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Stuff that lasts and stuff that doesn't

Godfrey

Well-known member
It's more of an observation than a complaint, but it's also a worry. It's about attitudes and what influences our attitudes. Back in the day, most people bought the best products they could afford, but even lower priced products were supposed to last for years. The price difference was as much a result of a difference in features and design as it was of a difference in build quality and life expectancy. Not so anymore. You often get more features with cheap products, but the build quality is crap, and if it breaks, it cannot be repaired. So those who can't afford to buy a quality product will have to buy the same thing repeatedly, and in the long run spend more than those who can afford the quality product.

In third world countries, where the number of poor people is enormous compared to western countries, this is even more visible. Take toys for instance. Most people buy toys at the local market or at 7 Eleven (there are 10 or 12,000 7 Eleven shops in Thailand plus numerous similar shops of other brands). They are cheap, like a couple of dollars, and will mostly last half an hour in the hands of a girl and 10 minutes in the hands of a boy. They are made to break, and the next day, there will be a demand for another toy. Since the consumers have little choice, this is what they buy, and the children learn that stuff is not built to last. Expect to buy a new one tomorrow or next week.

So they learn to spend money instead stead of learning how to save or to invest. When they grow older, they will do the same thing, and they will stay poor forever, since the crap they buy will never last and there is always some broken product that needs replacement and they think this is the way it's supposed to be since nobody has told them otherwise.

When we hear about increased buying power in third world countries, this is where much of the buying power goes.

As for me, since I live in a third world country, I'm more or less exposed to the same. I earn more than the average local guy, but just a fraction of what you earn in the west, and stuff is often more expensive here than in Europe and the USA. So I buy a pair of JBL headphones because I remember it as a quality brand from my youth. But somebody bought the brand and printed the logo on low quality products. So I won't buy a JBL product again, and I won't buy a AKG, Harman & Kardon, Infinity, Lexicon, Mark Levinson or Revel product, since they are all part of the Harman Group.

For me, this is easy, since I can afford to choose. But many people can't. For many people in this world, JBL is the best they can afford to buy, and since it's a famous brand with a cool design that scores well in tests, they will buy it. And next year, when it breaks, they will buy another brand, like AKG, because they don't know that it comes from the same source. And if they break as well....

I don't like this.
Ah, I see. You're making a bad set of headphones into a quasi-philosophic exposé and rant as you worry about the fate of the world at large. ... :clap:

Seriously, however, I and the people whose opinions I respect have been saying similar things for years. It hasn't changed anything, sadly, because the forces that drive the market and the culture are much larger than a couple of cranky old farts like me who know better.

G
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Ah, I see. You're making a bad set of headphones into a quasi-philosophic exposé and rant as you worry about the fate of the world at large. ... :clap:

Seriously, however, I and the people whose opinions I respect have been saying similar things for years. It hasn't changed anything, sadly, because the forces that drive the market and the culture are much larger than a couple of cranky old farts like me who know better.

G
You are correct of course, except I wasn't very philosophical, quasi or not. I was angry because I'd been fooled, partly by myself, to buy a product that I should have understood was sub-par, and because the supplier confirms in writing that selling overpriced, sub-par products is what they do and that it's part of their business concept.

I'm angry also because values that I believe in and feel are important are eradicated one by one and replaced by a "Religion of Objects and Brand Names". Not everything was better before, but some things were. Like the option of living in a non-commercial corner of society without becoming a recluse. That's increasingly difficult, particularly for young people who quickly become invisible if they are not part of the ongoing commercial trends.

When I first visited Thailand some 40 years ago, it was a rather traditional society with predominantly traditional values. Being invited to a family dinner meant sitting for hours on the floor, eating excellent food and listening to endless stories in a language I didn't understand. But in spite of not understanding much, this gave me an impression of a culture in peace with itself, in spite of endless political conflict, periods of military rule, ware-torn neighbours and lacking industrial and economic growth. The birthrate was at a non-sustainable 6-something, but people were mostly happy with that too. They had food, didn't need much clothes or shelter and Buddhism was still a driving mental force.

