I'm sure it happens to everybody: those slumps where every asset you own all seem to consecutively parish in a short amount of time. I'm facing this right now with my car, a lawn mower, my laptop charger, half of the laptops students bring me at my job, and a handful of other items I'm surely unaware are broken. So many reasons can be attributed to why things break, such as misuse or old age, but when you stand back and think about it: wouldn't it make sense that companies plan on their product breaking? I'm not talking about companies writing up flow charts and estimates predicting how many people will "break" their product with general mishaps. I'm talking about the companies that boast their humanistic "built for the better good" slogans on the forefront, but really do nothing more than the next company trying to make a quick buck: build shoddy, mass-produced commodoties that appeal to the human eye but not to the human touch. Seriously, think about how much money is made in reparation fees and tell me that isn't a significant factor in any company's "game plan." Every company benefits when their product breaks, and especially when it is a conceived necessity (cell phones, TV's, video game consoles), because people will take the time to have their product fixed, either directly through that company they bought the product from, or through third-party services such as local "mom and pop" shops that offer reduced reparation fees. Not only that, but consumers are aware of how likely those products can break (and it's a damn shame they have no other choice but to buy the shit anyways, eh?) so they consequently provide money for local or large-chain retailers who sell product protection plans. Furthermore, these PRP's are entirely profitable in their nature because more often than not, NOTHING goes wrong with the covered product until AFTER most PRP's expire.
So, in a nutshell, every time something you own breaks, don't fill out a survey telling the company what they can do better. They don't care. Every time something you own breaks, that company smiles. We're all pretty much effed in the ay, brolaunch.
Time to make a change? I'd be pretty content if this message somehow started a mass revolt. That'd be so great.
I don't believe things are built to break, exactly. More likely is the fact that, in order to build a product in such a manner that it wouldn't break, would require large amounts of cash and development of current resources. Plastic can take quite a lot of abuse, but even the abrasion of your fingers can rub it down to something useless over time. Such is the truth with all things. Most things that break often have moving parts, and that creates friction and wear. Sure, they like when things break, but if they built something to intentionally break, it would most likely fail in a lot of cases before they'd want it to, and consumers would simply stop buying their product.
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