Electronics waste is a major issue in our country.
Every year, we discard 50 million tons of it globally, the equivalent of 1,000 laptops every second.
Recycling is still not universal, and it sometimes costs more to recycle anything than the materials inside the device are worth because of how it was designed.
Furthermore, 70% of electronic waste is poisonous.
When this pollution enters groundwater or the oceans, it will have an increasingly harmful effect on our health and longevity.
This month, the EU took steps to fix the issue by enacting a comprehensive “right to repair” legislation that is supposed to drastically reduce electrical waste.
The United Kingdom is fast behind — and they don’t have a choice if they want to sell to the EU — and I expect the United States to be forced to follow suit if it wants to sell to the EU or the United Kingdom.
Although this new law applies to all new washing machines, hair dryers, refrigerators, monitors, and televisions, it is expected to extend to all electronics items in the future, which will greatly improve things.
This week, we’ll look at electrical hardware sustainability problems, and we’ll finish up with my product of the week, a laptop from a company named Framework that appears to be the most prepared for these latest e-waste regulations.
How Repairing Things the Right Way Will Help Reduce E-Waste
One of the reasons that e-waste is such a big issue is that most computer equipment manufacturers make money from product sales rather than product use.
There are a few exceptions to this law.
Companies that produce printers, for example, aren’t motivated to replace their hardware (for that market) because they use the “razor-blade model,” in which supply sales subsidize the hardware.
When you look at another vertical, such as the cable industry, you’ll find that they rarely upgrade their hardware because their business is focused on services.
Many items are built in such a way that disassembling them is difficult, and it is often more cost effective to replace rather than fix them.
This is an especially vexing issue for appliances, on which these laws are mainly based.
Also high-end appliances are often built in such a way that they are difficult to maintain and repair.
There’s no reason why a well maintained appliance shouldn’t last many decades rather than a few years.
My grandmother’s washing machine, which she purchased before I was born, lasted until I was in my twenties.
However, if anything can be repaired for a reasonable price, it opens up the possibility of a much more robust secondary market, where people who want new products simply because they are new trade in their old stuff for repair.
This hardware is then upgraded and resold to those who can’t afford — or don’t want to pay more for — brand new hardware.
Other activities should be altered as a result of this pattern.
Electronics-as-a-Service (EaaS)
There is a huge and rising trend in the IT market that we can define with three letters.
The letters “AAS” stand for “As A Service.”
When you move to a service model, revenue from hardware sales becomes secondary.
In reality, depending on the model, you might be able to completely subsidize the hardware to make it available to you.
However, this model causes the vendor to rethink refresh cycles because the more often you refresh something, the higher your costs and the lower your profit.
As a result of this shift in emphasis, vendors operating on the “As A Service” model are more likely to fix rather than replace hardware, and to centralize as much of the upgrading as possible.
In today’s world, that means cloud-based services, as well as products like Virtual Windows and Dell’s new Hybrid PC platform.
It won’t be long before the “As A Service” model becomes more commonly accepted.
Things should improve as the market matures and vendors understand that high hardware turnover isn’t sustainable for them or for us, and that service models are the way of the future.
The incentives to make more reliable goods that don’t need to be replaced are much higher with service models.
The cost of your desktop hardware should drop significantly, not just because it is subsidized, but also because the bulk of the output would be generated by centralized cloud services rather than by the hardware on your desktop.
Ironically, we’re looking at a future world that looks a lot like the pre-PC age, when mainframes and terminals were the standard.
Cloud services, on the other hand, have increasingly replaced mainframe computing.
The desktop hardware would gradually be replaced by something more akin to Windows Virtual PC and, at first, Dell’s Hybrid Client effort.
Components that are uniform
One of the effects I foresee is an increase in custom cases for your hardware.
If you’re going to have it for a decade, which means the price of the case will go up, you might give people the option to upgrade and customize their cases to their liking.
This is what we used to do for some mobile phones.
You may remember that Nokia used to be known for selling custom cases for their phones at shopping mall kiosks.
It makes sense to make the main components more generic to make them completely repairable, enabling you to purchase your case for a unique look but also having your company pay for the services the laptop uses and the equipment that goes into that case.
You will change the components from time to time, but only the case trim that has worn out will be replaced.
Vendors will profit from case upgrades while maintaining a steady revenue stream from the service.
This outcome has the potential to be the best of both worlds.
They could design desks to fit the hardware, removing the need for a separate PC case entirely; the PC will be built into your desk.
Since it would be in everyone’s best interest to keep this hardware running, it will be much better protected from the kinds of problems that plague desktop PCs on the floor (such as dust buildup).
Only the most costly appliances can currently be built in your house.
Even so, if you can break them down into pieces, you might theoretically transform every appliance level into a house.
Rather than causing cost issues, such a construction will almost always result in revenue opportunities.
Final Thoughts
Many vendors, I’m sure, are resisting the move, but they stand to gain a lot from it.
Currently, you can purchase a Dell or HP laptop one year and a Lenovo laptop the next.
Similar to appliances, but with a service model, you are more entangled with the vendor, and the ability to move vendors is greatly reduced.
For example, how often do you switch cable or landline phone providers?
Unless this results in a business downturn, in which case the companies should stay more focused on their customers, as we saw in cable and both wired and wireless industries.
Since those customers now reflect a large annuity rather than a single transaction, this is the outcome.
You don’t want consolidation because consumers can’t travel without competition, which leads to higher prices and lower satisfaction, as it has in the markets I just mentioned.
Whatever happens, I expect the tech industry, from appliances to smartphones, to look a lot different in 2030 than it does now, and while most of our homes will have more tech, it will be far harder to see and much less likely to be distracting.