The insane cost of consumer electronics repair - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Planobilly
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 04:44:01 pm
content: Hi all,I guess this is more or less a rant. I just repaired a bass guitar amp for someone that had a bad master volume pot.Cost of part...$2.75Overnight shipping $61.00....Client wants it ASAPBench labor charge $50.00Total charge $114.00 plus tax to replace a made in China piece of crap part. The amp is less than five years old.I have a 1965 Gibson ES335 guitar that I have played countless hours over the last 50 years and the volume pots are still working without issue.How did we ever get to the point where we are willing to put up with the failures of all this "made in China or anywhere for that matter" crap?Perhaps this had something to do with it..LOL"Americans Consumed 6.3 Billion Gallons Of Beer Last Year - 43 Gallons Each In NH! The Beer Institute has released a report showing that Americans drank an estimated 6.3 billion gallons of beer last year, and New Hampshire led the nation in per capita consumption." Quoit from CNSNews"Cheers,Billy

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 05:02:15 pm
content: Looks like they have to buy cheap China equipment to afford all that beer.

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 05:05:38 pm
content: This is exactly why I got out of the amp repair business. I would have to bill people $100 to fix their $200 piece of crap and have to beg the manufacturers to send me their shitty non standard parts from deep dark china to fix whatever it was. Music electronic gear is no longer serviceable in the conventional sense.

author: Planobilly
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 05:26:31 pm
content: I actually like working on SOME guitar amps. Nobody likes working on cheap crap I guess. Even some of the not so cheap stuff, Mesa Boogie Lone Star Special comes to mind, are a pain in the butt.I have been hoping that some day I would find another product to repair. Not so many people here in Miami are good at tube amp repair so I have enough work to keep me from drinking the 43 gallons of beer. I don't drink to begin with, well, I did go on the big drunk last year and drank two beers one night in the Bahamas.Any ideas about better things to repair would be helpful. BTW, I am seventy and do not own a forklift...lolCheers,Billy

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 05:40:55 pm
content: Cheap amp doesn't have the build quality of (what is now) a $3000 dollar guitar, who'd have thunk it? And I bet you the 2016 models pots won't last anywhere near 50 years.There are Victorian machines that were only meant to last 20 years tops still running to this day. Why? Because someone paid way too much for it to begin with.

author: imidis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 07:20:04 pm
content: While it's great for sales, I find it shameful how really most everything is designed to fail. Cheap enough not to be worth repairing.Computer have a virus? Get a new one.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 07:33:36 pm
content: Quote from: Planobilly on May 11, 2016, 04:44:01 pmSome selected beer consumption figures in litres per capita per annum:Germany 104.7USA 75.8China 32So, if you want your engineering to be up to, generally accepted as excellent, German standards you need todrink more beer.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 07:47:44 pm
content: One of my rants also, it used to be "make and mend" back in the day but now I think it's more akin to "buy and bury", I think most of the consummer shit we buy these days goes into landfill. Maybe plastic and metal get recycled ?A work mate of mine plays bass guitar and I'm pretty sure he uses a Peavey 6505, 6L6's in the output stage, nice. I don't think it's ever needed repairing, he changes the tubes occasionally.QuoteIt was good build quality back in the day, engineers designed things to last.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 08:50:16 pm
content: It was all going great until someone figured out that they could sell more product if things DIDN'T last a couple of lifetimes like they used to. Enter shoddy materials and even shoddier build quality, and here we are. Who repairs anything? Your whattamagadget breaks, you toss it in the bin and go buy a new one. Maybe complaining on the way to the store that it only lasted a year, but otherwise, this is the new norm. Some of use are old enough to remember a different time, and many of us here are by nature of our shared interests more of the type to tear things apart and at least attempt a repair. We are not typical of the general population though.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 09:02:18 pm
content: But there's also the other side, the customer. Most people want a new smartphone every year or two. So why design one which lasts 10 years, if it will be thrown away after two?

