As much as I love this, I fail to see how this would be able to be written into law. It’s basically gov mandated warranty period. If the goal is to have manufacturers make products that last, how long is long enough? What’s to say that they do the same thing and design products that fail right after warranty ends? Who decides if there is foul play in designing faulty products and how? Unless the gov makes their own product that lasts for 20 years and tells every other company to use this as a baseline otherwise get fined, I don’t know how they would be able to enforce this.
I just think this is a big gray area and it would be hard to make this cut and clear. The only thing I think they could do for now is to have companies provide repair manuals and provide parts for a set amount of years after product launch, and repairs should be able to be made by customers themselves without needing to go through 1st party verification like Apple requires with their phones.
Think you answered your own question there.
Mandated warranty periods. Pretty straight forward.
And they currently engineer product to have things fail right after their warranty expires, so, that’s not really a concern, since we’re already living with that.
And they currently engineer product to have things fail right after their warranty expires, so, that’s not really a concern, since we’re already living with the that.
Which is exactly my point of why mandated warranty period does not really fix the core of the problem, which is intentionally making products not last. It’s just a bandaid solution (Yes I know a solution is still better than nothing, and may be the first step to address this issue). What I want to see is prolonging the life of a product by letting consumers freely fix their own stuff (parts, schematics, etc.) without the manufacturer locking things down, even after the warranty expires.
Samsung: god damnit, now we have to use the $0.30 washer instead of the $0.29 washer and itll last at least 10 years longer!
That’s 10s of millions in extra sales lost!
Oh look! So much progress is being made since USA embargoed itself!
I know this is a joke, but it is important to point out for others that such policies get years to be designed, discussed and published in the EU.
And this law came into effect last July
Back to the good old days when products were of higher quality. What a concept.
And to a world where repairing is both possible and feasible.
I’ve heard this from service techs who have worked on my refrigerator and dishwasher - major appliances in America last a third as long as they did 10 or 15 years ago.
The spirit is willing, but the machine is spongy and bruised.
Bullshit. My aunt has a washing machine with all knobs and switches that’s probably 30+ years old and it still works fine.
They need to stop putting all these digital components into washing machines or make the boards standardized so they can be easily swapped out. These aren’t laptops that you toss after 3-5 years. Appliances should last 10-20 years.
Laptops should last longer than 3-5 years too. It should go without saying, but this is the internet.
Imagine, government of the people, by the people, and for the people - that’s crazy SoCiAlIsM talk!
Longer means more forever chemicals
Do you even know what forever chemicals are or do you think they’re a magic thing that are added to machines to make them last longer?
Not necessarily, you can use more steel, stronger parts. And if forever chemicals become a problem, you can regulate them just like with everything else. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Right, so if they break down faster the forever chemicals disappear faster. Is that what you mean?
Electronics in general should last longer, just like back in the day.
And work without apps.
That feels like a move on the slippery slope from a market economy to a planning economy.
The objective is honorable, but better value should come from customer choices, not from regulations.
Instead of making those rules and establishing institutions that enforce them, the EU should create infrastructure that allows consumers to compare products objectively. Add the opportunity to finance more expensive but also more durable products easily and there is no need to suffocate everything in regulations.
I should add that this recreates the limited housing markets for consumer goods. This is going to make life more expensive despite each rule being very reasonable. The promise of the EU were free markets, but the opposite is happening.
but better value should come from customer choices, not from regulations.
You mean lower value should come from misleading advertisement, incomplete information, irrational behaviour of actors, and other forms of market failure. Because that is how it works out in the real world.
Also, quoth the constitution (or well what passes as one for the EU), Article 3(3) TEU:
The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.
Get out of here with Ayn Rand’s fever dreams.
the EU should create infrastructure that allows consumers to compare products objectively
forms of market failure. Because that is how it works out in the real world
I think that it is better to improve the markets and minimize the market failures instead of trying to regulate everything.
Everything has to be checked by institutions if consumers are kept ignorant whereas competent consumers do that work for free.
Improving markets means regulation. Rating systems as you propose them are easily influenced and gamed by companies and subject to the same information and irrationality problems that individual consumer behaviour are.
Lastly, don’t think that such EU regulations aren’t initiated by and pushed for by consumer advocate groups. The commission is not in the habit of going around, saying “where is a market segment that isn’t regulated and what pointless shit can we accost them with”. If things work fine they just plainly let things be.
Thing is: There’s always going to be chuds saying “REEEE I want a more powerful vacuum” and go with the one with the higher wattage number on the box, no matter what comparison portals say about actual performance. Those portals are nothing new, they have existed for a long time. Yet companies did get into a wattage war, and to write a bigger number on the box so that people would buy it you need to use a bigger motor and use more energy. Problem being: Noone is helped by vacuums which stick to the floor, so you also have to leak, and be loud. All that extra power, good for nothing.
There’s exactly one way out of such a market failure: Regulation. “vacuums may not use more than X watt per Y of sucking power”.
That’s a good argument but doesn’t fit the situation. The bad buying decisions can be corrected with market mechanisms. Allow people to finance the products over the entire expected lifetime. Then high quality goods are cheaper and people will choose them.
