Whoops said:
Yes, and a lot of those radios and amplifiers still work today.
But how many of the cheap electronic stuff we are using nowadays will be working in 15 years?
They will all be electronic waste in a landfill somewhere in a poor country.
I really wish that schematics will be mandatory to come with the user manual.
I guess that the big problem is the massive amount of corporate theft there is now, just look at Samsung and Apple, they are suing themselves everyday. Back in the golden days it was less likely that countries like China (or Japan back then) would take that schematic, make a cheap version and then sell it for 1/10 the cost of the original. In Audio, I guess that Behringer and similar companies are the ones to blame. Mackie sued Behringer countless times for shamelessly copying their products, however Mackie now has all of their schematics available at their webpage.
A professor of mine who used to work in advanced technology told me that companies such as Intel (IIRC), and similar, in many cases no longer patent their new products, because technology moves so fast that by the time the patent process is granted or whatever it becomes obsolete, unless it is something really important then of course it will be patented.
In the 90s and early 2000s it was customary to have access to the battery of equipment, because it was obvious that after some time, the battery charge capability will decrease and you would need to replace the battery, you could even buy several cell phone batteries and chargers and easily replace the drained battery with a fresh one, then it came the iPod, the first one, I remember buying one at BestBuy and they would offer you an extended 3 or 5 year warranty for battery replacement, because the iPod is one of the first devices I remember that didn't have access to the battery and I remember truly disliking that, I couldn't believe it to be honest.
Today that is extremely common, things are no longer meant to work more than 3 or 5 years or even less, that is why you cant even replace the battery in phones or stuff like that, if the battery dies, the equipment dies and you buy a new one. In fact, with my cell phone provider I have a contract that after a year or two you can get a new equipment for "free" (its not free because you already paid for it) but who would keep their old phone if you can get a new one in 1-2 years? Some printers (specially laser) today are so cheap that when they run out of ink sometimes it is cheaper to buy a new printer than a new cartridge!
I think lean manufacturing is great but this is one result of such ideology, also society has changed their perception of what they consider valuable, in my grandparent's days, sturdiness, construction and longevity was a sign of quality, TVs and radios were practically pieces of furniture not meant to be replaced in a few years time, a scene from Jurassic Park comes to mind, when they are in the van in the middle of the night next to the T-Rex cage, and one of the children finds some night vision goggles, then one of the adults asks "Are they heavy?" the child answers "yes" the adult replies something like "Then they are expensive, don't touch them", today its quite the opposite!
What people find valuable is what is new, there is a new phone which is 1.5mm thinner than the previous one? they want it, a phone with 3 camera lenses instead of one? they want it. So the policy now is not to overengineer things, design things with the latest features but with the minimum cost, and just make sure it works for a minimum life span of 2-3 years. TVs constantly stop working due to capacitor failure in the SMPS, even the big name companies like LG, Sony, Samsung use the cheapest capacitors that will last only for a few years. I've talked to TV repair technicians and a great majority of their work is just replacing electrolytic capacitors.
Also, there is no longer the culture of repairing stuff, my brother owns a factory, and he has several hi-end machines, he once called me because there was a problem with a power supply and they needed to do something urgent, I identified a high current diode as one of the sources of the problem, and the inhouse service engineer hired by my brother just replaced the entire power supply. I have seen this over and over and over, its like why bother going to college if all you are going to do is replace the entire board or the entire thing? My parents recently bought a very expensive flat screen TV, it started failing shortly after they bought it, they called tech support, the technician came in, opened the TV, replaced the entire motherboard and that was it, the whole process probably didn't take longer than 20 minutes.
Through the last semesters of my undergraduate education in college, I was offered a job at a repair center, the whole job was trying to salvage boards at the component level that were blindly replaced by field technicians, I don't know the end purpose of the repaired boards, I don't know if the purpose was to sell refurbished equipment, use them for repair jobs by field technicians or to re-use the boards in new equipment. The pay was low and I didn't have enough time so I declined.
And of course, there is the fact of planned obsolesence, apps no longer supporting old devices, software not supporting old OSs and such.
Clothing is very similar, the spanish fashion store Zara sells the newest trends of clothes at an affordable price, you can buy really nice clothes there, but its not meant to last more than say 5-10 machine washes, which sounds about right, I would say it is only meant to last for the season you are buying it, don't expect to use the same shirt you wore last spring this spring.
Audio is a tricky business, because its one of the few areas were "old" is considered "better" than new, so the rules are different, at least for the present time, I remember reading Mix Magazines from the 90s and many ads were like "replace your nasty analog console with this digital one", and so on, what I see with the newer generations, I mean 18 year olds and so, are not that interested in vintage equipment, they are all about ITB, so who knows what will happen in the future of audio. Also, the audio hi-fi community are mostly old farts, with some exceptions of course. The main audio market today is not about hi-fi, but portability and wireless, with a bit of fashion if I might add (beats by Dr. Dre is a good example), the vynil market is also rising, but I think its mostly a cult following and it will fade out at some point.
The only thing today that I believe somehow resembles the old concept of longevity and quality are matresses, you don't want to replace your bed every year, specially if you paid good money for the matress.
Everything else is disposable: cars, TVs, phones, computers, furniture, relationships, marriage hahaha
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