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 09:11:20 pm
content: How about the manufacturing jobs?Also look at the prices, the margins on consumer electronics are so low western companies bailed out, few exceptions ofcourse.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 10:02:39 pm
content: Electronics is the worst thing to mass produce far cheaply in China.Given how complex it is to understand/repair, and the massive problems with recycling it, you would think the western countries would have stopped this before it happened.But no, we are dumb as bat shit.Look at the result, spare parts are expensive/impossible to get, equipment hard to repair, but dirt cheap to dump toxic waste and get a new one.Ever notice the less input china have into engineering/component selection, the better the product ?100% chinese made and engineered, result total garbage that breaks almost before it arrives.Want to fix it... hahaha fix requires re-engineering it to use decent parts.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 10:13:08 pm
content: "How did we ever get to the point where we are willing to put up with the failures of all this "made in China or anywhere for that matter" crap?"Two things.Technology advances lowered the cost of ownership. Together with lower cost of trades, fixing something makes no economic sense.On the other end, labor costs have skyrocketed, pushing more people into buying rather than fixing.The two form a vicious cycle by fueling each other.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 12:16:02 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 11, 2016, 11:28:31 pmI think the issue is that China is expert at manufacturing at the lowest cost required to meet the level of quality required.The responsibility for the quality of parts used comes from the original designers. If the original designers chose to put a crappy pot in their amp, or just said "generic 10k pot" then what did they expect? They got what they asked for. Can you really blame the people who have been tasked to manufacture the design in the most economically way possible if they use the least expensive part available that would pass QA and last for at least the warranty period?When you by something from brand X that is made in China, if it fails you shouldn't blame China you should blame brand X. They are the one in the driving seat...

author: blacksheeplogic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 12:31:28 am
content: Quote from: station240 on May 11, 2016, 10:02:39 pmNo, you the consumer has far more fault here than the manufactures. You demand it to be as cheap as possible so that's what you get. I have equipment made in China that was not built to the lowest price point, it's better built, higher quality, and had more stringent QC inspection, than some other expensive items I've purchased with a "Made in the West" sticker.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:10:50 am
content: "When you by something from brand X that is made in China, if it fails you shouldn't blame China you should blame brand X. They are the one in the driving seat..."Why do you think China, or Korea/Japan/USA before it, produce shitty things?Do you think a Chinese factory owner wakes up everyday thinking about ways to produce shitty things?If so, take Econ 101: blame those dumbass consumers who buy those shitty things over and over and over.Plenty of them in and around everyone of us.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 05:19:08 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 11, 2016, 10:13:08 pmTrue, I think many of us on the forum who know electronics forget that average people would never even consider fixing something themselves. If something of mine breaks, I will generally spend the time (usually worth more in my non-electronics job than what the item is worth to buy new) to repair it, simply for the challenge and to learn and add to my electronics hobby skills. Parts are nothing, labour is expensive.For example, I've fixed a couple of TV's, an XBox, a camera, a smartphone screen, a laptop hinge, and some other items over the past few years. Usually parts on all of these were pennies to a few dollars, mostly available from eBay. But the labour and the few bits of gear I needed to add to my bench (testers, etc.) would not have been economically viable, if not for the fact I was doing it for the enjoyment of learning and satisfaction of seeing the repair work.One TV and the Xbox were simple capacitor swap jobs. Another TV required me to buy a $20 kit of components for the power supply board, spend several hours playing with it (desoldering and resoldering) and I needed to invest in some equipment (which I can now use on other projects) that probably cost another $80. All that to fix a TV that was not worth $100. And this is before factoring in my hourly time value that I could have been spending doing my other job which would have easily doubled that figure.Yeah, most people would not even think of fixing an electronic device themselves, and unless it is an obvious issue that can be easily narrowed down to one thing (like a power board, a broken screen, etc) which simply involves swapping an old part for a new one, it is not worth the hassle (e.g. tracing a circuit to find components that need to be replaced on a PCB). They would just swap the whole board for a new one, needlessly wasting even more good components.If you know what you are doing, you can also substitute better quality components where you removed the failed