And yet if you buy a computer one part at a time, through the magic of standardization you may end up even cheaper than the fully build OEM option.

You won't see too many industries attempting this kind of standardization anytime soon.

That was maybe once true. If you're literally starting from zero today and buying new parts? I sort of doubt it.

(Though I don't really disagree that it's generally easier to swap out parts on a (home-built) tower computer than it is with most things because of standards.)

It's perfectly true today if you ignore the recent price hikes which happen under different forces (silicon shortage, crypto stuff). An OEM might be cheaper because they will put in lower quality stuff you'd never buy yourself (the absolute cheapest part that fits the bill, the cheapest motherboard, the worst thermal paste), and they have to cover extra services, warranty, building and distributing the systems, etc. I think you can still get cheaper and/or better systems by yourself.

Comparisons are a bit hard because (perhaps outside of some specialty--and more expensive--gaming systems) what you build yourself is arguably "better"/more optimized than a random HP or Dell box. At the same time, the percentage of people who care about optimization at that level is pretty small. I built/upgraded PCs for years and now I pretty much have zero interest.

But again to the basic point, it's certainly close to a wash which wouldn't be true with most things.

It's definitely true for PCs. At best you can get the same price for pre-assembled but usually it's more expensive.

Not sure about laptops though.

Admittedly it’s been a while, but the last I checked crypto-driven GPU scarcity made it much harder and more expensive to build a gaming PC than to buy premade.

I bought a Chromebook for $92 delivered to my door this winter. It’s definitely not the case there.

Realistically, you can't even really build your own laptop from scratch in the sense of buying a case, motherboard, etc. OK--maybe someone offers this--but it's hardly mainstream. And you can buy a Dell desktop for ~$800 and I'm sure I could find cheaper deals elsewhere. No, it's not an optimized gaming machine but most people don't have any use for that.

There is value in building with a combination of new and used parts. Why do you need a new case each time you build a new PC. There may be cosmetic benefits, but an old case will rarely affect anything else. Likewise, I have a couple if bike frames laying around. I could pretty much build a bike to my spec and not bother with the expense of a frame.

Though bikes are another good example of something with a lot of standardization/interchangeability of parts. Most mechanical/electronic things around the house aren't like that to the same degree.

ADDED: I suspect people who say that it's cheaper to build your own PC are mostly thinking in terms of it can certainly be cheaper to upgrade a DIY system than to buy a new one off the shelf.

There are a couple of scenarios where you can possibly build cheaper. Consider when the purchaser is looking for certain components or to meet a particular specification. In those situations they would have to pay someone to build a custom system or pay the vendor to customize the system (in those cases the vendor frequently charges a premium).

Of course the big question is, why aren't household devices/appliances using standardized and interchangeable components? In many cases, it could probably be done. I suspect the main differentiator is consumer expectation. A significant number of consumers of bikes and desktop computers will repair, upgrade, and accessorize their purchase. Very few people will expect to do the same with their blender or television.

It's still completely true, except for the GPU shortage.

Many years ago, I believe late eighties, a documentary was made in Italy, sponsored by FIAT (basically to show how good was their new automated warehouse) when a group of people, members of an automobile club, built a Fiat 131 completely from the body buying everything through the "normal" spare parts channels, ordering parts as the rebuilding went on.

It came out that the built car costed more than 500% without counting any of the man work/hours.

And FIAT (at least here in Italy) was famous for having rather cheap spare parts (when compared to - say - Volkswagen).

Most probably the 500% is nowadays not enough, at least for cars.

A lot of people discover this when they try to build a custom bicycle from the frame up with off-the-shelf components.

Similarly, if you want to build your own furniture, you'll find that Ikea furniture shipped overseas is cheaper even than wood bought locally!

You could probably build a decent chair with a saw and an axe and a tree if you had to. It may not be very comfortable or sturdy and if you didn't allow the wood to dry first it would probably break in a matter of months just from the wood shrinking as it dried, but if you had to you could do it.

I wouldn't need to build furniture with an axe because I have a decent woodworking shop in my garage.

However, what I'm saying is that your cost for just the tree (for the raw material) is greater than the cost of pre-made manufactured and even imported-from-Europe furniture. So you can't save money with DIY furniture building.

My father built a large sturdy shelf unit from reclaimed planks he sourced from left over ammo crates after the war. It can be done cheaply if you are concerned about functionality more than looks. Get some lumber and wood paint. First, you don't care about weight, easy assembly process and shipping costs, so you can use heavier materials, proper metal screws, profiles, brackets, etc. But you do need some tools, like a drill, jigsaw/circular, etc.

That's just bad accounting. "Reclaimed planks" aren't free materials any more than something I bought last week for $100 is free today. There's something called "opportunity cost." Someone who uses up $100 worth of reclaimed planks is spending $100.

Under the Iron Curtain it was quite popular to build whole car out of spare parts in the seventies up to early eighties due to rationing. It was significantly cheaper too.

>Your car is likely well over $100K if you ordered it one part at a time.

I guess I agree, but when I read it I couldn't help but think that Johnny Cash built his Cadillac one part at a time and it didn't cost him a thing!

didn't cost him a DIME

> a $500 dishwasher costing $2500 if ordered one part at a time is reasonable

A 5x multiplier is in no way reasonable unless the replacement parts are being shipped to the moon.

