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Comment by patrickaljord | Hacker News Reader

> I actually think this isn't progressive enough. I would expect my washing machine computer, smartphone, oven etc to last longer than two years. 5 years minimum.

Are you aware this will make everything way more expensive? Why don't they let people who care about extra warranty pay the premium and let the rest of us who don't care about it avoid the fee and pay cheaper. How about we let willing adults contract freely with each others instead of using the force of law and guns to force people into contracts governments think are better for us because we're too dumb to know better what's good for us and what to do with our own money? Crazy thoughts I know.

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>Are you aware this will make everything way more expensive?

That depends how long things last on average. If things get 25% more expensive, but tend to last twice as long as a result of the legislation, they're actually much cheaper than they were before.

The problem is, consumers don't have a good way to compare product lifetimes, so they tend to judge based on sticker price. Mandating minimum lifetime makes these prices more meaningfully comparable.

Although personally, I think an even better market solution would be to mandate that products list price per guarantee-year prominently.

> price per guarantee-year

This is an interesting lead. Increasing consumer awareness would also incentivize companies to increase guarantee years, reducing perceived price.

Most large appliances in Europe, even the cheap ones, will have some claim on the packaging like 5-15 year guarantee. However for the cheaper ones, once you try to actually use them beyond the EU 2 year minimum[1], you'll find there's all kinds of hidden terms and fees. 50$ callout, doesn't include labour, etc.

So in practice, consumers have been conditioned to just assume that nothing is really guaranteed to last, therefore just buy the cheapest one. With the exception of certain brands such as Miele who are very popular among people with enough money to drop on the high up front price.

You're right in that this could potentially be addressed other ways, for example with packaging regulations. If it says "15 year warranty", then it shouldn't have any hidden terms or charges.

[1] Although with the EU guarantee after 6 months it's technically your responsibility to show fault, with large non-moving appliances the usual assumption is it's probably the device's fault.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

I know it's a difficult balance to find, but sometimes you have to restrict the individual's freedom of choice to protect the environment and society as a whole.

Wasteful short product cycles may just fall into the category. Long-lasting products won't prevent you from buying the new stuff all the time. But instead of throwing away the old stuff, you might be incentivized to sell it to others who happily use older stuff.

I know it's a difficult balance to find, but sometimes you have to restrict the individual's freedom of choice to protect the environment and society as a whole.

You should be honest and say: this will hurt consumers but help the environment, and I feel that is worth it.

I think the parent also makes a very good point about creating a better market for reselling older products. The impact of new products being more expensive should be a relatively short-lived one given that consumers who do want the new, shiny gizmo will have much greater incentive to resell what they have, and those who want/need to pay less will just need to seek those used products out. Instead of buying something brand new that will only last a year or two, you're getting something with the same durability to you, but without the environmental impact of making an entirely new Widget.

The article has an argument that has nothing to do with the government knowing what's best for you: the tremendous amount of waste that this generates, which are an externality on the whole society.

One could argue that this increased cost together with the mandatory warranty will reduce the pace at which we burn through the earth's resources at a global scale, that it has an impact which in the end will benefit the private person more than that extra money in the bank will.

And can we please try to keep the snark out of the snarko-capitalist rethoric?

Because of the tragedy of the commons [1], which is hard to solve without a third-party (i.e. the government)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

From your own link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Non-gov...

Like that link says, such systems mostly work when the commons are restricted to a small and stable local community, which can use a strong social network to manage it. It doesn't work that well on a large scale like a country.

Still, if you have some specific suggestions to avoid this legislation, I'd honestly very much like to hear them.

> A final condition is that there be appropriate community-based rules and procedures in place with built-in incentives for responsible use and punishments for overuse.

This is just a government by another name.

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