ones, hopefully it will reduce future failures. For example, my Samsung 40" LCD TV died in 2011, not even 2 years after we bought it (caps on power board failed right after warranty, fought with Samsung who refused to repair.... later they lost a class action lawsuit on this exact same problem but I had already fixed mine). I swapped caps and we are still using it daily as our main family TV. It's now over 5 years since the cap swap, it's been running 2.5x longer on my replaced caps than what came out of the factory!As far as China/Korea/Malaysia goes, Yes there is a huge variation in quality... from iPhone to iPhlungPoo. We as consumers who demand cheap goods have funded and demonstrated to that market that we are willing to take the abuse and gladly fork over our dollars every year to replace crap when it breaks. Where is the outcry? Instead, we should have been disgusted by it, refused to buy it again (once burned) and asked for better quality. That's how we buried Sony and replaced it with Samsung, or worse. Because we'd rather buy 3 Samsungs in the span of 10 years at $500 a piece, than buy 1 Sony at $800 that will last as long or more. To save $300, short term gain, long term pain.There was a famous saying that went something like "you're too poor to buy cheap". Want a good pair of shoes? You'll spend $100 but they'll last 10 years. You get the cheap ones for $30 and you'll go through a pair every year. Sure you save $70 the first year, but be prepared to keep paying. Too poor to buy cheap.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 07:10:11 am
content: Quote from: edy on May 12, 2016, 05:19:08 amIMO all brands went with the price erosion because they would not sell anything anymore if they did not.You can not even buy a tv that will last 15 years today not even if you pay $5000, it has the same power supply as the $800 tv and will last almost as long, it has more features, better display and a lot of other design stuff that makes it look great but under the hood the whole tv is 3 pcb's and a display.What happened IMO is that consumers got used to lower prices and refused to pay more for their stuff thus forcing all manufacturers to leave high wage countries and high polution law countries in order to keep on producing and selling cheaper stuff. There is a turning point, i heard a sw engineer in Shanghai today also costs around €50k-€70k a year, so that is equivalent to europe so everywhere the circle turns the same way. Higher prosperity leads to higher wages which leads to higher prices and the shift starts till there are no countries left that are cheap anymore.At that point different factors like transport costs, cultural barriers (time) are going to play a bigger role to decide were work is done and a lot of jobs will start to come back.If not start to learn chinese or start to live on welfare.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 07:42:12 am
content: If it breaks then I fix it. My girlfriend was amazed when I managed to get the electric window working on the car using parts purchased from a scrap yard rather than go to a garage and the ONLY reason we disposed of that car was the change in local emissions regulations that made diesels illegal to drive on the streets. I've fixed iPods, phones, TVs, laptops, irons, washing machines and in all cases the secret is to buy a unit made by a recognizable manufacturer. You can get spare parts for a TV made by Samsung or Philips but parts for a set made by Crown or Leyco might need some hunting around.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 09:38:49 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 11, 2016, 11:28:31 pmThey can, but why would they? Why go the extra mile, when someone else will come along and put in the bare minimum into a viable product and undercut you? It's a bit like the prisoner's dilemma: If you do more, you'll get exploited, gain nothing, while everyone else benefits at your expense. So everyone is resigned to do nothing more than absolutely necessary.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 10:09:04 am
content: Quote from: imidis on May 11, 2016, 07:20:04 pmElectronics is too cheap.The fix might be to impose huge import duties on electronic equipment. Then you will see a lot more home grown quality and less rubbish from China. Furthermore, equipment gets so expensive, people will actually get their electronics repaired rather than trashing it. Heaps of ex-electronics repair technicians will once again be gainfully employed. There will be less toxic waste. And people will actually build equipment and learn something rather just remain dumb users. There will be a market for kits once again. A bonus is recycling of equipment and less use of rare earth element used in monitors and TV's. Finally, most equipment there will be safer and actually have genuine approvals, so less people will be zapped or have their homes burned. People in the west will actually learn some skills rather than watching them waste away. There will be less unemployment. Too simplistic?Everyone wins.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 10:46:23 am
content: "Everyone wins."Yes, other than those consumers of electronics.Lots of people can benefit from taking an intro class on economics.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 12:44:23 pm
content: its all in harmony!http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-recycling-cleanup-jolts-global-062417212.htmlhttp://sometimes-interesting.com/2011/07/17/electronic-waste-dump-of-the-world/

