Diversity is beautiful. It’s the reason why our planet is so different than everything else we’ve encountered so far. Humans have added to the diversity through art and technology. But what if there is a boundary after which adding more diversity becomes ugly?
Some people don’t have running water. Some people start their day thanking that their home wasn’t blown up. Some people struggle in a hospital bed. Some people build cars like these:
I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be able to afford such a car. It’s “good diversity” to be able to use technology to build masterpieces like the one above. But not until we’ve done some progress in fixing our society. Not while there’s still people undergoing extreme suffering. We have bigger problems to tackle and issues to consider before we can play around on the race track.
Do I blame the engineers that build hyper-cars? Of course not. Besides being a former Formula 1 fan, I know that these people are only doing their job. I do blame, however, a society that doesn’t encourage these bright minds to work on fixing bigger, more meaningful problems. It’s a paradox:
In order for society to begin to want to fix itself, society must first fix itself.
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We live in the age of hyper-consumerism^. Companies are desperate to convert as much raw material as possible into anything that can be purchased. The machine has been perfected to the point where even leftover byproducts from any production cycle can be fed back into another production line to manufacture something somebody would buy. Sometimes this includes using unhealthy materials, both for us and for the environment. But it doesn’t matter as long as it turns a profit. The machine has to keep producing something, anything, just please, buy it. This is wrecking our ecosystem and is woefully unsustainable.
Awareness regarding the bleak future we might be creating for ourselves after drowning our planet in toxic trash is increasing. However, most people still buy products built to last a very short time because there are no alternatives. And even when certain products could last longer, companies have gotten very good at fooling their followers^ that fashion doesn’t apply only to clothes, but to everything else as well. Now-a-days, many people willingly throw away perfectly operational devices just to jump on the latest model.
But a new economic model is becoming increasingly popular – the monthly payment for a certain service, sometimes metered based on how much a person has used the service. At the moment, this is particularly successful in the digital space (media streaming, software, data and bandwidth, games). Let’s see what a generalized version of this system could mean to our economy and ecosystem in the coming decades. I call it “anything as a service”. The term is already used for software, but in this case, it is truly anything.
The purpose of any post in the Futurology^ category is to launch a wild, boundless speculation regarding what the future holds regarding a certain concept. To get things going, here are some of the things I imagine can be happen in the near future (coming decades) with the widespread use of “anything as a service”. Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments below. With your approval I may integrate these in the article, giving proper credit.
Since I mentioned fashion earlier, let’s start with a lovely example of how a company is disrupting the way people use clothes. Enter Rent the Runway^: for a monthly fee of $159, the service allows you to rent four pieces of clothing or accessories at a time and make exchanges as often as you like. The fee includes shipping both ways, dry cleaning, and insurance. Granted, that’s a hefty fee, but given that the company offers products from top designers (including clothes that retail for $1500), it is understandable. There are other clothing companies that have excellent return polices, even though there are some challenges^ that will need to be overcome.
What if instead of having to replace a smartphone every couple of years, or a TV once every five years, there would simply be a smartphone subscription, or a TV subscription? Pay $300 yearly and you are guaranteed the best smartphone in a given class, with a bi-yearly upgrade included (without the hassle of chaining yourself to a mobile carrier or the risk of spending hours bickering only to end up fooled by a sly salesman). Pay $200 yearly and you are guaranteed that your TV is always upgraded to the latest display standards. There will still be plenty of brands to choose from, all with their own different prices and features. Some retailers might even group several brands into the same pricing segment (not everybody cares about what brand their TV is, and if they’re not satisfied they can simply ask for another brand, with all transportation costs covered). Simplicity without harming diversity. Pricing and production philosophy will change drastically and for the better of everybody involved.
The main and definitive difference with this strategy is that instead of buying a particular model, you would buy into an entire line. For example, you want a smartphone with a screen of a certain size, featuring a good camera, not necessarily from a certain company. Or you want a TV that is good for gaming. Or a road-warrior notebook that is very light, has a secondary backup battery and has a mobile data subscription included. A buyer would simply add features on top of a base cost, each feature costing an additional $X per year. This will greatly simplify a customer’s decision process and it will make companies more responsible for what they manufacture, since they would lose yearly subscribers if their products aren’t good enough.