Some people speculated that Britain left the EU because they believe in markets whereas many EU countries don’t. This could be one of many decisions that put the EU onto a different trajectory. We will see in 20 years if the EU can stay on top of its regulations.
Allow people to finance the products over the entire expected lifetime.
So you want to capture regulation in the name of the banks and whatever presumably private (because markets!!!11) agency does the life expectancy rating while simultaneously letting the manufacturers off the hook warranty-wise. Got you.
Some people speculated that Britain left the EU because they believe in markets whereas many EU countries don’t.
Those people are stupid. At least in so far as “they” refers to Britons at large. If with “they” you mean certain nobs and posh folks and with “market” you mean “offshore tax havens” then you have a point.
Brexit was pushed for by Atlas network members, notably against opposition from Atlas members from anywhere else in the world, right before the EU started tightening regulations on tax havens. Coincidence? You tell me. The rest of those neoliberal fucks rather pay taxes than burn the cake they’re eating.
We will see in 20 years if the EU can stay on top of its regulations.
The EU Commission, back then in the form of the ECSC High Authority, has been doing this stuff since 1952. All European post-war prosperity is based on this kind of approach. Details differ but by and large the European economical policy is ordoliberal.
Manufacturers are not off the hook. If they are not reliable then the expected runtime is low and their monthly payments go up.
the European economical policy is ordoliberal
Without Britain, it could become more ordo than liberal.
We don’t have to prevent this regulation. However we should prepare ourselves to prevent the appliance market to become like the housing market. Citizens are unable to make a change there. That shouldn’t be ignored when other markets are regulated more.
Manufacturers are not off the hook. If they are not reliable then the expected runtime is low and their monthly payments go up.
If you’re a manufacturer and you’re not sure whether your product can last 10 years then you’re free to contact an insurer and hash something out with them. Still, the buck stops with the manufacturer everything else is pointless bureaucracy. Shit broke? Manufacturer is on the hook, replace it. Simple as that. Not “customer now has to deal with a bank and the manufacturer and a rating agency”.
However we should prepare ourselves to prevent the appliance market to become like the housing market.
I don’t see much speculative capital flowing into home appliance rentals and turning regular home appliance rentals into short-term high-profit rentals.
There’s not even an oversupply of luxury appliances at the expense of reasonably-priced ones.
Quite literally nothing about the housing market issue has anything to do with what’s going on on the home appliance one, or with overregulation. Sure, in places there’s regulations to re-think or even straight abolish, e.g. parking minimums, but generally building codes don’t make stuff more expensive. Least of all on a macroeconomic level. The issue, for a long time, were ROI expectations of investors. It’s a general problem in the economy: Too many rich fucks with too much money, not knowing what to do with it, where to invest it, but still wanting their 8% because… why. They’re already filthily rich. I totally get a starving artist rent-seeking, “then I can let go of my day job and focus on my art”, but a billionaire? Get the fuck out of here.
It’s a good thing they think about this. With that said, the tires can wait. Let’s start with the low hanging fruit. It’s a crime that critical components in home appliances break so easily and are so hard to fix.
Or impossible to buy spares for, or when you can get the spare part it’s often so expensive with shipping that it’s almost worth buying a new appliance on offer with the warranty that comes with it.
Exactly this. I recently had my clothes washer break. Spent days researching the problem, taking the thing apart, figuring out the cause was the spindle on the back of the drum having a crack and eventually breaking. I eventually found a replacement part which had a slightly different part number but research showed it should be compatible. $400 for the part. $130 shipping, plus tax came out to just shy of $600. 2 week lead time to get the part, and no certainty I’d be able to put it all back together. Professional appliance repair wouldn’t have made financial sense either, I called around.
I ended up ordering a new one for $800 all in, saving many headaches. Had it two days later and was able to catch up on laundry.
Did you research spare part availability / reparability scores when buying the new one?
I always start with that when buying major items. Some brands are more consumer friendly than others. I was still able to buy replacement parts for my 2005 fridge and dishwasher in 2019 and 2023 for 13 and 100 euros respectively (the 100 euro was a heat exchanger one of the biggest pieces of the machine). With 6 Euro shipping costs, 2 day delivery. And a bunch of YouTube videos to do the repair.
In 2024 we equipped a whole new house with the same brand, voting with our wallets.
Yes, to the best of my ability and available resources. It is a newer model, so currently spare parts seemed to be abundant vs the 12 or so year old previous model.
Nice work on the cheap repairs! Which brand, if I may ask?
Neff, but it’s exactly the same hardware as Bosch and Siemens (BSH).
We sold the apartment with the 20 year old devices still working perfectly.
Cool! Bosch is going to be my next set of appliances after I sell my current place, and my new place needs new ones.
The three biggest things that kill a tyre are;
- shitty roads
- aggressive driving
- heavy vehicles (like EVs and oversized SUVs)
That said, cheaper tyres are typically made of cheaper compounds that age poorly.
Never buy cheap tires - they are your only contact with the road. You can have the best car in the world, and shitty tires will make it worthless.
There are videos on the subject, making the point of buying good tires, cause they will save your life.
Same goes for wipers.
I wonder how this translates to tires. Generally, softer rubber translates to more grip and faster wear, and other way around. Does this mean that the tires will be less grippy then?
Mandatory alignment checks?