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:11:30 pm
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on May 12, 2016, 10:09:04 amThat's been my opinion for years. Calculate how much it would cost to produce a TV locally, tax imports so that the price matches, and redistribute the money as incentives to local companies. You'll soon have either local companies or local subsidiaries of the big ones open to manufacture on site and create jobs.The consumer actually also wins precisely because of added reliability/support/avilability of parts and tech expertise, even if the product is more expensive to get initially he'd be much less likely to have to replace it quickly. Like a few decades ago.

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:14:13 pm
content: Quote from: imidis on May 11, 2016, 07:20:04 pmgoogle is my 'favorite' example of the very definition of laziness and short-attention-span. they have more brainpower and money than god, himself, and yet they regularly abandon phones and leave them vulnerable to attack, telling you without telling you 'just RE-BUY your phone. get a new shiny one! it will be all better, I promise!'almost 2 year old show-stopper VPN bug that makes vpn nearly impossible to use on my version (4.4) and google refused to fix it, marking it WONTFIX.this is not china, this is USA and silicon valley.no one wants to support their stuff anymore. sell and run. its universal.CARING about your product is so old fashioned!(sigh)has hardware and software quality gone UP or DOWN over the last 20 years? my take is that it went down hugely. no qa, no margins, all went overseas, time-to-market matters and nothing else does. collect the mark's money, later there will be some other mark to take money from.no one cares anymore. corporations, that is.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:27:04 pm
content: Quote from: linux-works on May 12, 2016, 01:14:13 pmThat happens to all android phones. Samsung guarantees 2 yr support from the date of production. Yes production not sale. So if you buy today at discount a Samsung phone that was produced and released in may 2014, the chances are you will not receive any security updates or whatever from day 1 you bought it. This was a big consumer claim here in my country and the judge ruled that no-one could force a manufacturer to update the software if they did not want to. Great, only solution a consumer has is not to buy an android phone anymore.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:42:16 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 12, 2016, 12:56:04 pmThankfully human nature does change or we'd still have legal slavery, legal child labour and it'd still be socially acceptable to kick the crap out of your wife or any black or homosexual person or drive drunk as a skunk. Times and people do change.Most of the forementioned changed just because of social and religious pressures - our attitudes to economics and consumerism are going to be forced to change by dwindling resources and increasing pollution. If they don't we're in deep, deep trouble.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:47:09 pm
content: Quote from: linux-works on May 12, 2016, 01:14:13 pmTo me software has definitely gone up, hardware hasn't actually gone down much, but as you say it's support that went down the drain. And given that the software and hardware has grown a lot in complexity support would have had to be improved by that much to keep up with the needs for new SW/HW fixes and repairs that would now be needed to get more useful life but simply weren't a thing back in the day.I wouldn't want to have to use Windows 95 again, thanks... the hardware I may not keep as long as my parents kept their 30 year old TV, BUT I've very rarely had a complete write off either due to faulty HW. When I change because I choose to the device still works, I sell it and it gets a second life with another owner, possibly even many more after them.I get a laugh when I read about PC tech stories "OMG your PC is 4 years old, it's about to dieeeee, no wonder you have issues better replace it NOW!!!!!" which seems to be the norm... Well the PC I'm on is 5 years old, and it's nowhere near causing me any issue, thank you. I actually just took out an old laptop I keep for its diversity of ports, it's now 12 years old, and yep it technically still works like on day 1. Would Iwantto do all my work on it now? Certainly not with the comfort we can have now, but Icould. When that PC was new the slowness that we feel today is the slowness it worked with back then too, we were simply OK with it because we didn't know anything better.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 01:55:19 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on May 12, 2016, 01:27:04 pmThat's what happened with my TV. It was produced in 2008, but I didn't purchase it until 2009 when it went "on sale"... probably tail end of the older model look and they were releasing the new one. Guess what, when the caps on the power supply board went, it was 2011. According to my records, within the 2 year warranty... But according to Samsung, over 2 years since they counted from the day of production!What a load of rubbish! Yes consumer tech has taken a downward spiral and I don't blame the Chinese one bit. They are simply feeding a market that global "consumerism" and massive marketing have created to raise a generation of folks who get happiness from buying and accumulating more and more stuff, that breaks faster and faster.QuotePrecisely why I just bought a 5 year old Lenovo laptop and kept it running Windows 7. And I have a USB stick loaded with Ubuntu and various other Live CD's and sticks with other versions of Linux. They work fast and if I simply clean up my machine once in a while, everything I need runs fine (except for gaming, that is the only reason to upgrade).

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:01:18 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on May 12, 2016, 01:27:04 pmprecisely my point!google does not care! they simply don't care. its not paying them back, they don't get MORE eyeballs to show ads to and datamine, so a phone with bugs does not bother them. we are not the customer, anyway, we are the product, to them.but my point is that if a company that has so much money and power refuses to support THEIR OWN PRODUCTS (android IS their product, supposedly) then why should lesser funded companies care? and generally, they don't!software quality is WAY down. I write software for a living and I see the extreme pressure in 'just get it out there, we'll fix things later'. shocking if you saw what its like in silicon valley when quality DOES NOT MATTER. I'm not kidding, and I wish I was. everyone talks about doing qa but its a token effort that is outsourced, if even done at all.you submit code to 'continuous integration' and you break more things that you fix, because its all about SPEED.I once got a project manager annoyed at me, a few jobs ago. I was not submitting code to the source code control system (I think it was JIRA at the time, I forget which SCCS we used; and not, it was not the lowercase sccs, lol!) often enough for his liking. he wanted code synced to the build tree (not nfs disk, but BUILD TREE) several times a day. I tended to sync sources when they all worked together instead of partial h-file and stubbed out c-file. his reply "I can't estimate your teams VELOCITY unless you do it our way".yes, velocity. he used that word.at that point, I knew the game was over. quality lost. sales/marketing pukes won. they get their 'super speedy product to market' but, uhhh, is that really the right thing to do, long-term, when the thing crashes left and right every other update?sigh.software is crap, now. we pay peanuts, we outsource most of it and what's done locally is done by h1b's who are, in effect, indentured servants and are a modern form of forced labor.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:26:46 pm
content: Quote from: linux-works on May 12, 2016, 02:01:18 pmIt is not as much Google, because they do bring out the updates and also newer android versions. But it is the phone manufacturers that have to write the glue layer (interface) for that specific phone and the newer android version that are to blame. They will not support their older models, so thereby it becomes obsolete prematurely.Exception is ofcourse Google as the manufacturer of phones