This will lead companies to improve their designs so that devices can have their parts easily replaced and upgraded. They will have to reuse as much as possible before throwing anything away. Eventually, the reusability standards will spread around companies and lines of products, as a way to reduce costs. If we look at the Rent the Runway example above: it encourages manufacturers to produce quality textiles, as they wouldn’t want these to be destroyed after a couple of washes, which is what happens very often to most clothes today. I have a sweater that I’m wearing since the 90s and it still looks better than some of the clothes I purchased a couple of years ago.
What happens when an entire generation of devices or appliances is replaced? This system would make it very simple for these devices to make it to lower price tiers, or be repurposed. For example, previous generation TVs could be used inside airports or restaurants.
While most of this will evolve naturally out of the need to keep a product alive for as many years as possible, some governmental regulation is also required, particularly when it comes to batteries and cables. This has become the main tool to force people to replace their electronics. Cables and adapters have always been a gold mine that companies abused in order to obtain additional profit (although it’s becoming quite ridiculous as of late). Design and water-proofing is another lie that companies use when justifying irreplaceable battery designs. Watertight watches have existed for decades and this didn’t prevent their manufacturers from allowing easy access to the device’s innards. Governments should enforce better practices in this area.
Another area that is in need of regulation is software. As Apple has proven, it’s not so difficult to regulate software. Did you notice the efficiency ratings on various home appliances? How about having the same ratings, but for software. If I download a text editor, I don’t expect it to take more than a second to start up, no matter how many features it has. Features can be loaded on demand, and based on their complexity, they shouldn’t be consuming ridiculous amount of resources. Anything else is simply bad coding. Poorly designed applications will be rated low on the efficiency scale (E or F). With the advent of machine learning, the process of rating software might become quite easy in the future, driven mostly by automated inspection programs.
How would “anything as a service” affect competition? Let’s start with an extreme but very useful example. If we look at Spotify, a music streaming service, it is quite obvious that less popular artists are having a very tough time competing with known artists, because income is based on the number of times a song is played. In turn, playtime is based on the taste in music of the majority, or even worse, on how some producers have become good at forming and exploiting what the general public likes. This situation will probably not be as bad in the case of appliances, electronics and software (unlike art, they have very specific functionalities). Even so, I believe a fix is possible for both situations.
Again, I’ll be using Spotify as an example. The company’s Discover^ functionality is a recommendation system used to promote all and any music hosted by the service. I have already found hundreds of new artists using this feature. All “pay as you go” markets would have such a system. I believe the functionality can be improved, so that artists and products that are risking bankruptcy can be given an extra lifeline consisting of additional promotion. A human factor could also be introduced in the form of community voting and accredited judges that can save overlooked or underrated creators. Such a system will work well even for the top performers, because increased competition is often a source of great ideas.
Another factor that can hurt competition is when a company takes advantage of its product catalog in order to force others out of business. Read about the concept of closed ecosystems (also known as walled gardens)^. This also happens within the current retail model, but it might become even more damaging for competition when a company can offer lower subscription prices to customers who purchase more of its subscriptions. This is a challenge that possibly requires regulation by an authority of some kind.
There is also one major positive competitive disruption that will occur when “anything as a service” takes hold. Companies that will stick to ways that are destructive towards the environment and disrespectful towards customers will pay a steep price, perhaps even face bankruptcy. If we consider companies to be similar to lifeforms^, what the “anything as a service” model will cause is nothing short of an extinction event of the old business model. And I sincerely can’t wait for that.
The Futurology Disclaimer: I do not claim that my ideas are original. I’m sure these suggestions are just scratching the surface of what can be achieved, but hopefully they’ve scratched enough to get somebody inspired to come up with more. I’m also sure many of these ideas are already being worked on by several organizations. If any of the ideas listed by anybody on this page are original and will benefit any organization, I expect credit to be given where it’s due.
Version history:
2018-02-11 – 1.0 – Written.
