legislating a requirement like this would be a tax on the poor and middle class who can't afford such well built appliances.

Yes, we get to the core of the problem now. The dishwasher is only meant slightly cheaper, like 20% cheaper, but will last only 5 years instead of 20. It's not a price / quality compromise we're talking about here. The machine is purposefully meant to break faster so it will be replaced more often.

You're still removing that choice from people though. Take an appliance that someone might need right away like a refrigerator or a furnace. That 20% cheaper might not be a better deal in the long run, but that might be all they can afford short term. And going without a furnace until they can afford the extra 20% might not be a good option that, presumably, such a law would eliminate.

It effects us directly when we need to pay to replace an 800 dollar product a year or 2 after release because it was designed that way.

Yeah but his point still kinda stands.

Planned obsolesence is not the same as something just being cheap. Cheap products exist because not everyone wants to, or has the money for, an expensive high quality product that will last forever, even if it is the more economical purchase in the long run. Cheaper materials, cheaper labor, and cheaper design doesn't mean it's built to fail, but it just means it's not built to last.

Sure, a cheap TV might fail after a couple years, but a high quality (and therefore expensive) LG might easily last a decade. You can't build a 40" flatscreen and sell it for ~$200 and also build it to such a high quality that it'll last 25 years.

And it depends on the product. If you spend $800 on a phone, yeah it should last a long time. But $800 on say, a new refrigerator is on the lower end. It should last a while but it's not going to last as long as a $1,400 Kenmore or something of higher quality. That's not planned obsolesence, it's you just being cheap.

The problem, however, is that usually the relation between life expectancy and price isn't linear. Additionally, I usually don't have an easy way of knowing the expected life of my products - which mandatory labelling of an expected life time could solve.

You are absolutely correct, and another downstream implication will be decreased innovation. I work in commercialized R&D/life cycle management (med device), and our budget is directly driven by our requirements to support product in the field. An overall budget we share with new product development.

If you force companies to lengthen obsolescence timelines and continue support for those products, there will be less budget for new product R&D, and a less of a market need for those devices.

I am not saying this is a bad initiative, but to your point it needs to be well thought out, and there should be an expectation that the release of new devices and features will see a slowdown, especially in the near term.

Perhaps a way to mitigate the effects that planned obsolescence regulations will have on innovation is to also come up with a working definition as what counts as an innovation. However, "innovation" is even more subjective than "planned obsolescence", so I'd imagine the odds of coming up with an agreed upon definition of innovation are pretty low.

Actually interesting you mention that - under Obama's second administration there was a tax break for certain industries (med device being one of them) if you could show a certain percentage of your organization was working on "innovation". And yes, it was very loosely defined. But, it did have a positive effect, and we saw slightly increased budgets within our department in order to hit that quota.

Yes, but with wages stagnating in most countries while corporations profits soar, the current trend is unsustainable at current volumes. The masses have to be able to afford to keep buying the new shiny thing but as it stands the repair movement is picking up steam because phones are nearing $1000 and repairs are costing half the price of a new phone. They are squeezing their consumer base too hard and people are starting to fight back out of necessity. And it is a whole lot broader than consumer electronics. The pendulum needs to swing the other way for a bit to bring balance to the force.

Is there some reason you have to share a budget with new product development? Is there some reason that budget can't be increased?

I don't see why a company that is forced to lengthen obsolescence timelines couldn't just accept that as the cost of doing business. I doubt innovation is going to be the first thing to go.

Well, companies have a budget. They can’t materialize money out of thin air.

As long as they're making a profit, there's room to put more money into the budget.

It's a fair question, and different companies will be different. In my particular experience R&D is R&D. Which means whether we are supporting new product development, life cycle management, supply chain, manufacturing, marketing & RA initiatives... it all comes from the same bucket.

So let's say the leaders of of an R&D dept. forecast they'll need (as a made up example) 50% of their budget for new product, 25% for life cycle, and 25% for everything else, and legislation is passed that legally requires them to provide higher support in life cycle (by reducing obsolescence), it's gotta come from somewhere.

In my experience product development is usually the area that suffers.

Now we'll do what we can to minimize this impact - out sourcing labor (design quality suffers), focusing on design to value (innovation suffers), or out sourcing mfg (mfg quality suffers). The bottom line is the best way to avoid this is to ensure the folks writing the legislation consider these things and work with the affected companies, so that they can properly prepare and minimize these impacts.

This sounds to me like the company's problem - maybe they should put more money into support and not share it with R&D? I mean, basically what you're suggesting is "companies don't like spending money, ergo you can't change anything because they cut all the wrong corners."

That's not a problem of the consumer, that's an issue of the corporate mindset. If CEO pay were affected and their response is to immediately fire people the thing that affected pay isn't to blame, the company/CEO would be. This idea that all negativity and reactions is the fault of the broader thing, ignoring the choices being willfully made, is silly.

Maybe your company should put more money into providing quality products with good support rather than churning out new ones.

Ah someone with a bit of sense. People think magic elves make these phones with quality only lowered so we buy more at a later date. Ill confess I don't like government telling any business how to make or design their product, but these rules are going to raise prices and probably force out competition. Think about why people buy those niche phones that have all the good stuff (removable battery, SD card, waterproof, headphone jack) but are lower polish and power than the flagships from the big 3. Why would I buy those when the flagships now are forced to have all that stuff? Answer is cost, but they will find ways to mitigate that as always and boom now the big three are all we have besides flip phones

On top of that all those kewl new features each generation comes up maybe limited by requirements by the government. All I'm saying is people vote with their wallets and if they really cared there isn't a headphone jack or battery I can fix they wouldn't buy iPhones. Spoiler..... People buy them as much or more than ever because the majority don't care.

So true.

When people hear planned obsolescence they think of a greedy CEO demanding his employees to build products that are timebombs and will break just after the warranty has ran out so they can sell more stuff. That is not the issue.

All products have a planned obsolescence. Products are designed to last a number of years, and products that last long get are bulkier, heavier, often harder to repair, more energy consuming, and/or has other drawbacks. Most of all, quality (as in longer lifetime) is expensive. Most people are not prepared to pay for a product that lasts 30 years, when an alternative that costs half as much is next to it on the shelf.

When it comes to phones and laptops, most people want something slimmer, lighter and faster, rather than something that's lasts longer.

I'm sure Apple or Samsung could build a phone with hardware that won't break for 15 years. Maybe you would need to take it to a workshop for service and upkeep every few years. Problem is, it will be too big to fit in your pocket. It will be so expensive that the people who are prepared to spend that much money on a phone would rather buy something flashier. In five years it won't be able to handle modern services due to lack processing power, memory, communication speed, etc, not because of degradation in the hardware, but due to higher demands from the new apps and services. That also means you have a less secure product.

It's just not economically viable to build and sell such a product, because not enough people want a product with those drawbacks.

Even in the non-electric world planned obsolescence is something that's been done for the better part of the last century. Given the knowledge of the grade of material, its not terribly difficult to predict the statistically significant lifespan of a mechanical part. You can design A clock to last 10,000 years, but no one actually needs that.

You're right. The roof of my house has a life expectancy of 60 years. It was built 63 years ago. Replacing the roof was part of the calculation when I bought the house.

But the rest of the house wasn't designed to fail at 60 years. Your house is an example of why this legislation can be good for certain products. Your house has a replaceable roof. That's good.

What if your roof was all one part fiber glass connected to your walls?

A house built in one piece would potentially have other features, such as less draft (giving lower heating costs) and less risk of moisture that can ruin a house.

A product built in one piece or soldered together doesn't break as easily, but is ha rder to repair. You need to strike a balance between the two when designing a product.

With a house, I'm quite confident the benefits are on the side of parts being separate. You can seal the house anyways. Weight isn't an issue.

With an iphone, I'm pretty sure it goes the other way. Lots of things are more debatable.

In the 1970's, many houses were sealed tight to save on heating (because of the oil crisis). They had strong ventilation systems to keep the air fresh. In the 1990's people wanted so save electricity and put the ventilation in a timer, so schools and offices would have the ventilation turned off on nights and weekends. That led to moist, wich led to mold, and now the houses need to be renovated or torn down because they are a health hazard.

Modern low energy houses are sealed tight and have better ventilation. That means they are cheap to heat in the winter, but too warm in the summer.

Weight is an issue. A heavier house needs a stronger construction, wich is more expensive and harder to heat. The house can get to heavy for the ground, and start to settle in bad ways.

My point is that lifetime is one of several factors when designing a product, and longer lifetime does not automatically mean a better product or a product people want to buy.

I see your point, but in a lot of the houses I've seen, the issues are exterior envelope failure in either roofing or siding.

Usually heavy houses are long term builds and you can absolutely mitigate settling issues in those builds, but it's nice to not have to.

i mean when Modern Marvel did their eposide on rust (early 2000's iirc) they had the lead engeneer of one of the big 3 US Auto firms and they said "We can make a car out of materials that would never rust but no one would pay for it given the alternatives."

pay for a product that lasts 30 years, when an alternative that costs half as much is next to it on the shelf

"Being poor is expensive"

This comes into play here as well... It is a lot more expensive to replace something every X periods of time than it is to buy something that lasts for ten times as long, but the up-front costs might be unfeasible for many.

This is a good direction, but we need to proceed with caution.

Maybe it'll create product differentiation? With the proposed "minimum life expectancy" label on products, that may be a new category for companies to market. Though that could lead down a scary road of extreme price variability.

The problem is, what is planned obsolescence to one person is a feature to another. For instance, not having a removable battery vs having a waterproof phone. Not soldering on RAM to an ultra-portable laptop vs having a very portable laptop. Having a TV I can repair for a decade vs having the latest and greatest TV tech for under $500.

Exactly. Most of the design decisions which laymen consider "planned obsolescence" have usually very justifiable motivations.

Another example is a phone that is glued together instead of using screws can be assembled much faster and hence produced cheaper.

[deleted]

I know what you're trying to say but just to be clear: you can absolutely have both. Just like waterproof and headphone jack are not mutually exclusive.

Not really. If you have a battery compartment that can be opened, the sealing will definitely suffer over time and there is a risk of it failing.

Having a "removable battery" does not necessitate that there is a compartment that can be opened with a light touch a la ancient phones.

It is not an insurmountable engineering challenge to have a watertight battery compartment secured by screws that will remain sealed for the duration of the phone's life despite being opened every few years.

[deleted]

The problem is that consumers always cry about planned obsolence, but when the time comes to actually spend money, they always go for the cheapest crap.

You can still by a Miele appliance that last you two decades. But its at least twice as expensive as the other options you have, so people go with the lower-end stuff and wonder why it breaks sooner.

True, most people won't splurge on something that will last awhile. But I think the end goal of defining planned obsolescence is to come up with regulations that either prohibit or tax items that don't meet some standard of longetivity. If they go with taxes, it's possible that cheap, low durability goods will be taxed so heavily that the only high quality, durable goods will be the only smart purchase. With regulations, low durability goods just won't be available for purchase.

That basically seems like hand holding so the consumer can’t shoot themselves in the foot despite really badly wanting too.

Just to brainstorm here's another perspective: do comparisons to the way companies produced the same product a decade or 15 years ago and use that as a threshold to what's produced today. Type of plastic used, quality of corners that bolt, country parts are manufactured in. etc, and rate each vertical categorically.

Then you should also take into account the prices for products, after corrected for inflation. A color television in 1980 was definitely more expensive than in 2018 and most customers aren't willing to shell out a two month wage for a TV set when you can get one for $199.

Example: the easiest one for me to measure with this is almost any home improvement product, which are ridiculously cheap and have short life spans compared to the same exact models not long ago at all.

You can still get high quality tools if you're just willing to pay for the quality.

In any rate planned obsolesce is a really, really good thing to address. Since everything becoming cheaper and lasting less means consumers consume more of it while companies profit incrementally more every year, and that widening gap is an highly unseen part of the division in income inequality.

I don't think planned obsolescence actually exists. Rather, we just have more cheap quality products than we had 50 years ago.

Point to a specific product. If you’re talking power tools, they were far more expensive twenty years ago with more focused uses. Only contractors bought them. If you prefer that and are willing to cough up triple the cash, go to a specialty supplier, not Home Depot.

Tools are actually a great example for why this law could backfire. Look at a snap on socket wrench vs the average socket wrench. You're looking at a $70 tool vs a $15 tool. The reason isn't because the company making a $15 socket wrench is trying to rip people off. It's because only a handful of people need a $70 socket wrench.

People choose to buy the cheaper, shorter-lasting products, though. Are you saying that the government knows better, and should force them to spend more on things they may never want to deal with repairing or maintaining anyway?

ridiculously cheap

If there weren't a huge quantity of consumers who bought cheap instead of quality, there wouldn't be so much cheap garbage on the market.

Galaxy s5 is waterproof and has a removable battery. Just saying

it was also, relatively speaking, huge.

Tradeoffs.

You know that's another thing. They literally make phones too big for your hand, slippery, and have rounded edges... almost like they are trying to make you drop them

How reliable is the sealing in that phone though?

As someone who dropped his s5 in a toilet: not great

Lost mine in a creek for 30 mins and it was fine... bad luck i guess

I lost mine in a creek for 30mins and it still works fine. Lost my s7 in the ocean for twenty and it is also fine. No case on either phone.

I need to be more careful...

I think most of devices failling is not due to planned obsolecence. Most of the problem come from "let's make it cheaper ! ". Every time a new source of defect will be found in a product, a company will just have to tell the truth " We changed this because it was cheaper to produce".

This is by far the top comment.

The problem is, what is planned obsolescence to one person is a feature to another. For instance, not having a removable battery vs having a waterproof phone.

The first 8 Iphone models had non-removable batteries and no water resistance. This is not an example of choosing between features.

Then take into account the fact that most batteries have a limited life time. Back when I had an Iphone 5 I found out that those batteries were only rated for 700 charges. If you charge your phone once every day that's less than two years. That is absolutely planned obsolescence.

The EU consumer protection laws are pretty strong and have experience working with nebulous situations (like determining what counts as a company abusing its dominant position in a market) so I'm pretty confident in their ability to develop language that will allow judges and experts sufficient basis to do their job (usually, the more powerful the company, the more care is expected of them).

Part of the creation of those products could simply be a planned method to collect them, tear them down, and be reuse the materials after they done. Put a 50 dollar deposit on the price of the item that can be reclaimed by the consumer when they return it. (Or something idk just spitballing.)

It will probably be measured in reasonability or a set measurement in quality. Or at least not a secret counter that "burns a chip" in a printer so it needs to be replaced.

I agree with your point, but at minimum they should make selling parts such as chips or boards should be compulsory.

Clearly state that unauthorised installation will void warranty and ruin waterproofing but give the people the option to keep the machine going

It's very likely that prices will increase too. I think what a lot of people think is planned obsolescence is really just cost savings.

Goddamn your comment is underrated.

And that’s the problem with most of the EU regulations. And then people wonder why electronics in the US are so mich cheaper...

Exactly my thoughts. Thank you for this comment. If the record of the EU is any indication, it will probably be a team of people with an average age of 55, who studied sociology or politics.

Please show me one modern printer that doesn't fall under ANY definition of planned obsolescence :(

Seems to me that the solution would be to not make laws about what happens at the design stage, but at the aftercare stage. Like you say, it would be difficult to enforce what obsolescence might mean. So instead make it so that manufacturers have to give longer warranty periods. Then governments look at the defect rates of manufacturers and impose tarrifs on companies with high rates of defects.

lol no they definitely puropusly put in planned obsolescence. Are you in a manufacturing field?

Agreed. The real problem is the market demand. People are poor and have to save every possible penny (forced to take risk vs capital outlay) and/or uneducated and unable to recognize the value of reliability.

That said, it is possible to make a law based on intent - where a company makes a product that is intentionally defective. Can be indicated where material differences in quality have immaterial differences in cost to produce and are knowingly chosen to encourage replacement. In my mind that is a form of fraid and what this is targeting.

They just need to measure lifespan and rate/publish it the same way they do with energy consumption ratings for consumer products like TVs, fridges etc. This way lifespan is a factor the consumer can consider and compare as part of the purchase process.

I interpret it more as either designing a hard drive to fail after 3 years, or having an ink cartridge refuse to work after 12 months, or changing parts and connectors so new models no longer work when there's no other technical reason they could.

Well, TV's don't change much. Don't see reason why you should buy one more often then once in 10 years.

I think it may be simpler. If you force companies to have longer standard warranties and availability of parts to match demand, they will stop making things that break. If huge portions of thier profit start going to repairing their product, the product will not be designed to break at 3 years, but instead be built to the last the required 5 years for example. There's a reason things always break 1 month out of warranty. They know, and lots of testing/design time goes into this. Being required to have parts to keep up with repair demand will also keep them pushing for reliability so they needn't spend as much on stocking these parts.

For instance, not having a removable battery vs having a waterproof phone

but isn't Samsung Galaxy 5 both waterproof and with removable battery?

This is what I think as well when I see articles (and in general, discussions about planned obsolescence). Cheaper materials has come with the benefit of cheaper prices. I posted this link before, but I find it interesting: [1977 consumer goods] (http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/70selectrical.html)

I can find each of those goods with drastically more specs and power for those exact prices today (smart TVs with bigger and better screens, dishwashers with more space, microwaves with more power, etc), not even taking into account that they should be 4x that price due to inflation.

There are aspects that would be great. I think a "50% of products expected to wear out between 3 and 4 years" would be awesome. Then you could balance price and durability as an informed consumer, while having room for outliers. Right to repair and part availability would be great as well, especially for people with the knowhow (though many of us lay people will probably find that a new one still costs less than skilled labor to repair... but the option is there).

But I'm always cautious in my optimism about legislation that enforces particular design choices, as you point out (except where safety is concerned), rather than erring toward informing the market.

This reminds me of the EnergyStar regulations in the US. Instead of saying "this is how energy efficient your appliance has to be" they said "you have to put a sticker on your appliance saying how much it will cost to run." It allowed consumers to easily include efficiency in their price comparisons, instead of it being a nebulous "this more expensive refrigerator will save you money in the long run." EnergyStar was a very successful program.

Unlike in the US, EU laws and regulations are defined by "intent", not by specific wording and interpretation which companies or individuals can try to slither around to get around the intent of the law or regulation. This has the benefit of making them easier to understand for both companies and consumers without exhaustive and verbose legal language while still being reasonably well defined.

So basically, if it demonstrated that products are being intentionally designed to fail after a certain period of time or amount of use, they would be found in violation.

That doesn't mean products must be made modular, repairable, etc. But if it can be demonstrated that a specific component in a device is added with the intention of making the entire product have a unnecessarily limited life span, it is clear they are in the wrong and should be held liable for replacement or repair or face penalties.

Unlike in the US, EU laws and regulations are defined by "intent", not by specific wording and interpretation which companies or individuals can try to slither around to get around the intent of the law or regulation

If the basis of a law is its “intent”, then you’d just have people arguing about what the intent is, won’t you?

How is hat better than having an agreed-upon meaning or interpretation of a law?

Also consider the Cyber security implications. Is a phone that can at best run the OS from 5 years ago going to be as invulnerable as it was when it came out? Fuck no. That shit is going to be Swiss cheese. You can't be expected to maintain every product you've ever released forever.

I don't think a batter vs waterproof is relevant at all here, nor laptop weight/size. You're thinking of features and design choices, not planned obsolence.

Planned obsolence is making the battery unremovable AND making sure to go with the cheapest batteries, which conveniently die almost always a few month out of warranty and, oops, look at that - you can't buy a replacament, because we'd rather sell you a new phone than support the ones that are one month out of warranty with batteries we know are 90% likely to fail at that time.

I can choose between a phone that has a removable battery or one that's waterproof, the problem is the parts being irreplacable intentionally and forcing a consumer to purchase an entirely new one, and almost always just perfectly right out of warranty.

Samsung had the Galaxy S5, a phone with a removable battery and waterproof. Don't think people are complaining about the size either.

Yeah after how long of messing with it is the seal still 100% fine?

The S8 is water RESISTANT, no phone is water proof, but they second you replace anything consider that feature gone. I'd take total water resistance over replaceable battery.

Once that battery goes, the phone is pretty much useless. Battery replacement is more important than waterproof in my opinion for that reason alone. So for the S5 waterproofing was just a bonus.

i still have it, it's great.

[deleted]

That whole thing with Apples batteries was not because of planned obsolescence and Apple deliberately designing them to fail.

Batteries degrade over time. That’s just how the technology works and there’s nothing you can do about it. To combat lowering battery life, Apple slowed your phone down by throttling CPUs so they used less power and your battery didn’t die after a few hours.

Where they made their mistake is not telling people they did this. In iOS 12 there’s now an option to turn throttling off if you so wish.

But at any rate, the batteries were not designed to fail, and it’d be wise not to spread that misinformation.

Just to clarify something - Apple’s throttling “solution” wasn’t just to make sure the phone didn’t drop from 100%-0% after a few hours, it was to prevent the phone from unexpectedly shutting off even when the battery meter read 30%+ because the battery couldn’t meet peak voltage demands.

Apple decided a slightly slower phone was a better user experience than a full-speed phone that could unexpectedly shut down at any point once you drained the battery below 50%. Obviously a new battery is the best solution (which they eventually offered for a discounted $29), but their workaround was probably the best choice given the alternative. They just decided not to tell anybody about it.

And the whole issue would never have been a big deal if you could replace your battery.

You can replace your battery. It’s not easy, but with a quick Google search and the right tools you can do it. And it’s not like Apple has ever refused to replace batteries or you couldn’t get a third party to do it for you. The batteries are non-removable, not non-replaceable.

To add to the other comment, Apple will replace battery and if they cant for some reason, they give you a brand new phone of the same model for the price of the battery replacement. You won’t get that from a third party repair centre or doing it yourself.

Source: my wife got a brand new 128gb 6s+ for $35CAD two days ago after a failed battery change.

I actually agree that the throttling was probably the right choice.

My iPhone 4 used to shut off at ~20% battery without warning all the time when it started to get older. My 6s though never did it even though after like 3 years the battery capacity was only at 80%. I got it fixed when they did the $29 deal but I never really noticed the throttling but I sure as hell noticed when my old phone would shut off out of the blue.

Designing something to fail is the same premise as planned obsolescence, when spare parts and repair services are not made readily available.

Soldered versus socketed chips are a non-issue. The problem is, will the machine still boot if I pay a third-party repair shop to replace that chip? Is that chip even available for purchase? Will some locked bootloader brick the system if the new chip has a different serial number?

Repair doesn't need to be idiot-proof. It only needs to be possible. If properly disassembling your tablet takes three hands and a custom screwdriver, whatever. If it's not possible to open the case without destroying the battery because everything's held together with superglue, enjoy your billion-Euro fine.

Eh, I would've said the same about internet privacy before GDPR.

Not saying GDPR won't work out, but it's a little early to say, since they're still in the honeymoon phase of the law- it's enacted but not yet enforced.

GDPR isn't even in effect yet lol.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 would like to talk to you about choosing between a removable battery and waterproofing.

You simply have to define the minimum warranty on products to be 10 years and make sure that it covers accidental damage along with damage from continued use. This should then lead to more replaceable parts, stronger components, and better longevity.

accidental damage

U wot m8. I'm not paying extra to cover Mr Bean. That's way outside the scope of obselesence.

What if I'd rather buy cheaper products every 3 years to take better advantage of technological innovation, and a business owner is willing to create products that cater to my desire? You're comfortable introducing a gun and forcing people to behave in a way that you think suits your own interests?

LOL you're telling me you've come to the independent conclusion that the EU does not understand how a functional free market works? Nooooooooooooooo way this is corporate consolidation disguised as consumer protections.. the EU would never evveeerr do that lol.

not having a removable battery vs having a waterproof phone. Not soldering on RAM to an ultra-portable laptop vs having a very portable laptop. Having a TV I can repair for a decade vs having the latest and greatest TV tech for under $500.

Why not both? Surely it is possible to create technology that is cheap, profitable, modular and long lasting. All the manufacturers need is the incentive to do so.

[removed]

The warranty period is the company's cost-effective replacement period for defective parts. The life expectancy could be thirty years, but the company won't replace it after ten because if it hadn't stopped working earlier it was probably you that broke it rather than a defective part.

Like the minimum life expectancy on a CPU is indefinite. If it doesn't live forever either you broke it or it was defective.

Three years is long enough for those defects to show, so that's the warranty period.

CPUs do "wear out". With heat and electric fields dopants and wire atoms migrate within the crystal structure leading to electrical performance deviating from design, ultimately leading to the chip not meeting clock constraints or even failing with open circuit or a short.

Flash memory (pendrives, SSD) is a fine example. To write to a flash cell, an electrical resistance has to be overcome. The action of overcoming it actually reduces the resistance. Once the resistance is too low to separate reads from writes, the cell goes bad and the product is dead. Its not planned obsolesence, its the laws of physics.

[removed]

The usual SSDs are "only" guaranteed to endure 3 to 6 years of 100GB a day, usually they last twice as long.

how much is written per day for the average user?

Average user browsing Facebook and watching Netflix? Probably like... 2gb? Low enough that they never need to worry about it.

My SSD says 95GB of writes, and I've had it for at least a year or so. It holds my OS and page file, and most all of my apps. Says its at 99% life, so yeah, shouldn't be an issue for most people.

12.5TB of reads for comparison.

Stream actually wears down your SSD quite a bit, so streaming Netflix can shorten its life. Reason is, that the stuff you stream, has to be saved somewhere, and thats usually in your browsers folder under

AppData/Roaming/

So if one Episode in 1080p is around 4GB of data and you watch 2-3 in the evening thats 12GB. If you up it to 4k stream, thats 4x the data.

SSDs still have long lifetimes, but excessive (4k) streaming can wear them down significantly.

You can use tools to read out the amount of bytes written to your SSD. You can use everything that can print out SMART values, SSD-Z is a good choice.

Depends on a ton of factors. An important thing to keep in mind though is that by default, most operating systems use the main hard drive as “swap” or essentially temporary memory. Unless you have a very high amount of RAM, your computer uses part of the drive like RAM. For the average user, most writes are likely happening there rather than saving or modifying files. It wouldn’t surprise me if 100GB was common for someone spending two~three hours a day on their computer. Moreso if you are doing memory intensive tasks like gaming, video/photo editing, etc.

My page file has been on my SSD for at least a year and its still at 99% life. 8GB of ram, so not an excessive amount of memory either.

Makes sense. The way SSDs work though is they attempt to not write to the same location. The health usually stays pretty close to 100% for a long time and then falls rapidly as more and more sectors go bad.

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling)

Wear leveling

Wear leveling (also written as wear levelling) is a technique for prolonging the service life of some kinds of erasable computer storage media, such as flash memory, which is used in solid-state drives (SSDs) and USB flash drives, and phase change memory. There are several wear leveling mechanisms that provide varying levels of longevity enhancement in such memory systems.The term preemptive wear leveling (PWL) has been used by Western Digital to describe their preservation technique used on hard disk drives (HDDs) designed for storing audio and video data. However, HDDs generally are not wear-leveled devices in the context of this article.

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

That's interesting, I know it helps to have a larger amount of smaller memory chips as opposed to a small amount of bigger ones, since you have to access them entirely. Thankfully they're getting cheaper and cheaper so I'll probably swap over to a new one in due time. I just bought a budget one since my HDD had died and the performance boost+ lower sound profile has been wonderful.

This is false since different SSD sizes have different metric of write size for certain duration to fail. SSD controllers actually compensate for dead cells and just mark them as inactive which means your SSD becomes smaller as years pass but you still retain your data. In the other hand HDD that have mechanical parts if they fail you lose everything unless you send it to a specialist (for a decent amount of change) and you lucky the mechanical failure dint scratch the cylinder.

