The Tech Sector And Planned Obsolescence
The Tech Sector is the Biggest Offender when it comes to Planned Obsolescence.
What a Waste of Technology
I was straightening some stuff/junk up and came upon a pile of my e-Waste. It’s a damn shame that electronics devices are a planned obsolesce when they shouldn’t be. Especially the tablets and e-readers that would still work if the mothership, the corpo HQ, the evil Tech Bros, actually cared about their customers at all.
Do we need legislation that offers up some sort of tax write off incentive to get companies to support their shit for at least 10 years? I know what you’re saying… “That’s not a free market economy.” Yeah… well… The tech sector broke the free market economy a long time ago and now they actively hurt everyone with their greed and drive to force people into what comes next, every month to 3 months to 1 year.
That’s another reason prices never come down on tech stuff. They put out something new monthly to yearly, with just a small addition to the software or the design. Then they push it on people as if it is the BEST thing there ever was, creating FOMO. Then, some people will upgrade with every new device or software version sold.
It’s unsustainable but here we are. And remember, the techies are the ones that lie to everyone and try to pass themselves off as the green and eco friendly activists. Yet here they are, the biggest offender when it comes to planned obsolescence and e-Waste.
This is an excellent documentary on Netflix that everyone should watch:
Agile is the Devil’s Tool for Creating More Waste
Agile is the method that is used to push new software and updates out continuously. Get those updates out there and keep that device or software looking shiny but hold back the good stuff for the next big release. Even though the current iteration can likely support the next big release, we’re not going to do that. This way we can sell more shit to people and they will have FOMO so they will buy it up. Even though, the next big release isn’t all that great anyway… They consumer will eat it up.
Recycle It
The activist techies will just say, “Go ahead and recycle the old stuff.” As if it really gets recycled. More often than not (only 10% of recycled stuff actually gets recycled), it gets buried or sent to other countries to be disassembled and buried there, out of site. Both the tech sector and fashion industry are guilty of this. Meanwhile, YOU are told that if you recycle, you are doing your part to clean up the world, when you’re really just sending stuff elsewhere to pollute a third world country. Sleep easy though, it isn’t in YOUR backyard.
Why the hell isn’t this issue looked at as a problem these wasteful companies should be solving? They won’t solve it themselves because they are greedy. The quarterly is all that matters. They don’t really care about the environment. If they can pay into some phony cap and trade Ponzi scheme, then they’ll be happy to do that because that absolves them. And hint, hint… The government will not use that money on the environment. If you actually believe any government would set aside that money specifically for the environment then you’re probably a dupe that will buy a bridge off eBay.
Solutions
We need to go back to creating and pushing products that last, even in technology. Will it hit a companies bank account? Absolutely. Do you buy a new kitchen table from the furniture store every year? No. Are there still still furniture stores? Yes. Will tech companies have these massive market shares like this? No. It will however, be much more sustainable and better for the environment and the consumer.
If you really want to go deeper, you can blame globalization and this mad “need” for companies to consume everyone into their FOMO marketing. It’s soulless and destructive.
Sadly… we need to push legislated regulations (tech companies will not do this themselves and you know it) to reign in the tech sector. There’s no excuse for bringing out new devices every single year that only offer tiny advancements that can easily be ported to prior releases. We also know that companies like Apple (Google and Samsung most likely do this too) have been caught degrading the battery in their older models so people will be more willing to upgrade to a new device. Forced planned obsolesce is truly evil.
I truly believe the tech sector, via globalization, has broken the ability of society to run a free market, along with the lobbying they do, and the government protections they hide behind. It will take drastic changes to fix it and I doubt it will happen. With no change, we will continue to run headlong into dystopia.
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Follow iFixit.com, as they’ve been reporting and spearheading efforts to get “right to repair” laws in place, as well as evaluating the repairability of new and old products. Most of the public is oblivious to the level companies like Apple have gone to insure local repair stores can’t fix your new phone. Other companies like John Deere have been caught locking farmers out of repairing their own equipment. This was all part of the planned obsolescence The Bone Writer discusses.
One of the best ways to recycle, is not to. Keep using until it’s no longer repairable. What Apple has done is embed firmware that shuts down phone functionality if 3rd party parts are used, like the screen, which can break or crack. Legislation has been put forth to stop this, but like anything, it’s a slog, and Apple games the new rules. This is over and above how difficult it is to even replace a battery in an iPhone. BTW, iFixit.com has repair videos on just about every computer and phone for at least 15 years, and will sell, or recommend, replacement parts.
The yearly upgrades are a marketing scam. I’ve observed it takes 4 to 5 generations of iPhones to experience a meaningful upgrade. The jump from my 5c to the iPhone 11 was camera and gpu speed for images. This is true in desktop computing as well. Most folks are unaware that CPU and memory peaked about 2012 for nearly all computing tasks, from office software to internet browsing. What as driven the upgrade cycles has been gaming, with ever more complex GPUs. Office software and MacOS peaked about the same time. Windows 11 is actually a letdown from 10, with mostly creepy AI integration. Most won’t do this, and I’m in that category for business reasons, but you can rejuvenate your window box by stripping off windows and installing Linux. Will run happy and fast for years to come. Unlike current Apple desktops, most windows boxes are very repairable.
Depending on your phone model, you can give old devices new life with something like LineageOS: https://lineageos.org/
Old x86/64 hardware still runs wonderfully on Linux, though modern web bloat is trying its best to kill this, too.
As you note, even for those of us who're trying to keep these old devices going, they've made them borderline disposable products. Even if hackers and tinkerers are committed to keeping them going with new software after Big Tech drops support, eventually a hardware component will give out that's not worth replacing.