Comment by RecycledEle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RecycledEle | Hacker News Reader

I applaud every policy that actually helps the environment. (Many do not.)

1. Right to repair is awesome.

2. Imagine taxing products in a way that is inversely proportional to their reliability. Do you make RAM or products that use RAM? Standard DIMMs and products that use standard DIMMs are taxed at a lower rate than products that use soldered on RAM.

Sell LCD screens or products that use them? A standard connector and standard mounting holes (as measured against products sold in that category) lowers your tax bill.

If your parts have to be coded to the machine, every one is taxed as a 1-off product interface.

Let's tax 1-off products at 100%, and drop that to 0% at 1 billion copies that use that interface.

3. Have you ever used multiple terminals on a Linux PC? Windows used to have Windows Multipoint Server that did exactly that. It reduces waste and makes more efficient use of resources. Many households would benefit from a powerful workstation or gaming PC in a family room, with multiple screens, keyboards, and mice. Standard swiveling monitor mounts allow a single-seat triple-monitor setup to morph into 3 separate seats so everyone can get their work done at once.

Imagine mandating multi-point support on all software.

4. Lots of PCs go into landfills only because companies like Microsoft refuse to support them. We all see 6th Gen Core machines going in the trash because the are not supported in Windows 11. The easy fix is: If a product has 100,000 installs that are willing to pay $10 per year for updates, then security updates are required as a national security issue.

I'm sure my numbers need some work. These are just ideas.

A $500 laptop has a USB-C charging connector and more than 1 billion have been made, so there is no tax on that. The laptop has mini–Display Port, USB-A and USB-C ports on the sides and back, again, there is no tax. Inside the laptop, there is a DDR5 SODIMM and a M.2 NVME connector. Still no tax.

Inside the laptop uses a proprietary and patented connector between the motherboard and the screen. Because no parts were made with those connectors before this year, the tax rate would be 100, but Each end of that is taxed at 300% because the connectors are proprietary. We find the cost of those parts by finding the cost to have one of each shipped to a US address. Let’s say that Sony charges $1,200 for the motherboard (on a $500 laptop; Sony does this) and $1,800 for a screen. The total tax bill because Sony decided to use a patented, proprietary connector instead of 20-pin LVDS or DVI is $9,000.

I still remember Sony trying to charge my friend $800 for a power connector for a VAIO. The connector was deliberately designed to break (planned obsolescence) and was patented. A standard connector would be much easier.

The processor is soldered on instead of socketed, so there is tax on that.

I hope we can push manufacturers to use standard connectors. Think of the Framework Laptop but with a COMexpress module for the processor and chipset.

> Let's tax 1-off products at 100%, and drop that to 0% at 1 billion copies that use that interface.

So, billion dollar companies can afford to lock users into their ecosystem, but not startups?

> So, billion dollar companies can afford to lock users into their ecosystem, but not startups?

Thank you for pointing that out.

I meed to revise my suggestion to say that proprietary products are taxed at a higher rate than open standards.

Maybe a proprietary connector on a laptop is taxed according to the cost of buying a replacement connector. If no replacement is available, it's taxed at an absurdly high rate.

> Standard DIMMs and products that use standard DIMMs are taxed at a lower rate than products that use soldered on RAM.

Soldered on RAM is actually more reliable as connectors can become unseated more easily than solder joints can break. I assume you are referring to repairability rather than reliability.

I am referring to upgradability, not repairability.

>Imagine taxing products in a way that is inversely proportional to their reliability. Do you make RAM or products that use RAM? Standard DIMMs and products that use standard DIMMs are taxed at a lower rate than products that use soldered on RAM.

Re: number 2.

What if the current standard sucks and your new attempt as a start up is objectively better?

Example: you develop a new connector that has bandwidth that is 10x better than the existing, so you can house different parts that would be considered “non-standard”

You include the standard port to avoid the tax and let people voluntarily switch to get the benefits. If it's so amazingly good it will eventually become the new standard and you can drop the old port when it becomes uncommon for people to have stuff with only the old port.

You know you can't just shove an extra port on everything? Besides, you'd have to draw the line somewhere. If every component has to be replaceable and a standard connector lots of (especially) small hardware is impossible to make (think wireless earbuds, smartwatches, fitness trackers) and I don't think you'd get a majority of people that want to return to 2000's style mobile phone bricks.

> I don't think you'd get a majority of people that want to return to 2000's style mobile phone bricks.

I love bricks with lots of connectors and replaceable / upgradable parts.

> What if the current standard sucks and your new attempt as a start up is objectively better?

I'm sick of new processor socket or generation every year. My old Socket 1366 machine is fine. I want to encourage companies to stick to designs that work and to collaborate on new standards that will be usable for decades.

If you have a new processor socket that is that much better, use it and pay the tax.

What absolutely absurd suggestions that truly would hamper innovation. You want the government to mandate what a “standard” interface is for complex electronic devices? So if anyone wants to do something new or better, they’d need to pay an innovation… tax? I have very little faith that government bureaucracy around this would lead to better products for consumers.

Also, new developments don’t come in a giant wave. It’s small incremental changes at this point for most things, so punishing someone for incrementally improving their product year after year (that may break compatibility, admittedly) with a tax seems like a way to stifle innovation.

It would be really nice if there were a battery standard for power tools. The companies don't have any incentive to work that out, so, xkcd 927, every power tool company has their own standard. Most companies even have multiple standards as they move to newer battery chemistries. If there was an evolving standard that tool and battery manufacturers had to adhere to, yeah, I believe we'd be better off.

On the other hand, USB managed to come about with a lot of committee with, without needing government regulation to force it, so it's not like the free market is incapable of it, the incentives just has to be aligned for it to happen, so it often doesn't.

> It would be really nice if there were a battery standard for power tools.

I agree!

There should be a standard for rechargable lithium battery packs at 1s, 2s 3s, etc. The US Congress does have the power to regulate interstate commerce.

That's why the EU mandating usb-c makes me uneasy too.

I guess we're never getting better than usb-c?

No. It means that nobody is unilaterally introducing USB-D on a whim but they explicitly recognize that need with delegated authority to have experts periodically review and suggest changes. I’d expect various backwards compatible tweaks to go through routinely but if there’s a limitation of USB-C significant enough to warrant a major change I’d expect that to be no more set in stone than, say, cellular network technology – coordinated between companies, with a phased rollout to avoid breaking existing users, etc.

This kind of language is very common when governments basically want to delegate their authority to technical experts rather than have to put details which will become obsolete directly into legislation:

> In order to address any future developments in charging technology and to ensure the minimum common interoperability between radio equipment and the charging devices for such radio equipment, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission to amend the categories or classes of radio equipment and the specifications regarding the charging interfaces and charging communication protocols, as well as the details on the information in relation to charging.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com