Of course I didn't break it! 😅
Can you say 'Dynamic Obsolescence'?
Welcome to Part II of a saga to repair a 10-year-old computer. Last week in Part I we covered why such repairs are so tricky nowadays and how Right to Repair battles have won a key victory with the tides turning not only for fixers but humanity writ large as we figure out how to reuse products and create new from old. In this larger context I will talk about Planned and Dynamic Obsolescence.
But first - did I break it? I put my odds in Part I at 50/50 mainly because I was pretty sure I'd crack the screen in getting it off. I put up an Instagram's poll on Wirepine's story yesterday and you guys agreed - half of you figured I broke it. Ye of little faith! Read on.
🍋 The Fix
Easy peasy lemon squeezy - mostly. If you missed Part I of the story, my neighbor Joe brought over a 10 year old cute-as-a-button iMac that stopped working after years of Yeoman work. Looking at the screen I channeled my inner Tom Cruise doing my own stunts (does he really!?) for Mission Impossible - Ghost Rogue Mac. Stuck two large blue suction cups with handles to the screen to lift it off after scoring through soooo many glue strips that held it in place. Is it any coincidence that the suction cups were blue just like my Handy Andy toolkit of yore? Make it to the end of the article for glorious pics of the teardown and fix.
I shed a tear when the little guy booted up with a happy chime and MacOS lit up the screen in sparkling UX glory. I had to wait a day to see if would turn on for all the glue strips to dry😑 I cleaned him all up and now he goes back to Joe better than new with a solid-state hard drive and an operating system (MacOS X Catalina) that’s 6 years newer than the hardware!
🤬 The Rant
Have to vent a little about putting the screen back on. That part was stupid. Effectively the screen is the cover or the hood - all the guts are stowed behind it in this curvy baby-bulgy clamshell behind the screen. The screen is glued on, and this is a ridiculous choice for anything you'd design and planned to open after initial assembly. Imagine if the hood of your car was glued on and every time you changed the oil you had to whip out a giant glue gun to reattach the hood. The time it took to reglue the screen back on and align it correctly was easily 3X the time it took to put the new hard drive in.
The other beef I have is with the software. Initially I was really happy that it re-installed the OS it came with (Mountain Lion) over the internets. Really smooth - didn’t need any silliness like getting an image from a CD or another computer which really would’ve been a PITA. But my happiness dulled as I had to install two more OSX upgrades and mess around with Apple IDs to get the bits - that whole thing took a couple of days on and off so sheesh.
🔨 Right to Repair
In part I of this story I told you about Right to Repair and how we have turned a corner with manufacturers (and specifically Apple) enabling consumers to fix and get fixed stuff they buy - and fixed by themselves or folks other than the manufacturer. While there is certainly more to do here (pshaw Google), this problem will keep getting better and we'll all be able to do our small part to save the planet by keeping our gadgets going rather than tossing them in the bin and buying new ones every year.
But there is a something bigger going on that I'd like to talk about.
⏱️ Planned Obsolescence
You may have heard of Planned Obsolescence. The premise is simple - companies stay in business by selling goods and services. If you build a product that never needs replacing you go out of business. Now in technology it is very true that an older iMac say will never have the capabilities of the latest version due to improvements in hardware and software. PCs and Phones have benefitted greatly from upgrade cycles bordering on annual if you want or need the latest improvements.
But this is bigger than Tech. The famous example of planned obsolescence is was borne out the invention of the lightbulb - truly a wondrous advance in improving life. The first manufactured lightbulbs lasted a reallly long time. Check out the Centennial Bulb that's still lit AF after 122 years at a fire station in Livermore California. It was meant as a night light and they never turn it off. If you make or sell light bulbs one that lasts 122 years is not so good for business. So, back in 1925 electric companies worldwide (including GE in the US) formed the Phoebus cartel where they colluded together to reduce the life of a light bulb to no more than 1,000 hours.
But obsolescence is yet bigger than parts wearing out. Henry Ford found this out the hard way.
🚗 Dynamic Obsolescence
Maybe you've heard Henry Ford’s quote saying the customer can have "any color, so long as it's black?" Ford built his cars to be workhorses that lasted a long time and he found black paint dried the fastest and lasted the longest. However, as the auto market got saturated, GM started working on color paint for cars and in 1924 released their first cars in different colors. Soon after, each model year came with different colors and next came more familiar tricks like subtle style changes each year to differentiate them visually from last year’s model. GM became the most valuable company in the world - selling half of all vehicles in the US.
Who's the most valuable company in the world now? Apple. Coinkydink?🤨David needs a new phone so we were checking out the just released iPhone 15 line up - guess which model has the too-cool-for-skool color getting all the hype? Titanium baby and yep it's only available in the high end Pro models. So much hype about the colors! There are no less than 4 shades of Titanium and it comes with … flecks! Titanium is pitched as a feature … wait what are the new features and doesn’t the case cover the color anyway!?
Dynamic Obsolescence is ultimately manipulating you the business owner, you the consumer - to feel you need the new thing even if it’s functionally the same as the old thing. Here’s something thats really timeless and Dynamic - Napoleon Dynamite refusing to share his Tots and calling his bully a Freakin Idiot.
For a good telling of this whole scoop - check out the video below - the YouTube link starts in the middle with the advent of Dynamic Obsolescence by GM's head of marketing Harley Earl and goes on to cover the Fashion industry - perhaps the biggest non-innovator - pants will never need a 3rd leg. Fashion trends change constantly to the point where we have enough clothes on this planet for all future and past generations. This is why we can't have nice things
🌞 Positive Signs
There are signs everywhere beginning with Right to Repair momentum that these patterns are now changing. A year ago Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard made big news by putting his company in a non-profit trust to fight climate change. In an even more shocking example of turning your back on Capitalism to hug Mother Earth, Patagonia turned their back on Tech Bros everywhere. Patagonia recently launched a worn wear line to buy and trade in used clothes. Legislation is coming to support a life cycle for fashion products.
I was surprised to learn Caterpillar (think big yellow heavy equipment) was a big non-tech target in the Right to Repair battle. They talk a good game now about supporting the circular economy where old stuff gets turned into new not and not trashed.
Let’s not forget about our OG friend the light bulb! LED light bulbs swooped in for good - just try it find a standard incandescent bulb at the store today. Brighter, cooler and they last forever - tap tap tap many💜’s.
You will find more and more examples and it's something to think about and look for as a business or consumer when you buy new stuff or save old and with that lets close with a few pictures of the making of a brand-new 10 year old iMac :)
Suction cups to make Ethan Hunt jealous
Took nearly a can of air to get the gunk out of that fan
Old hard drive and new, tools with handles of blue
Silly sticky strips - used cocktail toothpicks to keep them in place, so fun
Mountain Lion was the OG Operating System a 2013 iMac shipped with but just the first of 3 OS’s I had to install (followed by El Capitan and then Catalina that shipped in 2019)
How did these bugs manage to get sandwiched under the monitor? No idea but they relocated a good inch in from the edge after I took the monitor off. A computer without bugs doesn’t exist anyway!!
🤓What’s it to me?
No, Wirepine isn’t turning into a repair depot for old computers. But tech remains frustrating to many and it has so much to offer especially for small businesses so let me know if I can help. Here’s one last shot of brain candy I wanted to share that has entertained me muchly over the years when I got frustrated by tech. Don’t be this guy; his computer’s not getting fixed. Hope you get a giggle out of it and I’ll see you next week.