“One last question before I buy this product. Is it fixable by me, or does it have proprietary stuff in it that would turn into a copyright problem if I were to try to fix it?”
“You break it, you buy it.”
“Can I fix it?”
“Nope. It’s just broken.”
Who was it that said most people will own nothing in the near future?
There’s a real market out there for dumb or vintage appliances. Same with cars. I will start a business next year.
I fixed my printer yesterday. Am I in trouble?
Let me give you a for example, based on actual events.
You have a automatic cleaning litter box and an automatic feed and water station. You go away for the weekend confident in the fact that your fur-balls will be cared for.
Your internet goes down and so all your automatic systems turn off. You had battery back up so they should have worked even in a black out. But that is not the problem. There is no wi-fi to connect to so all the systems shut down.
This is not a reasonable feature. They say it is so they can be sure your system is running as promised but if it is not they do nothing to fix it.
What a Luddite! If everyone abided by that edict, PCs would have never caught on and digital handheld devices would never have come to exist.
"Specialization" is one of the key benefits of civilization, because it not only allows for a greater diversity of skill sets to be developed but also allows for all us all to benefit from the skills of others.
Great article.
I am happy others are beginning to see this.
It has become ridiculous. Many home appliances are now built with a 5-year design life and are practically disposable.
This squeezes the consumer financially; it is entirely UN-environmental (even if the product has energy star bla bla bla).
A new home AC unit has a 15-year design life. It is designed to break - the evap coil will fail (corrosion).
John Deere jumped on the copyright bandwagon early.
I remember when I would buy a power tool or stereo and it would have a few pages at the end of the instructions that listed every part and their part number (and the instructions were written by a native english speaker)
I dont remember when this changed, but probably in the 80s.
I do remember reading a comic in Mad Magazine explaining planned obsolescence in the early 60s and being horrified as a little kid. I still have my fathers jacobsen manor 21 lawnmower, and it works great 70+ years later. same with his porter cable router and craftsmen and s&k tools
The practical effect is that even when a repair is entirely lawful,
My father was air aircraft maintenance manager who rose up the ranks from the USAF to a union mechanic at an airline servicing 707s, 747s, and A300s.
He told me from the beginning not to do any maintenance on equipment without the service manual. So for years and years, for each vehicle I purchased, the next purchase was the factory manual. My ‘85 Dodge Ram W150. My ‘75 Dodge B200 van. My ‘74 Dodge Power Wagon W100. My ‘97 Suzuki VZ800. My ‘07 Harley FXSTC. You get the point. Very detailed manuals from the manufacturer for under $100.
I just bought a used ‘13 (no longer called Dodge) Ram 1500. No physical manual available. You need to get a website subscription to access the online “manual” for that vehicle... for $2000... per year.
Nuts!