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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

Cost of quality labor in the US where I live is more than $100 per hour. Probably even more for specialized electronics requiring academic knowledge.

It doesn’t behoove me to care about repairing any electronic worth less than $5k probably. Any decent brand lasts so long and the ratio of probability of failure to cost to replace is so low that it’s just not worth it.

When something breaks, the decision is to spend $x to fix versus $x+$y to buy new. I’m not buying electronics to last more than 10 years, the protocols and everything are going to change anyway. I might as well buy new and get an update rather than fix old and be stuck with old tech.

High value purchases on the other hand make sense, since a few thousand dollar fix for a $30k to $50k car might be worth it compared to buying another $30k to $50k car.

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Consider the farmer with a combine or 4 wheel drive tractor at $250K..$350K per unit.

And the crops need to come off this week or we loose $2.5M but the company says ship it to Kansas city for repair so we can upload the new software...

Yes, that clearly needs to be addressed.

That calculation is definitely an important consideration but "reparability" does not have to mean "keep an outdated machine running indefinitely".

Reparability includes design that enables troubleshooting.

For example: Run the "$x to fix versus $x+$y" on a non-functional fridge. A fridge designed for repair might have a thumb-screw panel for access to the logic board with clearly labeled test pads for fuse continuity. This (or other, similar repair-friendly designs) would allow you to more easily determine the value of "x" and more accurately assess whether "x" is small enough to make repair the more viable option.

My assumption would be if manufacturers are forced into making things more repairable, it would by virtue make them easier to recycle.

When things are glued together, you generally have to break them apart, which contaminates different types of materials making recycling significantly more difficult.

Maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I don't know how human society continues down the path of pulling raw materials out of the ground, turning it into a "device" which is then just thrown away. There is a finite amount of material on the planet, and most of the things we're throwing away end up quite toxic when buried indefinitely. I won't have to worry about it, or my grandchildren, or maybe even 5 generations from now, but it's a question of when, not if.

What if right to repair lowers the barrier to entry so much that low cost labor can do the repair instead?

Yeah I know it is overused but it is not difficult to imagine a "Uber for repairs".

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