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Comment by EdwinLarkin | Hacker News Reader

Another scam pushed by the EU that will make things more expensive. The cost of labor to repair anything is so high that no one will ever want to do it unless their appliance is the top of the high end stuff that costs thousands of euros.

I have an older 1000$ Miele washing machine and to repair it it costs 400$. For that price I can have a brand new machine with all the functions I want.

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I had to buy a new washing machine a few years back, because one of the bearings broke. This is not a particular expensive part - I would probably be able to source parts for approximately 50$

Unfortunately, the manufacturer had glued everything together, so I wouldn't be able to replace the broken part, but had to replace the entire drum, which raised the price to 600$

I decided to pay for a new washing machine instead, which cost me 800$, because other parts of the machine might be close to breaking as well, which would require additional expensive repairs due to everything being glued

The machine was five years old at that point and the one before died after five years as well, so all in all the maintenance cost for a washing machine is approximately 120$ per year (2*600/10)

If I had been able to extend the life of the machine by just 1 year with new bearings, that would still be a financial win, since 50$<120$

The cost of repairs are high because manufacturers prevent people from replacing the "cheap" parts of the appliances. If I have to pay 200$ more upfront, but I can double the lifetime of the appliance, that's a big saving for me

Not to mention, that governments could create tax incentives, like making repairs deductable or lowering taxes on spare parts, which will make the financial incentive even stronger

Edit: I apparently can't math - my current "maintenance" price is not 120$, but 160$ per year, as the cost of replacement is 800$, so the calculation should be 2*800/10

> will make things more expensive

A repair economy is only more expensive when the whole of industry is a scam. Spare parts are usually really inexpensive to come buy (couple euros to repair a TV or a hard drive) but really hard to come by due to bad economic incentives.

The whole "new products" industry is based on wage slavery in the mines and the factories, and strong pollution/destruction of the environment for cheap energy/materials, which is a hidden cost not covered by the 100$ you paid your phone (or whatever).

If the economic incentives were more balanced (with working/environmental regulations), a repair economy would in fact be more sustainable/profitable than new products. Also worth noting, repairing existing goods could be considered a public service and be financed by governments, if they cared at all about ecology (which they certainly do not).

A secondary (probably small, but still...) effect of this is the possibility of creating more jobs since repairing items such as washing machines and TV:s is an inherently local activity. Not really something to send into a central hub for repair. Effectively helping money circulate in the local economy.

So one simple but not-so-obvious fix: Require manufacturers to sell all individual components that go into their products at the same price + markup that they applied to their final product. Give them exemptions from normal "product" regulations, and boom, you've taken a large step in the direction of having a healthier industry and "planned obsolescence" isn't as economically viable anymore.

It's ok if things are more expensive, as long as they can be repaired and last longer. That's the whole point... stopping waste.

I think what he was referring to that it's cheaper for him to get a new one instead of repairing it? Which would defeat the whole point of repairing it completely, because no one would choose to repair instead of replacing it.

You can get a washing machine for 400, but it's low end, not a Miele.

At which point you encounter "samuel vimes 'boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" and have to check if that $400 dollar machine is actually cheaper than a $1000 one in the long term.

Repaired by whom?

Many companies make it hard/impossible and expensive to repair things on purpose, because they really, really want you to buy something new every few years.

Mitigating this "build to fail" mentality is the very point of right to repair regulation.

I have a Siemens wash/dry combination that is currently leaking. The replacement parts cost 20 to 60 euro online and half an hour of following a youtube video. Any estimate on the official repair service still puts me well bellow two hundred.

I just repaired a heating blanket for my SO. Was about $2 in parts (two diodes and a fuse).

Fortunately I know electronics and have a soldering iron, otherwise it would have been scrapped and she'd get a new one.

There's a local repair club[1] that shows up at shopping centers nearby every now and then and helps fixing consumer products for people. Great initiative IMHO.

[1]: https://restartersnorway.no/

Currently it costs $400 to repair. If products become more repairable it also becomes cheaper to repair them (in theory at least).

This kind of legislation is likely to push up the initial purchase price but the overall cost should come down. So the $1000 Miele now costs $1200, but only costs $50 to repair.

Price is not the only viable product metric on earth.

How about time? You only have a limited amount before you die.

It is not about me. I am only a negligible grain of dust. It is about something bigger.

I often enjoy the time I spend repairing things (modulo frustration at manufacturing stupidities that needlessly prevent simple repairs), tbh.

There are other values than monetary which also should be considered. Fixing the old machine will not produce waste, transports etc and will also provide a livelyhood to someone.

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