Tail wags the dog, but why?
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Two things happened last week. First, my $400 cellphone finally gave up on me. To be precise, that was what it was worth three years ago. Today, its probably worth less than the charger that came with it. Second, the $1000 iPhone was launched. Chances are it's going to meet the same fate. Or probably not. I do secretly wish it does, though.
A year after purchase, my phone decided its time to give me more that my fair share of things to worry about. Turns out that phones these days are supposed to last for about a year anyway, the time that vendors estimate would be required to entice the buyer to upgrade from a pitch fork to a swiss knife; or from a swiss knife to a carpenter's toolkit or from .. anyway you get the idea.
My forced upgrade this weekend led me to brood over two fundamental questions. The salesman at the store completely decided to sell me a phone with a higher megapixel camera, a larger capacity music player, a radio tuner with more channel pre sets. I told him, I couldn't care less for any of that; and how about a phone that lasts, say, 5 years, can pick up the lowest of signals, doesn't hang,has an easy to navigate menu, a screen that doesn't get scratched within a week, with a charging jack that doesn't get busted in a month. "Oh, you just need a phone", says he. "Well, we don't have any of that, but how about this one with twenty preloaded videogames?" My frustration was not so much about his "Hell I couldn't fix the brakes on your car, so made your horn louder" line. It's more about everyone I know finding the oddity in me, rather than in the situation.
I do understand stuff about technology getting cheaper and cheaper and ultimately worthless, or about always having a compulsive need to upgrade. But I am quite sure people would fret and fume if they were told their air conditioner/hi-fi system/camcorder/refrigerator/washing machine/microwave would get busted in a year after purchase. So my first question is, why do our common purchase groundrules and benchmarks get tossed out the window when it comes to buying a cellphone ?
My second question is related to the first. What's it about the phone that's so different from anything else? Why do we chase a phone with a video camera? Especially when it does a pretty bad job of it ? Why would one want to surf the net on a one square inch screen ? One reason I can think of is that it's the ultimate time killing machine. First you had the idiot box in a living room, now you got it in your pocket. But why would one need to kill time, when we got so little of it to spare anyway? Or it could be a basic human trait. We all like things doing more stuff than they are expected to. Like a couple of decades ago those pens with a digital watch were popular. Or the wrist watch with a calculator. Something like that. Whatever it is, its a new brand of economics that's based more on hormones and synapses than sound logic.
posted by Angshuman @ 5:06 PM,
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