Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

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> not being so reliable it didn't need warrantees[sic] and services and parts etc?

The thing is, nothing is completely maintenance free, esp. if there's something mechanical. Make wearing parts wear, core parts robust. All my laser printers were Samsung/Xerox (hah), and their "core" is made like a tank. Only its rollers, toner and imaging/drum kits wear down, and these are already consumables.

The device keeps track the life of every of these replaceable components, and you replace them you hit these marks, because they're already worn down to hinder reliable operation (Imager dies at 9K pages, rollers at 20K pages IIRC).

You don't need to make things fail prematurely to make something profitable. First one of these printers didn't have replaceable rollers, so I had to donate it after 11 years of operation. This one is almost 8 years old IIRC, and it's still going strong. I'll be using it as long as I can find spares for it, because it's engineered "correctly", not "for profit". Meantime, its manufacturer can still profit from parts, toner and imaging units.

I think something that companies often miss is that improving the experience in an area where you have a monopoly can still increase profits by encouraging increased usage of that area.

The example I always go to is U-Haul in the US. They have a functional monopoly on quickly getting a pickup truck or small box car. I used to tell people there was no need to own a pickup truck because I could go grab one for $30 once or twice a month when I needed it.

After a year of shitty apps, constantly being sold things I didn't need because they try to secretly upsell you 50 times during checkout. Having to go into the store to get the keys and wait in line for 1 hour behind people screaming about how they were cheated... I bought a truck.

U-Hual still has their monopoly, but they lost my business, not because I went to a competitor, but because I altered my life to no longer need their business.

Maybe instead of buying eink tablets, I would have kept printing things had printers been better products.

U-haul is one of the shittiest experiences possible. Right there with calling comcast and going to the dmv. Compare that to truck rental from Lowe’s or Home Depot that’s actually probably more expensive but way more pleasant.

Only problem is that everyone else also has figured that out so hard to secure one.

Not copiers, but the ice cream machines in mcdonalds resturants were kept unreliable because mcdonalds made money on the constant repairs. It didn't matter to them that the franchisee was losing money. When 3rd party companies jumped in to fix the machines the manufacturer and mcdonalds acted to stop that happening. There was a court case brought by the third party companies, which they recently lost.

> ...they recently lost.

Who is "they"?

They being the third party repair companies. Johnny Harris did a long piece on the whole story [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

Actually, it looks like the feds have sided with the 3rd parties?

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/14/24101023/ftc-doj-comment-...

Why did you write sic after you quoted “warrantees”?

The correct spelling is "warranties" (since singular y becomes i when it gets plural).

[sic] means "I copied the word as written in its original, and it was already written that way" [0].

[0]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sic

I probably meant warranties but warrantees works in the sentence just fine too :)

Hey, as long as it's readable, I don't care. I just wanted to note that I quoted you verbatim, not judge you because you pressed letter "e" twice instead of once in an internet forum. :)

In my experience, people very rarely use [sic] when quoting on internet forums - readers will assume any quote was copied and pasted; and the quoted text is directly above yours.

Sometimes people edit their comments after they realize their mistakes; grammar, spelling or otherwise. I use [sic] to denote that "it was like that when I copied it". It's probably from my "old internet" days (/., local forums, etc.).

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