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A comment on After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate safer table saws. Parent comment

Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by bdowling on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @06:46PM (#39985147)
This is a bizarre take because if not for SawStop, many, many more people would have lost blood, appendages, and lives to conventional table saws. In fact, SawStop the company only exists because 20 years ago every table saw manufacturer refused to license the technology from the inventor. None of them wanted it at any price because it would increase the cost of their saws and reduce their profits.
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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by greedo on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @08:29PM (#39985729)
SS was not the only company to come up with blade sensing technology...
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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by davemp on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @08:48PM (#39985845)
> None of them wanted it at any price

Do we actually know this? Or could the license terms have just been too high?

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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by bdowling on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @11:35PM (#39986701)
The analysis I read listed various reasons why existing manufacturers wouldn’t adopt the technology (sorry, I can’t find the link). Increased cost per saw was one, but adopting the technology would also create two product lines: “safe” saws and “unsafe” saws. So any manufacturer who adopted the tech partially would have to argue that half of their product lines were unsafe. Even if the license costs were zero, these problems would exist.
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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by nothercastle on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @09:39AM (#39990613)
So it’s better that all products are unsafe lol. I get it from a liability pov but sucks for customers
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Re:After years of trying, the U.S. government may mandate sa... by lobsterthief on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @07:17AM (#39989393)
Many more people _who have the money to invest in a premium saw_ have saved their appendages. People who can’t afford the saw have continued to lose them. That’s part of the issue here.
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