Stop buying crap and help stop the crap!

Put down your smartphones for a minute because I have something to tell you.

There has been a huge shift in consumerism and manufacturing in the past decade or so and I believe it's had a detrimental effect to local business, but sadly it's some local businesses that have played a part in this by reaching too far into the cookie jar.

Many of you will be aware of the phrase 'planned obsolescence' but for those who aren't here's a brief description.

Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time.

The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases.

Wiki

Now that 'rationale' might be a sound business strategy but where do we draw a line in the sand? Maybe Sales statistics can help drawing that line:

Sales of the iPhone have risen strongly over the years, from around 1.4 million iPhones sold in 2007 to more than 150 million units worldwide in 2013. In total, Apple has sold more than 400 million new iPhones from 2007 to 2013 all around the world. From 2010 to 2013, Apple has held a market share between 13 and 23 percent within the new smartphone sales segment worldwide.

Statista

I think the line has clearly been crossed. We have all seen images of people lining up around the block to buy the new Iphone despite the fact that their previous Iphone has the same features and apps and still has the most important feature-to make phone calls. But how do these companies coerce us to buy their latest products? well marketing plays a big part, but that's nothing when you can do this

n the worst case, such as with Apple iPods, the battery can't be removed easily by consumers, forcing an expensive service request when it runs out -- inconveniently priced just below replacement cost of the whole unit, and encouraging a throwaway mentality.

Also, many batteries have integrated circuits on them that help regulate power. That can help reduce fire risk, but many are also set to disable the battery after a predetermined number of cycles, even if the life of the individual battery could go on for longer.

Popular mechanics

There has also been suggestions that manufacturers will place delicate components near a heat source like a CPU to ensure that the system fails prematurely.

I'm sure many people will argue that the sales of these products will boost retail revenues and create jobs, and IMO that is not sound reasoning considering that these products are created overseas by companies that pay overseas tax rates, and I don't need to provide evidence of that because the Irish and the British Governments are hoping to implement laws that will stop companies like apple from exploiting their tax system.

So when you computer breaks-fix it! either learn how to fix it yourself or find someone who can, that way the money will stay in your community instead of buying a new computer and sending your money offshore. And Don't be tempted to buy a new smartphone just because it's available, If you can make a call or send a message then that should suffice.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Stick a stake in the heart of this beast.

1. Give things you don't use to others that will.
2. Sell or barter unused items. Do not store anything long term.
3. Support local farming and retail.
4. Don't buy disposable junk and excess packaging.

Its not sustainable. Soon it wont just be China that looks like this but the whole world. We've doubled the population of the world in only 35 years and removed 40% of the worlds forests in only the last 50 years. All of those people are demanding the latest shiny object and there is a concerted effort to keep them from realizing their footprint and that the planet's resources are not free for the taking. When the planet stops giving, there is no way we will be able to pay the unimaginable dept back to keep our life support going.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

A friends computer broke or that's what they said happened after 2 years.. I still have a computer I built in middle school that runs on the same old HDD. That was the 90s. Anyway.. I looked into the computer checked it out and the HDD was the only thing that was bad. I replaced it got a copy of windows 7 set everything up with a clean fresh windows 7....

Mmmm computer runs nice as anything.

Then I put a DVD in the drive (which is vertical rather than horizontal).. The Drive is directly screwed into the HDD. Well it sounded like I had tank idling in my room. I've never heard any DVD or CD drive work so dang hard, and the DVD was flawless.

I quickly put two and two together.. HDD spinning at 7200 RPMs (also on a vertical rather than horizontal) next to a DVD drive that was used for gaming that vibrates the entire house... Hmmmm.. That seemed designed to fail hard.. A normal user with a dead HDD has lost what they think is the entire computer, since they won't have their data nor a GUI to click things in.

I will not be using that drive until I can replace it, but USB drives work great for such things anyway.


If any of you buy a new computer, or do a new build just get the Full size form factor kind. Computers like to breathe. and those micro ATX motherboards don't like to be added onto.


Another one was my Mom's Dryer. It just stopped spinning one day and I could hear the motor working fine. I opened that pos up (hard to put back together as it's not much of a structure. ) I looked inside and the belt had come off the drum..

