(not that we know where to repair it or how much it’d cost, we just throw it)
Edit : I can understand why taking two hours to repair something worth 20€ isn’t worth it though, e.g. a computer mouse, but even in such case we could standardize a minimum and have enterprises specialized in ensuring that spare parts are always available(, each costing a few euros).
Then instead of the longer task of repairing a circuit board, the consumer could easily swap it by h·er·im·self, or leave it to a pro who’d take less than 5mns.
(And the older circuit board would be sent for free and either repaired or stripped for parts)
(Transportation costs will be greatly reduced in the very near future with automation, but warehouses should exist less than 12h away)
It should still be cheaper to build a new part(, and change that part,) than a new whole(, and buy that whole).
And i.d.k. if it’s the only reason for the low prices : it’s cheaper for westerners to buy from non-westerners(, including mines or actions), and conversely.
Repairing is done locally(, otherwise the transport would take too long), and ends up being more expensive than buying new products made externally.
Our productivity may be higher[1], even if we’re deindustrialized, but their minimum wage is way less than ours.
[1] : I.m.o., even more obviously when considering that we’re in the finance sector, we may reverse things when saying that a high productivity explains the difference in living standards : it’s the difference in living standards and GDP that inflates the productivity.
Since productivity∝GDP, then countries with a high GDP will have a high productivity.
And a country that increased its GDP(, e.g. through increasing its minimum wage perhaps,) would hence increase its productivity. Just an uninformed thought on my part, i.d.k. honestly.
If i keep the example of the computer mouse, it couldn’t cost 20€ if it was produced locally, if only because it takes much more than 2 cumulated hours to build one, at a minimum wage of 10€/h.
Conversely though, it’d mean that it’d be very expensive for a non-westerner to buy products made in the west, which is the case, but we can still manage to sell them because we have a monopoly on new technologies(, with e.g. Japan or South Korea, but then again their minimum wage is high as well so it’s the same remark), such as planes or softwares.
Just look at houses or cars (which are designed for repairability) and you’ll see that building new is almost always easier and cheaper (although that doesn’t mean it’s never worth it to repair).
A good example is any electrical or plumbing work in a house. You need to identify the issue, access the problem area, fix the problem, then patch the area back up. This is why repair and maintenance is such a huge part of home ownership.
Sadly as things become more complex and minituraized the ability to repair them also becomes more difficult. You can sometimes cannabilize multiple pieces of electronics to create a functional one, but it’s almost impossible to repair a motherboard/circuitboard for a tv/laptop/electronic. And that’s not even getting into plastics, which are almost impossible to work with after they’ve been finalized for a product.