Electronics Repair shops closing - Another Walmartization casualty...

[cascadiance]

Walmart and those retailers champion that they are offering cheaper merchandise as a rationalization for off-shoring jobs and lowering benefits.

One other cost though which is an "externalized cost" is that this is contributing to the "throwaway society" that we live in.

I had a DVD player (only about 6 months to a year old) that stopped reading DVDs, and then recently a TV/VCR combo unit that suddenly went into a loop of trying to eject a video tape, basically preventing the TV from being used as a regular TV, and also not allowing it to be powered down without pulling the plug.

I tried to go to my repair shop that I'd gone to before to repair an older laserdisc player, etc. It had a note that it was closed today and to come back tomorrow. Went there a few times since then, and the same note was hanging there.

I tried another place yesterday, which was closed at the time. I called yet another place this morning that said the original place I tried to go to was closing down. When I mentioned both of the problems I had, he said that the first item was definitely a throwaway, and the second one was also likely a throwaway too, since I could probably get a replacement for $99 at Costco that did about the same thing.

He was noting that a lot of repair shops are shutting down, as increasingly there are few problems any more that can be fixed easily, no matter how trivial they might sound, since machines aren't being built that can be fixed at all any more. These folks that are in repair shops are in effect being "outsourced" as well, since their business is going away.

I'd rather have the middle class and the rest of us to have our wages go up so that we can afford to pay for higher priced items and in the course of doing so, provide a space for repair shops to be viable and also prevent us from throwing more stuff on the trash heap and stemming the coming environmental disaster of having too much trash there, which is also going to be growing in places like China too as they get more materialistic too.

I like cheap stuff, but I feel guilty when I look at all of the stuff that fails more quickly and we have to throw away (and therefore we really don't save much over time when we have to replace stuff more often too). There's got to be a way to help Walmart shoppers, etc. to see the big equation here that has much more costs than is obvious, that they themselves will likely take the brunt of paying for, either with lost jobs, or having to buy more to replace stuff over time.

[Deja Q]

1. No. It's a continuation of a disposable society.

It's cheaper to make a new product and chuck the old one into the bin and pretend the landfill is bottomless and harmless.

It's also pushed that way because it keeps profits going.

One day people will realize the downsides to our cozy little way of life.

Until then, the pricey leather coat they bought one year ago that's barely been worn yet shows signs of considerable wear compared to their 13 year old leather coat that had often been worn yet still looks like new even though it's not in style so they have to buy another one will continue.

It's your world.

[liberal N proud]

2. It is not Wal-Mart in this situation as much as we have become

a disposable society.
Many electronic devices have been built with the intent that when they break, you dispose of the complete unit.
Shops can't fix most of the stuff produced today.

[wtmusic]

6. But the reason it's a disposable society is that things are cheap

If a DVD player cost $500 it would get fixed.

As a long term trend, this is nothing new. It wasn't that long ago that when your shoe sole wore out. you went to a cobbler and he sewed a new one on for you.

About the best we can do is try to recycle whatever we can, and encourage awareness of the environmental impact of waste.

[cascadiance]

7. I was using Wal-Mart that is the focal point of us buying this stuff...

They have been the champion for "the disposable society" by emphasizing their belief that cheap prices of goods are more important than anything else, and the RWers keep using this rationalization for supporting their business model, which is what gets manufacturers to make such goods. If there were less Wal-Marts out there, and more like Costco or others that emphasized paying people more fairly to produce such items, and selling stuff that's been made here, then we might get less shoddy crap made just for price that are what are filling our shelves now. Companies might be more encouraged to build quality goods that will last a little longer (even if they are a bit more expensive). If consumers have more power to buy more expensive goods, arguably the dropoff on demand won't be as much. But the way things are going now, we're being deluded into thinking we are "better off" with more short-lived throwaway crap, which might seem at the time like we "have a lot more valuable stuff" than others in past generation did. And the wealthy get wealthier and ignore this cheaper stuff and buy more expensive stuff anyway, because they are the ones that can afford this stuff, or they don't care if they just buy a new DVD player each week when the old one goes out.

The less electronics repair people we have, the less jobs we have for people that are trained in such areas too, as most of the jobs building of this stuff (which would be the other place which would give on the job training of these sorts of technology) are being shipped overseas. It's just a matter of time where we have no expertise here on understanding the guts of these devices and that expertise will all live overseas. It won't be easy to get back either, without a new generation being trained to do so.

[Skidmore]

10. Some enterprising educator should start a system of shops

for training electronics workers and use repair services in the community as the way to do that. Good community college program.

[DBoon]

3. and instead of being repaired here...

the junk will be shipped to China, where it will be "mined" for its metal content under miserable unsafe conditions.

