It's all about having one more option because we have no options right now.

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I'm not a fan of subscription type services for products like your idea 1 would entail.

I would like to see a return to a greater degree of reparability and longevity in consumer products. There used to be appliance repair shops everywhere. Today, broken appliances are often tossed in a landfill or poorly, partially, recycled. Building them to be repaired, upgraded or recycled easily be useful on many level.

The problem is that most people don't want this. They want to newest and shiny thing that's out right now and don't care if it can't be repaired and has planned obsolescence baked in. I recently got into a very heated discussion on a hobby forum on this topic. I was critical of a hot new product from a company that had been around since the 1940's. I have their products from the 1960's and 70's that are still operating fine, only needing some maintenance over the years. The hot new product has SMD circuit boards and chips that will be unlikely to last more than 5 to 10 years. But, people got really offended when I brought this up.

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.

> 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.

"future AI has no bearing on education" Really? Are you sure you wanna say that? 🤔

Jeff bezos is a piece of absolute garbage - but the concept of this project is cool.

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.

The XCover 6 Pro is cheaper than it’s competitors, yet nobody buys it.

Nobody buys it, because nobody wants it, apart from business and healthcare. Everybody wants a Galaxy/iPhone.

Without customer demand, there’s no sales. And no sales is why these companies fold.

Again, if enough people wanted repairability/upgradeability, Samsung and Apple would make these products. They both consistently tap the markets to see what people want.

And what people actually want is longer battery life, better camera, faster processor, more camera features etc etc. Repairability isn’t even in the top 20 of customer wants.

There are still body gap issues, interior issues, user systems issues. Tesla ranked among the highest (worst) for quality issues according to JD Power. With problems on over 226 per 100 vehicles. Industry standard is 180. Anecdotally I have never met anyone with a Tesla that was truly happy with the vehicle. Once we are able to get passed the cultish like loyalty they express so as not to have buyers remorse the admit it’s the worst quality car they have ever driven it’s only saving Grace is being a EV.

> I will never, ever use a Zuckerberg product. I logged out of Facebook about 10 years ago and will never log back in, under any circumstance.

This article is about open source models intended to spur development in the field (e.g. researchers sharing feedback which would help Meta), not a product.

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.

Yes because modular lasting products are more expensive to make. If they are the same price as non-lasting products it will be a different story. That's why small companies may benefit from this model to make a breakthrough.

People don’t want (for example) phones that can be upgraded. They don’t want modular replaceable parts. People want a brand new phone every few years.

How do we know this? Because there are breakthrough companies all the time popping up with products that offer this, and more. Swappable cameras, storage, etc etc, and literally nobody is interested. Nobody buys them, and the companies fail.

Samsung have always offered the XCover which has memory slot and replaceable battery, and easily removeable shell, and modular components…. and not one fucker buys them outside enterprise.

The current XCover 6 Pro has fast processor, 8gb of ram, decent screen, removable battery, etc etc for around $650 and nobody is buying it.

Literally nobody really cares about this “planned obsolescence shit apart from a few noisy whiners. If buyers cared, the corporates would too.

This may sound harsh, but I think it's pretty arrogant of anyone to think they're important enough to "live" forever.

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.

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.

What concerns me most is the loss of the ability or need to memorize information. For example, growing up I had at least a dozen phone numbers memorized. Since I got a cell phone I only have my own and my mom's phone numbers memorized. Why should we memorize anything when the answers to most of life's queries can literally be found in the palm of our hand?

Spoiler alert for anyone who has yet to/wants to read The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons:

When thinking about a possible worst-case scenario of what an overreliance on web-based technology (thoughts on demand) could look like I always think back to Simmon's Hyperion Cantos. In his stories, various worlds are interconnected by a type of bridge between worlds and a WorldWeb. Through this WorldWeb, citizens of these worlds can instantaneously access information through neural implants. When the worlds are suddenly disconnected from each other and the WorldWeb people's neural implants go dark. Without access to trade and the constant stream of instantaneous data to their neural implants, whole societies collapse. People simply didn't remember how to do anything. Developing the capacity to access long-term memory (skills, knowledge) wasn't required.

Viewing Simmon's story as a cautionary tale - maybe the education system will have to primarily focus on developing the soft skills of its students and long-term memorization techniques.

I'd love to hear some of my grandparents' stories and my grandmother's recipes again. I'd really love for my kids to. They passed not long after my younger children were born.

Chargers. Apple makes a fantastic charger. That should be the standard which any portable electronic device has to use. Im not hawking for apply BTW. start small

The topic of batteries made from trees opens up a world of possibilities for a sustainable future. As we become more aware of the impact of traditional batteries on the environment, alternative options are becoming more appealing. This article sheds light on the development of tree-based batteries and their potential to revolutionize the way we power our devices.

However, the discussion should not end here. There are still many questions that need to be addressed, such as the scalability of this technology and the potential impact on the forestry industry. Furthermore, how can we ensure that the process of producing tree-based batteries is truly sustainable and does not cause further harm to the environment?

As we move towards a more sustainable future, it is crucial to explore and develop alternative solutions for our energy needs. The development of tree-based batteries is a step in the right direction, and it will be interesting to see how this technology evolves in the future and how it can contribute to a more sustainable and cleaner planet.

Totally agree with you, but picking your brain, laundry is the bane of my household existence. Do you think the tech is there for end to end laundry?

Wash, dry iron and fold/ hang

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It's easy to criticise from the outside, but if you think about where you work, does it work like that?

In my place of work costs go up because of increasing safety requirements, expectations and standards. What about yours?

>So, this will be the status quo until the world economy collapses, which will probably be soon.

I agree with you but while we wait we can ease our pain by pushing for even if temporary solutions. 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.