I think the controller is more likely to go bad than cells dying in an SSD though

SSDs have a spec abbreviated TBW, total bytes written. For the usual consumer grade SSD this is between 100TB and 200TB. This is what the manufacturer guarantees. Look it up.

Also the SSD doesn't become smaller, this is impossible. There is a reserved area on SSDs that the user can't see that is used for dead cell compensation and wear levelling.

Why do you spread your misinformation?

[deleted]

SSD out of the box could store 10% more and the manufacture hid it to compensate future dead cells

The manufacturers did use 10% to improve wear levelling and compensate for dead blocks. Like the manufacturer used the ram on the ssd as a cache. The wort could is the important part in the quote. The SSD doesn't shrink with use, it stays the same capacity, but the reserved blocks get used up.

My last SSD failed after about 7 years, it's entirely fubar

And no, I did not write >100gb a day on it.

This is very wrong technically/physically. There is no resistance, the floating gate is fully isolated. You tunnel electrons into the floating gate and the isolation is slightly damaged by that. Once the isolation is gone you can't write into the cell anymore. Why do you spread your misinformation?

Isolation = resistance. Damaged isolation = reduced resistance.

If I would have used your wording in exams, I am pretty sure it would be marked as a mistake.

Yeah but exams don’t expect you to understand they often just ask for exact words, I’m by no means an expert though

exams don’t expect you to understand they often just ask for exact words

Most exams on university level did a pretty good job in testing the understanding in my opinion (EE in Germany).

Watch out we got an undergrad trying to prove himself here

Watch out we have an insecure keyboard warrior hiding in anonymity here. btw wrong.

What is wrong with some people on Reddit?

Also the whole product doesn’t die, that particular cell just gets marked as bad.

Consider that the lower availability of cells accelerates wear across the board. Not the end of the world but the beginning of it. Nobody touched upon types of flash (SLC vs MLC vs TLC) either.

Is planned obsolescence if after a certain number of sites it goes "I've reached the limit I will attempt" rather than actually cheekbones if it's still good for 10x that life so far.

[deleted]

Why are you getting downvoted? It's clearly a (bad) joke. Username checks out too

Because in comments votes are supposed to indicate whether something is or isn't contributing to the discussion. That's literally what the Reddiquette says.

Clearly people don't think it contributes to the discussion, and that's a fair opinion.

CPUs do "wear out". With heat and electric fields dopants and wire atoms migrate within the crystal structure leading to electrical performance deviating from design, ultimately leading to the chip not meeting clock constraints or even failing with open circuit or a short.

There's 8088's running 40 years later, so "wear out" is a relative term.

8088s barely generate any heat at all, and have under 100,000 transistors, each over a micron across. Comparing that to a modern CPU is comparing apples to oranges.

Right? We are getting to the point of dealing with quantum level problems when it comes to chip lithography.

Someone make a meme.

Who would win: 1000s of engineers figuring out how to push electrons around in the most efficient way, or one jumpy boi?

Regardless, I know a guy using all Pentium 4 that's about 15 years old for light tasks, and the CPU is still working perfectly. I've never seen a CPU fail despite the heat they generate.

Honestly neither have I, but I’ll be surprised if current CPUs last as long as older ones. Would be funny if it turned out that transistor size directly correlated to lifespan, so all the CPUs all die at the same time.

I'd imagine that as components get more intricate, the odds of something going wrong increases.

And less material involved tends to mean faster degradation.

In addition to that, there's the fact that smaller and smaller components are being placed closer and closer, and are running hotter and hotter. Well, that's what processors are like, at least.

20 Nm is 50 silicon atoms across (FIFTY!!!). We are at about half that right now for EACH transistor and there are billions of them on a modern CPU.

Yeah no shit things are gonna break.

Mhm.

From the benchmarks I can find, the overall power consumption seems to stay roughly the same for CPUs across generations^1. So unless efficiency decreased, the heat output should also be roughly the same.

But I also couldn't really find a clean benchmark on the topic where it's just one type of CPU (say, i5) over all generations.

^(1: And the upward trends some benchmarks project aren't really that big. Usually more noticeable under load, due to higher clock speeds, like 3.4Ghz -> 3.5Ghz)

Feature size has dramatically decreased though. You can think of the heat damage as a kind of fuzzing between components as their materials migrate into each other. That fuzzing will wipe out a 12nm feature faster than a 1.5micron feature. There is a lot more that goes into it, and design rules and production advances mitigate much of that effect. Its a concern though that needs to be engineered around.

[deleted]

If you took current 5nm processes and used it to make an identical CPU with 100nm process you'd end up with a die the size of a table.

And it would also cost a fortune due to the base material.

Funny how processor cost has gone up even when the material per processor has gone down.

Because material costs are a tiny fraction of total cost. Chip design R&D, fab amortization, mask creation and other fixed costs make up the bulk and those have been growing exponentially . And it's not even true that processors have gotten smaller, chip size has been relatively constant or even growing on the high end.

Absolutely. CPU equipment is bonkers expensive, so even a simple MCU costs a couple million quite easily in fixed costs just to get made.

Chip sizes are going down though, FWIW. Maybe not in desktop, but mobile and embedded are pushing them smaller.

Do you have any source what-so-ever?

Because the price of decent computers themselves have stayed fairly steady throughout the last 30 years, and that's without considering inflation.

With inflation, decent computers are cheaper than they ever were.

And material per processor hasn't changed that much throughout the years, it's just that the smaller feature size lets them fit a lot more stuff on the die, resulting in better performance.

[deleted]

Are you talking about in the 90s? Because as long as I can remember buying PC hardware, a whole computer with a top of the line GPU has been more than a high end gpu runs today.

[deleted]

So the 8800GTX which was $600 could be had with a whole PC for the price of a top the line card today? So the rest of the PC was basically thrown in for free?

Or are you just misremembering?

Uh, no. The larger size of everything would increase propagation delay, which would make the whole thing slower. Electricity is nowhere near instant, especially when at the scale of nm.

That's the deal with electromigration. Chip features get smaller, it stays the same scale. So it's a much more major issue than it used to be. Also, it is very highly temperature and voltage dependent, so how hard a manufacturer decides to push its chips matters a lot. It might not be a driving concern, but making sure that a large majority of chips make it through the warranty period even when operated on the limits is definitely something that is considered.

8088 didn't need active fans either. You could run a PC with the CPU being exposed.

So the customer’s usage broke it. Not a flaw from the manufacturer. Parts go bad after continued use, that makes sense for any appliance.

Also this happens faster with overclocking

Excluding environmental forces (user controllable such as heat due to dust buildup or environment) how long would it take to actually stop working?

Probably a decade or two. Chips at stock last a looong time, not indefinetely (assuming properly cooled and supporting circutry doesnt die and take the cpu with it)

In my time of working with computers, CPUs have never failed for me, even on my oldest machines dating back to 1982 (that still works fine)

Bruh.

I know what he meant, you know what he meant.

Yet you still choose to be so pedantic.

Y tho?

Your not even disproving his base argument or anything like that.

[deleted]

how does it feel to be the social outcast?

the guy saying Bruh is the nerd when these other dudes are debating the life expectancy of a CPU?

[deleted]

Nobody's "trying" to sound cool but you sure are trying to look like a fucking idiot

The warranty period is the company's cost-effective replacement period for defective parts. The life expectancy could be thirty years, but the company won't replace it after ten because if it hadn't stopped working earlier it was probably you that broke it rather than a defective part.

This is fine, until companies start purposefully building business models around it. The worst product you can sell someone is one that never needs to be replaced.

Can you explain that?

Why would I build a blender that lasts 20 years when I could build one at a lower cost that only lasts 3 years? I not only make more profits on the sale, but I also get that customer buying another product from me in a few years

Why would I build a blender that lasts 20 years when I could build one at a lower cost that only lasts 3 years?

Because the law might say so?

I not only make more profits on the sale, but I also get that customer buying another product from me in a few years

But that's exactly the problem that the EU wants to address.

CPUs do have a definite life expectancy. Some test batches are run through stress testing to stimulate years of usage, giving engineers manufacturability metrics and signs about whether unstressed CPU's will fail after a few years. The CPUs actually change color after being run through that much heat and usage. CPU's designed for commercial applications like switches are stress tested for longer because they're supposed to have a ten year service life or so instead of a 6 year life (not exact figures).

While CPUs do wear out, RAM doesn’t. Someone once said something along the lines of “if it lasts a year it’ll last 20+ more”

I may be wrong, but I always understood that warranty was more like the minimum amount of time something will definitely work if it was manufactured and QA tested properly.

Everything inside a product will have a rough lifespan but warranties very rarely extend all the way to then end of the earliest-expiring part.

That's why there's a difference between warranty lengths and your statutory right for something to be fit for purpose.

How I understand it is that warranty was more like the minimum amount of time something will be replaced by the manufacturer at his own expense. So that's a heel of an incentive to have QA do a good job guaranteeing that 95-98% of products will work at least for the duration of the warranty.

Companies want their product last the warranty.

Each warranty repair/change is very expensive for the producer.

Warranty is, as far is I understand it, the time period in which the product must work(as intended), and not break or be defective. So depending on what you buy, 24 months (in the EU anyway) is either really long or really short, but still seems to be arbitrary and product-independent.

There’s something called the Hardware Failure Curve (it’s basically a Bathtub Curve). Stuff is most likely to fail when it’s very new or very old and unlikely to fail in the middle. Typically a warranty covers the downward slope in case of any defects. Once the curve becomes more of a straight line a lot of failure is from normal wear and tear.

I know things like new a OS on an old phone can cause issues, and that’s something else all together. The initial reason for warranties was to replace defects that appeared within the first X hours of usage (which varies depending on what it is).

I may be wrong, but I always understood that warranty was more like the minimum amount of time something will definitely work if it was manufactured and QA tested properly.

Is is not minium expected lifetime then? I feel like you're saying the same thing I am.

I had to buy new heaters for my house, electrical ones because we don't have gas. I bought 8 storage heaters at ÂŁ1000 each.... They come with 2 year warrantee.... For sobering that should last a lifetime. Fuck Quantum Dimplex

We have strong laws that cover this in Australia - a warranty period has to be the one a "reasonable" person would expect a product to be used before buying a new one. No-one is buying a new fridge every two years so LG can go fuck themselves claiming their fridges have a two year warranty. You're not replacing a high-end TV every 12 months. If a phone comes with a 24 month constract what sense does it make that the user might want to be paying it off if they replace it in month 13?

That was kinda my point, it seems redundant to force warranty periods to match life expectancy and then seperately state life expectancy.

The warranty period is the minimum life expectancy.

No it isn't because the warranty period is much shorter than the potential life expectancy of most products. Which is part of the point of the resolution, as I understand it.

Nope, you can expect a replacement for your product if it breaks within it's reasonable life expetancy, regardleas of warranty. At least in the Eu

That seems silly.... Companies are essentially extending their warranties in Europe by the sounds of it, why not formally do it?

Because there are significant legal differences between a warranty and a minimum life expectancy

Warranty is supposed to be the period where the company expects that it won't break prematurely, no? Practically speaking, warranty and minimum life expectancy should be the same so make it match legally (which is what it sounds like they are trying to do)

No, the warranty is the period where the seller guarantees that it won't break. The life expectancy is the period where the consumer can reasonably expect it won't break. If it break past the warranty, you have different rights than during the warranty.
I'd advise looking it up

Everyone is seeing this as good for cell phones and computers, but I see this in another light. I see this as a massive change coming to our power tool industry. If this law passes then power tool manufacturers will have to completely rethink their business model. As it is, most of the prosumer brands (yellow, teal, red, and blue/green) use planned obsolescence as their main source of income. Cheap power tools break and the only choice is to replace the whole thing despite the fact that the issue is a small electrical component that can be had for 5 cents online and installed in minutes.

I foresee (if this passes) these brands jacking prices up and us maybe getting tools that last longer but certainly the availability of parts will change the market in a huge way

It will also be good for kitchen and home appliances that have many of the same issues you talked about with power tools.

Just wait to see how many printer manufacturers will close up shop or just stop selling in Europe.

Printers are a crap shoot because the companies intentionally produce shit quality product and make their money back on ink/toner sales. The main driving reason for that is consumers not willing to pay for good equipment but ignoring recurring small costs like ink/toner.

Buy a $2000 printer and it should last you 10-15 years. Buy a $100 printer and it might last you 1 year. The vast majority of consumers will buy the $100 printer that they replace on a regular basis.

To be fair, a 100$ printer every year is a better investment, compared to 2000$/10-15 years (200$ to 150$ a year).

I totally agree with your point, and we bought a decent brother printer, instead of a cheap as shit HP "college special" printer, but yeah.

Also the EU isn't being quite honest

They plan to make obsolete planned obsolescence.

Having worked in the pawn industry I must disagree with you about the power tool industry. Most of the time brushes burn out on the older ones, this is a very cheap part that is designed to be replaced by you. Also have you looked at the brushless stuff? You get almost twice the run time and more power than before.

You’ll be disappointed that European power tools are completely different than American in terms of brands and specs. Consumer electronics are basically the same, but voltage, metric vs SAE and regulation differences sets them apart.

Even B&D that sells in Europe has a completely different set of products.

So in that case the American market wouldn’t benefit much if you’re from there.

Yep. If I only need to drill something once every 5 years or so shouldn't i have the option to buy a ÂŁ10 drill that is only guaranteed to work for maybe 100 hours of drilling instead of having to buy a ÂŁ100 drill that's guaranteed to work for 10,000 hours?

It will also be a massive, stupendously big boon to the environment.

Not from Europe so we have brands like Milwaukee, kobalt, dewalt rather than colors. Super curious though, how are cheap use till you break them tools considered prosumer? Here in the US that term would be reserved for anything that is considered above average (both price and quality) but not quite top of the line (professional).

What you’re describing sounds a lot like harbor frieght’s business model. I actually like it a lot, if I want something that will last forever I can spend the extra cash and get it (I have a few tools that are older than me). Or I can go to harbor freight, pay 19.99 and get my one time job done for way less money.

I think he's just saying colours to avoid brand names, dewalt would be yellow, red milwaukee, green/blue bosch etc.

I considered that but I've always had really good luck with Milwaukee and dewalt. We have a Milwaukee table saw thats older than I am, and we just replaced the electric motor this summer to keep it going another 30 years.

We have a Milwaukee table saw thats older than I am

That's the point, older tools held up a lot longer because they were not built with failure modes in the design.

The problem with the harbor freight model is that in return to being nice to have for your, it is extraordinarily bad for the environment. For each of these devices, resources must be produced and processed, all of which has a heavy toll on nature. And there is a simple alternative: Renting. In lots and lots of places you can already rent professional grade tools for a few bucks a day, often times being cheaper than buying trash tools. And you can actually use the professional version instead of having to deal with something crappy.

Fair point. Unfortunately here in BFE it’s really hard to rent anything that advance auto doesn’t have. Possible online but the planning doesn’t always work out.

I typically buy the good stuff if it is powered and leave it in the shop anyways though. Harbor freight is my jam for stuff like pelican case knock offs and simple things like siphon pumps.

I'm Canadian and talking about Yellow (DeWalt), Teal (Makita), Red (Milwaukee), and blue/green (Bosch). They're all going the way of the harbor freight business model

Ryobi (lime green) seems to be fairly durable.

Seconding this.

And I love them for the whole "one battery fits everything★" deal. It's forced (some)other manufacturers to do something similar, and it's just great. The first thing to die in our household is always the battery, long before the tool is worn down, so being able to just get a new battery if we need it, is a godsend.

Brings much more confidence in their tools, and we save money twice, once when buying (no need for a bundled charger+battery), and once again if we manage to wreck a battery, since we just buy a new one, rather than a whole new power tool).

★Some of their garden appliances run on higher power(36V?) batteries, while some run on standard 18V. A bit inconsistent there, but the vast majority work with 18V. I swear I'm not paid to know this, I was just exceptionally happy once I saw someone finally got around to offering one battery fits all tools.

If only the batteries (and chargers) were reasonably priced when bought separately.

Dunno, they're pretty reasonably priced for the quality and amperage you get, at least where I live.

The big brick (5A) is quite expensive, but not overly expensive considering how long it's supposed to last. We make do with the two 2.5 A batteries we got with our drill, but it's nice to have options(and they last really long, particularly compared to the craptastic batteries we were used to).

Dude. They don’t have colour brands in Europe either.

Yellow = Dewalt Red = Milwaukee Teal = Makita

Kinda figured but didn't want to assume. Was split between same brands and private retailer brands (blue hawk for example, is a Lowes owned brand here) Thought maybe red brand was like the Home Depot private brand lol

If they're making a profit on each sale then they can keep making a profit at current low prices. Some other... color... will come along and offer devices that are still cheap shit, but are such cheap shit that they use standard screws and can be repaired by mere mortals.

My DeWalt power tools have lasted for a very, very long time. In fact, my first DeWalt power tool (~10 years old) is only not used because the old battery packs. Everything else still works perfectly, despite the abuse I've put them through.

One thing to compromise this rule too is they should make it mandatory for manufacturers to release service manuals and schematics etc and help consumer fix their own goods. They should also be forced to show reasonable effort and making the goods actually repairable too. Not all consumers will want to fix their own stuff, but by making it legal and required to be allowed to do so, repair shops could open up to repair all sorts of devices. Sometimes issues are common so once that info is known it becomes an easy fix for a repair shop to do at a reasonable price. For example some Hoverboards have an issue where they don't turn off, you swap out a transistor and it's good to go.

Im not sure where you're from but in aus. Power tools are cheap as fuck because they have separated them from batteries, it really is a quality related to cost situation but the batteries are massively expensive and quite frankly way overpriced. The skins last for years and if you learn how to replace or restore individual cells in the battery packs you can save literally hundreds of dollars per battery. Its a strange twist on the planned obsolescence situation where they simply overcharge for the bits they know will need replacing relying on the fact that majority of tools are sold to tradies who then write them off on tax each year (depreciation allowance) and simply buy new ones without a care.

Power tools don't last? I just inherited a power drill from my dad that he has had at least 10 years and it still works great once I bought a new battery for it

My first reaction is “good luck with that.”

My second is “damn, I hope this works.”

You know what actually works instead?

Not buying any Apple device ever again, and convicing your friends to do that as well. Apple will come to their senses really quickly

[removed]

Naive? Ever heard of Nexus 7? 2012 and still rocking Android Oreo? Oneplus One from 2014 same case?

Or how about Iphone 4 that can't even install Chrome browser or anything for that matter? How does that dipshit EU regulation changes that? Updates Iphone 4 to iOS 11?

The reason that many of the devices can work with newer custom ROMs is because the ROMs use workarounds that may or may not have security vulnerabilities. They're largely undocumented and hacky in nature. I have a Nexus 6 and toyed around with CyanogenMod back in the day, so I do like custom ROMs, I just think that the other side of the coin should also be understood.

[removed]

Yes more examples, where EU solves anything. Listening

Yes, if only every single person in the world coordinated their actions for the greater good without any organizational structure. That sure is likely to happen.

So EU never funded any voluntary joinable organisations? They can't afford that?

2016/679 article 49

I work in the film industry and using Apple is near required.

You can get away with a non iPhone but any coordinator work it’s expected that you have a Mac.

I was being stupid and stubborn and trying to prove a point and stuck with using my PC laptop.

When I stepped back and realized how many days I was losing by not having the Mac I broke down and got one.

Why do you think the film industry uses Apple over PC? Is Apple film editing software that much more superior over anything else?

I’d beg to differ if that’s the case. PCs have significantly higher performance ceilings hardware-wise compared to a Mac. If you’re working with 4K and other high-end formats you’d better hope to god you have a monstrous PC.

There must to be a reason why most video editing is done on a mac. It's probably the software, not the hardware. It certainly isn't the price, because power macs are at least double that of a compatible PC.

Maybe it's culture; that's just how it has always been done?

In Australia apple actually has to to replace your phone after warranty period. Australian law has better consumer protections than anywhere else I've lived.

I somehow doubt this will sit well with all the Chinese manufacturers who gobbled up EUs failing tech companies to peddle cheap shit.

This is exactly why the EU is passing this, to prevent more of that.

Gobbled up? More like reverse-engineering the shit out of whole production machines. The company I work for is a world-market leader in the a certain industry. My CEO has visited a plant in China, only to view 2 machines almost exactly copied from the machines we produce.

Well, we gotta push back for as long as we're able to.

What failing EU tech companies

More like "what tech companies". Europe doesn't have many major tech companies they all already folded.

the EU effectively killed all european tech companies as it intended.

Will it become illegal to buy Made-in-China products like how it is to buy obvious imitations like Ralex watches and Mike shoes?

It's interesting that this is focusing on electronic devices.

No one seems to have minded planned obsolesces in cars, appliances, tools, etc.

This is more of a "right to repair" than it is anything to with planned obsolescence.

The thing is thats its most visible in electronic devices (appliances, tools are electrical devices as well), because of their complexity and the amount of time they are in actual use.

One thing comming to mind when talking about planned obsolescence is fixed battery. In majority of handheld devices that will be the most likely part to end the life of the device, except the device breaking down. This is fixed by right to repair and law has to specify it has to be easily changable.

Otherwise planned obsolescence is designing stuff in such a way that its being stressed more and it will break down earlier. Which cant be really fixed by laws. Right to repair will help but not as much as you would think. You are still not getting test and repair manuals...

I dont think there is much planned obsolescence in cars because automotive has one of the highest standards for longetivity - this is caused by focus on low cost which doesnt allow device doubling and focus on safety.

[removed]

That’s the number one reason I switched to iOS. Google simply has no way to force anyone to allow the most recent OS on their devices. It has nothing to do with features and everything to do with device security.

Project Treble has gone a long way to mitigate that. The company Essential was able to release Android 9 the same day as Google, since the amount of work required to push an update has been drastically reduced.

Sure there are a few mfrs who try to keep up, but most don’t and Samsung couldn’t care less.

To be fair I was able to keep an Android phone up to date for almost 10 years by installing custom ROMs. That would correspond to an iPhone 3g receiving the iOS 11 update. Not that you'd want that, but there's no way Apple would deliver that.

I often compare it to vehicles. I'd rather have one that's easy to fix than one that I can be sure will work for 3 or 5 years.l but shits the bed in a big way after that.

I fired up my Nokia N900 the other day, to be pleasantly surprised that I got some software updates. Release year of the phone: 2009. Such a beast.

The N900 is on the mainline Linux kernel, so its support period is more or less infinite.

Yeah, it's still up to the CSSU repos to push it though.

When was the update released?

No idea to be honest, I didn't check. Probably not recently, this phone is more of a cool relic I like to turn on for old times' sake than a daily driver.

Some people still update their 3rd-party software for it though.

My 5s is running iOS 12 like a champ. It actually runs better than it has since year 3. Everything is smooth and fast. I use a X as my primary but Apple has been crazy good about long term support.

Apple has been crazy good about long term support

I think you won’t find many who agree with you here. Including myself. I’ve had plenty of iPhones and iPads that just couldn’t keep up with newer operating systems as the years go by. Apple is notoriously bad when it comes to planned obsolescence, and I believe they’ve even been caught red-handed doing it.

I mean, they’re really not though. The problems everyone talks about come from the battery. Batteries in iOS phones and Android phones have around the same efficiency rate. But because iOS is extremely efficient in usage, the batteries are much much smaller. That’s why if you turn of basically everything but the phone in an Android, the battery can last days at a time, but you can’t really do that with Apple devices.

This works well overall, but because the battery is so much smaller to start off with, you notice the slowdown a lot quicker because the system just had less to work with. The phone slows down because it can’t draw enough power to function at peak anymore. This happens to all phones, but it does happen faster because of the way Apple deals with a smaller battery.

The speed, generally, returns when you replace the battery.

I don’t disagree that they needed to start offering the cheaper replacements for the battery before they did, but it’s not really planned obsolescence either.

Apple was pushing out updates to throttle the processor on iPhone's as battery heath declined. This was an intentional function which calculated the health of the battery.

Processors don't slow down on their own if they aren't getting enough power, they crash. If anything, there's a very small threshold where the processor won't crash, but it won't run properly either. That causes reduced performance, but the phone is probably about to crash. It's very unlikely that there are any phones which manage to stay balanced in this in between state.

This is why you see phones with old batteries that crash when opening apps that use a lot of battery like Snapchat. The increased load causes battery voltage to drop and the processor crashes. Apple was trying to reduce power usage by throttling processors in order to prevent these crashes.

Android phones slow down over time for the same reasons windows computers do: buildup of apps/programs and their respective background processes, file system overhead as storage fills up (mitigated by trim function since android 4.3 I think), and OS updates with ever increasing demands on the processor. A factory reset on an android phone will take care of the first two of those and almost always results in a huge increase in performance

Well, yeah, that's basically what I was saying. Android batteries are (usually) much larger- but their software doesn't take advantage of that, and they don't have a closed ecosystem, so the actual battery life is about the same, overall. But because Apple batteries are so much smaller, there's just a much smaller margin of error for crashing. There's only so much any developer can do about that.

Dude, you are so much more than wrong. I used an iPhone 3GS until a year and a half ago. When it was first bought by my mom, we could load any app we wanted onto it. Even when the battery was replaced, those same apps (the cheap-assed ones that never get an update) wouldn't run at all. Nothing would. Facebook wouldn't run, and it was pre-loaded by Apple on the OS. Same thing goes for the 4S I a using now - can't even run the built-in, can't-uninstall-them apps.

That’s because support was discontinued 4 years ago. It’s still running iOS 6.1.6. Most apps are optimized for the current version of iOS. Of course you’re going to have compatibility issues.

Why was its support terminated that long ago? Why is it impossible to get apps that work for it? I can still get programs for my 2003 ThinkPad running XP that work just fine. Cell phone companies need to start respecting the world they live it a bit more.

Because it was 5 years old at the time. Computers of any kind definitely do become obsolete, and that timeline is extremely short for mobile devices. That area is the fastest changing field of personal computing by a huge margin.

There is a point where changes in software become significant enough that it is not feasible to produce a version for legacy hardware. Some of it is due to the diminishing numbers of that device, and some of it is because current architecture simply can’t run on older hardware.

[deleted]

Yes, but there is literally no reason that my iPhone 3GS runs 100 times slower than a 3GS when it was new. Keyboard lag of several seconds, ten minutes to power up, camera app won't even load...

Mobile devices and computers aren’t really comparable in any way. The technology is pretty drastically different.

There’s a standard expectation of the average person’s computer. Most people don’t need it to do much, and most people have computers capable of doing a lot more than what they use it for (Reddit, Facebook, etc.) Computers are much larger, have much better specs overall. More RAM, better drives, less likely to overheat. They don’t have batteries in the same way- even laptops, though they do have batteries, can run plugged in like a desktop. The “peak battery efficiency” isn’t as big of a problem.

Most computers, even old ones, have at least 2-4 gigs of RAM. 8 isn’t uncommon in computers within the last 7 years. That means, even if the computer is shit overall, or just ancient, it can keep up with webpages and low usage applications. In comparison, the iPhone X has 3 gigs which is drastically more than any other iPhone (but still less than even older computers.) Your iPhone 3gs had 256mb of RAM. Any mobile app that needs any amount of computing power basically won’t function. Most webpages would shut it down, especially nowadays. Even when it came out it was always a slower phone that what you can get now.

Long message, and a little all over the place. But basically- while individual bits have improved a lot, the average computers specs improve on a much, much slower basis than mobile devices. Unless you’re gaming or using high processing apps, a computer 7 years old will run fine for a lot of people.

Because of their battery, small form factor, and until recently, basically nonexistent RAM, the possible lifespan just isn’t going to keep up. App developers aren’t going to want to downgrade their apps and graphics just to work on a phone that even downgraded, probably couldn’t even handle the loading screen of most games.

