Intellectual property protection is a major inhibitor of repair. When only one organization can legally produce replacement parts, repair becomes relegated to outlaws. Companies default to closed source, guaranteeing that at some point what they produce will all end up in a landfill unless it can be recycled. It’s an obscure position but I believe that intellectual property protection increases material waste and accelerates the destruction of the natural world. It’s an issue that sadly few people think much about, and one that I believe is invisibly harming the earth.<p>Recently I met Neil Gershenfeld from MIT, who advocates for research and development in to universal machinery that can assemble itself, perform its duties, and then disassemble itself back in to parts when complete. [1] As he says, “there is no trash with LEGO, and there is no trash in a forest.” It’s a far off idea it seems, but intriguing nonetheless.<p>In the near term, we as consumers can help avoid this waste by refusing to buy proprietary materials that will eventually become landfill waste. Don’t buy cheap Halloween decorations at the dollar store that will fill up the dump. Don’t buy cheap Christmas presents for the short term amusement they provide. We can point fingers at manufacturers for producing goods they know will become trash, but we are just as complicit for buying those things from them. Support producers who believe in repair and you will be doing the earth and all its future inhabitants a favor.<p>[1] <a href="https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/3pkqm-mzXDU</a>
This is one of the core messages of Strong Towns (strongtowns.org).<p>In general humans get really excited about building new and transformative things, and we have a big blind spot to ongoing maintenance. In particular we've come to utterly depend on the things that were "shiny and new" back in first generation of suburbanization (50s - 70s), while many of those things have been poorly maintained, and in many cases the economic returns on that infrastructure don't actually justify the ongoing maintenance cost.<p>It's a dangerous drag on the economy, but we're stuck with it now, and the lesson learned is we should prioritize maintenance in our thought process and make sure we're getting a positive return out of the infrastructure liabilities we already have before creating new ones.
> The discipline’s most prominent statistic, gdp, is gross (as opposed to net) because it leaves out the cost of wear and tear.<p>Net domestic product is an interesting concept that I haven't considered before.<p>The Fed appears to track it somehow, despite the difficulty in measuring it, as the article mentions. Here is a graph I configured on the St Louis Fed site that compares GDP to NDP:<p><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT" rel="nofollow">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lErT</a><p>In general, it seems to track GDP pretty well, although recently it appears to have gotten closer to GDP, though I don't have any idea why.<p>The article's comparison of "wear and tear" as a % of countries' GDP is interesting.
Since lower income countries (China, India) often have a lower standards for acceptable maintenance level in both the public and private realm than wealthier ones, it kind of makes sense that they spend less of their GDP on wear and tear.<p>Also, a lot of the expensive modern infrastructure (airports, freeways, etc) in those countries is relatively new, so a big repair bill might just be further down the road (no pun intended).<p>Britain in this view is an anomaly, being a high income country with low maintenance spend as a % of GDP.
[..] In March California became the 18th state in America to introduce a bill supporting the “right to repair”, by obliging manufacturers to make manuals more widely available to customers and independent repair shops. [..]<p>Patently untrue. More here: <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/." rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repa...</a>. At least for CA farmers [..] a big California farmers’ lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers’ right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software. As an organization representing 2.5 million California agriculture jobs, the California Farm Bureau gave up the right to purchase repair parts without going through a dealer. Farmers can’t change engine settings, can’t retrofit old equipment with new features, and can’t modify their tractors to meet new environmental standards on their own. Worse, the lobbyists are calling it a victory.[..]
The US military sells itself on being incredibly capable thanks to developing and fielding cutting edge weapons technology.<p>It is actually capable because it is extremely effective at logistics and maintenance.
I have the concern that - as the pace of tech development increases - the timeframe of designers, planners, and stake-holders shrinks. The advantage of this trend is obvious (why invest in tools that will be greatly improved upon in coming years?), but the pitfalls are less apparent and less exciting. The perspective needs to be broad.<p>Honestly, some rudimentary technology (physical infrastructure, financial instruments, computing solutions) is rather effective and oftentimes elegant. Why not lean into these artifacts and design around repair/maintenance/continued-use?
speaking as an engine mechanic by trade, I agree 100%. But manufacturers have another tactic that needs to be reigned in. Namely, fabricated service bulletins and procedures.<p>Example: reporting a bad transfer case bearing as a service bulletin. This is normal, as customers have detected the fault and the manufacturer has identified it as a problem. What isnt normal is the manufacturer insisting the part cant be repaired, and instead of a $50 part you need to chuck the entire thing and pay $2500 for a new assembly. Sure, bearings are a hard example, but ive also encountered manufacturers who demand their brake calipers cannot be re manufactured (Porsche and BMW, im looking at you.) and instead of a $119 rebuild, you'll need to buy a one thousand dollar caliper straight from germany or the entire car will explode.
