I haven’t owned a tv since 2002. A friend’s kid thew a remote at their’s and cracked the screen. I asked if they could get it repaired and everyone looked at me like I had two heads.
“You just get a new one…!”
Gone are they days were people get things repaired, especially the “simple things” like getting a good leather shoes sole replaced, or getting a couch redone. Though planned obsolescence plays a role in this as well.
It also means these services are more expensive as a result.
Shout out to Bosch… I have a 10-year old dishwasher from them and the drain pump stopped working. It was so easy to replace and readily available. I was actually happy to have it break, all told.
A lot of enshitification has happened in the last decade so no idea if their products are still like that, but when the time comes to get a new one I’ll certainly be giving them my first look.
I think it’s both chicken and egg. It’s more expensive to repair relative to replace now, so often it’s more economical to replace. This leads to less repair knowledge and services, so increases cost, making replacement easier etc. Many times are more complex and so what used to be repaired with simple tools and know how, now requires specialized tools and proprietary replacement parts. Supply chains being just-in-time for production means many parts are not stocked for repair, which also slows everything down too.
Design problem, you can modularize these things so they’re easy to repair, consider your average desktop PC. Indeed that’s what your ‘proprietary replacement parts’ are, backed up by DMCA (and world wide equivalents forced by US trade agreements) making reverse engineering them a felony. Problem is there’s no financial incentive compared to getting you to buy another one soon, nor is there competition on this front. Hmm, perhaps a (legal) regulation problem.
Modular is better for repair, but not cheapest to produce or space saving. So, people naturally choose the cheaper, more compact design.
The whole idea of copyright was to prevent people profiting from your design innovations. If the only purpose your design causes is preventing competition, then it should lose protection in my view.
So, for instance making printer ink incompatible with copy protection serves no benefit to the owner. So it should lose protection. There needs to be a balance to protect creatives, but in the rapidly changing age, the time and scope should be dramatically reduced. No technical innovations from 10 years ago need to be protected.
there’s a million better alternatives to the current shitass IP/patent/trademark system but until the US empire finally finishes falling none will come about
While I’m not optimistic, there does seem to be a movement away from protecting US IP since the trump tariffs broke the compact. Lots of media on here about people and companies and government seeking digital sovereignty/independence.
And even then it seems like the boots theory is dead for most stuff. Even when you buy the “premium” products they fall apart and are made of crap materials or are designed to be irreparable
For me it was more about how much longer they would last. The soles they gave me were better than the originals. The rest is just small stiches and patchwork I can do at home
Sad, ain’t it? I repair all kinds of stuff. Have a 50" TV that only needs a new board when I can afford it. The 55" on my wall needed 2 new capacitors, $8 on eBay.
There’s a shoe repair shop in my town. People absolutely do get simple things repaired what you can’t get repaired are things like TVs anymore.
But things don’t break like they used to, it used to be that a component would fail and you could just replace that broken component but everything’s integrated these days so if one thing goes down the whole thing is dead.
In college (early 2000s), we had a 50-something inch CRT. I think that thing weighed upwards of 500 lbs, was positively massive (maybe 3 feet deep?) and it took 4-6 people to move it in and out of our on-campus apartments every year.
Though not the most academic resource, the YouTubers How Ridiculous recently popped a CRT screen. Because of their video format, I’m having a bit of time identifying which one it was, but it might have been this:
You may not own a tv but do you own a computer monitor? No one fixes those either and a tv is essentially a monitor with an extra control board. The screen is the device.
If the glass of the screen is broken the TV is gone. You cannot fix that. If there are other things it could be. Mine had the back lights out and for like 20$ I bought them online and changed them myself.
Yeah, most of the cost of the TV is the panel. If you’re buying a replacement panel the part would cost basically the same as a new TV (or maybe even more).
By contrast, my parents had a TV that started boot looping the morning after a thunderstorm and they’d had at least one lightning strike very close by. They got a local TV repairman out and he was able to get a replacement mainboard and the TV worked perfectly after that. I think the board was $100 or $150 and his time and labor was $100, coming to their house to do the work. If I remember correctly we could see scorch marks on the bad board near the Ethernet port.
Getting the new board was a bit of a hassle; that manufacturer didn’t sell parts directly and I think it took him 3 tries to get the right board. It seems like they have the same board in a lot of models but they flash them for different screens, so even though they were labeled as being for my parents’ TV it took a few tries to get the right one in. I feel like that’s a problem that would’ve been easier if the manufacturer supported repairs better.
Replacing the LED panel of a common 65in flat-screen TV costs almost the same amount as a brand new TV and months of time, and money to ship between the repair center and your home due to the weight; lol of course they looked at you like that, you sounded silly, innocently ignorant and ridiculous.
I haven’t owned a tv since 2002. A friend’s kid thew a remote at their’s and cracked the screen. I asked if they could get it repaired and everyone looked at me like I had two heads. “You just get a new one…!”
Gone are they days were people get things repaired, especially the “simple things” like getting a good leather shoes sole replaced, or getting a couch redone. Though planned obsolescence plays a role in this as well.
It also means these services are more expensive as a result.
Shout out to Bosch… I have a 10-year old dishwasher from them and the drain pump stopped working. It was so easy to replace and readily available. I was actually happy to have it break, all told.
A lot of enshitification has happened in the last decade so no idea if their products are still like that, but when the time comes to get a new one I’ll certainly be giving them my first look.
I think it’s both chicken and egg. It’s more expensive to repair relative to replace now, so often it’s more economical to replace. This leads to less repair knowledge and services, so increases cost, making replacement easier etc. Many times are more complex and so what used to be repaired with simple tools and know how, now requires specialized tools and proprietary replacement parts. Supply chains being just-in-time for production means many parts are not stocked for repair, which also slows everything down too.