TLDR// basically, and iPhone 3gs is like a Plasystation 2. And iPhone X is a PS4 Pro. You can’t expect to run the same games on it, it’s not possible.

I replied to your other comment as well- but because that comment was long and a little all over the place, I thought I’d bring it up more simply here.

Basically, phone hardware, because it’s new, had improved so drastically in the last few generations of phones that it’s just not physically possible for old ones to keep up. A 3gs has 256mb of RAM. An iphone 4 has 512mb. The iphone 5 and 6 have 1gb and the iPhone 6s, 7, and 8 have 2gb. The X has 3gb.

Those are huge changes- from the 3 to the 4 it literally doubled in processing power... and then doubled again with the 5. And then it doubles one more time again with the 6s. Changed have started happening slower at this point, and the next jump up a few years later has been with rhe X, which is 50% more powerful than the last phones.

In RAM alone, the X is 12 times more powerful than the iPhone 3gs.

In other specs comparison, the 3gs has a 3.7 V 1220 mAh battery vs the X’s 3.81 V 10.35 W·h 2716 mAh battery. So more than double the capacity.

The CPU of the 3gs is a 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8[5]CPU. The X has a 2.39 GHz hexa-core 64-bit CPU. Which is basically 4 times more powerful, if not more.

It has nothing to do with forcing obsolescence. There’s just no feasible way an iPhone 3gs could run anything 20% as well as an X, and no software developer is going to even put the time in to try to do so.

Okay? Do you have any specific examples? I have a specific example and I would actually be interested in hearing what exactly went wrong for you.

You just have to buy a new one every year. Duh.

Yeah but most people aren’t willing to do that.

The thing with custom roms is that it's not really an option for less common phones, especially since it often requires a match to a very specific model number.

I did this on my old galaxy s4. It shipped with android 4 and now I’m running android 7, but there are so many comparability issues with certain apps, and it’s just so damn slow. I wouldn’t want that thing to be my daily driver.

Yeah it wasn't a daily phone, but it worked well enough for what I needed it to do. I know of a OnePlus one right now that is running ok compared to other phones from that time, but it's comparatively slow and I'm glad I've got my own phone instead.

To be fair I was able to keep an Android phone up to date for almost 10 years by installing custom ROMs.

Bullshit.

The first android device ever launched is not even 10 years old. What device did you manage to keep up to date for 'almost 10 years'?

By the way, this is what happened to that phone.

In August 2012, a group of users released an unofficial port of a later version of Android, 4.1 "Jelly Bean", for the Dream as a proof of concept. However, the port lacked key functionality, and had severe performance issues due to the phone's relatively weak hardware in comparison to the modern devices that 4.1 was designed for.

So the very first android phones could barely get the latest OS 4 years later. How the fuck did you get one of the earliest android phones to get almost 10 years of support when hackers couldn't even get phones from that time to get 4 years of support?

Edit: I just searched lineage OS, the biggest custom rom, and I looked through their supported devices and found what is the oldest Samsung device, the galaxy s2 from 2011. You can load an older version of lineage OS from 2017, which runs really poorly for obvious reasons. This is 6 years of unofficial support for one of the most popular phones of 2011. How did you get 'almost 10 years'?

Android isn’t even 10 years old. Did you like your HTC Dream that much?

And the problem with custom roms is that unless you can read the code, you never know for sure if the developer (often some 15 year old working on programming skills by porting roms and posting them to XDA) put anything bad in there. I still did it for year too.

Technically, development of Android started in like 2003 or something. Just wasn't published before the HTC Dream

EU mandated treble updates anyone?

So... You're saying that your solution for not getting updates for long enough was to switch to iPhone? where Apple has been confirmed to release updates that literally slows the devices down in order to push sales for new devices. There's actually a class action lawsuit over this.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harvard-study-apple-iphones-sales-slows/

Now sure, Apple claim that this is battery related, but I don't buy it, and if I'm it mistaken, people who had recently switched battery got the throttle too. Fact is though, not getting updates is good. Android producers don't sacrifice performance, they'll support it until it'll get to the age where it'll start taking performance hits, and then they stop.

Did you even read the article? They specifically call out that the claim you make in your opening statement is false and that the only truth was they removed the very peak of performance to prevent the phones from shutting down. First, I would rather my phone self manage its power output than to have it shut down due to the age of the battery. Second, have you paid zero attention to iOS 12? Every single device including the iPhone 5S run significantly faster on it then they did on previous versions of iOS.

i don't like apple, so zero attention is exactly what i've given them. and i also mentioned that the article calls it out, but that i don't belive that's the real reason. Hey maybe it's true, but there's definitely a thought behind the updates being released right before a new phone getting released.

On the other hand Apple has on several occasions bricked old phones by updating old devices to a newer OS that they’re not capable of running. They also won’t let you manually install an older OS to fix them.

Uhh but what do you do when your phone is pseudo-bricked in 3 years by iOS planned obsolescence?

I’ll let you know if it ever happens.

-sent from my iPhone 5s

But its well documented that later releases of iOS slow down the performance of older models.

[deleted]

If you connect to the internet, you’re exposed to enough of a threat that using outdated OSes is a bad idea.

Your comment makes no sense. Apple is notorious for dropping support for their operating systems. I would go as far as to call Apple the poster child for this behavior.

iOS 12 that is slated to release in September is still supporting the iPhone 5S, a device that was released in 2013. Not only that, Apple has optimized it to the point where it runs better than the current iOS 11. Not too many Android devices that have that kind of OEM support (except for Googles own devices).

Then again, I wish iOS would do incremental security patches like Android does without forcing the need for full OS updates. There’s definitely room for improvements from both camps.

Google's own devices have 3 years of support, not 5

2 years of OS updates and another year of security patches IIRC.

But most people don’t own Google-branded phones. Most people worldwide own < $300 android devices that are lucky to see security updates at all and will never see an OS update.

Their iPhone 5S, which released in 2013 are still gonna be updated to iOS 12. That's something literally no Android phone ever see.

Not to mention they still support it with parts available to purchase. Even if you have an iPhone 3GS Apple can still get you the parts if you need it.

Can't run anything on it though! Think they're limited to iOS 6 or similar.

But we’re talking about a phone that is from 2009 at this point. Couldn’t go past ios6 due to how way the iOS was written as well as size of the update. The 4 and 4s were perhaps the worst offenders each only being able to go a few compared to the new phones, but recently they are seeing at least 5 year OS support. And while it’d be nice to go longer, most tech savvy people will have upgraded by the end of that 5 years.

Didn't they just get popped for intentionally slowing down older phones with their updates though?

Here are the options with a degraded Li-ion battery: either you throttle the SoC so that peak power usage doesn’t exceed the decreased amount that the aged battery can provide, or you let the SoC attempt to run to its designed peak wattage and cause the device to crash (since the battery can no longer provide the power needed). Which is better in terms of a usability scenario?

You're framing this as if those are the only two options here. They can also optimize the release for these older phones, offer security-only updates, build their phones so that you can easily replace the weak link (the battery), not offer updates, or at the very least tell users they are going to slow down the phone with the update. Apple surprisingly chose the option that would annoy people into buying a new phone, without telling them, and got caught. It's absurd to claim that they had no other choice in this matter.

They can also optimize the release for these older phones,

Software releases are optimized for older devices as much as possible. There’s only so much you can do for devices that have 25% of the CPU/GPU performance of current devices.

offer security-only updates

If Apple released security-only updates for older devices, people would cry planned obsolescence, “this is just a ploy to get us to buy new phones!”, etc.

build their phones so that you can easily replace the weak link (the battery)

iPhone batteries are among the easiest to replace in the industry. Instead of sealing all sides of the phone with adhesive, Apple utilizes a system of screws, clips, and pull tabs that make replacing a battery a matter of a few minutes. Additionally, battery replacements are only $29 through any authorized service provider.

not offer updates,

Again, people would moan about planned obsolescence (which is actually what not offering updates would be) if they cannot see the latest emojis, download the most recent apps, or use the latest software features.

or at the very least tell users they are going to slow down the phone with the update.

Why would Apple intentionally slow down an older phone? It makes no sense if you think about it: people would (rightly) get pissed and buy another phone, inflicting losses on Apple in the long run. The best business and most consumer-friendly practice is the one in place: support devices for as long as possible and provide a good user experience for its lifetime so satisfied customers buy new products.

annoy people into buying a new phone, without telling them, and got caught.

The change in software that implemented power restrictions with an aged battery was indicated in iOS release notes. People usually ignore release notes, which is why there is now an entire “Battery” section in Settings that explains power management.

Surely providing the ability to replace the battery is the clear winner here, ala Android.

Huh? Replace able battery haven't been on Android flagship since 3 years ago. At the very least Apple provide official support to replace battery, something that other Android OEM doesn't do.

Android flagship? I don't follow. Many manufacturers use Android, differently to iOS

Android flagship.

There haven't been a replaceable battery on phones, from flagship to mid-tier Android phone in a very long time.

That's why your point is moot.

I'm not sure I agree, my Samsung J5 2016 is definitely mid-tier and it's got a replaceable battery. I can't speak for other models however.

That's an old phone? One exception doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, which is the huge majority of Android phones no longer have replaceable battery.

I'll agree to disagree.

Not sure what you disagree with, considering the fact is that no notable Android phones support removable battery.

Is there a single Android device that gets official support/updates as long as iPhones do?

The issue (in this context) with Android is that the OS manufacturer and hardware manufacturer are different companies with different objectives in mind. This has benefits in that you have a wide selection of phones at varying prices, but it's much easier to update when everything is designed in-house.

Bullshit. They support their phone far longer than any other manufacturer. They only drop support when the hardware no longer supports the features of the new OS.

You could say the the Mac side is more limited as Windows will run on some really old shit, but it’s again due to hardware limitations and trying to keep a tight support fleet.

Apple's deliberate and proven slowing of the processor isn't an example of planned obsolescence?

It’s either slowing the processor or letting the phone crash constantly because it can’t pull enough power from the degraded battery, up to you.

It is planned obsolescence. You don't think some MBA was sitting there and trying to think of a way to push people to upgrade?

Yeah, dropping support after four years of regular updates. Last time I checked the average support period for a Samsung phone was like 24 months.

Wow, don't open your mouth when you don't know what you're talking about.

You switched to apple because you want continuous updates on the same old phone? lol

Lol. That’s the entirety of the discussion this thread is about. That’s some next level reading comprehension you’ve got there buddy.

Speaking of... while researching your purchase did you comprehend that apple make low-spec high-price junk and are basically the tech world's pioneer of planned obsolescence?

[removed]

[deleted]

Ya, some aren't technically inclined enough to use them unfortunately. So it's not the perfect solution. Manufacturers should be the ones handling updates and for much longer than 18 months.

If the person who sold you that phone deceived you into believing that you'd receive updates to the present day, then you'd have a path to restitution via existing laws regarding fraud.

I think it's more likely that you got what you paid for, and that if you'd had your way -- which is to say, if people had used guns to force others to act in a way which supposedly served your interests -- then the phone, if it existed at all, would have been too expensive for your liking and you'd be advocating with the same disregard for morality yet another law that you'd think would result in the same product at a lower price.

[deleted]

Let's say, hypothetically, that it is stupid that a company designs, builds and offers to sell you a smartphone with no promise of any future updates. Where is the connection between that and your implicit claim that it would be moral to use the threat of violence to prevent them from doing so?

[deleted]

If you support a law, what do you believe should happen to someone who violates that law?

[deleted]

Why would someone pay the fine or walk into the jail cell?

He's saying that the government uses the implicit threat of violence in order to compel anyone to follow the lines.

His point is, is it fair to have the threat of violence upon you because the consumer assumed their device would be supported forever, or even at all, when there were no explicit advertisements stating as such.

But, that is not exactly planned obsolescence, you bought an android oreo phone and if it continues to function as an android oreo phone, it is not obsolete, you still are able to access everything that was offered to you during the time of sale and what you paid for. This is more in line of stopping apple from slowing down old phones when new one's come out.

PC OSs are updated for a decade or more, and when they stop you can just install another.

That's just Windows though. MacOS never gets support for such a long time and normal Linux distributions without paid support neither.

Oh, and both Windows 7 and 8.1 are already out of regular support. It's just security fixes now.

I installed MacOS High Sierra (the current newest Mac OS) on a 2009 iMac, so it’s at least 9 years back.

There are security issues all the time, and my phone hasn't seen an Android update in 4 years.

How old is your phone if it hasn't had an update in 4 years? They usually update them for at least a year.

At a certain point we have to let things become obsolete. Existing infrastructure is a massive burden from a maintenance perspective. It holds back innovation. If we rebuilt everything tomorrow with today's technology, everything would be much more advanced. So it's a trade-off between reasonably supporting legacy technology, versus moving forward to newer and better things.

If this is focused on Android makers not releasing updates I’ll believe it’s a real effort instead of just a publicity reaction to whatever the recent Apple panic is about.

Battery health and life is no "publicity reaction". Manufacturers understand how fast and much Lithium batteries degrade and they make them unreplacable on purpose so when they, go everything goes.

Like other posters have mentioned, computer parts like the CPU and RAM have essentially indefinite lifespan, and the only reason for replacement is increasing OS requirements.

Considering many modern (android) phones come stock with 8GB ram and powerhouse CPUs, forcing all manufacturers to implement replaceable batteries and (potently)lifelong service upgrades would extend the lifespan of phones, laptops, and tablets by years.

Edit: I realize the article made no mention of lifelong service upgrades but other commenters hinted at it and it would be a very plasusible policy to implement

Battery's should last a long time they just get worse and worse life. Many were replaceable, upto the galaxy s5 for Samsung. The number one reason believe it or not appears to be water resistance. You won't get a phone with an easily accessible battery that also has an IP68 rating.

Not that they mind you buying a new phone earlier than you otherwise would

But it's not impossible to change the battery in newer devices it's just difficult and may carry some risks but if your phone is near useless anyway it's worth the shot.

I agree totally, but water resistance doesnt mean no replaceable batteries. It means its a lot harder with potentially uglier phones.

But yeah replacing the battery on unibody devices is absurdly hard for the common user and voids the warranty in most cases. Having a removable back and keeping an extra battery on you is something I'd love to see again.

That's why I had to buy a powerbank.

[deleted]

The issue you can not do that at home. And you have to pay way more than the cost of the battery.

My old phone whitch you could replace the battery only costs about $20 to buy the battery but my note 5 God forbid I want to get a new battery I have to go to a ATT store and then pay $50. That's stupid.

[deleted]

You can't swap the battery out of a note 5 because of how they glued that glass back on. So if you remove the back you have to buy the glue they used and the battery. And the note 5 isn't water proof btw

Since when water resistance has become such a huge issue? Did every phone user become scuba diver to need an IP68 phone? Simple splash resistance is ok.

I had a galaxy j7, not water resistant, and probably the 3rd day I had it I accidentally pushed it in the sink. That shit stopped working immediately. Eventually it turned back on, but the LCD was discolored and the buttons at the bottom wouldn't work. Water resistance would have been great in that instance.

The logic just isn't there for me on this though you can make a phone water resistant and people can buy a case to improve that further. The amount of people who will need their phone replaced due to water damage is minimal however not being able to replace the batter means literally everyone will need to replace their phone.

You only need to replace the battery one time in 3 or 4 years so the process being difficult is not that big an issue. Also people generally replace their phones sooner, but as tech has gotten better there will be less of a reason to keep changing phones if it works so battery replacement will probably become more desirable.

Batteries in these phones aren't unreplaceable, just not easy for customers to do. Pretty much all manufacturers will change the battery for a fee when it's at the end of it's life.

This includes firstly the common user understanding that its the battery shitting the bed, not the phone itself. (See: Apple throttling the whole phone to extend the degrading batteries life) Next, it would likely involve shipping your phone off to some repair facility in any random country for service, which could realistically take up to a month for transit + repair time. That is not something most if any consumers are willing to do.

Having the back pop off and spare batteries available at your local tech shop is a much better solution in my opinion.

Also, the golden days of hot swapping a dead battery will return. I dont need to carry my 20,000mAh absolute unit of a power bank in my bag anymore!

Samsung has repair facilities all over the us. I had dead pixels show up and was in and out in under 25 minutes of waiting around + 4 hours while they did the repairs. Got a call it was done and walked out of there without so much as swiping my cc.

Apple does as well.

Common users don't care and don't keep their phones long enough for this to be an issue.

The Apple situation only relates to Apple, and they got caught immediately. Do Europeans understand at all, the concept of just not buying from companies whose practices you disagree with? There are a lot of choices beyond Apple.

They would keep their phones if they kept working. I am not referring to the Apple users who will ditch an iPhone 8 for the X after one year. I am talking about the vast majority of users who upgrade when it starts to die. Replaceable batteries would extend this lifespan a lot.

Given that phone upgrades are going to get less and less substantial? We'll see people being ready to keep their devices for decades.

Are there seriously non replaceable batteries in android phones? Or are they just glued in like Apple?

I ask because there is a big difference between non replaceable (2016-2018 MacBook Pro) and non USER replaceable (every other Apple device since the unibody aluminum MacBook Pro was released).

Just because you have to turn a few screws, and delaminate a little glue does not make a battery totally unserviceable.

Unserviceable? No. But the overwhelming majority of users don't know what "delaminating glue" is and will never look in to it. Having a back cover you pop off, and swap the battery is what everyone can and will do.

Yeah except not having something user replaceable doesn’t meet the definition of planned obsolescence. Most people can’t service their own vehicles either, but we don’t say a car has planned obsolescence because the transmission needs serviced every 30k miles. (Nissan CVTs post 2010 as an exception, fuck you guys where is my drain plug, fill plug, and dipstick?)

I totally get your angle on this, but in my opinion when the warranty is voided and the manufacturer actively discourages servicing, then I think the water is muddied.

Cars on the other hand come with manuals on how to repair, parts are available directly from the manufacturer, and many repairs & modifications do not void your warranty.

I get that point, however theoretically 3rd party or user service should not void warranties anymore (at least in the US, recent court ruling), plus like my vehicle example below, if its in warranty why not just have it fixed? It doesn't matter if you void the warranty if you're already out of the covered period, which is the only time you should have to replace a failing battery anyways.

As for cars, user modifications absolutely can void warranties. Chipped it for more power? No more warranty, and this is 100% software.

If I added a drain plug to the bottom of my girls Nissan it would void that warranty too. Although, hers is up anyways so thats kinda moot.

Fair point. I am still pro-replacable because most people dont know to replace the battery, and being able to keep a spare battery in your bag to hot swap whenever it dies is dope. I enjoyed hearing your POV!

A level headed debate based on logic and reasoning? This isn't reddit!

In all seriousness though, same to you, and I totally get the appeal of having a spare battery to pop in when yours dies. That sounds way better than carrying around a power bank. (although this is getting better with USB C, as one can charge all their devices with the same inverter.)

[deleted]

Yeah I think you might've responded to the wrong comment. I think we are on the same side here?

A made mention of “publicity reaction” because these stories and the public reaction to them aren’t justifiable based on the big picture. They are almost always about Apple because the press knows that gets page views due to their popularity and how eager Apple haters eat this stuff up. I didn’t say battery health issues aren’t problems but put in the context of other issues that lead to obsolescence, planned or otherwise, it isn’t that big of a deal. The issue around the battery stuff that came out about iPhones was more an issue of Apple being honest with customers and how they dealt with a shutdown problem they were getting complaints about. It isn’t unreasonable of them to limit CPU usage if battery performance was at the end of its lifecycle and it was causing system shutdowns. Should they have come up with a better solution, possibly. Should they have been more upfront about it, absolutely. But batteries have a fixed lifespan and Apple (and other manufacturers) have always offered a way to replace them.

These batteries are almost never “unreplacable”, they just need to be replaced by someone other than the customer. Saying that a battery has to be user replaceable and if it’s not the company is guilty of planned obsolescence is a bit silly. But Apple deserved every bit of criticism they got as it pertains to how they implemented this throttling without telling customers. They also deserve to be criticized for their insistence all service on Apple products needs to be done by someone they authorize. I get that requirement if the device is under warranty, but Apple takes these restrictions too far.

The larger issue with planned obsolescence is when phone manufacturers (and Apple is included in this, though they’re less guilty of it than others) don’t provide software updates to older phones that they could if they wanted to. That impacts more people (given the popularity of Android phones and the stats of how many people actually upgrade) and rarely gets mentioned by the press for the above stated reasons. Also, if software upgrades happened regularly CPUs most assuredly don’t have indefinite lifespans.

So when I say I’ll believe this is a real plan by the EU if it’s not based on public reaction, I’m not saying it to excuse other behaviour. It’s because I think there’s a lot of more important stuff that the press and politician ignore. If these regulations are based on all of these issues, great. If they’re based on just stuff in the press or the silly idea that phones should be able to last forever than I’ll have an issue with it.

manufacturers) have always offered a way to replace them.

Yes by shipping your phone off to India and paying a lot of money to be using a burner for a month

they just need to be replaced by someone other than the customer

After the warranty ends or that will be instantly voided

Also, if software upgrades happened regularly CPUs most assuredly don’t have indefinite lifespans.

I agree, as that's exactly what I said. However, in the mobile space aside from gaming, processors should be able to last a very long time as is right now. The battery is guaranteed to be the first part to go and with the battery gone, as Apple has shown us the phone may throttle in order to keep some semblance of lifespan. Being able to buy new batteries on a whim to simply have a backup, or to replace a year old dwindling battery is a great idea that should have never died as a feature.

  1. What? You don’t need to ship your iPhone overseas to get a battery replaced. It’s done at an Apple Store in a few minutes. If the phone is under warranty you can pretty much get anything fixed in a few minutes. I had dirt in a speaker on my 6s and got a new phone in less than 10 minutes.
  2. If it’s done at an Apple Store or authorized service professional, no, it won’t void the warranty.
  3. I agree with most of this up until the idea that batteries need to be user replaceable. The idea of getting a new battery hasn’t died, you could before the Apple story and you can now after (and for less money).

For apple you are all correct. But more android phones exist than iPhones and I dont know of too many LG or Samsung stores around that service phones (I could be wrong here). From my past experience all warranty claims on my phones I had to use a burner for a while when I sent it overseas.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but couldn’t you just take it to a local repair shop, or if not done already have these companies authorize small repair shops to do a battery replacement and give them access to parts

That would be something the EU is aiming to do. Currently taking it to your local shopping malls Cell-Tell or whatever and getting the battery done is unauthorized.

Okay so that is a huge part of the problem. If they can get that into the law and allow local repair ships to to officially replace the battery, especially at a reasonable cost, then we may have a perfect solution to form factor, water resistance and battery.

Also I’m not too sure the details of android, but if they don’t already have a battery life indicator, kind like what Apple was forced to implement, then that would help people know what’s wrong with their phone.

Edit: Spelling

Nothing is baked in, there is apps that can do it but again, no average Joe is going to know or seek out how many charge cycles he's used and what the current max capacity mAh is compared to factory spec.

I agree about your first point but I still dream of a world with a removable battery on every phone, and it is one unanimous standard. Never going to happen but a man can dream.

If that’s the case that add that to the list of things I think they should be addressing. But those things don’t have to be addressed by a user replaceable battery (I don’t want a plastic phone with a removable back panel) and my concern is still that they don’t address the software/OS side of things. Politicians tend not to be the best at figuring out where tech issues are and how to fix them without becoming a cumbersome burden to companies and consumers. That’s why my concern is that they’ll only focus on what gets covered in the press, and the stuff that gets coverage and public attention tends to be whatever gets clicks... not what the actual biggest issues are.

Do I think there probably needs to be more regulation on this stuff? Yes. Am I confident the EU is going to address this rationally and comprehensively? Not really.

Everything goes? What are you talking about? It’s $30 for a new battery from Apple (which you can get at that price from other locations even, like Best Buy).

My father has an older ipad. Thing still feels lile its running pretty fast . But it wont update after ios 9.3.5 he asked me to put kindle reader on it the other day and I couldnt because most of the apps on app store only work on ios 10 or higher. And theres no way to put older apps or apps no longer in the store on your tablet.
so yeah fuck apple.

There is actually a trick to this.. if you have a phone or tablet with newer ios on the same apple account, download it on that. Then try the ipad again.. it will prompt you to use an older version because you already “own” it.

Could this work by going on itunes program on a computer and getting it ? Il try it out when im back over theirs

It used to, but they seemed to have removed that feature from itunes.

Making an older ipad more or less obsolete even though my father was only using it for emails browsing and wanted to use it as a e-reader. which it is more than capable of doing

IIRC that is because Apple is switching to 64-bit and wants all the apps to be 64-bit as well. iOS 10 is the first OS to support 64-bit apps.

No, first iOS to support 64 bit apps was iOS 7. But 10 has a warning if app is 32-bit only, and 11 just dropped support for them altogether.

Its still a shame they just stop supporting tech that was still pretty expensive a few years ago and still has enough power to do a lot of tasks. I understand things need to move forward but apple just seem to forget about all the slightly older tech instantly when somthing new comes about.

All those tech that stopped at iOS 9.3.5 were close to 6 years old...

Based on the final iOS version it would be an iPad mini 1, iPad 2, or iPad 3.

That means a release window from early 2012 to late 2012 . Are you seriously surprised that support has ended after 6 years? Its trying to push a Retina display on 512mb-1gb of ram. Updating it to iOS 11 with all new features would make it downright unusable. This is far from planned obsolescence and more like the constant march of technology.

The other option is to have a horribly fragmented system that is admittedly much more open, but also incredibly confusing and open to malicious actors.

The problem is not being able to install app that used to work years ago because those version aren't accessible.

At least that is what I get from their post. I don't personally own an Apple product.

The problem is not being able to install app that used to work years ago because those version aren't accessible.

You can access older versions, it's a bit tricky though.

That's actually an argument I hadn't considered. They should absolutely have a way to install the last compatible version.

When’s the last time you’ve seen somebody use an Android tablet from 2012?

Android tablet from 2012 min cost around 40- 50 pound. How much where ipods new around that time?And you can install older versions of apps on android tablets and they are useful as media players still.

You can still install older versions of apps on old iOS devices and use them as media players. As is the case with Android, once developers drop support for older operating systems, new and updated apps will not be available for vintage devices.

You have to look at it in the sense of the app developers had to probably rewrite code for the newer updates. It would be nice for developers to keep all their versions available for download but if let’s say a gen 1 iPhone update gets one download a year it doesn’t really make sense to keep it up

I think a lot of people blame “planned obsolescence” when they don’t understand the fragility of modern electronics or the constantly increasing demands on hardware as you add software features.

As an example- if you buy purely mechanical versions of modern appliances without any of the electronic bells and whistles, they still last quite a long time. It’s usually the electronics that give out on $9000 laundry machines.

Pretty much. The fact is, circuit-boards can only last for so long before some inherent defect causes it to break.

To my understand it's usually some small, cheap and ubiquitous component that fails, and causes people to shout "planned obsolescence!".

Cheap capacitors, transistors run at the max end of their specifications, that sort of thing.

It's difficult to categorise, since the engineers probably knew that it would fail quicker than it should, if they had used a couple of cents more on the whole board's components, but at the same time that might be cost savings.

The PCB itself is unlikely to fail, even if made quite cheaply, it's the generic every day components that fail.

It's difficult to categorise, since the engineers probably knew that it would fail quicker than it should, if they had used a couple of cents more on the whole board's components, but at the same time that might be cost savings.

You've also got to balance expected lifetime. It's a waste of humanity's resources to make a washing machine that is guaranteed to last 100 years, it would be so overbuilt that it would be essentially wasting material since the average person isn't going to keep it for 100 years, and hundreds of thousands are going to be manufactured. Expected lifetime is the average, so some are going to fail sooner.

