@jackyan Can I open a "Stuff Made Dumb" kiosk in the back where you can bring in your otherwise perfectly functional 3-in-one printer-scanner-fax (that you don't use for faxing or printing), but would like to scan with, but is refusing to work because the printer cartridge that is still full of ink has expired?

I will sell you a pretty much dumb USB cable that will firewall the fuck out of the printer cartridge talking back to home base.

Yes, you can still scan.

Sorry, hp.com.au is unreachable.

According to the best available NTP server, the time is (based on your serial number) 240 days after you were manufactured.

The cable is a little bit smart: it's the same cable, it configures itself based on the device it is plugged into.

I guess I could sell them mail order, but the sense of relief that people would get is what would be worth it for me.

@jackyan
> Long may they all live—at least till this shop opens.

Which may actually be a good reason not to open that shop : when this happens, we're back in the cycle of trashing perfectly functioning hardware because something better is available. :)

Maybe what we really need is a shop specializing in repairing what is supposed to not be repairable? or at least, replace the bare minimum that must be destroyed in the device to repair it. Build techniques and sell tools that allow to do that, and look the mid-20th century job of local electronic repair shop be born again and buying your stuff.

Even better version than that : repair and modding shops. Keep up with the new ideas by upgrading your old hardware. Sounds like a job for makers, and marketplaces of such mods could be opened.

It also solves the problem of "what is the economical value of selling stuff that doesn't need to be replaced?". As long as there is new hardware, we will need new repair machines.

@kik @jackyan I'm in the middle of making a new metal part for a door handle because I don't want to buy a whole new door handle for $28. I've spent hours with a file and sandpaper. I'm enjoying myself in the process.

No normal person would pay someone for hours of their time.

@samloonie @jackyan Oh yeah, totally, it's a difficult problem to solve (which is why there may be a business there, you don't build a successful one by solving easy problems). What needs to be solved is allowing to do such repairs in less time. Not that we really tried in the last few decades anyway. It doesn't need to fix all problems of the world out of the door either, but may start with the most common one, do it well, and build up from there.

For electronics, we also very well may not have a choice. We currently live in a world where it's dirt cheap, but it's entirely dependent on stable and intense supply chains, no country have all the material needed to build a computer in their soil. Here is the problem : those supply chains depend on seafaring, which is easily affected both by climate change causing extreme weather and geopolitics. So, repairing electronics may soon become practical after all. And of course, electronics are not the only products affected, here.

@trouble @shuttersparks@qoto.org

lol, which border?

It seems do-able to me but I wonder where's the catch I must be missing? What are the hurdles? I'm sure that manufacturers have set up hurdles to make what we're talking about impossible so they can protect their closed market of people who expect to pay prices that are 250-plus percent higher.

The same thing exists with pharmaceuticals and prices that are 5 to 25 times higher than the same drug in Guatemala. But the game is rigged so you can't get around it.