Someone got me started on 'planned obsolescence'

I read an article about the tricks and traps of our digital age, which drifted around from planned obsolescence to tricky marketing. A comment spurred me to deconstruct the idea that planned obsolesence is "good" because it "creates jobs":

Planned obsolescence has a few flaws. With material goods it creates physical waste, up to now a hidden cost that we *all* have paid (usually by government subsidy). As externalities like waste are factored in (by for example pricing carbon emissions) the real cost of obsolescence is revealed and it doesn't look so good. Secondly, whilst obsolescence is thought to be a great idea to ensure that someone comes back for 'another one', it only works in monopoly markets or close thereto, or where loyalty or some other sticking force (like a low cost shaver and high-cost replacement blades) glues the buyer to the brand. If the market is truly "free" they only come back if they are satisfied with the first one. As soon as a competitor makes a longer-lasting, better or more serviceable product the short-lived-by-design product will fall from favour. Basically planned obsolescence relies on imperfect markets, government subsidy, marketing tricks, and/or inefficiency to actually work. If that's what you want, fine, but what about the free market, efficiency and innovation? What if we deny ourselves the better product and pay through the nose for the privilege of getting the lesser device? Is that actually generating jobs for us, or setting us up for a later catastrophic economic failure?

Oops, it may have just happened!

Speculation: Macbook 'carved' from aluminium block

Is it April 1? Is this cool or crazy? Firstly, this is of course idle gossip. Secondly, numeric control machines have been around for 'yonks', so carving a block of aluminium is not news. Fluid-flowed aluminium is newer but again not news. Thirdly, it can only carve the case, anyway. So why would this be a game changer? It's not.

Seth Weintraub a blogger at 9to5Mac.com claims that Apple has invented a new manufacturing process for MacBooks that will result in the product being manufactured from a coplete block of aluminum. He writes "It is totally revolutionary, a game changer. One of the biggest Apple innovations in a decade. The MacBook manufacturing process up to this point has been outsourced to Chinese or Taiwanese manufacturers like Foxconn. Now Apple is in charge. The company has spent the last few years building an entirely new manufacturing process that uses lasers and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum.

And best of all, why is it so grand to waste precious resources like this? An expensive aluminium block (what is often called 'congealed electricity' because it uses so much in its manufacture) is presumably cast, then 'carved', leaving a lot of wasted off-cuts. Sure, it can be re-melted and re-cast, but why increase waste, especially when electricity generation and aluminium production are so heavily linked with carbon emissions?

The only advantage here is that you end up with a nice one-piece (or maybe 2 piece?) aluminium case. Form Apple's point of view that may be cool, and it may even save some bucks if the carbon offsets aren't made. Otherwise it's not cool at all.

Conspicuous consumption and all that

Brilliant article by Stephen Lacey on conspicuous consumption, waste and excess in an Aussie context. Why big cars? Why big homes? Because we can. Simple. It makes no rational sense, but it happens.