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Imagine owning a smartphone or computer that lasted a decade (and didn't feel like it was slowing you down). Today, I want to talk about durable tech. The last good iPhoneToday, I'm having the battery replaced in my iPhone. It's four years old at this point. I'm well past the point that I could get a "new every two" upgrade (even though I paid for it cash instead of doing one of those plan subsidized things). But it's also the last small phone Apple ever made: the iPhone 13 mini. It still works really great! The only issue I've had with it is the battery not really making it through the whole day, and that just started a few months ago. To buy a new phone that's comparable (and comically bigger) would cost me nearly $1,000 USD. For $89, I can get a new battery and call it a day. At that price, I decided to treat myself and get a new case, since the one I have now is as old as the phone and falling apart. Why isn't this the norm?What I'm doing is abnormal. Most tech gets replaced every few years. But why shouldn't our technology last longer than that? Why isn't five or six years (or more) for a smartphone normal at this point? I got years of extra life out of my first MacBook Pro by upgrading the RAM, then later swapping out the hard drive for an SSD. It was way cheaper than a new computer, and cheaper than getting bigger specs from the factory would have been, too. But today, you can't do that. Most of the components are soldered in, and if you want a better computer, you need to spec it out that way when you buy it, or upgrade to a totally new machine. Replacing a keyboard means replacing a bunch of other parts, too, at 3x the price it would be if everything was modular. I know the reason, of course. Profit. Capitalism. It benefits literally everyone except Apple's shareholders if people keep their devices for years longer. Durable technology is bad business. Apple, of course, built it's name on quality, so they can't make their products bad. They need to be good enough for the prices they command, but not so good that you keep them too long. As Dr. Suess writes in The Lorax…
An unlikely piece of durable technologyIronically, the single most durable piece of technology I own was dirty cheap and is from a company that most folks associate with poorly made, disposable products. The Kindle Paperwhite from Amazon. My kindle is 12 years old at this point. It still holds a charge for weeks, too. Sure, the new ones have a more crisp eInk display, are a bit lighter, and support dark mode (white text on a black background). And yes, the iInk layer has a few little holes in it (below the protective outer screen) that the backlight leaks through. But it's perfectly adequate for reading books in direct sunlight or on the go. It's small enough that I can toss it in a ziplock bag and read at the beach or in a pool without worrying about it getting destroyed, too. It's actually shocking that Amazon even made a device this good, until you remember that they make most of their profit margin from the books you read on it, and not the device itself. All of our tech could be like thisAffordable. Durable. Good at what it does, and not loaded up with a bunch of shit you don't want or need. Technology is incredibly environmentally destructive. Mining cobalt and lithium and other metals releases toxins into the air and soil. It's often done by poorly paid workers in the Global South under deeply unsafe conditions. Recycled electronics often aren't. Instead, they're sold to companies that illegally bury or burn them in other countries, shifting the environmental consequences of richer countries' gluttony to poorer parts of the world. This is not about you or me or individual consumer habits. That's a trick that rich people at big companies employ to shift the blame of systemic issues to individuals instead of the real culprits. A world where tech is built to last means less mining, less extraction, less exploitation, less toxic waste, less needless spending, and, ultimately, more joy. We could have that. We could have it today. Like this? A Go Make Things membership is the best way to support my work and help me create more free content. Cheers, Want to share this with others or read it later? View it in a browser. |
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