3 ms·

Heirloom Technology

25 points by irollboozers 14y ago

konstruktor 14y ago
In the context of this article, I want to recommend Design For The Real World by Victor Papanek. Many of the ideas mentioned here have been made popular by Papanek decades ago.
SeanDav 14y ago
As I see it, many of the technologies mentioned in the article are still very much in a frantic phase of development. The technologies are far from mature but once the technology reaches a maturing level, most of the problems will go away. Once your phone has better than eye resolution, battery power to last a full day without charging, sufficient computer power to run any realistic phone app, then attention will turn far more to durability and quality, at least that is my hope. There are at least a couple of excellent science fiction short stories (whose names escape me now) that address this very issue of the disposable society and quite frankly the downside is quite frightening.
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  It could also turn into a price war at that point.
  - tdoggette 14y ago
    More likely is that it'll do both-- there'll be cheap Chinese smartphones that compete feature-for-feature with much higher-quality products, some of which might be heirloom quality.
carlob 14y ago
I really gave much thought at the way we spend money on gadgets until a friend of mine told me he wanted to buy an iPhone 5 for his girlfriend as a birthday present. And then it dawned on me that an iPhone 5 (without a contract) costs as much as some really nice jewelry that this her granddaughter will probably inherit. It's not even about conspicuous consumption versus a more frugal lifestyle, it's about spending 800$ on something that is going to be tossed away or broken in 24 months.
- bigiain 14y ago
  FWIW, and iPhone does hae somewhat more "utility" than jewelry. Sure, it's partly a "shiny thing", bit it's a shiny _useful_ thing. (Whether its utility is worth the ~$400/year it costs if you break/lose one every two years is a good question.)
  - carlob 14y ago
    Yes, but this person already owns a fully functional Android phone that costed about 200$. It is not as shiny, but it does more or less everything the iPhone does (at least in term of usefulness).

25 points by irollboozers 14y ago

In the context of this article, I want to recommend Design For The Real World by Victor Papanek. Many of the ideas mentioned here have been made popular by Papanek decades ago.

SeanDav 14y ago

As I see it, many of the technologies mentioned in the article are still very much in a frantic phase of development. The technologies are far from mature but once the technology reaches a maturing level, most of the problems will go away. Once your phone has better than eye resolution, battery power to last a full day without charging, sufficient computer power to run any realistic phone app, then attention will turn far more to durability and quality, at least that is my hope. There are at least a couple of excellent science fiction short stories (whose names escape me now) that address this very issue of the disposable society and quite frankly the downside is quite frightening.

hayksaakian 14y ago
It could also turn into a price war at that point.
- tdoggette 14y ago
  More likely is that it'll do both-- there'll be cheap Chinese smartphones that compete feature-for-feature with much higher-quality products, some of which might be heirloom quality.

carlob 14y ago

I really gave much thought at the way we spend money on gadgets until a friend of mine told me he wanted to buy an iPhone 5 for his girlfriend as a birthday present. And then it dawned on me that an iPhone 5 (without a contract) costs as much as some really nice jewelry that this her granddaughter will probably inherit. It's not even about conspicuous consumption versus a more frugal lifestyle, it's about spending 800$ on something that is going to be tossed away or broken in 24 months.

bigiain 14y ago
FWIW, and iPhone does hae somewhat more "utility" than jewelry. Sure, it's partly a "shiny thing", bit it's a shiny _useful_ thing. (Whether its utility is worth the ~$400/year it costs if you break/lose one every two years is a good question.)
- carlob 14y ago
  Yes, but this person already owns a fully functional Android phone that costed about 200$. It is not as shiny, but it does more or less everything the iPhone does (at least in term of usefulness).