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:28:25 pm
content: Quote from: edy on May 12, 2016, 01:55:19 pmThat is indeed not right, under EU laws you have a 2yr warranty from date of purchase. So you should have gotten a new or similar model replacement tv, is in Canada the consumer rights that bad?But software updates and support do not fall under that law

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:36:38 pm
content: Quote from: edy on May 12, 2016, 01:55:19 pmBS, where according to the Samsung, on their website, in their records? If you have a proof of the purchase, manufacturing date does not matter. If you have no proof of the purchase, they voluntarily count from some date (they don't owe you anything in this case actually), usually it's something like shipping date to the distributor +1 month. Or do you expect them to know when the unit was actually sold or provide infinite warranty? About caps, guess they were Samwha WB series.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:46:18 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on May 12, 2016, 01:42:16 pmAnd yet all of these things still happen in a modern civilisation, or in some third world country under pressure by a modern civilisation. Human nature doesn't really change, but society does. And society can be really fickle, for the better or worse.QuoteWe are in deep trouble, because nobody who could do something about it cares. And there is a lot of apathy amongst the general population. Many people still see environmental trouble as something that is far away. People will only start to care when the situation directly impacts their lives and their wallets, which by then is all too late. I think most of us will start feeling the pressure in a few decades. Hopefully, by then I'll be too old to care, and I'll just manically laugh and say, "You fucked up! I told you, but you didn't listen!"... thenput this record on for the last timeand watch the horizon flare up with crimson clouds of fire...

