Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by oneplane 1819 days ago
That is part of the problem: a lot of people just don't care.
3 comments

Do they? I think most consumers assume if a 40 cent part breaks on their computer they will pay 40 cents plus labor plus some part markup - the same way car, HVAC, and other repairs work.

That's why when people's computers break they take them to get repaired in the first place. Otherwise, consumers would just be tossing their broken devices and buying a new one.

If you're fairly well-heeled you certainly have the privilege of forgoing repairs and just buying new ones. Lots of tech enthusiasts who cycle through devices every year probably aren't bothered. But normal people who don't get excited at the prospect of purchasing a new 3 or 4 figure device appreciate being able to get their machine back in working order for a few hundred max.

Is that a problem? Should customers care?
I don't know for a fact if in isolation this is a problem or not a problem.

But from the perspective of the compound problem of getting repairability on track, this is an element within that compound that is lacking the drive of customer attention.

Given the awful environmental cost of "disposable tech", everyone should care about reducing waste and extending the working life of our hardware if only for that reason.

Of course it's also bad for society that we have so little effective competition in tech markets now that users think substandard products and user-hostile behaviours are normal. The race to the bottom is bad for everyone, and everyone being sold those products is being abused in the name of profit, whether or not any given individual is aware of how much it is happening to them or understands that better alternatives exist.

That's exactly my point. If customers don't care then who's this regulation serving?
Just because you don't care that the environment is suffering, and resources are being wasted, because instead of fixing things people throw them away doesn't mean that helping to mitigate those problems doesn't benefit you.

Or to use a crude analogy: just because babies don't care about having their nappy (ie diaper) changed doesn't mean it doesn't help them.

Look up tragedy of the commons. It is for the end-user, they just don't know it yet, believing that it is 'not their problem'.