I saw some mention about it in some other thread I didn't want to engage in and wanted to know your opinion about it. I feel that the majority's view about it is a kind of conspiracy theory about large companies making their products voluntarily flawed from a reliability point of view. Because, supposedly, they'd be able to sell you a replacement product when this one fails. IMO, it has nothing to do with reality. Sheep's razor states "never attribute to long term strategy what can be explained by short term profit seeking". Do you really think that BrandZ staff think that when your BrandZ microwave dies because of underrated crappy caps, you will again buy a BrandZ mw and so, this is a good way to ensure future profits? Or do you see all the (usually competing) companies as a single entity, all conspiring? Note: there are still good products out there... with 5-years or even life-time warranty. Are you buying those, or the cheapest knockout, then complain about the evil companies?
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BrandZ no, but Apple and Microsoft know that latest product YY is just minor improvement over last year product XX and it has to sell it anyway.. If you want specific examples: - directx version is specifically not available on old windows for the purpose of obsolescence - .NET 4.0+ is not available on old windows XP for the purpose of obsolescence - new version of MS project files cannot be open in older ms project despite not offering more options - from time to time some connectors change without changing wire spec - just to obsolete some stuff At one point i got direct hints from MS that product X I was making should not be available for old windows if I want help from MS. They would even demand that it uses some new features to obsolete old windows. It's a very real stuff ...
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Microsoft has a well-known cultural problem that was created under Balmer - MS priorities both within-team and at larger scales are heavily driven by Stack Rank, which is a a campaigning process where you everything and every person is put on a list and sorted between "highest" and "lowest" priority. This means there's a constant pressure to make new, sexy things. At the same time, MS obsesses about backwards compatibility - the new Windows stuff must run everything old. This means constant horrifying feature creep but every feature becomes a new responsibility for maintenance. You can see this in how hellishly baroque the .NET framework has become. You can also see it in places where backwards compatibility is less of a priority - throwing out and rebuilding whole apps with every Windows version, like their photo gallery, music player, the look-and-feel of MS Office, etc. I really hope they get their ADD under control now that Ballmer is out. MS has really had to embrace pushing for the new tech, though, since Vista and 8 were both consumer kryptonite. They needed to find ways to push people to these platforms because otherwise their lackluster reception was rather embarrassing.
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My understanding of "planned obsolescence" is that it relates to physical products which become defective shortly and are not easily/economically repairable. Other tricks such as selling only slightly improved hardware to dumb customers, selling crippled hardware or customer lock-in doesn't fall under the "planned obsolescence" umbrella. quote:
It's a very real stuff ... |
Capitalistic dirty tricks are real stuff, but not all dirty tricks are of the "planned obsolescence" type. It is more about loss of control of your own belongings. You may not notice it at start of "ownership" because the firmware/software is up to date and does what you want, but you are already not in control. Its your fault. Apple's and Microsoft's strategy (and most software companies strategy) is customer lock-in. Don't go there and you'll be fine, or go there but expect worst case scenario. Software do not become faulty over time, if it is, it has always been. But it may become out-of-date as in "unable to cope with new uses or new threats". Did you pay a maintenance fee to microsoft? I guess not... so why do you expect them to be kind to you? Expecting Microsoft to backport recent .NET to all previous OS is like expecting your car maker to provide you additional seats because you now have children. Related: "Cory Doctorow: The coming war on general computation"
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This is what I meant when I brought up planned obsolescence in the other topic. Not sure if this link works, it should bring you to 36:44, if it doesn't, jump there manually. Skip the stuff after 38:39 if you want. It's not just planned obsolescence though. Think about the kilotons of fresh bread and other food thrown away and destroyed every single day.
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Well cars could be made out of stainless steel. In a town I lived they have an old steam engine factory. The guides said it went bankrupt because the market was saturated as their engines would last for 50 to 100 years and they wouldn't need to buy new ones. Another thing is that companies and consumers don't really care about good quality. Clothes of high quality that lasts decades but cost more might have harder to sell because the customer only compare the price between 2 different t-shirts and only care about their short term usage. People also buy jeans that has holes in them and that have been artificially worn out which is a true testament to that quality is less important than style.
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@[RD]Godde Part of the problem is that you can't see quality. You can't pick up an article of clothing and know it'll last you 10 years unless you're an expert. You can see price.