[jayfish]

22. Come On!

Their working over there so we don't have to work over here. We need more news about the good things that are happening with the economy /sarcasm

Jay

[rinsd]

4. The flip side of course....

...is that the cheaper cost makes these items affordable to a lrger segment of the populace.

Just 5 years ago I was one of the few people I knew who had a DVD player, now practically everyone I know has one.

The problem with a repair shop is how do you pay a guy a decent wage to do repairs while he has to spend time on labor and parts for something that costs only $100 retail or even $200.

[stopbush]

5. At the beginning of the CD era, I bought a CD player

from J&R in NYC, manufactured by a company based in Ohio. This was my second player after an early Technics. Well, it worked for about 4 months and then started skipping. I sent it off to the company in Ohio who took about 6 weeks to "fix" it. It came back unfixed. I wondered if they even bothered opening it. I sent it to them again. Same story, only it took 8 weeks to fix...only it still wasn't fixed. So, I called them...they told me they were getting out of the CD player business...and besides, the player was actually made by Yamaha under license. But as it wasn't a Yamaha branded player, Yamaha couldn't fix it under warranty. What BS.

I chucked the player (which had cost around $250) and switched to an Onkyo...that worked for about a year until it started skipping. I then purchased one of the first Denon players that had a 5-disc carousel...and it has worked flawlessly since 1993!

As far as I'm concerned, I now purchase almost all of my electronics with the idea that they're disposable. I've had quite enough of repair shops, thank you. Why spend $ on something they can't fix? At the end of the day, it's cheaper to just buy something new.

[cascadiance]

8. I still have laserdiscs that I want to play...

... that because of contractual issues can't be produced on DVD in the same fashion (Criterion special edition of Blade Runner anyone?) And I dread the day that I can't buy a new player any more, and also can't find anyplace to fix the player I already own.

[stopbush]

11. My Denon LD player still works, though I have to coax the drawer

to open.

I almost never watch laser discs anymore...mostly music events that aren't on DVD.

[Occulus]

24. Do this with them:

Connect the video out cable of the player you are using now to the TV-in port of a PC equipped with a video card that has this capability (ask your local tech guru or computer nut; they'll certainly be able to help you do all this).

Rip the laserdisc onto a hard drive and then reburn it onto a blank DVD. I *strongly* doubt you'll have any copy-protection issues; that just wasn't done back then.

[cascadiance]

25. For basic Laserdiscs this isn't a problem...

For those with the extra materials (like many Criterion discs have) where it allows you to step frame through the whole film script or something like that, there really isn't a good convenient way to move that over to DVD. If I can find a way to easily way to move those sorts of content to DVD, then I might do as you suggest.

I still like laserdiscs means of slow motion and fast motion where they aren't "stepping" through like current DVD players do when trying to decompress compressed streams on the fly and look a lot more choppy by comparison. Hopefully one of these days DVD players will also take care of that problem too, but some of it is just that we have lossy compressed content on the discs themselves, not just the ways things are decompressed.

But you are right though. I'm increasingly not using the laserdisc player much any more. But as long as I have a few prized discs that I can't easily move off of that player, I'll want to keep my player.

[Skidmore]

9. Too bad you don't live in this area. My husband repairs

all kinds of things like that. It's more of a hobby with him. He usually just charges for parts (if needed) an $25. Most times he rehabs units people have thrown away and donates them to Goodwill or the SA or any other charity outlet. Gets them out of the landfills and gives them a second life.

[B3Nut]

13. I thrift-dive and go garage sale-ing for 70's hi-fi gear

and tinker with it in the basement. A lot of classic gear was made then, and an awful lot of the older amps and receivers, after a good service, completely mop the floor with the plastic-fantastic Best Buy crap. No modern conveniences like remotes or surround (which is IMHO a rehash of quad in the digital age), but the stuff just looks and sounds better. Lot of folks collect and enjoy 70's solid state as well as 50's and 60's tube gear...that was the golden age. I've rescued speakers, a receiver, even a 1967 Hammond M-100 organ from the curb. Amazing what people toss out...someone on Audiokarma nabbed a classic Marantz receiver from the curb!

Todd in Beerbratistan

[Skidmore]

20. He does stuff like that too.

Never met a piece of electronic equipment that he didn't think was "nice." As a result, I don't go to the basement any longer. We have a complete video and audio setup in every room of the house, except for the formal "parlor" and the dining room. There is only one teevee in the house we purchased new. Changes continually. Can't complain though. Could have worse obsessions.

[cascadiance]

28. Well, repair shop guy just said it would cost $75 to fix...

and I could buy a new TV with a DVD player instead of a VCR in it for $149 at Costco, so I ditched it and the DVD player at the repair place. Hopefully he can harvest some parts out of it, and I don't have to take it to the dump.

