Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?

[Zenzoidman]

Konichiwa, my friends. Samurai Appliance Repair Man here. Given al
the lively discussion the Washington Time article generated, I though
y'all might be interested in reading my take on it:

'Mega-trends in Appliance Repair
(http://fixitnow.com/wp/2007/01/11/latest-trends-in-appliance-repair/)


BTW, the paranoia about planned obsolescence is much too simplistic a
analysis for the real economic dynamics at work. But, that's just th
humble opinion of one "f-ing wanker" who actually works in the trade.
;-)

Samurai Appliance Repair Man
'Fixitnow.com' (http://fixitnow.com

 

[Guest]

I'm pleased to agree with that comment since it's on topic
and something that's near and dear to my heart.
I use my computer keyboard every day so it's not just an appliance,
it's a tool. It ought to fit my hand and operate reliably.
You'll have to pry my original IBM PS/2 space-saving keyboard
from my cold dead hands - I ain't giving' this up for anything!
The keys FEEL RIGHT and really click, not fake springs here!
It's survived a lot of pounding and frustration
and NONE of the keycap legends are smudged.
Only recently I noticed that the matte finish has rubbed off
the left shift key and the "A" key, making the surface smooth.
The keyboard has been in daily use for perhaps 10 years.

Chuckle. I'm still using my 1988 or so Northgate (back when they were an
actual company, not a Pacific rim brand name) Omnikey keyboard. Yeah, it
cost me over a hundred bucks back then, but it has paid for itself several
times over. (I'm on like my 5th or 6th PC since then, of course.)When the
real Northgate went belly up, I understand somebody else bought the keyboard
line, and was selling them under another brand for awhile. No idea if they
still exist. I also have a crate of Zenith z248 keyboard, which use the same
mechanical Alps key mechanisms. (From when Zenith was still a real company,
of course.)

Luddite and proud of it.

aem sends....

 

[Tomes]

We've gone from an 80K floppy drive that cost $800 to a DVD burner that
can store 9 Gb and costs $35.

From an 8 Mb hard drive that cost $7,000 to a 320 Gb drive that costs
$100.

I remember getting a 20MB hard drive and being ridiculed for opulence.
"How are you EVER going to fill THAT up?" That was on a 8088 machine.
Tomes

 

[John Husvar]

I remember getting a 20MB hard drive and being ridiculed for opulence.
"How are you EVER going to fill THAT up?" That was on a 8088 machine.
Tomes[/QUOTE]

Similarly, I remember, when the 10MB Winchesters came out, wondering who
on Earth would need to store 10MB of data _on_ an internal drive? Of
course, those were the days when there wasn't much but text or binary
files and a whole big bunch of text or data files would fit on a floppy.

What was I thinking? A whole big bunch of text and data files will
_still_ fit on a floppy. It's just that floppy drives are being replaced
by inexpensive CD and DVD RW storage that store more and have better
data retention, more or less.

 

[dpb]

I believe it is you who needs to work in the real world and ignore the
fairy tales of academic circles.

In a real company, engineers are under the thumb of accountants. They
are to make whatever cuts need to be made to make the desired profit
margin. Products are manufactured with intentional end lifes and
without any possiblity of repair...all required by MBAs who have
dictated what the product life and quality will be.

....

Having BTDT (for 30+ yrs) w/ several engineering/manufacturing firms
from very large to start-ups which grew until were bought by very
large, I have to agree w/ Rick here...while there are MBAs and
accountants, and they have very important functions, in none of these
places did they dictate to Engineering nor were "engineers are under
the thumb of accountants." As Rick says, where the cost-accounting
enters the design phase is in trying to make a price-point which is a
function of market niche, competition, timing, comparative product
advantage vis a vis competitors', etc., etc., etc., ... After that, it
then becomes an engineering problem of how to design, fabricate and
distribute (and support) the product. As one moves from more complex,
costly products to less expensive, the compromises to accomplish the
goal become more severe. If your product is a plastic toy to try to
sell millions, the margin per item has to be miniscule. If, otoh,
you're building a high-end anything, that is a different set of
constraints. Either way, unless the product can be designed and
manufactured and ultimately, sold for a profit, there won't be any more
company so the cost point is as important as anything else.

The point is, the manner in which it is made manifest is, in most
organizations, not a draconion "order from above" as you would imply
with an express goal to extract the pound of flesh a la a historical
vision of a Carnegie or a Vanderbilt, but an overall coordinated
approach to how to make the best corporate decisions in a competitive
economy. All information in this environment is imprecise and all
individuals making these decisions are not infallible so there are
always decisions made that aren't, in retrospect, optimal, but that
doesn't mean these decisions were made a priori to fulfill some grand
over-arching scheme. On the far extreme one _might_ be able to find a
company that tried to operate as you suggest, but I would submit it
would be an aberration in general and highly likely to not succeed in
the long run.

