Below please find a link to a story about technological obsolescence. Discuss how the last part of Lanier's book might help us to understand and/or cope with this phenomenon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/why-apple-wants-to-bust-your-iphone.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
Your response is due by 4 p.m., Sun., Nov. 3.
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This article from the New York Times touches on an issue I know all too well. I have the iPhone 4S and when I was given the chance to upgrade to new software, I was extremely hesitant at first because I wasn’t particularly fond of the design. After about a week or so, though, I made the switch and instantly I noticed changes that the upgrade didn’t tell me were going to happen. I remember specifically walking to class one day and in that approximately five-minute walk, my batter life dropped 20%. The entire time, though, my phone was in my pocket. Not only was it dying faster, but it was also going significantly slower.
In the last part of Lanier’s book, he discusses a few things that relate to this topic of technological obsolescence. One moment I found particularly relatable was when he said that his sketch of a possible future will “hopefully prod hotshot young computer scientists and economists to prove they can do better, and to present improved designs.” One can argue that what Apple is doing is giving its users “improved designs,” but Lanier goes even further. He mentions that while doing that, one should also stop every hour and check to make sure that people are still the center. It’s a common theme he drives home throughout his entire book, which definitely helps with understand the phenomenon better as a whole. He thinks that all technology should be about the people. While Apple makes it seem like their upgrades and new designs are about the people, really it’s all an economic mind game they’re playing with consumers. Lanier suggests that in order to cope with this problem, we must attempt to fix the problem. And the problem isn’t necessarily that there are constant upgrades. If they’re actually helpful to the people, then I believe Lanier would think that’s great! But when you’re forcing your customers to give up their old stuff in order to get the new models not because they want to, but because the old models no longer work? That’s not good. That’s not putting the people in the center, which Lanier suggests is extremely important and will end up being more profitable in the long run.
The article, in terms of Lanier, exemplifies the failures of technologically predicted trends. In the last chapter, Lanier says about economy: “[W]ith every passing year economics must become more and more about the design of the machines that mediate human social behavior. A networked information system guides people in a more direct, details, and literal way than does policy.” Whereas, in the past, Lanier says, economics used “to be about the patterns of resulted that emerged from rules that influence human social behavior.” The human factor, the prediction based on patterns made from human influence, has been taken out of the equation and now economics is based on how machines dictate and predict human social behavior. Such is the fault with the Apple products Rampell states. Apple once saw that its users did not care about the deterioration of their old products, because the incentive to buy new products, products with a robot voice reciting the weather, were too good for them to care. At first, these trends were based a pattern of the majority. But now, as Rampell says, Apple is getting ahead of themselves, trying to use new, and almost entirely similar product than the last models, to push their users forward technologically. The people behind Apple believe that the incentives are still high enough for users to buy the iPhone 5S, based on patterns of social trends that did not predict the social trends would change, as humans sometimes do.
As Kaitlyn said in her post, the human factor is removed from this case of technological obsolescence. The mechanical predictions of social trends are not anthropocentric, but rather based on desires of technological advances. The desire to advance technology outweighs the desire to wait for people, the technological users, to catch up or even desire new technology. Instead, the people are forced to advance, their actions centered around what new technology is predicted they may possibly want in the future, thus Lanier's explanation of a machine-oriented economy explains, in turn, the nature of old technological deterioration. The advances are more based on a fixed, mechanical pattern of what social trends could be, rather than a fluid, human pattern of what social trends truly are.
I would have to agree with the relationship Emily and Kaitlyn have pointed out between the article and the last part of ”Who Owns the Future?” by Lanier. In the last part of Laniers book, he analyzes the type of economy that has emerged from this technological era and how it no longer focuses on humans gaining any sort of benefit from it. Throughout the book he states that the economy has become a “winner-takes-all” economy. In other words, whoever has the newest, most innovative forms of technology, regardless of its sustainability, will ultimately be the most successful. Innovators and techs are no longer focusing on creating products that benefit the individual and can last them several years or even a lifetime. Instead, they are creating products that solely benefit themselves, therefore creating a “winner-takes-all” economy.
In a recent interview with Lanier, he states, “when there’s some new big piece of incredible infrastructure that makes the world more efficient, what happens afterwards is an expansion of opportunity and well-being for ordinary people. That happened with electricity and drinking water and interstates…So here we are, over a decade into this transformation [with the internet] and we’re seeing a different reality.” Essentially, Lanier is explaining how this recent technological phenomenon is much different than anything our culture is used to because humans are not benefitting from it. We are actually receiving an unequal distribution of loss and gain within this new type of economy because for the first time, it doesn’t revolve around us.