I disagree with using "what sokoloff thinks is reasonable" as a standard.

> I think a $500 dishwasher costing $2500 if ordered one part at a time is reasonable.

So the cost of assembly line, robots, power and salaries of workers is -400%?

Why do you feel the need to come with excuses for whats is ibviously a cash-cow?

How can it be a cash cow when everyone comes to the conclusion that it's not worth buying?

In any case, you've neglected logistics, which is at least complicated enough that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been stalling out on multiple fronts against a much smaller force (this not to denigrate the bravery or capabilities of the Ukranians.)

> you've neglected logistics, which is at least complicated enough that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been stalling out

I am honestly amazed at this segway.

I'm coming to appreciate how far the devastation and misery of Ukraine are from most Americans' minds. It's probably the first news story I've followed closely since last year's attack on the Colonial Pipeline, but I've been completely absorbed by it since December. I don't understand how the story of the global American military presence can be obtained coherently through the national embarrassment that is leaving Ukraine to stand up, alone, for Western civilization. But it is hardly the first empire to be shown as hollow, and the collapse is all the cleaner (for the US) because the foreign military presence doesn't accompany foreign territories that will need to be shed.

Offering low cost parts cannibalises new sales. Over-charging on parts is a cash cow as you now sell more full price machines, the only cost is the decimation of the environment and waste of limited planetary resources .. but shareholders make even more money, so who cares /s.

I'm actually open to this argument for larger things that last longer and are less internalize-able, because the friction in the market starts to overwhelm its efficiency.

But dishwashers are not that expensive that you're stuck with them. Buying new, cost is less than most new appliances and similar to a phone, less than a laptop. The used market is so soft that, even in my LCOL area (with consequently tighter Craigslist market), I bought my 3 year old stainless steel dishwasher for $150. All this to say, you can bail on your dishwasher if someone starts selling one that is extraordinarily better than everything on the market.

As another thought exercise, you have apartment complexes or apartment buildings (working in hand with national or regional builders). These parties have the time horizon, large sample sizes, accounting capacity, and concern for costs to know the absolute best option for appliances in terms of how often maintenance is required and how much it costs. They're a large enough buyer, at least collectively, to constitute a market. Despite all this, the dishwashers in apartments where I've lived or visited seem exactly the same as the ones in friends homes. Why don't apartment complexes use low maintenance dishwashers? My suspicion is that they're complex machines with heaters (highest wear), pumps (high wear), and pressurized water in close proximity to electronics, built to a standard so they can be affordable in every US home.

But please, make it better. I like paying extra money for things built with engineer driven design.

It seems like your thesis is we can make them cheap, let's just throw them out?

What is it about sustainability that is wrong to you, why is pollution and resource wasting better?

Dishwashers to me seem quite simple (compared to say washing machines; just based on having repaired all my home appliances). No reason a dishwasher can't last a lifetime.

My mother's first microwave is still going, about 40 years old, meanwhile newer appliances last the mandated 2y warranty period then break very soon after.

We've been seduced by shiny new things and it's pathological for our species. Companies have played to it because those interested in only money have taken them over.

We're in for a World of hurt this Century as energy and resources shortages hit, I wonder if we'll learn.

The benefit of the assembly line, robots, consolidation into a factory, and salaries of people dedicated to the assembly process is obviously easily enough to account for this difference. That's why factories exist.

If you don't believe that mass production has benefits, you have to come up with some alternative explanation for the 20th century.

Maybe you should go into business to undercut this obvious cash-cow? I bet if you start with $10M and undercut the current suppliers, you could become a millionaire.

Probably shouldn't be quite so snarky when you're wrong. There's a huge industry of non-oem parts that do undercut the OEM and presumably make money.

Do you think you can start a dishwasher business for $10M?

My preferred modus would be to buy a current manufacturer, then strip out the high paid execs and minimise the profits in the form of very cheap repairs.

No, but you can start a business that manufactures the parts that HN experts have identified as "cash cows" for less than $10M.

Your whole attitude indicates that you are largely unaware of the shenanigans manufacturers have been pulling to cutoff supply of repair parts.

our taxes pay for customs to seize components of iPhones and file charges on behalf of apple for counterfeit goods. If you take your iphone, travel to china, take it apart there, and send to to the US by post, the customs will seize it as counterfeit.

Honest people are going to jail to preserve Apple's profits.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3yadk/apple-sued-an-indepen...

You also probably don't know about part serialisation and other efforts that mean that even if you product a compatiable part, the device will reject it.

This is the case with tractors and phones. I am not 100% up to date with dishwashers.

Your attitude indicates that you think dishwasher parts manufacturers are making excessive profits on repair parts somehow, since at least this post of yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30662019

Why not go disrupt them and put some of those cash cows into your barn instead?

On phones, last weekend I replaced my wife's iPhone X battery with one from Amazon for $18.99 + $1.19 in tax and 45 minutes of very straightforward work. If that $20.18 repair to get an extra 2 years out of the phone is the result of excessive profiteering or protectionism on the part of Apple, I'm pretty sure I'm OK with it and don't need/want government intervention to "fix" it.

I could have sent taken it to Apple and gotten it replaced for $70, which also seems totally reasonable to me for a parts-and-labor repair to get 2 more years of service.

You didn't buy the $20 battery from Apple, did you though?