We are obsessed with new products and want more and more all the time. Lets have a look at what’s going on.
In this essay I will go into the topic of new things that are marketed and hyped and purchased by millions. And this is a cycle that is repeated year over year and is only increasing in speed. But I will also look at the “old” things and how they are actually very important and make our modern lives possible.
It was about four years ago when I sat in a meeting at a big car manufacturer and they bragged to us, that they are working on technologies today that will go into cars seven years down the line.
Back then, I remember, I was mentally shaking my head and thought that this is way too long. The company with the shortest release cycle will dominate. Be it cars or smartphones, a yearly release is the thing we have come to accept.
In the last few years it certainly has been true that all mayor companies have started introducing new “innovative” products on a yearly schedule. Which is strange because they seem to be able to time scientific discoveries and complex engineering. Which they can’t.
Every mayor phone manufacturer releases a new phone each year, each car company a new version of a car, each computer manufacturer a new computer. We are used to this, but also other companies that are not necessarily tied to technology or as big are doing it. The most prominent example is fast fashion, which has about a three months release schedule.
A few weeks a ago another new, best iPhone was introduced. Like every year in September. I like to think I am not influenced by Apples marketing non sense but kudos to them, they are extremely good at selling things that are not innovative and highly overpriced. Watching the keynote you get the sense that ALL things until this moment were just mere toys and from now on, this is the real and only thing. It is easy to get swayed by this propaganda and spend $1300 on a phone that does the exact same thing as ALL other phones before it.
Each year all these mega corporations introduce new innovations and styles that are sold to us as being so much better or extremely useful. Of course millions of people fall for it.
But do companies really come up with so many break through things each year? No, of course not. This is impossible and even the features that are advertised to us have been in development for years or decades. Companies just plan far ahead into the future what features to release, and instead of having a new product every 5 to 10 years we get a slow trickle each year animating us to spend a lot of money each time.
This is the modern hearth beat of capitalism. Even these companies are stuck in their own game, they have to sell new things every year because otherwise they will die. These corporations are so massive that their operating costs can only sustained through constant increases in sales. Even just a small interruption in business could mean death to the most powerful companies.
When it comes to real change and innovation large corporations are extremely slow and usually need to be forced from the outside. Point in case, the diesel gate scandal of Volkswagen. All these years they were “innovating” on useless comfort features and poisoning the public with their stupid engines. Their core technology was just the wrong one. Big public outcry forced them to electric vehicles. They would have never fundamentally changed a core technology on their own.
And last we have companies who invent release schedules to sell more long duration products. Like IKEA, who has turned furniture into a fashion and every few months a new trend is introduced that makes you feel like you need to own it. Back in the day furniture lasted generations and fulfilled a certain purpose. But because you can’t make money with long lasting furniture, what we get today is low quality that, even if we don’t fall for their marketing bullshit needs to be replaced regularly.
If you as a human feel restricted in your endeavors and you come up with something that propels you along, that is a tool. You don’t need to be sold on it because it fits your needs.
A carpenter needs a good hammer, a writer a good pencil. Tools can sustain extremely long uses and can be repaired or adapted. They are essentials. This is one reason why we don’t have tool companies innovating on tools every year because when you own some tools you own them for a long time. Usually.
Tools are the essentials to help humans create, to build society and culture. Just think about the things you have in your daily life that make your profession or hobby possible.
I own a collection of analog cameras. They are 20 to 45 years old and all work fine, because they were build to work no matter how old they are. Back then companies did not think about plant obsolescence. A good photographer can take a beautiful picture with on of these cameras the same way he could with a brand new one. It is not about technology.
We celebrate musicians that make the most beautiful music on very old instruments. Look at Willie Nelson for example. Many people still own and buy music CDs and have proper Hifi equipment at home.
Outside this bubble of consumption, the essential things don’t change. The farmers producing the food we all eat don’t go out and by some new “innovative” tractors each years even if companies like John Deer try to convince them that our life essential tools are mere consumables they should not own or repair.
The way we build our roads has not changed, nor has the way we build buildings, or the way we produce energy. The infrastructure and tools that make advanced human life possible are extremely slow to change, which in this case is a good thing.
Of course in the face of climate change we want to get rid of fossil fuels but we build our complete global economy on it and moving this mountain will take centuries and a reduction in its overall size. If big system would be as flimsy as yearly smartphone releases we would never accomplish anything meaningful and humans would live constantly in a state of fear because we had no security.
As mentioned in my previous essay about The Modularity if Colombia, even simple essential items like chairs and tables don’t change much and poorer countries use these simple resources as efficient and as long as they can.
And here is my problem with all these companies that pretend to care about our planet and their customers. They don’t. If they would, their first priority would be to make products that last extremely long and are not being replaced each year due to a new version. Having a sustainable business starts with having a low impact and not forcing people to buy new products every few months. Every output you can reduce will reduce the input by multiples.
We made it to the end already, what is it we can do to change the aforementioned circumstances? Like always lets look at individual and group things that can be done in order to make our life a bit better.
On the individual side there is a lot of things that can be done and if you should have any other inputs feel free to post them in the comments.
Stop paying attention to the “new” and “innovative” claims of rich mega corporations. They are lies. If something would be truly groundbreaking you would hear about it, if you wanted to or not. Realize that the majority of the world is not run on these claims and that underlying systems are changing only slowly. This hype economy is only a phase and will one day disappear. Don’t buy this new expensive crap. When it comes to phones, computer or electronic in general just wait five years, or even ten years before upgrading. If you use devices as tools there is no need to upgrade regularly. When upgrading to something newer, buy it used. It is much cheaper and more reliable. Try to buy it on used sale websites or at your local second hand stores. This also goes for clothes, because you can get really great clothes for little money at these stores. When it comes to fast fashion or fast furniture from outlets like IKEA, just don’t buy that shit. Get used furniture or clothes. Ask yourself what you want, you are a human being with needs and wants and don’t need to be influence by corporate propaganda. What do you really want to do? Repair your things, good tools and functional devices should be repairable. There are great resources for this like iFixit.com that educated on fixing things. Learning to repair things can give you a lot of confidence and it is a lot of fun. Follow the Buy it for life sub-reddit that has a community of people that show off reliable and everlasting tools.
What can the group do?
Support legislation for the right to repair movement. Support people like Louis Rossmann or Paul Roberts from The Fight to Repair here on Substack. Take action against these giant corporations and their planet destroying yearly release schedule of useless products. Participate online or offline for these causes by helping out in repair cafes, only forums and at conventions that are about these things.
The way I see it, this is just a fad and soon we will realize that we can do more than just eat the garbage that is shoved down our throats by big corporations. Humans should not just be consumers, they should also create something that can be appreciated by other humans.
And this is a skill many have lost in the western world. We work to earn money just to consume. Not to create. We all need to change that.