The Dilemma of a Repairman
In the 1990s, I worked at a TV repair shop in Sydney, Australia, where the owner taught me to fix only what was asked, not to fix everything. The typical problem was loose connections. The fact is that it's easier to just solder everything than to look for specific problems. However, this was not rewarded. If I did everything at once, the TV would no longer break down and, accordingly, the income would decrease. In the same way, auto mechanics fix cars over and over again when they can change several parts in one service. In addition, the repair of everything at once takes a little more time and, accordingly, is more expensive but less cheap in the long run. The consumer does not want to fix what is not broken. It turns out that consumers do not want to spend less, and business are not motivated to be honest!
Consumers have optimised another cycle related to the quality of TV sets. People tend to buy cheaper TVs, which leads manufacturers to produce cheaper and lower quality products. While TVs used to come with a 5-year warranty, now they often fail after only a year. Manufacturers now do not support repair shops much and instead replace faulty sets with new ones under warranty.
Who wins the race?
Thus, consumer electronics break easily, while industrial and military electronics last half a century due to the lack of motivation for frequent upgrades. This unsustainable profit driven cycle leads to a weaker consumer society and a stronger military-industrial complex.
While people may not be getting better, TV technology is definitely evolving. With each new model, TVs became thinner and cheaper while screen resolution exceeded what the human eye can distinguish. This constant development of technology makes it difficult for consumers to keep up with the latest trends and has also created a situation where older TVs become obsolete quickly.
I realised that this constant cycle of innovation and obsolescence exacerbated the growing problem of e-waste as more and more electronics were thrown away as they became obsolete. It made me question the true value of our ever-evolving technology and whether it's worth the environmental impact.
Planned Obsolescence by Design
The problems I saw in Sydney repair shops are part of a much larger pattern. Planned obsolescence is the deliberate design of products with artificially limited lifespans to force repeat purchases. One of the earliest known cases was the Phoebus cartel of 1924, when major light bulb manufacturers agreed to limit bulb life to 1,000 hours, down from the 2,500 hours that existing technology already allowed.
Today the practice takes many forms in consumer electronics. Apple was sued in 2017 after iOS updates were found to throttle the performance of older iPhones. Apple said the slowdowns protected degraded batteries from unexpected shutdowns, but critics argued it pushed customers toward buying new models. Smartphones are now routinely designed with glued-in batteries, sealed backs and proprietary screws that make simple battery replacement risky or impossible. When the battery wears out the entire phone often follows it to the bin.
Printer manufacturers embed microchips in ink cartridges that refuse to print after a set page count, even when usable ink remains. HP settled a class-action lawsuit for five million dollars over cartridges with hidden expiration dates. Canon disabled the scanning function on its all-in-one printers whenever an ink cartridge ran dry, despite scanning using no ink at all.
When Saving Money Backfires
Here is another anecdotal case when the urge to save money costs more to people. A repair shop owner told me how he and his partner once placed broken TVs on curbs around the block before council cleaning, but some people picked them up and brought them back to his shop. The owner took a fee for saying that the TV could not be fixed :). It worked while there were no competitors in the area.
The Right to Repair
A global movement is now pushing back against planned obsolescence. Right to repair laws require manufacturers to provide spare parts, repair manuals and diagnostic tools to consumers and independent repair shops at fair prices.
In Australia, the Productivity Commission released a right-to-repair report in 2021 with recommendations for reform. In 2022, the Motor Vehicle Repair and Service Information Sharing Scheme became law, requiring car manufacturers to share repair information with independent mechanics. The scheme has since expanded to farm machinery, but consumer electronics are not yet covered.
Other countries have moved faster. France introduced fines of up to 300,000 euros and prison terms for manufacturers caught designing products to fail. The European Union adopted its Right to Repair Directive in 2024, requiring manufacturers to offer affordable repairs and supply spare parts for up to ten years. In the United States, Oregon became the first state to ban parts pairing in 2025, a practice where replacement components are rejected by software unless approved by the manufacturer.
For a small repair shop on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, these changes matter. When manufacturers withhold schematics, use proprietary fasteners and refuse to sell spare parts, independent technicians cannot offer affordable repairs. Stronger right-to-repair protections would help keep electronics out of landfill and give consumers a genuine choice between repair and replacement.
The second law of thermodynamics and consumer electronics
The behaviour of both customers and business owners is optimised by the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that all systems eventually tend towards a state of greater disorder or entropy. In the case of consumer electronics, they are designed to break down and become obsolete after a certain period, which creates a constant demand for new products. Consumer imagination, pride and the desire for innovation also contribute to the consumption of resources. On the other hand, businesses are interested in maximising profits by reducing costs and minimising the time and effort spent on repairs. Hence business optimised to consume cheaper resources, such as fossil fuels. Hence biggest CO2 emitters are rich countries.
Although the economic and social system based on profit is obviously unsustainable, I felt that there was little I could do to change it. My attempts to fix the system by becoming more honest and efficient have failed, and I have often seen honest people suffer as a result. As a result, I decided to keep my sanity by limiting my duties and preferring a little more honesty to profits. While this may have been a small step, it gave me a sense of personal fulfilment and made me feel like I was contributing to positive change.
