Ignoramus16071 wrote:
On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:04:59 GMT, James Sweet
wrote:
Ignoramus16071 wrote:
On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:41:59 GMT, James Sweet
wrote:

Ignoramus16071 wrote:

TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to
fail" theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty.
Such as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i


Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these
"designed to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be
made to last much better for the same cost?


Well, let me give you one example. We had a electric tea kettle. It
broke the hinge on the lid. Postmortem indicated that it broke
because
it lacked material around the hinge. At the cost of extra 1-2 cents,
they could have a few mm more plastic around the hinges so that they
hold up better.

The extra cost is minuscule.

Another example, I received a KMart wallet as a gift and it is
unusable -- the credit card pockets are too tight and it is
generally
too tight for money also(I like to carry a few hundred $$ in cash
etc,
which does not affect credit card pockets). Again, at the cost of
perhaps 10 cents per wallet, it could have been made into a better
wallet.

If anyone has suggestions for a really good three section leather
wallet, I will appreciate.

i

There's the key, an extra few cents. 2 cents times 2 million kettles
and you're talking 40 grand, that's not minuscule, even for a big
company.

10 cents is even more significant, when you're manufacturing
millions of things, pennies *do* matter. You can get something that
cost an extra 10 cents to make, but it will cost you an extra 10
bucks to buy and the average consumer not knowing the difference
will buy the cheaper one.

It's all about offering the lowest price and making the most profit
per sale, they don't intentionally try to make it break, they just
don't care if it does so long as it lasts through the warranty.

If they know what happens with their product -- and they do -- then it
IS intentional.

No one is stupid enough to design a wallet with card
pockets that they know arent big enough to take cards.

If I set a fire on my kitchen floor, hoping to cook a pig that would
not fit in a stove, knowing that my house would burn down, and the
house burns down, the result is intentional -- even though the fire
was started to cook a pig. Same here

Nope.

-- if they try to save 2 cents and make products that
they KNOW do not perform their intended purpose,

You dont know that they did KNOW that. The much more
likely possibility is that they decided that the amount of
plastic used was adequate and it turned out that it isnt.

then making substandard products is intentional on their part.

You dont dont know that they did know its substandard.

That's why I do not patronize cutthroat retailers such as Walmart.

More fool you.

Because they are looking to screw ME by selling
products that do not perform their intended purpose

Corse the bulk of them do.

(and by forcing manufacturers to make such via abusive methods).

Walmart isnt stupid enough to deliberately sell stuff
that will have to be exchanged under warranty.

I do not like such capitalists and to not want to give them any of my business.

Bet that will have the Walmart suits pouring from their
windows like lemmings as soon as they read your post.

I would rather pay 3x more to businesses such as McMaster-Carr,
or Bosch, etc, to get a product that actually works.

The products that Walmart sells work.

My experience with Harbor Freight has been spotty, but most
of the products that I bought from them, do work as advertised.

True in spades of what most buy in Walmart.