One of the most underrated comments in this entire post.

In the world of technology, devices can only keep up for so long before they can’t manage with what the world now has to offer. I remember I used to have an MP3 player with a 32mb SD card. Can’t remember the last time I saw an SD card under a 1GB. Technology evolves. I like your example because the mechanical side will often be more stable and the limiting factor is the electronics.

I still have a 16MB SD card, came with an old camera. Absolutely useless.

Planned obsolescence is applied to everything from jeans to industrial machinery. It is not only about electronics.

And about electronics, it gets to a point where you don't need anymore power and that is when planned obsolescence matters a lot. I have 150 songs in my phone's SD card, and it is only ~15% full or the like. Why do I need bigger SD cards? I am also very happy with my phone and see no reason to change it. But I know I will have to, either because fixing it will be more expensive than buying a new one (fuck them) or because my internal memory will be filled with crap: it is 8GB big, but the SO keeps filling it with crap and complains it can not install an update because there is not enough space when I had 500 MB empty and the update was 20 MB big. So planned obsolescence is still very relevant to high tech.

[removed]

That’s probably part of it, but we have about 100 years more experience making reliable mechanical objects, and circuitry is inherently less durable too. Especially as we push the frontier of miniaturization.

[removed]

It would be hard to achieve a super reliable long-lasting iPhone X given how aggressive Apple is with shrinking things. We could make a washer as reliable as, say, a digital parking meter, but then it would cost $27k like the digital parking meters do. Getting mechanical reliability out of an object priced for consumers is tough. Especially given the constant pressure for large profit margins on public companies in this era.

And so by modularizing you could make replacing the <<$1000 of electronics the fix instead of buying a new whole machine.

[removed]

You didn't see this in your first first? What do you mean?

[deleted]

I'm afraid I still don't understand and that you're being downvoted because others also don't.

Did you have a stroke?

[deleted]

Yeah I totally agree. Things last less time now, but they also cost less in real dollars. I'm not sure I buy the conspiracy, so much as companies are just competing against each other on cost.

Cost, efficiency, speed, etc. it’s quicker, easier, and cheaper to glue parts together than use nuts/bolts or screws. Takes less space as well.

Galaxy S5 had a removable battery and water resistance.

And that water resistance actually failed a few times for my friend. So, it’s possible, but it’s not gonna be as safe as internal battery

Actually, it's much safer to remove the battery if your phone's internals get wet so you don't short out any of them components with the ions in the water. The fact that the battery hidden under the screen and a midframe is just so you aren't inclined to buy a new battery instead of buying a new phone. In my opinion, that's why they have a glass back panel too, so if you drop it, there are two sides that can shatter. Twice the chance of you buying a new one.

Yeah, glass back is for shattering, not because aluminum and stainless steel are non-conductive (so goodbye wireless charging) and Samsung ruined plastic for everyone with glossy/bandaid phones.

I've never heard anyone complain about Samsung's removable plastic back panel. Except you to make this disingenuous argument.

I guess you hadn’t been on XDA and Reddit back then. Everyone and their mother complained about that glossy plastic from Galaxy S3

Well, shattering too, but mostly to make it more likely to slide and fall off things.

It was ip67, not ip 68, and i would prefer the non removable battery and ip68 rating any day as the s5 water resistance failed for me

Can confirm, dropped mine in the toilet cleaned it waited 1h of it turned off and it's just as mediocre as before

Lol for a 32 bit phone, the s5 is really still pretty impressive, I still use mine with no problem, except for maybe storage space.

This comment has been brought to you by a galaxy s4 in a waterproof case.

Galaxy S5 may have been sold as water resistant, but it was shit. Just google it. Mine failed first time and I’m far far from alone.

It's probably possible to work a way to easily replace the battery with one of these new phone designs.

Why does everyone forget the S5 when this conversation comes up. Fanboys are like we can't have removeable batteries because they aren't waterproof. They work just fine, I've been using my S5 in the pool and shower for almost 4 years now with no problems

I remember all the reports I heard of the waterproofing failing and think it might not be the best example.

I only spent a minute or two googling but every complaint I found was from people admitting the usb cover wasn't sealed all the way when they dropped it or the cover broke off entirely. That has nothing to do with the battery and everything to do with user error

I think the first (and probably hardest) step is defining and outlining what planned obscellence actually is. Once it’s defined and parameters are set, you can test devices against those parameters to see if they meet the requirements or not.

I’d also disagree with requiring removable batteries and such, I’d prefer water resistance over that any day (and as far as I know they’re pretty much mutually exclusive)

Why would they be mutually exclusive? Also, the Samsung Galaxy S5 had a removable battery and was water resistant.

An other aspects IMHO would be to make it reasonably easy to replace components and make said components available.

Hopefully we'll figure it out before the Earth goes hothouse.

It's not mutually exclusive like you think it is. I removed an unremovable battery with my heatgun and resealed it afterwards. Still water proof.

You can’t in most cases and a lot of planned obsolescence isn’t actually planned obsolescence but cheaper designs using cheaper materials and mass production because consumers won’t buy more expensive things. A lot of problems have to do with the limited lifetimes of electronics and components like batteries as well. Much of the stuff will last a long time but continually producing the parts gets very expensive for companies when you are producing such a low quantity. A lot of people don’t really know what it is which was apparent when Apple had faulty batteries and tried to mitigate it. The design also changes on devices and cars etc frequently not necessarily because of some grand evil scheme but because if they don’t change it and someone else does, they will lose money when people switch. I believe in second hand repairs and allowing access to make parts of the company won’t (which can occur with 3d printing now) but a lot of what we have now is because of consumers. One thing that should definitely be increased is warranties especially in the US.

In some cases, like printers that start failing after x pages have been printed (and can be fixed by flashing a rom chip) it is pretty easy to prove. There are more sinister planned obsolescence applications, like power tools or light bulbs. These are more difficult and the tech is constantly changing, so companies can just blame growing pains.

If you can go back and prove that something like a light bulb 100 years ago lasted 10x longer than the bulbs from the 1940s, in the 50s and 60s saw light bulbs drop to 5000 hours. Down to 1000 hours by 1990. It seems like you can create a 'base line' for products. Or at least require them to list the life expectancy.

Well considering an internal battery replacement means losing water resistance, I'd rather not pay $900 every couple of years to occasionally use my phone in a pool.

No, removable batteries, waterproofing, and aesthetics are Mutually exclusive.

This would disrupt the whole (in my opinion stupid) thinness competition. Unibody design is the new rage, that would be over. Phones would need to be more than 6mm thick to accomodate these features.

Also, waterproof cases exist for most major phones. I know its not a perfect solution and some people like being caseless but we would overall be much better off having the ability to replace batteries than go swimming with our naked phones.

Edit: Id also argue any manufacturer that doesnt have replaceable batteries is using planned obselecence. Lithium batteries degrade insanely fast, look up battery capacity curves and those are all in ideal conditions. Phones can get super hot and super cold in some climates and degrade even faster. After a year or so many devices have 50-70% of their original capacity.

[deleted]

I put a giant ass case on the phone anyways, effectively doubling the thickness, and it's a pretty popular case, so I think maybe the manufacturers are the only ones concerned with it.

And I'm not okay with a phone the size of a brick, I want my phones thin, my display end to end, and my phone fast and good looking/feeling.

To each their own. I value performance and durability first. Aesthetics are less important to me, as is size provided it fits in my pocket.

I also think a lot of people are just to stupid/lazy to fix it themselves and easier (not cheaper) to get new. Oh it's a broken dryer it won't dry, time to buy a brand new one. Easy fix, $30 (give or take) heating element.. Boom good to go.

I remember my gramps back in the day fixing a tube tv. Lasted like another 10 years. I get tech has advanced hugely. It's just getting to the point it's throw away tech if it breaks when in reality a lot of things can be easily repaired.

This can go for cars to. Even when I worked on my old Lincoln mark viis back in the day. It's so much easier than it is now. I mean can you even change a heater core on these new cars or does the whole engine have to come out versus the dash. A days work with a case of beer or a weeks worth of hell.

Really trying to ingrain this in my college age kids. Your car is doing X and engine light comes on, get the code read for free at Auto place, find the part, search YouTube see if the install is doable. And if it is do it. Literally YouTube videos show how to do almost everything now, its crazy. That said I've changed a dryer element before it is easy, I also changed this washer thing, like the vacuum cleaner belt but for a washer, holy hell, I did it, but that one I should have just bought a new washer. I looked at that washer with disdain every time I used it for the extra 3 years I got it working again.

Is it actually possible to make obsolescence obsolete?

You can buy commercial (not consumer) grade appliances, they are pretty much meant to handle being beaten on a daily basis, but that doesn't apply with everything. The dishwashers at a restaurant I've been to was 14 IIRC, that doesn't sound like much but it's been used day after day after day, parts are easy to come by if needed, solid stainless steel.

Commercial grade computers tend to be more solid too, especially laptops.

[deleted]

I was just trying to be philosophical on the idea. Familiar with the tactic and glad to see things may be built to last.

Ok, while this is a great idea on paper, there are going to be issues... To start, Im a design engineer in aerospace, however I have worked as a mechanical and electrical design engineer earlier in my career. There is no such thing as an infinite service life: everything must be designed understanding that it will fail after a certain amount of time. Reliability is expensive. Very expensive... So asking manufacturers to try to increase product lifespans will ultimately result in increased product costs... Not to mention that this kind of legislation would be damn near impossible to enforce...

mainly the problem is Apple loading software that previous phones can't handle.

Oh, I think that is a clear point where legislation is needed. I just wanted to point out to people complaining that products fail right as the warranty ends that the warranty is to cover product failure before the product design life is over...

Awesome, I love being in the EU. Oh wait, I'm fucking British.

planned obsolescence

so..brexit was planned obsolescence for you :)

It's funny but I'm crying inside.

/r/retiredmemes

I actually am British though so not having EU rules will suck.

In any Brexit scenario we end up with, we will still be totally adhering to EU standards. We aren’t going to destroy the economy

[deleted]

WE WILL KICK ALL THE IMMIGRANTS OUT THE COUNTRY bar my wife who is German VOTE UKIP!

[deleted]

Were keeping their laws until like 2022 when hopefully we won't have the Tories so will keep the vast majority of these pro consumer rights laws and keep up to speed with the content.

As someone who hates our disposable society, I'd love to see this happen.

On the other hand, do you want consumer technology to remain stagnant for 10 years before it can innovate and make any changes?

The reason devices go 'obsolete' is because better replacements arise very quickly. The innovation is going to continue, its just a question of whether people will be able to afford it if tech-makers have to build devices that won't go obsolete.

[deleted]

It will still eat into their market and hence their profitability. There will always be people 2 standard deviations on the right of the curve who will gobble up every new bit of tech that comes out, but there is a huge group of late adopters on the left side of the bell who will take forever to buy new things. Those people are who planned obsolescence aimed to capture more of, to fuel profits which often results in growth and development of new products. You can argue the merits of that, but there is some well researched papers about how producing some of these smaller, less repairable electronics products in the early 2000s broke a long stagnation of innovation in battery technology.

No it does not work like that in practice. Companies does not innovate for you to buy their phones. they innovate so they can make money.

the fact that, say 20 million phones break every year. means that apple can reliably know that 20 million people will need a new phone this year. this gives more incentive to innovate. there is way more money to be earned, and thus they will want to innovate more. if they don't have a top of the line phone by next year, somebody else will instead. and now they will earn 20 million phones worth of profit.

like it or not. the surge of smartphones we have today can be directly contributed to the fact that they break so often. billions of dollars are spent every year developing smartphones. and that would not be possible if not billions of dollars of smartphones was being sold.

[deleted]

Actually, it does. Companies innovate to meet a demand and to know what sells. So no, planned obsolesce in no way, shape, or form drives innovation, that's false.

If phones do not break then demand will be at a fraction of what it is today. it is just flat out wishful thinking that anyone would spend billions of dollars on developing a phone without having anyone need to buy it. no mater how hard you wish to innovate, a cellular microprocessor is still going to cost you a billion dollars. and you have to earn that money somehow.

No, that surge came from the introduction in 2007 when everyone saw how popular they were. Before that it was a race to see how small you could make your phone.

What does that have to do with anything? just becouse people really wants a smart phone. or really wants a small phone. does not change that you have to spend money to develop one. if there is little money to be made then you can't develop something expensive

you seem to be pursuing the rather odd idea that the more reason you have to innovate. the more you are going to innovate. I can not think of a single example where this is true. virtually every single thing that has had a rapid development in the last decades are all things that are rapidly disposed. Feel free to prove me wrong

I love the way the posts that say the truth get downvoted. People forget how things have changed. Apliances use less energy, less water. We have better phones etc and all this especially because its cheaper but will break earlier.

Why is she using tweezers and a Phillips on a broken phone screen

Have to remove all glass to replace

How do you even prove or prevent this?

It boggles my mind that so many people have to replace their appliances. The dryer i got for free on Craigslist was a LG that needed a new relay. The washer was a whirlpool that a family friend was complaining “smelled” , I cleaned it, replaced the door gasket and the pump had never been pulled out and cleaned. A lot of failed appliances can be fixed for cheap and most people don’t seem to read or keep manuals that list problem solving or have diagrams for service and repair.

As someone that worked for a rent to own place this is very true. I don't know how many appliances I fixed with limited work.

I had an apt. washer the customer complained wouldn't drain. When I pulled the pump it was completely packed with sand. She got the machine brand new and assured me she never washed anything with sand in it... Sure.

You would be amazed at the amount of products that get thrown out for something so basic, I've had a Samsung monitor/tv combo come to me that needed new capacitors in the power supply and it's still going good. A 20 year old Mitsubishi tv I got needed an IC replaced and as far as I'm aware from the friend, it's still running. I'm not an expert for repairing electronics, but i give it a shot.

Read manuals? Do things for ourselves? This is madness. I just want to throw money at the situation and make my problems go away /s

The manuals say nothing. Internet though is a different story. Our Bosch dishwasher throws up an error code now and then and the answer is CALL A TECHNICIAN! Don’t use it until they check it! How many technicians in Alberta? About 3. The problem? Your filter is dirty. Take it out and wash it. That’s the code: dirty filter, and it’s a twist and pull. The manual talks you how to clean it but doesn’t tell you that’s the code that you waited too long.

The dishwasher I have has a detailed maintenance section and full OEM diagram.

Printers. Seriously printers. I can't remember what brand it was but they actually had a kill code in their printer. You could do a factory reset to get around it but the average grandma would just buy a new printer

Ink cartridges and printers are the biggest scam of the modern world

HP makes their cartridges expire, need it or not you’ll be replacing the ink.

Brother seems to be much better, I recommend them, they have been great. If they fail, and they do, they aren’t too expensive to replace.

We'll just see prices skyrocket for hardware with a slightly longer life expectancy.

Europe is too big a market to inflate prices. There is plenty of competition in the hardware market.

Yes, the competition is extreme in the hardware market. This is why manufacturers cut costs as much as possible for every single component while disregarding life expectancy. I think that prices will skyrocket because everyone is currently caught in a race to the bottom in terms of prices. If you cut this race then quality will improve, but so will costs

It's not as extreme as you think. Many products that could last a long time are limited by one or two components that break much sooner than the rest of the item. All they'd have to do is improve those parts.

It's not about cheaper vs more expensive components, it's about design.

There is no reason an Iphone with removable battery should cost more than one with it fixed.

[deleted]

At least 2c worth.

probably way more than 2c. even if its only 25c multiply that buy like 100m+ iPhones and that's a huge chunk of money

So the price goes up 25c and my Ipod lasts an extra 4 years. Sign me up.

unfortunately economics doesn't work like that. If your iPod, and everyone else's, lasts 4 years longer than that means less iPods bought. Less iPods bought means less money going to Apple. Less money going to Apple means a that they either increase the price of the iPod that now lasts longer to offset the loss in revenue from less being sold and/or they lay off a bunch of people designing/producing/marketing the iPod because with less revenue they don't hire as many people. With less people working on the iPod it also means innovation on the iPod slows down and newer and better versions that once took X amount of years (short amount of time) now takes Y amount of years (much longer time). Mandating how long a product can last has many unforeseen consequences. It also likely means no more tiered products- so now, say, if you couldn't afford the top tier iPod well too bad because there's zero reason for apple to produce something for cheaper i.e. the shuffle vs iPod touch (which by design wouldn't last as long) that would be marketed to people who couldn't/didn't want the more expensive version. There would likely only be one type of iPod produced since there's now zero incentive to produce a cheaper one if it's mandated to last just as long as the more expensive one, which screws over all the people who couldn't afford the better one to begin with. You can apply these same scenarios to practically any company.

Less money going to Apple means a that they either increase the price of the iPod

They can't increase prices without affecting sales, or they would have done it already. Prices aren't set by "we need to achieve X profit margin", they are set by "this will maximise profits, by affecting sales x profit margin"

and/or they lay off a bunch of people designing/producing/marketing the iPod

They are always going to have designers. Bringing out a new product every year is unnecessary and part of the planned obsolescence.

With less people working on the iPod it also means innovation on the iPod

Do they sell Ipods still? Ipod "innovation" was basically just bigger screens and more storage. Either way, if they innovate less, the competition will take up their slack.

You left out one alternative - they make less money. I'd be Ok with that, Apple are now a trillion $ company.

They are always going to have designers. Bringing out a new product every year is unnecessary and part of the planned obsolescence.

If they aren't bringing out a new product every year then that means they don't need as many designers/marketers/PR people, engineers/workers at every level. And if you are somehow arguing that they maintain their current workforce then there would be no other choice but to raise the price of the product to offset the loss in revenue when people aren't buying a new product as often. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Do they sell Ipods still? Ipod "innovation" was basically just bigger screens and more storage. Either way, if they innovate less, the competition will take up their slack.

This was just an example based on the previous comment. The principle can be applied to any product. Is the iPhone 3gs anywhere near as good as the iPhone 5 or 6 or 8? No, of course not. Think of the principle, not the specific example.

You left out one alternative - they make less money. I'd be Ok with that, Apple are now a trillion $ company.

The only reason Apple is a trillion dollar company is because people choose to buy their products, they didn't force anyone. There are plenty of other companies producing phones that are available for people to buy. Why fault a successful company? It makes no sense to be against a company making big profits when it's entirely based off the fact that consumers are choosing to give them their business.

I wish it was as simple as "My profits are low, I'll increase my prices"

It would cost more because they profit more by forcing you to buy a whole new phone or use one of their overpriced official repair services.

So basically, the cost of an individual device willl increase, but you won't have to give the company as much money total.

There is nothing in the free market that requires firms to have massive profits like Apple does. If Apple wants to charge more for it's non-obsolescent phone, people will switch to Sampsung etc.

By legislating, other makers aren't penalised for providing long-lasting equipment.

If you honestly believe that you can demand better quality products without raising prices you are a moron.

In this case, better = "not designed to fail'. There is no reason the price needs to increase.

The EU already did it with printer cartridges: EU bans “clever chips” in printer cartridges

That I can get behind. Blatant anti-competitive practices should be banned.

I think a lot of people in this thread are whining that their X only lasts Y years, and want a better quality, longer lasting product but don't expect to pay more for it.

My Ipod is useless because the battery doesn't hold charge and can't be replaced. Same with my wife's old phone. My HTC phone is unusable (except as a wireless modem) because the piss-weak USB port is worn from years of use.

None of these require fixes that cost the manufacturer money, just a change of design.

Well to be entirely fair, Apple is raking billions by overcharging for cheap shit. We could ask them to cut profit margins, but this is excessively unlikely to happen.

I don't understand this mindset.

They are raking in billions because the designed a product that people love. People don't have to buy an iPhone, they could buy a phone from dozens of competitors for a lot less money, but they choose to buy the iPhone.

I don't own a single Apple product, but I am not in favor of punishing companies for being successful. What kind of message does that send? Don't do too well or the rest of us will drag you back down?

If you don't like something, vote with your dollars. Don't try to take money from successful things to support things that can't compete.

My point is rather that Apple has the profit margins to absorb manufacturing higher quality products. Many manufacturers don't have this luxury however so we'd need special cases around laws, which don't make great policies in general.

I don't own Apple products either. I think they're overpriced and of average quality at best. If people want to buy them it's their problem. I just made sure it's not mine

Just an FYI, as an engineer, mostly Apple products are designed around quality. Yes they may be hard to repair and fix but they do the right thing for components. They clearly spend the time and energy to make sure that it is designed correctly. Verse others who just slap together a copy of the reference design and buy the cheapest components.

Example is that their electronics generally only use tantalum capacitors instead of electrolytic. Tantalum deals with heat better and do not dry out. Apple routers lasted forever because they were designed correctly. Cheap (sub-$100) use cheap components, often die in a few years or less if in a bad environment. My lady netgear router lasted no more than 6 months before the caps dried out and it failed. I have three airport routers, one is about 15 years old, another is 10 and the last about 5. They all work perfectly, just the newer one has better speed capabilities.

Every Apple laptop I have taken apart, is well thought out and planned. I took the keyboard out of one, and found they have at least one screw for every key; keeps it strong. My dell; no more than a half a dozen total.

They do make an effort to make a good product that is well planned and designed. Not necessarily the fasted or with the newest parts, but those who use them know this. I have both PCs and Macs, both have their uses but few laptops have the quality that apples do. I would say that the surface book seems to be a good machine but I have not yet had to open one.

Relevant nickname, let's downvote all these bots folk.

Sometimes companies only build parts mediocre because they know something will break down after x years, so why build a different component that will last 50 years when the electrical component will only last 15? Do you add extra costs?

The free market often will prioritize cheaper over higher quality in many situations.

What I'd like to see is a modular attempt at engineering. Make it so components, much like desktop computers, can be swapped out as they become old, or easily replaced. Thing is, this costs more money and opens more areas for faults with loose components. Do you want to spend more for this? If so you can always buy the higher priced brands instead of the "economy" version of something.

Wait, you say a consumer grade printer that doesn't suck and that has consumables available for more than two year after market introduction? Crazy talk! Who could possibly make home printers like professional grade ones!

For the current price? No one.

Hopefully this means that removable batteries will come back. I'm sick of carrying around a power bank that's bigger than my phone.

Getting rid of planned obsolescence is nice, but the big deal in this story are the rules on repair. It'll be really nice to have a law saying that people have to be able to repair things, and oh, most importantly, that other companies half to be able to make those parts. No more stupid of overpriced RAM.

WHO KNOWS, THIS COULD MEAN THAT APPLE COMPUTERS MIGHT ACTUALLY BECOME AN OPTION FOR GAMING.

You can't force a company to make a product that won't break. People buy cheap and crappy because it's cheap and it gets the job done. This drives down cost. If people wanted the really expensive never-die products, they find the most reliable products and buy them. This is a consumer-driven issue.

Example: everyone loves Toyotas and Honda's because they are reliable cars. I know lots of people who have them. Why do people still buy Fiat and Dodge and stuff that typically breaks more often?

What about new Samsung fridges and washing machines? They die after 5-8 years, but that's because they're half the cost of a quality Bosch appliances with the same if not more features. Why isn't everyone buying Bosch?

Instead of attempting to prove that a company intentionally sabotaged their own products (which actually does happen, planned obsolecense is a real thing I'm not disputing that), they need to allow for the Right to Repair by providing customers with information on how things fail and how to fix it.

I could see mandatory breakage statistics being a plus, but I could also see a number of ways companies would try to lie about them.

Cost does not equal quality or longevity. I once thought “if you pay more for an appliance it will last”, but this is absolutely not true. 2 old Samsung fridges in my garage are 1/5 the cost of the subzero in the kitchen which has been needed to be fixed 2x in 3 years.

Monogram advantium oven died after 3 years.

5k washer and dryer set both have been completely replaced 3 times in 5 years and I only have 1 kid and mostly dry clean my laundry.

It doesn’t matter how much you spend or on what brand. The extended service plan you buy from the retailer is the only thing that will guarantee you that you will not have to buy a new appliance after 3-5 years.

Planned obsolecence starts at the drawing board when cost is the primary driving factor. Our previous washing machine lasted 31 years. The new one is from one of the premium brands and has already rust in a few places of the middle section.

Instead of using stainless, they used normal and coated it with plastic to make it last. Any imperfection in the plastic allows the base material to start rusting.

The only way to fight this is to enact mandatory guarantee for a period appropriate for the product. If i could go to the shop and say i need a new middle basket because this one is broken, they would never cheap out on it like that.

Why does your washing machine need an enclosure that still looks like the day it was made after 10000 years when the device will never reasonably be expected to last that long?

Incidentally, it’s common for stainless finishes to now be coated to reduce fingerprint marking, and stainless does not mean “will never develop surface oxidation” for all grades, particularly the cheap shit they use for appliances. Your fridge isn’t an aircraft or submarine.

Because it is more economical to have a washing machine that lasts 30 years. Even if you need to put some % of more expensive materials into the steel. Only the manufacturer will hate it since they get to sell 10x less products.

I'm not talking surface oxidation, but structural rust that is eating away at the basket material.

This already exists. If you buy the top-tier washer it will cost you twice as much and be stainless or full metal. You get what you pay for. All a law like this would do is eliminate that bottom tier of washer so now everyone's paying double for that upper tier.

The fact that planned obsolescence is even a thing goes to show that greed has rotted the entire system...

Greed is the system, friend. Capitalism requires those who have more, get even more. And more. And more. That's literally what capitalism is about.

It isn't really. Products are designed to last as long as most users want to use them. Look at cars. Manufacturers of economy cars try to make them last a long time, and the ones that fail tend to sell more poorly and be seen as bad brands. Luxury cars like BMW tend to have reliability issues after a few years, and repair is extremely expensive. BMW doesn't care, because the sort of people who buy BMWs tend not to drive them for more than a few years anyway.

I believe you are confusing planned obsolescence with life expectancy. Planned obsolescence involves intentionally engineering in a failure. I work in manufacturing and this is especially annoying on an industrial level. German engineers like to design machines that have high durability, but designed failures hidden that start dying after about 5 years. When you go to replace these parts they tend to be either buried under a million parts (think high labor and machine downtime) or easily replaced but incredibly overpriced. There is basically by their design a point of ownership where it is more cost effective to buy new than to continue repairing.

In the US some manufacturing companies replace major production machines on a 7 year rotation as a rule so that their bottom line doesn't have to suffer from manager after manager learning this lesson the hard way.

There is a little background info on the topic here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

My point is that people frequently complain about life expectancy not being arbitrarily longer than necessary and accuse the company of designing it to fail. Certainly designed to fail happens, and simply bad design happens. But a lot of time, it would simply cost more than makes sense to increase the lifespan of the product significantly, or it would negatively impact performance or features.

BMW might actually be borderline. I don't know if they purposely design their cars to fail, but have intentionally made maintenance very expensive to reduce second hand usage and make the brand seem more exclusive.

[removed]

[REDACTED] -- mass edited with redact.dev

In a competitive market, you can't profitably sell a significantly inferior product at a given price point. You can't just make a much shittier version of what everyone else is making for the same price and then send the goon squad to people's house and force them to buy it.

Now, what often happens is that companies realize that no one needs or wants something that lasts forty years, so they sell a crappy version of that thing for a third of the price, and everyone buys that.

It's stupid to design a product in the way you've described, because it means you've spent way too much on unnecessarily high reliability parts, just to then go back and cripple them. A smart company designs the whole product down to a price so that there isn't any one weak point.

[removed]

Selling crappy stuff that breaks quickly isn't the same as planned obsolesce. That's just you don't want to pay for reliable things, but then are but hurt that they aren't reliable.

Planned obsolesce is just shitty engineering. If you want to build something that lasts only two years, you don't spend a bunch of money on parts that will last last ten years and then cripple them. You design it with the cheapest parts that will last at least two years.

