Car safety is a bad counterexample because the risk is otherwise often externalized i.e. your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal. And as GP stated, regulating this sort of thing would definitely force a particular trade-off on everyone. A lot of people would be pissed to have MacBooks with worse "build quality" even if they were more reparable. Having a choice is better.

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wvenable 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I disagree. The lack of repairability has external costs not born by the purchaser or the manufacturer -- more toxic trash unnecessarily added to the environment.

Forcing a particular trade-off on everyone is entirely the point. It's the point of car safety, it's also the point of minimum warranties, electrical emission regulations, safety standards, etc.

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VogonPoetry 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years, and then warehouse and ship those parts, probably multiple times. Or keep a low rate production line running for 7 years? What happens to the parts that don't get used? Are they scrapped?

That "what if" cost is going to be built into the cost of the laptop. Repairability doesn't always keep the cost low. The purchaser will definitely have to foot the cost otherwise it isn't sustainable.

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wvenable 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Repairability definitely doesn't keep the costs low. If it was cheaper and easier, it wouldn't have to be regulated. As for supply chain management, companies that get that equation correct are going to benefit. Which is exactly how it should be.

We define the rules of the game and companies that can best implement those rules will succeed. That is capitalism.

	▲	Gigachad 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It won’t self resolve because consumers don’t fully factor in every detail while buying, and they often don’t get such granular choice anyway. It’s easier and more profitable for companies to make a product that catastrophically fails around about when the new model is out. So that’s what they do. Until just now when the EU is reeling them back in line.

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gambiting 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>> your car can easily hurt a total stranger whereas the consequences of your choice in laptop are strictly personal.

You know that safety for pedestrians is also a very tightly regulated car safety category, right? Obviously, there's not much that can be done if you get hit by a car going 70mph, but the fact that most people should survive a 30mph impact with a modern car is mostly thanks to regulations requiring crumple zones specifically designed to protect pedestrians in a collision. And yeah, there are huge trade offs - I imagine people would generally prefer a car that doesn't need incredibly expensive repairs after a minor collision because everything at the front just crumpled, but then they would be guaranteed to cut off legs of any person hit - it's a trade off.