Negroponte, OLPC, AAAS, obese electronics

[Neil Joseph Schelly]

On Tuesday 19 February 2008 14:15, Ben Scott wrote:
> It's been observed by many for 
> years that companies keep adding "new" "features" that people don't
> really want, solely to justify the upgrade treadmill.  I don't want a
> cell phone with a camera, or MP3 player, or removable storage, or any
> other damn thing.  I want it to make phone calls.  But it's very hard
> to find a phone that just makes phone calls these days.

These arguments never go anywhere.  The reason someone like you would buy a 
camera phone is because your old phone died and you need a new one and those 
features on on the new one.  They don't make it more complex, expensive, or 
any of that.  So while you don't necessarily want a phone with those 
features, you also don't specifically want to be rid of those features.  If 
you do specifically want those features to be gone, then you're in the 
minority and you have to shop accordingly.

If you have a perfectly good phone, but buy a new one, it's because you want 
the new features.  Your analogy relies on people who don't want new features 
buying new phones just for the heck of it.

>   This is certainly not limited to Consume Electronics products, of
> course.  The "compelling reason to upgrade" problem applies to lots of
> products.  Look at Microsoft: They pump out a new version of Word
> every couple of years, but when it comes right down to it, there
> really isn't all that much you can do to improve a word processor.

There is no "compelling reason to upgrade" in your phone example above.  This 
doesn't parallel your phone analogy above because phone without a camera 
attached will work fine when you call someone without a camera.  Microsoft's 
planned obsolescence is real - it gets harder to keep using the old version 
even if it meets your needs, as you can no longer get it to work on modern 
hardware, no longer open the documents others send you (or vice-versa), etc.  
You don't have to buy a cameraphone to keep taking advantage of all your 
non-cameraphone features. There's no forced upgrade path you must go on.

-N