alt Hacker NewsCar manufacturing grinds to a halt. Remember what happened to auto prices in 2022? 10x that.
New appliances cannot be manufactured. What dos the absolute absence of new durable goods do to the economy?
There’s no new iPhone for five years. No new electronic hardware at all. What does Apple stock do?
Own any index funds? Those tank too.
Rinse and repeat
Thinking of it as “affordable pcs” is exactly wrong which is actually useful. Invert your totally wrong answer and now you have an actual thought.
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As others have stated, there's fabs all over the world. They're insufficient in quality and quantity to satisfy current demand at current prices but they're there and can do a lot of it, especially as demand and requirements get reduced to meet what's available.
Don't get me wrong, it would suck, but probably suck less than when everything shut down for covid.
>Car manufacturing grinds to a halt.
>New appliances cannot be manufactured
Until they figure out how to repeal the laws that mandate the features/specs that require the semiconductors in the types and volumes that would be a non-starter.
Maybe your washer doesn't need to detect how much stuff you put in and second guess your water setting?
What are the statistical odds a $15k Nissan Kix being sold in the desert will ever benefit from ABS?
>no new iPhone for five years. No new electronic hardware at all
It's not absolute like that. It's more like move the decimal one place on everything and that makes whole classes of products non-viable.
>New appliances cannot be manufactured. What does the [severe reduction in proportion to their semiconductor and irreplaceable foreign part contents] absence of new durable goods do to the economy?
Fixed for realism.
Demand is elastic to some extent. Prices go up. Industries shrink, alternatives grow.
In any case, it's a relative transfer of wealth and power from most of HN to their plumber and landscaper and those otherwise less affected.
A dishwasher with a WiFi chipset is not a durable good. Nor is a fridge with a touchscreen, an oven with Bluetooth.
You know what is durable? The simple and straightforward electromechanical mechanisms we used for three centuries before integrated circuits.
One can find plentiful examples of midcentury and older appliances still in service without major maintenance. It's tough to find a modern appliance in service for more than a decade.
The inability to sprinkle magic obsolescence silicon dust over everything will only lead to an increase in quality and durability.
The mechanical timer in a 1980s washing machine will never have a firmware update blocking you from using it. A 1950s fridge runs perfectly fine essentially forever without a cloud API and a goddamn app.
This hypothetical situation is only bad because you've accepted consumerism and forced obsolescence as the norm. These situations are much worse than not being able to buy a $1600 phone every year.
You should be indignant about the unimaginable amount of resources we throw into landfills because the manufacturer decided that you should buy a new one. You should absolutely not be indignant that you can no longer buy shit to throw away.
Do you repair your appliances or do you throw them away and have a new one shipped from the other side of the planet? Do you see the problem?