Many product manufacturers support their customers by making repair information available, selling service parts [i.e., replacement parts], and encouraging a network of independent repair professionals who can work on their products. In the electronics world, you get the exact opposite. Planned obsolescence is built into these products, and the manufacturers are doing everything they can to stifle customers [who want to repair their products]. I think they’re behaving in a shortsighted, consumer-hostile way that is costing them money in terms of service parts, repair services, and more. So iFixit comes along and provides the services they should have been offering in the first place."
Meta-Actor: Journalism
Source Document: http://earth911.com/eco-tech/fixit-e-waste/
Date: February 2, 2016
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"The designs for these products, rather than being founded on the principle of longevity are rather founded on the subtle principle of obsolescence and disposability. In the electronic industry, planned product obsolescence is being used to deliberately and artificially limit the durability of electronic goods in order to stimulate repetitive consumption and to enhance industry profit. Jack Waldheim noted that planned obsolescence is utilized as a deliberate attempt to have a product break down or become outdated long before it has lost its usefulness - its utility - or its value. Its aim is to keep the consumer in a vicious circle of repetitive product purchase and disposal, thus increasing producer profit and competitiveness."
Meta-Actor: QUANGO
Source Document: http://cisdl.org/public/docs/Christian_End-of-Life_Management_of_Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment.pdf
Date: June 2012
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"We’ve (ifixit) been saying all along that the electronics manufacturers are in opposition to everyone else in the world—the recyclers, the repair centers, the consumers. And manufacturers have taken some steps in recent years proving that is concretely true.
Nikon, for instance, has systematically shut down over 3,000 camera shops around the country by refusing to provide parts and tools. Apple is designing products that are clearly designed to be unprofitable to recycle. There’s absolutely no way anyone can profitably recycle iPads, and Apple isn’t being called out for it. IPads are the new CRTs.
Meta-Actor: Journalism
Source Document: http://earth911.com/eco-tech/fixit-e-waste/
Date: February 2, 2016
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