I think there is an unspoken part to "reduce consumption", "without decreasing the comfort of living". Decreasing individuals' buying power is about as good a solution to consumption as "don't give people enough food to feed their kids" is to overpopulation.
> Is there proof of this for tiny devices with tons of integrated chips and processors requiring specialized equipment and knowledge to fix?
Well, you could say that when a device breaks, it will either get discarded or repaired, so repairability can only be a net positive. It's debatable whether repairability will actually prolong the lifespan for things like headphones, where everything is tiny and will wear down eventually, and monitors, where most of the money goes into an irreparable LCD panel anyway.
I'm convinced, though, that phones and notebooks are expensive and "modular" enough that repairs with proper replacement part availability would be cost-effective.
>I think there is an unspoken part to "reduce consumption", "without decreasing the comfort of living". Decreasing individuals' buying power is about as good a solution to consumption as "don't give people enough food to feed their kids" is to overpopulation.
Attaching a fantasy requirement to real world constraints serves no purpose.
Reducing population does attain the goal of reducing consumption. Reducing people’s ability to take honeymoons to Tahiti reduces consumption. Reducing people’s ability to drive large vehicles to take the kids to school and go shopping for groceries reduces consumption. Reducing people’s ability to live far away from everything, which in turn reduces the amount of energy needed to push all the mass around needed to live far away from everything also reduces consumption.
There is no free lunch.
> I'm convinced, though, that phones and notebooks are expensive and "modular" enough that repairs with proper replacement part availability would be cost-effective.
Are they modular? As far as I understand, everything is getting more and more integrated. Also, compared to the cost of buying new, the cost of labor to fix my MacBook Air or iPhone is far too high where I live. Perhaps if taxes were sufficiently high to make a new laptop or phone more costly to purchase to offset the pollution, then it would make sense.
My point is that reducing how many neat gadgets people can buy will never get anyone's support apart from a few weirdos.
Making products last longer, maybe by forcing repairability, is a more constructive solution that would allow people to have their gadgets while lessening the negative effects of manufacturing them/disposing of them.
> Is there proof of this for tiny devices with tons of integrated chips and processors requiring specialized equipment and knowledge to fix?
Well, you could say that when a device breaks, it will either get discarded or repaired, so repairability can only be a net positive. It's debatable whether repairability will actually prolong the lifespan for things like headphones, where everything is tiny and will wear down eventually, and monitors, where most of the money goes into an irreparable LCD panel anyway.
I'm convinced, though, that phones and notebooks are expensive and "modular" enough that repairs with proper replacement part availability would be cost-effective.