Repair Culture

[snip] [> ] OK, that is the current model - but is it a good one? At a time when we're struggling to create jobs, maybe it's a better idea to help people acquire those "special skills" thus creating good-paying middle-class jobs, and quit depending on cheap manufacturing and "recycling" (read: dumping) in the third world as our default. That's another aspect: the current short-lifecycle PC (and now phone/mobile device) business is an ecological nightmare. But the bottom line (to slightly rephrase what you said above) is: the insatiable corporate profit machines of today's IT industry are fed by a continuous "upgrade" cycle that is of dubious value to the end consumer. What is obsolescence? I would concede that a Ford Model T is obsolete because it cannot participate in the high-speed transportation infrastructure of today - but I miss my 1963 Falcon, a steel-body station wagon that had better gas mileage than my wife's relatively new Subaru. I could fix almost anything on the Falcon with only a handful of common tools. The Subaru is so loaded with specialized components and systems that I can't effectively work on it. (Note: half of the auto makers' revenue comes from repair. A fox in charge of the henhouse?) And the Falcon was perfectly happy at 70 or 80 miles an hour - don't ask how I know (hint: I owned it in high school). It's an apt comparison, because the auto industry thrives on an annual cycle of "new" releases that rarely offer any real value add over prior models on a year-over-year basis, or (I'd argue) even a five year span. And no one needs 300HP and 200mph top speed unless he/she is on the track. The last thirty years of engineering could have instead produced automobiles that could routinely achieve 50+mpg. Perhaps I'm particularly vocal about this today because I'm feeling this pain quite directly right now: there is special-purpose software I need for school that today is only available for Intel-based computers (Mac, Windows, Linux - but Intel only). I have a perfectly good dual G4 desktop that can play movies and music, render realistic animations and swooshy screen savers - oh, and do the things I really care about doing, like email and web browsing and writing text and code. The expectation is that I'm going to toss my current tools on the scrap heap and put out more money for "newer, shinier" when there is no discernable benefit to me. You may argue that perhaps I'm a special case - but unless you're a high-end gamer, I will argue that the only justification for multi-core superzoomers is to run the cutsie animations in bloatware like Windows 7. If today's processors had existed when Windows Vista was introduced, it's possible people might not have realized just how awful it really was..... -- Ian