This idea introduces the concept of “technological” or “planned obsolescence”. Technological obsolescence is the intentional creation of a product that is designed to eventually fail; forcing consumers to purchase the newest edition or upgraded version of a product. The NY Times article explains this idea in-depth with their focus on apple products and iphones and how they create products that purposefully deteriorate once an upgraded version is available. I have personally noticed this with my laptop. Like most of my friends, I received an apple laptop with for my high school graduation. Recently, I’ve noticed that my computer has been running significantly slower and constantly freezing up on me. What’s weird is that most of my friends were having the same issues. I am now able to see that it actually is a “planned obsolescence” from apple to force us into buying an upgraded version. Lanier points out that this wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if these new products were somewhat beneficial to us, but that hasn’t been happening so much anymore. New upgraded versions of products such as the Iphone don’t seem to have any difference from their previous version. We are ultimately not receiving any sort of benefits from this type of economy but being fooled into thinking we are.
Lanier suggests possible solutions of this emerging economy. He believes that for every individual that creates date and information for networks there should be a “material value” for that individual. This will help shift the “winner-takes-all” economy into a more equal distribution between gains and losses and will ultimately put the human back at the center of our economy instead of machines and technology.
This article is a perfect example of the point Lanier makes throughout "Who Owns the Future". The technology fails to keep the user at the center. One particular sentiment of Lanier's, where economies were dictated by human behaviors has been completely turned on its head. We now have a Pavlovian reaction to Apple's yearly events. It's interesting to note how much talk about obsolescence and how Lanier challenges bright minds to step up and solve that issue occurs. In reality, nothing could be further from the tech industry's interests. To use the Apple example, their new operating system, iOS 7, was released in conjunction with the iPhone 5S. The iPhone 5S has a marginally faster processor, but changes made to the operating system cause any older iPhones to lag and crash programs. This is forced obsolescence.
I recently bought a Nintendo at a yard sale. It's nearly 30 years old, and numerous iterations of Nintendo systems have come since. However, the new system doesn't render the old one useless. That's the difference. Apple's model (and increasingly more tech companies) is a form of technological slavery, counter to the person-centric model of deep ecology.
Whoever owns the “value” of a product has a certain economic right to their property, according to Lanier. A person can resell an unopened vinyl copy of The Wall from 1979 for a lot of money because the PERSON has ownership over the value of his goods. An .mp3 file shared over the Internet is a different thing altogether.
This relates to planned obsolescence discussed in the New York Times article. In the iPhone case, the value is in the hands of the Siren Server rather than the people who buy the phones. An iPhone cannot be resold 35 years down the road for a lot of money because a new one comes out every… what is it now, year? six months? three months? I lost track. Either way, it happens all the time. Value is artificially lowered into nothingness (who’s buying the first iPhone?) by the Siren Server (Apple).
Coping with this phenomenon is easier said than done, or maybe I just cannot think of an easier way to do it. Step back, look at the technology, and ask yourself if the new models have any serious advantages over the previous model, or if it is mostly mindless aesthetic flair. Are the new, unnecessary models being pushed in a way that makes previous models obsolete? And most importantly: are PEOPLE at the center of this technology, or is a Siren Server sucking up everybody’s wealth?
Basically, if you feel like you’re being played and kept in a consumerist loop by a Siren Server (Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) then you need to shut the Siren Server out of your life. At least if you believe in the good of progress in a humanistic information economy where people actually have value in the things they own. On the other hand, if you like being “up to date” and buying a new iPhone every year, then your choice has pretty much been made up for you, hasn’t it?
The NY Times article “Cracking the Apple Trap” exemplifies Jaron Lanier’s notion of our technological economy losing focus of the people and not keeping them at the center. According to the article, it seems that Apple is employing a business strategy known as “planned obsolescence”, which means they purposely manufacturer iPhone’s, for example, that won’t last a very long time which forces the customer the upgrade their older, less upgraded iPhone’s to newer, more expensive ones. This seems to be the exact opposite of what Lanier believes companies and our economy should be focusing on. Lanier feels that companies would last longer if they focused more on the consumer, however, with this business strategy it seems that Apple is simply trying to brainwash their customers into spending more money, which is inherently bad for the customer. This opposes Lanier’s theory that if companies like Apple focused more on the customers, the customers in the long run would be happier and more likely to continue purchasing Apple products, especially because if customers were to catch wind of what Apple is possibly doing with planned obsolescence, the customers would certainly be very unhappy (no one, of course, likes to be forced into spending money, no matter who it is that’s forcing them to do so).
Lanier proposes that the way of coping with this problem is to question it and try to solve it, however, the problem of people no longer being at the center of the economy’s focus is certainly a difficult one to solve. Perhaps it would be easier just to question the situation which it seems people rarely do. Rather than instantly upgrading to the next new iPhone, consumers should ask themselves why they want to. If it’s because they simply like the new model or new operating systems, then fine. But if it’s because they feel pressured into doing so because they feel their older iPhone is automatically obsolete, the consumer may want to question the situation and ask themselves why.
