[exabrial]

Why not just print a $.0001 sticker and stick it the machine listing all of the info needed to fix the machine... instead of building a $86million datacenter and burning through $100,000 of clean electricity every month that could have been used to power homes, but was instead used doing this?

[Workaccount2]

As someone who has a side job doing repairs, I charge more when customers try to repair things themselves.

There is a whole class of people who are smart enough to fix simple things, but not smart enough to recognize their limited ability. They will strip out all the screws on the machine and then claim warranty after replacing random electronic components on the control board. In reality the problem will be a dirty contact that is a 5 minute fix.

[mid-kid]

On the one hand what you're saying seems somewhat fair, but on the other hand, I prefer encouraging the attempt. A portion of the people who do this will never have to call you, having managed to solve the issue, and any experience gained with the attempt will go into doing it better next time.

In a world where people know less and less about how to solve problems themselves, I think repair skills are incredibly important for people to have.

Personally, I would happily pay more if you show me what you're doing and/or explain what I did wrong :)

[MostlyStable]

Yeah, I had the pump on my washing machine go out. I called the repair guy, he said there was nothing to fix, it just needed a new pump. He told me he could do it for $X (on top of the call-out fee), but it wasn't that hard and I could find the replacement pump online for ~1/3X and do it myself. I did that and it took 20 minutes. We will definitely be using that repair company in the future for anything that isn't immediately obviously trivial

[tristor]

> As someone who has a side job doing repairs

And how did you build the skillset to do this as a side job if it wasn't by making the attempt yourself using available information and learning? Isn't your position just ladder-pulling that creates a population of less informed and less capable people?

[Hackbraten]

> but not smart enough to recognize their limited ability.

Exploring the boundaries of one's own ability is not being "not smart enough." It's learning.

[Workaccount2]

You're only gonna learn you made a dumb mistake when you go poking around $10k equipment with no documentation, no schematic, and no community support.

[nathan_douglas]

Speak for yourself. I can make dumb mistakes with $5 equipment and all of the docs, schematics, and the spectral presences of the implementors there to counsel me.

[exabrial]

You have an obvious financial incentive to prevent people from trying to fix their own things...

[Nevermark]

As long as, and some suppliers seem to find this onerous, the sticker can be peeled off cleanly.

(I once bought a grass rake with 2 or 3 dozen metal tines, and it arrived with a huge sticker across all the tines. Which when I attempted to peel off, left a scattered layers of paper hard glued to all the tines. Not happy.

Same with a rolling hot dog cooker. Glued “temporary” sales sticker covering half the transparent hinged top. Not happy.)

[freedomben]

Fender did this with my bass guitar. Trying to get the sticker off without scratching it was impossible, and even after using alcohol there's still some residue D-:

[hedora]

Goo Gone is your friend.

My usual flow chart: Nothing, water, alcohol, goo gone.

I’ve never ended up with a marred surface.

[Nevermark]

Tried that on the transparent cooker cover and it took off just enough of the cover surface with the sticker to look horrible.

Otherwise, yes!

[1970-01-01]

+hair dryer heat, between nothing and water, can make a difference in a difficult peel.

[hedora]

For the same reason the rep hung up on him after he sat on hold.

[imgabe]

The sticker will get lost, peel off, get scratched until it's unreadable and then the user has no way to get that information. Maybe if they are really on top of things they will take a picture of the sticker when they first get the machine and save it somewhere that they will remember 5 years later when they need it, but most people will not do that. And if you aren't the first owner of the machine, well then, you're just sol.

[crinkly]

Rubbish. The sticker is still on my 14 year old washing machine.

Hell I've got a 55 year old piece of electronic equipment here with the serial number sticker still on it.

[semi-extrinsic]

I've got a 65 year old FM radio with manufacturer-supplied circuit diagram still inside the case.

[hedora]

I’ve got a tube based oscilloscope with a hand written sticker saying service is due in the ‘40s. The important info is stamped metal (model, serial number), or internal paper stickers (field manual).

It still worked last time I plugged it in. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find someone to calibrate it when the 40’s roll around again. :-)

[ElevenLathe]

Do you really think this cloud service will be up and functioning for 20+ years? How much stuff like that was set up in 2005 and is still working?

But even without that calculus, you can put a bunch of stickers on, all over the machine. They cost nothing and can be applied automatically. Better yet, punch it into some central metal part of the washing machine like the VIN on a car.

[Printerisreal]

instead of sticker, they can just code something like dog tag, that is thing for century or more

[exabrial]

Absolute garbage. I have node.js code < 6 months old that won't work anymore because some ding dong removed backwards compatibility or the infrastructure needed to run it.

[imgabe]

Skill issue.

Hosting a product manual doesn't need to be some whizbang React SPA with the framework of the month. It can be plain HTML that will work for 30 years.