Short of undoing decades of neoliberal globalism and free trade agreements that destroyed a litany of domestic industries by sending them offshore, and as a result, collapsing an economy of ‘repair, don’t replace’, we’ll never ever see the days of buying anything for life again.
Yeah, this disposable economy is in large part thanks to the destruction of the middle class. If the bottom 80-90% got their “fair share” of the economic pie again, people could actually afford quality (and save money in the long term).
I’m not as doomerish about the future. If people can be educated on what the real problems are, it can be fixed. As long as social media stays relatively free and unmanipulated, it is inevitable. What I’m seeing currently is an educational revolution, even if everyone likes to rip on social media.
AI is a wildcard however, not sure how it will change things, could go either way. Since open source models are just a few months behind at worst, things could go better than expected.
Another factor is that once technological development starts to slow down, companies have to compete on quality. The gap between cheap smartphones and flagships used to be huge, but since smartphones mostly don’t change anymore the gap has become really small.
Basically as technologies mature, the only unique selling point that is left is quality and reliability. Once we run into the physical limits of computation by the end of the century (unless efficiency growth slows down), devices will stop being so disposable. Then a device you buy 30 years later won’t be significantly better than the 30 year old one. In the past a 30 year difference roughly translates to a 30k times difference in performance. That’s why electronics are so disposable.
I think smart devices will eventually either mature to reliablity and minimum necessary features or we’ll return to dumb devices again.
People repaired TVs because they were a significant expenditure. TVs are sold for a quarter to a fifth of the price of what TVs used to cost back when TV repair was a job.
It’s ridiculous how cheap TVs have gotten. Electronics aren’t being replaced because of neoliberal globalism, they’re being replaced because nobody is willing to spend the money on repairing them, or buying repairable versions.
How many people around you are willing to spend the extra dosh for a Fairphone, when you can get the advantages of twice the speed and RAM for the same price?
Short of undoing decades of neoliberal globalism and free trade agreements that destroyed a litany of domestic industries by sending them offshore, and as a result, collapsing an economy of ‘repair, don’t replace’, we’ll never ever see the days of buying anything for life again.
Welcome to the future. It sucks.
Yeah, this disposable economy is in large part thanks to the destruction of the middle class. If the bottom 80-90% got their “fair share” of the economic pie again, people could actually afford quality (and save money in the long term).
I’m not as doomerish about the future. If people can be educated on what the real problems are, it can be fixed. As long as social media stays relatively free and unmanipulated, it is inevitable. What I’m seeing currently is an educational revolution, even if everyone likes to rip on social media.
AI is a wildcard however, not sure how it will change things, could go either way. Since open source models are just a few months behind at worst, things could go better than expected.
Another factor is that once technological development starts to slow down, companies have to compete on quality. The gap between cheap smartphones and flagships used to be huge, but since smartphones mostly don’t change anymore the gap has become really small.
Basically as technologies mature, the only unique selling point that is left is quality and reliability. Once we run into the physical limits of computation by the end of the century (unless efficiency growth slows down), devices will stop being so disposable. Then a device you buy 30 years later won’t be significantly better than the 30 year old one. In the past a 30 year difference roughly translates to a 30k times difference in performance. That’s why electronics are so disposable.
I think smart devices will eventually either mature to reliablity and minimum necessary features or we’ll return to dumb devices again.
People repaired TVs because they were a significant expenditure. TVs are sold for a quarter to a fifth of the price of what TVs used to cost back when TV repair was a job.
It’s ridiculous how cheap TVs have gotten. Electronics aren’t being replaced because of neoliberal globalism, they’re being replaced because nobody is willing to spend the money on repairing them, or buying repairable versions.
How many people around you are willing to spend the extra dosh for a Fairphone, when you can get the advantages of twice the speed and RAM for the same price?