The Disposable Digital Economy

In case it’s outside your knowledge area, or you are reading this in the future and need to be reminded, Sonos — the expensive connected speaker maker — has done a series of jerk moves. If you try to “recycle” a speaker, that bricks it, and recyclers can only throw them away, not actually resell them like they do all old but working hardware.

Now, a bunch of early generation hardware is end-of-life. People are getting messages from Sonos that they need to toss their existing stuff. Literally thousands of dollars of installed, functional hardware, is just no longer going to

But you can get 30% off thousands of dollars of new stuff.

The New Status Quo

What is bugging me most about this is how much everyone accepts it. Perfectly smart folks who think we need to design ethically are saying that it’s jerky, but (paraphrased several) “of course a company can’t support updates forever.”

To which I say: why not?

Why have we all internalized that disposable, very expensive, things are the norm? I still have cameras and lenses my dad bought in the 1960s. They were really, really expensive to him back then. Adjusting for inflation a Leica was more expensive then. A couple months of paychecks.

But it paid off as he used them for decades. If digital hadn’t destroyed the market, I’d be using some of this stuff every day. I do still use one of his lenses today, because it still works.

And mechanical, and early electronic, systems were not necessarily less complex than modern ones. I’ve taken apart some of this stuff, and others I have taken to camera repair shops. Even before electronically controlled cars, there were mechanics. Not everyone, by a wide margin, fixed their own cars.

They just had service manuals, training programs. You were allowed to repair them. Even encouraged.

The Old Normal

You don’t have to be a luddite, and say “no more connected electronics!” while throwing your shoes into the machinery.

It doesn’t seem at all hard to imagine a company building the products with the features they do now, and simply provide software updates for 10 or 20 (or more) years.

Or, open source after the end-of-life time. This would just provide a software version of the auto-parts (et al) model of aftermarket

Make it a not-for-profit offshoot of the corporation so there’s some control, a free path to get bug reports on things that may impact current products, and a chance to look like you aren’t evil, empower the brand.

No reason not to, except rent seeking.

Design for Sustainability

But how about fully building products, from the first conception, for longevity and maintainability? Even if it takes special tools or knowledge, like auto, camera or TV repair shops.

They were specialized, but they existed. There is very little electronic repair today, and a lot of industrial or automotive repair is simply replacing parts. With the opacity of control systems, lot of diagnosis is swap-nostics, or trying new parts until the item works. Why is it fixed? Don’t ask or you will jinx it, just use it and be happy it works.

I say we make products to allow replacement of: everything. Forget batteries (which we need to be able to replace!) but how about electronics? I mean, upgrades to electronics.

A Sonos unit (and I know a LOT more about other devices, but we’ll stay on topic here) is a box with a speaker or three and some electronics and some plugs.

The software doesn’t run in the plastic, or on the speaker. It’s in the electronic bits.

Let’s go to a worst-case example. There’s a full on security flaw in the hardware, cannot be fixed in software. A new model comes out that fixes that, and is smaller, lighter, better.

Sell the better one. That works fine. People will upgrade, etc.

But don’t make people do that. The new boards can fit (maybe with adapters, because smaller sizes) in the old units. That board needs power, WiFi, Ethernet, and audio connections.

That’s it. And that’s not gonna change. Ever. Think about it. A speaker. A connection. Power. And yeah, I’ve worked on industrial stuff where the electronics can be swapped to an all new model, years, even decades newer. The iron (the hardware) stays the same, because it’s fine.

The Rent Seekers Inherited the Earth

Why don’t we do this? Because the business model is one of recurring revenue. Whether that’s subscriptions or hardware that goes bad, or both.

But look at history. Forget the Don’t Be Evil bits, even though man is business today evil. I mean, could you make a better business in the long term, with happy and loyal customers, if you didn’t go out of your way to screw them, trick them?

Much of the world worked like this from at least the dawn of the industrial revolution, until only the last couple decades.

Since they did well, with profits year over year, and even a history of solid atrocities and union busting and so on, it’s hard to say this was an anti-business era.

The Ultimate Disruption

I have to be believe it’s doable. We can change. And since it IS evil, since customers hate this, it seems like it’s the biggest disruption ever.

Disruptive technologies are rare. Disruptive businesses are what usually happens. You leverage technology, design, engineering, to do a better job meeting customer needs than the competition.

Stores sucked. Really limited inventory, indifferent to customers because what are you gonna do? Online shopping changed that.

Taxis super, super sucked. You can tell because of things like gypsy cabs that tried to get around the regulatory capture they enjoyed that let them not innovate. Ride share services changed that.

A few things have really, really started to make a dent. This or another sort of consumer side screwing, or massive and willful security failures is one thing. But even investors are getting annoyed at growth-only mindsets. WeWork really put the fear into some, so I hear.

We might, possibly, be on the cusp of the ultimate disruption, a return to not the artifice of user centric design, or pretty things, but the creation of businesses centered around meeting user needs, today and for the long term. Not rent seeking, to increase profits this quarter over all other needs, but

The first few in an industry who build a business this way — or shift their existing business — might have a real chance to change the world for the better, while also surviving the coming death of the digital economy that is growth-no-profit.