Hopefully I’ve worded the question right.
I was once told (I could never verify if it was true) that a crocs company once almost went bankrupt after they made their crocs practically indestructible. Whilst the story was most likely bullshit, it makes me wonder: if a company can make a product that is practically indestructible, is it ethical for them not to make them indestructible, so people will buy more from them?
The way I look at it is, on one hand, I feel like they should make products to the highest quality if they can so that the consumer has to spend less money and that less is wasted, but at the same time if it leads to the company going bankrupt, what of the workers and their families? So I can’t decide, what do you think?
The highest price points for many items are luxury brands that sell for hundreds to thousands of times the actual cost of manufacture.
And yet everybody (or close enough) in the world today has a smartphone that generally will last at least a year or two. (Set aside countries that are screwed up because of their govt, that’s another issue entirely). There are lots of things that could be supplied to every person on earth if capitalism wasn’t fucked.
Smartphones last way longer than that if you’re not using them to break rocks or losing them.
Not the point I was trying to make, I was just being conservative with an average lifetime.
Cell phones should last a decade, and could.
Agreed. Mine generally last at least 5 years, usually more.