Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
I'm old enough to recall a time when a TV repairman was a viable career, whereas now most of that stuff is sent to the landfill, or 'recycling' (where most of it ends up in the landfill) when something goes wrong with it.
So many items are made cheaply, so they have a short service life. Parts are not easily available, or tend to cost so much that it's actually cheaper to just buy a new one and throw away the old one. In many cases, they are just not designed in such a way that they can be easily serviced as well.
Personally, I think it would be an improvement to move to a situation where the products are of higher quality, with associated higher costs, but are also made to be repairable so that the higher cost can be spread over a longer service life, and thus be better for everybody, except perhaps those nations who have built their economies from making cheap crap.
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A lot of people are under this impression, but I don't see much evidence that the same consumer products were more durable then than they are now.
Often, I think this is a selection bias based on the fact that a handful of very durable, high quality products that people bought a long time ago are still in use in non-stressful applications, and they tend to think that this was how everything was made back then. For example, people often inherit heirloom furniture made from some hardwood that they rarely use that would have cost their relatives a months' salary several generations ago, and then compare it to the particle board IKEA dresser they use every day that they bought for $50.
One of the reasons why there was a need for a TV repairman back in the day is because TVs were, frankly, badly assembled. I remember, as a kid, the Japanese-made TV we had in the 80s barely lasting into the 90s before the tube blew out. I remember my parents' 1980 Toyota being a rustbucket that needed major fixes by 1988, while my 2012 Mazda 3, with more kms on the clock, still drives like new. My first generation discman, made in Japan, which I remember saving up to buy for $300 (in 1994 dollars), lasted just 4 years.