Earth Day: What's missing from CE devices today

In honor of Earth Day, let's look at a once-commonplace feature that has almost entirely disappeared from today's consumer electronics. To illustrate my point, here's a picture from my gadget archive, a perfectly ordinary Sony radio Walkman of mid-90's vintage:

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

Now let's look at the back:

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

Notice anything? No? Let's look closer:

(Credit: Adam Richardson)

What's that...a screw? Remember those? Yes, indeed, thanks to the constant drive for sleekness and cost-cutting you never see screws on CE devices any more, especially portable ones.

What does this have to do with Earth Day? A couple of things:

1. Screws facilitate repairability

Screws allow easy disassembly without potential for breaking housing parts. Without disassembly, easy repair or replacement of internal parts is more difficult, and pretty much impossible for the everyday user. What do you think that does to the likelihood the product will get repaired, or parts of it re-used for another product?

(Nerd note: Most CE devices today are either snapped together (and snaps are purposefully hard to take apart without breaking), or are fastened with a process known as ultrasonic welding. Essentially the plastic parts are vibrated together at very high speed causing the plastic at the edges to melt and fuse together, making a very strong bond. This also makes them impossible to get into, kind of like that clear plastic "blister" packaging that a lot of small products come in where you have to take a chainsaw to get it open and you destroy it in the process.)

2. Shift from "fix it" to "junk it"

Looking beyond individual products, screws are symptomatic of a gradual but persistent shift away from the mentality of repairing products, both for manufacturers and consumers. Products just get thrown "away", but of course there really is no "away", it's just out of sight and out of mind.

On the Walkman shown here the screws are clearly illustrated with arrows that almost encourage one to get into the guts. Today the equivalent product -- the iPod -- is hermetically sealed and we are explicitly kept out of understanding how it works or from thinking that it can be repaired.

Companies only profit when we buy new things, not when we get them repaired. And the costs of repairing or servicing old CE devices have approached so close to the ever-reducing cost of new ones, thanks to Moore's Law, global supply chains, and constant price pressure from mega retailers. Many people, for example, buy a new inkjet printer whenever they need to replace the ink, since the cost of the printers themselves (often sold at or below cost since profits are made on the cartridges) is barely above the new cartridges. Therefore most consumer electronics are designed be disposable, not repairable.

This is an unsustainable system. We have to break ourselves (as consumers) from the disposable thinking, and manufacturers also have to find ways to facilitate and profit from repairs, not just new product sales.

[awilensky]

Screws are the least of it. Chip on Board (IC's bonded directly to PCB's) and surface mount fabrication have obviated any hope towards local shop repair of consumer electronic items. This is to say nothing of what the test and measurement requirements would be to service today's gear, even if there was a rework strategy for parts removal and replacement/

[sassyaugal]

I've actually had a home appliance repairman tell me that appliances are meant to be disposable these days and companies encourage that attitude by making service call charges so ridiculous.

[mediocrates--2008]

It has nothing to do with screws and this is not a recent phenomenon. Had a repair ever been needed on your sony Walkman in the mid 90's, what are the chances that it could have been repaired for less than the cost of replacement? Virtually none.

This is due sophisticated industrial automation. The cost to manufacture consumer goods has plummeted over the last thirty years, while the cost to repair items has risen with inflation. It's a straightfoward matter of economics, not "disposable thinking."

Taking your example of the iPod - let's suppose your iPod was made to be easily disassembled. Now let's suppose it needed a repair. Someone (either you, or Steve Jobs, assuming a warranty) has to transport it to a repair technician (by mail, car, whatever), then pay the repairman for his time while he examines and diagnoses the problem, pay for any parts (and shipment thereof) required for the repairmen to spend more of his paid time executing the fix, then pay to have the unit transported back to the consumer. You're going to manage that for less than the cost of replacement? Nu-huh! As true today as it was in the screw-fastened '90's.

But let's not think clearly and logically about it, not when there's an opportunity to spin another touchy-feely Earth Day headline for the sandal-wearing, granola-munching crowd. Kumbaya!