[2T1Qka0rEiPr]

Whilst this is clearly how no company should aspire to be, it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product.

The outcome is planned obsolescence as highlighted in this article. As the article also points out, not only does this damage us economically, it also damages use environmentally. It should be the place of Government to ensure that these externalities are re-addressed (e.g. by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill), and for us the citizens to lobby them to do so.

[lr4444lr]

Heaven forbid said company should use that quality to build their brand reputation, charge more to funnel back into R&D to create another product to fulfill a different consumer need, grow, get more profitable, and continue the virtuous cycle. That'd be, like, justifying capitalism or something.

[marcosdumay]

This should be the default state of every appliance, just because it should outcompete every other player. (Who would buy something that breaks?)

It isn't. So, there's something very flawed on my reasoning above. Do people want stuff that breaks, is the problem a market for lemons? Or what else?

[platz]

Capitalism maximizes benefits to Capital, not consumers or labor.

[sqeaky]

I think the implication is that if consumers are well informed they will lookout for their own needs and try to buy goods of sufficient quality.

If enough consumers do this the market for junk should fail. In some markets it has and in others it hasn't, apparently in appliances junk prevails.

[platz]

> If enough consumers do this the market for junk should fail

I think over the long run we've seen evidence for the opposite due to consolidation. Markets aren't perfect; so I am highly skeptical of such a claim.

it almost seems like the more the market matters to society, the less choice consumers actually have.

I am more interested in trends over time than point-evaluations of dynamics at a specific moments.

[lr4444lr]

Not at all incompatible with the parent post. "Sufficient quality", "junk" are the counterparts to "upsell", and "over-engineered". It's in the eye of the beholder.

[sqeaky]

I think in some markets it has worked great. My cheap car, a Hyundai Elantra is at just about 100,000 and I have not had to replace any major components.

Back in the 80s and 90s Ford and Chevy were making real junk that wouldn't last long, and people that wanted better and started buying Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.

If my Elantra is anything like my aunt's it will last until I wreck it. Hers was wrecked when another driver ran a red light and stopped her 210,000 mile streak. I hear the American companies are doing better, and things like Ford Fiestas are expected to last, I think we need more time to see.

[henrikschroder]

> Do people want stuff that breaks

No, people want the thing that is the cheapest to buy, not the thing with the lowest total lifetime cost.

[Chaebixi]

> it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product.

I don't think that's really true. There's something like 4 million people born in the US each year, plus immigrants. If your product is so good that it gets 100% market penetration, that's still a lot of sales. Plus, you can still make money selling spare parts and support.

I think the real "drawbacks" to a company of not pursuing planned obsolescence are actually:

1. You can't slack and rely on milking your existing customer base for new sales (without making compelling improvements).

2. You're less likely to get the "world-spanning megacorporation" achievement, because you won't be running waste factories to fuel the obsolescence. Once you hit total market penetration, your operations and company will need to scale back to a smaller, sustainable (but still profitable!) size.

Both those "drawbacks" are probably better for the world and humanity in general, but they conflict with the self-interest of a few minority groups.

[hvidgaard]

   taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill

Just tax each sale at the cost it takes to recycle.

[mozey]

> by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill

Second that idea. From my perspective, if recycling was perfect the only limitation on single use items would be how convenient it is to dispose and obtain another one. Also, I hate searching for new clothes that fit when the current options go out of fashion.

[Cthulhu_]

In NL, whenever you buy a new appliance, you (the consumer) have to pay a "removal fee", which is a few% or a fixed price depending on the product - think like €15 for a washing machine. This is used for the shop you buy a product from to take away your old one, and to cover some of the costs of recycling (I guess the materials in a dishwasher aren't valuable enough on their own to warrant recycling for the sake of making money off of it. Probably not many reusable parts either)

[CWuestefeld]

It should be the place of Government to ensure that these externalities are re-addressed (e.g. by taxing companies on every item of theirs which goes into landfill), and for us the citizens to lobby them to do so.

That won't eliminate the externality. All appliances will now cost $X more. In the meantime, the government will have collected $X*N more revenue, but it won't have gone toward recycling the decommissioned appliances; instead, they'll have gifted it to their favorite special interests. Net outcome is a happy special interest, a re-elected politician, but a sad consumer and a sad mother earth. I don't see it being worth it.

[PeterisP]

It would make a difference - an appliance that would last 15 years would be $X more expensive, but buying 5 appliances that each last 3 years would cost 5*$X. If $X is meaningfully large, it becomes a strong motivation to prefer things that last longer.

[CWuestefeld]

It would make some difference, but it's only doing half the job. The tax would remove the manufacturer's incentive to sell additional units through planned obsolescence (or at least, to the degree that the government has the ability to calculate this).

But I feel confident in predicting that it won't address the other side of the coin, that revenue would be used to actually keep the old appliances out of landfills, and to recycle their components. I'm hard pressed to think of examples of putatively earmarked taxes where the entirety of the revenue still goes to what it was originally promised for.

[woah]

So is your argument that there should never be any taxes of any kind (anarcho-primitivism)?

If that's not your argument, then what is unique about landfill taxes that make them more likely to be "gifted to special interests"?

[CWuestefeld]

So is your argument that there should never be any taxes of any kind (anarcho-primitivism)?

I didn't say anything that even implied that. Clearly there are public goods that are best handled by a government.

My reply was directed specifically at a comment that proposed a tax to address environment problems caused by planned obsolescence. I was showing that the proposal doesn't actually do anything to eliminate the environmental externality.

If you can show me a more complete proposal that (a) really does address the environmental impact as part of the program; and also (b) addresses Public Choice economics (meaning that it accounts for regulatory capture, capriciously re-purposing the funds by politicians, etc.), then we can talk about it.

[erelde]

Also, what other tools could we have made if we had optimal tools for the existing ones?

[Zelmor]

Time to stop thinking about profits and start thinking about sustainable developments.

[hueving]

And that will happen when money stops being useful. If you want sustainable solutions, realistically companies need to be charged for their externalities. Expecting altruistic behavior on a massive scale just won't work.