Compare a 30 year old BMW with one that was made this year. They (talking all German auto manufacturers) used to take pride in making quality machinery. Now look at all the plastic garbage mixed in just to flip a quick buck.

Compare a 30 year old BMW with one that was made this year. They (talking all German auto manufacturers) used to take pride in making quality machinery. Now look at all the plastic garbage mixed in just to flip a quick buck.

30 years ago, there was also more pride of ownership in BMWs and Mercedes. Now, you see those two brands with damage all the time. More plastic = more attractive pricing.

I would argue the barriers for entry to "luxury" brand ownership are lower now than ever before. Maserati certainly has a beautiful interior, but you also pay for it.

Products are designed to last as long as what makes economical sense for the supply chain.

If you have a product that will last 6 years by default and you can deliberately cut that to 2 years and only alienate 50% of your customers, that is a smart choice for you, because you now have the option to sell the same product 3 times to the remaining 50%. So that's 50% (remaining customers) * 300% (sales frequency), which is 150%. In other words, a 50% revenue increase.

And the truth is, consumers aren't smart. They don't remember well. They are unlikely to think about product lifespan when they are in the store.

So as a manufacturer, the moment the product has crossed the counter, you have to think about how you can slow it down or make it less useful, so they'll start looking for a replacement. In the old days you could only wait for capacitors to blow or hard drives to fail. But now, it's so much easier. You can push a software update that increases the system requirements and thereby slows down the perceived performance. You can threaten to disconnect the user from all their online services if they don't accept the update you are shoving down their throat. That way you make it seem like they have a choice.

Well, there aren't actually that many examples of a product being intentionally crippled to fail sooner. Mostly because that's a stupid and expensive thing to do.

What happens is that companies determine the amount of life span that people care about, and then design the entire product around getting to at least that life span as cheaply as possible. Reliability costs money. You don't get "6 years by default". Using parts that will make the phone reliable to six years of use and then sabotaging them is a massive waste of money.

Either you are a lobbyist or just recklessly naive if you think what "people care about" plays a decisive role in determining lifespan. Any qualified decision maker in any global smartphone manufacturing company is expected to make decisions based on profitability. And that concern will only partially align with what "people care about" at best.

You must live in some alternative universe where the cellphone market isn't competitive.

I mean, I can see how making the longest living, toughest, highest quality tool is bad for business. Even if you manage to sell your stuff to everyone, eventually you won't have anymore customers, because everyone already has your tool and they just don't need replacement. So you gotta go make something else instead.

It's time like these I feel we need our savior to come. I'm referring to Thanos of course. Billions of a$$es need to be snapped outta existence.

This will make things much more expensive

Only 10-30 years away from mass automation!

Which would be fine if you didn't have to replace them every 2 years.

This is a terrible idea. It stifles technological innovation. Why make newer products that run on better technology when you're forced to support the old ones.

Not gonna lie, you got me thinking about this. From my perspective I focus more on materials and less on technology. Is waste acceptable if it increases the size/production and all the stuff that comes with profit? I don't know...

The proposed rules don't really inhibit planned obsolescence as it does reign in it's worst excesses. It's impossible to fully get rid of it because nearly every device made (except perhaps firearms or stoves) has a clear lifespan and a clear point where it's going to be obsolete.

Really these proposed policies are about something better: the right to repair.

no you're just co-opting this into something that is actually good and falsely conflating the two.

Good luck with that EU, after that let’s abolish greed, then hunger.

I have no idea why this isn’t already in existent globally. What a waste of time, resources, progressive technology, and consumer’s money, all in the name of capitalism

Really no idea? Corporations make the most profit this way, which they use to bribe politicians to pass laws that favour them even more. There's no waste of resources on their part. People want to get richer and blaming it on capitalism like that is dumb and meaningless.

I am fully aware why corporations do this... what I don’t comprehend is how government officials allow for such things to occur.

Yes, I’m aware of lobbying, I was being hyperbolic in reference to the lack of political morality.

It IS a waste of resources in regards to intentionally lowering the lifespan of products. Throw away the broken, replace with the new, repeat. That is ‘waste’

Since it maximises profits for them it's no waste on their part. It's a waste for society but it's none of their concern. Don't get me started on political morality lmao. No such thing. Politicians are no different to high ranking managers and CEO's. Kiss ass all the way up to the top and then take full advantage of it by fucking over the most people you can get away with.

Yes, I was referring to resources generally, not specifically the corporation’s.

If only we could take the human-condition out of the political realm

It's why no political system will work how it's meant to. We are flawed beings and what we have is the best we can come with up to patch those flaws.

[removed]

I know... that’s why I said “all for the name of capitalism”

Zack from JerryRigEverything will be very pleased with this.

This has been a topic that I had read an article about a few years ago and what publication it was in I do not recall. But the jest of the article was as follows. 1) Transportation infrastructure, In the past the transportation and shipping channels were nowhere as efficient and broad as currently so it was much easier to ship parts for a repair than an entire Appliance or product. This day and age it does not matter a bolt or a complete Dryer getting it somewhere is about equal efforts. 2) There is currently a huge shortage of and a limited number of technicians to perform a repair. Every type of Technician from Appliance, Electronic to Diesel are hard to find and in demand so if your item is in need of a repair who is going to do it? This demand for skilled trades of course raises the cost of a repair because to hire and retain good staff wages become the factor and bidding wars are common to get qualified employees. Case in point there is hiring bonuses for truck drivers, mechanics and these types of professions. I see examples daily of skilled trades positions only be filled by "stealing" them from your completion, how do you steal them? With higher wages and better benefits that ad to the cost. The complexity of products using more bells, whistles and electronic controls etc to meet customer demand for flashing lights and added features leads to items being outside of the ability for the average home handyman to diagnose and repair. I cannot repair my appliances but can certainly install a new one.
3) Back in the day when appliances, lasted 20 - 30 years they were grossly overbuilt. Meaning there was not testing and design ability to make it weigh less, be more efficient etc. The result was overbuilding it and you know it is going to be good. This overbuilding ads to the production cost as well as means less efficient use of raw materials, electric, Fuel as well. So these overbuild products do not meet the energy guidelines in place today. Yes the 30 year old fridge is still running but uses maybe 3 times the electric and could not be sold today due to power consumption.
4) An Auto executive said absolutely they can build a car that would last a lifetime no problem. BUT no one could afford it or be willing to buy it due to the cost. So to get this lifespan steel is replaced by Stainless steel, Parts need overbuilt to get a longer life and have the ability to rebuild it or last a longer time. Result is going to be a heavier vehicle unless exotic alloys are used that add even more cost. Heavier vehicles result in less fuel mileage and the manufacturer now does not meet Federal Guides for MPG. Also the market shows people do not buy Vehicles to keep a long period of time. So as new models of vehicles, appliances and phones come out consumers want the latest model and unload the used one. Why pay for a vehicle or item that lasts twice as long if you are only keeping it a few years until the next model or gimmick comes out? The point was also made that compared to older cars newer vehicles have a much longer trouble free life. I recall at one time you could only get a 2 or Gasp! 3 year loan on a car. After the loan was paid off you had a rusted out vehicle with 80,000 miles that needed the Engine rebuilt. In this day you see commonly loans at 60 -72 and even 80+ months, the vehicles are lasting this long as banks do not want to finance something for double its life expectancy. In the 60's and 70's to see a car get to 100,000 miles was a tribute to your maintenance schedule and the car design. Now 100,000 miles is expected and routine taking limited efforts and cost, 200,000 miles is the new 100,000. Think about even Flat Screen televisions today. People ran out and bought a 48" and said this is awesome and look how big this is but a year later got rid of a perfectly good one year old 48" to get the latest 60" hi definition. Would they have paid double for a 48" that would last 20 years? Doubt it. My 48" is running just fine and never been an issue for 10+ years now.
5) The business I am in sells products that we can build a particular model in equal capacities and abilities and version #1 would last 6,000 hours and version #2 last 15,000 hours and the 15,000 hour version works out to a less expense per hour end cost by using alloy metals and more complex construction techniques. But buyers seldom go that route as the double upfront investment is not within budget. So they buy the lesser to hit their budget numbers to meet stockholder or owner expectations and sacrifice the economically better choice to look better today at a cost down the road.

And this is what I don’t understand. The market should be free. I get that you don’t want people using your software but a physical device should not be protected under a patent. If you want people to stay with your product then keep them happy. Don’t make each device $1000 and make it basically cheaper to get a whole new device when that one is broken or a year old. There is different manufacturers that make off brand everything but a phone is a no go if you come up with the idea first. That’s completely hypocritical. Innovation drives the future. Not keeping the entire market stagnant.

Holy shit, if actually done this would be a game changer.

Props to Europe leading the way in saying fuck stupid technology practices that only benefit the manufacturers.

Removable batteries would be cool.

They should extend that to stopping manufacturers from making products as hard to repair as humanly possible. On some Smartphones you can't even swap the battery anymore without unscrewing the entire thing and voiding your warranty

Holy shit please let this happen. Then maybe we can advance as a human race and explore space or some shit.

This desperately needs to be a thing, everywhere

See America? This is how legislation can help reduce impact on the planet and help local industries against Asian competitors.

EU, Please do printers and the bullshit with the ink cartridges.

'Devices should also be easier to repair: batteries and other components should be freely accessible for replacement, unless safety dictates otherwise. Manufacturers will also need to give other companies access to their components so that consumers can visit those companies for repairs.'

That would be a breath of fresh air.

So they're planning to make planned obsolescence obsolete?

Will this effect how printers charge ludicrous amount for ink?

I was ready to be annoyed by this action based on the misleading headline, but if the resolution is actually about requring manufacturers offer stronger warrenties and allow independant repair of their products I am way more on board with this plan.

My personal oppinion, speaking as an engineer that spent some time in product development, is that 'planned obselecence' is more or less a conspiracy theory that people push because they don't understand making things cheaper means they are less durable. If you want things that are massively over-built to the point of being nearly industructible "like the old days", then be prepared to pay several times the cost of that product than you are right now.

The 1980 'brick' phone will definitely survive more abuse than a 2018 iphone, but at a whopping $4000 retail, or $12k adusted for inflation. I'll happily take a fragile $1000 (or less) phone that may only last me a couple years over one that costs as much as a car.

As with any law, swinging the pendulum too far is never productive. I work in a company that sells a device that has gone through extreme makeover in the last decade, increasing speed, efficiency, and throughput by 1000x-10000x fold. Mandating companies need to support outdated products puts unnecessary burden of manufacturing, storage space, logistics, etc. guess who is going to pay for these costs? Consumers. However, I can support a law where it requires x amount of years of required support. Perhaps it helps if it is tiered by category or msrp. E.g. cell phones must be supported for 3 yrs+, appliances for 10+ yrs, cars for 15+ yrs, etc. or $0-300 for 2 yrs, $300-1000 for 5 yrs+, $1000 to $10000 for 10 yrs, $10000+ for 15 yrs. i’m making up numbers

[deleted]

Do you really think Apple continuing to support a 5 year old device is somehow a good example of “planned obsolescence”? It’s literally the opposite. Technology moves forward. The new phones handle the patches just fine. It’s either don’t support the phone at all (which would be a better example of planned obsolescence, a la Android), or provide updates as long as possible until the hardware just isn’t compatible anymore. Apple consistently provides years and years of support for their products. This supposed reputation for “planned obsolescence” baffles me.

I feel like the EU has a much better shot at making this happen than the US. Our legislators are owned by corporations and this would never fly. Go, EU!

You guys really have to get money out of your politics. You're going to get left in the dust by the EU otherwise.

Hahahaaaa... Oh, you're serious. No one is getting left in the dust by the EU. Have you seen any other market adopting EU practices? Fuck no! Because the EU is a failure when it comes to tech. Even countries like Canada which have a lot in common with the EU politically won't touch EU tech policy with a ten foot pole. I mean for fucks sake Israel has more tech firms than any European country. The developing world will eclipse the EU in tech innovation and relevance within the next to decades for Christ's sake and they're just barely getting mains electricity to everyone. How backwards do you have to be to have the second largest market in the world yet still fall behind in innovating and growth to a continent with the same GDP as Germany?

The EU is a collective joke when it comes to technology. The EU has clearly started following a nationalistic protectionist policy to advance its agenda due to the lack of home-grown tech companies participating in the global tech market.

Yes, for all of our talk of democracy we take a firm back seat to corporations and the rich.

For a second my brain read abstinence and thought how the hell the government was going to force people to have sex.

How can they prove something was designed to fail instead of just poorly designed?

Not only the potentially poor design, but this also opens up for people to whine that their 4+ year old tech device can’t up grade and insist that it changes despite the fact the old hardware won’t handle new soft/firmware. But they don’t get it so they whine about it being “planned”.

This is really important. Washing machines and big household items have drastically been made worse the last decade, their durability has deteriorated a lot. This is not only a problem because you have to buy a new one but it also creates a HUGE amount of waste just because a cent piece broke and can't be replaced due to it not being manufactured anymore.

On the other side, there was an Austrian company named Eudora, whose washing machines lasted a few decades without replacing a single piece, maybe an o ring after 10 or 20 years. They declared bankruptcy several years ago because they didn't sell enough machines and replacement parts.

Such companies need subsidies to survive, it shouldn't be that your products are so good that you have to declare bankruptcy because of not selling enough continuously.

On the other side, there was an Austrian company named Eudora, whose washing machines lasted a few decades without replacing a single piece, maybe an o ring after 10 or 20 years. They declared bankruptcy several years ago because they didn't sell enough machines and replacement parts.

They still seem to exist, unless someone just bought their brand.

[removed]

Speak for yourself, I bought a big kitchen aid 6qt pro mixer, a vitamix pro blender, heavy duty stainless steel lined aluminum or copper pots, heavy cast iron pans, sharpening stones for my knives. Everything I buy for my kitchen I paid for the product that is both durable and performant. I spent extra and expect to never have to buy those things again. And why do I even need a toaster when I have a gas oven with a broiler pan, or a cast iron pan on a burner? Part of the cost in buying something over and over again is also in traveling to the store and selecting a product again, which is often to me more costly in my time than paying more for a quality product upfront.

[removed]

Shit, I’ve outed myself as a brick and mortar store visitor. You guys are going to take away my 90s child millennial card and I’m not going to be allowed to get a cortado and avocado toast at my favorite cafe anymore!!!

But seriously the same costs apply to buying things online for me, because I take the time to try to determine if I’m going to regret buying a particular model. But I suppose if you just buy the first search result maybe it will work out for you.

[deleted]

Considering I read the manual and reviews and I feel I understand the limitations such that I would consider it a BIFL item for me needs. I do not need to use it to make multiple loaves of bread back to back that a commercial Hobart could do. The worst I do is rolling many batches of egg noodles for tortellini or ravioli. And I am slow enough at stuffing/folding that I’ve never had a problem of overheating between batches. Even if I was to overwork and damage the machine, it is easily serviceable. Any mechanical damage would likely be limited to the plastic sacrificial gear. And the electrical components are simple enough I could redesign the board in a weekend, probably have it cut and populated in my spare time within a month, assuming I couldn’t just find an oem replacement part. My point is that it doesn’t pretend to be able to do more than it can do, unlike most of the cheaper models, and what it can do meets or exceeds my needs.

I do appreciate that my comment got me called both “sweet child” and “gramps”.

Absolutely, i have my Galaxy S6 for 2 1/2 years now and some people give me looks when I tell them I will use that until it dies.

I find it hard to believe that they went out of business because of a lack of repeat customers. There are a lot of people on this Earth that they could sell to, and they surely missed the vast majority of them. Houses last several decades, and you don't see home builders going out of business because of a lack of repeat customers.

My guess is that Eudora's washing machines were simply too expensive.

They ride a tight line between overpricing their products out of the market and not making enough from repair/refurb parts and services.

The fundamental problem here is that people are typically cash strapped and will intentionally buy a cheaper alternative over a known better/longer lasting model in order to keep some money in their pocket for other uses.

You see this at all economic levels - people will buy smaller containers of detergent, even though they are more expensive per unit, because they are cheaper at the moment and they need that cash elsewhere more than they need a gallon of detergent.

The trick is to make your product last a little bit longer within the same broad price range as others, but price yours at the upper end of the range. Ideally your margin will be a bit higher than your competitors.

It’s a myth. First if you need 10 persons to do 10000 machines per year. You don’t repair and let that to others. The problem is just a scaling. Another 3 persons for the innovation that it. We’ll can focus on a better world.

Apple has been doing this for years any way

I'd be happy with removable batteries in "premium" phones again.

gimme removable batteries

It’ll be interesting to see what affect this has on companies’ desire to innovate. Arguments for both sides

It would mean that companies would need innovative new features to drive sales because they couldn't count on continued sales from consumers replacing devices at their planned end of life.

I agree. Companies only innovate when they need to. If building junk that people have to replace every year is a successful business model, what incentive is there to change it?

I would imagine it would ensure that new models are actual big upgrades that actually make people want to buy. Rather than bare minimum improvements that a company has to handicap its old product to force people to upgrade.

If a company makes bare minimum improvements, why wouldn’t you switch to a different company that is making larger improvements? I am generally curious.

[deleted]

In truth, waste from mobile hardware development is negligible. Most of the metals are recycled. There’s likely more waste from your weekly shop than in the mobile you buy/trash once a year.

Yeah, there's a huge incentive to recycle mobile devices. Most carriers offer discounts if you return your phone to the store or you could sell it online to the thriving second hand market. Honestly the phone industry is a testament to how environmental policy in action should look like. This is such a non-issue.

You think these laws would apply to more than just mobile hardware?

This is dumb but also good. You never know when the new tech is going to cycle out the old. Legacy parts on PCs are still used. It's not that you need a new phone. The old ones work, as a phone. So you browse slow, that's what old parts do. That's what old tech does. It still works. My S3 still works.

So how will they handle cases like the iPhone? Sure, explicit planned obsolescence is probably going on, but there's also a larger problem where, when Apple releases new, faster software, Apple needs to slightly restrict the CPU to avoid killing the battery in the phone.

I read this as planned adolescence and was really confused as to why they were abolishing elementary school

Hey!! That's great. I've been saying they needed to since they were also pushing electric cars down everyone's throat. Hopefully the US follows suit.

Apple will soon be confined to NA and China.

apple: *sweats nervously*

Samsung: Shit going to hit the fan if our customers find out we've intentionally not updating our older Galaxy series.

Collective human greed is an insurmountable trait. Always has been. From this side of history books, it’s seems the larger the population of a community, the more impersonal it is. Now we have a global community... good luck.

Well guess they want to ban apple products.

Publishing both actual and projected "Mean Time to Failure" would give the consumer a powerful tool on deciding if something is worth the price paid. Hopefully the EU takes a nuanced and reasonable approach to "planned obsolescence". Many times there is a reason that engineers design something with a specific build quality or life span. Pretty much everything you own is "consumer grade" which is a careful balance of comfort, durability, function, weight, size, lifespan, and price. Design compromise is a very necessary engineering and manufacturing concept.

"Manufacturers will also need to give other companies access to their components so that consumers can visit those companies for repairs"

Shouldn't cause any issues

What if abolishing them leads to a devastated industry? Why not have a single company that sell these types of phones to see it they can compete with phones from other countries or to see if it doesn't destroy innovation or to see if consumers buy another phone before the company goes out of business due to lack of sales from not needing another phone?

What is obsolescence

Getting so old something isn’t usable anymore.

My aunty still has a working fridge from General Electric from 1966. Its in her kitchen. Meanwhile I'm on my 5th fridge in 20 years.

It's not that I disagree with the idea, but how are they gonna make a law like that coinside with the basic premise of continued economic growth. Our whole capitalistic system is based on a demand that all companies grow 4-6% every year, no matter if its sustainable or not.

Yes! It is ridiculous. On AvE he sometimes opens old devices and it is so clear to see how in the past devices were build to last vs now they are built to break. This is obvious with cell phones, bit it is actually happening everywhere.

For example this was built in 60s, wait and see how it looks inside: https://youtu.be/tX-OQRaGYQs (NSFW language)

My Mom bought a house with a old ass dish washer, even 20 years after she bought the house it's still running fine.

I bought a new in box Maytag dishwasher from the mid 2000's and it broke down a year after having it.

My Mom's dishwasher has all physical buttons and switchs and stuff. Meanwhile mine uses a PCB board for all the buttons and would cost me a few hundred dollars to repair, but they don't make the board anymore.

My favourite recent example was an HP printer. Less than 2 years old.. print head clogged up.. that happens. Normally you either clean it out and if that doesn't work replace it.

Not servicable. At all. Like there's no way to get near it without taking a hacksaw to the case. HPs official policy is throw it away and replace it. Perfectly good ÂŁ250 printer in the bin because of a part that probably cost HP less than ÂŁ1.

Needless to say I did not replace it with an HP.

Oh fucking HELL YES!

Devices should also be easier to repair: batteries and other components should be freely accessible for replacement, unless safety dictates otherwise.

Get ready for manufacturers claiming that repairing is unsafe. Just as car manufacturers now claim that defeat devices are necessary for engine health in order to bypass the law.

I have long wondered why it has been acceptable for manufacturers to bring products to market with thereafter little responsibility for their impact on the world once they have sold them to the users. There have been more and more regulations ( safe plastic for food item storage, recyclable fast food containers, biodegradable drinking straws, etc). Mostly it has been the public's burden to deal with the sensible disposal of these products. I am aware that it is political power wielded by corporations that has fostered this situation.

About god damn time. Its been like this since the first lightbulb....

Who else, the USA will never make such a move... kill net neutrality that's what cooking over the Atlantic

We had a lawnmower that failed two weeks after the warranty, a friend of ours had the same thing, definitely planned obsolescence there.

This is a great idea

fuck that would be so awesome. so sick of buying a new laptop every 2 years. new camera every 2 years. new bluetooth speaker every year. etc.

If they do it I'd be more than willing to pay extra to have all my stuff shipped from Europe. I's probably save money in the long run.

There's really nothing wrong about this. Absolutely good news for consumers, small businesses and the environment.

How the hell do you enforce something like that?

These news are from 05/07/2017. Unless there's anything more recent other than this weird source (I can't find anything "recent" on Google that doesn't point back to this), I doubt this has any more relevance other than a isolated sensationalist article. Unless someone's taking any action which I see no indication of.
Here's also something from 2013, which could be possibly related with a follow up but I can't find anything else relevant that's newer: https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/press-releases/eesc-calls-total-ban-planned-obsolescence

How would it be possible to enforce this?

Good luck. With that. WAY too much money has been invested in that business practice.

I think it's ok if there's a clear notice that it's built to last a given amount of time with a warranty for breaks before that planned time. Then consumers can weigh whether they want the planned breakdown and know when it will, or have an unplanned random break but it may last longer than the planned breakdown.

How exactly would you enforce this? You would have to prove that a product failed prematurely due to a deliberate attempt to sabotage the design. Rather than a less durable design due to adding complex features, improving efficiency, reducing product cost, or any of the myriad of other trade-offs a product engineer might make that would end up producing a weak point.

I hope everyone is ready for everything to get way more expensive.

Does a washing machine last a fraction of the amount of time they did 50 years ago? Sure. But they also cost a fraction of what they used to. The cost of most appliances has stayed stagnant for decades, which means when you take inflation into account, they are much cheaper now than they used to be.

Personally, I’d love to have the option to buy the high-quality last forever thing, but I’m not sure everyone will agree when they see the price.

Edit: spelling is hard

Walked into an appliance store and I see refrigerators that used to cost $500 now $3000. And you are telling me that appliance costs have been stagnant?

Generally speaking, yes: https://escholarship.org/content/qt9r72w9qr/qt9r72w9qr.pdf

It’s especially true in the last twenty years: “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for appliances were 22.17% lower in 2018 versus 2000.” (http://www.in2013dollars.com/Appliances/price-inflation)

This website has a good comparison of an ad for dishwasher in 1981 and one advertised today that both cost the same amount: http://www.aei.org/publication/when-it-comes-to-home-appliances-the-good-old-days-are-now-theyre-cheaper-better-more-energy-efficient-than-ever/

Sure there are ultra high end models of anything, but the general trend has been flat.

Turn them into retro game consoles. Donkey Kong!

This sounds great on paper... but I don't know how this could be enforced. At almost every turn, planned obsolescence could be argued as a "feature, not a bug."

Every design choice has trade-offs. As a general rule, repairable designs are chunkier- you need extra size and space for the access panels, hinges, etc. That also adds more failure points in the chassis, and makes waterproofing more prone to failure. You personally may be ok with these trade-offs, but most customers are not.

Another issue is that extended product support is expensive- the manufacturer has to keep making replacement parts for old designs that have long since gone out of favor (and economies of scale work both ways). Businesses will buy hardware with long lifecycles... but they also usually pay a yearly maintenance fee for hardware and software support. How many of us are willing to to pay a yearly maintenance fee for our phones, when we are likely to replace them in 2-3 years anyway?

IMO it would make more sense to push for more recyclable designs. Let's have the newest gizmos every year... but make it easier to divert them from the waste stream.

You can thank corporations who have to provide a win every quarter to satisfy their stockholders for this bullshit.

Noting like Gov mandate to abolish problems.

EU should make it illegal to sell high priced goods with fixed batteries that the user cannot easily change without carefully dismantling the whole thing. Fuck the rights of corporations; they don't care about mine, so I don't care about theirs. What I do care about, is easily dropping in a new battery into that two year old phone that is suffering from decreased run-time due to an aged battery.

Bloody Brexit.

It is astonishing to me that planned obsolescence is still allowed.

I was completely awestruck the first time I heard that companies did it, and even more awestruck when I realized how widespread it was.

It is completely fucked.

I imagine the hard part is proving that it’s planned. Most of the time it’s just speculation because things do become obsolete naturally too.

Yeah I mean I'm sure some of it is just cutting costs and using cheaper materials, resulting in quicker degradation of whatever product. But it definitely has been proven happening for various companies.

But how do you go about enforcing such a law?

This is how a recession begins

Like car makers have been doing for years?

I wish I lived in Europe, y’all get all the good laws. Meanwhile in Texas it is illegal for me to own more than 6 dildos

whys that illegal??

Because nobody cares about getting rid of old obsolete laws, why it exists in the first place your guess is as good as mine.

huh, i guess it would be hard to run as "the candidate who wants more dildos in the household."

[removed]

but, but, the NHS !

/s

If true, a huge win for both humanity, and the enviroment.

Not supporting a device after launch isn’t planned obsolescence. As far as I know, there is nothing requiring it besides what the company promises.

As far as I’m concerned, I buy the device as is.

Forcing companies to support every single device is a recipe for failure.

Your Note 9. Sure, it should have at least 2 years support.

Your Cracker Jack box no name phone. Not so much.

This will only lead to a consolidation of product offerings + higher costs.

My grandparents, stove is like 80 years old and could probably last another 100, my parent's broke after 2 years... It was labeled as "high quality"

Mine is just over 40 years old, I have two black and white TVs in my basement and one early 70s colour set, try find a modern one that will last that long. My main is a Sony CRT (tube) set from 2005, it won't last as long, but they tend to do better than the average LCD, and being more repairable.

This goes from experience, I've had to fix a Samsung monitor that made it just short of a decade due to capacitors dying, beyond the PSU, there's not much else you can do, whereas a CRT, everything can be replaced if needed.

Everyone here is only talking about phones. What about the tooling industry? You are removing multiple tiers of hardware at different pricing levels. Say I want a drill that might last a year at best if used everyday. But see, I'm a hobbyist and I might use it two or three times a year. I get a chance of even buying it at a lower cost. If I'm a professional, I get the top of the line one that is serviceable and the likes. Plus, there is a chance that the lower models subsidize the awesome models with better warranties. The top of the line model could actually cost the company money to sell, like a loss leader, but is taken care of by the lower models with planned obsolescence built in.