Then I saw the culprit. A little plastic circle that the belt runs over, and should stay in place because of 2 plastic walls.. Well the entire middle the belt runs on in-between the plastic walls was slanted all to one side.. The part costs 85 cents free shipping... Fixed it, but replaced with a part I thought would work better as it wasn't weak ass plastic designed to fail. it would run the belt without slanting into one of the walls.. Her dryer still works now.



I'm so sick of all this Bull #... But at least sometimes I can fix it. It's getting worse though. I am not even that old, but I'm already like Back in my day...

We were shopping for appliances and the salesmen and one store owner at different stores told us that these appliances have a life expectancy of seven years now. That includes refrigerators, stoves, washers, and dryers based on normal use. I was even told by three of the salesmen that it doesn't matter how much you pay, the life expectancy on the appliances they sold was all about the same. This is a big change.

Now, I talked to Some heating contractors I know and they told me that furnaces now have a life expectancy of fifteen years for the more efficient ones. That takes the savings out of the efficiency in my book. They used to last thirty years. So if you have to replace one at a cost of six grand extra in between, that six grand comes out to add up to about two hundred a year. That does not even include the extra replacement parts and service calls that seem to be needed a little after the warranty is up. The whole society is becoming a consumerism scam.

On top of that, with all the computers and sensors in a furnace, a small power surge caused by a tree falling on a line can cause your furnace to fail. This means when you come back from your winter cruise you could come home to a cold home with frozen water pipes and water damage to the house. The mess will stimulate the economy because the insurance pays for contractors to fix the damage. But they do not do everything, you still have to go through all your personal stuff and wash things up. You still have the stress of the whole ordeal and insurance does not replace the sentimental value of stuff that has been in your family for generations, paying you next to nothing for them.

The whole system is a scam with the consumer going farther and farther into debt.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Your voice Thecakeisalie is a voice in the wilderness. The specifics of your post are spot on as they demonstrate a few of the tactics used to keep the American public as fad oriented consumers. The general position of our thread is also on the money. And I think that your assessment of the development, or rather the over development of these kinds of "drugs" that are being almost intravenously fed to the pop-culture populace has indeed in the last two decades escalated to pandemic proportions.

I just want to add to a point you made about marketing though. You say " well marketing plays a big part, but that's nothing when you can do this".. Well I have to suggest that without understanding the HHHUUUUGGGGGEEEEE part that marketing and sales plays in the whole cycle, people will never put down their toys.

Over the last 70 years, once the big corporations of the time realized how using the insights into the human psyche that had come from the infant science psychology could manipulate the people, a prolonged war has been waged against our citizenry to turn us into noting more than the consuming end of their profit machine. Generations had now grown up with this pervasive mind eating parasite doing what it can to keep people focused on the trivial. This war has been largely successful.

For instance, the idea of everyone having their own phone was at one time nothing more than science fiction, popularized by an old comic strip, Dick Tracy. A couple of generations went by and most everyone was happy with one phone in the house. Establishments had public phones. But this wasn't selling enough product when one phone would serve a household and would last for a decade or so. Now of course each family of 5 needs at least 5 phones, and as you point out each one lasts only a year or so.

In the 50's the concept of the "throw away culture" began to emerge. Probably the best example is when the glass soda bottle that would return a dime to the consumer were changed to disposable cans. This was much easier and convenient. Once again the corporate magnates turned to advertising to play to the lowest instincts of the population. Convenience.

Now, consuming is a sport. An entertainment. An EVENT. Camping in front of a store for a week just to get the latest and brightest. My old mind just reels.

originally posted by: CraftBuilder
Its not sustainable. Soon it wont just be China that looks like this but the whole world. We've doubled the population of the world in only 35 years and removed 40% of the worlds forests in only the last 50 years. All of those people are demanding the latest shiny object and there is a concerted effort to keep them from realizing their footprint and that the planet's resources are not free for the taking. When the planet stops giving, there is no way we will be able to pay the unimaginable dept back to keep our life support going.

I believe it was David Suzuki that said "One cannot expect infinite growth on a finite world."

a reply to: CraftBuilder

China can build good stuff, but the people buying their products for resale want them to break down after a certain amount of time. Stuff made in America is getting to be the same way. Italy makes good stuff, but this does not always include the stuff they export.

a reply to: rickymouse

The staff at Megacorp would like to express their condolences and will be happy to reimburse you providing that you approve of the following conditions:

-I will not divulge my dissatisfaction to any immediate family members, co-workers or friends.

