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#0893 incentivise long-lasting products

Companies have no incentive to make their products last particularly long. Of course they have the incentive to make their products last as short as possible without customers believing they are of lower quality or too environmentally irresponsible. Is there some way to reverse this by having an insurance scheme type approach where, let's say you pay into a yearly membership for, I dunno, cleaning sponges. You pay your yearly dues and whenever your sponge gets stinky or wears out, you pay a small amount (representing a loss for the company/manufacturer) for a new one. Thus, the company/manufacturer's incentive is to have their sponges last as long as possible and help you the consumer make the item last as long as possible.

But then, we all like new stuff, right? True. See this idea. Perhaps there's a way to hibridize these ideas. Hmmmmmm.
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