Freakonomics did a Podcast on this if anyone wants a pretty good listen. I listened and couldn't stop thinking about all of the applications to software in it.<p>freakonomics.com/podcast/in-praise-of-maintenance/
I suspect a legislative process not dominated by industry lobbyists would ensure that people have the right to repair everything.<p>I think countries that use proportional representation rather than winner-take-all elections aren't as hijacked by such lobbyists. I know there was an effort in the EU to ensure the right to repair.
"Because the thing about repairing, maintaining and cleaning is, it's not an adventure."
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU</a>
The article does a good job of differentiating between repairing high fixed cost items (like a bridge or house) and low fixed cost items (like electronics).
It's also worth thinking about the labor cost of repairing vs manufacturing, especially in a world where manufacturing is automated and repairing is a very labor intensive process (diagnosis, sourcing replacement parts, performing the repair, verifying functionality post-repair etc).<p>This is probably the reason why repairing is generally more common in low labor costs markets than in the developed world.
I would like to point out the Portland Aerial Tram as an example of an infrastructure project that has an extremely strong focus on maintenance and repair (understandably so).<p>Here's a nice video from Oregon Health & Science University featuring the Tram's maintenance supervisor talking about the maintenance program and the impact it has on the Tram's performance.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShDGIQMbx4I</a><p>I don't think all infrastructure projects require this level of maintenance, but it's nice to see what's possible when it's baked into a project from the beginning.
The problem is short term versus long-term profits.<p>It seems it's more expensive to make products that are more easily repairable or can last longer, because obviously brands benefit from making products that break, although I'm curious if consumers really know how to switch brand when one break early, and if consumers can really understand why and how a product will last longer.<p>There should be regulations about how products are made and how their parts can break. I saw some broom vacuum cleaner's break because of a flexible plastic air canal. It requires buying a big piece. It's either intentional, or bad design. Those designs should be regulated, inspected and fined.
I thought this was quite interesting:<p>Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w</a>
While I am coming to this discussion after most have moved on, as a software guy who has moved toward hardware I think a substantial point not made here is that manufacturing processes are not like software.<p>Lego works for reassembly because it is a one-part item: standard interface, bulky, light, strong, simple. A typical circuit board by contrast is centrally fabricated by high-end robots as an extremely high density sub-assembly including tens, hundreds or thousands of components. It's not easy to repair because it requires relatively specialist knowledge and tools to do so, and there are so many different components available. In a similar way, many products have been explicitly designed to be smaller, lighter, simpler or cheaper instead of being reassembly-capable. Injection molded plastic is a classic example, so is assembly by glue or snap-in vs. screws. These are powerful techniques and valid trade-offs.<p>This does not excuse, for example, companies like Canon and Nikon requiring customers to pay extortionate amounts for repairs and replacements of simpler mechanisms and refusing to supply replacement parts to independent service people.
The real change will come when my handphone can repair itself. Screen cracked? no problem just throw some sand on it and the nanobots will do the rest.
In the same vein of repair and things having a long life, I'm experimenting with the idea of giving unused things new homes. We own many things that are not utilized often, so why not move those things better homes?<p><a href="https://cultofless.com" rel="nofollow">https://cultofless.com</a>
Realistically, repair & sustainability is far more important than innovation largely driven by our fossil fuel dependency, which is going to run out in the next 50 years anyways.
Not if you ask Tesla <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4CFiuR3tQ</a>
Repairs need to be part of the business model to become a priority. Currently, the manufacturers see repairs only as a mandatory service they need to offer as imposed on them by the local law. The market doesn't impose any further requirements on these products. 2 years are just about as far in the future humans can anticipate and foresee things.<p>Robust design is a feature that doesn't do good to your business. Soviet product design, as laughable it seems to one, was really incredible and produced products that would rarely break and when they do so parts were always available. But in that market model getting rich was never the goal. Quite the contrary!<p>For example, my grandmother still has a radio that weights 7 kg built in 50s that works despite all things. I can listen to Radio Moscow from my kitchen 2000km away. The antenna is broken and that radio hangs near the cooker, it is already filled with a lot of dust and grease. Just like your extractor fan. That's just one example. Kalashnikov, Russian tanks, cars, soviet home electrical appliances like tvs, washing machines or vacuum cleaners etc. They all work today.<p>In a capitalist economy only the regulators can impose repairs as a requirement. Most humans are beyond their ability to think critically at what happens in 2-5 years time.
Just establish worldwide regulation that favours any approach with the least amount of resource consumption.<p>Would not force people into replacing/fixing. It would always favour the approach best for all of us.<p>Simple solution IMHO
Is there not some irony here that The Economist, a rag if any is more associated with neoliberalism is running this story?<p>Repair and maintenance is one of those things that is completely overlooked by neoliberal, modern capitalism. As they state in the article, GDP and economic analysis in general doesn't take into account wear and tear, amongst a number of other things. If anything, the drive away from things like interchangeable/universal parts and the ability to repair things you own in the first place is directly tied to rise of unfettered capitalism.