We live in an ambiguous time. Either we live to consume, or we consume to live. Pour tea, coffee or something else, sit down at the table and talk …
They say that everything has two sides, good and bad, and I say that the truth is a layer cake, and who knows to what layer you can get …
But we are so used to dividing only into good and bad, and therefore will speak mainly from these two fundamental concepts, sometimes adding other layers.
Let's try to look for good … So the constant competition forces us to develop more and more perfect products. This is certainly good, this is progress … It would seem, but not quite. A bit of world conspiracy theory. Modern goods with a short service life, otherwise no one will buy new items, in order to make a novelty you need to cram something else that is not always even necessary into the product, and in order to start buying it you need to make the previous product inconvenient, slow down, break down, quickly discharge. Let's say we are talking about smartphones, every year they report about even more powerful processors 20-50% faster than the previous ones, but how to make a person spend his money on a new one if he bought only six months ago. I see two ways in the next firmware to create tasks that should drain the phone faster and force the processor to work at lower frequencies,the second way is to embed triggers in popular applications to determine the model of the device and also launch unnecessary procedures and processing to reduce the efficiency of work. But still there is no progress, and it contributes to an increase in the level of comfortable living, because, as they say, laziness is the engine of progress.
What is obviously bad as a result of this consumer policy is tons of waste, wasted resources of expensive rare earth materials. This is regression, yes, yes, not progress, when they think not about product quality and usefulness, but about what else can be crammed into the product in order to start selling it again, because otherwise the company will incur losses and go bankrupt.
Let's add a layer, neither good nor bad, we have to look for opportunities to make more money, just to spend more. Unfortunately, this is a vicious circle and few people were able to break out of it.
I do not urge people to abandon new products that appear, I just ask you to start putting pressure on companies that should be responsible for their products, improve quality, and accept old devices for further disposal and recycling. Yes, companies will earn less, but they will increase loyalty to their products and the love of their fans.
The topic is broad and we will return to it, and consider other aspects of the impact on society of consumer policy …
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