[MadHound]

12. This is nothing new, just a chapter in our disposable society

I have noticed that products, even in my lifetime, have gotten less reliable, and are much more shoddy products. And this is everything from electronics to cars to houses. The newer something is, the less life you can expect out of it. Built in obselecence.

For instance I have a tiller, a 1977 Troybilt. Sucker is cast iron, with a seven hp Kohler engine. It starts first pull every time. I've had very few problems with it, in fact the biggest problem with it is that it blew a couple of oil seals a couple of years ago.

My neighbor went out a couple of years ago and got a comparable new Troybilt tiller(after they were folded into MGP). He has had nothing but problems with it, and I can see why. Cheaply made, poorly built, it is built to fail.

The same sort of problem we see with cars. Used to be, even up until fifteen years ago, one could at least do the basic maintenence on your car, change the oil, filters, plugs etc. And fifteen years before that, if you had just a modicum of knowledge you could do the major repairs on your car, no problem. But now cars are designed such that one cannot even do the basics without having a car lift. And car systems have gotten so completely complicated that you have to almost have an degree in order to repair a car. And quite frankly, unlike older cars, new ones are designed to fail relatively quickly. Most cars you're lucky if you get to a hundred thousand miles, and two hundred is really pushing it. Generally by the time you hit 120,000-150,000 miles you are putting so much money into repairing the thing that from an economic POV it is better to toss the car and get a new one.

And my god, houses are being designed to fall apart within twenty to thirty years! I watch these developers slap together these tract houses, and they're not using nail one. No real wood excepting the two by fours, the rest is chipboard. Cheap and shoddy, they are thrown up seemingly overnight. I even watched one developer drain a lake, and a week afterwards he was pouring the slabs for foundations, not even giving the ground a real chance to dry out. My guess is that all of those slab foundations are thoroughly cracked through and through by now.

I generally tend to stay away from the cheap stuff if at all possible. I find that in the long run it is cheaper to buy something for an initially higher price, and have it last than to keep buying and buying and buying more and more of the same cheap crap. But sadly, that is getting ever harder to do, especially in electronics. It seems like it has almost gotten to the point where all they make is cheap crap across the board.

[Karenina]

15. People are dying all over the world

so that corporations can seize their resources to produce CRAP that gets tossed into the landfill. Paying more is no guarantee of a quality product. Oh dear, I feel a storm surge rant coming on... Let me just sign off now.

[MadHound]

16. No, you are correct friend,

Paying more is no guarantee of a quality product. However in more cases than not I have found that if you do want a quality product, you generally do have to pay more.

No, the only way to guarantee that you get a quality product is to do your research. For instance the little scooter I just bought. It is from Bajaj, an Indian company that is breaking into the US market. And it makes a great quality product. But it costs $1000 less than the comparable Kymco scooter. Yet it will probably last many years longer.

But then again, when it comes to cars, I would rather pay the extra money for a Toyota over a comparable Ford. American cars for the most part sucked for years and decades now.

It is though a general truism that one does pay more money for quality. But exceptions abound.

[cascadiance]

18. Yup there are "two buck chucks" around...

But it's harder to get useful information to do decent buying decisions without spending a lot of one's own time. When products change more quickly, etc. it's harder for publications like Consumer Reports to give adequate coverage to all of them for everyones' needs, and therefore if one wants to "get a deal", often times they have to spend quite a bit more time than they can justify (with their valuable time) to do the appropriate research.

[Karenina]

26. Canned peas (yuk)

One labeled "premium" 30 cents more. Same product, different label. It's just a scam.

[cascadiance]

27. My old bartending instructor used to say buy Popov instead of Smirnoff

when getting Vodka, claiming that even the same company was making them both, but that one was just marketed as the better Vodka than the other, and that you get more bang for your buck with Popov even if it isn't the choice of the "elite drinking" snobs.

Of course that was almost 30 years ago, so a lot might have changed. Perhaps brands like Absolut are better, though most note that the way Vodka's made, there's usually not as much that can be that much different in terms of ingredients (most of it being alcohol and water) than there might be with other hard liquors that might be more distinct with their ingredients.