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:46:54 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 11, 2016, 11:28:31 pmThe standard of goods made in China for consumption by its own middle class is already pretty good in most cases. They export large amounts of cheap junk because that's what foreign buyers are looking for. There are so many tales of "this product was made in our country for years and it was great. Then they moved production to China and its rubbiish". Every time I've looked behind one of those stories they didn't just move to China. They stripped the design of everything that made it a great performer. Its design choices outside the control of the Chinese which drive most product degradation.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 02:54:43 pm
content: We all need to look in the mirror during these rants. A few years ago there was a news story about a local manufacturing facility that was shutting down as the work was "Off shored". The plant happened to make plumbing bits-hose bibs and the like. They did an interview with an engineer at the plant that was losing his job. The engineer decried the loss of quality that was going to occur, and how people didn't understand how much they were losing as the local product went off the market. The interview was done in the home of the engineer, and it was both painful and funny to watch and realize that almost all of the furnishings in his home from lamps, to electronics to tableware and furniture was imported from a low cost country. We all vote with our wallets, and the vast majority of us have voted for what is happening.Greshams Law applies outside the world of finance.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 03:41:04 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on May 12, 2016, 02:36:38 pmI can only tell you what the lady on the phone told me, and I didn't know any better. Likely a quick way to dismiss complaining customers, but if I pressed them harder I would have called their bluff. I have researched this since and yes under consumer protection laws it is from date of purchase *not manufacture*. Even Samsung's own website states so. I wish I would have recorded the telephone call. In any case, I fixed the TV for $3 in parts and made a YouTube video of it which has over 669,000 hits thus far and is monetized, so it worked out better that they didn't offer to replace it.By the way, the comments on my video show that I wasn't the only one given this run-around treatment by Samsung. Possibly because they were in the midst of the class action lawsuit and were waiting for a verdict to create a corporate-wide policy on this particular matter.On the other hand, I bought an iRiver Slim X iMP-350 CD/MP3 portable player way back when they just started. It worked great, then about 3 or 4 years later something happened to the remote. I emailed them, filled out a form and they sent me a new one.Was it under warranty? Hell no! How much good karma do you think that created for the brand? They are also Korean. And they were founded by former Samsung executives, go figure! An interesting read into the way things develop, for sure... see this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iriver. Sadly, it turns out they now sell crazy-expensive audiophile media players branded under the name Astell & Kern.http://www.iriverinc.com/. So where did that good karma take them? Did the market reward them?The corporate response and client support is paramount and that has taken a huge hit as well. And it has nothing to do with the country, the people, the culture. It is simply varies from corporation to corporation.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 12:48:32 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on May 12, 2016, 11:07:23 pmYes, but they're not legal or socially acceptable. Once they were. Ergo, we have changed. Once upon a time it would have been regarded as perfectly acceptable for you and I to disagree and for me to prove my point by beating you senseless and people would have said that proved I was right because god had made me stronger. Now, no doubt there is still some benighted corner of the world where that still holds but, thankfully, the vast majority of the world would not find that acceptable or convincing. When it comes to human behaviour, you can always find a counterexample but for the most part we have improved from where we were a hundred or two or three hundred years ago. Human nature does change.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 02:34:21 am
content: QuoteTo fix someone's crap, you have to receive it. Open it. Invoice it. Bill it. Pack it. Ship it.Oh, and, you need to repair it.If I opened a store that only replaced one specific $2.75 part in one specific model of consumer product, and I could get an unlimited supply of customers with no marketing, overhead, and minimal space. And it literally took one person 5 minutes to replace and only 5 minutes for handling, because there is no debugging necessary, because my customers know how to diagnose the problem themselves and are sending it in for just this specific repair. There are no screws to turn. Just pop it open, replace a part, and close it back up. I only have to order and stock one replacement part. Then I suppose it is possible to charge $12.00 and still keep the lights on. Please tell us where we can find such a business.You want an oddball fix, and you want it overnighted? And you think that's expensive? Not really.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 02:51:17 am
content: A good solution to the manufacturers not wanting to keep software up to date is to outsource the development to the open source community. They typically do a better job anyways.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 10:08:15 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on May 13, 2016, 02:51:17 amThat's a nice idea, but it won't happen because in most cases there is some IP the manucfacturer has to protect. Might be their own IP or something they have bought from another company. Take OpenWrt for example. Some routers aren't fully supported because of closed source, typically for a WLAN chip, hardware NAT or integrated DSL modem.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 11:52:46 am
content: Quote from: madires on May 13, 2016, 10:08:15 amThat gives me pause for thought. I think many people here will recognise that the patent system has become severely broken, especially in the USA. Theoriginalidea behind patents was a social contract* where someone who had a new useful technology was given rights to exclusive use of the idea behind it, for a limited time, in exchange for telling the world and his dog** how it was done. It's probably the original codification in law of the idea of intellectual property. Patents created the concept that you could 'own' an idea, with the caveat that to earn that right you had to share it. That differs from copyright which covers not the idea itself but rights over a particular expression if it.In NiHaoMike and madires' comments I can see the beginnings of a new approach to certain types of IP where you only maintain your rights in that IP if you keep the expression of the IP itself maintained. Think of it as a software/firmware version of the abandoned property laws that some jurisdictions have. As always, the devil would be in the details, but the essence would be that you only retained rights in IP behind some technology as long as you kept it effectively maintained - maintained in the sense of issuing patches etc. - and that the public would gain a right to that IP and to insist you handed over source code etc. when some threshold of 'non-maintainance' had been reached.So, we just need some brave legislators to propose the "Abandoned Intellectual Property Act". With the right framing, persuasion, and a following wind, this is the kind of thing I could actually see becoming an EU directive. Just wrap it up in 'cyber' defence clothing, point out how many Android phones are going to e-waste because of lack of patches, and they might buy it.* Actually it was a sovereign contract, a 'Letter Patent' from the King, but today we'd regard it as a contract between the inventor and society at large, represented by the government and the law.** Again, strictly it was telling the King.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 12:56:33 pm
content: QuoteI don't know why anyone would think this makes sense. Essentially, you are taking money from the more efficient producers and giving it to the less efficient producers.A scheme like this would be to take a large chunk of your income and give it to someone who sits on his ass watching tv all day.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 12:57:07 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on May 13, 2016, 11:52:46 amThat's something I would support. Still I got some doubt if it could work on a global scale. Let's assume we would have such a law in the EU and that I'm a manufacturer of SOHO routers. So I can't buy any chipset which comes with a closed source driver, because I would be obliged to the contract with the chipset manfacturer in Taiwan to keep the driver private, while being forced by law to open source it in the future. Or is the EU a market large enough that non-EU manufacturers are willing to provide a open source driver or a proper documentation without any legal constraints to enable me to write an open source driver? We would also have to discuss several fringe cases, like things which are under some regulation. For example that new regulation for wireless devices and their firmwares to keep the transmitter within specific power levels and channels (apparently by some form of close source and DRM).

