Recently when I visited a relative’s home, I noticed that I couldnt see the clear picture when sitting in an angle from the TV. It was a Sony LCD TV which he had bought 2 years ago for Rs. 36000. It seems the film of the screen had been damaged and the service agent guessed that it might have because someone rubbed the screen with wet cloth. He was told that it will cost Rs. 8000 to repair the screen and for some reason the warranty didnt cover it. My relative told me that he decided that instead of paying 8k, he would rather buy a new one after some time. He said, anyways we dont watch much TV nowadays so its ok.
This is a general phenomenon which I have lately noticed in many of the electronic items. None of them are durable and they hardly survive 2-3 years. My mom had brought a grinder which lasted just one year where as the old one she had bought around 18 years ago is still in use after minor repairs.
Remember the days when your dad used to spend the sunday trying to fix the Fan or Fridge? There used to be electricians who could fix these items. Current electronic items are irreparable.
However what is clear that the companies dont like when their products work fine for years as this upsets their market. If each family buys a TV just once in 10 or 15 years, then most of the electronics company would go into loss. Hence there seems to be a hidden mutual understanding between all the companies that the focus the products shouldnt be in durable. This is their market compulsion.
But overall this is a complete loss situation for the consumers. The market is supposed to be competitive in the sense to ensure that the quality of goods keeps increasing but clearly in case of durability factor it seems that market forces are working in opposite direction.
Use and Throw, Spend and Consume More is the mantra of the market.
One argument for such a market is that since the electronics market has been evolving so quickly, nobody wants to use a 3 year old electronic item. Even I changed my phone once in 2 years or less. However, it should be a choice of the consumer to decide if he/she wants to buy a new one instead of such kind of forceful methods.
So how can we disrupt it? How can you ensure that the consumers dont end up being the looser.
I think any company which can enter into the market with a brand or tag that its products are durable can disrupt this current loot. One important feature of making the products durable is to ensure that their designs are very modular and the parts can easily be replaced. Electronic items come in a form factor where opening it up by a normal layman and understanding the functioning is simply not possible. This is part of the slimmer the better philosophy. Some of the current smartphones have gone to an extent where even batteries or memory of the phone are in built forcing the user to change the phone if the memory slot or battery is spoilt.
Nokia is a good example where its product was known for its durability and hence they had gained large chunks of the market share. Ofcourse it is unfortunate that they were not able to retain it when the smartphone craze took over the mobile market.
Had Nokia opened up their BIOS also to allow user’s to play with different operating systems, I certainly think that the current smartphone market scenario would have been different. There was a half hearted approach with N900 where they opened the BIOS and user’s could install any operating system on the same. However it was discontinued too soon before the idea got any traction.
Google with its Nexus series has opened it BIOS but its other components are completely locked, they do not support external memory card slots, battery is in-built and also not the best.
