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Comment by code_runner | Hacker News Reader

One argument at least with thinking about… Because the demand is not there. If those phones sold well there would be more phones with this option.

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The demand wasn’t there for electric cars either. That’s why we have incentives. This is an environmental policy designed to reduce externalities: manufacturer makes a phone without an easily replaceable battery => everybody else pays for the environmental damage that causes.

But the net policy effect of electric cars is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Those things are expensive and quite rare. They require a lot o Obviously. Because there is no need for a policy to force people to use things that are cheaper and plentiful.

If you want to argue there will be less smartphones -> less waste that seems reasonable. Some person on a tight budget drops it in water and it fizzles because water gets in the the battery maybe. Can't afford to replace it. They learn to live without a phone.

But it isn't going to cause less waste with the same utility. The market is much better than the EU at sniffing out the maximum benefit for minimum resources. Less waste is almost always moire profitable.

> Less waste is almost always more profitable

…something something 3M …something something oil industry …something something tobacco industry, pesticides, fast fashion, disposable products, and factory pollution

If you ban pesticides and the oil industry, Europe would be depopulated through famine. Almost everyone would starve.

If enough food to make it to the end of the year is on the list of non-essential items then yeah I suppose there is a lot of waste out there.

> factory pollution

Where does the stuff some from without factories? Are you proposing a world where people do without whitegoods? Nobody knows how to run a factory that makes affordable goods in bulk with little pollution. The market is optimising for the most people being able to afford to live comfortably. The equilibrium that minimises waste at all costs is a world with no humans.

The smartphone industry right now is more comparable to fast fashion, the more they sell the better and if you can't fix their products nor do they receive updates after a year you need to buy a new one.

So fast fashion but you can't even patch your pants if they have a hole.

> factory pollution

If companies had to pay for the pollution they produce they would have to raise prices and/or find a way to produce the same while polluting less. Enforcement in a globalized world is the issue.

That's like saying "nobody wants lights in the car boot because if they wanted it the demand was there and market would provide"

I hate that dumbass argument. Every fucking time someone brings it.

Nobody fucking buys thing like a smartphone or a car based on a single feature while ignoring every other feature.

You buy a thing. There is like half a dozen to a dozen different factors. Battery life, screen size, CPU, RAM, storage etc.

If there is no phone with the "niche" option like replaceable battery that ALSO have all of the other features in acceptable range, people will not buy it.

It's NOT because they don't want <niche feature>

It's because picking <niche feature> means bigger compromises in other areas that are also important

Ah yes, the magical free market that solves all problems.

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