Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought to reduce the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to around 1,000 hours and raise prices.
The topic has been discussed here in the past a few times, including [2] and [3]
1: https://readmedium.com/en/the-phoebus-cartel-was-never-reall...
Company X makes a great product that everyone only needs one of and lasts a long time. Over time, the market starts to dwindle and. Company X is going broke. Now, Company X must either invest in innovation or reduce the lifespan of its current offering.
There's nothing inherently evil about this concept, but we tend to want to chalk it up to greed when Company X really just wants to survive and make a profit, which I suppose is the point.
The problem is the concept is ripe for abuse. If Company X makes their product worse, but starts charging more while laying off employees, posting record profits during recessions, adopts unnecessary subscription models cosplaying as continued service and development, etc...now we get to the greed part. There seems to be a line between designing a product to secure the longevity of Company X and straight up using your customers as micro-transaction ATMs with planned obsolescence. Some companies conspire to cross it.
Then their strategy worked - if you really believe it's more complicated. Haven't investigated this particular subject, but many others subjects are _made_ complicated to achieve a particular outcome. Along lines of: 'let's protect the children' argument.
- Lower-quality components (especially capacitors) being used to meet the lower price point. This is by far the most common failure mode I have experienced, it's never the LEDs dying but the power supply.
- Higher-quality LED light is usually result of driving the LEDs harder, causing them to fail earlier.
- Probably some other reasons too.
https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
Only shows you bulbs can be made well and last long. But those are not for you. (Assuming most readers here are not Saudi)
Usually they’re over-driven and you can jump a burned out LED and scrape off a bit of a resistor to reduce the amount of current going through to (over-)account for the reduced current need.
Key points from an AI summary:
- Incandescent bulbs had to balance factors like light output, efficiency, and lifespan - hotter filaments produced brighter, whiter light but reduced bulb lifespan.
- Longer-lasting bulbs were less efficient and produced dimmer, yellower light, so they were not simply "better" products being suppressed.
- The 1,000 hour target was a reasonable compromise that balanced these competing priorities, not necessarily a sinister plot.
- Even after the Phoebus cartel dissolved, the 1,000 hour lifespan remained the industry standard for general-purpose incandescent bulbs.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-04/cheeri...
Undoubtedly there are some alternate materials you could make a light bulb out of that present a trade off between longevity and efficiency. But there will also be materials that last a long time and have high efficiency. Moreover, even if they want to use the filament material that emits whiter light and then burns up faster, they could then use more of it so it still doesn't burn out quickly. But they don't want to do that, because it would cost marginally more and more importantly then you wouldn't have to buy as many light bulbs.
It's no good to pretend this isn't possible. There isn't an inherent trade off between brightness and efficiency, because inefficiency is just the percentage of the electricity that goes to producing heat rather than light. At the same power consumption, a more efficient bulb is brighter. LEDs are rated as "100W equivalent" even though they consume ~20W. And the LEDs themselves last far longer than the equivalent incandescent light, but then they purposely combine them with a power converter that burns out much sooner. It's marketing, not physics.
Additionally, the companies set up a whole compliance regime with bulb testing and fines, not for bulbs being too dim, but for bulbs that lasted too long, which I think clarifies the intent more than anything else.
Hotter filament gives more efficient and whiter light (the black body radiation has more visible and less infrared), but the hotter filament doesn't last as long (faster evaporation rate).
It's perfectly possible for end users to use a dimmer switch to make incandescent lamps last much, much longer at the expense of less light and a "warmer" colour.
Lifespan is very, very sensitive to the temperature.
The 1000 hours limit is in practice a lower bound to a combination of luminosity and efficiency
https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quanda...
A stable DC current and temperature limited LED can easily last decades.
> "A longer life bulb of a given wattage puts out less light (and proportionally more heat) than a shorter life bulb of the same wattage"
As long as we can recycle (or at least safely get rid of) the burned out ones I'd say its a win from ecology perspective, and at least in some cases also for end users. But this wasnt the main driver of the change, it was the good ol' corporate greed as per the same wiki page.
I know this is a common pop-history thing to cite on the Internet, but I would think hackernews would understand the benefits of standardization.
If every brand's lightbulb has different luminousities how on earth would architects decide how to space fixtures?
