Currently in the market there is the rule of developing product according to Planned obsolescence (“death by design” of the product). That is according to the idea of increasing sales volumes by shortening the life of the product (shortening the “replacement cycle”).
Some factors in this product strategy have become a problem for incumbents. This applies, for example, to unsustainable economic cost of these products for Consumers (this is one of the main reasons for the Market crisis: the Planned obsolescence strategy worked in times of economic well-being, but today, in times when consumers can afford to spend much less, such type of products is sold with difficulty.
The Planned obsoloscence also has a high economic cost at a social level, since it is an exasperated consumerism of the disposable that involves bulky products, not easily disposable.
If you want to develop a successful product today it
is therefore necessary to replace Planned obsolescence
WITH OTHER PRODUCT PHILOSOPHIES
that are taken into consideration deration
ALSO THE “ADVANTAGES” FOR THE CONSUMER.
In order to understand how the Market must orient itself in order to face this passage, it is necessary first of all to observe how it worked before the current phase of hyper-consumerism based on Planned obsolescence strategies. That is why it is necessary to analyze the time in which almost exclusively Reliable products exist (such as, for example, the first car, the Ford T, or the first “household appliances”).
The basic characteristics of Reliable products were (and are):
● endelss durability frame: a “frame” of durable materials to which components are added.
● modularity of the product (see next point), which allows, for example, to replace the parts that fail.
One of the main purposes of the new Model long/endless durability is a real Sustainability and Affordability.
Although the cost of this type of product is certainly higher than that of a planned obsolescence product, it is more affordable for two reasons:
– it can be purchased in a minimal configuration, and then gradually implemented with new parts to develop new functionalities.
– since the product lifetime of a long/endless durability product is equivalent to many product lifetime of current products, it still costs a small part of a current product at planned obsolescence.
Obviously this new philosophy of Product reprresents a major problem for the current market (a “conflict of interests”).
However, this is the hallmark of any successful product in a period of disruption, in which:
● the big players in the market can not afford to radically transform their production methods. <see “The great Firms are not able to develop disruptive innovation within them” >
The fact, however, is that
● the change towards new products that drastically reduce the traditional advantages of the producer is not today an option, but an absolute “historical” necessity (ie, it is not a question of an ideological, “idealistic” choice for capture new groups of consumers by elaborating an image of correctness).
Change is therefore a necessity today:
in the historical moments of disruption
NEW UNAVOIDABLE NEEDS OF PEOPLE ARE MANIFESTED, and
THE PLAYERS OF THE MARKET (AND OF GOVERNANCE)
MUST, TO SURVIVE, BE ABLE TO SATISFY THEM
(it is basically to be in able to adapt to the “rules of progress” of human civilization).
Who is not able to follow the new Demand remains out of the market.
This rule is the Law of Supply and Demand. It has been at the base of the “Market” for thousands of years, and has been abandoned in recent decades. This departure from one of the fundamental rules of the progress of man is, in fact, one of the major causes of the current crisis – this is true both at the Market level and at the Governance level).
l< see “The misunderstanding on the Social Impact” >
The fact that The Repair Association [https://repair.org/] got the law on the reparability of technology products in many US nations, helps us to understand how today a trend is developing, bottom-up, which induces the market to overcome the strategies of planned obsolescence.
