The IBM XT was released in 1983. What's changed since 1983? A lot, actually. If you look at home appliances, the savings in energy usage have been substantial[1]:
> For example, the average refrigerator manufactured in 1981 consumed 1,278 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per year and those manufactured [in 2013] consumed only 454 kWh of energy per year – a decrease of 64.5%! Similarly, the average energy consumption for clothes washers has declined by 73% since 1981, for dishwashers by 54.7%, for freezers by 49.4%, and for room air conditioners by 45.7%.
Adjusting for inflation, a 24-inch dish washing machine that cost $359.88 would cost $1,057.09 now. Instead, a low-end dish washer can be had for roughly the same cost. It will use less water, less energy, it will run quieter, and it will get the dishes cleaner with less pre-rinsing on the part of the user.
And what about cars? In 1980, the average fuel efficiency of a new passenger car was 24.3 miles per gallon, compared to 37.7 miles per gallon for a new passenger car in 2016.[2] They also emit less pollutants. And most people, if you let them test-drive the most well-maintained 1980s Toyota Camry and a 2019 Toyota Camry, would absolutely chose to drive the latter.
TVs have vastly more pixels, come in bigger sizes, are lighter and take up less space, can get more channels, broadcast TV takes up less of the available spectrum.
The Motorola DynaTAC cell phone came out in 1984. It cost, in 2019 dollars, over $10,000. Modern cell phones are smaller, modern cell phone networks are better, the phones are cheaper, and they also have more computing power in them than a whole shipping pallete of IBM XTs.
All of those advancements are as a result of complexity. All of that complexity makes these goods harder to repair without specialized tools and training. We didn't get duped into buying things that are harder to repair. We did it because the newer things tend to be _better_ in a lot of ways.
> We did it because the newer things tend to be _better_ in a lot of ways.
We shouldn't be locked out of repairing our equipment just because the technology better nowadays. As I've said elsewhere within these posts, the reasons we've been locked out are more complex than that and it's ultimately to end-users' disadvantage (and to manufacturers' advantage).
> For example, the average refrigerator manufactured in 1981 consumed 1,278 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per year and those manufactured [in 2013] consumed only 454 kWh of energy per year – a decrease of 64.5%! Similarly, the average energy consumption for clothes washers has declined by 73% since 1981, for dishwashers by 54.7%, for freezers by 49.4%, and for room air conditioners by 45.7%.
Adjusting for inflation, a 24-inch dish washing machine that cost $359.88 would cost $1,057.09 now. Instead, a low-end dish washer can be had for roughly the same cost. It will use less water, less energy, it will run quieter, and it will get the dishes cleaner with less pre-rinsing on the part of the user.
And what about cars? In 1980, the average fuel efficiency of a new passenger car was 24.3 miles per gallon, compared to 37.7 miles per gallon for a new passenger car in 2016.[2] They also emit less pollutants. And most people, if you let them test-drive the most well-maintained 1980s Toyota Camry and a 2019 Toyota Camry, would absolutely chose to drive the latter.
TVs have vastly more pixels, come in bigger sizes, are lighter and take up less space, can get more channels, broadcast TV takes up less of the available spectrum.
The Motorola DynaTAC cell phone came out in 1984. It cost, in 2019 dollars, over $10,000. Modern cell phones are smaller, modern cell phone networks are better, the phones are cheaper, and they also have more computing power in them than a whole shipping pallete of IBM XTs.
All of those advancements are as a result of complexity. All of that complexity makes these goods harder to repair without specialized tools and training. We didn't get duped into buying things that are harder to repair. We did it because the newer things tend to be _better_ in a lot of ways.
1) http://www.aei.org/publication/when-it-comes-to-home-applian... 2) https://www.bts.gov/content/average-fuel-efficiency-us-light...