But it adds up when you start having to replace 100 different "it's pretty cheap given how often we use it" items in a year.
And it's not just the cost. It's also the time you commit to being a consumer. Thinking about which one to buy, reading reviews, etc. Some people enjoy being consumers and that's fine. But it takes away from what I want to be doing with my life. I want to buy something once and not have to think about it for a long time.
I don't think people have a frame of reference in their short lives to realize just how much time they spend being consumers and how that doesn't have to be normal.
A thousand times this ^ And ideally for everything: phone, computer, headphones, clothes, etc.
Personally, I own one pair of pants that I know will last about 2 years before I need to replace them, then just buy exactly the same pair again. Same with t-shirts, except I own about 10 of the same and replace 2 or 3 once a year (each one will last 2-3 years).
For jeans, Levi's.
Haven't really tried too many brands, but those two were good enough for me that I don't feel like I need to make the decision for those two items ever again.
woolly.clothing
I've got a MacBook that's a few years old, an iPhone that's two years old, and AirPods that are less than a year old, and... my Apple TV remote is many years old and still only needs charging every couple of months. My Kindle is many years old and only needs charging every couple of weeks. My two USB power bricks still seem to be doing well. One is three years old, the other almost a year old. Apple Watch is about two years old, still makes it through almost two full days on a charge.
I think everything else electronic either plugs in or uses replaceable batteries (garage door opener, car keys).
I might be forgetting something, but 100 items is an order of magnitude more than I think I use, and I'm not replacing most of them most years.
And yes, I clearly consume a lot of Apple kit. I like to think I don't do so blindly, though.
So let's start with the more impactful stuff before we get down to headphones that are used several hours a day every single day for a couple years.
Not to mention Apple has an extensive recycling program for most of their products.
That is probably only true in the US given the amount of regulation on compostable bags and boxes we have now in the EU.
Secondly, e-waste is orders of magnitude more difficult to dispose of and it often contains some rare minerals that got mined in some war zone in Africa: that should give you more of an incentive to recycle than some random styrofoam container.
I think there's a trend toward seeing electronics as consumable that bothers me, and I try to think carefully about my purchases, and yet somehow I've still ended up with at least eight items that use non-replaceable batteries, and maybe others that are "disposable" for other reasons.
Still, for each item I own, I've considered the "disposable" nature and yet bought it anyway.
Everybody loves to go on about quality but quality doesn't always pan out in terms of time or money cost. There's plenty of cases where some thing you've bought will meet its end in a way unrelated to whether it's high or low quality. If you really want to optimize you have to tailor your purchasing to your specific use case.
A simple approach is to just pull the trigger quickly on whatever has a million 5 star reviews and looks acceptable and is cheap. This feels environmentally offensive. Throwing away something that 99% works with one broken part. I feel sick when I have to do this.
Another approach is to try to get something expensive but durable and fixable. Unfortunately we live in a crappy future where nobody has any pride anymore and nothing's built to last decades. I have a 30 year old jigsaw I got from my grandfather and I frickin' love it.
High-quality gear was definitely available in the '80s, if you were willing to pay for it — and might have been cheaper in the long run.
How is this better than a set of headphones which last 18+ months? Just the NiCd battery packs were something like 20 times bulkier than the AirPods and lasted less than a third the time with careful use. Normal replacement cycle on those battery packs would be more expensive over 2 years than my AirPods, particularly if you consider inflation.
(Only 6 months out of a set of NiCds??? I got multiple years out of more than one set. NiCds are very easy to take care of; just remember that they need exercise. Always drain them fully before charging, and make sure not to overcharge.)
Step 1: superglue
Step 2: tape
Step 3: buy new ones
Could you say the same about everything that uses a battery? We could all just be using payphones.
Corporations don't exist in a vacuum. They have customers they're serving. We don't get to just pretend our behavior doesn't matter because some bogeymen (corporations) are doing worse things, then continue to voluntarily hand our money to those very same corporations.
We (individuals) bear responsibility, too. We vote with out dollars. Yes, we can't control the other 7.7 Billion people on the planet. But we can control our own behavior, and lead by example.
An average shower uses 17 gallons of water. A single pound of almonds uses 1,900 gallons.
Anyway, all this to say that I think the GP's argument is convincing.
Is this notion in your head? My electronics, especially recent ones, last many years.
Even higher income people I know don't swap out their phones and laptops every year. It's a pain in the ass to reconfigure everything, and even when the devices get replaced, the old ones get passed down to the kids or elders.
http://www.asymco.com/2018/02/27/the-number/
Perhaps low end devices are getting replaced more and more often, but I would bet high end devices get used for much longer. Especially with a widening wealth/income gap, how would people even afford to replace working electronics for no reason?
https://grist.org/article/2010-02-11-tracking-u-s-farmers-su...
EDIT: another comment prompted me to explain better. Money aside, for a bit of trash I get two years of entertainment, a quality experience, more enjoyable runs, something to listen to on my commute, a voice assistant for when my hands are full. All for a little pile of garbage after a few years. Now let's take a trip down the street to the teriyaki place close to work. EVERY TAKEOUT MEAL THEY SERVE generates more garbage than my earphones. If not the lithium batteries, for sure more plastic by weight or volume (let's not forget the styrofoam, either). For something that's going to be forgotten and floating in the toilet tomorrow morning.
I don't eat at the teriyaki place anymore for the above reasons. Leave me the hell alone about my headset choices. /EDIT
Though with a minute of thought, I'm pretty sure I could mount a reasonable argument for disposable, but smart, earphones reducing my footprint. But that's a longer discussion and beside the point. EDIT: for one example, see user ogre_codes experience with Walkmans.