Based on our obsession of consumerism with electronic devices and their never ending releases of up-to-date technologies it has created a problem in our society. This problem is that technology is creating fewer jobs that it should be making. From the New York Times article, “If you can brainwash consumers into developing new tastes that make the old stuff look uncool for aesthetic rather than functional reasons, you still have a shot at harvesting more sales from your existing customer base.” So because of these new cool features people feel the need to buy a new device, forgetting about how their current device is working just fine. In result, major corporations have picked up on this trend and are using it to their advantage. They now market their devices to work up until a certain period of time, not by any coincidence that their new model will be released. Lanier said “Each person could remain in the world of fake “free” as long as desired. However, a person could also eventually decide when she’s had enough of “free” and would prefer to buy into a commercial social contract where she can earn money.” In contrast some people are trying to make their phone last but are finding these problems occurring and it is out of their control. It is in the hands of the marketers who are convincing you it is better for you to just upgrade even if the new features on the new model are not as enticing. So Lanier suggests, “Find your excitement somewhere other than in manipulating the nature of the economy, the economy is one of those things, like health, that should usually be reliable, constant, and boring.” He is trying to tell people to test the waters of being their own person without the reliance of constantly being connected. He is also in favor of the middleclass, in hope that the people in charge of these major conglomerates will keep in sight for the benefit of the people, not just themselves. This then can create a self-destructing society if people do not learn to collect themselves. He also suggests, “The primary path I promote, however, is to support commercial rights for individuals, not servers.” All in all, hopefully people can simply disengage themselves from technology but it can be also very hard cracking out of your norms.
To be completely honest, prior to these reading I was not familiar with the term “ technological obsolescence”. As I was reading the article it occurred to me how creepy it all is. These giant heads for these companies deciding “ now everyone will have an iPhone 5 and that’s the way it’s gonna be” and everyone just obeys and does just that. The bit about artificial expiration dates really plays into the mentality that consumers are just ignorant sheep, which however true is still jarring to read as a consumer. Companies decrease the durability of a product when the market power is high and when there isn’t a lot of choice for the costumer. This honestly sickens me and I realize I was naïve to have somehow thought otherwise, but do these companies not realize that the waste from their apple products is causing devastating pollution in China and elsewhere. This is not something that should be able to be ignored for the sake of sales increasing. This was not even brought up in the article. Lanier clearly states “ Thus far, the information economy has resembled gaming more than the practical side of user interface design” in the last chapter of his book. Yes, this is most certainly correct. In my opinion economist and computer scientists and everyone else should be focusing on making products durable, usable, and creating things that will benefit people and humanity as a whole. These people are wasting their talent energy and creative minds on how to jip the customer and dupe them into buying the next “best” thing when they could be creating things that could benefit society in some great way. Think of everything that is left to create, the possibilities are endless.
Lanier would undoubtedly being nodding his head and whispering under his breath “told you so…” if he were to read this Time’s article about technological obsolescence of the iPhone. The article describes how Apple removes from consumer from the equation when formulating a new product by replacing the importance of the consumer’s needs with what they want the consumer to feel is important. This is done by slowly phasing out an old version of a product when a new version comes out by slowing down the older version with updates and then distracting the consumer from this fact with new fancy improvements to the new version so they feel as though they need to upgrade. This idea is expressed throughout Lanier’s “Who Owns the Future” by discussion of “siren servers” and the concepts that say this sense of freedom of expression and ideas we all feel we so strongly have is a load of malarkey, and I think Lanier would agree that this iPhone article would be an example. We believe that Apple is just trying to provide us the most up to date, advanced phone they possibly can, which is actually humorous considering all the things they probably could make a phone do right at this moment. They probably could cook you a hot pocket and walk your dog if Apple really wanted them to. But they don’t. They release their technological advances little by little, ensuring the next thing to come out will be impressive, but has room to grow. They also like to seem as if they are giving you a choice, between color, model, style, etc. But when your old phone literally no longer functions due to an intentionally move made by the company that made it… that should be a clear warning sign that you are not the center of concern for a company – the dollar sign is.
