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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

There is a reason "recycle" comes last in "reduce, reuse, recycle". But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse.

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> But not consuming is bad for the economy, so the invisible hand does its best to prevent reduction and reuse.

That 'the invisible hand' (by which I assume you mean the free market) prevents reuse is simply not true. In a competitive free market you would have companies that would specialise in reuse. For Apple's products that is exactly what happens: there are actually quite a few companies selling refurbished second hand Apple products (e.g. [1] and [2]), including Apple itself [3]. Of course, regulation sometimes gets in the way: India's prime minister Modi is preventing Apple from selling second hand iPhones in India in an attempt to get them to start producing products in India.

The free market has many short-comings. Preventing reuse is not one of them.

[1] https://leapp.be/nl

[2] https://www.forza-refurbished.be/?gclid=CNb63IaEutMCFSEG0wod...

[3] https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

[4] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/tim-cook-k...

From [4]: > The government is in-principle against allowing import and sale of second-hand phones in India to prevent dumping of hazardous electronic waste, said a person familiar with the matter. But it might take a more favourable view of the proposal if Apple agrees to manufacture in India. "Local manufacturing will be the thrust of the PM's message to Cook," the person said.

Free market doesn't prevent dumping of hazardous waste in developing countries.

So if I understand it correctly, if Apple manufactures in India, the Indian government would take a more favourable view of 'dumping of hazardous electronic waste'? It sounds like a pretext to me.

I agree that the free market doesn't prevent dumping of hazardous waste in developing countries.

Maybe in a competitive market with no externalities and perfectly rational consumers, aka fantasy land. Here in the real world people are easily influenced by ads, durability is less important than price, and environmental destruction is not factored into the cost of a product.

Companies make money by selling stuff. If every item you needed would be built to last and people wouldn't throw away perfectly good things because the design doesn't match the designs they see on TV anymore, many companies would go belly up.

Not so. In your theoretical world the market dynamics would simply be different. Companies in the real world can choose to make products vastly more reliable and long lasting and not go belly up (as you put it). Indeed, they used to. Now they just prefer a more subscription-based model (where consumers buy a new one every so often) because it cash flows easier, and it's easier to manipulate the customers perception of true cost. So "belly up" weakens your argument. You'd be much closer in simply saying companies might make less. Though, I'm not sure that's true either. My dad used to own and operate a company selling VERY high-end, long-lasting seat covers for cars and trucks. He charged A LOT, and had a three month waiting list.

So...

Low durability = low price = many sold High durability = high price = fewer sold

But mathematically you could still make the same under either approach.

It's not bad for the "economy" except for a too narrow definition of "economy". This is the broken window fallacy.

"Not consuming" is actually great for the economy.

Imagine you could produce a car that never needed repairs and would last a million miles and cost the same to build as current cars. You'd free up tons of mechanics and auto-workers to build and repair other things. Actual economic output would go up, more and better things would be made.

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