New Refrigerators, Washing Machines, Furniture and Tires Will All Have to Last Longer, Europe Mandates
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Well, for furniture, I totally agree with you and honestly: I don't think there is eomething wrong with redesigning your living room every 10 years, especially when you move around.
I mainly want to be able to buy old washing machines, dish washers, TVs, because I don't care about their appearance.
If it's quality furniture you can sell or donate it. If it's recent Ikea or other cheap stuff, it won't survive being disassembled, moved and reassembled. Ikea's surfaces scratch so easily, even on desks. It's ridiculous. That kind of fast furniture is terribly unsustainable. But I wouldn't be bothered if you bought a new sofa every ten years and make someone else happy with a used sofa that will last another ten years in it's new home.
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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.
Why can't you have both?
Create the best value for customers, but you have to adhere to these regulations.Seems like a perfectly reasonable position to me.
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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.
Ah, the dream of a libertarian paradise.
The promise of the EU were free markets
Free as in fewer hurdles between nations, not as in "the market will take care of everything".
but the opposite is happening.
Yeah, no. The EU has always strived for a balance there. You bringing up the spectre of "planning economy" is just fearmongering.
You wouldn't happen to work at the Internet Research Agency?
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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.
shitty roads
Cars (as you said, some more, some less) themselves destroy roads
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And work without apps.
You can buy LED lightbulbs that all have their own apps. It's getting ridiculous
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Wait what the fuck, you don't have yearly technical inspections there? So people can drive whatever deathtraps without functional brakes or shit?
It depends on the State.
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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.
Well you either have a plan to help people or the plan automatically devolves to “extract as much rent as possible from the people”.
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Electronics in general should last longer, just like back in the day.
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You can buy LED lightbulbs that all have their own apps. It's getting ridiculous
To be fair most do work without the app. The app is for remote control and other features like colors usually.
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Do like Dubai (for this instance) and demand better LED bulbs too.
Dude I love Big Clive.
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Why can't you have both?
Create the best value for customers, but you have to adhere to these regulations.Seems like a perfectly reasonable position to me.
Regulatory capture. It already exists in the housing market, medical equipment, medical drugs, etc.
There, things are more expensive than necessary.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
The shift in responsibility to the EU is not free. Of course, it costs some taxes to run the institutions that enforce the regulations. But who is supervising those institutions? That would be up to the citizens, instead of comparing products directly.
Are citizens going to do that? Have citizens checked the sourcing of the covid vaccines?
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I think about the lightbulb cartel all the time. How has no one managed to recreate those super long lasting bulbs in all this time?
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Well you either have a plan to help people or the plan automatically devolves to “extract as much rent as possible from the people”.
Yes, and that's why competition is needed so that the 'as much rent as possible' is minimized. I am not arguing against a helpful society. We don't exchange goods for compassion but for money so we need competition.
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Yes, and that's why competition is needed so that the 'as much rent as possible' is minimized. I am not arguing against a helpful society. We don't exchange goods for compassion but for money so we need competition.
We don't exchange goods for compassion
We actually do that all the time. Altruism takes many forms. Or if you wanna be a nerd you can call it Mutual Aid.
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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.
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Electronics in general should last longer, just like back in the day.
Plenty of short-lived stuff back then, too. Survivorship bias means that all the stuff that happened to survive to today is not necessarily representative of the typical thing that was manufactured back then.
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When buying future appliances, I have to be sure to get them from the EU. Standards in the US are going to be below the floor.
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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".
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We don't exchange goods for compassion
We actually do that all the time. Altruism takes many forms. Or if you wanna be a nerd you can call it Mutual Aid.
I wouldn't mind switching to a society that is built on altruism. My point is that the EU is not an inherent benevolent government. These regulations will be abused and I believe that there would be less abuse if we spent the resources on infrastructure that allows the consumers to make better decisions.
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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.
Fundamentally, you're never going to be able to compete with the economies of scale of an assembly line with the same people putting together all the parts that were shipped to the same place. If the repairman has to keep an inventory of hundreds of parts for dozens of models, and drive around to where he only has time to diagnose and fix 2 appliances per day, while the factory worker can install a part for 100 appliances per day, there will always be a gap between the price of replacement versus the price of repair.
