Its interesting isn’t it how companies can build in obsolesce into their products? It is also remarkable how companies can make a lot more profit from selling you product to maintain what you ahve already bought than they do from selling you the inital product. A good example of a product that makes its sellers little money to begin with but then rakes in the profit is Gillette razors; you buy a cheap razor and pay through the noise for the blades. You still buy it though as it far too much bother to change your printer for another cheap one and be caught out again.
Returning to the subject of built in obsolescence, this is less of a problem than it used to be when it comes to things such as white goods and other solid products. The reason for this is that manufactures are obliged to supply parts for these products seven years after they stop making them so repair is often now a real option. The area where built in obsolesce really does seem to still be a problem is that of software and in particular Microsoft Windows. The problem that faces Microsoft and the hardware manufactures is that most people never use their computer to their full potential, so not matter what technical advances you make people do not feel the need to upgrade. The activities that most people carry out on their computer of surfing the Internet and word processing, neither of these but much strain on a computer? And if you chose not to upgrade what happens? Well they don’t sell any more computers and so Microsoft doesn’t sell any more copies of Windows. So they Microsoft and the computer manufacturers get round the problem by building in obsolescence.
The first and probably most effective way in which they do this is that they encourage people making software to make it incompatible with older version of windows and older computers. At lot of the time the software being released has been built to put a strain on older systems even though it is often totally unnecessary for it to do so. The second and most shocking way in which the likes of Microsoft force you to spend more money and change your computer is that programs like Microsoft Windows slowly decay over time until they become unworkable, with the computer running slowly and regularly crashing. Most people when their old computer starts to slow down and go wrong assume that the computer is no longer up to the job and go and buy a new one. You do not need to buy a new computer you need to repair the windows registry. What’s the Windows Registry you ask? Well it’s a directory of all the programs and files that are stored by your computer. As you add and remove programs this registry becomes corrupted and your computer starts to run poorly, this problem can be easily fixed with a windows registry error repair tool so don’t buy a new computer make the one you have already run like new again.
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