This "cartel" is how we avoided a dimness war, like the loudness war we had in digital music a decade or so back
Consumer NZ is usually used as the independent source for expected product lifetimes: https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/appliance-life-expectan.... Interestingly, they specify 15 years for an oven, which is more than the company in this article claimed electric ovens should last for.
It seems like those Samsung/LG smart appliances are constantly breaking (especially fridges)
Really it seems anything with a circuit board is more likely to break (which I suppose is somewhat intuitive given mechanical parts are fairly durable)
Who gets to decide how long something gets to last for?
No, I wouldn’t like the extended warranty thanks - I’m covered already.
It’s silly that the US doesn’t set up similar protections. While manufacturers race to the bottom, we (consumers) could race to the top.
Some companies like Apple try to make up for this by replacing broken devices, then refurbishing and reselling the formerly broken device.
After that it never booted past the setup pages with a "unable to get token" message. I messaged the company who was very responsive but the end result was that they said it was unfixable and to return it to the store.
It was only $8, but I was looking forward to a wifi connected picture frame.
In a hindsight it seems obvious, still this video was the first time I've heard this verbalized so clearly.
> And that those properties (being hard to damage/destruct and being easy to repair) might be mutually exclusive.
I disagree on a fundamental level.
You could say such a thing when talking about really small (micro/miniature) devices. But as size increases, the validity of such arguments rapidly goes down. A phone case/bumper for example - makes the device larger, yes - but increases strength while not hurting reparability.
The "problem", imo, is two-fold: 1. Apple does not care too much about making repairs easy. If it costs $100 to make a board they can charge a customer $500 to repair, or $800 for a new phone, it's easy for them.
2. (Some) people prefer sleeker designs. Samsung has its active range of phones, CAT makes durable phones - but many prefer a smaller thickness/bezel etc. This means that when tech improves to make smaller bezels, manufacturers decrease the bezel a little and add protective padding a little... haha no. It's only bezel reduction. Because it sell, I suppose.
For example gorilla glass/protective glass has improved in technology, but thinner screens (for thinner devices) have eaten up the benefits of stronger tech.
The real "killer" argument? The presence of companies like Framework. I'm typing this out on my FW13 & its build quality is really good. Perhaps a 10 year old thinkpad may be similar or better, but this is almost certainly thinner. But it is almost definitely more repairable.
It's possible, but requires companies to offer products, and people to use and buy them.
They do. iPhone 14 internals was redesigned to be more repairable [0], which extended to pro models with iPhone 15 [1].
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/News/64865/iphone-14-teardown
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/News/82867/iphone-15-teardown-reveals...
There would not be an issue for Apple or Samsung to design a backplane that uses screws to hold the phone together, eliminating the need for glue entirely.
It just looks a bit ugly.
> For example gorilla glass/protective glass has improved in technology, but thinner screens (for thinner devices) have eaten up the benefits of stronger tech.
[1] https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/indice-reparabilite [2] https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/indice-durabilite
Plenty of devices are indestructible and repairable, they're just bulky.
Rainforest Automation is uninterested in debugging it and is offering only a discount on replacement hardware. But this is likely a software problem (I suspect failed certificate rotation to connect to their backend) and I don't want to give them more money.
I live in California and the right to repair goes live next month. Anybody know how I can use that right to actually get a repair?
via[0]:
Manufacturers must also make available documentation, parts, and tools for at least three years after the product was last manufactured for products priced between $50 and $99.99 and for at least seven years after the product was last manufactured for products priced at $100 or more, regardless of any warranty periods.
The law broadly covers electronic and appliance products, including cell phones, laptops, tablets, and various home appliances, that were manufactured and sold or used for the first time in California on or after July 1, 2021.
edited to add source URL.
FOREVER. Just design them so parts are replaceable and buildable by any third party and provide the documentation.
For me, it's the most interesting with EU/Sweden. We don't have courts like this do we?
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-syste...
The N1 form is to be sent by post[1] and there is also an online version which can be used in some cases[2].
[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65eb13af62ff4...
So in practice the iron clad guarantee is only 6 months for most consumer products.
At least that's the interpretation of the law in the UK.
edit: small claims courts are quite accessible in the UK, so often the threat of small claims can get thing moving.
https://e-justice.europa.eu/42/EN/small_claims?SWEDEN&member...
