http://howdidthishappen.org/myths/

“Thus, 80 percent subprime loans were made by lenders not regulated by the CRA. – The CRA actually created more responsible lending. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet L. Yellen rejected the “tendency to conflate the current problems in the subprime market with CRA-motivated lending,” and noted “that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households.” – The act was passed in 1977, well before the subprime loan bonanza occurred. In fact, the Bush administration’s weakening of the CRA coincided with the subprime boom. – Banks did not engage in an orgy of reckless subprime lending to meet CRA obligations; they did so for they same reason they always do: to make money. Only this time, deregulation allowed them to get paid not just for making the loans, but for turning them into securities and trading them [...]“

This seems all too common, and seems to be getting worse. I think maybe we’re all a little too swayed by “positive reviews” – essentially some yahoo has had the thing for a day and a half and then describes the product as if it’s the second coming. Trouble is with such short refresh cycles for products, an proper review is hard to actually do with a shipping product. We’ve also been brainwashed to work on “Internet time” where a review of a product more than a week old is “stale”.

I hope they fix your camera soon.

Clearly Sony has made some business decisions. All companies make changes in how they do business. Sometimes they are bad for the consumer. Sometimes they are done for the wrong reasons.

If you make high quality products, you will spend a lot less in product support. When you do have product quality problems you are better prepared to “wow” the customer with your ability to deal with it. For years Sony enjoyed this status. They could charge a little bit more for the product. Their customers were willing to pay more and knew Sony’s products would last for years.

In the world of intense retail competition and cheap knockoff products, Sony has probably found itself in a difficult situation. To compete, they need to be price competitive. Cuts have been necessary. Today’s Sony products are often not at innovative, not as durable, as their predecessors.

This problem isn’t unique to Sony.

A few years ago consumer electronics came with full year warranties and you could expect your purchases to last 5-10 years. Today they come with 90 day warranties and you’ll be lucky if they last 3 years. (I have a box full of dead products to prove my point.) The sale of “extended” warranty plans has become BIG business.

If you think Sony is bad, you haven’t lived until you have had to deal with Microsoft over a dead Xbox 360. (I have one of them in my box too.)

This is a scary industry trend. We are now in the world of $400 cell phones and $2000 TV’s. Do you remember when phones were free and TV’s cost less than $500? If I am going to spend that much money, I’d like it to have a good working life. Who do you trust?