The Hindu Business Line : <I> The built-in obsolescence </I>

Apple, which successfully combined its iPod with a unique non-MP3 format, has been celebrated as an iconic case study of innovation. Obviously this extends to the way Apple has you locked in as well, by what marketers would dream of as superior entry and exit barriers. This means the competition finds it difficult to get in because of some new technical feature that you have brought into this world, so they can't enter with a look-alike or a better one anytime soon. In the case of iPod, when it gives up, you have a library of music that you can't use on other players. You have to buy another iPod. And contrary to Apple claims of much longer life, some reports suggest that means about 12-15 months.

Use-and-throwaway model

So says Giles Slade who is the author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, in a recent article. Apparently after 13 months of heavy use, the lithium-ion battery of the iPod collapses on you. And even recharged frequently it can fade out by the end of a long day. In other words, it is a use-and-throwaway model. A device that might set you back $350 to $400 is no better than a ballpoint pen or cheap ten-rupee plastic razor. It is designed to be disposable.

The story gets worse; if you think the obvious answer is to get a new battery, you are stymied. The battery is cleverly sealed inside and replacement takes a long time and about $65 in the US. And the way it is re-fitted to your old iPod, the extant memory is erased altogether.

Forcible obsolescence is not new. Every time you tried to do something to your music system roughly every two years you would have come across the refrain, "Oh, that model is no longer in production, sir. I don't know where you can get spares these days!". It is almost as if anyone who is looking for a part or repairs to even an ordinary cassette player or a three band short wave radio is a social dinosaur. Buying on afresh is out of the question. So what you have now is the single option of listening to the synthetic music of the FM stations with their hybrid language babble of radio jockeys and their synthetic bonhomie — or the far more expensive World Space.

Take things easy

The best way to react to this situation of cascading obsolescence which is worsening by the day in the video and computer worlds, is to delay purchase and take things easy. To run faster and faster to remain in the same place is a mug's game and just plays into the hands of the greedy marketers. Many consumers in the US are already reacting this way. The untold story, certainly in this country is the enormous e-waste that this contributes to. Players, cassettes, discs, VDUs and laptops are becoming unusable as the new breakthrough technologies make the older ones irrelevant or inappropriate. For some the mere fact of being out-of-date is a social punishment. Simply put, there is no solution to this — except some sort of Gandhian civil disobedience or stoic self-denial, come the festive season and the splurging begins on cue.

According to Giles Slade, either sit on your money and think about what you really need or buy something durable, which will increase in value — like shares in a company like Apple. Clearly there won't be any planned obsolescence for rapacious capitalism.

S. Ramachander

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