Unfortunately, if you want to fix electronics more often than not China is the only place you can buy spare parts. I don't think buying spare parts to devices counts as "stupid shit".
replyIf you were to interpret the comment you’re responding to charitably, you’d understand that electronics components are a minuscule minority of all of Chinese exports.
replySure! I understand that everyone buying stuff on Temu and Shein is horrific. At the same time, me paying $$$ for ordering electrical components from China is rough for me. And also, I find it mind-blowing and ridiculous that Ali offered free shipping for small orders for so long whereas if I'd buy local I need to pay up for shipping, and if I'd start a small business in the Netherlands, shipping to the rest of the EU for small parcels is prohibitively expensive, not even taking into account PPWR
replyRight, so tell me where in Europe can I buy replacement parts for random electronics when I need them? Often very specific ICs, last time it was a cassette deck pinch roller, etc.
replyPreferably somewhere where it’s cheaper than the value of the thing being repaired.
Yes, and that's a whole different problem, which in itself does not equal stupid shit.
replyThe reason the price for parcels from China is going up in Europe is not shipping chips or component, it's from shipping stupid fucking shit people do not need, from e.g Temu and copied goods such as clothing, shoes and what not.
The toll offices in the airports are being drowned in cheap crap. Shut it down by making people pay more for the shit they buy. That will of course hurt everyone else, but that is how it works.
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replyYou're replying to a comment that proposes a market-based solution. Shipping has externalities. Those externalities should be included in the cost of shipping. Then the market will make the right decision.
replyEvery time I see somebody make an argument about "externalities" it's never actually backed up with any fact-based analysis about the magnitude of them. It's always exclusively vibes-based, "this thing you like is too cheap, it should be prohibitively expensive to make up for the thing I just thought of"
replyHow do you expect people to discuss them across the scale of a whole economy without giant spreadsheets? Externalities are a well understood economic concept whose study goes back a century.
replyWell, if some bureaucratic governing body provides decisions based on some opaque system, and forces these upon market participants - usually that is regarded just the opposite of market-based solutions in economics. Those decisions do have zero chance of internalizing external costs, but most likely will just add an other layer of externality and move the process even more into the field of non-market based coordination mechanisms.
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