INNOVATION:MONEY ON TOSSING NOT FIXING

[Anonymous]

Innovation puts money on tossing, not fixing
The
Canon Pixma iP1800 printer, according to its manufacturer, lets its
user “produce beautiful, long-lasting photos with borderless edges,
from credit-card size up to 81/2 by 11 inches.”It spits out up to 20
pages per minute in black ink and 16 in color, with a borderless
printer option to make those photos look as if they just rolled off the
machine at the local hour-processing picture shop.And it retails
online, as of this writing, for $49 — a mere $9 more than it’ll cost
you to change the black/white and color ink cartridges the first time
that’s needed.The Canon Pixma iP1800 is an example of what’s become a
trend in the computer industry, and a strange one at that, given the
“think green” push so many people have undertaken recently: We’re
nearing the point where it’s smarter financially to just throw away a
printer when it needs ink.It’s a strange phenomenon. Companies are
making products so inexpensive that when they break down (and critics
argue that breaking down comes hand in hand with a cheap build), that
repair is going out of style.DVD players that once cost hundreds of
dollars can be purchased for $50.Laptop computer screens on a $600
Toshiba Satellite laptop cost more than $400 to replace, once you
figure in labor costs.

Dropping prices
And with desktop
computer prices continuing to drop, shelling out $300 on a replacement
motherboard looks less like a viable option every month.”In several
industries — refrigerators, stoves and such — when they do the
maintenance, they can’t just replace one part anymore,” said Jeff
Brewer, an associate professor of computer technology at Purdue
University.”There are so many parts put together. You don’t fix it, you
replace the whole thing.”Some of the pieces have become so inexpensive
now, that instead of paying $40 an hour for someone to diagnose the
problem, you just go replace the piece. The acceleration is the
difference between labor and product cost.”Even some cell phones can be
thrown away without much thought. For $20, a customer can buy a
pay-as-you-go phone off the shelf at an electronics store. If it gets
dropped in a puddle, well, who cares, right?It all brings to mind a
commercial spoof from the 1996 season of “Saturday Night Live,” wherein
Will Ferrell shilled the Darnette Disposable Toilet — “fine porcelain
fixtures for just $169.95 each” that could be replaced after every
flush.Now, more than a decade later, disposable toilets aren’t vogue
(yet), but higher-tech gizmos have become increasingly likely to end up
in a trash can at the first sign of a problem.”Personally, I think it’s
cheaper to throw them away because there’s no place to repair them
anymore,” said Joe Ballard, director of the Vanderburgh County Solid
Waste District.Ballard’s experienced the phenomenon firsthand. He took
his VCR in for repair, went back a few days later and was told the
machine could be fixed — for $120.”So I said, ‘Why?’ When I can buy one
for $50 to $60.”High-tech purges aren’t causing problems in landfills
because of their volume, Ballard said.”It’s fairly innocuous,” he said.
“The problem is when people toss out old monitors, which have lead,
nickel cadmium and mercury in them.”There are alternatives to sending
that old printer or keyboard to the great trash heap down the street.
Many nonprofits are always on the lookout for equipment for use in
their offices. Many schools recycle empty printer ink cartridges for
money. And cell phones can be donated to domestic violence safety
shelters for use by victims.

[Author]

January 14, 2008 at 12:22 PM