> Ecology aside, that's a very selfish way to think.
Saying "ecology aside" brushes off a lot of stuff, and not just the sort of hippy-dippy environmentalist shit that corporate types and pro-growth economists scoff at. It basically assumes extremely cheap raw materials and vast, far-off factories churning out parts. It assumes horrendous waste, both of materials and energy, in most cases.
Disposability almost always carries with it a huge externalization of costs on somebody else. In many cases when the costs of replacement are fully internalized into the part, it's no longer nearly as cheap; repair starts to become a viable option.
There may be situations where it's cheaper to replace than to repair, but in order to find where that's really true, we need to work towards full encapsulation of production costs in end goods, something we do a really shitty job of today. If we work towards that, I suspect the world we'll end up with has a lot more skilled-labor jobs, but won't create them for nonsensical or romantic reasons, where they're clearly unnecessary or wasteful.
Saying "ecology aside" brushes off a lot of stuff, and not just the sort of hippy-dippy environmentalist shit that corporate types and pro-growth economists scoff at. It basically assumes extremely cheap raw materials and vast, far-off factories churning out parts. It assumes horrendous waste, both of materials and energy, in most cases.
Disposability almost always carries with it a huge externalization of costs on somebody else. In many cases when the costs of replacement are fully internalized into the part, it's no longer nearly as cheap; repair starts to become a viable option.
There may be situations where it's cheaper to replace than to repair, but in order to find where that's really true, we need to work towards full encapsulation of production costs in end goods, something we do a really shitty job of today. If we work towards that, I suspect the world we'll end up with has a lot more skilled-labor jobs, but won't create them for nonsensical or romantic reasons, where they're clearly unnecessary or wasteful.