 

[Bob Urz]

Similarly, I remember, when the 10MB Winchesters came out, wondering who
on Earth would need to store 10MB of data _on_ an internal drive? Of
course, those were the days when there wasn't much but text or binary
files and a whole big bunch of text or data files would fit on a floppy.

What was I thinking? A whole big bunch of text and data files will
_still_ fit on a floppy. It's just that floppy drives are being replaced
by inexpensive CD and DVD RW storage that store more and have better
data retention, more or less.

Yea, but that's before Uncle Bill stole the idea of windows from apple
who stole it from Xerox Parc and started the world down the bunny trial
of bloat ware. Long live CP/M!

If were were all still working from the command line, the computer world
might be a much more secure place. Of course, i would be living in a
stone house with a car that used feet for motive power...

Bob

 

[dpb]

No but ask any engineer....Dilbert is fact, not fiction.

No, 'Dilbert' is farce, very loosely based on a figment of reality...

That there are recognizable traits and actions is only indicative of
the state of human fraility and foibles in any field of
endeavor...while we engineers can certainly recognize events and even
individuals who may seem to match, to attribute the actions as directly
motivated as are is a deliberate act of characterization and
exaggeration. Not that there aren't plenty of mistakes made and sorry
management practices, but the difference is as noted in another
response, for the most part they're a result of the "law of unforeseen
consequences" and well-meaning decisions individually that
collectively, don't provide the desired results.

 

[N Cook]

In my opinon...no.

I intentionally try to have older appliances, vehicles, machines to
lower repair costs and keep overall ownership cost to a minimum.

Your thoughts?

TMT

Irreparable damageBy Bryce Baschuk
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 9, 2007
Bill Jones, after 42 years, is finally closing the Procter Appliance
Service shop in Silver Spring.
"You can't make a good salary to survive on the way you could years
ago," said the 61-year-old owner of the oven, refrigerator and
washer-dryer repair shop. "Everything has changed in the appliance
business."
Mr. Jones recently sold his home in Laurel and is in the process of
moving to Bluffton, S.C., with his wife, Jeannette.
Mr. Jones is one of the many Washington-area repairmen who have
struggled to stay afloat as residents replace, not repair, old
appliances.
"It's a dying trade," said Scott Brown, Webmaster of
www.fixitnow.com and self-proclaimed "Samurai Appliance Repairman."
The reason for this is twofold, Mr. Brown said: The cost of
appliances is coming down because of cheap overseas labor and improved
manufacturing techniques, and repairmen are literally dying off.
The average age of appliance technicians is 42, and there are few
young repairmen to take their place, said Mr. Brown, 47. He has been
repairing appliances in New Hampshire for the past 13 years.
In the next seven years, the number of veteran appliance repairmen
will decrease nationwide as current workers retire or transfer to other
occupations, the Department of Labor said in its 2007 Occupational
Outlook Handbook.
The federal agency said many prospective repairmen prefer work that
is less strenuous and want more comfortable working conditions.
Local repairmen said it is simply a question of economics.
"Nowadays appliances are cheap, so people are just getting new
ones," said Paul Singh, a manager at the Appliance Service Depot, a
repair shop in Northwest. "As a result, business has slowed down a
lot."
"The average repair cost for a household appliance is $50 to $350,"
said Shahid Rana, a service technician at Rana Refrigeration, a repair
shop in Capitol Heights. "If the repair is going to cost more than
that, we usually tell the customer to go out and buy a new one."
It's not uncommon for today's repairmen to condemn an appliance
instead of fixing it for the sake of their customers' wallets.
If they decide to repair an appliance that is likely to break down
again, repairmen are criticized by their customers and often lose
business because of a damaged reputation.
Mr. Jones said he based his repair decisions on the 50 percent
rule: "If the cost of service costs more than 50 percent of the price
of a new machine, I'll tell my customers to get a new one."
"A lot of customers want me to be honest with them, so I'll tell
them my opinion and leave the decision making up to them," he said.
In recent years, consumers have tended to buy new appliances when
existing warranties expire rather than repair old appliances, the
Department of Labor said.
Mr. Brown acknowledged this trend. "Lower-end appliances which you
can buy for $200 to $300 are basically throwaway appliances," he said.
"They are so inexpensive that you shouldn't pay to get them repaired."
"The quality of the materials that are being made aren't lasting,"
Mr. Jones said. "Nowadays you're seeing more plastic and more circuit
boards, and they aren't holding up."
Many home appliances sold in the United States are made in Taiwan,
Singapore, China and Mexico.
"Nothing is made [in the United States] anymore," Mr. Jones said.
"But then again, American parts are only better to a point, a lot of
U.S. companies are all about the dollar."
Fortunately for the next generation of repairmen, some of today's
high-end appliances make service repairs the most cost-effective
option.
The Department of Labor concurred. "Over the next decade, as more
consumers purchase higher-priced appliances designed to have much
longer lives, they will be more likely to use repair services than to
purchase new appliances," said the 2007 Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Modern, energy-efficient refrigerators can cost as much as $5,000
to $10,000, and with such a hefty price tag, throwing one away is not
an option.
In some cases, repairmen can help consumers reduce the amount of
aggravation that a broken appliance will cause.
Consider the time and effort it takes to shop for a new appliance,
wait for its delivery, remove the old one and get the new one
installed.
In addition, certain appliances such as ovens and washing machines
can be a bigger hassle to replace because they are connected to gas and
water lines.
"It takes your time, it takes your effort, and if you don't install
the new appliance, you'll have to hire a service technician to install
it anyways," Mr. Brown said.
Some consumers bond with their appliances like old pets, and for
loyalty or sentimental reasons, refuse to let them go.
Mr. Rana said some of his clients have appliances that are more
than 30 years old. It makes sense, he said. "A lot of old refrigerators
are worth fixing because they give people good service. They just don't
make things like they used to."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1990421,00.html

