Will we ever see an end to planned obsolescence?

[ThatZenoGuy]

It's been on my brain a lot lately, namely because basically every fucking product I see on the shelves and most products in my home are just flat out designed to break in the most stupid ways imaginable.

Want a good example? My previous washing machine.
Giant 100kg+ lump of steel and plastic, washes clothes, massive roller bearings that can sustain huge forces and a beefy electric motor that never failed.
...Broken because a fucking plastic clip the size of your fingernail is what enables the fucking thing to auto-balance loads.

To reiterate, a multi-hundred dollar white-good appliance who's weakpoint is something you'd find on a chinese-made children's toy. You know what? That's actually rude to chinese-made children's toys, a fair amount are tougher than this tiny red piece of shit plastic.

I don't get it, it's nonsensical, you could make it out of steel or even aluminum and it'd basically never break ever, it'd just increase the price of the thing by about 10 cents.

Needed new shoes, so went to the local shoe store. Piss-poor variety, and the soles appear to be made out of some sort of recycled plastic or something? Basically no grip potential, and incredibly fragile and prone to cracking and thus letting water in. Ended up spending like 10 bucks more for some shoes with actual rubber soles, that so far haven't had any issues at all.

Look I get it, you get what you pay for, but I wouldn't pay 5 bucks for shoes that simply do not function as shoes, I could probably make my own for less! And these assholes wanted like 4/5ths the price of good shoes for them!?

Anyone else here appalled by the current state of goods? You basically have to spend an arm and a leg to get anything remotely worthwhile anymore.

 

[Skallagrim]

There's already laws regulating warranty periods in every country. You'd need no extra laws at all. You just need to change them a bit, and in fact you can greatly simplify them.


Step 1. Warranty terms to be considerably extended. At least five years for any common thing, at least ten years for most appliances, at least twenty years for any seriously expensive thing (e.g. cars).

Step 2. Forbid manufacturers from putting exclusions in their terms of service (e.g. "the warrenty doesn't apply to [endless list of the most vulnerable parts]").

Step 3. Give customers the right to always demand a full replacement if it breaks. No set-up where the manufacturer has a right to repair instead of replace. If it breaks, and you want a new one, they have to get you one. (ETA: also compel manufacturers to keep any product or part in sufficient stock until the warranty term for the last sold item has run out.)

Step 4. Fix it so that the manufacturer must always prove that any damage is the customer's fault, if they wish to claim that. Proving this requires a thorough report by an independent third-party expert, and this expert must always be paid by the manufacturer, never by the customer.

Step 5. Ban all imports from all countries that do not unconditionally adopt these stipulations as well.


The above will make it so ludicrously expensive and impractical to sell crappy products that the only profitable business model will be to sell stuff that lasts. And again, this requires no new legislation. Only an overhaul and vast simplification of existing legislation. It has the added benefit of permanently ending crappy Chinese imports, and restoring domestic industry to its proper place in the sun.