A Culture of Fail

Built-in obsolescence might jack up Apple's profits, but it threatens our survival.

I hear about children a great deal: how much we love them, how much we protect them, and how important they are to us. They may even be, people say in hushed tones, the most important thing in the world.

Yet everywhere around me I see people making choices that don’t seem to reflect this view. I see countries full of people choosing personal automobiles over mass (even high-speed) transit, even when they’ve just lost their homes and should probably be putting their money elsewhere.

Now before you jump to the conclusion that I’m a tree-hugging freak, take a moment to think about what I’m actually saying. Do you have kids, or young relatives, or know anyone who has kids or young relatives? Do you want them to have a planet to inherit? Have you been following what’s been happening in Fukushima’s not so contained containment vessels? Money can’t buy soil free of radiation, and, even if it could, the food wouldn’t be edible for long.

So bear with me for a moment, because what this is really about … is an iPod speaker.

Not long ago, I bought a sweetly designed little iPod speaker. It provides happy, tinny sound, and, crucially, is visually pleasing. When I first ran it, the speaker hooted for its advertised couple of hours before it needed recharging. I dutifully let it charge for its required time, and then set it to play again. But, this time, it started cutting in and out after 20 minutes. So I recharged it. But … the hiccupping continued.

So I took a deep breath and decided that it had to go back. I knew I was paying for the sin of design; after all, it did look pretty fantastic. But I had to admit that it was supposed to do a job other than look pretty; it shouldn’t be just more one thing to add to my prize collection of dustable objects.

But then, just like a squealing car that somehow knows it’s about to be taken to the mechanic, the speaker started working again. I started driving it full force, waiting for it to fail again. I played it until the battery died once more, but the player didn’t cut out. We moved it to another source. It still didn’t fail. Grimly, we carried it with us from room to room so we could keep testing it.

At this point I was desperately willing it to fail. I imagined, with horror, a scene in which I would return it to the store, the expert employees would plug it in, and it would work and work and work. The employees, knowing that “the customer was always right,” would nevertheless turn to me and stare, thinking I must have lost my mind.

Needless to say, I was not particularly keen on this idea.

The next day I decided the object actually did work, and that the previous day’s events had been merely a small, one-time glitch. So I relaxed, and stopped preparing my legal case for the store clerks.

But then, as if toying with my mind, the speaker cut out for five minutes. Yes, I was dealing with the intermittent nightmare – the worst possible type.