Manufacturers currently do not have any incentive to supply repair parts and service literature for consumer electronics. Their profit is maximized if the unit fails immediately after the warranty runs out and they have a new product cycle at that point to replace it. Unfortunately this approach creates an environmental load as well as a broken window economy, all because some information is hidden from the consumer when they buy the product.
I propose a consumer electronics labeling scheme that gives the consumer several critical pieces of information:
– How long the manufacturer pledges to make service parts available- Maximum cost of each major service part for a given class of device
– If the manufacturer provides service literature to independent technicians covering at least several key topics, defined per class of device