The Bane of Forced Obsolescence (Page 1 of 3)
Written by
Steve Lake
Posted on: Feb 19, 2007 at 02:44pm
Section:
Editorials
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During the early years of the tech industry, obsolescence was something people looked forward to. Since systems were so slow and were so limited in what they could do, people were very eager to get the latest and greatest in PC hardware as soon as it came out. Same went for games, video cards, and so much more. But now that we’re hitting a level of technology that is more than sufficient for a large majority of users, the rush for the latest and greatest isn’t as big anymore. There’s many reasons for this, but the biggest is that current computer systems are more than sufficient for current needs. There is and always will be a fringe group of users who wouldn’t be satisfied even if computers were 3 billion terrahertz. They’d still want more. They’re the kind that upgrade every three to six months or so to always have the latest and greatest bleeding edge hardware no matter what. But these days they’re a shrinking minority. Yet they seem to be the ones most companies try to sell to. They do it because they know these people will get something, use it till something new comes around and then buy whatever that new item is. The companies also know these same guys will go tell their friends and family about these items and recommend them highly. Those people will in turn go out and buy that hardware, then go tell their friends and family as well. After a while a critical mass is reached and sales quickly take off.
The catch is that most of the people who buy that high end hardware based on the recommendations of that elite few actually don’t need that much power. How much power do you really need to surf the web, read email, do word processing and a handful of other tasks common to most computer users? I certainly don’t see someone needing a 2.5ghz machine to play pogo games. Even if they play the Sims or some other similar games, most people are happy with older machines. Another big perpetrator of this rush to obsolescence is the software companies. They are partially to blame because of the fact that they choose to be lazy in their programming and refuse to do anymore streamlining of their code than is absolutely necessary. We call it bloatware. They call it profitable. The hardware companies also like it because it means that you’ll need to upgrade to use this new software, then the software companies turn right around and close that gap by producing slower software that requires another hardware upgrade. It’s a completely vicious cycle that needs to end on both sides. Software bloat especially needs to end. Programmers need to go back to the days when coding for computers meant you had to code lean. If a company wants to impress their customers, program performance and speed will do more to impress them than eyecandy ever will. The faster and smoother an app runs, the happier customers are.
If I have two separate apps that do exactly the same thing and one does it in 3 seconds but looks bland and the other looks gorgeous and takes 2 minutes, I’ll take the ugly one over the gorgeous one any day. It’s probably why I prefer older software too for many of my daily tasks. I’ve got nine and ten year old software that I use that does everything I need. The software companies hate that. But if they want to keep producing bloat, I’ll stay with the older, non-bloated software. I can be more productive that way. One of the big reasons that quality control has faded out and bloat has faded in is that software companies are so addicted to the massive profits from the 90’s era boom that they don’t want to scale back and rethink their approach. It’s always “you must upgrade. You have no other choice. Your software is obsolete.” I understand upgrading because there’s a need, such as a security update to patch a hole in the software or new features not available in an older version. But being forced to upgrade without being given a choice for no reason other than the company is desperate for profits is just wrong. Customer’s should never have to suffer through that experience, ever. Companies, no matter the reason, should leave it up to the customer to decide if they should upgrade since it’s their money, and not the company’s, that’s at stake here. Companies can still entice people to upgrade by offering them features and perks that are worth having, but they should never *force* their customers to upgrade for any reason other than security related issues. I understand that security is a big reason for anything to be upgraded, but improving software company profits is not.
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