Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/01/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Having spent the majority of my life working for technology manufacturing companies, I can assure you that this is absolutely untrue. While there may be industries in which there is planned obsolescence, the computer industry is not one of them. The issue in the computer industry is that the engineers keep coming up with new stuff that is very much better than what existed a year ago. If you don't sell it, then your competitors will. If you don't innovate, you go out of business. Relentless innovation leaves a trail of obsolete devices, but if you start feeling sorry for the people who have to buy new ones, and slow down a little, they'll just buy from your competitors. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Development in the technology industry is in general hindered by a desire to be compatible with the past. If the hardware and software companies didn't worry about compatibility with the past, they could probably innovate 20% faster than they are doing now. No one is forcing you to buy newer faster better cameras and computers. As many people have said here, a 2.1 megapixel camera still takes great pictures. So why are camera companies racing to make and sell cameras with more megapixels? Because people will buy them. People want them. This isn't a conspiracy, it's just market demand at work. > I believe one of the basic premises of contemporary > technology development is the concept of "planned > obsolescence," with the deliberate goal of encouraging > consumers to buy new tools on a regular basis, in > lock-step with the constantly increasing profit motive > of the manufacturers.