(not that we know where to repair it or how much it’d cost, we just throw it)
That would be ideal, but is not the reality right now, and several things would have to change in order to get there.
As a person that repairs everything I own as a hobby (I would love it to be my job but sadly it pays much less), I can tell confidently the following:
The reason why repairing things nowadays tend to cost equal or more is due to manufacturers actively making products harder to repair.
Soldered parts instead of connectors, glued chassis, glass parts that are imposible to remove without breaking, spare parts that are hard to find, or outright impossible due to being proprietary, and a long list of etc…
Furthermore, manufacturers factor in unit turnover for subsidising unit prices.
Ex. They’d rather charge you 300 for a TV that will last 4 years than 500 than one that will last 10.
Why? Simple math and “Maximising shareholder value”.
300/4 = 75 500/10 = 50
You dont know it but everything you own is a subscription service provided by the manufacturing companies.
This is aggravated by a never ending chain of improvements, new models, new trends that keep you in the loop of consumption.
Why would I try to repair my 3 years old phone when I can buy this new shiny one?
They are getting richer by the minute while the rest of us is digging an early grave for ourselves, by polluting the world and consuming non renewable materials at a insane speed.
Not everything is bad though.
In Europe they introduced a “Right to repair” law, that force manufacturers ensure spare parts for at least 10 years and provide repair service at a reasonable price.
That’s a great measure that should incentivice companies to make products more repairabld!
I have opened and tried to fix all my things. Including multiple cheap mouses. Although I have not always been successful, I mostly see it as an experience, and as a learning moment. It’s broken anyway, so it could only get better. Quite often I’m able to improve on it too! (add USB C charging to a mouse)
Will it though?
How far into the future? Cuz it seems more like we are going the opposite way rn.
Repaired a TV I found on the sidewalk, paper taped to it said free so mine it was. It’s a FireTV which, have awful designs, but are decent TVs if you have a Prime account already.
But it was a 1hr, $40 backlight job, complete with additional grievances against Amazon. My partner acted like I was a wizard when we were able to watch a movie on it lol
My theory is that we going solarpunk utopian society but it’s gonna take a long period of cyberpunk dystopia to get there.
I.d.k., 50 years ?
Even without software lock in making repairs difficult, I imagine the same trends of the past century will continue. Repair will likely to continue to become more impractical. It’s always going to be easier to automate the production of goods than the repair of goods.
Sure, i’m optimistic
It’s always going to be easier to automate the production of goods than the repair of goods.
We can automate the production of spare parts.
And swapping a part for another is quick and can usually be done by the consumer(, or by a pro if it’s more complex).
Repairing a part is hard, but swapping it is usually easy, unless when the part is difficult to access which doesn’t seem to be an engineering necessity in most cases ?We can automate the production of spare parts, but that may not mean much. Look at something as simple as a door. You can buy a door without hinges, cut mortices for it, and hang it in place. Most people instead buy pre-hung doors. The time saved installing the door frame piecemeal is worth the cost of buying a whole manufactured assembly. Yes, some things can easily be replaced. A battery can easily be swapped out if a device is built to allow it. But most components can’t be so easily replaced. And usually it’s not possible to design a device to have every part easily serviceable. You are vastly understating the time and difficulty of repairing things.
Think about the early 20th century, when consumer electronics were simple and designed to be repaired. In that world, most people still didn’t do their own repairs. Most people took their broken devices to repair shops. Even if you have access to spare parts, it takes a lot of time to repair something even as simple as a radio. It took enough effort that it made sense for people to specialize in it and make it their career.
And this will only continue in the future. Automation makes human labor more valuable, not less. Our capabilities to do things increases, but the bottleneck is always human labor. And the more we can produce, the more value those scarce human labor hours have. Unless you can automate the entire repair process, increased automation will make us more likely to throw things away.
And worse, automation makes it easier just to start from scratch. You can always take a broken device, throw it in a crucible with a mountain of other broken devices, and just melt the whole lot down. And automation also gives us cheaper energy, as it makes it cheaper to install ever-more solar panels and batteries.
Most people instead buy pre-hung doors.
Bad example i.m.o. since when the hinge break they don’t buy a new door(whole), but swap the broken hinge(part) for a new one.
Good example in the case of DIY though, since the hassle may not be worth the time spent.most components can’t be so easily replaced.
