Except, as you yourself point out, all this cool shit that was rare just a few years ago is now at the commodity level. When I went off to college in the early 2000s I scrimped and saved and dropped $1000 on a desktop computer. Nothing fancy, a purely middle of the road Compaq that millions of other people owned. Today, I can buy an entry level laptop for $250 and it would run circles around my Compaq. There’s barely even a middle of the road PC category today because everything can handle everything short of custom gaming rigs. And even those can be had for as low as $500-600.
I agree.
It’s part of another thought I have, in which virtually unlimited power is ascribed to the “1%” and big corporations, when in fact this economy has big winners and losers, and high-tech companies are not continuously able to “rig” their future success. There’s a lot wrong, but the narrative we have to identify it is not very much on target.
Apple doesn’t really innovate, they just create variations of the ipod and have been coasting on that for ten years. The ipod touch, iphone, ipad, ipad mini and now a larger ipad are all just the same product. And they are all 2-3x more expensive than a comparable android version that is just as good and in some ways better (by having a microsd card slots for example).
I’d consider Tesla and Elon Musk to be innovative and prestigious. More Musk than Tesla, because of all his innovation (hyperloop, tesla, solar electricity, paypal, bringing yellow pages to the internet, spaceX, whatever else he has done).
But I really can’t name a tech company that I associate with cutting edge innovation. I can’t even think of one synonymous with quality anymore. It used to be Sony, Magnavox, Panasonic, etc. were signs of high quality. Now that everything is produced as cheaply as possible in China it all feels like the same easily broken Chinese crap.
Yes, this is what I’m talking about.
Just because you think doesn’t mean everyone does. Apple, Samsung, LG, and yes, Sony are all synonymous with quality in the eyes of many consumers. Whenever Consumer Reports reviews some piece of technology, they include a subsection that basically boils down to “These brands are associated with quality products” so the experts think so too.
I disagree. Portable MiniDisc players were amazing at the time. You could fit 4 or 8 CDs in a single MD and the player was compact and would drain the batteries at a much slower rate than a portable CD player.
The players were expensive though and this is the reason they didn’t get much traction on the market. Then solid state storage players came along and the MD market died completely.
But the MD technology was far from failed. Apart from the price it was superior to all other technologies of the time.
Perhaps the current technology is meeting our basic needs so well that we are becoming less consumeristic in general? I’ve always thought that a consumer based economy was ultimately unsustainable and maybe not even very desirable.
The post-consumer society could be an interesting thread but, alas, I need to save that one for another day.
I have been a serious electronics-computer person from an early age. Even was a Computer Science prof.
But I was never an early adopter. I would upgrade stuff much later than most. So take that into consideration of the following:
I’m pretty set for home electronics and computer stuff. I have gift cards and such for computer stores, etc. just sitting around and will likely get more. Plus I have the dough to just get whatever I want anyway.
I have little interest in getting a new toy or upgrading. I’ve been stalling on getting a solid state HD for a while. It would be nice but it’s also a hassle to install and copy stuff.
I’ve got the TV/DVR setup I want. Happy with my tablet, (very old) iPod, car stereo, etc. Haven’t seen anything that would make me drool in an ad for some time. (I don’t even scour ads to see what toy has come down in price to make me think about getting one.)
Not sure about the “prestige” thing, but I’m good for now and don’t see much happening for a while to make be rethink it.
It’s not clear to me how that is a “economic” problem as opposed to, maybe a marketing or stylistic problem for nerds.
There is plenty of demand for products and manufacturing technology has rendered most products so cheap that most people can afford them.
It’s not really clear to me what how you are separating “technologically prestigious products” from “luxury goods”. Apple straddles the line between “cool luxury product” and “mass produced crap”. They make neat products, but the overall design of the iPod or iPhone hasn’t really changed in a decade. They just surround it with their stupid branding consisting of bullshit iStores where you have to schedule a half hour meeting with some smug prick just to do an exchange. And the workmanship is flimsy as shit. I don’t know anyone with an iPhone whose screen isn’t a shattered mess. Anyhow, I digress.
It sounds like your issue is that there isn’t some hot “G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip” product that’s flying off the shelves.
A consumer based economy is generally undesirable as it uses a lot of resources to purchase a lot of products that people don’t use all that long. By some accounts, there is an emotional cost as well for a society where value or worth is determined by the ownership of stuff. We live in a society that is very efficient at making “stuff”. Ergo, accumulating more of it doesn’t really mean anything. And yet people spend a lot of effort “keeping up with the Jones” working “jobs they hate for shit they don’t need”.
Totally. It’s a problem under the current paradigm, but the current paradigm sucks, as you point out. I should have made that clearer in the OP, but I probably would have doubled the length doing so.
True in general.
As someone pointed out earlier, yeah. I am distinguishing between the two types of goods because I think luxury goods will always be with us no matter how bad the economy is, since there will always be rich people looking to show it off. Whereas “cool tech” is something that the masses can hope to afford and buy.
I am happy with my Mac laptop, but I agree about iPhones. One reason I switched to the Windows Phone was hardware problems.
Haha, yeah.
Wise words, thanks.