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Yeah. I think that a part of the problem is also that it is hard to convey good quality to the consumer. Branding is more important. I think getting good quality to a low price is hard. As soon as a brand is recognized to be of good quality they can raise the prise and I think most companies do so. If you are poor you might not have the option to save up to pay for high quality machines and you stick to cheaper stuff even if it would be economically favourable to buy stuff of higher quality because they simply last that much longer. Those people will most likely also buy a new product of low quality once their washing or dishing machine breaks down so sticking to the low quality stuff might even be more profitable than producing high quality stuff. Of course if your brand gets popular you might be able to sell even low quality stuff at a high price. Mostly speculation from my side.
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Well, you know the broken window fallacy- "inefficiency creates jobs". Jobs that don't contribute anything necessary and could be put to good use elsewhere, but if you can force taxpayers or consumers to subsidize them, who cares? Other than those pesky taxpayers and consumers that is. It appears worst in computer tech because the processing power keeps growing exponentially. That doesn't justify the requirements of new software that doesn't use all that power (or worse, uses it but doesn't actually need to). It also makes it much worse when computers can't be upgraded. I wonder if this is part of why Apple likes to cram all its hardware into a fused-together, un-upgradable package that can't be fixed personally (and is usually replaced by Apple rather than fixed at all). I think of it as the "iPod mentality".
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isn't this basicaly the entire western market? you produce no goods, sell nothing usefull, but get money for buying goods(in the long run). kind of like DF prepetual motion waterwheel engines...
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we live by importing goods(at verry low price) then selling goods (at 400%++ markups) then usin the money we get from selling the goods, to buy goods that other people imported (again for huge markup) not entirely sure what thats called, but i find it weird... without artificialy creating demand, we would actualy need to start making stuff again :P its even worse in banking and advertising, there you get money for creating the said markup, and then using that money to buy stuff at said markup maybe it has something to do with the fact that we now have machines making machines to make machines, ie we have no actual need for "humans" to do much in terms of the heavy lifting, and actual work
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Market. It's called market.
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it seems inefficient :P i once read a term for it: something like "the cult of artificial value" or somesuch, describing what happens to a market economy once there is no longer any need for it. Basic TL:DR summary people pay money for stuff that is technicaly free, and do work that is funadamentaly unnecicary, just to propetuate the damand for both labor and markets. i just remembered a real world example: the price(to make) a cup of coffe: ~0.12GBP the price(to buy) a cup of coffe: ~2.00GBP
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You're missing: 1) The acquirement cost of whatever machines are used to cook a cup of coffee, which have to be amortized. 2) The wages for the person(s) cooking your coffee. 3) The rent for whatever building the coffee shop is located in. And probably a lot more things that i can't think of right now. You're not working with a 94% profit margin (if you're not sitting on a monopoly), basic market competition stops that dead in the tracks. That is not to say whatever you want to describe is fiction, but your coffee cup example won't cut it.
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coffe roaster 369GBP Sage by Heston Blumenthal Barista Express BES870UK 550GBP aproximate useable lifetime of said machines: 2-3Years 2 cups per day * 365 * 3 * 0.12gbp= ~262.8GBP +550GBP +369GBP total cost in shop: ~4380GBP your right!!! i could pay over 1000GBP per machine(industrial sized ones) and still come out ontop! iv figured it out!! the coffe at the coffe shop must be served instantly, and my salary must be over 100GBP/hour to justify over 3500GBP in labour costs! (assuming it takes me 1 minute of my time, dedicate exclusively to operating my FULLY AUTOMATIC COFFE MACHINE, per cup...
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your numbers failed. thats a specail offer. quote:
SUPER PACKAGE. NORMAL PRICE £363 INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £329 |
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I think the more important factor is rent for the shop. Also 2 cups sold per day sounds like an underestimate.
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i am assuming that you bough those machines purely for personal use... and store them in your home most workplaces have their own coffe machines that will make you coffe for free! and assuming your salary is over 100GBP/hour, im pretty sure you can just demand a better coffe machine if yours is not up to scratch... (thats over 1million, and i am talking about take home sallary post tax...)
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Oh ok. So you're seeing how much it would cost for you to make your own coffee and then go drink it in a park.
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