Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?
Epictitus wrote:
Is that why my dishwasher died after 8 years and it was cheaper to
buy a new one than to repair the old? Our previous one lasted 22
years without hiccup. Was still running but the tub rusted out and
started leaking...
The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
"Ecnerwal" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Rick Brandt" wrote:
This raises an apparent contradiction.
Perhaps you've not been adequately involved with your appliances to
see that there is not a contradiction, even "apparently".
The old ones were, for the most part, designed to be repairable.
"This part always breaks eventually, we'll isolate it and make it
easy to replace".
The new ones are, for the most part, designed NOT to be repairable,
and/or parts prices/availability are manipulated to render them
effectively non-economic to repair. "This part will (by design) break
about 1 year after the warranty runs out - let's put in in a
monolithic module containing all the most expensive parts of the
machine." The appliance industry would much rather sell you a new
one than have you fix the old one, and they have taken steps to
ensure that only the maddest of mad hatters will stubbornly stick to
repair; and when they do, the industry will still profit mightily
due to inflated pricing. But not making the parts at all will knock
even the mad hatters into line soon enough, so long as they keep all
the parts adequately non-standard that it's not economic for anyone
to second-source them. The same logic is driving the production of hybrid cars that are less
fuel efficient than some non-hybrid cars. When the battery pack dies
in 8-10 years, the car will be junk (non-economic to repair),
clearing the way for more new car sales.
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Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
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