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 01:01:59 pm
content: QuoteI believe there were (still are?) talks of migrating android to a framework where the core is isolated from the hardware through a set of "drivers", like Windows. So a user can continue to upgrade his / her Android so long as they are appropriate drivers for the hardware and the target OS.I don't know where that sits now. I suppose it is not a good thing for the phone companies, and there may be user experience / security concerns.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 05:50:55 pm
content: Quote from: madires on May 13, 2016, 12:57:07 pmLike I said, Devil and details. The EU is certainly big enough to support it and non-EU manufacturers would have a simple choice, comply with the law or have your products banned from import just like, say, RoHS. Remember we're going carrot and stick here - make sure your product is supportable and sustainable and you get to keep your IP rights and we'll actively protect them, don't and you loose them and we'll actively take them away. The politicians would love it, it has the desirable side effect that it lets you be almost protectionist but you're acting on public safety and environmental grounds.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 09:12:38 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 13, 2016, 12:56:33 pmThe "more efficient" producers are only more "efficient" becasue they're able to pay workers about nothing at the other end of the world... can't say that's right.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 09:24:18 pm
content: While worker pay is a significant component here, capitalization and economies of scale also matter. A large facility able to service much of the world is likely to be more efficient than 100 plus smaller ones each serving one country.That is the same kind of thing that makes repair vs replace tough. With the right facilities a glop top IC is a cheap and effective manufacturing method. Doing it one at a time is not as cheap since shelf lives of materials matter, since wire bonding equipment is costly and maintenance intensive, and not as effective since it is hard to maintain a good process doing one every other month.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2016, 09:46:10 pm
content: QuoteSo you think the US/western economies are more efficient just because their poorly paid workers, vs. those in less economies in Asia, Africa or Mexico?Even if that were true, the fact that those workers voluntarily opted to work at such jobs would tell you your actions of not buying from their factories would simply condemn them to even worse living standards.Countless interviews with workers at Apple / Foxconn factories in China would support that.Econ 101 should really be a mandatory class for everyone,

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 01:58:52 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 13, 2016, 12:56:33 pmI agree, plus such action just invites counter import tax/restrictions from the countries you impose your restrictions on. The value of global trade goes to consumers. Importers can't make people buy their stuff. Some consumers want best price, some want best quality or reliability, but I want to be the one having the choice to decide not protection laws that add costs.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 08:14:35 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 13, 2016, 09:46:10 pmThey don't accept them becasue they are good but becasue they have no better choice, but exactly 0% would refuse better conditions.Quote from: CatalinaWOW on May 13, 2016, 09:24:18 pmYeah, but it's not repair that is insanely expensive, it's rather the product that's insanely cheap and undervalued!Quote from: CatalinaWOW on May 13, 2016, 09:24:18 pmThat's if you only considereconomicefficiency.For me real efficiency would be one that improves your quality of life, not cash flow. Even if all electronic products cost 4 times as much as a result I don't think it would be a problem. Yes you couldn't afford them that easily, but frankly, who needs? There's no reason you need to be able to buy a top of the line phone with a week's pay or change TV after 2 years like now.The current price lowballing only causes the whole world to work much more than needed to push out huge quantities of absolutely superfluous cheap product. We could very well have what was suggested a century ago, i.e. only have to work 2 days per week to create what'sneededfor a prosperous society thanks to the massive increases in processes in all fields and just spend the rest enjoying good time... but no, some powerful bosses have decided for us that you should rather work your ass off for about nothing so they can pocket the results from the higher sales... the whole system is highly stupid, but unfortunately nearly everybody accepts it as it is instead of thinking a bit and realizing it could be very different and actually moreefficientaccording to a more important metric...

