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And I will sell it in a store called “in stock” because we have these things called “computers” that can reorder a product once one sells so the shelves aren’t empty. Because American companies have never heard of that concept.
The problem is that you think that would make the ‘just’ products cheaper. The reality is that the data and advertising subsidize the costs of the existing options and make them cheaper then what ‘just’ could sell for.
Case in point: Smeg already does this, and all their products are considered upmarket. They’re just really solid normal appliances.
Noone said it would be cheaper
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, how I just want a basic bitch electric car. No centre console, no futuristic screens, no sensors, no cameras. Give me a normal fucking car with dials, a speedo, some padles on the steering wheel to adjust power output to replace gears and no driver assist. Sell it to me for cheap and let me drive my car. That’s all I want.
I haven’t seen speedometer shortened to speedo before. I was wondering why you wanted to get a speedo (like swimwear) along with the rest of your normal car accessories.
Little from column A, little from column B
You can join me with outsized expectations for the Slate pickup that will inevitably be dashed.
some padles on the steering wheel to adjust power output to replace gears
What? The foot pedal adjusts power. You don’t need a replacement for gears.
The Sims did it first, except the brand was called “Justa”. Justa dishwasher. Justa fridge.
It would be more feasible to de-fang modern appliances.
That’s a legit great idea. Create a new firmware for smart TVs too.
People always call me crazy but I buy commercial displays. You can get them cheaper if you do it the right way. So speakers, no tuner, no smart functions, usually only 1 or 2 inputs, and basically no bells or whistles.
But that’s how I like it, so I don’t care if it makes me 🤣😧🤣😧
There might be some liability concerns if you run a open source firmware on your washing machine and it decides to never shut off the water inlet…
Yes, the new company would be providing a new warranty based on that. Same as usual.
He’ll be out of business in a years time!
Seriously a great idea though. I’d buy all their stuff.
If you want this today, SpeedQueen has decent models that last forever and are very simple.
He’d get unalivened within a month.
Murdered. Killed. Assassinated. Victim of criminal homicide. Flayed alive. Burned at the stake. Killed, raped, boiled alive, his house and family burned down in arson and pedophilic murder.
We do not need to use the word “unalived.”
But also, you can use it if you want.
Like No Name does for groceries.
Does ordinary skincare count too?
Deshittification
Id buy their stuff, some of it at least
I would buy just enough.
50/50 chance it sells at a premium compared to other models, making the entire idea useless
Source: Like every project that pretended to do this with their respective market
Why the hell is a light phone more expensive than a mid to high range model smartphone. I’d rather just buy that and swap the ROM if I want to remove google.
Economies of scale and not capturing data as part of your profit model
Yeah I know my sample size is pretty useless, but this was just a dumb excuse to complain about light phone because even SMB manufacturing cost wise, it should be almost comically cheap to produce.
There are lots of other hardware accessories in the same range that cost much less to buy as a consumer, that are produced by more expensive vendors.
Yeah but what is the volume they are selling and are they profiting from user data both of those things have a significant impact on price.
There’s a huge demand from consumers for that. Just not from investors.
There’s a huge one-time demand from consumers. But, if it’s an amazing device that never needs repairs (or that can easily be repaired by the consumer) and it has no bells and whistles, that’s a problem: there’s no repeat business.
Who cares?
The people running the business, presumably. Generally people don’t want to go out of business because they can’t find any customers.
Once you’ve supplied everyone with it, figure out how to keep a buffer stock and move onto the next product. By the time you’ve sold every viable customer a washing machine, vacuum cleaner, fridge, freezer, mixer, cooker, dryer (whatever) they’d be fine, new stock still needs to be sold eventually so keep a trickle coming. Replacement parts etc.
Biggest issue is it’s going to be expensive - will people pay?
That sounds like a difficult way to run a business.
It’s how businesses were run for literally hundreds of years.
Not true at all. Businesses didn’t move onto the next product, they specialized, making the exact same thing year after year. Because manufacturing tolerances weren’t great, things would need repairs and replacement, so there was repeat business. Nobody kept a buffer stock and moved onto the next product.
There’s a huge demand from consumers for that.
Is that actually true, though?
Very likely. Why not?
Because consumers have shown to prefer features over reliability:
French Door refrigerators are the most popular and most complex design.
