Impressive strawman evisceration; one of the best I’ve seen in a while.
Many online sellers offer bundled (aka “free”) delivery of that new TV. My last TV was ordered on Amazon and delivered right into my hallway. All I had to do was set it up.
My comment above says many would judge it not worth it to do the transport twice if the repair were free. I’m not sure the business model you’re imagining where a repair and two-way transportation would be free (or even sub-$200 in the US).
I know I'm the gggggp and watching an impressive strawman :)
But one thing to remember, is if we were to price goods based on their creation, profits, AND externalitites (environmental of various sorts), these $400 TV's would likely be around $1000 or more. Land rehabilitation costs a lot, as does air purification and water cleaning of various chemicals. And land isn't exactly growing, so every new piece of trash in a landfill is taking up a limited resource.
Given all those things we currently don't include would easily tip the scales to "Repair". Sure, things wear out and die. Components can burn out. But we have the technology to fix them; we have the engineering to design durable and repairable things.
But because things are "cheap" (call it a loan from the future that we can't default on), its easier to enforce throw-away culture until we can't. But some megacorps make a few more bucks. And we end up with the DMCA, copyrights, and other obnoxious laws and technologies actively preventing us from fixing broken things.
> My comment above says many would judge it not worth it to do the transport twice if the repair were free.
Many would judge it not worth to do the transport of the new TV once if the TV were free. Whatever. Comparing apples to oranges is still comparing apples to oranges.
> I’m not sure the business model you’re imagining where a repair and two-way transportation would be free (or even sub-$200 in the US).
I'm not sure the business model you're imagining where just the repair is free either, but that's the scenario that you made up, and I simply made it so it wasn't comparing apples to oranges (namely, one option where the customer has to do the transport themselves vs. one where the transport is done by the company).
Now, as for two-way transport sub-$200: What would be the reason why that would be so fundamentally impossible? The direction to the home is essentially the same as delivery of a new TV, right? And I doubt that Amazon pays anywhere near 100 bucks to get the new TV delivered to you? More like 20 to 30 bucks maybe? So, why would picking up a broken TV from home and delivering it to the nearest repair center cost 170 bucks?
Many online sellers offer bundled (aka “free”) delivery of that new TV. My last TV was ordered on Amazon and delivered right into my hallway. All I had to do was set it up.
My comment above says many would judge it not worth it to do the transport twice if the repair were free. I’m not sure the business model you’re imagining where a repair and two-way transportation would be free (or even sub-$200 in the US).