Every module in my computer, mouse, keyboard, screen, or, i.d.k., lamp torch, can be easily replaced with a screwdriver.
Even phones could be made easy to open. If you have a counter-example in mind to « unless when the part is difficult to access, which doesn’t seem to be an engineering necessity in most cases ? » written above, then i’m interested.Even if you have access to spare parts, it takes a lot of time to repair something even as simple as a radio.
But opening it and swapping the spare part(, well, welding it back then,) took less than 5mns.
What took a long time was opening it without breaking anything since it was fragile, with parts glued together. Radios were more complex than nowadays.
And they didn’t stop at swapping the spare part apparently, but ran a full diagnostic because other parts aged as well and, e.g., a shorted transistor could overheat a transformer.
To me, it seems like asking for an individual to repair his watch himself by getting a spare part, these are the kind of situations that should be done by pros. But then even if it takes many hours we’re not talking about a 20€ product, so it’s usually worth it to repair instead of buying a new one(, which is why people repaired them instead of buying new ones).
Other examples could include houses or cars, which are repaired because buying new ones wouldn’t be worth it.But the example of the radio still goes in my direction, because back it was difficult to swap the spare parts and yet people still went through the trouble of repairing it.
How much more would it then be pertinent for objects that are thrown away while a pro could easily swap the spare part in 5mns(, or an individual do it h.er.im.self).Unless you can automate the entire repair process, increased automation will make us more likely to throw things away.
You’re saying that more human labor would be required to swap a part than to build the whole product, and i disagree 🤷
I even think that less human labor would be required to swap a part than to build it.
Many humans will be involved with the production process, which starts from mining and end with selling.And worse, automation makes it easier just to start from scratch.
Not easier to build the whole than the part
You can always take a broken device, throw it in a crucible with a mountain of other broken devices, and just melt the whole lot down.
Not really :)
Maybe, if for some reason we stop manufacturing things with complex shapes via injection molding (which is, like, super cheap on big scale) or similar processes, and come back to “constructing them from a lot of generic parts, preferably easily recycleable”. Also semiconductor components (actual microcontrollers, or displays, and in some cases whole boards if they are tiny enough, because of how many effort they require) are not really repairable, you just replace broken components.
Funny you use a computer mouse as an example. I have repaired my computer mouse recently, and they make switches and some of the hardware pieces and sometimes button kits that you can swap out heavily worn stuff. It’s worth it to me, often if others would say it’s not worth the money. It feels good to fix something. My mouse was probably only $70 when I bought it over a decade ago, but they really don’t make them the same any more. My buttons show hardly any wear because of the material they’re made of, and the plastic is still in good condition. And now they’re like over $200 which makes me want to barf especially considering it feels like a downgrade to me.
Anyway, my point is that if you open something up, you often find it is made of parts you can replace. That’s not to say that it’s easy, and it would be great if it was easier. E waste is a huge problem for sure.
I will repair something if it’s swapping out a part and considering if what I’m repairing is overall worth repairing. Something’s just aren’t worth disassembling and attempting to fix and now lots of things are built in ways that cause them to break even further if you tried to disassemble it. A lot of things are glued together or have fragile clips that break.
Being handy isn’t hard, you just have to try and then go buy a new one if you can’t fix it. The worst parts are getting the tools, buying is fun but expensive, and then if people find out that you can fix it then they will start asking for favors.
It would have been unbelievable in the past as well. We are in the unusual period where the forces of capitalism have stopped incentivizing quality and efficiency.
Why would that be the case in the future? It was in the past, when people used to maintain whatever they made/bought and use it until it was completely unusable, because they were too poor to buy a new one
Industry and automation made production way more cost efficient, but didn’t do the same for repairing, probably because it’s not as predictable and automatable as making stuff from scratch
You can repair a lot of stuff, but you usually have to pay more than the price of buying a new item
it’ll either be Star Trek (“repair? just put it in the matter reclamator and replicate a new one!”)
or Mad Max (“of course you repair! wait, what’s a ‘new thing’?”)
I think the opposite is going to be true. One thing I noticed when I moved recently is that’s it’s getting cheaper to throw out perfectly good stuff and then buy it again rather than paying to have it shipped long distance too.
Wow
It also reminds me that it was apparently cheaper to destroy most of the military equipment when leaving Afghanistan than rapatriating it.