And that’s where Lanier would hope people would start, in understanding the mentality behind these corporations, whether they be social websites or technological companies. They don’t really give a shit about you, and they are feeding on your freedom and right to speech and choice, not helping promote it. As in regard to many of Lanier’s proposed ideas and solutions, the focus must be taken off of the service or product itself and placed back on and into the hands of those who use it: the individual. Thus it is up to the individual to see what is going on and consciously understand that buy purchasing a new model of something they already own, they are not truly gaining anything because maybe one or two new features that are not worth the hundreds of dollars you are paying for, and the idea that you are paying into. Both the article and Lanier discuss this concept in terms of fashion, saying fashion is always evolving and is based off the fact that people will always be looking toward the next season and what is new, both for aesthetic reasoning and because their recent purchases will becoming run down and old sooner than later. Lanier even asks if his daughter will even know what laundry is, or if in the future we will recycle clothes we wear once without even the slightest conception of reusing things, be it clothes, technologies, etc. The only way to stop this from happening would to understand that this method of purchase and use of products benefits us in absolutely no way, and is placing all the power in the hands of the companies and corporations.
This article by the times highlights one of the reasons why I refuse to purchase apple products. First, a part that is not really touched on in the article, is the requirement for constant updates and communication with apple so they know exactly how you use your phone. However, the evidence provided by the article confirms another of my problems with the company in that they are visibly encouraging you to purchase new technology when your old device is still perfectly fine. Granted, Apple is not alone in this practice, but the fact that their old phones became visibly slower with the release of the newer models is impossible to ignore. As the article states, this is a perfect way to overcome the market saturation that will go unnoticed by many customers. When you always hear your parents talk about they would rather buy something older, the first reaction is to laugh at them. However, I believe they have the right idea, because it seems that the older products are made to last, but the newer ones are not.
This is a great instance of Lanier’s ideas concerning “planned obsolescence” and how companies shorten the life span of products intentionally so consumers buy more. Lanier believes that the innovations provided by a company should always have the people in mind. However, what is the true case is that companies only create product innovations so more items will be purchased. This comes back to the idea of a siren server that has constant control over you, and the only way out is to completely take the product away. However, have we become so reliant on our phones that it is impossible to do so?
The central issue that the article has with Apple products is the fear that they may be created as part of a planned schedule of replacement. They are a company praised for their technology’s interaction with the consumer which comes with a sense of loyalty. This loyalty is taken advantage of when the new Apple products work well for only set periods of time and happen to function worse around the time that a newer product is created. The article states that these occurrences are likely intentionally planned and Lanier could explain quite precisely why Apple would do this.
Despite the popularity of Apple, the company decides to betray the trust of the already paying consumer in order to maximize profit. People are dependent on their products and this presents the perfect opportunity to selectively remove the products’ functionality, leaving the consumer desperate for a new gadget. Apple knows that the consumers will return to them because of the functionality they see as intended and not pay mind to the coincidental degradation of their product.
As more people catch on to this phenomenon, it’s possible that Apple will lose customers (though likely not enough to destroy the company, who can be invested in multiple facets of the economy by this time). If Apple, as a company producing gadgets, removed these “time bombs” from their products, they would be helping the customer at the expense of potential supplemental profit. This would be following the advice of Lanier, who says that companies should make their customers rich in order to secure their company’s placement in society. Without this practice, Apple could avoid backlash and remain a household name for future generations.
Planned obsolescence is a profitable strategy for businesses, but according to Lanier and common sense, in a world of limited material resources, planned obsolescence is nowhere near sustainable, nor does it have the best interest of common people in mind. Catherine Lampell succinctly describes two ways in which fashion companies achieve planned product obsolescence: The first, in which customers pay a seemingly cheap price for cheaply made clothing that adheres to the latest trends, but will fall apart just in time for next shopping season, is forced obsolescence. The second, in which carefully designed and constructed high-fashion items quickly lose their appeal to high society, is another kind of obsolescence. Both kinds of obsolescence are wasteful from a deep ecology stand point,and both resemble planned obsolescence used by technology companies. Apple encourages new software updates on old hardware in order to give you a glimpse or a tease of what you could have, but the "outdated" hardware cannot handle this wonderful new software system with all its pretty features so you grow frustrated with your lagging device and become jealous of your friend with the new model. It's a sly plan, but as the author remarks at the end, the amount of change in newer models might eventually slow down,(that is assuming Mores law does not hold), then if there are less substantial differences in new models, we might see shift even further into arbitrary trend focused smart phone tech which will drive people to invest in new products more because of preferred aesthetics than increased functionality.
Wouldn't it be great if I-phones and computers were made like pre-plastic car era Jeeps or Deloreans? Both products were built to last; they were also constructed so that if one part broke or malfunctioned, it did not ruin or compromise the functionality of the entire machine. You could order a part and replace it by hand because automobiles were constructed in a way which made them accessible for people to fix. Now vehicles have built in technology that is indecipherable to non-experts or mechanics. Complexity can improve technology but it should be done in a way that has the consumers best interest in mind, and does not just purely appeal to the consumers vices. Product diversity and consumer education, and dissidence are interdependent aspects that could help this situation improve, but right now there is a technological oligarchy of businesses in place and people buy from in a ritualistic way.
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