This So-Called Progress

This should be a quick thing, because I was griping to Audrey about how much bullshit planned obsolescence is, and she said I should blog about that, so here it comes.

You guys know what planned obsolescence is, right? It's when a company makes a product designed to last only for a little while, so that in a couple years or whatever, you have to buy the new, updated version, or else you'll be behind everybody else and won't be able to use the product. For example, we had VHS tapes to be played on a VCR for awhile there, but those eventually gave way to DVDs, and even they are about to surrender their throne to Blu-Ray discs, whenever the price goes down or the economy recovers enough to support a Blu-Ray player in about three out of four households. Remember cassette tapes? They were what we played music on before there were compact discs. Their predecessors were actual vinyl records. They're both gone now. Even CDs are in their death throes now. Digital music dominates. Before long, we'll be able to watch movies or concerts in hologram form. It'll be just like being there, or something! All that is no accident. It is completely planned out. In most industries, the progression already contains several generations beyond what is on the market now. They're just waiting until the time is right to roll out the next round. The media companies in particular know that, sooner or later, enough people will have a Blu-Ray player that, if you're one of the ones who doesn't, you'll start to feel compelled to get one, either via old school peer pressure (they used to call that keeping up with the Joneses), or by gradually eliminating the previous generation so that you won't even have the option anymore. Don't have a DVD player yet? Want to get your own copy of the newest Harry Potter movie? Boy, you're boned there. They don't make 'em on VHS anymore. Looks like it's time to upgrade! And since a DVD player is better quality than a VCR ever was, why don't we just update our whole video library while we're at it! But don't you know, in another few years, you'll be hard-pressed to find the newest movies on DVD. So you'll have to finally get a Blu-Ray player, and you want all those awesome new features, so you'll turn your whole collection over to Blu-Ray, and the companies that produce all that stuff become a whole new level of rich off of the unsuspecting consumer. Do we see how that works, kids?

And keep in mind, it's not just with movies or music. Very nearly everything you've got, you better believe there are new and (maybe kind of slightly) improved versions right around the corner, but they'll convince you that you've gotta have the new one! Even if it's just about exactly the same! Even books and newspapers are on the way out. Do you even know what those are still? Probably not, since you can read whatever you want on this newfangled internet thing (look who's talking, the guy who wants you to read this on that very medium. But I still love my books, damn it!) Print may not be dead quite yet, but it is about to give up the ghost. Look, I'm all for progress, but too often when we actually get some, we lose a little bit more of our heritage and a little bit more of our culture. And that ain't no good, because it means that sooner or later, we'll forget who we are collectively as a people. We'll still be people, but we won't even know who or what we are. We'll be too busy all being kept alive artificially and stimulated just enough that we won't notice. So yeah, it'll be kinda like the Matrix. And we won't even realize that we've done it to ourselves, just by not being aware of what's going on around us.