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Software Packaging And The Environment?
jayhawk88 asks: "One of my users brought me Microsoft Street and Trips 2001 to install on their laptop yesterday. The box for Street and Trips is fairly large: a little taller than a regular software box, and about 1.5 times wider. The contents, however, are as follows: a standard size jewel case, and a 3-page folded leaflet, that is about half the size or a regular sheet of paper. I'm no environmentalist, but holding the entire contents of this over-sized box in the palm of my hand almost makes me sick. Clearly, this is simply Microsoft spending a pile of cash on packaging to be the biggest and shiniest title on the shelf at CompUSA, but it did get me thinking. Has there ever been a push to 'slim down' software packaging, similar to what happened with CD's in the early 90s? If not, should there be?"
Consumer Reports has a "over packaged hall of fame" thing (can't remember what they call it) they run every month. Three months ago it was 6 cloth napkins from a dept store: Each napkin came in it's own box that was about the size of a desktop computer. It was a pretty funny picture--the napkins are in a tiny pile in the foreground and boxes are mounded up all over the room.
Why not submit Streets Plus (or something else even worse) to CR? It won't stem the tide but it might get people thinking.
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I am quite confident that more and more firms will make there software available via download. No packaging whatsoever.
This of course leads to the problem of getting all of your documentation only viewable on screen, but this will be acceptable because 99.4% of all software documentation is not even suitable to line a birdcage with to begin with.
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The bigger the box, the less likely someone is going to make it out the door with it stuffed under their shirt..
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Have you ever noticed how just about every box on a store shelf is of a similar size and shape? Not just software, but cans of peas, soup, cereal, crackers, cookies, etc. If you make your package stand out too much, it won't fit properly and the stores will get mad at the manufacturers.
The other problem for software manufacturers is that if you make your packaging too small it won't be noticed as easily (that's the theory anyway). Marketers know that having a shiny box is very important in impulse decisions, same as with books, and if you make it small people won't see it next to el crapo title even if you have the hotest game of the year.
On another note, one of the more sensible packages I've seen lately is for Homeworld. It actually had a good manual in it, just under half an inch thick. Those big boxes started out containing those useful manuals of olde, but no longer...
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Well, let's remember that the box is mostly air. It doesn't take that much more material to make a 2-inch-thick box over a 1 inch box (someone want to run a quick calculation? I guess about 5% more material).
In any case, compared to the volume of newspapers, magazines, and junk mail, I think computer boxes probably are about 0.001% of the total paper mass, much less total garbage mass.
If you want to focus on garbage generation, this is not the place. I could even argue that any paper really isn't the place, since that is pretty easy to recycle.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Overpackaging is just a tiny sliver of the waste this brave new digital world has brought. We were supposed to have "paperless" offices. But instead computers have made printing so easy that nobody thinks twice about printing anything out and we end up with more waste.
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The comparison with music CD packaging doesn't quite work. Most people have some idea of what they are getting when they buy a music CD. With music, you are typically buying a kind of entertainment that you are already familiar with You've heard a song or two from it before, and that is the main reason you seek out that disc over the many others available in the store.
With software, consumers are buying the idea that this software is going to serve some useful purpose for them. Many people don't know if one particular package is what is right for them or not. Should it be Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop or CorelDraw?
The packaging convinces them that the product will make their computer that much more powerful and productive. That's a tough stunt to pull off in only 5.5 inches square.
Additionally, consumers perceive that the size of the packaging relates to the power and amount of features of the software inside. There is a reason that Quicken Basic comes in a slim box and Quicken Home & Business comes in a thick one. And it's not because they needed the room to stuff in a bigger manual. "It has the bigger box, so there must be *more* in there!" Consumers already get confused about what the difference is between the three versions. The box sizes let them know that they are getting *more* (if only in packaging) for their money.
Even commercial Linux distros do this. Compare the "Business" and "Secure Server" versions to the basic versions.
Do I like that? No.
But I'm not expecting the relationship between consumers and marketers to change enough for software packaging to become more environmentally efficient. Even with the move to electronic distribution. I know enough holdouts who want to hold something in their hands before they'll plunk down money for it.
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I don't have any details but I remember way back when... some group sued [a] computer software manufacturer[s] due to a law which says that you can't make your package larger than the contents just to make it look like you are getting more than you are really getting. The case didn't have any effect though because it was argued that the size of the box was necessary due to the amount of space needed to describe / advertise the product. I wish I could find a URL about it...
(I think that would work pretty well for a container of food or something. Every notice the indentations they put in the bottoms of shampoo / etc bottles, and around the middle sometimes, and then a nice tall plastic end-cap, probably to make it looke like you are getting more than you are?)
Folks here have already mentioned audio CDs, which used to be packaged in huge cardboard boxes, but now are almost always sold in plain jewel boxes. If shoplifting is an issue, the store can lock the CDs in reusable plastic extenders, which are annoying, but (presumably) not wasteful.
Computer software is different. Think of games, in particular, since that's where packaging really comes into its own. Some computer games will always require a large box... any Sid Meier game, for example. Many other games could be sold in jewel boxes, but those games still have to compete with the ones in large boxes. Even the most rational consumer couldn't help but pay more attention to the huge Falcon 8.0 box, with its three volume manual, than to the little Quake IV CD, sitting in a rack with hundreds of other identical jewel boxes.
MSK