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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9xua32 wrote

Reply to comment by Surur in A platform for products with no planned obsolescence by shanoshamanizum

It's all about the business model really and the bi-directional incentives for users and producers. The post is not really about how to make them but rather how to make companies make them.

Consider that companies make cheaper products because of decreasing income of population. They can still make everlasting products but they will cost a lot. So making it half price now and recurring payments based on usage incentives both sides.

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Initialised t1_j9xv3zy wrote

Those aren’t examples.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9xvfap wrote

I don't understand. I am not suggesting a product but rather a business model.

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Initialised t1_j9xy455 wrote

I can see that in your answers.

There are manufacturing trade offs between competing qualities: affordability, reliability, longevity, modularity, reparability, environmental resistance, recyclability. No one product can score highly in all areas so each has a balance of attributes and the legislation of the market it is sold in.

It’s not as binary as you suggest, most product segments are split into three regions on a sigmoid curve of quality as a function of price.

Budget, Mainstream and Premium.

To suggest that budget products have built in obsolescence by design vs premium is incorrect, they are built to a lower quality so will wear out quicker. Similarly a premium product may seem overpriced, especially in a rapidly evolving product like semiconductors. True value exists in the linear mainstream section where performance and quality goes up linearly with price. This spectrum exist for buyers too,

We already have leasing and subscription based services, Desktop as a Service, mobile phone contracts, vehicle subscriptions, rental properties. These make sense while a technology is evolving but less so for mature products like furniture where we don’t perceive planned obsolescence as problematic.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9xydj9 wrote

Yep, precisely that's mostly about electronics.

Think of it this way - with a warranty you have to prove a product is broken with this model the company needs to prove it's working each year before you make a recurring payment.

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Initialised t1_j9y1n1v wrote

That’s just a product as a service model and already exists.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9y1ubg wrote

Not really because when the product fails the responsibility changes from the user proving it's not user damaged to the company proving it's still working to get next payment.

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Initialised t1_j9y64h9 wrote

No, if you lease computers when on fails you get a same or next day swap out.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9y747x wrote

Not in Europe.

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Initialised t1_j9y77pv wrote

Which company are you leasing with and did you also buy management with hardware monitoring?

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9ycfvp wrote

Leasing here doesn't work that way. You get a leasing on the money not on the laptop. If the laptop is dead you still owe the money to a financial institution.

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Initialised t1_j9ydrs3 wrote

I worked for and bought from companies that have lease options in Europe. If a customer has a faulty unit it gets repaired or replaced according to the terms of their SLA unless it’s physical damage. We offer additional tools for device management that can tell when a drive, battery or cooling system might be going bad to proactively target failing machines before end users notice.

The model you propose exists and your last statement is not reflected in how leasing works in Europe.

Again, what are you leasing and who from?

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Dry-Influence9 t1_j9xzf6y wrote

You seem to have invented the subscription model and we already have that for many different products. For example in cars you can lease one for a few years and replace it with another new one after the lease is done.

A lot of companies have tried and keep trying to innovate with this type of business model but the public do not seem to like it.

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Initialised t1_j9y1sn0 wrote

It has a place, many people’s phones are part of a subscription service, it’s quite common for cars and leased fleets of laptops in large organisations.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9xzxzl wrote

If I lease it it's in warranty. In warranty you have to prove the product failed not the company. This model is reversing that.

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Dry-Influence9 t1_j9y0so3 wrote

> In warranty you have to prove the product failed not the company.

what does this mean? I don't get it.

Warranty protects us from factory defects and these cars are designed to survive the warranty period under normal circumstances.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9y0yj1 wrote

I will give you a recent example with a laptop. It ended up with a busted battery. The warranty service claimed it was user damaged. I had to prove it's not. With this model it's the other way around. The company has to prove it's fully functioning in my presence in order to get the next recurring payment. If they can't the plan ends and the device is considered non-functional.

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Dry-Influence9 t1_j9y1sl0 wrote

In warranties the burden of proof is on them by law, at least in the US. That doesn't stop companies from doing shady shit like this mate.

The model you propose seems to be the same as leases. Where you can lease a new phone with a mandatory insurance, the insurance replacement.

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shanoshamanizum OP t1_j9y23oj wrote

Not in Europe, here you have to prove it's not user damaged but you can't open it first. With the lease and insurance model it might still end up as "user-damaged".

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PublicFurryAccount t1_j9zzc65 wrote

That's a problem with your warranty laws, not the products.

These kinds of failures are common because most failures are from a bad draw, i.e., a part that has a defect because some percentage of parts does.

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