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Products designed to fail, a documentary
4wd:
@Carol Haynes:
...'second hand' goods con turning swathes of Africa and Asia into open sewers.
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Could you explain this for me please (maybe in a PM if it is off-topic)?
I Googled the phrase and still couldn't really figure out what it was that you were intending to refer to.-IainB (November 02, 2011, 08:02 PM)
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I'm probably wrong but I think Carol is referring to this: How a tagged television set uncovered a deadly trade
Possibly resulting in this: Govt to Ban Importation of Used Fridges, TV Sets
IainB:
@4wd: Many thanks for the links.
I was ignorant of this trade (technology equipment dumping) by 1st world economies onto 3rd world economies.
The is almost as obscene as the plastic bottled water scam industry.
Absolutely classic Corporate psychopath behaviour though - an externalised and huge environmental footprint left for society to pay for the cleanup costs. Massive potential harm to an unsuspectingly naive and ignorant public who are impoverished and in no position to protect themselves anyway.
4wd:
If you want to watch the program, grab your favourite VPN software, (eg. TunnelBear), set it to put you in the UK and go here: Panorama - 16th May - Track My Trash
Here's a thought - when a product fails and has to be put into landfill charge the manufacturer double the original purchase price for each item in dumping tax! That would make them think.-Carol Haynes (November 02, 2011, 11:34 AM)
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It wouldn't change them, any increased cost would just be added to the purchase price for the consumer.
I'm in agreement with nudone here, (at least I think I am), the problem is today's got to have it now! throw away consumer society. Who these days is going to wait for a component level repair for an intermittent fault when you can go down the road, buy another electronic gizmo that probably now does more for a lower purchase price, (and most likely well below repair cost), and can toss the old piece of hardware for nothing?
The way I see it is, if you want to change the manufacturer, change the consumer. Hit the consumer with the dumping cost and at such a rate that repair seems worthwhile. Perhaps when the manufacturers see that consumers are more willing to repair than to replace they'll make their equipment repairperson friendly. Reduced landfill and the manufacturers still make money off of spare parts/boards.
Of course, they'll then start doing the inkjet scam business model - yes, the printer is only $50 but the ink cartridges are $40 each.
app103:
From a post I made on Friendfeed over a year ago:
This is why "they don't make them like they used to"...
There is a slider bar that goes from "lasts forever" to "breaks immediately" and companies try to find that sweet spot that is as close to "breaks immediately" as they can get away with. Both extreme ends will put you out of business. If your product lasts forever, then once everyone has bought one, since they never need to replace it, you have no more customers unless you invest money in R&D to come out with something better with more features. If your product breaks immediately, then it is percieved as complete crap, and nobody wants it. If you find the sweet spot, you make more profit by keeping the production expenses down, you won't need to spend as much on R&D as often to force repeat buying, and lasting just long enough to keep people happy, so they are willing to buy another when theirs breaks, even though the new will be exactly the same as the old (unless the company has moved just a tad closer to the "breaks immediately" end of the bar, which all companies do as time goes on). This is why all that old stuff in Grandma's house, made by companies that don't even exist any more, still works, but you have piles of broken stuff made by some of the most profitable companies in the world, which you bought within the last 5 years.
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http://friendfeed.com/app103/b2c964fa/this-is-why-they-don-t-make-them-like-used-to
phitsc:
I know that it's immoral, but I would actually prefer some of my stuff to break early in order to justify buying a newer, better version of it. I really think more companies should start to offer trade-in programs for their products. But they should also be forced to recycle stuff correctly, and be forced to build their products in such a way that as much of the used materials can be recycled.
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