Comment by cataphract
11 hours ago
I don't think the objective is to make it a "superior product" in the somewhat circular way you're defining it (i.e., the market equilibrium that we settled on). It's one of several measures to try to have people keep their phones for longer and cut e-waste.
Also Products aren't being designed for individuals anymore. There being designed to maximize for ad revenue, we're the product.
If there is any incentive to make a product better is to make it more accessible to their first party customers.
Slow down innovation is certainly one way to have people keep their phones longer and cut e-waste. Imagine if they allowed air conditioners...
Do you think fuel efficiency or emission standards "slowed down innovation"? They brought a huge amount of innovation: lighter materials, better aerodynamics, higher compression ratios, direct injection, better mixture control, etc.
There will still be innovation; the solutions will just have satisfy the new parameters.
Yes, they definitely slowed down innovation and decreased consumer surplus compared to the counterfactual of just taxing the behaviour you don't like (like taxing fuel or emissions).
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And then when EVs become viable they went - naaaah look at those efficient diesels!!
To a degree.
You can’t have infinitely improving standards for an infinite time, otherwise you end up with bullshit like Dieselgate, and ecotechnocrats forcing everyone to drive around in mobile inextinguishable incendiary devices.
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...You think air conditioners are forbidden in Europe...?
Yes. Here in Hamburg you have to pay some useless consultant to come to your house and check that there's no other way to decrease the temperature before you are allowed to install one.
You are also not allowed to but your bicycle in the garage.
I think it’s far more likely to introduce additional dead batteries into existing waste. Probably drop in an ocean given how much batteries are already dumped.