Planned obsolescence as an industry standard is price fixing. Its the legal, hidden equivalent to retailers jacking their prices in unison. Purchases: remember its not just the price, but how much you’re getting. Take something like dish soap. The water and container aren’t of any use to you, so lets assume when you buy a container of dish soap you are really just after a quantity of soap ingredients. A larger container watered down is pointless since you’re going to add it to water anyways. The more soap ingredients, the more useful it is to you. You’re paying a cost per quantity on those soap ingredients no different than the pump at the gas station. You’re pumping usefulness, how much are you getting per dollar?
Remember, even the excess water added to laundry soap is processed by your tax dollars when it goes down your drain. . . Someone else profits by adding unnecessary waste and you pay to dispose of it. Its a fucking brilliant system!
Duration of function is a huge part of the usefulness of a product. Once it dies, its of no use to the customer. If manufacturers intentionally design shorter life products, they are limiting the usefulness of the product. The dish soap is being watered down. Back at the pumps, you are receiving less light per dollar when they plan the premature demise of your light bulb.
Product life is determined by ‘industry standards’. Manufacturers collectively have made the short life product acceptable, it didn’t come from consumers or government- why would we want shitty products? Cheap is alluring to consumers sure, but nobody would want their purchased goods designed to fail early. By standardizing planned obsolescence, companies are working together to sell you less for more. Its price fixing at the pumps, more $ per litre at every station. They can afford to give us more usefulness per dollar at no cost to them, but instead they’re collectively charging us more. . . . Sure sounds like price fixing.
This is also why the shape, quantity and design of products are constantly changing. The price of a product is visible, the quantity of product usefulness is hidden and abstract. People wouldn’t stand for the sneaky business going on in the retail industry if they could actually see it. . . . and had an alternative. . . Look at what happened with laundry soaps. For decades companies were adding increasing quantities of water to get more cash per quantity of actual soap- the government had to step in and regulate it because of the inefficiency created. Why can’t we regulate against all intentionally inefficient products?
Printer ink cartridge: runs out fast, comes packaged within a mountain of useless paper and plastic. Have a look at this great
link
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February 12, 2010 at 5:23 pm |
“why would we want shitty products?”
To easy our choice and consciousness when we upgrade and update to the latest version in style, speed, reach and color.
I mean the thing died out on me; it was time to get THE new one.
February 13, 2010 at 11:42 am |
Theres just so much THE and so little actual quality, often the consumer starts feeling ripped off even earlier in the life-span of the product. Right up to the point of sale. As soon as you bought it, there is that realization that the thing just became your responsibility. When you were pawing it up with the salesmen, it was his lemon. If the quality was found to be inferior at that point, you’re a winner. . . . .After purchase we’re all losers.
Updating, updating. . . …
February 12, 2010 at 5:24 pm |
I think the test disguised as a poll was too hard.
Wont take it…
February 13, 2010 at 11:48 am |
1/3 not bad odds. . . .always pick C.
February 12, 2010 at 5:27 pm |
Site over haul!
Beware the flare.
Safety goggles recommend on the Remi Stevens Bolg.
Truth can hurt your eyes.
February 13, 2010 at 11:51 am |
Pic is of a guy ark welding fact and painstaking research to a solid frame of good judgment.
February 12, 2010 at 9:54 pm |
There’s some useless packaging inyour ink cartridge photo that you didn’t point out. The cartridge itself! You don’t need a new cartridge everytime, and it’s the only reason the damn things cost so much!
Refilling them yourself is a pain in the ass and they don’t make the refillable ones with any quality in mind at all! You just end up spilling half the ink on your pants, thereby needing more ink and, unless you are an artist and it’s “cool” to look ” dirty”, a new pair of pants.
The best part is how the store demands you bring back your used cartridges so they can be properly “disposed of”! Horse shit! They are sending them straight back to the manufacturers to be refilled, and getting money back for them!
I have always refused to do this and turf them straight in the trash! If they wanna make more money off of them, they can damn well dig ‘em up!
February 13, 2010 at 12:02 pm |
Ha! good stuff man, I didn’t think of that! Of course its a re-fill scam. I wonder if the same thing goes on with batteries?
Don’t pollute our landfills with the lemon juice they put in batteries!
We’ve got the technology to be able to fill cartridges with ink in the home safely, I’m confident mankind has reached that level of technical skill. Keep the easy re-fill hole off the product to make it as difficult as possible for you to lengthen the life of your own stuff. Its like a saboteur coming into your house and wrecking things. . . . .One day it will be illegal and impossible to work on your car.
February 13, 2010 at 5:16 pm |
Everyone talks about the price of gas as being ludicrous, and often I’ve seen the whole “Compare it to bottled water! It’s not that bad!” arbument. How about ink though?
Gas reaches $1 a liter and everyone goes apeshit! I just bought a ink “cartridge” for 50 dollars. That “cartridge” was already paid for and the amount of ink in it is 12 mL. (I splurged on the “high yield” cartridge instead of the “moderate yield”)
Basically that ink cost me $4.25/mL or if you want to compare it directly to gas, $4250/L
Pretty fucking ridiculous!
February 13, 2010 at 3:38 pm |
“welding fact and painstaking research to a solid frame of good judgment”
That is what good blogging is all about.
Your Bolg is a one man band; you known it by the bulky drum on the back and the harmonica leading the banjo but then there is the add on, the fireworks and the magic tricks going on all at the same time. How does he do it?
Long life to the Bolg!
February 13, 2010 at 3:45 pm |
Mankind, yes, but me…
The path from the gallon of black inc into the cartrigde is fraught with danger. Still the economy in the insanely healthy ecological concept of refilling the inc cup yourself is well worth the occasional disasters.
Re-fillers unite!
February 13, 2010 at 9:48 pm |
$4250/L ink.
Well done; the small calculation is a true eye opener.
They are selling ink as if it was Art. The value of Art is what someone is willing to pay for it.
I wish I wasn’t addicted to PRINT…
March 5, 2010 at 12:30 pm |
[...] all sorts of other devices- your car, your stove, your furniture, even the thing that holds your soap in the shower would wind up with a clock radio in it. Eventually, we wised up and realized the [...]