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A certain sense of achievement can arise following the break with organized religion. Many people rightly feel they have been freed from a prison of outdated practices and mentalities. Yet, the human need for belonging and confirmation has not disappeared. Neither has the inventive human spirit, always ready to prey upon its own in the quest for profit.
Consumerism is defined as a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. The way this behavior spreads and elevates its status in society is surprisingly similar with religious traditions. This text is about some rather amusing parallels that all but indicate that consumerism is taking advantage of the power void left by fall from grace of organized religion.
This is not to say that consumerism has any of the spiritual virtues that religion often promotes. That’s exactly the problem – consumerism is an economic tool that is capitalizing on an intimate need. It’s the wrong cure for something that isn’t even a problem. And it’s proving to be increasingly costly for the future of our ecosystem and thus, our quality of life in the coming decades and centuries.
Before we continue, it’s important to note that this text is not against commerce and certainly not against spending or making money. We all need to sustain ourselves. We have to trade. Companies need to make their products known. However, thanks to consumerism, the principle of “profit trumps quality and ethics” has entered a phase of dangerous, accelerated spread.
Parallels
In the past few thousands of years we’ve been quite busy building various places of worship. This hasn’t changed with consumerism. There is a new type of building that has become not only popular but paramount to the faithful in almost any city touched by this new “religion”.
The shopping mall is where consumerism is preached to both those that are already converted and to those that haven’t yet become faithful shoppers. Here, people are busier than they’ve ever been in churches because the shops ensure there is some tangible value associated with the ritualistic visit.
The image above is a perfect example of consumerist indoctrination. What sort of person goes to a clothing store every day? The consumerist faithful, of course.
While religions split into opposing organizations, cults and sects, in consumerism we have companies. These are headed by a sort of bishop known as the CEO or the president – which is sometimes worshiped like some sort of saint. Most respectable companies have a unique “brand identity”, represented by images, slogans and even vague principles. Everything is carefully chosen to provide maximum marketing value with a minimum of transparency and accountability.
Corporate followers are encouraged to wear and disseminate this illusory identity wherever they go. The new breed of faithful has less fervor than those that believe in the gods of old, which is probably good, because it would get pretty chaotic when fans of clothing brand X engage in holy war with those of brand Y. Even so, intense rivalries continue to exist. In what is a fortunate ideological regression, the fanboy has taken the place of the crusader.
Consumerist faithful sometimes undergo pilgrimages to far-away shopping meccas – large cities that host veritable mall-cathedrals. For the most part, this venture is preoccupied with gaining status rather than the acquisition of items with reasonable value. As with any pilgrimage, the result is internal satisfaction. Unlike spiritual journeys however, shopping satisfaction stems from a sense of advancement through society rather than personal evolution.
It’s perfectly fine for people to go out of their way to search and find products they love, including traveling to other countries. But for the consumerist worshiper, this is not a necessity anymore. It has become a habit, a social obligation and sometimes an unrecognized burden.
Social restructuring
If consumerism were to have a creed, this would be planned obsolescence – a well-honed method of transforming value into junk as soon as possible. This is how consumerism funds its spread through the world. A vast amount of profit is generated by a system that takes resources absorbed from the earth, digests them in factories, puts them through the retail distribution system and then flushes everything as quickly as possible into landfills.
A significant part of the profit this organism produces is invested into evangelism. This goes way beyond advertisement. Huge sums are invested into opening new markets. This doesn’t mean only adapting and inventing products for those markets, but also modifying the cultural norms there. Sometimes social reformation takes decades of carefully planned reprogramming via mass-media, but the families behind the biggest names in manufacturing operate on a generational scale. For these pragmatic financial strategists, a century is a rather short time to accomplish the goal of economic supremacy.
A good example of social restructuring is the need to keep in pace with the latest fashion. People weren’t obsessed with perpetually upgrading their smartphones some years ago. But through clever marketing, based on merciless psychological manipulation, cultural norms were reformed. It’ll be “interesting” to see how the arrival of smart appliances and mainstream robotics will shape the commercial landscape.
