Quote:
Originally Posted by ablethevoice
After reading the responses here, you guys have restored some hope in me that there are some folks who still do have a decent set of ethics - and are willing to actually LOOK at an item and determine if, indeed, the device is truly dead or only "unconscious".
And yes, this damned "everything is disposable" mindset is a plague. Of course, modern manufacturing techniques support this habit. Anyone ever see a cellphone repair shop? Is it possible to resurrect/repair a PCs motherboard? Has anyone ever tried?
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There is a whole row of little street-side shops on one street here, where the guys repair cellphones.
I think --but I'm not sure-- they all used to work for the repair departments of big-brand dealers, but then decided to be entrepreneurial. Anyway, take them almost any brand or model, they'll tell you right away whether they can fix it and how long it will take. Usually, they can, and usually, it takes only a few hours if they have parts on hand, and a extra day or two if they don't. Prices are quite reasonable. They stay busy, too, which proves that not everyone insists on just throwing stuff away when it breaks, in order to get the latest and trendiest. Give them a reasonable option, and people would like to get things repaired!
I agree with you in general on the "disposable society" bit, though. And it isn't just televisions or audio. I just bought a new desk lamp the other day. I think it dates from the 1940s, give or take a decade. Cool Art Deco-like pen-rest base, and stylish top part. After decades of neglect, the gooseneck part needs some de-oxidizing and polishing, and the paint needed a touch of Meguire's paint cleaner (after which it gleams!
), but it works fine, and probably will for several more decades, at least. I doubt there is a lamp in the shops today that will have half so long a lifespan!
Personally, if something I own breaks, I always open it up and take a good look, to see if it can be repaired. That's just the way I grew up. Things made before the late 1980s - 1990s almost always CAN be. More recent junk, er, stuff usually cannot be.
I have a large clay pot and a smaller chinawear dish that have "repairs" in them. Years ago in Hong Kong, if your dish broke, you could take it to the China repair shop. They would drill little holes through the broken pieces and put wire staples through the holes, to hold the parts together. Then they would melt lead and pour it into the cracks between the pieces, to seal it up water-tight. (Think stained-glass windows, and you'll get the idea of the lead.) I keep these pieces as reminders of a lost age, when people valued things and kept them in use for as long as they could.
Perhaps this was, at least in part, because things were more expensive then in relation to peoples' incomes, and since labor costs were lower, so were the repair costs more affordable. But a lot of the change between then and now is just because of our emphasis on "make it cheaper". The Wal-Mart effect, if you will, that says to squeeze materials costs and production techniques to the cheapest possible level that you can still get people to buy at a price. Good in a sense, but very bad in other ways.
Give me the old, wasteful, heavy stuff that lasts for decades instead of months, ANY DAY!
Heck, most of it is intrinsically or "retro-" stylish enough that it never really goes out of fashion, anyway!