one of the biggest "go screw" messages we could ever deliver to rampant venture capitalism is to slowly but surely move towards owning only things we can rebuild and repair nigh indefinitely at low cost of ownership over lifetime.
@djsundog at the top of my list when considering purchases is "can i take it apart and fix it?"
@djsundog I like the way you think Sundog.
@djsundog It's something I desperately want to do with mobile phones and those sorts of devices, since they seem to be the most prone to this kind of thing.
A lot of them would be difficult to pull off this way, since to make them fairly easy to repair you'd have to use easily-obtained components and probably larger ones too, so they'd be on the big side. I could be wrong though, and maybe people wouldn't mind if they were super repairable and not too expensive.
@djsundog
As I sit here with 2 lenovo yoga laptops, one with a broken screen and the other with a defective keyboard, I am on board. The replacement screen and keyboard are unreasonably expensive. Combined cost is probably more than the laptop is worth at this point.
@djsundog low TCO as radical praxis hmm hmm i like it
but also these things usually have a high upfront/capital cost
how do we mitigate that?!
@bea I am not sure, but I think part of it is convincing folk that "no user serviceable parts inside" is usually a lie, and part of it is finding better supply chains for the raw components and skills training needed to build and repair stuff? And maybe some re-education on how to think about cost over longer periods? I really don't know and am hoping some younger brains might have some new angles on this one. ;)
@djsundog @bea
Hackspaces and Makespaces are a good foray into this. Reinstitution of home economics would go a long way as well. I would love to see libraries start to give basic lessons in repair and generally partner with the DIY community to empower people with the knowledge of their day to day technologies.
@djsundog @bea I remember when computer equipment at least had repairability in mind. Older IBM Thinkpads were highly modular and easy to disassemble. The power socket wasn’t mounted to the main board either which was a failure mode in many other laptops of the time. When you spent $1-2k on a laptop it was expected that it be repairable instead of disposable.
@bea @djsundog I think at least for a certain generation of Europeans they accepted the (higher) upfront cost of equipment in return for it lasting longer and being repairable (was the case well into the 1980s). its possible one issue isn't even merely the evils of capitalism, but that SMT electronics was bloody difficult for service techs to work with without access to strong magnifiers and specialised tools (should be less of an issue today as you can buy the tools from electronics suppliers)
@bea @djsundog it certainly was the case over here a lot of AV equipment was only available to better off people or you got handed down stuff from older generations (e.g audio equipment with valves on the output stages was in use well into the 1970s and even 1980s especially in places like schools (all my junior schools had either Philips or Grundig valve radios, which even today are sought after by collectors..)
and it's not impossible to mitigate these things it's just a matter of figuring out the what and how of it like
do we do this through mutual aid? people chip in to distribute the up front cost and and the tech gets acquired as funds become available?
the conventional ways of doin stuff individually i feel like breaks down if we wanna scale these things
@bea @djsundog there are already #European organisations building #FOSS or at least #hackerfriendly hardware such as the #rfexplorer, working directly with well run factories in Asian countries. (I've recently got one of these and am impressed by what it is capable of for the price and you can buy the individual circuit boards for other rf-related projects)
@djsundog @bea I had to look up what massdrop was as it isn't as much of a thing here in the UK. Perhaps not a surprise TBH not only does it appear to be used to sell niche/high priced items, you are almost certain to get stung for import duty on them if they are made outside the EU (this isn't so heavy on components/assemblies especially compared to finished products)
@djsundog I'm trying.
@djsundog
@ChristinaO I'm not sure I see the specific connection between venture capitalism and planned obsolescence, especially since PO was a consequence of _industrial_ capitalism, typically cartel/monopoly industrial capitalism.
@ChristinaO @djsundog Check out "The Lightbulb Conspiracy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j2e1vat7_Y