Either way, this type of legislation is killing choice, not helping it.

Nah. It just forces the manufracturers to be more open about it. If they clearly label the cheaper drill as to have a lower life expectancy, that's just fine.

What does the warranty do then?

Make Pantyhose great again. No seriously that was good shit before planned obsolescence.

you can still buy those very durable pantyhose they just cost the equivalent price.

https://www.littleplayland.com/products/super-flexible-magical-stockings

a silk stocking, or even kevlar weave is available and very durable, but usually atleast twice as expensive as regular pantyhose.

you likely chose the convenience of the stock of your local shop as more product value than ordering the more expensive pantyhose.

I've had one PS1 controller, one PS2 and one PS3 controller, some how I'm on my 5th PS4 controller

My microwave was made the year I was born, 1995. I'm not saying it compares to a cell phone, which seems to be the main problem in the planned obsolescence discussion, but it works like a charm. I could say "quality over quantity", but that isn't the problem here. The problem is greed.

Some large fraction of what's called "planned" obsolescence is actually unplanned. And it just can't be legislated away. Won't stop them trying though.

Would this mean that apple could finally go suck a dick?

Good luck. This sounds like the sort of thing a lot of very rich corporations would hate.

Moving to Europe looks more and more appealing every single day.

This is an area where government regulation can do more harm than good. I wouldn't have wanted the government telling Apple back in 2007 that the iPhone must have removable batteries and expandable storage. In many cases, advances in product design inevitably reduce the repairability of the product, and that's not necessarily a bad thing on the whole.

Any such regulations should only apply when there is no benefit to the end user in return for the more restrictive design (quality, fit & finish, durability, weight, size, performance, battery life, etc.)

Edit: some typos.

If a company can't survive without planned obsolescence they don't deserve to be here

[deleted]

Things becoming obsolete and things being built to break or degrade after a certain amount of time are two different things.

[deleted]

Which isn't as hard as you're making it out to be. Making a better version of something later on as tech improves is different from something falling apart once the year mark kicks in...

Finally. Thank goodness!

Apartment Maintenance tech here. This would be so great. It would give me more piece of mind knowing that a drain pump is going to function well for a long time, a heater element is going to keep working, or capacitors that will last longer than a year. I have a couple of dryers here that are, essentially, brand new (all brand new parts in a 20 year old dryer). I have gone back and replaced some of these new parts twice because of the crappy manufacturing. If I could fix it once and not think about it again for a few years, I could focus my time at work for other things that residents would actually like. The company won't botch at us anymore for going 145% of my repairs budget. Longevity is crucial.

However, the fact that shit breaks keeps me employed.......

But crappy manufacturing is not synonymous with planned obsolescence ...

True. But planned obsolescence makes a product inherently crappy.....right?

Haha good thing we're leaving the EU! RULE BRITTANIA, BRITTANIA RULES THE WAVES

^^^^pls ^^^^help ^^^^us

I love the EU

In a few years, “Why is ____ suddenly so expensive?!”

Apple is shook

I fucking love being in the EU.

While the world seems to be tearing itself apart, were holding it down and pushing progress ...except England. Fuck England

Right. How's that refugee crisis going again? Last I heard Merkel was making some Trumpian compromises to keep hold of what little power she has left.

Refugee Crisis wasnt our making but at least were working towards solving it.

As for Merkel, youre gonna have to back that up before I can address it.

Cue Apple lawsuits for Right to Obsolescence in three, two, one...

We need that in the US too.

planned obsoleence should already be fucking illegal

Actually you don't care

Very honestly, I voted to leave the Eu. Despite all the stuff going on I’ve stuck to my guns saying that the Eu is a neoliberals dream. Seeing this is the first time I wish I hadn’t voted to leave.

Can the US join the EU please?

That's actually pretty astoundingly cool. I've often thought about how much bullshit is involved with the whole idea.

People want to talk aboutt he amount of waste and pollution taking place, that consumerism is destroying the planet? Fuck that I say, it's the manufacturers, intentionally creating a product that will wear away in 10 years doing the most dmg.

Good on them for trying. It will be an uphill battle against business in production and propaganda, but their goals are right and should be supported.

Can we talk about printer cartridges for a second? How they are absolutely overpriced and all of those shenanigans?

Any time this is brought up, I actually think about fast food. It’s not really the same thing. But, does anyone remember how good Taco Bell used be in the 90s? McDonalds used to actually taste good too, back then. This all comes down to how many corners can the manufacturer cut to make the product as cheap as possible, while still maintaining relative functionality.

Guess i better save up to move to Europe

Yes! Now can we get this in America? Or is it still “fuck the consumer” here?

I think it should go one further for anything that uses drivers or firmwares to keep up to date and if a company drops supporting it, then they should be forced to make it open sourced.

Incentivised longevity by law to prevent overburdening our resources.

It's pretty simple (and practiced to some extent in Sweden), add a consumer guarantee. Once purchased, it has to last 2-5-10-20-30-50-60 years (depending on item category, some stuff is bound to see more wear and tear from use and it would not be an incentive for a business to produce and hike prices if the responsibility was completely unprofitable). If the item breaks down before the guaranteed date, the company has to replace what you bought for free.

This way, it is a profit incentive for the business to use high quality materials and make sure the item will last long term, instead of the current opposite of this.

Beyond people being able to use their devices longer, this helps so much with e-waste which is a problem that has been magnified ridiculously in recent time.

And also save the lithium-ion batteries resources... Plus it's hard to recycle that...

Thank God, it's so pointlessly wasteful to make something that will break on purpose.

Less break on purpose but only using components with a "desired" average life expectancy and cost.

I have 2 pairs of sheets, one that is 3 months old and the other 2 weeks. The elastic on the new one is already shot but they cost me 1/4th of the other set.

Good. Fuck companies that deliberately sabotage their product before even putting it on the shelf.

Just wait until the U.S. brings their own version. Which will probably make it mandatory for products to fail and forbids repairs.

Oh my! How will Crapple survive now?!!

This will never happen here in the U.S.

It's official: corporations are the most oppressed class of people, followed closely by straight white men and Christians

Like the Jews?

(In case of any butthurtness is incurred, it's a bloody reference to silicon valley)

[deleted]

This.

As much of a fairy-tale ending this law appears to have in store for us at first glance, not every company does these things for the sake of obsolescence. Sometimes, in this day and age, the practices are used because it's the only way we know how to achieve certain results.

I very much want this to happen, but the EU-- and anyone else who chooses to follow suit-- needs to tread carefully.

EDIT: trade -> tread

You mean i won't be able to rent my stuff any more? But i liked being able to update my stuff every 2 years. It made me feel like a real person doing real things just like the adverts i see on the sides of buses. I for one won't stand for longer lasting products!

/s

English isn't my first language so I pray you're being sarcastic. plz say yes. Plz say yes

420% serious! That's what the /s is for, serious!

or is it...

Okay... I got it this time. 420% understood!

Apple is about to lose a lot of money when there is a thorough controlling mechanism for this.

[deleted]

I am not sure if you know what planned obsolescence means. This is surrounding around using sub par hardware pieces that are meant to break just after the warranty period like say mosfets that lit up just after 2 years.

This is not about SW support, that has little to do with it.

It can also be done through software, if you start purposefully enforcing the use of certain libraries that can only run on newer devices etc.

If that's not planned with the creation of the device, then not. If it's a decision making it obsolete after it's been on the market for some time.

Unless companies do indeed plan to at one point enforce something they are not yet aware of, but still plan it in, then yes, agree. That's kind of obvious then tho... should create a big public reputation damage.

I disagree, you can create a device with the intent to invalidate it a few years down the line without it being obvious. A lot of companies like apple will know about their device roadmaps years in advance.

I also disagree about it needing to be planned before the device is released, you could release patches that intentionally break older devices a year after releasing them and that would still be planned obsolescence, even if you didn't intend to do that when you first released the device.

I also disagree about it needing to be planned before the device is released,

That's the definition of planned obsolescence, though. What you mean is simply market manipulation.

you could release patches that intentionally break older devices a year after releasing them and that would still be planned obsolescence, even if you didn't intend to do that when you first released the device.

Nope, that's another form of market manipulation, but not planned obsolescence. That business practice is specifically to implement elements that are planned to fail and make a device obsolete from its very first moment of creation.

You can't just disagree with the textbook definiton of the term. What you mean is a different manipulation method, not sure what would fit.

Your example is flawed, because when Apple sends those updates out, they cripple the phone and make them almost unusable, which pushes people into upgrading.

Tell that to iOS 12.

That was the case with ios 7-9 on iPhone 4s, but iOS 11 was laggy on every device, including the 7+, 8+ and X. And you can't go higher than X. From what I hear iOS 11 has gotten a lot better since it's launch, idk since I kept my 5s in 10.3.3

Funny that a company with a complete understanding of the hardware (they control it unlike Android based companies) and complete control over the software (which is locked down to a very large extent) still manages to release an update that can only be described as beta at best to millions of customers. It's not like they are Microsoft with a million different hardware profiles that might not react like expected.

I left Apple after the slow down of my 3GS. I still get to deal with the crap thanks to my Apple loving family though.

Well they fucked up, no excuse for it here

Ironically, I find that iPhones have a longer life than basically any Android. I proudly rock my 5s, play the latest games and have pretty much no issue with it, everything works and the lag is light-years better than any Android released in 2013. Apple also supports their iPhones more than any other company when it comes to software updates (the 5s will recieve ios 12 this year, which marks it's 5th year of software updates).

Why do people always just think about mobile phones?

Actually, this is way more interesting regarding laptops, computers, headphones and so on.

It's like people can't think outside of their own very small limited box.

Because mobile phones are the expensive thing people change every year or couple of years.

Laptops come in all shapes and sizes. If you want an easily upgradeable laptop, get a bulky one. If you want a slim and quiet laptop, you get sotered components. The point is, unlike phones, you have options.

Desktop computers are ofc not an issue since you can replace components.

When it comes to headphones, if they cost 10€ don't expect them to last 10 years. If they are bluetooth, they don't recieve sw updates and usually they last a long time if they are maintained properly (paid 50$ for mine 4 years ago and still work like a charm). They have to be incapsulated to protect against sweat or water if they are waterproof. And also, they can't be modular if you don't want bulky 1kg headphones. They also cost a fraction of the price of a phone.

Because mobile phones are the expensive thing people change every year or couple of years.

Those are not a target of planned obsolescence if they change the device every year anyways.

If you want an easily upgradeable laptop, get a bulky one.

Obsolescence has nothing to do with this.

Desktop computers are ofc not an issue since you can replace components.

Also wrong, if a company designs a planned breakage of a part on a motherboard that is again planned obsolescence.

When it comes to headphones, if they cost 10€ don't expect them to last 10 years.

That has, again, nothing to do with planned obsolescence again.

 

Your text in general shows you lack the understanding of this concept. Planned obsolescence are small, but crucial parts in an electronic device which are specifically designed or chosen to fail optimally right after the warranty runs out and thus the respective manufacturer isn't under any liability anymore and at best can even sell over-priced repair procedures under a "licence flag". The old example actually has always been a washing machine and the use of cheaper capacitors. This business concept is not new.

You should inform yourself about the concept first before fostering and defending an opinion and coming up with layman "ideas" of how things should be.

[deleted]

Soldered processors aren't planned obsolescence though, unreplaceable batteries and screens are, hell their not really either aslong as you give people a way to buy first party parts.

How often do silicon stop working in reality? There's no moving parts etc.

iPhones for an example aren't hard to service, the problem is getting OEM parts though.

Even if there's soldered parts it's not like soldering is rocket science, if theres a market for it repair shops could start doing those kinds of repairs aswell.

Batteries yes, screen no. If you break your device that isn’t planned obsolescence as not everyone treats their phones so carelessly. The batteries on the other hand will fail for every user after a certain range of cycles through normal usage.

Depends on the screen type though, oled screens degrade etc.

True and all screens fail eventually, but like 50,000 hours eventually.

[deleted]

too be honest, most people I know that have computers that get "slow" just but a new one, without checking if it's any better than the last one, even if it's a desktop with fully upgradable parts. So even if we had laws against planned obsolescence there's still idiots creating electronic waste faster than you can build a figurative computer of Thesseus.

Ya check out strange parts on YouTube.

The real problem is that anywhere outside the east labor costs and overhead pretty much exclude board level repair on phones. If it’s $200 to replace a part on a 3 year old phone but you can pick up a brand new phone for $400... why would you?

the throw-away propaganda acccounts trying to protect business at the expense of consumers. Makes a wide negative remark, gets upvotes and makes people start doubting it.

No proper company in the world will make their device unavailable in the EU, its just too big of a market. The consumers should dictate the terms, not the companies.

Look at my posting history if you think I’m a phone company shill. I don’t want stupidly thick phones. I don’t want a removable battery if it means the phone will weigh more, have lower initial battery life, or less effective water proofing. I am willing to accept that my phone will only be useful for 3-6 years if it means it will be a better experience for that time. It’s expensive sure, but with how fast tech is advancing I almost certainly won’t be using the same phone in 6 years anyway. Save my 5s but I only use it for the camera as a dash cam.

[deleted]

5-6 is a stretch but ive had my iPhone for 3 years and it has zero problems.

Do you honestly think a phone from 2-3 years ago was too heavy or stupidly thick? My Note 4 (replaceable) battery is 3220mAh while the Note 8 (sealed) battery is 3300mAh. Tech isn't advancing as fast as you may think. This isn't the 80's/90's anymore. Processor upgrades offer marginal improvement compared to the past, cameras are already great and have been for years, screens are not getting much better, battery life stays the same. It seems the new features are "notches" (or lack of) and fingerprint reader placement which are laughable gimmicks in my opinion.

I’ve upgraded every year since 2010. The tech continues to advance significantly every single year. If you’re content then that’s great for you. I continue to want more and better tech.

Yeah, the ratio of power consumption to processor speed has gotten pretty good over the past couple years. He’s right, we’re not seeing advancement like the 90’s, but tech is still developing at an exponential rate.

What significant advancements are we seeing specifically? What are you now able to do with your phone that you couldn't do 2-3 years ago? The only new feature I can think of is Bixby on Samsung phones. I don't upgrade because I don't see a justification for spending $700-$1000 on a new phone that does the same or less than my current phone (removed headphone jack, removed SD card slot, removed IR blaster, sealed battery, glass cladding, locked bootloader, etc).

240 fps 1080p video. 3 years ago I was only able to do 120hz 720p. Facial recognition that is detailed and sophisticated enough to be used for all passwords and payment authentication. The screen that hits all edges of the phone due to a bending of the display that has yet to be replicated by another mfr. Further improved waterproofing resulting in my not worrying at all about my phone should it start to rain. Things like that.

No it won't. It won't because the EU is an extremely massive market. A company opting to not release a product to the EU is a company leaving a lot of money on the table. The only companies that might refuse to release a product to the EU are smaller companies that simply could not afford to comply, but given the size of the EU mobile phone market, most companies couldn't afford NOT to release a product to the European market.

It's always said, Everytime that the EU passes a law that companies will leave or won't offer a product in the EU. Then when the rubber meets the road, those companies continued to operate in the EU, and still continue to post record profits.

[deleted]

You're right. But the price increases aren't going to be these magical extreme numbers, and the consumer ultimately comes out ahead given that doing this provides a massive value to the consumer. You pay more for the phone, but it's guaranteed to have serviceability, parts availability, and you are told upfront of the projected lifetime of the product? The price increases but so too does the value of product to the consumer.

A slightly higher cost for a gadget pales in comparison to replacing that entire gadget. These companies have inflated a harmful social bubble and out a glass ceiling on our technology.

[deleted]

I concede that point. But that is something that goes both ways for different products. My main point was that it's a silly idea to think that, for example, iPhone will suddenly stop selling iPhone in Europe because they passed this law. They still would. You're still right that specific items may not be released, but that is also a reality that would continue irrespective of the law.

The EU is the largest market in the world. This directive would have to be very poorly written for a company to decide to stop selling to the EU.

Take that, broom makers!

Ah so they plan to make planned obsolescence obsolete

The EU is really trying to hook up consumers/tech users lately huh?

Now if they could do that with other things thatd be great. Like women's nylons.

How would this affect light bulbs I wonder.

Government to the rescue!

I would like cell phone companies to introduce a “legacy line” of phones. Replaceable batteries and designed to run a watered down version of the OS as the OS evolves. That way it will always be a basic stable smart phone but the limitations of legacy software and tech advancements gumming up current premium line won’t be effected.

You put a computer system in it, expect that it'll last <5 years.

Regardless, the parts should be available for a lot longer after the product is gone, not just to service it for as long as the warranty is.

While I'm on this, why do manufacturers change models all the time? Is there any purpose? Dishwashers haven't changed much since they were first made, nor have ovens.

Sorry but what is this for the dumb like me?

I would like to see planned obsolescence eliminated in appliances. But when it comes to computers and phones obsolescence seems to be the nature of the technology.

I just Wikipediad Moore’s law. Which I think boils down to that we double the power of computers roughly every two years. There are definitely a lot of changes that can be made how companies like Apple handle repairs. But I can’t imagine companies supporting devices that are 5+ years old. Because we aren’t just talking about a single entity. The entire ecosystem of app developers and such would have to keep support for old and new devices.

I dont know much, but this seems like it’ll be a tough sell that isn’t going to be what consumers are hoping for.

But how? There's no clear distinction beteeen planned obsolescence and over engineering everything. You can't design everything to last 100 years.

Won't this drive the cost of goods way up? Won't this limit what features can and will be offered by manufacturers? What are the negative consequences of this?

Expect the price of items to rise with their forced life expectation though... It's not like companies will just agree to less sales and profit.

The whole concept of cheap mass production of products that are not subject to constant noticeable improvement, is why we live in a world where low income households exist, in what we consider to be the most developed countries. That and tax evasions combined with economy politics that favor companies that have monopolistic or oligopolistic market shares. And of course CEOs that look at their bank accounts as if they are playing "Cookie Clicker" with a high score board.

Here's the other thing: if a company can't sensut a product, they have less money to spend on making new products because they have to spend money on sustaining. Can you imagine if you had to work at a company that still had to support a smart phone from 2008? You'd blow your damned brains out. Trust me, I've worked in legacy systems and it is not a fun time. Companies need this window to let go of past mistakes and drop development dependencies that sunsetted a long time ago like Windows XP.

Now, if you want to mandate minimum support windows for certain classes of products, I'm perfectly fine with that. Hell, throw in taxes to a fund for public eWaste recycling too. But those windows better be reasonable. If I have to support a smart phone for 30 years I'm going to murder someone.

Well its not about software support. Its more so for companies like apple, than patch in updates to limit the phone after a year or 2. Physically there is nothing wrong, they just force you to buy a new 1. Its pretty unethical. They also are forcing easily replaceable batteries and such to be a thing. This type of stuff is simple.

Apple also makes the software. Without the software an iPhone is a paperweight. They are so tightly coupled that it doesn't make sense to keep making parts for hardware when you don't intend to keep up the software.

Again, this is to end planned obselence. You can stop supporting it software,and even hardware. Companies will make 3rd party parts and stick it in. Happens all the time. Just dont purposefully destroy the phone via software updates, and force the consumer to spend another thousand.

Smart phones are a fucking ridiculous expense, they want you to never pay it off, and pay them a monthly finance bill,in your phone bill. Its a disgusting scam.

There are no companies that destroy phones through software updates. That would be a crime anywhere.

Apple literally does exactly this, limiting battery life after 2 years. They claim its to prevent the batteries from exploding. I am sure there are more instances...

Phones dont just start to go bad. You should be able to factory reset it, and it go right back to how you got it out of the box. Slow downs and bloatware is just a way to force you to get a new phone....

Batteries DO go bad. Their ability to hold a charge decays with time. And with the amount of energy these batteries hold diminishing battery life over a bunch of people getting burned from their phones exploding is a win-win for everybody. And since iPhones generally do not have replaceable batteries it's safe to assume that older phones have older batteries.

Yes, your right they do go bad. But it doesnt give apple the right to force them to not hold charges anymore.... thats what this should prevent.

Id would rather pay $50 to have a battery replaced, with a warning system in place when a battery is to old, than 1k on a new phone.

Commenting from my two year old LG v20. It's the best damn phone I've ever owned, problems aside it's a tank, the camera is still relevant, the screen is great, and so is it's ability to open.

It used to be a whiz with apps, then it started crashing and slowing down with each new update. Now I have to run hacked firmware that fixes the issues (but also deactivates my second screen) because the updates make my phone almost unusable.

Sprints answer? "Your two year upgrade is ready, for just 699 you can get a brand new iPhone x!" LG just says they no longer support or recognize the device.

It's infuriating. And it's not acceptable. MSI still supports my motherboard I bought back in 2013. This isn't difficult

Yeah, and they'll enforce it how? It's not like these companies would ever admit to intentionally making a shitty product.

I just came

I think Louis rossman would be very interested in this.

Starting with light bulbs I hope

I guess they learned their lesson with the League of Nations.

I don't think this will happen, although I certainly hope it does

Our planet desperately needs this.

B-b-but the companies will pull out of the market with all these laws or raise the prices so high nobody can afford it!

/s

seems like a hard one to regulate.

“make stuff last longer!”

I have a friend who worked for Bosch (we live in EU), they were making things for cars. He used to say that their whole branch (400+ employees) was dedicated to making planned obsolescence. Most common was for the main control unit to short circuit other control units (like control unit for A/C, headlights, etc.). I remember that when BMW came up with diesel M model he said it was set for 4years or 160k km. And I was once told by a friend who was selling BMWs at a dealership that these cars are made for you to pay for another car solely on the servicing costs. I used to own a BMW E92 and actually sold it when it was 4 yo b/c my service visits became too frequent. Funny thing is I switched it for an old Land Rover :D but that car I can service myself and go off road with it so NO RAGRETS

This just in, iPhones suddenly illegal in Europe

Awesome! Another thing Europe can make progress on while the US tries to hold them back.

Reason 1001 why the EU is awesome.

I mean can you really prove planned obsolescence? Technology will always progress, and electronics cannot last forever

To bad they will need a different phone for the us and ue. I wonder how it will works ?

I obviously don’t like planned obsolescence (I’m a consumer; not making money off planned obsolescence) but I don’t see it as eminently unethical. If a company doesn’t want your phone to do the newest shit even though it physically can (hardware), that’s not “unethical” to me. If a company stops supporting your old shit, that’s not “unethical” either; they don’t have a duty to do so. If a company slows down your phone or something of the sort, that’s “unethical” indeed. This is going to split people the same way that pharmaceutical pricing does. If you look at it rationally, of course companies will behave the way they currently do. If we use some sort of “ethics” lens it becomes complicated. I don’t believe that “there’s no ethics in business” but it’s certainly not the same set of ethics as elsewhere.

I'll believe it when I never have to change a light bulb again, but looking forward to it.

Too lazy to look up, but wasn't that a thing? The light bulb theory or something?

Wow, why does the EU actually care about its people and protection against megacorporations

Good on them

Point guns at people to make them do what we want.

Unplanned it is then!

How did they define obsolescence?

Devices that aren't updated or phased out too soon.

Such example would be Samsung and their Galaxy series. Ever since they've locked the bootloader, people were not able to flash the newer Android and is stuck on whatever Firmware that Samsung release. I'm on the S7 and have yet to see the new Release of Android that already hit S9. I have the Moto Z Force Droid and it may have been replaced by a newer model, but at least Lenovo and Motorola still support it by releasing the new firmware. And if Samsung complain about the cost, they should take a lesson from XDA and the JB communities that seem to do it with only three people.

"Devices that aren't updated or phased out too soon"

What does the EU think is too soon?

And also I'm pretty sure that old hardware can't run newer software in a way that a consumer would like.

I feel like obsolescence is a necessity of a technologically progressive world. I wonder what exactly the EU is trying to ban, because "a device that isn't updated" might be a good thing in cases where the software update can't run on the hardware at like, more than 10fps.

I guess what is obsolescence would be hardware that is not capable of maintaining the performances?

At most, it could be that as long as it longer than the 10(?) years frame? I'm certain that maybe they'll do it so that a person isn't forced to upgrade within 2 years

Hey. Do you guys remember the consumerist?

I think another site like it should exist soon.

The most worrying industry to be affected by this isn’t smartphones.

It’s lightbulbs.

They’re planned to fail, just look at the Centennial lightbulb it’s been running since 1901

You can already get your phones fixed at a repair shop, or even buy your own parts online and do it yourself. Making companies make a phone with an easily accessible battery means no water resistance. Some people like this trade off. If you want a phone with a removable battery, buy one of those models, they're out there. Also as a repair tech that stock photo they've used is the best.

[deleted]

That phone stayed "water resistant" for a few months untill the cheap plastic back warped or the plastic frame bent slightly. I've worked on cellphones for almost 4 years, in my experience the s5 was brought in way more for water damage than modern ip68 rated phones. The s5 removable back was its weakness. You can get batteries for any smartphone online and replace it yourself. I fix 5 to 7 phones a day and it's very possible for the average person to replace their own battery. YouTube tutorials are plentiful.

Why is the thumbnail on mobile a broken phone with a screwdriver and tweezers at the screen?

No wonder Dyson wants out 🤔

Aside from that: wtf is happening in this picture?

Pretty sure this will effect LED lighting. https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last

so no more nvidia cards?

Glad Brexits happening. I hate keeping of devices.

The picture for this article is hilariously inaccurate

This is amazing!

Get ready for prices to shoot up tremendously.

Woah this is huge. Like, humanity world wide useful huge.

Dear lord, i need a drink. i thought it said planned adolescence

It's very strange to think about. So many companies make huge factories to push out the products fast because they've designed them to not last long. If planned obsolescence is abolished completely, would that have a noticeably negative effect on the job market? I'm all for it, but just thinking about some of the consequences.

Also, how would they go on about it? Would they hire engineers to look at/inspect products and find out if they could be engineered better? How would they beyond a reasonable doubt know if the imperfections were due to planned obsolescence or by lack of ingenuity?

Is there a list of things we obviously know are purposely engineered to last a shorter time than could be reasonably achieved? I know non-replaceable or non-serviceable batteries are one.

I want this to work, the pessimist in me says, “good luck with that”

“Engineered obsolescence” has existed for decades. Good luck.

Pls pls pls

Will I finally get the modular phone of my dreams? Project Ara ;-;

phones gonna become crazy thick again.

I served on a battleship which was constructed in ‘53 in USA. It had its original light bulbs and fuses still in working condition in 2017. It had really gotten me thinking back then.

Ultimately, I think the real issue here is one of information asymmetry, somewhat similar to the lemon problem. For example, there's no inherent way for a consumer to tell if one phone or another will last three years, or a decade. Theoretically, you can solve this problem with manufacturer reputation, but with modern technology, there hasn't been much opportunity for a company to establish a reputation for longevity beyond a few years. There's so much natural obsolescence (technology improving, software supporting what most people are using, etc.), that longevity isn't really a major factor for most consumers.

As a result, manufacturers are competing on price and readily observable features, and that gives them every incentive to cut costs at the expense of longevity. That's not a plan to make you buy a new phone in three years. It's a plan to get your business by charging a price you expect. And because nobody has a reputation for longevity, no company can easily deviate from this for the time being.

Consider this: If Apple came out with a phone tomorrow that they claimed was designed to last ten years, and they charged twice as much money for it, would you be likely to buy it? Would you even believe their claim?

So I super don't buy the "planned obsolescence" conspiracy theories, and while I think there are some good ideas in this plan (like requiring products to be reasonably easy to service), the whole concept is tainted by chasing ghosts. Ultimately, I think this problem will go away of its own accord. Advances in phone technology are slowing down, and within the next ten years or so, as users naturally want to hold onto their phones fro longer, long-term reliability will start to be a selling point, and some companies will earn that reputation.