This link also contains a reference for all other EU member states
I'm not that knowledgeable about all the details here, but I've done it once for a PSU which stopped working after four years.
Do I expect a laptop to last 5 year? Yes, most of them. Do I think it's inherently problematic or that consumers were "cheated" if say 25% of laptops only last 4 years instead of 5? I do not.
I have successfully used exactly the same technique of "get a court date, wait for your opponent to contact you and resolve the issue, cancel the court date" in the past to challenge an illegal rent increase in Switzerland. The court for that here is called the Schlichtungsbehörde.
It seems like we have 2 year legally enforced warranty (which I knew about), and some sort of small claims court (which I did not know about).
I think I would have heard about legally mandated warranties that extended beyond the 2 years I knew about. The Australian system seems quite reasonable, I wonder why we don't have something like that? 2 years for everything seems pretty weird.
As for courts - there is a customer protection commission/service in most (all) EU member states. However, they won't do anything if the item is out of legal claim for 'free' (any) repairs.
My personal issue is not the warranty/courts, though. While I can repair all kinds of stuff (from laptops board repair to gas lawn mowers), the fact you get a piece of junk that serves no purpose until repaired, is damning. A story may make a decent material for a blog post, but in real life you generally don't have luxury to pursue a slow process for repair/replacement, if it's an important piece of equipment.
Although we didn't explicitly have a consumer court, we have a court department in both municipal and Provincial Courts. (ศาลจังหวัด/ศาลแขวง... แผนกคดีผู้บริโภค)
People can file a complaint themselves both in-person or via e-Filing system. Although very tedious to do so, at least in my opinion, it still workable.
Same as the blog's author, any plaintiff I've help with, need some patient and times on both evidence collecting and consulting with the court's appointed lawyer to draft the complaint. But, for the case against big company at least, it mostly worked out for them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_small_claims_proced...
This is old law (common law, although now redefined in legislation). EU law added some protections on top of this, and non-EU UK law added more. I am not up to date with the details, but there are plenty of readable guides out there to anyone who needs them.
It can be difficult to directly sue a foreign manufacturer but importers and retailers tend to have domestic legal entities that can be compelled to attend court appearances etc.
https://toroid.org/exide-warranty-nightmare is an Indian story you might like BTW.
Tell your friends and family.
In more developed countries like Australia, NZ, and the UK, warranties last less time than the guarantee offered by consumer law and only exist to try and confuse consumers into not asking for repairs after the warranty expires (but not necessarily the consumer law guarantee)
Here’s one, but there are others as well: https://www.shuchow.com/so-i-took-a-huge-corporation-to-arbi...
However, I suspect that if something breaks out of warranty, you don't have a legal right to get it replaced/repaired.
If you have a working small claims court system, I can recommend giving it a try. It can be way less frustrating than trying to deal with a company that just doesn't want to.
- it avoids costly class actions in "big" cases - it avoids costly discovery in "big" cases - it avoids sky-high damages claims in extreme cases - it allows small everyday fuck-ups to be handled more cheaply than a court
However, I'd argue that for this kind of issue, arbitration isn't necessarily worse. Especially in a clear-cut case, you don't need the court to win, you just need the court to trigger an escalation at the company. Arbitration is good enough for that.
Electrolux is a Swedish company that has quietly bought-up most of the European brands, like Hotpoint and AEG. When you buy one of those brands, you are buying the Electrolux standard of service. The service engineers are a third-party. Last time I looked, there was no contact information on the Electrolux website. And TBH, I think it must be at least a decade since I saw Electrolux-branded products in stores.
I think Electrolux' business is like those cheapo Chinese companies that buy up good bicycle brands, and then drastically downgrade the product. So be careful if you're buying white goods in Europe: you could be buying Electrolux in mufti.
I have a similar situation right now. Washing machine is leaking when load is anything bigger than light load. Initial guarantee claim to Whirlpool was sent 8 weeks ago. It's dead, no response from anyone.
Under consumer rights shop should refund, but claim is without response for 3 weeks (14 calendar days is upper limit according to EU law + local regulations).
Today I was supposed to contact the lawyer, but I figured out that f** this s**. It's weeks of legal battle over 300€. They won. Stress enough isn't worth it.
Oven is a different thing though, as I don't think it's as essential as washing machine (and dragging clothes every week for washing).
