| A dishwasher with a WiFi chipset is not a durable good. Nor is a fridge with a touchscreen, an oven with Bluetooth. You know what is durable? The simple and straightforward electromechanical mechanisms we used for three centuries before integrated circuits. One can find plentiful examples of midcentury and older appliances still in service without major maintenance. It's tough to find a modern appliance in service for more than a decade. The inability to sprinkle magic obsolescence silicon dust over everything will only lead to an increase in quality and durability. The mechanical timer in a 1980s washing machine will never have a firmware update blocking you from using it. A 1950s fridge runs perfectly fine essentially forever without a cloud API and a goddamn app. This hypothetical situation is only bad because you've accepted consumerism and forced obsolescence as the norm. These situations are much worse than not being able to buy a $1600 phone every year. You should be indignant about the unimaginable amount of resources we throw into landfills because the manufacturer decided that you should buy a new one. You should absolutely not be indignant that you can no longer buy shit to throw away. Do you repair your appliances or do you throw them away and have a new one shipped from the other side of the planet? Do you see the problem? |
Digital logic is just how things are built now. Even if you don't believe in going all the way back to relay logic and analog computing, do you want to give up the switch mode power supplies everywhere in favor of linear regulators?