Why do we own so much stuff?
Written on August 12th, 2009 by cyrilleHave you ever asked yourself this question? If so, what was the answer?
Did you justify to yourself, one way or the other, why you owned so much stuff? Or did you decide you had too much stuff and gave or worse, threw them away?
There is another way to look at it… a way which would lead to radical change in our economies and possibly change our current course toward some, not so distant, abyss.
What if we did not buy the stuff itself, but rather the services it provides? How would that look like and what would be the consequences.
Let’s take the example of a common product: a mobile phone. Mobile phones have evolved to become much more than telecommunication equipment but the product features, apart from the addition of camera lens, have barely changed over the past 10 years and yet we keep buying new phones, why? Why do we keep buying new phone when essentially they are providing the same service. Simple, we want to look after our status, our image, be en vogue etc… not really take full advantage of the new features or services provided by the phone.
So what happened to the old phone, which by the way still works very well thank you very much? We have a few options depending where we are in the world. We can just throw it away, even if we don’t generally know where ‘away’ is (this is another thing we need to talk about); give it to someone who does not mind having a second hand phone which, as I said before, works very well; give it to the retailer who did a great job at convincing us that we made the right decision or recycle it somehow if we are lucky which, by the way, is what the retailer should be doing.
So let’s look at it closely… you bought a phone 6 months ago, at a premium price because it is the latest model and you wanted it badly, it took you about a month to understand how all these funky features worked and then you used only for what you really need it for at the first place: to make calls, check your email, use the diary and take the occasional picture or video. Of course, not everyone has the same ‘needs’ (I’ll come back to that crucial word later), some will play games, others listen to music, watch movies, use the currency exchange function, calculator or other capabilities which I generally do not know because I don’t use them, and yet we all have the same phone. I mean the electronic stuff inside which makes it work, not the outside which makes us look and feel good.
The thing is that now, there is another new phone on the market, it’s got more memory, more functions that we don’t need, but if we don’t buy it we will look odd. So basically, whilst satisfying our basic need for communication, the phone has created a craving…
So what is the point of all this? Well, the system in which we are is such that we need to consume to keep the economy going because we consume perishable products, which perceived life is way shorter that it’s actual useful life. This is called planned obsolescence, a very well know marketing and engineering strategy. Does this mean we are all (willing) victims of marketers? Yep!
Let’s consider an alternative to this system, a system based on ever increasing consumption of high value added product at an ever increasing rate, leaving us unsatisfied and poorer.
Let us consider for few minute, longer might be too painful for some, that we actually do not buy the phone at all. We don’t own it, it is not ours, it is still the property of the manufacturer or retailer. Still with me? We have a phone of our choice, latest stuff which makes us look and feel good, but it’s empty. By that I mean that there is no software inside, we have to decide what we want and pay for each function a small sum of money on a monthly basis and according to our usage. We can obviously change our mind and decide to activate certain functions only when we need them… sounds familiar? That’s right, it’s starts to feel a bit like the iPhone but better, because we don’t own it. We use it only so that, when a new model comes around that would make us look and feel good again, or when our current phone is faulty, we can return our ‘old phone’ to the retailer and get the new one.
So what’s different from the current system? What’s different is what we don’t see but which is crucially important. The phone that we don’t own is being dismantled, cleaned, re-configured, given a new casing making it look brand new and shiny, ready to make another user look and feel good again. The difference is we don’t throw it away, and the manufacturer has an incentive to make those phone more durable, designed for remanufacturing, energy efficient, etc… because the manufacturer would own the phone, not us! We would only pay for the services you have chosen from the telecommunication provider.
What’s different is that we move away from a take-make-waste linear cycle to a rent-use-return closed cycle.
Sony does not go as far as this with their PSP in Europe but they are getting there. Sony has a warranty system which allows PSP users to call and get a replacement within 24 hours. You call, a courier comes with what looks like a brand new PSP, you give your faulty one and that is the last you hear of it but it is not the end of the story. The faulty PSP is sent to a remanufacturing plant where it is repaired, reconfigured, given a new shiny casing, a new lease of life… and re-introduced to the market for exchange.
The advantage for Sony is that it keeps the users going and buying more games, which is really what brings the money in. Is that radical? Not really; does it make business sense? Sure does!
Now stretch your imagination a little more and instead of a phone or a video game, think of most of the things you own: TV, DVD player, Washing machine, Dishwasher, Computer, etc… even your car; all these services for which we have to buy these products and then dispose of them once they are damaged or non-performing (not just in the material and practical sense). Imagine a world where we did not have to own any of these items; we could just enjoy the services they provide, for a fee. Scary? Not really, but it would make such a difference.
