The sellers will still want to sell, the price is determined by the demand and volume not only the manufacturing cost.

We have plenty of choice here in Norway and we have a five year minimum life expectancy for goods such as televisions, computers, etc.

Here is how I think about it: on the margin, a rule like this increases the cost of manufacturing and bringing products to market. It also increases the burden that manufacturers will need to surpass to convince distributors (like Walmart, Best Buy, etc) to carry their product to avoid liability. So on the margin, this reduces profit, increases costs, reduces choice, etc.

There are televisions, computers, washer dryers, toasters etc on the market that will last years, they just cost 40-50% more than their low cost alternatives. This wouldnt solve anything that the market hasnt already provided a solution for. This law is designed to push out "cheap" alternatives which is anti-competitive by definition. If some college kid wants to buy a disposable toaster that will last 1-2 years let them.

> This wouldnt solve anything that the market hasnt already provided a solution for. This law is designed to push out "cheap" alternatives which is anti-competitive by definition.

I would hope this would solve one thing the market definitely doesn't provide a solution for - the very existence of crap products. They are being manufactured, transported and sold en-masse, and then they break, creating their own market (people who buy cheapest stuff won't be willing to buy the expensive one after the first one breaks, they'll just buy another cheap piece again). Basically, I'd hope this helps cut waste - and it's not really that different from basic safety and health regulations. It's all about providing a floor on how crappy products are, because market will always optimize towards the very bottom.

As a consumer I'd much rather have such non-choices out of the way, so that I can have the assurance that if I buy a wash machine it'll still be around in several years.

And even if longer-lasting stuff implies es some extra cost, I question whether that extra cost is significant in the sense that it would change market positioning (i.e. a 10% BOM increase is huge considering the kind of markets this affects, but still not nearly enough to close the gap with the more luxuriously branded stuff).

If they were "manufactured on demand", I would agree. You'd pay more or less depending on your needs. As it is today, each product you can get off the shelf is being manufactured in millions of copies, and is a part of purchasing environment. It affects the market for everyone, and its production affects the environment.

I'm of belief that tools barely suited to their function are a waste of materials, energy and production effort - and therefore should not exist. Worse than that, they also provide a price floor on the whole category. You get two categories of items - "crap" items, for which price is pushed down to minimum, and "premium" items, for which the price can stay higher, because customers going for them are not price-sensitive.

I currently believe (though this is not a very strong belief) that if we could somehow raise the floor of minimum acceptable product quality, we'd have much less waste, and the better items would be cheaper than they're now (supply and demand, after all).

Is this a correct read on what you're saying: You feel other people buying low-cost poor-quality products are making the wrong choice 100% of the time. If you were in charge, you would pass legislation to ban these crap products from being sold. This will protect consumers from making poor purchasing decisions.

You may say it's patronizing view, but I don't blame individual customers because I don't believe they have a meaningful choice in the matter. There's no agency here - people buying cheapest, barely functioning crap is an obvious consequence of it being available.