When I came to live here 16 years ago, one of the first newspaper headlines I observed, in the Business Section of Bangkok Post, read something like "Liquor producers aim to sell more alcohol to women". The article went on to describe how alcohol consumption had doubled the last ten years in the kingdom, but also that they were worried that women hardly consumed alcohol at all. Not good for profits of course, and they were going to develop products specially aimed at women, with marketing to match.

They succeeded. Consumption doubled again the next ten years, and women are now as drunk as men. Consumption quadrupled in 20 years, profits soaring and Thailand is now a country with a huge and increasing alcohol problem. So much so that many factories have intodruced mandatory alcohol test on random mornings. And while people in Thailand 50 years ago saved money for the future, they now borrow money to spend immediately, on alcohol and "stuff". I have colleagues who have credit card debts 5-10 times their monthly salary. Buddhism in Thailand these days is to an increasing degree asking the monk for this month's lucky lottery number. It's the only thing that matters; money to buy the newest iPhone or to pay the debts for the previous one. Fertility rate is now down to 1.6 and sinking.

This obviously has little to do with my broken headphones, except one thing: The development towards a behaviour that requires repeated spending on the same object or consumable. You keep spending without getting anywhere. You just replace what you already have or had. If it's for a hobby, which cameras and photography is for some, it's not a problem, but when it becomes dominant for all aspects of life, important values are lost and replaced by... nothing more or less. The endless stories told around the dinner table have mostly been replaced by a group of people staring into electronic devices, often sending messages to each other. The device becomes the aim of life rather than the communication itself. If a message isn't conveyed using the latest model gadget, it seems to lose value.

Since yesterday, my one year old Blackberry shows a gray screen for a few seconds every time it wakes up from sleep. Time to buy a new one I guess :angry:
 

4season

Well-known member
Seriously, however, I and the people whose opinions I respect have been saying similar things for years. It hasn't changed anything, sadly, because the forces that drive the market and the culture are much larger than a couple of cranky old farts like me who know better.
Maybe you can't change the world on your own, but you can change yourself.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
You are correct of course...

Since yesterday, my one year old Blackberry shows a gray screen for a few seconds every time it wakes up from sleep. Time to buy a new one I guess :angry:
Ach. So you're angry instead of cranky like me. I get angry too, occasionally. I try not to let it put me off balance.:angel:

Maybe you can't change the world on your own, but you can change yourself.
I've been working on that since I was, oh, about 13. I've changed myself many times, and myself keeps changing without my conscious intent as well as I grow and age, learn and reflect.

I do things that help me stay focused, objective, and happy despite the raging torrent of 'the great unknown' out there. I try to help other people to achieve their goals and feel the same way. That's about as much as a single human can do in realistic terms, I suspect.

I cry when I think of all the lost opportunities for those who have been exploited by "the system" ... the military-industrial complex at large in the world today, that we were warned about so poignantly by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address from the presidency when I was about six years old. I listened then; I remember it now as if it were yesterday. I try to keep my loathing and horror of the current political milieu at bay. To focus on that despair is unproductive.

But this is not what I come to GetDPI to discuss. I come to this forum to see photographs which embody these emotions, these thoughts, and to discuss photographic techniques and equipment that enable us to make those photographs, tell those stories, and perhaps help the world change, just a little bit, for the better in the doing.

G

“Hope is a slighter, tougher thing even than trust... In a good season one trusts life; in a bad season one only hopes. But they are of the same essence: they are the mind's indispensable relationship with other minds, with the world, and with time. Without trust, a man lives, but not a human life; without hope, he dies. When there is no relationship, where hands do not touch, emotion atrophies in void and intelligence goes sterile and obsessed. Between men the only link left is that of owner to slave, or murderer to victim.” - City of Illusions, Ursula K. Le Guin 1967​
 
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