Throwaway society speeds decline of electronics repairmen

[CN-Twat]

You should hope you got a good warranty with that new VCR-stereo-TV-DVD player you received for Christmas. If not, when the sucker breaks, you can pretty much forget about getting it fixed because it's cheaper to throw the things away, and electronics repairmen are harder to find these days than public beach access.

This also applys to the PS2 read the FULL STORY HERE

[necrolop]

yup, its been going this way ever since they started using transistors. The combination of them, circuit boards, and exploited 3rd world labour has made electronics prices drop to the point where repair costs more than the product, and ontop of it you have all these programmed chips that are too much work to even try to repair. Its a sad sad world at times.

[prisoner1138]

yea, this has been going on for a LOT longer than just the past decade. the biggest indicator of this(without needing any survey) would be to just try and think of how many tv repair shops are in your town.

as one guy said in the article, he only gets any reasl business from a contract he has for phones. the same goes for multi-thousand dollar tv's(mainly projection), receivers, appliances they repair for warranties.

[chikamir]

That's the reason why I started to do chipping.

Some big companies here have the cheek to pay electronics technicians £7 per hour before tax (just above toilet cleaning attendants & security guards).

If I do just 1 chipping job a day is enough to get me going.

[CygnusXI]

Yep.

My field. I used to do some consumer electronics, but no more.
I'm in industrial now. So far it's not disposable....yet.

[chikamir]

Yeah, audio video was just profitable hobby to me.

I worked in the industry until one day the corporation decided to regionalise and send stuff over from London to Barcelona & Amsterdam for repairs.

So I found another job before they got closed down.

If they have half a chance of reducing the costs they'll go for it.

You see it happening to the call centre jobs in the UK transferred to India.

[necrolop]

Same with our call jobs. They even teach the Indians how to speak American English so that we feel more comfortable talking to them. Its happened to all jobs. First Agricultural jobs either went to the 3rd world, or the 3rd world came to them. Then manufacturing jobs, and now all the technical jobs are falling away. Our societies will jsut become money managing societies, everyone here will be brokers or some bullshit like that,or heads of companies. But all the jobs for those companies will be done much cheaper over seas, all the mone going to the elite. Us industrialized countries are shooting ourselves right in our feet.

[MatthewDotTK]

I totally agree with Aerick (well, and all of you really). I'm not a tree-huger either, but I do care enough about the earth.

"Us industrialized countries are shooting ourselves right in our feet." Well said necrolop.

[messiahfan2003]

Yea it happens. All of this 3rd world labor. I wished SCEA made US ps2s in the US but then the ps2 would still $300. I support all of you. I have a tv that my mom got in college and it still runs with out any major problems. I wonder why almost every single electronic or any other thing is made in China. I cant understand it. Well thats my 2 cents.

[necrolop]

Well, the problem is free trade. Companies cant even build their products in the US or other industrialized countries because once one company does it, the others must follow or they cannot compete. If tarrifs are put on forign goods, and become abit more mercantalistic, we can save our jobs.

Very true, we waste alot, not just electronics either. Over packaging and non resusing things hurts both the enviroment and the economy. And with things like metal and wood and plastic , there is a very fianite amount of it on earth, and as we through it away that number gets closer to zero. As far as the earth, humans are only a temporary problem for it, soon enough we will be out of its way and its wounds will heal and things will be back to how theyve been for billions of years. Still doesnt mean we shouldnt look out for it, if even for only our own sake.

The problem with technology is over the past 200 years technology has BOOMED, and now with the electronic age, electronics are moving super fast, and the things are built to low quality and are designed so small to be only made by machines, that fixing is impossible, and upgrading aswell. So leaves no alternitive than to dump it into the garbage. Really I dont see much of a way too fix that, sadly, other than to save what you can?