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by aloha2436 136 days ago
The market exists, does it make financial sense to fill it? Are there enough johnfns out there willing to buy enough of them at high enough of a price to justify the mind-boggling capital required, not to mention the opportunity cost?
1 comments
Auracle 136 days ago
If you make a $10,000 robot that can do all of the dishes every damned household with kids in any semi-rich country will get one. A very good portion of our night is spent cleaning up after supper with just two kids, and that's time we can't spend with them. I'd even pay a subscription on top of that $10,000.

If it does laundry too? We'd easily pay $20,000, and we don't have FAANG type salaries.

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adastra22 136 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher
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Auracle 136 days ago
Yeah, great. Except we need to unload the dishwasher every day, which takes a lot longer when you have all sorts of kid's cups and bottles. We also need to bring the dishes over, rinse them, put them in, wash the pots & pans by hand along with the high chair's detachable eating area, wash the table, wash the cooking area & counters, and then wash the sink.

A dishwasher saves a lot of time but it certainly doesn't save all of the time.

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amanaplanacanal 136 days ago
You could hire someone to clean your house today, you don't need to wait for a robot that might never exist. And it will probably be cheaper too!
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vel0city 136 days ago
If the $10k robot only lasted 5 years that's a budget of $2k/yr. They have an expectation of someone cleaning most nights of the week. Cleaning services around me will typically charge ~$50/hr. Having someone come for ~2 hours 5x a week means $500/week. You'll blow your budget in four weeks. There are a lot more than four weeks in a year.

But let's be generous and suggest you'll actually get someone willing to come out for just one hour and work for half the pay of market rate. Sixteen weeks. Still far short of 52 weeks.

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sejje 136 days ago
How much does it cost to have them at your house every evening after dinner to do the dishes?

More than I can afford, I bet.

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lbreakjai 136 days ago
Do you have a double-digit number of kids? Because I've got one, and it takes about ten minutes.
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sejje 136 days ago
And imagine if you can share it with your neighbors.
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