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Comment by krastanov | Hacker News Reader

There used to be an expectation of longevity in the electronics we purchase. Even while Moore's law was in full effect, you could find good uses for a 6 year old computer. Today's computer hardware can easily remain fully usable for a decade. The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.

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You must have lived in a different "Used to be" than I did. I owned multiple Walkman style cassette players back in the 80s and if you got 2 years use out of those foam covered headphones, it was a small miracle. Even buying replacement foam, the cords got snagged and destroyed quickly. Also, the cheap plastic doors on the players were notoriously prone to failing. Not to mention all of them were powered by disposable batteries which powered them for just a few hours and had to be tossed out.

Exactly this. When in-ear buds became the standard (90's?), the lifespan would be dictated by how quickly the cable frayed.

Step 1: superglue

Step 2: tape

Step 3: buy new ones

I agree about the headphones, but I got a full decade of use from my WM-D6 Walkman Pro and its (optional, removable) rechargeable battery pack. I replaced it with a WM-D6C which still worked the last time I tried it, a few years ago now.

High-quality gear was definitely available in the '80s, if you were willing to pay for it — and might have been cheaper in the long run.

So instead of tiny, expensive headphones last 18-24 months, you had an even more expensive cassette player which might last 5 years, with headphones that lasted less than a year, and expensive bulky rechargeable battery packs which lasted about 6 months if you were lucky.

How is this better than a set of headphones which last 18+ months? Just the NiCd battery packs were something like 20 times bulkier than the AirPods and lasted less than a third the time with careful use. Normal replacement cycle on those battery packs would be more expensive over 2 years than my AirPods, particularly if you consider inflation.

I'm not suggesting it was better overall; I'm not sure how you read me that way. I'm just saying that reliable gear was available.

(Only 6 months out of a set of NiCds??? I got multiple years out of more than one set. NiCds are very easy to take care of; just remember that they need exercise. Always drain them fully before charging, and make sure not to overcharge.)

Well, batteries have never had a long useful life, and since the batteries (Airpods + case) make up most of the mass, replacing the battery would have most of the environmental impact.

The answer then, is that goods like this may not be worthwhile purchases, comparing the environmental impact they cause to the limited (nonexistent?) benefits that they bring to our society.

And who gets to decide “the benefits to society”?

Could you say the same about everything that uses a battery? We could all just be using payphones.

I'd be glad if we all could use mobile phones where we are able to change the battery. There is no way around, batteries are wearing parts. And I know that most phones (and even laptop computers) use small/weird form factors to use the even the last bit of space available, but I'd be glad to do with a little less battery life, if I just could switch batteries.

That still doesn’t help the environment. The batteries can be changed and they still have to be disposed of. Having less battery capacity doesn’t help. In fact, you would need to change them more often.

I’ve been using the same etymotic ear buds since 2004.

Let alone headphones? You could throw away a pair of AirPods every day and it would still constitute a tiny fraction of what (Americans) produce in waste on a yearly basis.

"It doesn't matter how much garbage I produce, everyone else makes way more!"

Replace "everyone" with "large corporations" and I think it's a pretty sound argument.

Uuuugh. This line of thinking, though rooted in good intentions (hold corporations responsible for better behavior) is deeply flawed.

Corporations don't exist in a vacuum. They have customers they're serving. We don't get to just pretend our behavior doesn't matter because some bogeymen (corporations) are doing worse things, then continue to voluntarily hand our money to those very same corporations.

We (individuals) bear responsibility, too. We vote with out dollars. Yes, we can't control the other 7.7 Billion people on the planet. But we can control our own behavior, and lead by example.

I like this line of thinking too, but there should be a line drawn somewhere between consumer's responsibility and law maker's responsibility to hold corporations accountable for their environmental impact. It is not a single person at home dumping pollution into a river or factory smoke into the air. And it's downright difficult for an average consumer to know what impact each option for a purchase has on the environment.

I think it's an argument somewhat like the "don't water your lawn in a drought" argument - even in aggregate, domestic/consumer impact is miniscule. 2005 numbers say that domestic water use is 8.5% of freshwater use, and of that, irrigation is at most 5.3% (the "other" category). Yet we in California were told to let our lawns die or given money to convert to high-efficiency landscape.

An average shower uses 17 gallons of water. A single pound of almonds uses 1,900 gallons.

Anyway, all this to say that I think the GP's argument is convincing.

> The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.

Is this notion in your head? My electronics, especially recent ones, last many years.

That is the point I was making. The devices last (as we both have experienced), but today it is "fashionable" to dispose of them and buy new ones on a schedule much shorter than their lifespans (because of some new gimmick that provides an inconsequential improvement in the usability of the newer model).

My point is that perhaps you might have that impression, but what does the data say?

Even higher income people I know don't swap out their phones and laptops every year. It's a pain in the ass to reconfigure everything, and even when the devices get replaced, the old ones get passed down to the kids or elders.

http://www.asymco.com/2018/02/27/the-number/

Perhaps low end devices are getting replaced more and more often, but I would bet high end devices get used for much longer. Especially with a widening wealth/income gap, how would people even afford to replace working electronics for no reason?

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