Divide and conquer
Reward mechanisms in the brain mean that shopping can offer a quick – but very superficial – fix to other issues, either psychological or emotional. In consumerism, happiness is found in four bags loaded with products, deliverance is obtained through status. People educated in this economic environment find material substitutes for various emotional needs such as security or spiritual comfort. Unfortunately, there are few things indeed that are more insubstantial for one’s personal growth than substance itself.
The rampant, almost obsessive individualism that characterizes many societies –especially in the Western world – is a fertile soil for the consumerist dogma. It is quite likely that this was the intent in the first place. A divided society where people feel alone and disconnected is the perfect marketplace for all manners of fake medicine. Ripped from the support of true connection and friendship, many people wander meaninglessly across bland webpages whose only purpose is to guide them to the next shop.
Solutions
Getting rid of consumerism doesn’t mean that companies that depend on it have to suffer. Like I mentioned in a previous article^, economic entities can adapt and invent new ways to compete. What is required is that we, as shoppers, support those companies that embrace sustainable methods. Products that meet such manufacturing conditions will be more expensive, but they will outlast their cheaper alternatives making the investment well worth it.
Consumerism won’t last forever, even if for no other reason that the simple fact that chain reactions, even economic ones, are not sustainable in the long run. The companies that prepare themselves best for the next economy will be those that will rule it. What we can do as members of society is to make everything possible to ensure a soft landing after the inevitable crash that will follow when the consumerist bubble finally bursts. In this case, let’s wish it ends with a whimper, not with a bang.
Completing this article’s tragi-comical mood, here’s an awesome video about the craziness on Black Friday. Perhaps the early third millennium shopper does have a crusader’s fervor after all.
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I’ve always been amazed by the bottled water industry – and not in a good way. This wonderful article sums up pretty much everything I ever wanted to know or say about bottled water. Very well written, documented and presented.
For me, it would be hard to maintain objectivity when it comes to this topic, but the author managed to pull it off quite well, kudos for that. There are very few things that can highlight the abuse of consumers as well as bottled water.
Like I highlighted in my article about consumerism, our misshapen implementation of capitalism is built upon keeping customers in the dark. Articles such as the one I just recommended have the potential to bring meaningful change in consumers. So what if just a few people read it? What’s important is that the word is out there.
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Cultural war is tricky business. As a living entity, culture needs mechanisms of protection from external threats. But intellectual defensive systems can become an obstacle for evolution especially when a culture has fallen in love with itself to the point where criticism is no longer seen as a mechanism for progress. For all its merits, Western culture is affected by a plague of intellectual rigidity.
There is no need to generalize. There are many Westerners who are quite open to change and new ideas, perhaps more-so than any other major culture on Earth. This is only sufficient if these people can trigger an evolutionary step forwards by reaching a critical mass enough to spread a wave of change throughout society.
Why Christmas?
What does all this have to do with Christmas? It’s quite simple really. Changing the way we interpret Christmas is probably a litmus test for cultural evolution. Why do we need to reinterpret this cultural event? Because it is the avatar of a way of doing business that may have made sense in the 20th century, but will only lead to worsening the quality of life on this planet for future generations of human beings.
Welcome to one of the many “Christmas factories” in China
Christmas and the surrounding period has become a sad proof of how masses can be manipulated into doing whatever the manufacturers of fake value desire. Peer pressure drives people into shops, irrespective if their friends or family require the presents they are (socially) forced into buying.
Healthy products, made by happy workers (Santa’s elves) in excellent working conditions
Adding insult to injury is a plethora of consumerist traditions such as Black Friday. All in all, Western culture is chiefly responsible for the environmental destruction of dozens of countries that occurs while shopping malls have transformed Christmas carols into soundtracks for consumption. Perhaps organized religion deserves its fate of being defiled by capitalism.
Our environment, our heritage, our children however, do not deserve this fate. Perhaps we should do something to stop this rampant consumerism from wrecking our future. This is not to say that we should stop purchasing gifts or merchandise. It simply means that perhaps we should think twice about the value we will extract from a purchase. It also means that we should avoid buying wares from manufacturers that are clearly designing their products in such a way that forces us into a lifetime commitment of perpetual upgrades and spiraling costs.
