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 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.
@djsundog @bea I support this thread so far, so much 👌