For example, my monitors appear to be hollow inside, so that a bit of dust got in and caused one of them to get a bad pixel. For so many years, smartphones weren't waterproof. Most of the power tools I own seem to use plastic for the most-used parts like the on/off trigger. Batteries can't be easily accessed or replaced. Etc etc etc.
If we were to count these design decisions as booleans in a measure of good engineering, then even one profit-seeking misstep could result in a 50% reduction in repair score. I feel that most products in existence would score perhaps 4/16 or 25%, maybe lower (edit: could be as low 15/65535 = 2.29e-4 depending on the weight of the bits!). Everything from cars where the alternator or fuel pump are buried under the engine, to smartphones that can't be easily opened or have their SIM card swapped, to appliances that don't have a low-voltage cutoff to survive a brownout.
So I wonder if this act touches on any of that. If not, it would be great to codify these things into standards, sort of like Consumer Reports but more formal, with the goal of promoting and eventually achieving decommodification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
For example, my monitors appear to be hollow inside, so that a bit of dust got in and caused one of them to get a bad pixel. For so many years, smartphones weren't waterproof. Most of the power tools I own seem to use plastic for the most-used parts like the on/off trigger. Batteries can't be easily accessed or replaced. Etc etc etc.
If we were to count these design decisions as booleans in a measure of good engineering, then even one profit-seeking misstep could result in a 50% reduction in repair score. I feel that most products in existence would score perhaps 4/16 or 25%, maybe lower (edit: could be as low 15/65535 = 2.29e-4 depending on the weight of the bits!). Everything from cars where the alternator or fuel pump are buried under the engine, to smartphones that can't be easily opened or have their SIM card swapped, to appliances that don't have a low-voltage cutoff to survive a brownout.
So I wonder if this act touches on any of that. If not, it would be great to codify these things into standards, sort of like Consumer Reports but more formal, with the goal of promoting and eventually achieving decommodification.