The Market for Lemons

"The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism" is a well-known 1970 paper by economist George Akerlof which examines how the quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers, leaving only "lemons" behind. In American slang, a lemon is a car that is found to be defective only after it has been bought.

Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a "lemon". Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg).

^[ ^PM ^| ^Exclude ^me ^| ^Exclude ^from ^subreddit ^| ^FAQ ^/ ^Information ^| ^Source ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.28

I think calling this revolutionary is underselling it. This has the potential to transform global economics, markets, resources and technology itself. But I also believe - because of that - that it will need to be implemented carefully. Killing a company's profitability is a real concern and fortunately it appears that's being taken into account. This genuinely gives me some rare hope.

I was a mechanic or in the auto trade to some extent from around 2002 till 2015. I started working on cars from the late 80s early 90s that failed due to basically rotting into the ground still or eventual build up of minor items. Then cars from the mid to late 90s thtough to 2007 ish petrol engines more so than diesel were really solid. If you kept on top of them they didnt rot or commonly have large issues like head gasket faliure. However arround this time we started to notice that the complications of modern cars and cost of parts were going to bd the factors that killed cars (at least in combination with available car finance,why rack up bills on an old wreck if you can hp a new car) relatively minor problems, a new radiator for example, could now easily make a ten year old car un economical to keep on the road. It became obvious that car manufacturers had no intention of there cars having an "old age".

but if it doesent break we can buy more

This sounds too heavy handed.

Just make companies list the mean time to failure on all of their products when they are for sale. I'm sure they already have data like this.

Just change the incentives...

but this article is from last year

A lot of European cars are so complicated and expensive to regularly maintain anyway that they depreciate to salvage value after 4 years. You don't need a $1000 module to operate the oil level and quality when there is such thing as idk, a dipstick.

I'm talking to you Mercedes, Audi and BMW.

Plus you have the established laws in Germany that discourage the purchase of used and older cars.

They will until every greedy corp in the USA says we wont sell to you, and then the EU will give in to some crappy deal, and in 3 years we'll be back here again.

That would be great to reduce trash and frees up income for other branches of industry

Good luck. You’ll need it.

Ummm... without inbuilt obsolescence products are going to cost you a hell of a lot more... I wonder if we'll have to move to a rental model instead of out right purchasing of products.

I'd love it if we did design products that last, are simple to fix, upgrade, use common parts between models and so on but the western economic model doesn't work without raping the planet.

So if implemented, everyone will be joining r/BuyItForLife?

Can someone explain what planned obsolescence is defined as outside of the natural degradation of existing electronics? Wouldn’t we live in a world where nothing ever gets released because technology evolves at crazy speeds without some form of planned obsolescence?

Source?

If products lasted forever no one would have a job.

Good luck with that, everything in essence is planned to be obsolete, if it isn’t something has gone terribly wrong in the world and this bill is the least of our concerns.

I just see this as companies having to stock components for 10 year old devices, tying up inventory space.

Eu plans to remove all technology

Miele don't do planned obsolescence.

That's why their stuff costs three times as much.

Well worth it though.

I think this is a good goal, but it will be difficult to strong arm companies into supporting or optimizing new software for old hardware.

If it makes a dent in the "Right to Repair" movement then I'm all for it. I just think that companies will still find ways of executing planned obsolescence by making it annoying to use old hardware with their latest software.

Good luck with that

P.O. is shitty, but I really don't want the EU bureaucracy micromanaging electronics design

So the article mentions Samsung but not Apple???? Typical...

This will not go over well in Trump's America

I read this as they were planning to abolish PROLONGED ADOLESCENCE.

Wow that would be quite something. They need to do this in north America too. It's not just about the fact that it forces people to buy new stuff but it also produces more pollution.

Ah the 1920s all over again

Intriguing idea...how, exactly?

That article is long on promise and short on solid ways to accomplish this.

Excellent news! I wonder how they monitor it?

Yeah right. Have fun proving that against these big companies..

The EU plans to legislate themselves into technological relevance. The EU is rapidly becoming as disruptive as Trump, and in a similar fashion. Overreaching legislation is easy to write and pass when it asymetrically affects tech companies outside your borders.

Planned obsolescence has it's own planned obsolescence.

1/2 ain't bad.

C coolLOLp Ll Pretty Ibjjb PAnd then lI’m lL Important

This article is from May 2017, over a year ago in other words. Did this proposal actually go anywhere?

This is absolutely a step in the right direction. Many Western and European countries still operate under capitalist systems, so it will be interesting to see how this policy influences the competitiveness of the European market. On the one hand, more durable products means more interest in European consumer goods, however it is hard to argue to efficacy and potency of planned obsolescence, especially when operating in conjunction with an ethic of consumerism, as is the case in a growing numbers of nations worldwide.

Talk about a Nanny state. And then it will post a fine Conveniently against US based companies. Hmm I wonder where the money goes? Planned obsolescence and your electronics not lasting as long as older stuff are different thing. For one thing "someone" outlawed lead for solder, cause we didn't want garbage fills to be leaking lead into the ground, sounds good right? Well lead is an excellent solder used on computer boards of all kinds. So guess what? More garbage things don't last as long for very simple reasons, tin solder sucks. Guess who outlawed Lead solder? The European Commission (EC). On top of it all Tin mining is much worse for the environment then lead mining. Having said that lead free flux and solder in plumbing and drinking water piping based stuffs was obviously a good idea. - Source - https://www.ecnmag.com/article/2011/12/was-lead-free-solder-worth-effort

TL/DR - if you want your electronics to last like they did in the old days lead solder is where its at but illegal now.

it all started with the lightbulb industry

It's funny, how I got down-voted on another sub for mentioning planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence is a boogeyman that people throw out when their stuff breaks.

There is no conspiracy to make you buy things more.

The funny part is that (in the article even) the only real benefit of programs like this is going to be the second hand repair shops. Most people don’t repair their own stuff, they take it to someone else to repair.

I don't know. Nowadays you can type in the model number on YouTube and it shows you exactly what to do. You can fix it within an hour in the privacy of your own home (no driving) or paying someone else labor costs. I'm not a genius and I don't know anything about engineering, but I can follow instructions pretty well.

we're talking about people that dont even know what a screwdriver is here. they're not going to be doing it by themselves

There is no conspiracy to make you buy things more.

There is, though.

First of all: No it is not. There have been numerous cases where for example TVs randomly used worse parts in certain areas and then others (in one device mind you), with no other reason than to limit their lifetime. Its not a coincidence that pretty much every repair shop can tell you, that with most makes and models its always the same part that dies first, usually well ahead of the rest. The reason? One cheap transistor or capacitor used in just the right place to die after 2-3 years.

Like I said, repair shops have a vested interest to make it seem real because their business model is threatened by lack of repairability.

Show me real evidence, like the specific part number of this “cheap transistor or capacitor “ that everyone supposedly uses, or else I’m calling it urban legend.

Well, if you buy a cheap Chinese TV, you get what you pay for. They're putting the cheapest parts in it they can find, which are usually manufactured with poor quality control. You can always buy the extended warranty if you're worried about it's longevity, or you can buy from the manufacturer that builds quality TV's that will last 10+ years. Freedom of choice. The best way is to just let the free market work, and not letting your government get involved.

What do you consider quality TV's? Afaik, Samsung, Phillips and most other large companies had cases like this. For example: The SyncMaster series of monitors by Samsung. They came, by design, with capacitors in their power supplies which were not rated for the amount of work they had to do for more than 2 years. Interestingly enough, all other transistors in the entire TV, were rated to live far longer than that.

I have a Samsung that's worked perfectly for more than 10 years now that I picked up used in a Pawn shop. I also have a Phillips that's at least that old. I guess I'm just lucky, but I feel like I've got my money's worth.

Yeah does planned obsolescence even make sense? If consumers so desired longer lasting products they would buy exclusively from companies offering that.

Isn't the real problem market collusion and oligopoly/monopoly situations that allow corporations to deprive consumers of choice? This seems like an anticompetition issue.

Edit: I do see the environmental reasons for a law like this since consumers are nowhere near rational and will still buy shitty stuff, so it may still be a good idea from that perspective

Yeah does planned obsolescence even make sense? If consumers so desired longer lasting products they would buy exclusively from companies offering that.

have you ever tried to research every item you buy like that. My mom does it, and it regularly takes several days of research, going through articles with alot of technical mumbo-jumbo that is difficult to understand, just to think you are well informed and than end again with a maschine that breaks drown after a little bit more than 2 years (and when we are happy that we used the extension from 2 to 4 years guarantee).

The problem is: If people had a easy way to know how long which product last, they would probably put that into their consideration, but the effort to get this information is massive, and things change. The Miele of my landlords still works well after 20 - 30 years, but modern Miele are also often made with some cheap products at essential places that wear down faster.

There are services like Consumer Reports that provide that type of information for a wide variety of products. I'm not sure how much product lifetime factors into their rankings, but surely it does contribute.

I agree that the average consumer can't be expected to know the intricate details of every technology they buy - that's nearly impossible. Larger support for consumer advocacy groups would go a long way

There are services like Consumer Reports that provide that type of information for a wide variety of products. I'm not sure how much product lifetime factors into their rankings, but surely it does contribute.

Lol. These are just another form of marketing agencies. They’re in bed with the manufacturers.

Source: this is how I make a living in a very niche industry.

Your response prompted me to do more research, thank you for that. I found that the number of controversial actions by Consumer Reports is very low given their 82 year history. Can you provide some evidence of your claims beyond referring to your admittedly 'very niche' anecdote?

Were you speaking specifically about Consumer Reports or other consumer advocacy companies? Your 'source' statement is not as compelling as you think it is, at least without further information. I'm not asking you to libel yourself, but more information about how that marketing process works would be appreciated

Might seem simple but I like this. In most countries (I think the entire EU) a product already needs to physically last / work for a 'reasonable' time but it's not always clear for how long that is. It would be nice if they extended it to services as well.
I'm not sure if it will lessen planned obsolecence though, I expect it just means PC's will be stamped with a design life of 5 years, phones with 3 or something like that

Good. Im still disgusted how many cellphone makers forced these bullshit soldered batteries so you can't just replace them unless you got soldering station... It didnt even improve anything other than forcing to buy another cell faster when battery will fail.

Where the fuck are you getting cellphones with soldered batteries?

https://www.maketecheasier.com/removable-vs-non-removable-battery/ there is more and more non-removable batteries in cell for "reasons".

The US could learn from these more experienced countries.. I wish we were open minded like some nations in Europe! They have some great ideas..

There's a reason the EU is irrelevant in the tech space. No other market in the world follows the European model because it stifles innovation and just doesn't work.

Not really in the phone space, but it's disingenuous to say the EU is awful in the tech space since Bosch is German and an enormous number of car manufacturers are based in the EU

Bosch is German and an enormous number of car manufacturers are based in the EU

That's part of my point. The EU has the exact same policies as the US in automotive and industrial tech, it's just consumer technology that they impose these ridiculous fines and standards on. People keep pretending that the EU is acting to "protect the consumer" when that couldn't be further from the truth. Where was that "consumer protection" when European banks helped cause the global crash? Where was that "consumer protection" when Volkswagen actively cheated their emissions results? Where was that "consumer protection" when BP and other European companies caused major environmental damage? The EU has fallen so far behind on consumer technology that they can impose these horrible constraints without fear of damaging their own industry.

The Canadian government is based largely on the European model and for the most part they have similar policies but when it comes to tech they couldn't be further apart because Canada has a healthy tech industry. Around the world no one else copies EU practices because they're so obviously hostile. We need to stop pretending that the EU cares about consumers, they just don't. All these regulations on consumer technology are an easy way to impose protectionist policies and steal money from foreign corporations while pretending to be "for the people".

I had a $60 panini press with 2 years of warranty. It broke down one week before the warranty expired, store gave me a new one and it broke down after 2 years and 2 months of use.

There's no way to legislate this, and trying to do so will make things worse.

You know when libertarians bitch about government interference? This is one of those times. This will be a big issue in a decade.

The increased cost will just be passed down to consumers. Either you pay more upfront, or pay more down the road, the company will still target the same profit margins. Useless government regulation.

As cool as this sounds from a morals and ideals point of view, it would greatly slow the development of products and reduce the number of people working to make/maintain them. My hope is that human bordom would override and compel us to try new things.

Think about this way. This will force companies, to consolidate their device markets. Instead of having 15 different models (phone, computer, washing machine, TV...), have 3 models: Top, middle, lower tier. Design the parts interchangable way.

It will be a problem in the beginning. But transition will be faster afterwards. It will also save money to companies. Less advertising of new product lines, less manufacturing lines - no need to make 15 models, can build 3 models in higher capacity.

Better for developers and designers. No need to rush out a half-baked idea, to make sure the newest model is ready for the quarterly target. They can get time to finish what they are working on, and come up with real new things, instead of gaining 2.1% efficiency on the previous model.

Better repair service and second hand market. Better for consumers, who don't need to replace that washing machine every 2 years.

My absolue favorite would be car manufacturers. No more different models for each country. No more different version of the same car. Ford - which already started consolidating their product line - still has 16 different consumer models to sell. You can consolidate it to 4.

This will drive innovation. When companies cannot sell anymore the 2.1% faster whatever every year, but they are forced to come up with REAL changes, there will be fierce competition of coming up with the best idea. Not the latest, but the best.

I hear that argument regularly, but I still can't buy a brand new Toyota MR2 or an Acura Integra. Why, the model line was reduced in favor of system efficiency.

I can't find clothes in my size for the same reason, I am very short and my feet are quite small. Almost no company makes clothes that fit me. Why, one size fits all.

I fear that the same kind of thing will happen if we employ the model you are suggesting.

Lets say you don't agree with what the majority of people want in a product, or the majority product simply can't function for your needs? If the system is sooo efficient that it no longer offers reasonable solutions to most problems, then it has defeated itself. The SECOND a company makes a error in what the majority of customers want, even if they sell a fair number of their products to others, they go bankrupt.

Investors say safety comes in diversifying your portfolio, same is true in engineering.

If we want to strengthen the industry, we would do the opposite. More diversity, more designs, more nitch products, more people to sell more stuff to.

Further, who's to say that the idea that was shot down for current cost analysis isn't the companies saving grace 20 years later? This happens all the time. Things that were originally considered a complete failure, like compact cars, desktop pcs, and the telephone, are now markets that huge populations of people depend on to make their daily income. If we'd have cut out those ideas in the name of efficiency from the getgo we wouldn't even be having this conversation, cause none of those things would exist. Neither would light bulbs.

I seem to have to have this argument with under-educated business oriented minds regularly. You NEED both variety and failure, in HUGE quantities in order for science and technology to progress. If you cut out everything but only one idea for the sake of "efficiency", you are selling the cow for a gallon of milk. Quick boost now, but a complete loss later.

Think of it like mono-cropping. More efficient, yes but terrible for the environment. Eventually causing the need for ever increasing amounts of artificial input to continue growing. The same thing will happen to industry, as the system becomes moore and more efficient, business and finance experts will have to go to greater and greater lengths to stabilize the system at every little hiccup.

I for one don't look forward to a world where the economy of say Spain rests entirely on if an executive of Ford chose the right size sedan to sell this year...

Ask Apple why they deliberately use shitty thermal paste.

Why would they do that?

This will probably get buried but here it goes.

I dont think this is a good idea for smartphones or any high developed product, people want something new bi yearly or even yearly having all those replacement parts slowly turning obsolete is even worse on our dwindeling resources. They should focus this on appliances that have 1 function like for instance washing machines, coffee makers, dryers etc.

So if you want new trousers you rip your old ones apart, since you first need the old ones to self destruct before you get new ones?!

What about selling a functioning used phone to someone who can't even afford a new one every five years? You could buy a new phone, and make money, and save ressources.

Jesus, it's about fucking time.

Do we have Louis Rossmann on reddit?

This will have huge positive repercussions for the environment. Three cheers!

Holy shit, yes please. Let's go back to analog where shit lasted 30+ years, no one needs WiFi and a TV in their damn fridge.

Great that they're working to formally define the term.

One way to approach actually enforcing the law it is to enable/support whistleblowing. In all of these cases, guaranteed there were people who knew what they were doing and didn't speak up. I'm not talking about C-suite either. I'm talking about standard QA support staff, product managers, and engineers. Give them a way to speak up!

This would be fucking great. One of the biggest problems with manufactured goods. Especially bicycles and electronics.

It's interesting how this would work with Dutch guarantee laws. The Dutch law is different from the EU '2 year garantee'-guideline.
According to Dutch law you should have a 'decent working product as long as the expected lifespan of the product'.

r/buyitforlife

Planned obsolescence is the most destructive practice on the planet.  It enriches the few by oppressing the many.  It wastes an enormous amount of resources.  It creates orders of magnitude more pollution than ethical manufacturing.  Abolish planned obsolescence worldwide!

It's a couple of years ago now, but in an interview, Axel Dumas, the CEO of Hermès, was asked about his definition of luxury. "Being able to repair something", was his answer.

Playing devils advocate here. Planned obsolescence can make sure a part fails before another part can make a sudden and fatal malfunction. So you can take it into the shop to have both the planned obsolescence part and the critical part fixed.

As a Canadian it makes me disappointed in my country that we don't really have any initiatives that extend protection of consumers here. the government is more concerned with finding new ways to tax us rather than protect us from companies that do stuff like this.

Everyone is having relevant and deep discussions on the implications of planned obsolescence and I'm just sitting here staring at their stock photo wondering what the hell they're doing to a phone with a broken screen with a pair of tweezers and a tiny flathead screwdriver, not to mention they're doing their repairs on an old picnic table.

Thanks again EU

How would you prove the negative though? It's your word again theirs.

This is great news,

The most direct recent example of planned obsolescene and an engineered flaw that I've seen is with a cat tree i bought 3 years ago, the fabric, poles and platforms have held up extremely well, but all the fixings were screwed into plastic end caps. After a year the top platform fell off, the plastic cap had basically disintegrated, then, shortly afterwards the platforms below it suffered the same fate. The last small post attached to the base fell off yesturday and my cat is now taking out her anger from losing it on the rest of my furniture.

If those fixings were made out of a better material the whole thing would still be of use. Instead i need to fork out for another one, what's annoying is the same cat tree is still for sale and I'm sure it has the exact same engineered problem.

One thing I miss from the Soviet Union is their indestructible appliances. Would welcome it back.

GAMING CONSOLES.

Buy a new 400 dollar DRM box every 4 years.

The tech in software for an Xbox One for example is too much for an Xbox/xbox 360. You can’t demand that tech halt because you don’t want to buy a new system every 4-5 years, and can’t plan ahead.

lightbulb industry shook

Some items don't and shouldn't be designed with planned obsolescence in mind...

This causes two reactions in me

  1. isn’t this bad for businesses which employ lots of people? I am sure that most appliances could be made in a way now that they would last decades, but if that happens then companies will have to jack up prices to stay afloat, they will lay off masses of people because they simply don’t need them because they are making way less products.

  2. Yay Business accountability!!!

at least this guy is using his brain to weigh the pros and cons^

"We're going to make a plan to make obsolete planned obsolescence."

This is extremely difficult: machines are made so that repairs and maintenance are possible. This means things are probably more expensive, because they are designed to used for longer periods of time.

There isn't an issue with consumers' cash flow, right?

Will this apply to software updates?

I knew every single Xbox 360 getting the red ring of death slightly after the warranty expires was fishy.

If a car can not break during warranty period in all weather conditions and various misuse by the driver, how can house appliance break working in totally perfect conditions? It's planned. And it's also planned that any possible repair would be too expensive. In my fridge first died the part driving the compressor. In a month from replacing that part - the compressor itself. If I replaced the compressor, probably something else would break. BTW compressor costs over half of the price of the new fridge, so I replaced the fridge.

Good move! A teeny tiny baby step toward circular economy.

Right to repair basically needs to be globally adopted...in current times, earning money for 80-90% of population is not easy.. Having it wasted on appliances is another stress (for no substantial reason) put by corps for profits & sucking people’s money

You want innovation? This is how you kill innovation.

Buy the iPhone 11, 3 year life span, now only $9,530

Why is Europe coming up with common sense laws (planned obsolescence, privacy)

Here is something: why give something as massive as the EU the power to stop companies from doing this? leave it to the respective countries so that you’re not conceding power to a group of unelected “representatives”

Because nobody cares about individual countries, if you want to change something, you gotta team up with your friends.

America plans to make it mandatory.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. They will be stepping on corporate toes by passing such a resolution. And corporate will always find loopholes and ways to bend the law.

I'm sceptical about this.

Let’s be honest tho. In a free market , shouldn’t companies try to create products that last and are quality ? Stop buying this shit and vote with your dollar . /r/BuyItForLife .

hahahahaha, oh wait... you are serious.

Hey man, I think it’s bullshit too, but people need to stop giving money to these companies. Stop consuming garbage and research shit . It’s the reason I buy Patagonia over Old Navy. Buy a Speed Queen over a GE.

I dunno just a thought.

This is great, especially love the fuck you to apple and their repair policy

This is another ploy for more government policy which always leads to more control. Yes, companies like Apple and Samsung have been getting away with murder in terms of planned obsolescence, but you can't make companies not do stuff like this. They should be allowed to do what ever they want. Don't make a law. Simply get everyone to boycott the shit out of these companies. They'll change their attitude real quick if they want to remain profitable.

But you don't need a law. Let the free market deal with it. Support companies that don't do planned obsolescence. Simple as that

Wow the EU REALLY cares for the little guys, huh? Absolutely no semblance of ulterior motives, just pure bureaucratic paper-pushing all for a better humanity. The EU is GOD, accept them and become welcome by the club.

there's another solution here, and that's for people to actually buy the higher quality product, it may cost more but it'll last a lot longer.

this reminds me of a "church" key can opener i bought at a convience store. it cost me 1 dollar, and I tried to open a can of v8 with it.. the can opener broke on first use and didn't open the can, they literally made a product, that was completely useless , shipped it over seas and sold it to me. spending millions on distribution manufacturing etc on products that are completely useless, but relying on new people purchasing them every day that have no clue how worthless they are.

The lightbulb conspiracy is worth a watch if this subject is interesting to you

That's the sort of thing I'd demand if made Supreme Ruler of Earth.

Can you imagine the Free Market folks reaction to this?

[deleted]

You live in usa?

You mean the 2nd largest economy in the world and the highest HDI in the world? Best place to live, bar Switzerland/Norway (who are both massively interlinked into the EU), highest standards of safety etc. etc.

I'm sure if faux news is your only source of misinformation that you'd believe that though.

we have economic and social problems? Living in the Netherlands is great. We are rich, have great pensions, vacation time, low crime etc. Not many problems here mate

Yeah really, I'm having fun working in the US. But I do not, repeat, do not, want to grow older there.

Life is so much nicer back home.

Have you lived there? Quality of live is astoundingly higher if you are remotely middle class.

I'm working in the US now because of my wife. But I can't wait to go back to my country. Even if that means a 50% cut in my salary.

But that's only me. Just keep in mind that it's a nice place to live.

I reeeeeaalllly hope you're not American lad haha

[deleted]

Why watches? They produce more iconic products. I mean, why not.

Apple is so obviously doing this with their batteries.

This seems stupid. Why should a law regulate a manufacturer from doing stuff that should make the consumers just not buy the product? Wouldn't it be better for people to just not buy those products and let manufacturers who do such things fail?

[deleted]

How do you suppose such a thing would happen?

By not buying their products? why is that a difficult concept to grasp? If the company is bad, don't support them. It's really very easy to do.

[deleted]

You're assuming the existence of superior alternatives

I'm not, actually. What I'm saying is the reason there aren't superior alternatives is because everyone is more than happy to buy an inferior product. If you need a product and all the companies are the same, you're boned...or you find an alternative means to accomplish the goal. There's always another way.

Lets look at your tractors example...yes, buying a new john deere comes with a lot of "strings attached". Why? Because the consumers are mostly okay with it. It's just like select-a-seat and ticketmaster...the reason they exist despite Reddit's hatred of them is that the vast majority of people simply don't care.

The alternative is to buy a used tractor. The used tractor market is vast...I can see three closed-cab late-90's/early-00's models with for sale signs in the windows from my front porch. There's also other brands than John Deere (dozens of them). If people had that big a problem with John Deere's practices, I guarantee those practices would change when no one buys any new tractors from them for a year. But most people don't care or they don't think the "bad business" is bad business.

All companies do it, not just the biggest ones. That's why government intervention is necessary.

Because that's working out great...

All manufacturers do it, because it is hugely profitable. Any that don't get outcompeted, outmarketed, or even bought out.

All manufacturers do it, because it is hugely profitable.

Because people keep buying the same products knowing in advance the manufacturer is going it.

Well yes, because there is no long-life alternative anymore. Besides, why would the short-life one even need to be the most centerfront model.

Everything has it, people buy it because there's basically no option.

Because that's totally working, yeah. Find me a light bulb that lasts more than a year (old filament light bulbs, not eco/led ones). Even phones with removable batteries are harder and harder to find... There's tons of example of products lasting less time, breaking early, having irreplaceable components, etc.

Stop believing manufacturers will do what's right for us. They're here to make money, and make sure they keep making money.

Your light bulb argument falls apart when you rule out LED bulbs that cost $7 and have 10 year warranties... That was kinda a shit example.

The light bulb market has changed without any kind of law. Kind of kills your argument. lol

I was explicitly referring to the filament one, because they're known to last forever when correctly engineered. Despite that, light bulb makers decided it was better for their business (sadly not for their consumer) to engineer them to break after a short while, so that customers should have to buy them regularly.

Eco bulbs and now LED ones changed the market quite a bit, that's true.

I know you were. But like you just admitted, the whole light bulb market has changed without any kind of law.

Then buy good light bulbs instead of the shit ones, and buy phones with removable batteries. The point is you have a choice to buy good or bad. That’s how companies compete to make better products.

Because a worrying majority of consumers don't give a rat's arse about the shite they're buying. That's why we need some intervention.

Because a worrying majority of consumers don't give a rat's arse about the shite they're buying.

Then aren't you requesting legislation in favor of a minority?

"I want to be able to do bad shit one day too so dont make it illegal yet" said the middle class white living at his parents

You're not wrong, but unless I'm missing something critical (genuinely mean this), wouldn't the benefits of something like this outweigh the drawbacks? Obviously it needs to be implemented properly, which is open to interpretation.

Admittedly I'm not well versed on this topic at all (hence my disclaimer about missing something critical). But annoyed owners of End-of-Life electronic goods aside, I imagine planned obsolescence must produce extra waste, and as a knock-on effect, require more resources for replacements, and electronic waste is a big and growing problem.

That said, I think your original point is valid. I'd love it if consumers would vote with their wallets, it would benefit everyone (maybe apart from big companies) if the consumers didn't let manufacturers get away with trying to sell us sub-par products, and I see why having the government control everything for us is pretty silly.

yes, but because of economic-psychological reasons where the consumer is in a weak position.

The thing is, the factual reality is that most people neither have the time, knowledge or willingness to research every item they want to buy. This put them at a strong disadvantage, as the consumer will on the first hand only have these informations that are openly provided by the person selling the product. There are a few that spend days before buying a product, but without real knowledge about that subject, that is still often nearly impossible to understand the different articles about different prodcuts.

In this proposal, the companies are forced to do two things: Display the information about the minimal time they will work openly, meaning that the consumer can make their decision without having to go to research these information themselves (which again, will not happen). On the other hand, they should make repairs easier, again, something that is in the interest of the consumer, but that they are normally not able to put in their evaluation which product to buy. By making it an industrial standard, it is kept unecessary for the buyer to inform themselves about it, as it will be - well - the standard.

