We’re all guilty of it, though many of us don’t realize it. Some of us
try to fight back, but our options are limited. The rest of us simply
accept what we see as inevitable and try to ignore it. Our belongings
are becoming more and more disposable. Take a look around you right
now. How many of the items you see would you fix if they were broken?
Whether we choose to accept it or not, we as consumers do have control
over this and, unfortunately, we are to blame.

The mentality that drove customer service departments to India is the
very same one that has left us with irreparable goods in our lives.
Working in the technology field, I see this every day. People are
becoming more and more frustrated that things cannot, or cannot
economically, be fixed.

We all understand that higher quality goods cost more money to
manufacture. This, of course, results in higher cost to the consumer.
None of us expect that a $10,000 car will be as good as a $30,000 car.
A more expensive home will be better in some fashion than a less
expensive one. Yet every day people refuse to make this connection
when it comes to computer technology.

Manufacturers have realized this. They’ve cut corners everywhere
possible to deliver the lowest cost goods available. We buy the
cheapest computer, printer or monitor that meets our needs. We rarely,
if ever, consider quality or where it was made. So long as it has the
features we need, everything else is incidental. A few manufacturers
have stayed away from this, choosing to build quality products. They
are the minority, though, and customers all over shun their products
because they seem “too expensive.”

Printers are my favorite example. First, an inside bit of information
on the printer industry: manufacturers lose money on printers. They
make that money back on ink and toner (which is why the supplies for
one printer rarely fit another; they need you to buy new supplies!) As
a rule, the more expensive the printer, the lower the cost of
supplies, per page. Yet the majority of printers sold in this country
are of the low-cost variety. For years Canon and Epson produced
excellent printers that had better quality, lower failure-rates and
lower supply costs than Hewlett Packard or Lexmark. The latter two, by
cutting corners and charging more for supplies, were able to offer a
less expensive product. Consumers didn’t seem to make the connection,
though, eventually forcing Canon and Epson to reduce quality on many
of their models in order to gain back market share.

One term I hear used on the disposability subject is planned
obsolescence. What does that really mean? Do manufacturers actually
plan on building a product that is obsolete? No. Here’s another
insider tip: your product only becomes obsolete when it no longer does
what you want it to do. Thus it isn’t the fault of the product, but
our own changing needs that cause us to retire our technology.
Whatever your computer did when you bought it, it will always do.

Where does this idea come from, then? The manufacturers convince us of
this through their marketing. They need you to replace products often.
The low quality actually works in their favor, since we rarely have a
choice but to replace something when it breaks. Here we complete the
cycle – we buy low quality goods, they break, we buy new ones.
Manufacturers are happy, consumers should be irate.

There are alternatives, though not for every type of good. Some
manufacturers offer quality computers with longer life-spans. You will
pay more for them, though. A higher cost printer will last you longer
and cost less to operate. If we buy cheap, we get cheap. You can buy a
$50 printer, but you will get a $50 printer. Buy a printer for a
couple hundred dollars, and you might actually have something worth
owning. You get what you pay for - we’re all familiar with that idea.

The disposable society we live in is of our creation. Electronics from
American-owned companies are made in Asia because we, as consumers,
refuse to pay for their production here. We have control over the
situation and only the placement of our money will change it. This is
the same argument people are using for the proliferation of chain
stores – if we don’t want them, don’t shop there. If you don’t want a
disposable society, stop buying disposable products.

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