Design problem, you can modularize these things so they’re easy to repair, consider your average desktop PC. Indeed that’s what your ‘proprietary replacement parts’ are, backed up by DMCA (and world wide equivalents forced by US trade agreements) making reverse engineering them a felony. Problem is there’s no financial incentive compared to getting you to buy another one soon, nor is there competition on this front. Hmm, perhaps a (legal) regulation problem.
Modular is better for repair, but not cheapest to produce or space saving. So, people naturally choose the cheaper, more compact design.
The whole idea of copyright was to prevent people profiting from your design innovations. If the only purpose your design causes is preventing competition, then it should lose protection in my view.
So, for instance making printer ink incompatible with copy protection serves no benefit to the owner. So it should lose protection. There needs to be a balance to protect creatives, but in the rapidly changing age, the time and scope should be dramatically reduced. No technical innovations from 10 years ago need to be protected.
there’s a million better alternatives to the current shitass IP/patent/trademark system but until the US empire finally finishes falling none will come about
While I’m not optimistic, there does seem to be a movement away from protecting US IP since the trump tariffs broke the compact. Lots of media on here about people and companies and government seeking digital sovereignty/independence.
So it could chip away gradually.
when I lived in the UK there were shoe repairmen everywhere, they were great, and if the repair was easy they wouldn’t even charge me.
in the States I haven’t seen a single one
Fast fashion ain’t just for fabrics baybeeeee
I was lucky enough to find a shoe shop that does really good resoles in my city. Not impossible to repair stuff, just hard
You also have to be able to afford shoes worthy of the considerable repair expense.
And even then it seems like the boots theory is dead for most stuff. Even when you buy the “premium” products they fall apart and are made of crap materials or are designed to be irreparable
For me it was more about how much longer they would last. The soles they gave me were better than the originals. The rest is just small stiches and patchwork I can do at home
deleted by creator
Sad, ain’t it? I repair all kinds of stuff. Have a 50" TV that only needs a new board when I can afford it. The 55" on my wall needed 2 new capacitors, $8 on eBay.
There’s a shoe repair shop in my town. People absolutely do get simple things repaired what you can’t get repaired are things like TVs anymore.
But things don’t break like they used to, it used to be that a component would fail and you could just replace that broken component but everything’s integrated these days so if one thing goes down the whole thing is dead.
Even when Tv repairmen were common, they never repaired broken screens. TV repairmen used to swap out components but not the screen.
Not least because CRT screens were nigh on bulletproof (and heavy as fuck, containing vacuum reliably needs mass).
OMFG they were so insanely heavy!
In college (early 2000s), we had a 50-something inch CRT. I think that thing weighed upwards of 500 lbs, was positively massive (maybe 3 feet deep?) and it took 4-6 people to move it in and out of our on-campus apartments every year.
It was fucking baller for the time, though
HEHE I am sure it weighed more than 500 pounds! I had a 24 inch or so TV around that time and holy hell it was nuts how heavy that thing was.
CRT “screens” are non-repairable for different reasons, but yeah
there are impossible to repair and extremely strong. they have to be, they have vacuum inside, if it cracks it can implode.
I had a CRT monitor back in the day that tipped off the edge of the desk while I was hooking it up.
CLUNK! - hiss
Welp.
I learned a valuable lesson about leverage that day.
happy it didn’t implode. they could have been a bomb…
acktually… I now have to double check if they implode at all…
Though not the most academic resource, the YouTubers How Ridiculous recently popped a CRT screen. Because of their video format, I’m having a bit of time identifying which one it was, but it might have been this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6neW9S4XM
It is kind of hard to see what is going on, but found this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9_Pez2btt0&list=PLkpFupEMkI3uOPaU9NQ45paO7286JVYUH
It does not implode as I thought, I was wrong. Also that was the chilliest dude to ever smash a tv with a fire extinguisher,
Just bring it to carglass, they inject their special resin, and Bob’s your uncle! Good as new!
You may not own a tv but do you own a computer monitor? No one fixes those either and a tv is essentially a monitor with an extra control board. The screen is the device.
If the glass of the screen is broken the TV is gone. You cannot fix that. If there are other things it could be. Mine had the back lights out and for like 20$ I bought them online and changed them myself.
Really the most you can hope for these days is to encounter two broken TVs of the same model, with different faults.
Luck holding, this lets you wind up with a single working unit.
Sadly even if the model number is exactly identical that doesn’t guarantee they have the same internals. Ask me how I know :/
Yeah, most of the cost of the TV is the panel. If you’re buying a replacement panel the part would cost basically the same as a new TV (or maybe even more).
By contrast, my parents had a TV that started boot looping the morning after a thunderstorm and they’d had at least one lightning strike very close by. They got a local TV repairman out and he was able to get a replacement mainboard and the TV worked perfectly after that. I think the board was $100 or $150 and his time and labor was $100, coming to their house to do the work. If I remember correctly we could see scorch marks on the bad board near the Ethernet port.
Getting the new board was a bit of a hassle; that manufacturer didn’t sell parts directly and I think it took him 3 tries to get the right board. It seems like they have the same board in a lot of models but they flash them for different screens, so even though they were labeled as being for my parents’ TV it took a few tries to get the right one in. I feel like that’s a problem that would’ve been easier if the manufacturer supported repairs better.
Replacing the LED panel of a common 65in flat-screen TV costs almost the same amount as a brand new TV and months of time, and money to ship between the repair center and your home due to the weight; lol of course they looked at you like that, you sounded silly, innocently ignorant and ridiculous.
That’s true for pretty much any panel size. Especially in 2002, when the TV had barely a processor inside.