> I'd guess blenders are a commodity at this point - for most of the market, customers are very price sensitive, so since repairability ain't gonna win you any points, you may just as well assume that you get a fraction of the market share, and if your product breaks early, you'll capture that fraction of repeat purchases.
I think I'd call cars a commodity too. I used to avoid buying cars with auto transmissions or turbos. The auto transmission will need a rebuild[1] around 200000km, and the turbo is just an extra thing that could break, and yet new-car buyers vastly prefer to buy autoboxes with turbos.
Some manufacturers (Audi) stopped making manual transmission NA cars back in 2010, without even seeing a dip in sales.
If buyers cared about repair costs, auto transmissions and turbos wouldn't be anywhere near as common as we see.
[1] All cars have clutches. In a traditional auto the clutch plates are inside the box and requires many dozens more hours of billable labour than the clutch plate in a manual transmission.
I think I'd call cars a commodity too. I used to avoid buying cars with auto transmissions or turbos. The auto transmission will need a rebuild[1] around 200000km, and the turbo is just an extra thing that could break, and yet new-car buyers vastly prefer to buy autoboxes with turbos.
Some manufacturers (Audi) stopped making manual transmission NA cars back in 2010, without even seeing a dip in sales.
If buyers cared about repair costs, auto transmissions and turbos wouldn't be anywhere near as common as we see.
[1] All cars have clutches. In a traditional auto the clutch plates are inside the box and requires many dozens more hours of billable labour than the clutch plate in a manual transmission.