How Long?

We recently replaced our air conditioner (for the upstairs.) Now our house is only 6 years old – why on earth should we need to replace our air conditioner so soon? We’d had a number of problems and the unit had to be repaired a few times, but this time it needed a part that wasn’t available because they don’t make those units anymore. Obviously the builder used end of the model run equipment to save money, but when something goes bad, there is a decision to be made – try to find a refurbished part or bite the bullet and upgrade. There’s an old saying that they don’t make things like they used to. No argument with that statement. But of course this all got me to thinking…

My car is 11 years old and has in excess of 100,000 miles with (cross fingers) no problems. On the other hand, as I said, we’ve lived in this house 6 years and just about all the appliances are within sight of their end of life. How come cars can be made better and last longer and a dishwasher can’t be made to last more than 10-15 years – if you’re lucky. I remember my parents had a refrigerator that lasted probably 30 or 40 years, and as far as I know, it was still working when they got rid of it – they just wanted a newer model….

It’s often said that we have become a throw away society. I guess it’s true, and the fact is — it’s probably our own fault. I’m not sure people today would be happy with products “built to last.” We all want the latest and greatest — the newest and fastest computer; most people don’t buy a new car because the one they have is broken and can’t be fixed; new furniture is often bought for new decor, not because the old stuff wore out.

Ideally, things being made to last sounds like a wonderful thing, but if you look at it from the business point of view, it doesn’t make good sense. When a new product is introduced, the demand is high, production is high, profits a good, lots of jobs for people… but what happens when the market is saturated? Everyone has one already, so only new customers coming of age and a few that break their product will be buying new ones. Production demands decrease, profits fall, layoffs of employees increase and maybe even the company goes out of business.

A long time ago businesses realized the mistake of building products to last, and came up with methods to create demand by coming up with new colors, features, etc. to entice people to buy new versions of the products every few years. This was a way to keep up demand, production, profits and jobs. The products were still built to last, but now people disposed of them even though they were still working.

So — industry figured that if people were buying new products every few years, even though the old ones were still working, they could cut costs and save some money by building in “planned obsolescence.”

How long should things last? I don’t know, but in many instances I know we’ve replaced things that didn’t have to be replaced, so maybe it’s not planned obsolescence by the manufacturer, maybe it’s our desire to have the latest and greatest.

Obsolescence isn’t new – it’s been around forever — someone said that God used it on humans. I remember reading something a long time ago that’s probably true — the four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence, and obsolescence. I may be at that obsolescence stage, but boy do we have an air conditioner that won’t be for at least a couple of months.
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