[hi-v-rocknroll]

Design For Manufacturing + Design For Obsolescence

!=

Design For Durability + Design For Repair + Design For Low TCO

Recall how the GDR's unbreakable beer mugs failed to sell in the West and became lost to time because restaurant vendors insisted on selling "cheap", inferior, fragile products breaking regularly to ensure profits.

[JumpCrisscross]

> because restaurant vendors insisted on selling "cheap", inferior, fragile products breaking regularly to ensure profits

I prefer thinner, lighter glassware. Even if it breaks more often. The fact that these products didn’t do well in households should be Exhibit A for why restaurants’ profit concerns weren’t to blame.

[hi-v-rocknroll]

Incorrect and you're conflating thoughts.

Households weren't offered that choice because they never entered the supply-chain.

And it had nothing to do with restaurants' profits, and everything to do with distributors' and resellers' profits.

[jacobr1]

Design For Obsolescence isn't often the goal ... just a side benefit. Not that it doesn't happen.

The goal is usually something like: ensure we meet durability requirements X, while minimizing costs.

Now in practice that might very much amount to the same practical impact, such as the product will break after the designed lifetime, but maybe not if it happens to be cheaper to use a simpler, cheaper component that actually is more durable. But probably there is some component that is the weak link that only meets the minimum design specs. And this yet one more reason why Repair is important, because many of the components are perfectly fine!

[hi-v-rocknroll]

Goal or not, that's immaterial. It was alleged as a primary objection to purchase of Coca-Cola reps to Superfest at a trade show.

https://youtu.be/vEvBpjCOBu0?t=12m15s

Video reference links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l8mKisckj6gcJXX2f0P01BrB...

[IncreasePosts]

People already steal beer mugs...buying very expensive ones that don't break would just be a target for thieves requiring you to replace them even more frequently than glass ones.

[hi-v-rocknroll]

(East) German restaurants and beer halls didn't and don't have that problem. Some of them still have them.