Planned obsolescence

[OilHammer]

This pretty much sums up why I quit buying newer cars. As long as you can buy parts for whatever- older is probably the way to go. Long video but he goes deep on the whys and when’s and I think he’s likely correct. The current stock market demands “growth” over all else. Most companies product isn’t the object anymore, it’s the stocks.
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C_0xBbEFjLk&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D&ra=m

 

[Crash]

As long as we can buy parts for our old iron, preferably OEM. Isn’t there new legislation that prevents dealers from selling parts to us shadetree mechanics?

 

[cbmontgo]

Friend of mine ran Mercedez Benz Saudi Arabia. He told me that the profit is in the service, not the sale of the car itself anymore.

This is no surprise, and came directly from a former high level exec there.

 

[what now I broke it]

This is a huge can of worms for me. It seriously grinds my gears because planned obsolescence is in everything nowadays! Pretty much everything i own is older and it's able to be fixed. Even my computer is from 2012 but it's the last Apple MacBook Pro that has a non soldered battery and everything can be replaced in it. It's only 16gig and a terabyte of memory, so I can't play games but it does all my music programs just fine and it's got a cd/dvd slot with the ability to burn both. And there's a work around to run everything but Tahoe OS 26. Apple is bricking all of the computers that aren't Silicone processors in the next os. So I dunno what I'll do about that...

Sometimes I wonder if that wasn't toyota's plan with the lower ball joints on the 3rd gen 4runner. Who puts a ball joint in tension???

 

[OilHammer]

What’s interesting about planned obsolescence is that with very few exceptions, no privately held small corps try to tap in and disrupt the market . Let’s say you are fond of old maytags. You could literally make a new one, one model, no frills, no updates ever, and no wifi or app. You could potentially sell one to every home in America. There’s 149 million homes. Let’s say your profit on each Maytag is $100. I think I could live on 149 billion let alone parts revenue. Really? No market for that?

 

[what now I broke it]

But what about the investors??? /S

 

[ScaldedDog]

But what about the investors??? /S

You know that's us, right?

I get what this thread is about, and I don't like crappy stuff any better than anyone else. However, anyone who has either made a buying decision based on price, or has resources on which they depend derived from public or private companies - and 100% of us have done both and will continue to - is not only party to our economy, but benefits from it. Do you ever check your 401k, 403b or IRA balance? Would you be happy if it never changed, or do you both expect and depend on it being worth more next year than it is now? That's a focus on "growth". Why is that OK for us, but not for the CEOs and boards whose decisions drive the growth we expect?

Besides, for a lot of things, we can still buy nice stuff. Ever bought a tool from Harbor Freight? Do you buy the crappy Pittsburg brand, or the genuinely nice Icon brand, for 2-10x the price? I used to buy the $20 Pittsburg torque wrenches, and they were fine. Those wrenches are still $20, but $20 is worth a fraction of what it was when I was buying them years ago. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the quality has gone to crap, as it must to maintain that price. So last time I needed one I bought the $160 Icon. It's way nicer than the $20 ones ever were, and I don't expect to ever need another one.

My $.02, offered for free, and worth every penny you paid.

Mark

 

[what now I broke it]

I feel ripped off on that 2 cents.

And comparing regular joez stock market scam retirement to ceo's everyday pay is ridonk. Look at the difference in pay between ceo's and their worker's nowadays vs the 70's. Im supposed to support and be okay with making 277 times less than what the ceo of Sony was making when I worked there.

"Yes sir, I've never had it so great with all this stuff that only lasts a year or two. Im so glad Im not living in (insert 3rd world country) where they don't have all this stuff made in sweatshops!"

MAKE STUFF, FIX THINGS!

 

[ScaldedDog]

Can't say that I care much for what someone else makes, CEO or otherwise, and this regular Joe is living off the scam retirement you deride.

One who thinks themselves a victim will be one.

Mark

 

[what now I broke it]

Only until the sooner than later crash...

 

[KC Masterpiece]

Only until the sooner than later crash...

