[tgma]

Isn't that a feature not a bug? That means labor, a proxy for quality of life of the laborer, is more expensive than parts. That's abundance.

In fact, in "shithole countries" where everyone wants to emigrate from, it is exactly the opposite: i.e. you try to fix everything even if it takes sooo long.

[xandrius]

Absolutely not when replacing costs 100% and repairing usually costs 0.1%.

And the reason people want to leave certain countries is for totally different reasons than not wanting to repair something. In fact, I would say with quite some certainty that emigrees who repaired first before leaving would still do it after emigrating.

The real reasons, in my opinion, are: 1) it takes skill and will to repair something yourself, 2) something new generally feels better than repaired/used, 3) logistics make replacing/repairing less cost efficient, 4) with every replace, companies have a new touchpoint to try to upsell their customers, 5) it takes less time to go to a shop and replace than repair, 6) it takes some giving a shit about the environment to prefer the more complicated route. And probably more.

[wat10000]

If repairing usually cost 0.1% then everyone would do it.

The reason almost nobody in first-world countries is getting their microwave repaired is because it often costs more than buying a new one. This is because the new unit is manufactured overseas in a place with cheap labor, but the existing unit has to be repaired locally with expensive labor.

Of course people aren't emigrating because they don't want to repair things. But they are often emigrating because they want to live in a place with high labor costs (i.e. high salaries), or for other reasons that are very strongly correlated with high labor costs.

[xandrius]

You're confounding variables here, the cost of repairing a microwave is actually very often 0.1%: the part they broke and the work required to fix it is often nil.

Unless, you have businesses fighting for it to be repaired by making the microwave schematics impossible to find, the casing stupidly hard to open, etc. If you then have that a repair part is impossible to be found then of course only the truly motivated will attempt (and sometimes succeed).

Example: a friend bought an ebike with a bosch motor. Something happened and it stopped working. Now the only thing that is possible to be done with it, due to how the system has been constructed, it's to have it replaced by warranty and/or insurance. This is because there are locks on the battery that prevents it from being removed to safely analyse the system, the engine is covered by one piece that makes its opening borderline impossible, etc.

On the other hand, I have a top of the line ebike motor (Tosheng) that can be fully opened, its firmware modified and schematics and parts can be easily found online. That meant that when another friend had his motor break down, he could open it, see that it was only a gear that failed and replaced it for less than $10, he only needed to unscrew a coupleof screws to see what happened. With the world we are moving towards, the company would make you throw away the WHOLE bike instead of changing a broken gear.

[wat10000]

You're ignoring costs. If your microwave costs $100, then you're saying it's often ten cents to fix it. It is entirely possible that the bad component costs ten cents. But the cost of the repair is only ten cents if your time and travel is completely free. Let's say you have a well designed microwave that's easy to repair and a ten-cent component goes bad. How much do you think a repair shop in a wealthy country would have to charge for such a repair to keep the lights on? A 100% margin on that 10 cents won't even pay for the time the worker takes to say "hello" as you enter the shop. What's your optimistic estimate of how long it would take to replace such a component on a well designed unit? 10 minutes? Plus administrative overhead like collecting payment, probably storing the unit for a while until the customer picks it up, and dealing with "it was working fine until you touched it" idiots. And 10 minutes is extremely optimistic for something that's likely soldered (even highly repairable units are going to solder small stuff). How much does the repair person earn? Auto mechanics make maybe $25-30/hour in the US. Pad that significantly for their fully loaded cost to the business. If we assume it takes 20 minutes total, accounting for everything, you're looking at maybe $20 in actual costs for the business, not counting rent and equipment and such. You've already hit an appreciable portion of the cost of a new unit and that's with a lot of very generous assumptions.

Appliance repair might be a dying art but car repair is common. You can look there to see what simple tasks might actually cost. Something like installing new tires is probably comparable. It's not outrageously expensive but it's also not anything like ten cents.

[xp84]

This is actually a thought-provoking perspective! I have to admit you're right in your conclusions, though the issues are:

1. The waste is still a tremendous shame, both in the materials that will realistically never be recovered in 'recycling', and in the toxicity that results from a lot of that trash created.

2. Jobs in repairing lots of things were arguably pretty good jobs, and we've traded these for, best case, more complete drudgery retailing/supply chain jobs as we get a new laptop every year or two instead of 5 years. Arguably a bigger failing of our economic system, which doesn't seem capable of adapting to global trade, or this shift we're discussing here, nor AI, but still a bummer regardless of fault.

[joe5150]

You can value not pumping out disposable garbage even if the (current) economic regime appears to encourage and reward it.

[1shooner]

In this interpretation, repair requires more labor than recreating the entire product, and 'parts' somehow doesn't represent any labor.

[JumpCrisscross]

> repair requires more labor than recreating the entire product

It requires specialized and local labor. For products you can ship back to the assembly line, this can sometimes work. If you need a local technician, on the other hand, because the assembly line is in China or the product is heavy, yeah, it very well may be that there is no niche where repairs aren’t a material fraction of a new product.

[petra]

Often it's not even labor.

Given the right guidance and difficulty level, I would enjoy fixing things in my washing machine.

[culi]

Temu boots don't feel like "abundance" to me compared to some nice tailored $400 boots that you take to the cobbler when there's an issue.

I think in abundant society people would be able to have nice things and the time to take care of them.

[igorbark]

this logic does not hold up if the reason that labor is more expensive than parts is that the labor involved in creating those parts has been outsourced to a "shithole country"

[tgma]

If anything the causality is exactly the opposite. The labor cost will go up (empirically provable) in such "shithole countries" once work is outsourced to them, improving their livelihood.

[drysine]

That means that the cost of (not) utilizing garbage is externalized

[gruez]

>the cost of (not) utilizing garbage is externalized

No, it's the exact opposite, because the consumer is on the hook for the purchase price as well as any repair costs.

[culi]

Handling trash costs money. A lot of money. Right now, most Americans find it hard to even conceptualize the idea of paying to deal with their waste.

[fragmede]

Where Americans are renters and garbage service is hidden in their monthly rent payment, sure, but for Americans who own a home, they have to pay their local jurisdiction a fee for taking away trash and recycling and compost (and batteries and light bulbs). Also sewage and water.

[wat10000]

Wat. Almost all Americans either pay someone to deal with their waste or are dependents of someone who pays on their behalf. Do you think we're all burning our trash in barrels or dumping it in the local river or something?

[loeg]

What are you talking about. Trash is inexpensive, but Americans absolutely pay for it (solid waste utility bill). I think people conceptualize that they have utility bills?

[kelnos]

But the consumer isn't on the hook for dealing with the garbage.

[boppo1]

Horseshit. It means we're doing less with more and anyone with a brain should be able to figure out that's bad for Quality of Life on a long term. Wasting your resources is not how an economy grows strong.

[gruez]

>It means we're doing less with more

Labor is an input too. Fixing something in a way that saves some materials, but requires hours of skilled labor and specialized equipment doesn't straightforwardly mean you're saving overall.

[hyperbovine]

I'll bet it does once you properly price in externalities.

[gruez]

There are various localities that add recycling fees to electronics. They're on the order of 1% of the purchase price, so it's unlikely to make a difference in the repair vs replace calculation.