[bobbieinok]

14. my eyeopener: my dad, a depression-era man, told me to buy a new watch

fixing the old one would cost more than buying a new one

this happened ca 20 years ago.....when I tried to get it fixed anyway, no one would do it.....either they couldn't or they said it wasn't worth it

my father-in-law, also a depression-era man and one who grew up on a farm in NE where they learned to fix everything they used, made a bit of money and provided a service by fixing appliances that people were told they should throw away

both men were born in 1908, one in NE and one in OK, and both are now dead....father-in-law died in 93 and father in 95

[cascadiance]

17. This also conditions us more to impulse buy goods *and* concepts...

I think one other sad side effect of this "disposable society", is that it trains us more to impulse buy stuff, as there is less cost to do so now then when things cost more to get a quality product. We buy more on marketing spin and something we want that's stylish at the moment. Or we let fear make us react more quickly and act impulsively too, when we do thing such as... Voting!... The younger generation of today I think sadly thinks less of the consequences of their actions now, as more things are short term in our society and therefore they presume everything is short term and can be "replaced" or "undone" later by just throwing your current thing that's failing away and starting again with something new. That's what gets us into wars, etc. when our society isn't looking at all of the consequences of how they tell our leaders to act (through voting and other means) and instead on what they are sold on as the reasons to do things for the moment.

Perhaps getting more quality goods that we work harder and longer to save up for, that have more thought put in building them for quality, usability and long term feature set would help us in more ways than just getting rid of the environmental waste and returning our jobs. Would like to think it would help us build a healthier mind set to every day living.

[sweetheart]

19. Its a knock on effect of electronic miniaturization

I used to work 20 years ago fixing electronics, and even then, the
shift towards highly integrated packages was changing what we did.
In "old" times, repairing electronics was a challenge. An oscilloscope
and a logic analyzer would allow you to "see" the electronic pulses on
a circuit board that you could isolate and replace 1 IC. But now what
used to look like 50 black bugs on a circuit board with 50 blue
decoupling flat caps, now is 1 tiny IC the size of a dime. So then the
electronics is all in 1 chip, and the only option is to replace the
brain. And since that PC board is inevitably the entire system as well,
then all "repair" involves tossing the entire unit, even IF labour is
involved fixing it.

I really don't think the public gets how awesome semiconductor miniaturization is, perhaps they've never seen it. After a year of
prototyping in old electronics engineering, a massive cage filled with
circuit boards covered with IC's and thousands of wire-wrap wires...
something the size of a microwave oven would then be sent off and
etched in to 1 single chip.

But i don't miss the work. It was tedious. The supervisors were anal,
and the work was not creative. Sure there was the thrill of fixing
broken electronics... but this is not designing them, and for the
smell of flux in your face, i'm much happier tossing out a DVD player
and buying a new one. The corresponding price cheapness of these
new 50 dollar DVD players has made them ubiquitous... a better thing
net net methinks.

[SoCalDem]

21. This is one thing that Walmart did NOT do..

When I was a kid, everything got fixed...

irons, toasters, cameras, radios, tvs..EVERYTHING.. People darned their socks half-soled & re-heeled their shoes.. The "grownups" of that era came of age during a war & rationing.. people did not throw things out.. they fixed what they had..

Things just got too cheap to fix.. Think about the poor repair people too They did not charge all that much, but the repair price was always way cheaper than buying a new whatever..that all changed with miniturization and "chips"...

Mechanical stuff and things with circuits & tubes could be fixed resaonably, but once they got complicated, the people who were already in the repair business, didn;t know how to fix them and a new "whatever" cost just a little more than the cost to repair the old one..

Planned obsolescence is ingrained in our economy.. Look at the landfills and thrift shops..

Long before walmart, things changed..We changed.. The war era people became more prosperous, and wanted their kids to have "new" stuff..

[cascadiance]

23. No, Wal-Mart didn't create this, but they thrive on it...

The problem is that the way our corporate economy is built, and laws exist, it allows companies and consumers to "externalize" much of the costs involved with producing these sorts of goods, to the point, where we increase the burden on the environment, but noone but our ancestors have to worry about the costs that we are "building" up for that generation to have to endure.

We should be updating the rules, as those who made the DVD "The Corporation" have suggested, such that Corporations have to take into account some of these costs as a part of doing business so that they can't just conveniently "externalize" them for someone else to deal with. So part of producing and buying a product is to think just as much of how to constructively dispose and recycle it as one does about how to build and use it.

I agree that with miniaturization, in some cases it doesn't pay to try and "fix things" that are likely not to break in the same fashion as they used to. And as some have said, within many contexts, that is probably a "good thing". But part of that miniaturization should recognize that with the increased amounts of "total failures" that will happen, how we can make an economical and cost-effective way fo recycling that product and materials so that we can have a sustainable business cycle, not an "exploitive" business cycle. If this isn't considered, and there are huge costs involved with cleaning up from old crap going bad, then this newer trend in manufacturing is a "bad thing".

Keep in mind that our economy is becoming more of a service economy than a manufacturing economy too, so that the more you move the costs and resources of buildilng to "cheap manufacturing" overseas, you also reduce the number of service jobs here, which limits the number of people in our economy too moreso.