At 02:10 9/29/02, Chris Barker wrote:
It may be part of the modern culture Clinton, but I should think that
Japanese culture has changed greatly to be so. Discarding functioning
goods would surely have been seen as dreadfully wasteful 50-100 years ago.
And the planet cannot afford such an attitude now, even if it ever could ...
Chris
Chris,
You do not understand the need for a consumption based society. It's the
desire of every for-profit business that sells new goods or sells
services. Look at the business model for disposable diapers. The consumer
thinks of this as a convenience, and with diapers it is likely
true. However, from a business perspective it's a consumption business
model compared to the one for cloth diapers. Use once, throw it away and
buy more. Those that make "durable" goods want as much of this
"disposable" business model as possible. Alvin Toffler called this the
"throw-away society" in _Future_Shock_ published just over 30 years ago.
Consider a ficticious new "durable" product which has no real competition,
The Framus. The Framus does something useful not done (or done very well)
by anything else, and what it does well is desirable in the eyes of
consumers. As a durable object it has a design life of 10 years. It takes
off following introduction because it is a "must have" with
consumers. Production capacity for The Framus is justifiably increased to
a high level. However, eventually the market saturates within a few years,
including competition playing catch-up with their
non-patent-or-copyright-infringing versions of The Framus. After all, it's
durable. If a consumer already has one, why buy another for personal
use? Sales of new ones begin to fall after a few years.
Now trot out several business strategies to "fix" the problem of falling
Framus sales:
(1) Programmed Obsolesence: make it less durable so it wears out sooner.
(2) New and Improved Framus: add some additional feature, real or
perceived, to induce pitching the perfectly functioning one to "keep up
with the Joneses" and have the "latest and greatest" version. If The
Framus employs an emerging technology, this can be leveraged by employing
incremental technology improvement as fast as it becomes available. Mature
technologies must look elsewhere for some "breakthrough" of an alternate,
but similar technology, the best breakthroughs being ones that make older
ones obsolescent (e.g. CD --> DVD).
(3) Stop providing repair parts and supporting repair of broken Frami
sooner. If if has parts that wear out in normal use (e.g. automobile brake
pads), or something consumable (such as film) make them unique to the
Framus when it's designed and stop making them sooner. Broken ones and
those with worn parts suddenly become non-repairable and those that require
unique consumables become unusable (e.g., , 126 Instamatic --> 110 Pocket
Instamatic --> Disk --> APS).
IMHO camera manufacturers have gotten "smart" with consumer film cameras
and even "smarter" with the digitals following market saturation with
durable SLR's during the 1970's and 1980's. They're not made to last
nearly as long as those made 15-30 years ago. The business cycle for
introduction of "New and Improved" ones using "creeping featuritis" and
"gadgetitis" has shortened considerably. All the major manufacturers
employ marketing to convince the consumer the latest and greatest has some
new essential to perfect photographs (as if it's the camera that does it
and not the photographer). Furthermore, they're leveraging on incremental
directly related technology improvements as fast as possible (more CCD
pixels) and indirect ones such as introduction of new computer operating
systems by not providing new operating system driver support for
discontinued models.
Yet one more reason I've kept my OM system and the medium format gear I
have. It's inherently durable and employs mature technologies unlikely to
disappear very soon (135, 120 and 220 film).
Consume, Chris, consume. Don't stop spending! Keep up with the Joneses
next door. Don't become an emabarrasment to the neighborhood! Prove to
everyone you're up on the latest technologies; that you, yourself, have not
become obsolete. Borrow money if you must to keep up! It's good for
business, it keeps people employed, and it contributes to Gross National
Product. Having a bank account with any money in it is shameful.
:-)
-- John
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