author: iampoor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 08:27:02 am
content: Quote from: Kilrah on May 14, 2016, 08:14:35 amI think the average consumer has had too much exposure to commoditized electronics, and wouldnt feel the same way....Mot consumers I know still "cant believe" how "expensive" consumer products are.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 08:35:31 am
content: video that sums up a lot of the problemsHarveys TV Repair Shop Final DaysA Short Documentary Harvey's TV and Stereo Los AngelesNot only are chinese made goods too cheap, but so is the postage as the government subsidise it.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 08:40:46 am
content: Quote from: iampoor on May 14, 2016, 08:27:02 amPerfect example of biasing...But if it just "was that way" they'd have no other choice and wouldn't moan about it beyond initial reaction.It's like the chain stores now importing some fruit form the other side of the world so that there are some all year round instead of the 2-month period they'd be available locally... when asked they always answer "well the customerdemands!"... But that's complete bullshit, because if there were none nobody would come to them and ask for some. For sure once you put some on the shelves people will take them, but that'sartificial"demand" you've created, not a real desire from the consumer. Of course now people are used to constant availability, but it wouldn't take much to teach them why there isn't any if that stopped. It only goes on because there's money to make due to - again - the "real" value of things like work and transport being grossly undervalued.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 10:46:20 am
content: QuoteOnce you have to redefine commonly accepted terminology, you know you are building your arguments on shaky ground.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 10:51:15 am
content: QuoteThe guy at beginning of the video was spot on when he said this is a 3rd world country.QuoteSpot on.QuoteThat's one of the urban legends that get passed on from generation to generation.still doesn't make it true.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 01:15:56 pm
content: QuoteI suspect that your perspective on this will change when others take away your job because they think you are underpaid.My fundamental objection to this whole "fair labor" movement is that it is anything but fair. We sit in the comfort of our homes dictating to people thousands of miles away what is and what is not right for them is just the polar opposite of basic human freedom, democracy and self-determination.Not to mention that many people behind this are motivated at shutting down competition in order to protect their own jobs.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 01:22:29 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 14, 2016, 10:51:15 amI think there's ample evidence that "ePacket" delivery is de facto subsidized by the USPS. (You might be arguing that the USPS isn't the "government", which is perhaps technically true. If you're arguing that there is no effective subsidy, I disagree.)2014 USPS Inspector General study on ePacket provides plenty of directional evidence that ePacket is subsidized to the tune of about $1 per ePacket:https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/ms-ar-14-002.pdf

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 01:45:31 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on May 14, 2016, 10:46:20 amHe said "for me". That's not an argument that's on shaky ground, it's an expression of opinion. Just because his opinion differs from yours doesn't make it wrong (or right), just different.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 02:04:37 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on May 14, 2016, 08:14:35 amWhile I qualitatively agree with you, I don't think it is that simple. For example I find that the smart phone and computer and internet really do contribute to the quality of my life. Through things like this forum and access to far more information than was ever available from the library. I don't update mine and throw it away every couple of years. While a similar level of technology and compactness could be designed and manufactured on a smaller and more local basis, I think you are underestimating the cost difference. I used to work in the defense industry, a market which has many of the qualities you desire (made in relatively small quantities and often designed to last and be repairable). While most are aware of the insanely high costs in this market, few are aware of the low margins. In the US at least they are set by law at rates that make most commercial companies walk away laughing.Also you should look into a little economic theory on the velocity of money. There may be other ways, but it isn't obvious.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2016, 02:12:33 pm
content: Made in China or not, this is where people need to start exercising their rights under consumer law. I get that each country is different, however at least in Australia the consumer law is quite strong. I also find a lot of retailers and sales people don't understand it, let alone know about the legislation surrounding consumer rights, refunds, exchanges etc...It's worthwhile getting to know your rights in your country. For example, in Australia if you have a product that is not fit for purpose, not reasonably durable or suffers a major failure, then you're entitled to a refund or replacement by either the manufacturer or the reseller (at their expense) -- And it's your choice which you'd prefer, not anyone else’s. I recently argued this after buying an NEC Professional LCD display which was being sold as a "professional TV". It turned out the particular model which was sold in this country didn't actually have a TV tuner in it (the model sold in Japan did). This was deemed as a "major failure" as I wouldn't have purchased the unit had I known this in the first place. The reseller picked this up at no cost to me and refunded the total amount within a few days. Needless to say their website changed pretty damn quickly.Back to the original topic, if something isn't of "acceptable quality" then you should be entitled to a full refund or replacement. The term "acceptable" depends on the product, needs to be "reasonable" and might already be pre-determined in your relevant laws. Manufacturer's warranty is often irrelevant. Apple has got unstuck in AU for their "extended warranties" which offers little (or no more) protection than the Australian Consumer Law already does for free to all consumers.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2016, 01:50:08 am
content: Harvey's TV documentary.... Interesting to watch. I like the last bit about blown caps, internet and making sure that other parts aren't blown. And so much of what this guy is saying rings true from personal experience, both with my Samsung and Philips. The Samsung had bad caps, and my Philips had actually a number of diodes, transistors and other components go (but the caps were actually fine). Harvey's TV guy is spot on. Here are my repair videos:PHILIPS (which had a number of issues on the power board, about 2 year old when failed):SAMSUNG (a couple of bad caps, about 2.5 years old when failed):And my parent's RCA TV that we watched for several decades, that I grew up on.... looked something like this picture below. It was like a piece of furniture. We bought it in 1980. It had a little problem at one point, it would turn off and you'd see this pattern flicker in the middle of the screen (like a red/blue/green flower rotating)... then the colors would converge into a white spot and then fade. We had that fixed and the TV lasted another decade.