I still have the circuit diagram (paper copy) that shipped with my Acorn Atom in, ahem, 1981. Didn’t ask for it!
(Edit: with the help of the circuit diagram we did make a simple mod to one of the output ports of the device)
(Edit: with the help of the circuit diagram we did make a simple mod to one of the output ports of the device)
Planned obsolescence was one natural outcome that we ended up with. An electrical engineers I know told me how designing a CPU that would last a lifetime is relatively easy compared to designing an equipment that will fail only 5 years from now, but not earlier.
I wonder if there was a way we could take the other path. Keep manufacturing solid, long lasting products but also being financially sound. Right now economy, to me, seems like a thing of perpetual growth, but in a cancer-like way.
Regulation.
Fun fact: this is still possible! It's a little harder – it'll have to be steadily introduced, in multiple countries at once (so we don't break international trade), starting in the areas where it's cheapest to produce lasting equipment (so enforcement doesn't take out entire sectors), and I don't yet know what the regulations would look like, but if it's possible to make lasting things, it's possible to require manufacturers to make things last.
We need to do this, sooner or later, anyway: we simply don't have the raw resources to continue as we are.
What runs out, and when does it run out? Are there alternatives? And can we source it from asteroids?
Easy to nay-say, though. To me, a solution starts with spreading those values that make it possible for _consumers_ to stop sliding down the growth-over-everything slope. Mittelstands, shinise, Patagonia, yada yada. Can you as an entrepreneur make a sustainable business that isn’t just for well-off conscious consumers? What’s the product where longevity is inextricable from the core feature set, not just a trade-off with cost?
Right-to-repair is a decent example of where regulation has enough support across the ideological spectrum to get a foot in the door. It would be cool if a company who made profit on service now decides it doesn’t want to compete on service and instead takes more profit upfront with a higher-quality product. Forcing USB-C on phones feels like a small thing to me, but if it sets a precedent where interfaces are standardized for sustainability, that could be amazing. (No, I’m not worried about governments slowing progress. Locked ecosystems are doing just fine at that.)