Godammn vacuum cleaner broke. Took it apart, its just a part of the brush roller that is broken. Should be an easy fix. But they don't sell spare parts for my vacuum. They never have, they just want you to buy a new one. So one little easily replaced plastic bit makes the whole thing into non-functional mostly plastic waste. The vacuum is even clearly designed to be easily repaired, it's one of the most intelligently laid out appliances I've ever seen.

But it's not profitable to sell spare parts, so I have to send this thing to a landfill if I can't figure out some ghetto fix. This intentional wastefulness is one of the things that pisses me off about capitalism nearly every day.

  • HKBFG [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Unlocked phones cost astronomical prices in the us.

    This is partially a money grab and partially due to laws that restrict burner phones.

    • Vostok [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      What, so even once you've paid it off, it's still locked to that carrier?

      • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
        hexagon
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yep. It's not actually cheaper to get a locked phone, the carriers just lie to your face about how much they will charge you. They make the earlier payments what they told you they would be, and the later ones a lot more expensive. That way, it will be too late to return the phone because you realize you got scammed. 100% of carrier phone stores have fraud as a core part of how they operate. It's how they make money. I don't understand how more people aren't pissed about this and demand legislation to end this practice. I mean, I'd rather just abolish capitalism, but making this scam easier to prosecute people for carrying out and actually enforcing the law is such an inoffensive liberal way of fixing this problem that you would think someone would do it.

        • Vostok [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          See, shit like this just blows my mind. I think that capitalism has reached it's peak looking around at the landscape here in the UK, and then I hear shit like that and realise that it can and will get so much worse.

          I don't see how even the most lib-est of Libs could support carrier locking, surely they'd see the argument of 'it's my personal property, I should be able to do what I want with it?'.

          • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
            hexagon
            ·
            4 years ago

            Liberals here often don't think about it like that anymore. It's not your property to do whatever you want with, it's you paid for a service and any physical goods involved are incidental. It's like capitalism here is begining to transcend physical reality.

      • HKBFG [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        yes, but you can usually call the carrier and get the unlock code.

        • Vostok [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Ah okay, I get ya. Sorry, I was reading from that that they in some way charged for that? If not, then it sounds like it's mostly the same other than some of the carriers in the UK auto-unlock phones after the end of the contract.

          • HKBFG [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            They don't charge for it, but you do have to deal with phone based customer service.