In a UK national newspaper today

 

[M Berger]

Sure you could. Lots of people would pay 75c for a house call.

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

A whole big bunch of text and data files will

_still_ fit on a floppy. It's just that floppy drives are being replaced
by inexpensive CD and DVD RW storage that store more and have better
data retention, more or less.

Better data retention? Think again.

Hard drive/tape/floppy (as in magnetic) storage have the best lifespan.

DC/DVD storage life can be measured in just a few years.

Archival storage of data is a BIG deal that the industry doesn't like
to talk about.

TMT

I remember getting a 20MB hard drive and being ridiculed for opulence.
"How are you EVER going to fill THAT up?" That was on a 8088 machine.
Tomes

Similarly, I remember, when the 10MB Winchesters came out, wondering who
on Earth would need to store 10MB of data _on_ an internal drive? Of
course, those were the days when there wasn't much but text or binary
files and a whole big bunch of text or data files would fit on a floppy.

What was I thinking? A whole big bunch of text and data files will
_still_ fit on a floppy. It's just that floppy drives are being replaced
by inexpensive CD and DVD RW storage that store more and have better
data retention, more or less.

--
Bring back, Oh bring back
Oh, bring back that old continuity.
Bring back, oh, bring back
Oh, bring back Clerk Maxwell to me.[/QUOTE]

 

[Gunner]

Gee Gunner - how come your so good at the snappy reply - I get sucked
into arguing with idiots.....

Andrew VK3BFA.

Its a knack..honed over years of having fun with idiots posting on
usenet.

Gunner..practice practice practice....
"Deep in her heart, every moslem woman yearns to show us her tits"
John Griffin

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

Logan, I respect your opinion but using a special case (DVD player) of
manufactured goods to prove your argument does not mean it applies to
other manufactured goods. The current DVD player situation is also an
example of market dumping.

Consumer electronics are considered to be "throw away"
electronics....and the continuing problems with their disposal is just
one of the symptoms of a larger problem with that industry segment.
Let's try saddling the manufacturers with the true cost to society and
see what the true price becomes.

You are right that "throw away" electronics are optimized for low cost
of manufacture...and those savings are not passed on to the consumer.
It is like the low cost of labor that goes into the product....it is
used to maximize profit margin....while placing the burden on society.
The savings that are passed on to the consumer are usually realized by
volume...the more you make the cheaper they get....when a number of
companies compete for your dollar.

One telling symptom is when you look at those who get in financial
trouble by overextending their credit, one of the common areas where
they have overspent is in consumer electronics.

TMT

 

[Rod Speed]

Just curious - what do you do for a living? - you seem to have an
amazing lack of knowledge across many fields - is it accountancy?.
Nope.

And how do you manage to translate crayon to ascii text?

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

No surprise that you got the bums rush, right out the door.

 

[Seerialmom]

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.

Your comments make a lot of sense to me. My dad built our first color
TV (and repaired it...usually running down to Thrifty Drug to use their
bulb tester); he would also rebuild cars (and was self-taught). The
appliances of the past were "simpler" as were our cars. Now that most
are running via circuit boards there's no more of the replace defective
fuse or plug thing (sometimes it is though...should still try that).
I'm also one of those who prefers the non-hybrid high MPG cars (in
order: 1 Fiesta, 2 Festiva's and currently 1 Yaris) for the specific
reasons you mention.