-I will not speak of Megacorp in a manner that insinuates substandard business practices.

Click 'yes' to accept.

a reply to: shhawsgl

Anybody care to inform me about what all of this last email means?
I assume that it is illegal stuff since it looks like we can buy credit cards, etc.

Edit: Oh! I see that it has disappeared before I could go back and hit the Alert icon.

Everything you ever need to know about fixing anything can be found on the internet.
Parts can be bought on the internet.

I guess most people value their time more than they value their money.It`s much faster to just replace something that is broken than it is to take the time to fix it.
I have more time than money so I don`t mind fixing stuff rather than buying new stuff.

I have a 21 year old car that still looks and runs good so I don`t see any reason to replace it with a newer car when it`s more economical to just keep repairing it.

I won`t shop at Wal-Mart,buying their junk is no better than throwing money away. I don`t mind paying more for a quality product that will last longer and can actually be repaired when it breaks.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

that being said ... why is ats soliciting us for money they have plenty of traffic.... ATS your supposed to be cool, not a generator WTF

a reply to: Aliensun

He registered today and was just spamming multiple threads with advertising.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life

Actually it is not just products but the whole of the system that is designed to reach an end and fail.

Small businesses sell items that people actually need and will continue to rebuy, they get more business if there are more people but otherwise they have just a nice steady living.

The huge corps come to every town and put these small businesses out and replace everyone with a company that MUST have growth because they cannot just make a nice living if they have sold stock. Stockholders expect GOOD gains year after year, essentially I see it as a huge pyramid scheme, they will make unheard of profits, all of the normal needs Ma, Pop suppliers will be dead but at some point the huge corporations must fail, we will be in a real mess at that point.

a reply to: Tardacus

Everything you ever need to know about fixing anything can be found on the internet.
Parts can be bought on the internet.

I envy you my car is broken and it is some kind of burning wires and I can't even find what is wrong.

Everything you ever need to know about fixing anything can be found on the internet.
Parts can be bought on the internet.

My son gave me a TV for my exercise room, it broke after a few months, yes I found that I can get the parts online, but they are the same parts it had in the first place which burned out.

We bought a really expense washer a few years back and right after the warrenty was up it broke, I researched and found that they are purposely made to wear on a ring that gives way and cause the part that turned the drum to break(can't remember the details but a mechanic made a video of our machine inside and showed how they made it purposefully to break and at a pretty set timing right after warranty is up), it cost more to replace that part than buying an average washer a nice old fashioned top loader.

Another thing we can do to improve the situation is claim warranty. Almost everything we buy now has a problem right off the shelf or soon after. Manufacturers are slack because they know most people will usually just live with the problem. But if people started taking things back consistently, the manufacturers would be forced to implement quality control.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie
Consumerism is a drug. People are addicted to spending. Some are addicted to a "bargain" purchasing cr.p in the fear that they may be losing out.

Sad world that the advertisers understand only too well.

Greetings- I don't have a phone and I don't play Chris†mas™ but thanks for letting me add My .02¢ which is now worth 5/32 of .01¢ due to what it is You type...

If One is 'good' 4 or 5 should be 'better' and if We buy at ChinaMa...Walmart™ We will save at least .88¢ win/win.All the employees appear to be refreshed because the Mgr. is the only guy getting 40 hrs...

See Y'all at the $ale$ that begin at 12:01 a.m. on the 26th at brick & mortars, sooner I'd opine on the intraweb...

8 out of 10 don't redeem their mail-in rebates and in many cases that was the initial reason behind the purchase..

One word: GREED

a reply to: JimNasium

Greetings- I don't have a phone and I don't play Chris†mas™ but thanks for letting me add My .02¢

We don't either but people won't like you because of it.

Take a look at the kind of evil caused by our wants.

19 December 2014
Apple 'deeply offended' by BBC investigation

Is this really 2015 almost?

Panorama found children working in mines that supply Apple

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off.
The Panorama film showed exhausted workers falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

www.bbc.com...