Much to my dismay, my watch gave up the ghost today. I have had it for a few years and it has been reliable and the battery life is excellent still, with it lasting almost two weeks. It also did all I needed it to do with a minimum of fuss. However, this is what it is like with digital gadgets, their lifecycle is incredibly short. I think there should be a lifecycle expectation minimum for different product groups.
How long should a watch last?
None of this digital crap will ever be a family heirloom like the watches of old, passed down from parent to child for generations, but there should be some minimum requirement where there is support and replacement, and it perhaps should be mandated. If we are actually looking to make an impact on the environment by using less materials, we shouldn't just be looking to recycle, but we should be looking to increase the lifespan of what we use.
A car in the past would last for decades if cared for and become classics - now?
There is more talk about fast fashion and the impact on the environment, especially because it is not able to be handed on, as the quality is so low. However, if we are looking at something like cotton, which takes about 10,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of it (including rain water), shouldn't there also be an impact on the weight of the material sold? Why would an extra small shirt that my wife wears, cost the same amount as an extra extra large, when the amount of material is significantly different? Go into a cloth store, you pay by the meter (or yard if you are living in the dark ages), not by the shirt, or dress.
Should there be a difference in price based on size?
The incentive to profit from consumables shouldn't be on selling more items, it should be on selling quality that lasts. Not marketing quality, but real quality, provable, backed up, guaranteed - supply chain tracked. Profit seeking based on volume sold is one of the algorithms that burns the most resources, because it is continually looking to shorten the lifecycle and increase the frequency of purchase. A watch that only last three or four years two decades ago, would be one of the shittiest watches on the market - not from a leading brand. Now?
The entire consumer market now is like the music industry, where a one hit wonder can make enough to retire on in a few months, and never have to create anything again. It is flash in the pan popularity for maximum profit, and then ride off into the sunset. And yeah, there are brands that have been around for a long time, but they are more like the record labels that keep pushing new music in a churn and burn cycle.
Nothing lasts.
By design.
Yet, the consumer foots the bill at all stages, from the extra taxes used to clean up the environment, the frequency of purchase, to the disposal of goods - while the companies are trading carbon credits so they can pollute more. The simple answer isn't just to "buy less" as that will not happen because buying less means going without, and missing out. Instead, the driver should be to buy better, but most people can't afford to buy better, and even if they could, "better" isn't in the brand name, it is in the longevity and relevancy of the item.
For instance, I want to be able to buy an electric car that has all that I need now and some room to add improvements in the future. Those improvements would be things like the latest technology batteries, perhaps ones that are better for the environment. I don't want to have to change my car for it - I want to be able to change the battery. This takes a little forethought and standardisation in the industry, which they will not do willingly - like Apple with their stupid phone chargers that fit nothing else. That kind of corporate behaviour should be punished.
But, standardisation also gets in the way of innovation, so there has to be room for design innovation too. However, that innovation needn't be in low-value areas (human value, not corporate value) like a charging cable. There was never a need for 142 different charging cable sizes, especially when it was just a different sized coaxial cable - there was no innovation there, just market predation. The innovation should be pushed into more value-adding areas.
But of course, the entire economy is largely built on useless activity. The entire supply chain and therefore the profit of all industries is largely there to support the creation and consumption of shit we don't need, and will dispose of in a couple years, either because it is useless, or because it didn't last. If we would be able to identify what is actually valuable to humanity and what is not and cut away everything else, our global resource consumption would plummet - and that is bad news for an economy that is built on sales cycles, not longevity.
I will see how I go without a watch for a while.
But it is pretty annoying, because a few hours earlier I was telling my wife that my phone screen (cracked a few years ago) is struggling at the moment too and probably needs replacing. And then when my watch went, my daughter said - soon you will never know what time it is.
There's still the microwave.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]