Maybe I should file a claim to refund after it was made, but it's still a net loss. Lesson learned: stay away from manufacturer Whirlpool, don't ever spend a dime on a shop and live on.
We are not alike. As soon as it costs them several tens of billable hours (people on phone, someone making appointments, discussions, emails, lawyer doing it's thing etc) I'm all fair game and will definitely spend my time screwing with them simply to make them pay even if I lose in the end.
Since I'm going to be frustrated when I'm being screwed over I see no reason not repay that and to act out that frustration in the worst possible way I can manage for the companies involved.
Conversations with lawyer is 1.5h, preparing documents another hour. I need to keep appliance somewhere, which is a storage cost. Average time to resolution is 8 months. I need to pay lawyer up front, and the costs are going to be returned, but this is yet another process. Initial costs are 200€ to even start, not to mention legal fees.
Even a simple form for costs reimbursement has 4 pages and based on requirements would require approximately 2h of gathering receipts, proving communication.
If I'd earn 30€/hour (and my rate is much higher), it would cost me around 600€ to get into the process. Anything outside original amount requires follow-up process so another 8 months.
Do I want to spend 2 years to get approximately 1000€ in total, during which I have not usable washing machine stuffed somewhere in my apartment? Nope.
As for "legal billable hours". Companies of specific size have lawyer on payroll. It doesn't increase the cost for them and they won't blink an eye or even notice. Facebook post will do more damage to them than above stunt, but it won't bring me anything in return.
So yes, they win, because my cost is higher than theirs. And I will stress about it, shortening my lifespan and they won't care at all.
Under New Zealand and Australian consumer law (the laws are different but similar) we have access to a low-cost tribunal. In fact in New Zealand you’re not allowed to be represented by a lawyer - on either side. It’s a single hearing with immediate resolution. Appeals and re-hearings are very limited and pretty rare.
I’ve used it twice. Both times the vendor magically found the warranty to be valid and fixed the issue before the tribunal date arrived. You don’t get a refund on the filing fee, but on most home appliances it’d be NZ$45, or about €25.
Those companies hire a lot of lawyers, have extensive data on customer behavior, court costs and generally know that most people don't have the time and/or the money to sue, and will find that it is more economical for them to just forget the matter and buy a brand new item.
Usually a complaint gets forwarded to the company which requires some sort of authoritative response (which wastes time and money) so you can have reasonable success there.
Same issue as the article explains, it still takes a lot of time on the consumer side (who wants to be without an oven 2 months while they file paperwork and wait)
I’ve never actually used small claims court in the US. Curious if those who have can answer if it’s a similar experience?
Did a claim with MCOL, they waited until the day of the hearing to pony up what I was claiming for, with interest. In the UK the individual gets to choose the venue with MCOL, so they'd have had to send a lawyer to Cheltenham to contest it.
That system fails unprivileged people though. Even if the "privilege" is "a number of Twitter followers".
That's probably why a tradition of more formal courts arose. But they probably worked better when they operated at a communal scale.
Think: "walk down the road to the courtroom on the second Wednesday of the month and wait your turn" and if you win, you get to boast about it at the pub for a few weeks: "can you believe ol' Jon thought he could pull the wool over my eyes?! Ha! Shame on him! He had to pay me for two days labor, the bastard!"
I wonder how we bring some of that convenience and public shaming back?
My sense is that there's not enough personal accountability because the courts and companies are too big for "ol' Jon" to held to account.
Ideally everything is shipped back to the manufacturer at the end of the life span. Those dates would also be nice to have.
Here is the directive adopted by the EU Council to promote the repair of broken or defective goods, also known as the right-to-repair (or R2R) directive:
"The directive adopted today enshrines a new right for consumers: the right to have defective products repaired in an easier, cheaper and faster way. It also gives manufacturers the incentive to make products that last longer and can be repaired, reused and recycled."
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024...
It shows that diversity is a good thing, you end up having to compromise no matter how rightful you feel.
The model in the US is nominally to have few regulations limited to things like enforcing contracts and antitrust laws and pricing major externalities, then leave the rest of it to free market competition. That isn't compatible with a model where regulators are trying to run the economy, because then the regulators get captured by industry and thwart rather than protect competition, and competition can't save you from needing complicated rules if it is not present. And those kinds of complex competition-destroying regulations are showing up everywhere, including in the US.