“But thanks to us, they have a job” is the worst excuse for manufacturing fake value
The trick
Does upgrading a phone every two years even make sense? I’ve used my Galaxy Note 3 for almost 3 years now and, thanks to the replaceable battery, will probably use it for more time to come. Even though Samsung’s software is very bad (fixed via installing custom, de-bloated firmware), they used to produce quality hardware some years ago (no longer the case, new Samsung phones are built to be fully replaced). Actually, most phone manufacturers now-a-days build these devices in such a way that replacing the battery is difficult and costly.
It’s the same racket that the printer industry has been engaged in for decades, but with a more devious implementation – observe how corporations have become masters of milking the population. Almost all industries have various ways of coaxing consumers into purchasing pieces of our planet’s minerals, usually taken from countries that are exploited by developed nations.
Take a deep breath, close your eyes and repeat after me: “This isn’t the job a human being in the 21st century should wake up to”
Even though the Earth will probably survive us, we should not be so sure that we can survive what a broken ecosystem can do to us. And don’t think that those that are chiefly responsible for the destruction of our ecosystem will suffer alongside us. With their money and power, using today’s technology, it’s quite easy to build paradises for the rich & privileged. In the meantime, the rest of the planet will suffer the consequences of having been fooled into turning the Earth in a factory of products built for becoming obsolete, engineered to break as soon as the warranty expires.
In our family, we design our own Christmas decorations. Because maybe he should not breathe toxic fumes.
Solutions
As usual, the solution is spreading knowledge. It’s very easy and everybody can take part in this. Encourage people to think about their purchases. Investigate mercilessly and purchase only those products that are known to deliver quality and can be easily repaired. This will encourage the companies of tomorrow. Such companies do exist.
There are clothing companies that strive to recycle and reward customers for bringing in old clothes, giving them discounts. There are phone manufacturers that design their devices so that the batteries can be replaced. There are software companies that are not obsessed with finding ways to trick users into new purchases with fake features, but instead are happy to remain as small, driven teams, focusing on quality and enjoying the loyalty of satisfied customers.
Ready to bring the joy of Christmas into every home. Would Christ approve of the way Christians celebrate His birthday?
Many times, people end up buying useless gifts due to social pressure. Material gifts are not the only way to reward a relationship. I have purchased no presents this year, even though I love a lot of people in my life. Instead, I have gifted experiences to those that are close to me. I have gifted words, time, love and care. What I received in return was more love, sometimes even tears of joy.
To know exactly what to tell somebody in order to cause a positive emotional response takes knowing that person, or at least knowing how to appeal to something that is a common denominator for us all – love. The effort invested in reaching another’s heart, and the reward thereafter is more worth it than anything any shop will ever offer for sale.
In a certain Nordic country, Western consumers are enjoying the “Santa run”, a sort of convenient pilgrimage for the religion of capitalism. They will then proceed to throw away these garnments, with little regard to those who made them or the wasted material. So much for Western “civilization”.
Except the last one, the picture for this article have been taken from this beautiful and enlightening photographic essay over at Lens Culture:
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Regardless of what you think about “in balance with nature”, the images are quite staggering. This is one of those situations when a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Industrialized agriculture has definitely reached some impressive heights (or lows, depending on who you ask).
There are a lot of humans to feed on this Earth, that’s a given. However, my personal opinion is that such pictures speak at length about the way we’re abusing the ecosystem. I don’t think our agriculture is particularly impressive on the engineering side. My amazement stems from the sheer size of it all and the way it’s been optimized through the centuries. The problem is that we’re still being cruel towards creatures of all kinds.
I choose to remain optimistic though. I put my trust in the fact that ecosystems are self-balancing things. There are many signs that we’ve started on our way to find a healthier relationship with nature. In many regions, people are having fewer children than they had hundreds of years ago when there were all sorts of risks waiting to decimate a community. Hopefully, in time, these horrendous industrial farms will disappear and we’ll see something like permaculture^ becoming widespread. Until then, at least we can try to buy organic foods^.
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