Made to Break (2)

Reading the second part of Slade's "Made to Break" shed a lot of light on what seems to be the foundation for the philosophy of many aspects of American commerce. What I found to be most interesting was the story of the transistor radio and how it fits into the idea of "obsolescence". The trend with most companies in the world seems to be what I would like to call the "Wal-Mart" mentality, where cheap price is the most important element of the product. Sony was the first to start taking over the market because of their ability to contract workers at "inexpensive" prices in other countries, setting the tone for other companies to follow. Although this takes jobs away from the American people, the quality of the product has not been compromised in using this method of production. Motorola cannot compete with Sony so they develop an automated soldering system which cuts production costs greatly, but in turn the machine soldered radios cannot be fixed by hand. This renders the radio "disposable" and is an example of "death dating". Although Motorola was pushed into creating their version of the radio by other companies, they end up changing the whole market because they have the cheapest price which will influence the rest of the radio companies to follow suit. Once this change occurs, radios will not last long, thus ensuring customers will come back and buy more sooner than later.
It was also interesting how Slade made the idea of "obsolescence" even translate to real estate. The existence of "cape cod" homes was due to attempts to save "space, time and money" (133) by Frank Lloyd Wright. I do find more of a justified reason behind the existence of "cape cod" (no basement, no front porch) homes because there was a housing crisis in the country. I don't think it compares the same to something like radio obsolescence because a home lacking a front porch and basement does not lose quality in the sense that it will fall apart without these things. Also, many of these homes were being built in much more crowded areas than suburban neighborhoods (the edge of cities, etc.) so I don't really agree that basements and porches are "obsolete", but they are more of a luxury that does not have to be included with every single house that's built because of space. Although these homes might have changed the overall vision of what a "home" is or can be, it has not by any means eliminated basements and porches from the American people...so the effect is not as strong.
The third chapter deals with "planned obsolescence" and Brooks Stevens quote explains it very well "We make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will make those products old fashioned, out of date, obsolete. We do that for the soundest reason: to make money". Although this is not the easiest concept to accept from a consumer standpoint, we know that this is the truth about many companies and products. I respect the fact that Stevens could admit this so bluntly, but also hate that somebody could openly say this and continue to do it.