Yeah governments trying to protect its citizens from corporate greed should go die in a ditch.

Because it is advantageous to the manufacturer, they make more profits in the short term before people realise. And before they do, other manufacturers do the same and since everyone does it, you have no choice but to buy from one who does so. It’s exactly the situation we’re in now for a lot of products.

So they should be listing price to own alongside price to buy?

How do you expect consumers to know how long a product will last before they buy and use that product?

How do you expect consumers to know how long a product will last before they buy and use that product?

Experience. If you buy something, and it sucks, don't buy another one. Businesses are dependent on selling more than one of the thing.

That works for companies that sell major purchases and have to maintain reputation to sell their products but people/companies who make minor appliances have no reason to keep the same brand name, they can pump out brand names much faster than I need to buy new appliances

HOW DARE YOU WANT PEOPLE AND MARKETS TO BE FREE TO MAKE THEIR ON DECISIONS!

No but the EUSSR is a tool of the liberal metropolitan elite. Vote brexit!

Sarcasm.

The EU is one of the only organisations on earth which is constantly driving forward changes that benefit people in tax, the environment and in consumer protections like this.

Blows my mind that my silly country decided to be out of it and subject to it's rules, instead of being a proud leading part of it influencing it's rules and helping spread them, along with western European standards and values...

The EU hasnt done half as much as the US on environmental issues. Stop pulling shit out of your ass. Also, haven't you noticed that none of the pro consumer policy coming out of the EU amounts to shit? All they've done is robbed American industry via fines but as far as the end user is concerned I couldn't name a single EU policy that actually created change for the better.

None of what you typed makes any sense. Try calming down before you speak to people. You will be able to structure your thinking much more effectively. Breath. Relax.

The idea that the EU somehow "leads" on environmental issues is a persistent myth based on constant PR stunts. Every other week on this sub and other subs we hear stories about Germany or some other EU country going 24 hours without fossil fuels or putting up more solar panels or enacting more environmental policies but there's never much research into the actual impact of these hollow headline grabs. Let's make one thing absolutely clear, the United States is the unquestionable leader in renewable technologies and environmental protection. The United States doesn't spend wastefully on solar farms for the sake of headlines because our environmental policy is largely predicated on private industry so we focus on profit, not propaganda. Countries like Germany and China put up these farms because its good PR and it gives them global prestige but the truth is these solar farms don't actually reduce dependence on fossil fuels. In Germany's case they don't even make up for the closure of multiple nuclear plants whereas China just goes for the headline to hide the fact that they're opening far more coal plants than solar plants.

This reliance on private investment is also why the United States doesn't focus so much on catchy policies that don't amount to much. Take the Paris Climate Accord as an example, the United States may have gotten out of the deal yet we're far ahead of our commitments while the entirety of the EU is already falling behind even though we had the larger commitment. Countries like France and Germany always push BS policies that will take effect in the far off future of ~~2020~~ ~~2030~~ 2035 so that they can get all the global prestige today while pushing the problem off to tomorrow while deflecting from the fact that they've already failed previous goals. The fact of the matter is these policies just don't work. The core idea of the Paris Climate Accords, that paying developing countries would prevent them from abusing natural resources, has already been proven to be false. Over the past decade Norway has invested 3 billion dollars into the Brazilian economy in order to reduce the need to cut down the Amazon rain forest for land and resources but the net effect has been insignificant. Brazilians took the money from Norway and continued cutting down the rain forest at an exponential rate for cattle ranching and raw material. It doesn't matter how much money you give a country, if they can make more money they always will. The Paris agreement will fail because every other agreement like it before has failed.

True environmental reform will come in the way it has always come: science and private industry. We didn't stop whaling because of environmental concerns, we stopped whaling because we discovered kerosene. We didn't stop mining because of environmental concerns, we stopped mining because we found natural gas and renewable resources. We won't adopt new environmental standards because of environmental concerns, we'll adopt them when the technology has supplanted current means of production. And that's where the US is leading. Battery technology, solar cells, pump storage, conventional and electric motors, hydro, wind... practically any renewable energy tech you could name has been spearheaded and developed in large part by the United States with international assistance and we're not slowing down anytime soon. So yes, maybe the EU does talk up its "green policies" more but almost none of it matters. When we're talking about environmental impact we should always look at the long term strategy, not the weekly pr stunts. The harsh truth is the EU has little to show for all its bluster whereas the US is focusing on the less sexy, less prestigious, but far more important goal of research and development.

My point was you're picking a fight for no apparent reason. I don't give a shit about what you're talking about. You seem to have read something into my original comment that doesn't exist. At all. And you have run with it. I was making a comment about Brexit, not about anything to do with the USA.

The EU is one of the only organisations on earth which is constantly driving forward changes that benefit people in tax, the environment and in consumer protections like this.

My point is that is completely false. The EU is woefully behind on issues of the environment. They also only care about consumer protection when it involves taking money from American companies which is why you don't hear about fines against Deutsche Bank, BP, or Volkswagen. And when it comes to tax they're really nothing special. You spend more on tax and you get more services but its nothing magical.

Need to sell my Apple stock now before this catches on.

Why? I mean, compared to Android manufacturers, Apple phones have a significantly longer supported life. Phones from five years ago will be able to upgrade to the newest version of iOS and will supposedly work better. Sure, the devices are not user serviceable, but that has nothing to do with planned obsolescence.

If you are fixated on service, have a look at the core Google phone line - that is a better comparison since Google controls every part of the chain like Apple does for its phones. I don't see any difference, between service for pixel line and iPhone and to some extent feel the service for pixel is way faster than iPhones and no need to go to physical store for every small issue.

I wasn't fixated on service, i was just noting it so that nobody could call me out on it. Mind, ifixit gave the same repairability score (6/10) to both the Google Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X, so that's a thing too (the Pixel 1 XL and the iPhone 7 Plus from 2016 also had the same score of 7/10).

Ah, thanks!

I wasn't aware of iFixit's scores and was thinking more in terms of the default insurance/repair plans from the companies (Apple,Google & other android manufacturers) themselves and the ease of getting something solved (either through repair or device replacement).

How the hell could you possibly code-ify this into a law/enforce this?

The EU is off their rocker sometimes

[deleted]

If people want the latest, greatest they can choose to buy it. There's no reason a phone shouldn't last 3+ years with support if someone chooses.

The EU is about 50/50 with their bans. Sometimes they solve a long standing problem that most representatives are too old to be aware of (like digital rights and protection) but sometimes they just decide to ban "golden brown" food and "copyrighted" memes.

When are they going to create a system of rights for digital ownership such as steam games and Amazon ebooks. (sorry for saying these awful names on this subreddit)

Yeaaaaaaaaaah fuck you apple

-sent from my iPhone

oh no .. don't do it ... I don't want american immigrants in europe ...

But you’re ok with all the others?

Those got damn socialist commies!

s/

Built in Obselesence!

"More EU rules telling us how to live our lives and strangling businesses! Hard Brexit Now!"

edit: obviously /s, Christ!

Ah yes the most pressing concern of our time, never mind the mass influx of western hating migrants. The EU is a joke and it's clear they're just doing this to score some social brownie points.

This is real freedom. This is what I want to be proud of. I'd buy "proudly made in Europe.". You want to put the shine on shameful American manufacturer practices, do it. Fucking do it, I dare you. Americans are weaning from brand loyalty, because they no longer hold to the standards we bought into them for. We buy based on reviews now. I don't care if your product is Chinese, India, or made in Texas (God bless), I care if in not wasting my time and money.

Next, please get rid of in tank fuel filters, please. MEGA!

Why does the UK have to leave :( things like this is why I love the EU

They can still adopt this even if they are out, since if they design the phone just for EU, the profit gets cut...

I just hope my country will at least take reference from their law...

"EU aims to stop shitty practice that should have never happened in the first place"

slowpoke.jpg

If they are slowpoke, than what are the other countries in the world?

https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/slowking

Smart? Maybe there's a reason nobody else copies the EU.

That would be terrible. A "minimal life expectancy" is defacto a permission for planned obsolescence because manufacturers will build it to last exactly that long (short). If they make the "minimal life expectancy" too long (like 10 years), it would drive up prices immensely.

Most tech is already made to only last a few years so you're forced to buy a new one when it breaks.

The light bulb industry is an example of telling consumers how long your device will last, most of the companies in the sect display expected lifetimes as a form of advertisement.

But it would be a utter waste to know this information as a consumer to then make an enlightened decision about what make/model of phone to buy because you know how long the company expects it to last. /s

Edit/sidenote: Also, because the light bulb industry is closeknit, they've already built light bulbs that would last a 1000 years and then never sold them. Because as you say, the prices went up, but then consumers don't need a new lightbulb. Ever. So it's a short term payoff for a company to do this and the industry wouldn't be able to cope with the repercussions.

they've already built light bulbs that would last a 1000 years and then never sold them

Source?

Of course companies can make products last longer, but it will also cost more. They have to find a balance between life expetancy and cost. Very few people would buy a product that's twice the price because it lasts a bit longer because by the time it breaks, it's already outdated.

For example cars last decades if they are maintained, yet I rarely see any cars older than 10 years on the streets.

Ok I can't find the source I once had, but I've found this instead (link at bottom, on phone) as well as talking about a bulb that's been burning for 116 years as we speak, it also goes onto talk about how the light bulb industry were potentially the first to plan obsolescence at an industrial scale.

Although I said "they've already built lightbulbs" what i meant was that the technology is there to allow it to happen, but consumers will never see it.

There's also plenty of other sources that you yourself can find on your favourite search engine btw.

And I don't disagree with the conclussion of why the companies might be doing this, but it's shady as fuck. Make things that last. Don't slow them down when they get more than a year old. Then innovate so consumers can trade in and recycle their out of date devices.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last/amp

When was the last time you had a lightbulb last the expected time.

The time they put on there is for lightbulbs that are turned on, and never turn off. Flipping the switch every day makes them wear out much much sooner.

The life expenctancy also tends to be based on 3 hours a day of use.

I don't know about you, but my lights tend to stay on for much longer than 3 hours a day epsecially in the winter when the days are far shorter.

First reply is gettig downvoted so you're attempting to attack my argument in a different manner? Nice one!

And thanks for explaining that, I completely was not aware that was a thing. /s

"Forced", no there's no force here. Governments however - require force.

Forced by circumstances to purchase a new phone* when even phone repair shops can't fix your device because the manufacturer refuses to cooperate, but nice try trying to be pedantic.

*New as in newly in your possession, or go without a phone or a damaged phone which will have it's own societal repercussions.

Choose to not buy one or one that lasts longer.

How do you know what lasts longer when all the companies won't tell you that info and design them to break? This is literally the point.

Ehhh, heard of user reviews? The honest truth is that people choose to buy new stuff before they break. I've got a Nokia 3310 in a box here, it still works, wanna buy it?

Yeah, because electronics that stop functioning at the two years mark instead are cheap to replace. lol

Which ones stop after two years? I don't know of any. Mostly it's due to abuse by the user IF they break so quickly.

Several of my phones broke after 2-3 years due to simply going out. My Samsung S6 mini I think (not sure wich Galaxy it was tbh), for example at one morning the information "program x" couldn't be found, after that it started to behave strange, swiping and so on didn't work anymore, and the day after, it simply couldn't be turned on again. As I was at the time of a new contract, I switch conracts and got a new phone.

Something like that didn't happen once, but with several of my phones. I never had a crack, it was always something with the software.

Almost every smartphone I had started to break at the two years mark. Usually starts with the physical buttons (volume and home buttons), then the battery starts discharging much faster.

My ebook reader battery used to last 30 days when it was brand new. Now, a year and a half later, it's a miracle if it lasts for a week.

Had the same issue with washing machines, fridges and air conditioner.

Maybe you absuse it? I had all of my devices more than two years and not a single one ever broke.

I use my phone for maybe less than 2 hours a day, mainly for browsing reddit, because i use my PC for everything else.

Funnily enough, PC components have a much longer lifespan. I have my PC turned on with intense activity all day long (i only shut it down at night) and no component has ever failed me.

Apple will fight this.

"Planned obsolescence" in the automotive sector is worse.

Damn this is scary.... Best way to get companies to shut down and/or stop innovation.

SPOILER: won't ever happen under a consumption based "economic" system. Until we have it in place, that is.

Solution: Open source everything, 100% collaboration and sharing ideas/innovations based economic system (while ecologically sustainable).

Basically abandonment of competition/selfish gain based, monetary profits over anything else based, consumption/ecological unsustainability based "economic" system.

I think they don’t understand how technology works if they think it’s a greedy corporate plan that next gen products are better.

As much as I think this is cool, and helpful, I feel like the EU has become very overbearing on technology.

I read that as the "EU aims to abolish planned adolescence"

Can someone give me the positives and negatives of this.

Properly regulated capitalism would certainly outlaw this wasteful practice.

How is it that the market wouldn't fix this problem? Wouldn't some company make a killing by manufacturing appliances which have a reputation for being bullet proof? I'm not sure they would sell very well because people seem to just buy the cheapest thing. I'll bet consumer choice for cheap crap is driving a lot of this trend as well.

I was just talking to my wife about this. I think Germany has this law already, and it's such a good idea.

Yeah, good luck with that. Either you force companies to give like 5 years of warranty or I really don't see how you can enforce it.

Yes, please, EU, make this happen.

Of course, there are already different models of goods for the US and the EU, so we probably won't see nearly the benefit, but... It needs to happen.

This needs to happen immediately here. To be fair though with things like washing machines. The government imposed water restrictions have put these companies in a bad spot. We bout a new Maytag washers and dryer. It was broke 3 times in the first 3 weeks. We took them back and got Speed Queens which are still made to the bad ass spec. Sure you pay about 1200 instead of 500 but we should get 20-25 years out of them.

Holy shit If this takes off, pleae let this take off, I want it to spread globally! Products especially vehicles need to be designed not to force people into buying a new one every 5 or 6 years. Not to mention the outrageous costs of repairs with vehicles like how does something made of mostly plastic like a wing mirror cost $500 brand new and costs $150 to install. Boggles the mind.

Not sure how this is fully enforceable but I unironically would like to see them try. Wastage is insane and a more considered approach to production would help everyone the world over.

How will they differentiate? There is a find line between planned obsolecnce and "In order to provide a cheap product we have to use cheap materials"

Article says otherwise. Planned obsolescence can't be done away with, what EU is planning is clear definitions and criteria. No one can expect companies to keep making CRTs now, can they?

cough like thats ever gonna happen

I will have yet more reason to move across the pond if they do this...

I guess the question is: what is " planned obsolescence "?

Making products that intentionally fail.

  • not planned obsolescence. Computer is getting fairly old and the slower hardware struggles with modern gaming requirements

  • is planned obsolescence. Forced updates that make the hardware unusable even when you dont want to use new software

You're gonna have to ban the profit motive first.

I thought there was already an EU law stating that items couldn't be built around planned obsolescence.

Headline right after this gets implemented will be: "Prices for consumer goods double and triple overnight!". Why? Well profits of course. Unless there is MAJOR economic global rework that stops mega profits / "value" (see APPLE and AMAZON and so forth) from existing, it will still be cheaper to bribe politicians and keep profits up.

Funny how the only things that we are told need to change and adapt is anything but Economics and company over profits.

It's already doubled... Just compare the top range smartphones when SG note 5 was out and the current smartphone. If you say that's android, you can do that with iPhone just compare 4 and the latest iPhone X...even iPhone 8 is the same shit with the MSRP pumped up there ...

For sure it is more, but you'll see that even double or triple. Corporations don't plan on repair, recalls and heck even support into their products as they should.

That is the other aspect that folks forget, support. Majority of consumer, especially tech, goods need someone to manage RMAs, support use and repair cases. This means more people to handle the volume. It is bad enough now that companies see this as a burden and don't give a crap if the person answering these cases is competent, as long as they can read from a script created by sales and marketing and are paid at the lowest going rate. Why do you think it is an absolute hassle to deal with companies and their support? They hire and fire people at high rates, with the only qualification of the support person being that they show up and keep a seat warm! We are all focusing on the short term and quick solutions and need to start looking at long term sustainable laws and solutions that actually assist the buyer in all aspects. There not only has to be longer warranties, but also SLA mandates on ALL products that are days at most in term and not weeks, months or in some cases, years! There needs to be timely penalties and ramifications for violation of this.

They are struggling with their own obsolescence at the moment ,

Would this slow down the pace of technological progress though? If your electronics suddenly start lasting for decades, you will have less incentive to upgrade. This will reduce profits made by companies which will reduce the amount of money going into research and development.

That’ll never work, how the hell are you supposed to prove that in a court of law “We chose shit components to save on cost”

Oh good. EU wants manufacturers to break laws of physics to make phones last longer. So basically we all go back to Nokia’s huh?

Seriously though, this plan is idiotic. It takes away consumer choice in favor of a standardized phone format. Goodbye repair business.

This is potentially bad. Companies will likely have to charge higher prices for phones that aren’t going to be replaced for many years. This could hurt consumers.

Apple is so going to be hurt! The iphone X will only be making 130% profit instead of 140%!

The iphone x only costs less than 400$ to make iirc phones are absurdly overpriced

armchair analysis always sound good.

Bruh. I just pointed out a potential drawback. Your comment does nothing to the discussion except try and discredit my comment, which didn’t even take a definitive stance.

armchair intelligent critic... oh wait, no. damn.

world economy crashes

there are items that last longer, they are just more expensive

this is just selfish people that want something to last longer when they don't pay for it..

Planned obsolescence is a doorway to progress. Imagine if our old leaded gas automobiles lasted forever. We'd be living in smog. Recycle the material into improved technology. Out with the Old, In with the New!

So the EU combined to enhance it’s economic standing, but continually attacks business.

Interestingly enough, an iPhone is pictured when in reality Apple supports its old devices with software updates far longer than competition.

So fighting to ban a myth? (Referring to phones, more specifically Apple)

First, it must abolish money-based economics. Because until it does, the profit motive will remain - and profit must be recurring, which is at odds with products that are designed to last.

So no more cell phones in the EU?

So they are doing away with the obsolete EU?

[deleted]

Damn strait! The less global government the better for everyone. Governments are bad enough in and of themselves, but once you get governments governing governments the level of abstraction of power is impossible to control or even understand. The more power the individual has, the more free everyone is, and the individual has WAY less power in the EU than they do in their individual countries or counties or cities.

[deleted]

How am I not letting you do anything? I actually believe in freedom so why I would stop you from doing what you want? I will speak out against it all day long though, because I want you guys to actually be free, because the more freedom on the planet the more free I can be as well.

PS. Its funny that you claim we have different definitions of freedom and then instead of exploring that idea you just shut it down and say "lets not talk about that". Doesn't sound like your mind is very free if you can't even talk about the idea of freedom with people.

[deleted]

Not having someone take your money without consent would be a nice first step. Governments by indention are tax farms and citizens are their live stock.

[deleted]

Government can't give you rights, cause that means that other people have the right to grant you rights. Government are supposed to simply protect your rights that you are born with and not infringe them, at least that's the theory. But its impossible for a government to grant you rights, unless you think men have that power.

[deleted]

There is no such thing as a right to life. If there were abortion would be illegal.

[deleted]

We were all a bunch of cells until we weren't.

How will they plan on future generations taking power then......

My iPod 5th gen is running slow After iPod 6 came out

Somebody tell Microsoft they need to start splitting Vista again. This is why this will never work.

How can you prove that the company purposefully made their product worse to make you buy more

That's a bad idea. In many instances what people consider "planned obsolescence" is a good thing. Regulating it will only slow the rate in which technology advances.

I shouldn't need a new iphone every 3 years even though i DONT want to run the newest software.

[deleted]

Yeah, and there’s little pocket groups that still drive horse and buggy too... 🙄

[deleted]

You’re right. The level of snark was wholly unnecessary, I’m sorry. It’s a touchy subject in my house and I should have avoided replying at all.

I wonder what sort of draconian horse shit the commission has planned? I wonder which corporation this helps most?

its so fun to use a 20 year old phone to get on the internet.

SAID NOONE EVER.

progress is a lot faster than 20 years ago, planned obsolescence is INSTRUMENTAL to progress now.

abolishing it will mean consumers will not benefit from the latest technologies.

What so more countries won't leave the EU after a few years?

[deleted]

Why? The manufracturer can determine the minimal life expectancy and label the bulb accordingly.

The same EU that constantly renders things obsolete because they're no longer acceptable or something?

Enjoy the surging unemployment that goes along with that. That's what happens when government tries to fix something. They make things worse and cause additional problems.

This is either going to drive companies to operate and do business in other countries or, more likely, just going to raise the price of their products and transfer the added financial burden to the customers.

you mean pay more for something that should last 2 - 3 times as long. less going in landfills, less resources used. It's a win if it happens.

Yeah what the fuck am I saying Edit: still in the back of my mind I always think that companies will manage to land on their feet get the better deal out of it. They're just too big to be controlled by most governments

So trade secrets are out the window and technology companies have to support old tech for longer? Is the intention of the law to slow down the advance of technology, or just something they gone care about?

YUROP STRONK

Serious question: people who want removable batteries as opposed to just replacable batteries, what are your reasons? I feel that a removable battery only adds size and weight, while decreasing space efficiency because of more robust connectors. Not to mention the outer case has to change to be openable.

Phones have excellent battery life now, easily lasting all day and often the better part of two days if you’re careful. If you want a removable battery, would you actually carry around a spare and swap it out? And if so, why not just carry a juice pack that you could also share with a friend in need?

Personally, I see the benefit of having batteries that can be replaced (ie adhesive strips a la iPhones), but not those that can be removed (a la old Galaxys).

ITT: No one knows what actual planned obsolescence is. People, just because manufacturers do something you don’t like that may make it harder to repair doesn’t make it planned obsolescence. Degrading and/or non-removable batteries are not planned obsolescence. It’s a very specific term for a very specific issue that most definitely is a problem, doesn’t happen as much as Reddit likes to think it does.

lol, bye bye Smartphones.

We cant even make them pay their taxes ... Europe is a joke ...

Can't be having with that sort of thing. Thank goodness for Brexit.

EU just trying to act like a hero and do something which countries like France already enforce. Absolute rubbish lol.

[deleted]

In my opinion, planned obsolescence is good. It gets people off older hardware, giving companies more freedom for new features.

Not a big beleiver in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" are you?

Yes, because it's corporations that need more freedom, not consumers /s

Yes, I'm sure companies are very interested in missing out the second largest economical market in the planet, with 500 million costumers and 25% of the world's GDP.

[deleted]

they still get a profit here, more than enough to warrant them being here. They are just prevented to make an absured amount of money by milking the system dry.

If you base your companies philosophy in intentionally decaying your products so that costumers have to buy more of them, I couldn't give two shits about your profit.

Messing things up for shareholders by making it harder for them to print money, while making things better for consumers. Either you’re a wealthy shareholder in a tech company or you have Stockholm syndrome.

No publicly traded company could justify to its investors why they should voluntarily back out of one of the biggest markets in the world. Any company that tried would have its leadership replaced within days.

Companies that bring out new phones every year are to blame. How much difference can 1 year make in mobile phone technology? The differences are are so small and the prices of new phones are ridiculous.

Why improve the smartphone and add features when I can sell you a phone that's gonna break in 2 years and I can sell you a "new and improved" model that lasts even less and lacks basic features like a headphone jack?

The majority of businesses on Earth would collapse then.

I'm extremely wary of any "improvements" the EU makes...

last time, it was "oh, we're going to protect your privacy!" and they managed to fuck just about every business owner, large and small, along with the end customer, without any positive effect.

good intentions are nice and all, but when handled by moth-smelling bureaucrats, completely disconnected from reality... I'm foreseeing this going down the same path as GDPR.

I am so tired of these anti market communist ideas that the EU forced on to everyone. This will have massive negative intended and unintended consequences. It will certainly reduce innovation.

Who wants a TV or a mobile to last 20 years? No one! People buy new ones every few years because there is so much innovation.

The EU is obsolete so...

Governments that have outlived their usefulness tend to do this...

This is will raise the price of affected goods by a lot

edit: do people actually believe that things will cost the same when companies are forced to support products longer? there is a reason business pay a premium on equipment.

Coming from the group that tried to ban memes and plastic straws I do not have high hopes for this one

How exactly is banning plastic straws bad? Plastic straws have no benefit over paper alternatives.

It may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't really like this. At least in the US, I'm a big proponent of the free market. Let me list several points.

1) Regulation isn't free. The government has to actually monitor, support, and enforce these laws. This is usually long, slow, drawn out, and expensive. Ultimately, the consumer ends up paying for this in some sort of taxes, not great.

2) this causes undo burden against companies to comply with the regulations. They need teams of lawyers making sure they comply as this cost increases, so does the cost of the products. Not only that, but we will likely see companies say 'cheaper to keep doing what we do and just eat the fines' and then pass the fines on to the consumer through slow and steady price hikes and surcharges.

3) Ideally, people vote with their wallets. The best products will win out. If people valued the right to repair so much, a company would cater to that and would become the most popular phone. Best product wins. People need to 'vote with their wallet' here, not create new laws.

I don't think voting with your wallet will work here because products that are made to last and are of high quality are going to be much more expensive than these items with planned obsolescence. The high quality products won't win in the end because they just can't compete with the prices of the lower quality items.

What are you talking about? The high quality products are a better value because they last longer. You are better off buying a $5,000 refrigerator once every 25 years than a $2000 every 7 years.

If consumers aren't buying high end stuff, or value up front price over overall value, then we can't help that. Wr cant (or shouldnt) change what people want to buy, and force the market in one direction or the other.

I understand that they are of better value, and that people should in theory want to buy products of better value, but what I have observed is that people tend to want to buy whatever is cheapest even if it is going to end up costing more because they have to continuously replace the product because of its planned obsolescence.

what I have observed is that people tend to want to buy whatever is cheapest even if it is going to end up costing more

Again, if people wanted products that were more expensive and didn't break in x years, they would buy them, and companies make what people want to buy because it makes them money. If existing companies don't, someone new will enter the market and make said product.

because they have to continuously replace the product because of its planned obsolescence.

Not if they were buying more expensive items that didn't break in a few years.

I think the problem is humans are inherently short sighted. We can only look a little in the future, and most people would rather buy something cheaper now because right now is their biggest concern, they can deal with future ramifications 'later'. That $2000 fridge that only last 7 years is better for them than the $5000 fridge that lasts 25 years because they only have $1000 to their name and they are putting this on a credit card. They themselves might not even live 25 more years, so planning for that at the expense of making their lives easier here and now seems silly.

But again, if that's what the market wants then so be it. You can just go out and tell Samsung "you have to stop making $2000 refrigerators" because that's effectively what this is doing.

Footnote: I have never purchased a fridge in my life, I am not familiar with pricing of refrigerators and how long an individual unit cost or how long they last for that matter. I used those as round numbers to prove my point.

Edit: I appreciate the civil conversation on the matter though! Not just randomly downvoting with nothing to say, and not flipping out in disagreement. I hope you are having a nice weekend :).

Is it really planned obsolescence when technology moves so fast?

Yes.

What is meant by planned obsolecences isn't that the item is no longer up to date, but that it is designed to have a very restrictive life cycle. Thus, when it inevitably and predictibly breaks down only after a few years, the consumer must buy a new one.

Exactly. This is why old folks say they dont make things like they used to.

Things i own from pre 90s all work. Anything from the 2000s is basically broken

[deleted]

Thank goodnes they are

no, setting industrial standards for the EU is their mandate, it is literally what they do all the time and what their purpose in the common market is.

They are? Where do you get that from?

So we should all just stay in the current snapshot of technological progress and advancement? Planned obsolescence is another way to say evolution of a species.