A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades
A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades
The need for more durable and sustainable digital devices is urgent. Read more at straitstimes.com.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
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Consumers however are at the heart of an unhealthy culture of frequent device upgrades
Yes, blame it on the consumer and not on the companies that spend an incredible amount of money to first hire marketeers that think all day long of the best way to push 'new' products, and then run costly campaigns to spread the word.
While these sorts of practices are legal, consumers need to be educated.
I have another idea - get rid of capitalism.
Great idea, what are we replacing it with?
Yeah, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet. Capitalism is an incredible engine, but it needs guard rails.
The whole infinite growth mentality caused by companies being public on the stock market is the real poison I think. So lets just axe the whole thing. No more stock market, every company is private again.
Which means no more stock speculators, or stock buybacks, or market manipulation schemes. Just companies selling their products to consumers based on their own metrics.
Well, for starters, this obliterates most people's retirement plans, so that's a bit of a hurdle.
That aside, what would happen is private equity firms and investment banks simply buying up most public companies, so I don't really see the grand improvement here.
I hate so much this talking point:
the system has captured the retirements, so we can't abolish it.
Like if we need this load of bull to support retirement, we should rethink everything from the ground up.
The point is that, whether you like it or not, abolishing something that most people are very strongly relying on for the last third of their life is something that's going to be incredibly complicated and met with a lot of opposition.
By all means, re-think away as you like, but don't be surprised when a lot of people aren't exactly a fan of what you come up with.
Provide food and shelter as a human right first, then dismantle everything else, and let people do what they enjoy.
To be honest, you cannot achieve capitalism with guard rails.
Rich individuals will accumulate money then bribe or donate to politicians to earn more money thus more bribes then more influence and so on.
Take USA as an example, big corporations have monopoly on almost everything and you as a citizen cannot do anything about it. Sure you can vote but either way, donations to politicians always win.
EU is better but not much. After GDPR, every website would interrupt you to say how they will sell your data and tell you to leave if don’t like it.
I agree, I don't think any one system is the answer, they all have their strengths and weaknesses... a combination of them would be a better idea.
With humanity.
That's a vague platitude.
Capitalism works becuase we live in a transactional reality. Food could not grow on trees of the tree didn't take capital (I.e. resources such as nutrients from the soil, light and heat from the sun) to grow that apple. If farmers did not account for the resources the tree needs the tree would simply die.
The issue with capitalism today is that we over apply it and forget to help people who truly need help, and thanks lobbying by sociopathic business owners, we have created a system where we much engage with learned sociopathy to survive and function. We look down at the homeless sick and needy and invent backstories to justify their suffering. They must be drug abuses, violent, lazy, etc cetra.
Capitalism has nothing to do with resources. I think insurance is a great example of that.
We sell nebulous ideas all the time.
If anything our economy is based off of services now.
I would argue ability to provide a service is in it's self an abstract form of capital.
Time, energy and willpower can also be viewed as a capital. There's a reason business owners will pay people to be doing work they could easily do themselves. And I think it's important that we as a society recognise that any time or energy spent transactionally should be properly compensated.
Of course we shouldn't fall for the trap of trying to maximise and optimise every last ounce of capital in our lives, its important to learn to let go of our posessive human nature. But we should appreciate when we are giving and taking things to and from other people.
That is not an answer. You'd have credibility if you said, "I'm actually not sure."
I'll stick with Capitalism, then...
Why am I suddenly seeing so much discussion about capitalism these days? This is way above the usual background level of how often this topic gets brought up in various circumstances.
It's a convenient abstract entity that can be used as a general boogeyman and blamed for all things.
For sure, some things are indeed a direct consequence of capitalism, but lots of other problems come from the simple existence of things having costs, scarcity existing, and humans not being completely selfless. No amount of economic re-arrangement is going to get you away from those things, but it's nice to imagine so.
I don't really like this trend of absolving consumers of literally all agency in how they spend their money. Outside of practices that intentionally try to make older products obsolete like purposeful throttling - which should absolutely be shamed and made illegal - no one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to buy the new phone or else. If someone decides that a product is a worthy use of their money and decides to purchase it, then so be it. People aren't children and can decide how they'd like to spend their money, and I really don't see what's wrong with a company trying to convince you to do so. People can make their own choices, and that includes financially poor ones. They can also choose to prioritize different things than you or I might.
Ultimately, if you don't want to buy a new phone, don't. They're really quite good nowadays and tend to last a while. There will of course continue to be shiny new things, and if having the newest thing is truly important to you, you can decide to spend your money on it. Or, you can also not. But to say that consumers have essentially no choice and are simply the poor victims of marketing with no real agency at all is reductive to the point of being almost patronizing.
I always say this. You're one person. Facebook was once a trillion dollar company that hired teams of engineers, phds, and marketers to device the most abusive ways to keep your attention. There are literal studies showing how insta promotes depression in young girls and yet they're still allowed to operate.
Social media's marketing schemes are the new generations tobacco industry.
Though i agree with you, i never feel like 'i'm only one person'. For instance, if someone turns off the lights and recycles their trash, they often say; how does it help, i'm only one person after all. But there are so many people thinking the exact same thing and together we can help change the world.
So, yes, companies should be changed and i think this is also about politics and economics, which are usually conservative and greedy. But i never feel like the things i do are in vain; i'm standing with perhaps millions of invisible people who care about the environment and try to do their best and who all might be thinking; i'm only one person. Many people do want to change and try their best, but it's time that all these conglomerates are being forced to change for real, instead of getting subsidized, and just greenwash their products.
Why not both? For example: one of the advantages if Iphones is the long software support. Why then are people buying a new one every year? I‘m still rocking an IPhone XR and while the batterie is down to 80%, I haven‘t encountered an app that brings it to it‘s knees.