Friday Repair Chat: this season’s least (and most) repairable gifts?
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With the Thanksgiving holiday behind us here in the U.S. the Christmas shopping season has officially begun with Black Friday. Historically: this was the day after Thanksgiving when a surge of shopping for holiday gifts finally pushed retailers into “the black” - or profitable territory, while occasionally provoking civil unrest. These days there’s also “Cyber Monday” at the other end of the post-Thanksgiving weekend. Historically, Cyber Monday is …well… a day on which people buy lots of s**t online.
These two shopping extravaganzas have taken on a mythical - even religious quality in the U.S. Hot gifts quickly become media obsessions and the raw quantity of stuff that folks purchase often is used - in the media - as a rough measure of the health of the economy, consumer sentiment, the viability of the current Administration, our value as a people and a nation…you name it.
Less talked about is the _cost_ of all that stuff - to families and, of course, our planet. That’s especially true as the stuff we buy - even durable items - trends towards the disposable: with service and repair manuals, schematic diagrams and replacement parts often unobtainable. You won’t notice that when the new thing - a sports watch, dishwasher or tablet computer - is sitting under the tree. But it will hit you right in the face a year or two hence, when that thing stops working and you realize that the manufacturer provides no options for its repair or even -depending on your warranty status - replacement.
And repairability doesn’t seem to be a top consideration, judging by lists of the top products for sale this season. For example, wireless earbuds are among the most popular gifts - they’re around 10% of ZD NET’s list of the top 98 Cyber Monday deals (fun fact: masses of data show that readers find un-rounded numbers of items like “98” more “clickable” than -say - 100). But wireless earbuds are -for the most part - disposable tech and all but unrepairable.
With that in mind - and with the annual electronics orgy known as CES just around the corner - we’re looking for Fight to Repair readers nominations for the least and most repairable products on sale this holiday season. Have you seen something on sale that just screams “disposable tech”? Let us know. And - on the brighter side- if you know of repairable, reusable and renewable products out there, we want to hear about them so we can point other Fight to Repair readers in the right direction!
Friday Repair Chat: this season’s least (and most) repairable gifts?
Friday Repair Chat: this season’s least (and most) repairable gifts?
Friday Repair Chat: this season’s least (and most) repairable gifts?
With the Thanksgiving holiday behind us here in the U.S. the Christmas shopping season has officially begun with Black Friday. Historically: this was the day after Thanksgiving when a surge of shopping for holiday gifts finally pushed retailers into “the black” - or profitable territory, while occasionally provoking civil unrest. These days there’s also “Cyber Monday” at the other end of the post-Thanksgiving weekend. Historically, Cyber Monday is …well… a day on which people buy lots of s**t online.
These two shopping extravaganzas have taken on a mythical - even religious quality in the U.S. Hot gifts quickly become media obsessions and the raw quantity of stuff that folks purchase often is used - in the media - as a rough measure of the health of the economy, consumer sentiment, the viability of the current Administration, our value as a people and a nation…you name it.
Less talked about is the _cost_ of all that stuff - to families and, of course, our planet. That’s especially true as the stuff we buy - even durable items - trends towards the disposable: with service and repair manuals, schematic diagrams and replacement parts often unobtainable. You won’t notice that when the new thing - a sports watch, dishwasher or tablet computer - is sitting under the tree. But it will hit you right in the face a year or two hence, when that thing stops working and you realize that the manufacturer provides no options for its repair or even -depending on your warranty status - replacement.
And repairability doesn’t seem to be a top consideration, judging by lists of the top products for sale this season. For example, wireless earbuds are among the most popular gifts - they’re around 10% of ZD NET’s list of the top 98 Cyber Monday deals (fun fact: masses of data show that readers find un-rounded numbers of items like “98” more “clickable” than -say - 100). But wireless earbuds are -for the most part - disposable tech and all but unrepairable.
With that in mind - and with the annual electronics orgy known as CES just around the corner - we’re looking for Fight to Repair readers nominations for the least and most repairable products on sale this holiday season. Have you seen something on sale that just screams “disposable tech”? Let us know. And - on the brighter side- if you know of repairable, reusable and renewable products out there, we want to hear about them so we can point other Fight to Repair readers in the right direction!