It will crash then rebound. Always does. Not a reason to not invest. A person making 50k a year that never receives a raise and starts putting away 15% annually in a basic index fund at 21 can easily retire at 65 with 2 million. The best part? Only about 340k would be contributions, and you could then draw down around 80k a year. And if you did that on a roth basis.... no income tax on your distributions. That napkin math assumes market volatility. If I had the option to opt out of social security and just invest the money on my own I would absolutely take it.

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.

Now back to the topic at hand. @ScaldedDog has an excellent point on quality. Part of the issue is comsumer demand for cheap products that dont last. My in laws buy everything they can off Temu and it breaks as fast as they can buy it. I adopted the "buy once, cry once" state of mind years ago, and I am confident it has saved me money in the long run. Isn't that why we all choose to pay the Toyota tax instead of getting a Chevy?

What’s interesting about planned obsolescence is that with very few exceptions, no privately held small corps try to tap in and disrupt the market . Let’s say you are fond of old maytags. You could literally make a new one, one model, no frills, no updates ever, and no wifi or app. You could potentially sell one to every home in America. There’s 149 million homes. Let’s say your profit on each Maytag is $100. I think I could live on 149 billion let alone parts revenue. Really? No market for that?

Unfortunately I do not think there is a market for it. If there was, someone would do it. I would pay 60k tomorrow for a brand new 90s Toyota pickup, but a truck like that would never sell in the US. I wish there was.

 

[OilHammer]

But a new Toyota has regulations to overcome. I don’t need wifi on my washer and dryer or my fridge. There seem to be very few companies that still follow the buy once protocol and have software associated with them. Lutron is one of them. You can buy Lutron automated switches and they will still work manually for 20yrs. So far, I haven’t even seen software that didn’t have backwards compatibility. Not publicly traded and this was at least half of my original point.
Stock market isn’t “bad” but there are perverse incentives for many of the mega sized ones. The bigger they get the more politicians get involved.

 

[KC Masterpiece]

But a new Toyota has regulations to overcome. I don’t need wifi on my washer and dryer or my fridge. There seem to be very few companies that still follow the buy once protocol and have software associated with them. Lutron is one of them. You can buy Lutron automated switches and they will still work manually for 20yrs. So far, I haven’t even seen software that didn’t have backwards compatibility. Not publicly traded and this was at least half of my original point.
Stock market isn’t “bad” but there are perverse incentives for many of the mega sized ones. The bigger they get the more politicians get involved.

I agree there are definitely some bad incentives out there, and appliances are stupid these days. The last time we were at Lowes looking for a new dishwasher the sales guy wanted to sell us on a wifi enabled fridge. He was showing me how cool it was that it had internal cameras so we could see what was inside on our phone.

Or we could just.... open the thing and look.

That goes back to my point about consumers demanding features. Most people want the wifi enabled dishwasher because they think its cool. I just want my dishwasher to wash dishes.

Love the Lutron reference as we are looking to outfit out home with them. I just wish they sold their nicer system to non dealers. Its pretty slick.

 

[SteveH]

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.

Amen.

Learn the rule of 72, as well! (72 divided by the interest rate you have is the number of years needed to double your money).

 

[OilHammer]

I agree there are definitely some bad incentives out there, and appliances are stupid these days. The last time we were at Lowes looking for a new dishwasher the sales guy wanted to sell us on a wifi enabled fridge. He was showing me how cool it was that it had internal cameras so we could see what was inside on our phone.

Or we could just.... open the thing and look.

That goes back to my point about consumers demanding features. Most people want the wifi enabled dishwasher because they think its cool. I just want my dishwasher to wash dishes.

Love the Lutron reference as we are looking to outfit out home with them. I just wish they sold their nicer system to non dealers. Its pretty slick.

Which system? I’ve done them all. I have caseta now and for the ease and money, it’s one of the best systems out there. I would like the pro 4 button scene switch, but other than that, I can’t really complain. I can get scenes directly from my watch or phone so it’s not a show stopper. I wired this house for the caseta so that most of my switches are home run and in a closet. The main living area does its thing by program most of the time. I have hard switches in bedrooms and the garage but that’s about it.