That is the point I was making. The devices last (as we both have experienced), but today it is "fashionable" to dispose of them and buy new ones on a schedule much shorter than their lifespans (because of some new gimmick that provides an inconsequential improvement in the usability of the newer model).
I love when people say that and apparently think it's admirable/amazing that a device would still work 6 years after its release.
But most devices used to work a lifetime. My motorcycle was made in 2009 (14 years ago) and is in pristine condition. The previous one was over 25 years old when it got stolen (by someone, presumably, who thought it was worth the risk). Blenders from the 40s still work. Not to mention non-electrical tools like hammers and such, which last for generations.
Parts of my home desktop computer are over 15 years old; the case itself was made in the 1990s.
It's one thing to get newer devices that do new things, and quite another to have to throw away old ones that should still be working fine.
Phones have no moving parts, there's no good reason they should become obsolete.
I expect mainly because in the world of tech, things only have a life of maybe 2 years before they're considered 'old'/'obsolete'/'stupid looking' etc.
Memory, megapixels, storage, screen, speed etc are all advancing so quickly that it doesn't make any sense to bother making something that'll last beyond a few years.
It would however be cool and responsible to make these devices more environmentally friendly, but that's a hard sell to some.
I'm sort of glad I didn't spend the extra on my first MP3 player - 32mb of wonderment.
“Old devices are phased out sooner” seems like an OK solution with some caveats.
It is nice that it makes the cost of not supporting things visible to the users. Assuming “phased out” means the device will actually stop operating; “Company X’s devices have a short lifetime” is an easy thing for people to understand.
I suspect consumers will look for brands that don’t have this reputation, which should give those well behaved brands a boost.
Although, if it does turn out that just letting devices die is the common solution, maybe something will need to be done to account for the additional e-waste that is generated.
Moving toward proprietary OSes; hey, if it solves the problem… although, I don’t see why they’d have an advantage in keeping things up to date.
It is possible that companies will just break the law but then, that’s true of any law.
I see a very strong reason. It’s not lifespan that matters, it’s attention span.
You could build a device with a 1000 year lifespan, but it’s a waste of effort if the consumer wants a new one after 5 years. It’s optimal to build a device with a lifespan that will only be as long as a consumer’s interest in it.
Right, it's a matter of perception and quickly changing "fashion". Many people regard devices of a year old already as very old. So they choose in favor of replacing it, even if it is a minimal problem that is easy (and cheap) to fix.
I do suspect that financial pressure (due to increasing resource prices) will cause this to change around in the near future, and make people hold on to their devices for longer. In some circles, like described in the article, I'm already seeing this happen. Also, many skilled people are out of a job and have time enough to do basic repairs for each other.
The gadgets listed in the article were meant to have a short shelf life. Though a few still survive, it was never intended.
On the other hand, my more generic gadgets simply never die. My projector, my Bluetooth speaker, my headphones... they all do exactly what I bought them for. There might come a time when that's not enough, but that will be decided on my own terms. It won't be because of a dead server or a useless battery life.
As you say, tools last a lot longer, because they were designed to fulfill a simple role without any bells and whistles.
This is why I don't like the trend of pairing long-lasting tools to short-lived tech. A car or a watch will last a really long time. USB-C and Android 9.0 won't.
> But as tech improves it seems the life expectancy of the
> product are taken less into account.
On the contrary. The life expectancy has never been more important: it has never been more important to time the death of a device in such a manner that it hits some generational sweet spot to make the customer buy the same product over and over :-)
In the case of technological products, make no mistake: the consumer does not want products to last 10 years.
You can surely run a 10 year old computer, but what are you going to do with it? Does anyone want a 5 year old cell phone?
So long as we continue to make advancements at the pace we're moving, there is no demand for consumer electronics that last that long. So long as each generation gets cheaper or better (which for the most part is true) and we figure out a decent recycling process (and I think we have) let's just keep moving.
I think it's a very fair point in other, slower-innovating industries.
That worries me when this sort of obsolescence is baked into devices that are meant to last long, like vehicles or appliances. I prefer when the short-lived stuff stays on a separate device.
This is called planned obsolescence, and it's not just electronics. Practically every product nowadays are designed with a death date to perpetuate a repeating buying cycle from consumers. It's very real.
People will note that there are worse problems in the world, but tossing a sophisticated piece of electronics every three years by design sounds really wasteful, especially when practical capabilities change so much more slowly now.
Not completely wrong, but you could justify all kinds of planned obsolescence with that reasoning: "Sure the device technically still works, but it's too costly for us to bear the maintenance burden, so we have to brick it"
Design and advertising are used to make devices look obsolete when they're actually still perfectly good to use. Consumers choose to buy new devices instead of repairing/upgrading their old devices. Devices become harder to repair, making repairs more expensive. Consumers repair even less.
"All tech, including wearable tech, used to be expected to last at least 10 years."
I think you have odd perspective here, because you're talking about tech lasting for a decade, but you're also explicitly omitting anything with a computer in it ("run an operating system").
"A 35 year old Commodore 64 is every bit as fun as it was when it first came out, and every bit as capable, but a piece of tech that's only 3.5 years old probably has a blinking jewel in the palm of its hand."
The hypothetical 35-year-old Commodore, however, can't do most of the things I ask my 3 year old laptop to do. Durability wasn't the issue; the rapidly increasing capability of newer and more capable computing platforms was.
We're at a point now where Moore's Law & related phenomena seem to have slowed a bit. Ten or fifteen years ago I always upgraded my laptop every 3 years. Now I can go longer, and typically only upgrade when there's a compelling reason (higher RAM ceiling, e.g., or external factors like the economics of extended service plans). Phones are the same; in the earlier years of the cell phone era, I got a new phone nearly every year because that meant smaller and more powerful and therefore more useful. In the Smartphone era, two years became the norm, and nowadays it's routine to see folks with 3 or even 4 year old phones.
The tl;dr is that there's no conspiracy or malignant intent here; it's just that shit gets better, and so the upgrade makes sense for most people. I mean, maybe you can get a 35-year-old Commodore running as a novelty, but I sure wouldn't want to try to do my job with one.
> We shouldn't be putting anything into consumer electronics with an expiry date.
So you wouldn't have half the consumer electronics we have because nobody would be able to afford them.
We should be making consumer electronics with reasonable life expectancies. 150 years in the future I don't want to use something from 150 years ago that "still works", I want something that is new with more capabilities, that is cheaper, that does the thing better. Why create undestructible phones that will last 150 years when nobody other than vintage collectors will want them after ~10 years due to other problems with material degradation, fashion etc.
The optimal point is to not create discardable things, but it's also realising that if you're making something forever you're going to use up way more resources and people will still stop using those devices for other reasons, so you just created more waste.
Too short life = too much waste due to replacement needs.
Too long life = too many wasted resources per-device which will be abandoned for other reasons.
There used to be an expectation of longevity in the electronics we purchase. Even while Moore's law was in full effect, you could find good uses for a 6 year old computer. Today's computer hardware can easily remain fully usable for a decade. The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.
Without trying to defend this particular carve-out, I would suggest that things like computers and video game consoles are improving in capability over a much faster time scale than TVs and video cameras. Hence there is much less of an expectation of longevity / relevance than with other tech goods.
That said, the same argument could be made for mobile phones as well, so it's clearly spurious.
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