Slade uses the middle chapters of his book to delve into the history of this “planned obsolescence”. Using multiple and specific examples, he explores the strategic moves companies made to further market their product for an income. Society has become exceptional at adapting. Change is a key factor in planned obsolescence. Slade explains how in the 50s and 60s society basically discarded the fact that things were actually “made to break”. There were so many products available at the time that creativity and originality began to prevail over essential. Companies were growing and people had money to spend. Companies should be building long lasting product, but they simply just aren’t.
There is a lot of interesting information about how businesses went about developing products. Slade goes into much detail about the effects the radio has had on our society and two of its main innovators: Armstrong and Sarnoff. The competition between the two was intense (89). Sarnoff wanted to start a takeover. He believed emergence of television would cause radio to become obsolete. On the other hand, Armstrong saw potential in FM radio and sought out to help it gain popularity, making it new, exciting and trendy, increasingly creating a challenge for Sarnoff. Americans are greatly attracted to possessing whatever is shiny and new, which helped keep the radio popular. Eventually the addition of the transistor made the radio smaller and portable, keeping the radio business thriving.
Some examples of obsolescence are not always centered on greed, but rather help benefit for economy. A section of this reading that I found quite interesting was Slade’s example of the creation of nylon causing silk to become obsolete very interesting (115). Silk was not only very expensive to produce, but a majority of it was being imported from Japan. Companies needed to find a solution and a way for them, as well as their consumers, to benefit. Nylon, a cheap and durable material, was the answer. They found that not only does nylon costs much less to product, but American could benefit as opposed to Japan. These change in material lead to silk becoming almost obsolete. There was no need for it anymore since companies had found a way to please consumers. What the consumers did not realize though, was that by using cheaper materials, the quality of the product quickly lessens as it most likely will not last as long, therefore causing people to have to replace them. But with prices so low, the appeal of the product raises, making it very easy for society to become blind to this idea of planned obsolescence. It is also hard to take the future and how many times items will have to be replaced into account. But then again, does it even bother society that the product will last very long? According to Slade, we will be purchasing an updated version of the item in the near future anyways.
Like Postman, Slade explores the disadvantages of technology. Each author differs in what they find technologies downfalls are. While Postman discussed the many mental repercussions technology is having on society, such as our dependence to it, Slade looks at what we are physically doing. Although it seems that companies are manipulating and controlling consumers, it is clear that society is abusing the privilege technology has given us by being wasteful and materialistic. At the rate we are going it seems inevitable that society will continue this cycle of buy, use, and waste and I find it quite frightening to imagine where all this trash will end up and what Americans are leaving behind.
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