Conversely, the model in the EU is to not care a lot about small businesses and just regulate the large ones. But that model isn't really compatible with free trade. You can't impose expensive regulations on domestic companies and then put them into competition with countries that don't do that and expect them to succeed. But people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the expensive regulations but not the correspondingly higher prices, and then the stuff they buy gets made in China where the rules don't exist (or exist on paper but the government waives them in order to capture the market). If you want to have the rules without destroying domestic industry then you have to impose them on the manufacturers of imported products too. Which would actually help the US increase competition, because the regulations would then shackle global megacorps that want to sell into the EU but not smaller domestic US companies that don't. But then foreign-produced stuff sold in the EU would cost as much as domestically-produced stuff -- a boon to local industry but higher prices on local consumers, and apparently they're not willing to suffer the latter.
You can edit your post if you do so soon after posting, and sometimes the meaning isn't lost (stale matches -> stalemates) but other times it (subjectively) is. For example I don't know what "rightful" should be here.
Meta don’t, for instance. They sell their quest headsets throughout Europe, but offer no warranty or support in many European countries in which they sell them, which is illegal under the EU CRD.
I foolishly bought one, knowing the risk - and it stopped working after a week, and that’s the end of the story - they refused to do a return or exchange, said I could ship it at my own expense, which I tried, only for them to “lose” the inbound package. They received it from the courier, mislaid it - my problem. They then kindly offered to ship a replacement controller at my expense (€150), but only to a different country, not to where I live. They then “lost” that too, forcing me to do a chargeback to get my money back, as despite having no proof of delivery to me, they insisted it had been.
As to “take them to court” - they know damned well that it’s not worth it to spend €10,000+ on legal fees over a €500 piece of electronics, which is why they knowingly and willingly act illegally.
The EU needs a simple, pan-European way to deal with bad actors, or it’s just meaningless legislation that provides no protection to consumers.
Do you mean that you can buy it from the manufacturer website and have it shipped directly to a country where it's not released officially? Or are you taking about third party retailers selling grey market units?
It's also a great consumer friendly regulation!
In the past 14 months I've had to deal with two misbehaving insurance companies, one misbehaving utility provider (overcharging), and a few other things as well that I don't really want to talk about here.
I did not get to the point of actually having to take legal action but I did have to threaten it in two cases, along with action from the relevant ombudsmen.
Nothing like this, or on this scale, has ever happened to me before (once, about thirty years ago, I had to threaten a company with small claims for unpaid wages, but that's it).
There are, to an extent, processes you have to follow before you can get to the point where you are within your rights to threaten to throw the legal book at companies. You usually have to have gone through their complaints procedures and got to what you consider an unsatisfactory result. This in itself can take weeks or months of emailing back and forth, phone calls, etc. You gradually escalate your approach, you cover the internet in bad reviews, you contact your local MP and the local media, and so it goes on.
Its an exhausting and kafkaesque shitshow and this is with the backing of authorities, such as ombudsmen, who operate with the backing of legislation.
I understand why you have to do it: because some consumers are vexatious and dishonest. But it takes too long (elapsed) and it takes far too much time (effort) that could be better spent with family and friends (as an example).
I am currently gearing myself up to deal with the other insurance company, who I haven't so far had to threaten with legal action, and file a police complaint due to some new information that's come to light that shows our insurers, and the advice they gave us, in a very bad light.
Honestly, I don't know if I can be bothered any more. Taking the actions that I have, well, I wouldn't say they've left us better off, but they've left us much less worse off, because we haven't been taken for mugs... but the cost to my sanity and my soul. I don't know if the juice has always been worth the squeeze.
And that, of course, is what these companies bank on: that you'll get tired of it all and stop bothering them. It's extremely scummy behaviour, and frustrates me that I have to get to the point of threatening them with legal action just to get them to do the right thing. I strongly resent being forced to act like an asshole just to get a fair outcome.
I welcome any legislation that helps consumers get to a fair outcome more easily, but I also suggest that we need to look at the question of the obfuscatory tactics companies use to force consumers to jump through ridiculous hoops first.
I doubt it'd fly in the EU.