This is a superficial analysis of waste, because it only takes into account the finished product, not the production process.
Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones, Apple Devices, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X9KV0HU
They are $250, wired and have a small battery brick that is not replaceable that is charged by micro usb.
The newer one by Bose is one of those neck things and is $300.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/03/04/apple-airpods-batte...
Anyway, in 5 years when bose stops producing the qc35 battery pack no one will be able to replace them whereas people using bose qc25 will just have to get new AAA batteries. Either apple talks the talk and walks the walk or it simply shut up about climate, no one cares about virtue signalling if it's to fuck the user for 3% more margin in the end. I'm surethey could have designed it better and fit at the very least user replaceable batteries.
You'll generate far more waste from AAA batteries in the time it takes for the Airpod batteries to require disposal.
I think the argument is yes, there is - end user replaceable battery.
$250 seems in line with high-end noise-cancelling earbuds: https://headphonesaddict.com/best-noise-cancelling-earbuds/
Can't speak to quality since they're not released yet, or the complaint about replaceable battery, but I imagine the demographic of people who want a replaceable battery isn't the largest, and for better or worse Apple has eschewed replaceable batteries for going on a decade now.
But then again I didn't shop around the other brands at all.
5 minutes shopping around on Amazon.
I bought a second set of AirPods after losing my first and when these die/ get lost/ take a bath/ whatever I'll either buy another pair or maybe upgrade to the $250 ones... with the expectation that they will last 18-24 months. For me, the form factor is worth it.
I'm on conference calls >4 hours daily. Wore out my AirPods series 1 set, bought a replacement series 2 (wireless charging) set a couple months ago, no question would have ordered the Pro today if not having just bought the series 2.
Compact convenience has its own value.
These would be a day one purchase for me if I didn't already have the over-the-ear Sony WH-1000xm3 headphones for 90% of my listening and a recently purchased set of AirPods for the other 10%.
I think they’re a really dumb pair of headphones considering the fact that they automatically connect to either my phone or laptop at random and I have to reconnect them by holding the power button for 5 seconds every time to switch between laptop and phone.
Despite this, the sound quality is pretty good... but it still doesn’t justify how relatively dumb these pair of headphones are.
The airpods do provide a better experience when it comes to connecting and switching between devices (at least apple devices).
I know they need new batteries because from full charge, they won't get through a single hour-long conference call anymore without blasting the low battery warning.
I used to be able to eek out about 2 1-hour conference calls before getting the warning.
When I need to do this - I only wear one AirPods, and keep the other charged in the case. Mic quality seems improved also with only 1 AirPods.
Obviously replaceable batteries would be even better. How do other brands of wireless earbuds of the same size fare in this regard?
Great for the environment...
I would go as far as to call wired IEMs inherently inferior if price is no object and I don't care if you're buying a $1000 pair with an amp. You're buying a less practical product with a sound quality improvement only in SOME situations. The only reasons to go that road now are running time (if you listen to music ALL day) or cost.
Still either lifespan needs to improve or price needs to drop or both these to be a non-stupid purchase for the vast majority of the market. Most people really don't have the disposible income for these including half the people who buy them.
At the end of humanity there will still be corroded burst airpods and funko dolls washing up on beaches.
I’m looking forward to buying these new ones as they are water resistant and the original model is not, requiring me to dry the sweat off of them very carefully.
[Edited to answer your question to which I cannot reply because it is marked as dead:] The corrosion to which I was referring is clearly oxidation to my eye. It has a green color and requires scraping. Maybe our environments and usage are too different for comparison. I live in Central Florida, where it is quite hot and humid. According to my receipts, I bought these AirPods on April 5, 2017. I have been running with them almost every day since then.
I wonder why you experienced that and I didn't - I don't take particularly good care of my AirPods. The only thing I do occasionally is hit them with a paperclip to remove any earwax buildup because they get pretty gross after a few weeks of use.
I mean I'll go for runs in the rain, run in super humid weather, sleep with them in sometimes, and a host of other probably not good ideas and they just keep on working perfect after a year of this 'abuse'.
I would guess however that they weren't corroded in the traditional sense of the word, more likely just covered in a gross film?
These are undeniably really nice products for the target audience, but the direction we as a humanity are going with disposable products has been and still is problematic and products like this do not help, on the contrary. Everyone is free to ignore that, but I personally cannot justify it. Especially knowing that just adding a wire buys me a better sounding product which lasts way, way longer. But yes: the wire is not too convenient. Though after 20+ years of using it I also got accustomed so no deal breaker.
It sure is, but that is besides the point. So yes as you mention, time for mentality change/laws/...
Anyway we're pretty lucky here already and can buy fruits/vegetables/seeds/... i.e. a majority of what we eat daily without packaging.
for sound quality, I have my Sennheiser over-ears and an external sound card
That being said, if you don’t use Apple products (or only one apple product), they are not really more convenient then any other headphones.
Not having an iPad, I always got by with having a single set of earphones plugged in my work machine, and bluetooth ones for my phone, which I use for running.
I can imagine having many more devices and using the same set for all could be preferable.
Have you ever needed to be on a phone call after you took the call on the phone, but would like to switch headset, but because Bluetooth still sucks it doesn't even show the headset in the list, so you have to power down the headset, restart in pairing mode...
Yeah, I've done that plenty of times using a Bluetooth headset. You will never do that using an iPhone and AirPods. You'll just push the button, and it will switch without drama. And it will work that way tomorrow, too. That's why I've paid eye-watering sums for headsets with W1/H1 chips in them.
Also, isn't the point of a bluetooth handset that you can make the call there?
EDIT: You can downvote, but it's still the truth :p
I'm a year and a half into my normal airpods and they already need new batteries.