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One Hoss Shay and Our Society of Obsolescence (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: The last time you replaced your smart phone, was the entire thing shot or had just one part gone bad? Pretty much every time it's one thing; the screen has cracked, or the WiFi stopped working predictably. But the other parts of the phone were fine. The same is true for laptops, or cars, or one-horse carriages. In fact this is a concept that has been recognized for well over one hundred years. The stuff we buy isn't meant to last forever, otherwise we wouldn't buy more of them. And for that matter, nothing lasts forever despite design. But what if everything was optimized to fail all at once? Instead of a single point of weakness, all parts wore equally and failed in the same time frame. Finding a balance between the One Hoss Shay model, and encouraging the return of user-serviceable parts would go a long way toward making sure that replacement is a choice and not a necessity. (And here's a nicely illustrated version of One Hoss Shay.)
> Yeah, it is a stupid article.
I don't think so. When we think about the usefulness we get from products, it's a shame very good products stop being used because of planned obsolescence.
Printers won't work with your computer, because the driver requires a more recent version of the OS (happened for real!), a scanner will no longer work because a new driver version for your new computer won't be released (happened for real!). The printer had to be returned; the scanner was transferred to an older computer (a XP one, still available for some months), but I saw an identical model dumped as "electronic trash" at a shopping center.
> People don't buy a new phone because some random part wore out.
Yes, they surely do. I myself (well, my daughter) had one of a very famous brand (which shall go unnamed). It stopped making calls, but as a smartphone, all other parts worked: could browse the internet via wi-fi, had an awesome 720p video capture, could play games etc. It was one year old, not too expensive, but also not exactly affordable (after all, it had a "griffe" unit).
> They buy a new phone because it is better, lighter, and more fashionable than their old phone.
Ok, as long as we agree this is kind of a bad reasoning: a new model is not 100% better than your current one; more like 10 to 20% better, perhaps. Yet, you will pay 100% again. Just like there was very little to gain from Office 2007 to 2010. Many features were already present in 2007 and that program would be enough for 80% of users. But everyone thought it was a good idea to get a new version with a new computer -- truth be told, there are special upgrade prices.
But regarding hardware this is uncommon. I would like to get an upgrade of my phone and pay a small amount. The best one can do is enter one of those fidelity plans where you promise to pay the operator lots of dough and get a "free" phone.
> Phone manufacturers would be idiots to focus on longevity when that is not something that is important to most people, especially if they had to increase cost or decrease thinness.
Indeed, you're right, why would do a marketing campaign to tell people their new amazing model does the same the old one did, just with a slightly more powerful CPU, 1 inch bigger screen and some 5mm less thick? "Come and pay us for a new phone with much the same hardware you have and a new fantastic software version?"
Even if everyone falls for that, it doesn't mean I should follow the trend.