this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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The "upside" of planned obsolescence is that devices are markedly cheaper if you're willing to not live on the bleeding edge (which is itself just marketing fomo bs..)
Case in point.. recently had to replace my phone. Since I now feel like a liability carrying around newish £500 one I took a look at some 2-3 years old. I eventually picked one I sort-of wished I'd gone for last time around except now I was spending 20% of what it would have cost me back then. So it's a little closer to the point of being obsolete than what it's replacing. But seriously. The amount of money people spend desperate to stay at the pinnacle of camera technology (that they can't really tell the difference on) or for Apple "AI" (I mean.. god.. really.. you're a smart independent person. How has Apples marketing team gotten this far into your brain?) is crazy. But the massively cheaper deals for what are, objectively, still amazing devices is something that only happens because of technology churn and "planned obsolescence".
Except the pace with which said edge moves too depends on how frequently most people replace their devices.
Meaning that without planned obsolescence combined expenses for tech of an average person per period of time would be the same.
Yes. People pay actual money for things they can't explain in words other than "new cool" or "3.141 times faster" or "14.88% better". I'm of an opinion that this concerns all computer things. Not even only personal computing. It's a tulip bubble that hasn't yet burst. A very big one.
If the essence of things we do with PCs hasn't changed since year 2003, but we do it the harder and more wasteful way due to vanity, there has to be an implosion.
🤨
What? I always felt there's something Nazi-like about Apple.