On 5/01/2013 9:43 PM, Mark Trickett wrote:
Wrong. There are "consumable" products, for better or worse, but there are also many "durable" products out there. Note hat there is nothing "eternal", everything has a finite life. It is a matter of trying to make the life appropriate, and to deal with the worn out item. We need to learn to close the loop. Good engineers are always working on the balance. This is also part of why I am unbiased about cars, I bucket both GM and Ford for their inadequacies. I can still keep a 30 year old VW MkI Golf GLD on the road, and it is still competent to stay on the road.
Okay well, sure eternal sure is a stretch, but I would rather replace things after they wear out with a reasonable life expectancy -- or repair them if it is a viable option. For most "consumable" things I would most rather do an upgrade because I am happy to upgrade in order to get more features or a better product (newer tech for example) and not because they break before a reasonable lifetime. I dread electronic equipment with "timer" chips that "know" when warranty has expired and then "randomly" fail.... I'm not sure a 30 year old VW MkI Golf GLD would be as safe as any of the new cars of today, but I do like that idea. I've only ever bought ONE brand new car, it's the VE Commodore (3 years old now), it doesn't even have a glove box light -- and that makes we wonder what else they are choosing to save a dollar or so on. The factory bluetooth won't even display the incoming caller ID either, but a cheap Aldi unit I had in my older car does that fine. Cheers A.