Built in ice makers are popular but also complex and prone to failure due to physics.
They still sell very basic refrigerators and washer/dryers. But these don’t sell as well as more feature rich models.
In my albeit anecdotal experience, these ‘very basic’ appliances suffer their own variant of faults. They take no modern design cues; they are more prone to reliability issues from bargain bin components; or they somehow cost only slightly less than their fancy feature rich counterparts.
Just because I don’t want off-white equipment in my kitchen, I shouldn’t have to buy an ‘AI’ oven. But the companies want to know when and what I’m cooking so when I go to the grocery in the middle of dinner prep, the AI price labels can adjust a bit higher because they know I need an ingredient right now for a meal I’ve already started making.
The variant of fault these normal appliances have aren’t truly a fault. It’s intentionally made to be less appealing, less reliable, and more expensive than it should be, so when we’re looking at a white oven in the store for $800, we’ll opt instead for the $1,000 Alexa powered stainless steel double range that’s sitting right next to it.
Oh and if you’re in a spot and need to finance your new appliance, sorry but our financing isn’t available for the budget tier.
This comment kind of went off the rails, didn’t it.
People would likely want products with new features and reliability.
But what we actually have on the market is products with new features that are mostly unreliable, and slightly cheaper products with less features that are similarly or more unreliable. Our products are clearly regressing in quality even if the existence of luxury features or designs are rising.
We are in a hostile relationship economically where almost every manufacturer is engaging in planned obsolescence (instead of using resources appropriately and making the products we want which also last).
Corporations want us to keep buying - they are hyper-focused on perpetuating that reality.
My recent experience buying such is that it is very very hard to find basic but quality models. If you’ve had a water dispenser or ice maker once, you realize how awful they are. They take up massive amounts of fridge and freezer space and need expensive filters every 3 months and break as soon as the short warranty is over. But if you want double door and bottom freezer you pretty much have to buy the crap extras as well.
But are there simple fridges that don’t look like rental apt fridges? If there was a nice simple fridge with a big bottom freezer, in stainless, I bet it’d sell. Tho water dispensers and ice makers are damn convenient when they do work.
“all the companies are dumb and refuse to earn money this simple way that I discovered in a showerthought”
Half of people on lemmy, facebook, reddit, twitter…
Ok, how about I would have bought one for a couple houses I’ve renovated?
I don’t think complex design is the opposite of “just” it’s more that the refrigerator is just a kitchen refrigerator that doesn’t have weird proprietary temperature management system, and easily accessible replacement parts. It’s not also a built in tablet for example
Yes. Cars especially right now.
I’m just going to run my car until it no longer functions because I can’t be doing with all of these crappy infotainment systems. My car has a non-functional radio and that’s it, it’s so old it has headlights that don’t even blind people, and buttons to control the AC.
Investors need not be shareholders, to be fair.
There is a nonprofit org called Open Source Ecology that is aiming to create what they call the “Global Village Construction Set”, a collection of basic industrial machines required for modern living, designed in a way where everything can be built DIY by a single community (Including modular generators). I imagine that they have a plans for home appliances, I think as of now they’re still working on construction equipment.
That’s so cool. Yeah I’ve been thinking a great design strategy would be to build exclusively out of commonly accessible parts. Like, even repurpouse car parts if they’re more accessible, or use arduinos as the microcontrollers.
The thing about, say, a washing machine is there’s not a ton else that has a hefty spider/shaft/tub combo like that. The forces involved in spinning a few kilos of clothes isn’t trivial. I’ve been harbouring thoughts of open source appliances for a while.
What I kind of feel might be viable are modular, generic controller boards for dryers/washing machines/dish washers.
I think this is the way you have to do it. Open hardware designs. If you make a product that’s so reliable that it never breaks, it’s a product where you never get repeat business. If it’s a super simple thing that doesn’t need or get new features, you can never sell someone an upgrade. That’s great for the consumer, but not great for the appliance maker. So, there’s always an incentive for them to enshittify.
Love the concept but doesn’t seem to have many plans.
It does seem to have fizzled out a bit, sadly. They need to collaborate with other established groups doing similar things, IMO.
I’ve been pondering if one could make open source controllers to replace the “smarts” in these with something that actually just does the job, and even customizable. With different sensor addons/adapters for different makes and models.
“no tech”