To quote from that article on the parent company's website:
According to the American National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) - who
helpfully released research called the Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components
- the contemporary average lifespans are as follows:
• Fridges - 13 years
• Dishwashers - 9 years
• Electric ovens - 13 years
• Gas stoves - 15 years
• Microwaves - 9 years
• Dryers - 13 years
If I buy an expensive fridge and it fails in 5 years due to a faulty component, then that is up to the retailer and manufacturer to sort out between themselves as to who wears the cost of replacement or repair.
≤ € 199 2 years
€ 200 - 299 3 years
€ 300 - 399 4 years
€ 400 - 499 5 years
€ 500 - 599 6 years
€ 600 - 699 7 years
≥ € 700 8 years
On one hand this seems rather short to me, on the other hand, it's kind of a "you get what you pay for" affair. I don't really know what profit margins manufacturers have, but when I worked for a store profit margins for us really weren't all that big for us (and also didn't scale as much with price as many people assume).
30 years :)
But I actually think it's fine that the warranty shorter than 9 years.
Even, if I agree that 2 years (as is common) is too short.
[0]: https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/spa...
As long as no exotic or custom components are used they should be easy to find parts and repair too
Not that the controller board on a washing machine is particularly exotic; it's made from standard components. But each model of washing machine has it's own controller board, so the boards are low-volume, and ridiculously expensive. And the boards themselves are about as easy to repair as any modern PCB covered in SMDs.
I suspect the reason that white goods nowadays all have digital displays and digital control panels is that those "features" necessitate a proprietary controller board, which turns out (surprisingly! /s) to be the component most likely to fail.
To what end? Annoy the people who are responsible for your predicament. Don't take it out on call center workers.
The more time you spend with the call center, the more it costs the parent company. They don't like long calls.
If your call lasts long enough, it will get reviewed by a manager. Your class of complaint will end up on a tally.
Enough of these, and someone does something.
If it were my business, I wouldn't make shitty decisions and then force an army of phone operators to run my customers around so that no customer could ever have an effect on my company, while only offering up the customer service reps as any kind of interface with the company.
You want me not to bother the customer service reps? Give me a different way to interact with the company. But I'm not going to pity anyone who stays at that job (I did my time in customer service; I have the wherewithall to leave every emotion from one call with that caller). Reps should understand that the actual description of the job they are signing up for is "repeat talking points until the customer hangs up and weather their anger, until that point. if within your approved talking points - help with their problem".
Some advice to a co-founder, if you make customers waste their time going in circles with the help desk just to get their concerns reviewed, they'll take their business elsewhere.
Those two/three things are entirely unrelated.
Power efficient appliances are a must in most countries not powered by low-carbon energy (so in the EU, that basically leaves everyone outside of France and the Nordics), and a good to have for those that are. Quality of those appliances is entirely unrelated to their power efficiency.
Smart appliances are on a spectrum. Some are useless, some are practical. Again, their quality is entirely unrelated to their smartness. Their smartness can be optional, non-blocking and using open protocols; or it can be mandatory, cloud-only so that when the cloud service gets retired to save money the appliance is useless. As an example, my LG washing machine/dryer combo can connect to my Wi-Fi network to be able to send me notifications when it's done, to load custom programmes, to remind me I need to do a wash cycle of the machine itself. Those are useful features, entirely optional, and the machine won't stop working if it can't connect to the Wi-Fi.
Some of them hook up to a mobile phone by bluetooth to track how you brush. The thing is once the battery dies the £150 toothbrush is useless, it's' sealed so replacing the battery isn't trivial.
I think in the battery may last a fair bit longer now.
Electric tooth brushes are quite an improvement over a normal tooth brush.
I bought that brush handle in 2009. 15 years of life, and if I didn't mind about the second brush charge I probably could have squeezed another year or two out of it.
A user replaceable battery can extend the life, but it also introduces a way for water to get in and short it out, thereby drastically decreasing the lifespan. But given the overall power requirements for the device, ensuring that the battery is charged appropriately to extend the lifespan is pretty easy. My Philips is over 4 years old now and if I'm traveling for a week I may need to charge it once (never really tried to let it drain fully), and it gets used twice a day.
Consumers voted for this a long time ago, people want cheap s*t. There are manufacturers that do take pride and their products can last a lifetime if not easily repairable. Guess what, nobody actually wants it. (except the HN crowd aparently).