The Great Digital Swindle...

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

It fails to make it clear however if you have to be enthusiastic all the time or whether just the odd bout now and then will suffice.

I guess it will depend on your Happy-Clappy Index. 🙂

 

[thebelbo]

Its this sort of thing which I find puerile.
http://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/pentax-k-3-review/introduction.html

It wasn`t so long ago that the Pentax K5 was the leading model ...all of a sudden its now aging.

The new K3 is "mainly" for "advanced" photographers .
Oh ...and enthusiasts .
It fails to make it clear however if you have to be enthusiastic all the time or whether just the odd bout now and then will suffice.

This is such a spot-on comment!

 

[tunalegs]

But that is the marketer's job. He was specifically hired to convince people to buy the product. Salesmen are hired to sell it. I would hesitate to guess how long that has been going on but I suspect for a very, very long time.

It is my responsibility to decide whether I need or want that product, be it a camera or something else. Sometimes I buy things I really didn't need and I even experience a bit of "buyer's remorse' from time to time. But to say you are being swindled is very misleading and would seem to be an attempt to ease the pain of that buyers remorse by placing the responsibility for that purchase elsewhere. It certainly has to be because of our evil capitalistic society, god forbid that it be our doing.

The company made me do it. 🙂

Planned obsolescence is however not always good for capitalism though. Companies put money into making small changes for the sake of marketing, instead of into serious R&D that might result in a substantially improved product. In fact one might argue that rather than spurring progress it has the capacity to retard it.

 

[hepcat]

Planned obsolescence is however not always good for capitalism though. Companies put money into making small changes for the sake of marketing, instead of into serious R&D that might result in a substantially improved product. In fact one might argue that rather than spurring progress it has the capacity to retard it.

And as a short-term strategy, it rakes in the cash. As a long-term strategy it can kill a product. Phone companies are, for the first time, recognizing that 20% of phone sales are now used phones. Consumers eventually realize that the product reaches a point at which it meets their needs, and they won't do the "feature upgrade" any more. They'll only replace it when it breaks or is so outdated that its necessary to replace it. That's a mature market, and is only about 10% of the "hot new" sales... and when the company is geared up for the "hot new" sales figures and only gets the replacement market, there are huge financial problems.

Consumerism just isn't a sustainable long-term market model.

 

[jarski]

methinks this "swindle" started well before digital.. had there been net in -80's and -90's, we could read how people obsessed about upgrading year or two old film EOS to latest model.

 

[thebelbo]

True, Center-weighted, Spot, Matrix metering, single, multi-autofocus, faster shutter speeds, etc. I cannot remember how much time I've spent thinking whether to buy a camera with Matrix metering, only to end-up never ever using it 🙂

Truth is though that it has accelerated enormously during the past decade. My father had 1 Nikon camera for all his life, 1 car, etc. People today switch cameras, phones, cars, (even wives for that matter), every 4-5 years, everything is going faster and everyone is afraid that if you don't follow you become a relic, an anachronism...

 

[Pioneer]

methinks this "swindle" started well before digital.. had there been net in -80's and -90's, we could read how people obsessed about upgrading year or two old film EOS to latest model.

For cameras it was probably way before that. Even in Daguerre's time people were inventing new technology and trying to sell it. And even when new technology was not being invented some salesmen would make some small change, or say they made a change, and then sell that one.

There is always someone who would like to part you from your money. I wonder how old the term "caveat emptor" is? 🙂

 

[Pioneer]

Truth is though that it has accelerated enormously during the past decade. My father had 1 Nikon camera for all his life, 1 car, etc. People today switch cameras, phones, cars, (even wives for that matter), every 4-5 years, everything is going faster and everyone is afraid that if you don't follow you become a relic, an anachronism...

I do agree with the acceleration. Everything is changing faster.

And...maybe it is the wives switching husbands. 😀

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

well consumerism is definitely the worst possible economic model, except for all the others.

Hang on, isn't that democracy and politics?

:angel:

 

[Sparrow]

well consumerism is definitely the worst possible economic model, except for all the others.

Hang on, isn't that democracy and politics?

:angel:

.. or a paraphrase of Winston? ... but was it Smith or Spenser-Chirchill though

 

[jarski]

I do agree with the acceleration. Everything is changing faster. ...

what "helped" with acceleration is that film was very flexible in some respects. it was possible to change and upgrade film only, not whole body like now.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

.. or a paraphrase of Winston? ... but was it Smith or Spenser-Chirchill though

Good old, Winnie: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

There was a man who knew how to manage the customer's expectations! 😀