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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

Consumer support for right to repair is broad, so long as it comes at no cost to them. People don’t want to pay to fix things, and they don’t want to accept any reduction in performance either.

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Why would you pay same price for repairing a shoes when you can get a new one for similar price?

So your environment isn't overflowing with pollution and single use junk? So there are more natural resources for your kids to enjoy? So you don't have to keep breaking in a new pair every other month?

But the consumer mind goes like “whatever, my backyard garden looks fine, my lawn looks green, my kids will be fine, besides whatever I throw away helps some third world poor person make a living, so win win, not my problem…”

Would you prefer to walk without shoes?

Btw, having a garden with growing vegetables and fruits is perfect for reduce resource consumption.

> Btw, having a garden with growing vegetables and fruits is perfect for reduce resource consumption.

In the modern world, with no animals and insects, but full of invasive species, you will find this endevour quiet difficult.

I'm not sure where you live, but we still have insects and animals.

The problem I wanted to make is that, consumer who can afford to generate those e-wastes are very far removed from the consequences of their action. When the consequences of my action are not inflicted on me, I have no incentive to stop doing bad things.

Where there is demand, there is supply.

If resources are shrinking, price of products made from those resources should be higher.

Problem is, when stupid design and bad quality of making product steps in. I would like to buy a pair of shoes or smartphone that last ages and are repairable. Usually those products are thrown away because of one faulty piece that is impossible to change for new one that would fix whole product.

> People don’t want to pay to fix things

This just isn't true, as long as there's repair shops out with a sizable customer base. The issue is companies do everything in their power to make it impossible for that service to exist. It also largely depends on the economy; If the economy is great, people throw their old stuff away and buy new stuff. If money is tight, they repair it, and if there's an economic collapse they let it stay broken. I wonder where we are?

> largely depends on the economy …

Unfortunately, it depends on the mentality. My well off friends often pay good money up front to buy the latest and hold onto a device(smartphone, laptop, sometimes tablets etc.) for 5-7 years.

My less well off or broke friends show the opposite, they often go out of their way to take debt(contracts, installments, pay later etc.) and continue upgrading to latest phone/watch/tablet/fitness tracker every year. It feels like that there is some kind of overcompensation combined with FOMO involved.

I don’t want to generalise this, but I had known probably a sub three figure people from my childhood and have seen this same behavior repeated always.

One of my friend in marketing told me that, people buy dreams, and hope that a new dream will help them forget the nightmares/problems, hence all adverts often include happy smiling beautiful people or conveys some form of freedom, prestige, social status …

Just a thought.

Yeah, when we make generalizations like that we have to assume rational actors in the same earning bracket. I was also describing people outside the US where people are a bit less willing to buy the new thing every year if they can't afford it. Ukraine before the war, for example, had a massive economic crash and no one could afford to repair their computers anymore which put most repair shops out of business.

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