PS...if anyone has the answer about why one of my Sunbeam self-lowering
toasters doesn't want to stop toasting without pulling the plug (aka
which part is the thermostat?)...let me know It's not my primary
Sunbeam...just one I might need to use some day.

 

[Michael Kennedy]

Separate matter entirely to the mindlessly silly claim that
its even possible to design an appliance to break about a
year after the warranty runs out, with most appliances.

..

Why do you say it is impossible? When designing the product
the engineers figure the average useage of the appliance every day
and then calculate about how long it will take before a failure.
They also do product reliability testing to see how long on average it is
before a product fails. Many times they use methods for speeding up
the process, ex acid or amplified sunlight.

And even the stuff which can be designed to do that like
the stuff with microprocessor control that can certainly
be programmed to do that, no one is actually THAT stupid

If I remember correctly I read about a certain laser printer on this group
that would stop functioning after it prited a certain amount of pages. It
had to
have a reset button pushed on its mainboard before it would start working
agian.
I don't know this to be a fact since I've never experineced this myself
though.

- Mike

 

[Rod Speed]

Why do you say it is impossible?

Because it is impossible ? Novel concept I realise.

When designing the product the engineers figure the average useage of the appliance every day and
then calculate about how long it will take before a failure.

Nice theory. The reality is that that isnt even
possible with most domestic appliances.

It isnt even feasible with stuff as basic as an incandescent light bulb.
A CFL in spades. A moulded power cord or plug pack in spades.

They also do product reliability testing to see how long on average it is before a product fails.

No they dont with domestic appliances.

They dont even do that with mass market hard drives anymore.

Many times they use methods for speeding up the process, ex acid or amplified sunlight.

Not with domestic appliances they dont.

If I remember correctly I read about a certain laser printer on this group that would stop
functioning after it prited a certain amount of pages.

Not in the sense that it will never work again and you need a new one.

It had to have a reset button pushed on its mainboard before it would start working agian. I don't
know this to be a fact since I've never experineced this myself though.

That is done with copier etc too, but thats nothing
like the planned obsolescence being discussed.

 

[Everett M. Greene]

Doesnt explain stuff like cordless phones that use standard batterys.

What explains the electric toothbrushes that don't have
replaceable batteries? You have to toss a $60-$120
device just because a $5 battery has failed.

 

[Epictitus]

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...

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

Having BTDT (for 30+ yrs) w/ several engineering/manufacturing firms
from very large to start-ups which grew until were bought by very
large, I have to agree w/ Rick here...while there are MBAs and
accountants, and they have very important functions, in none of these
places did they dictate to Engineering nor were "engineers are under
the thumb of accountants." As Rick says, where the cost-accounting
enters the design phase is in trying to make a price-point which is a
function of market niche, competition, timing, comparative product
advantage vis a vis competitors', etc., etc., etc., ... After that, it
then becomes an engineering problem of how to design, fabricate and
distribute (and support) the product. As one moves from more complex,
costly products to less expensive, the compromises to accomplish the
goal become more severe. If your product is a plastic toy to try to
sell millions, the margin per item has to be miniscule. If, otoh,
you're building a high-end anything, that is a different set of
constraints. Either way, unless the product can be designed and
manufactured and ultimately, sold for a profit, there won't be any more
company so the cost point is as important as anything else.

While I respect your opinion, it sounds like you are reading straight
from a textbook.

After decades in manufacturing, I can tell you that I have never seen
it work that way.

Reality is much different than the academic BS model....see Dilbert for
a real life reference.

Ever wonder why Dilbert and the television show "The Office" are so
popular...because they are so true.

What you neatly gross over is what happens when engineering says it
can't make a product based on the imaginary price point...who then
decides?

I will give you a hint....it ain't engineering.

And did I mention that the CEO's bonus is tied to this product?

In the end, a company will produce the cheapest junk that it can
sell...and it will work very hard to insure that the consumer needs to
buy another new one from them...and have to get any and all support
from them. It is all about separating the consumer from as much of
their money as painlessly as possible.

And that is called a conspiracy.

TMT

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

No, 'Dilbert' is farce, very loosely based on a figment of reality...

No...Dilbert is a real life expose as to how companies are run
everyday.

At every company I have worked over the years, it has taken only hours
to note which individuals would be right at home in the Dilbert
cartoon.

Try watching "The Office" for a few weeks and notice how you soon the
same qualities at your workplace.

It's Corporate America and they don't have a sense of humor since they
would have to laugh at themselves.