by Chris Black
We have reached the end of commerce, where there is no profit to be made in the production of anything, because the margins required by the end sellers are too large to allow a producer to make a profit.
Wages are too low to afford the exorbitant prices, so the expensive inventory rots on the shelf. The massive retailers have too much overhead to make a profit, when their margins are greater than 70% so they don’t want to reduce prices.
Their answer is higher prices and greater margin, to make up for the reduced sell through.
Products have been massively overproduced, because publicly traded companies always need to increase revenue.
The problem is that mass saturation happened a long time ago. The only growth comes from gobbling up competitors in an attempt to absorb their customer base.
But the customers don’t need more.
Cell phone companies have resorted to artificially disabling products to force consumers to buy new phones.
By only baking in one or two updates, they make sure that after two years, your phone is worthless, because, they release a new OS version every year. It doesn’t really do anything better, but it always requires more resources to run, requiring more RAM and faster chips.
Do we really need Android 11, 12, 13, etc.? Nothing has really changed in basic functionality since Android 8, but all the apps are being made to simply not run on older versions.
Your six year old TV is perfectly fine. The image quality of newer models really isn’t any better. The problem is the smart interface from six years ago is worthless.
If you try to run Netflix, you’re out of luck.
So it’s either a new TV or buying another ROKU or Firestick. Both will be worthless in a year or so, but they are only $40.
Planned obsolescence was introduced because a refrigerator made in 1953 will still be running in 2253.
It started out making products last ten to fifteen years.
Now planned obsolescence shoots for a year or less.
People are sick of it, and have just stopped buying.
Did you know people are paying $2500 for old 1980s refrigerators because they just keep working?
Side by sides with built in ice and water are the most popular. People are sick of paying $3000 for a new fridge that takes a $60 water filter every month and blows a compressor every 18 months.