When we stick with the old...

Do pressures exist for more self-sufficiency?

I’m wondering if we may see an increasing divergence between technological development and the social-institutional context that development needs in order to serve us satisfactorily. I rightly emphasize the necessity of considering any technology in its context of use. If that context changes, something about that technology will also change, whether its tangible characteristics, the way it is used, or both.

The more we transform our everyday utility technologies into forms controlled by microprocessors and other sophisticated micro-electronics, the more dependent we are on specialist technicians--and the manufacturers of these products--to make them work and keep them working. And yet, at the same time, our trust in the availability of such support is waning, not waxing--and with good reason. Do those “specialist technicians” even exist? I don’t know. 

We live in a time of mostly unrestrained corporate capitalism, which thrives on an economy based on constantly-increasing demand for its products and services and a society forced, as much as possible, to buy as much as possible, all the time, at ever-increasing prices as companies eliminate their competition and the government, controlled more than it has been since the “Gilded Age” by their lackeys, makes it as easy as possible for them to do so. We have a serious shortage of engineers, skilled tradespeople, and people with practical skills--those capable of practicing vernacular craft--who can repair their own stuff. 

Deep and broad distrust of society in general is widely-accepted as a fact of current life in the U.S.--though not so throughout the European- and European-postcolonial world. It would seem contradictory for people living in a society they don’t trust to continue buying expensive things whose care and repair are wholly dependent on other people--of whom there are not enough, if any, and whose labor rates are thus high. The inconsistent availability of parts--they have this one, but not that one--the one you need--means you can’t buy something and assume you’ll be able to get a simple replacement part for it even a year or two after purchase. (I know this from experience.) 

So I’m wondering if we’ll see any shift toward a preference for stuff that’s easier to DIY maintain, at least among a sizable segment of the population. I’m thinking of a sort of survivalist-lite scenario. Not bunkers and food stores and weapons, but perhaps a shift toward wanting stuff we can fix ourselves, or get our friends to help us fix.

As usual I think about cars. I don’t see us all driving around in cars from the 60s, or making cars like that again, but it’s worth thinking about the fact that, while a purely-mechanical car may require more regular adjustment to keep running right than one controlled by computers, basic mechanical skills are more accessible than the skills necessary to fix a giant glass screen with a circuit board whose components are nearly microscopic--or perhaps literally microscopic. And if that screen and board fail, or the manufacturer stops issuing software updates, and that thing controls the basic user-input functions of the car, then the owner is rather helpless at that point. And we know that these screens cost thousands of dollars to replace--if you can get them. It’s the rule, not the exception, for automakers to stop supporting their “infotainment” software after a few years, and those softwares are proprietary; you don’t see alternatives offered on the aftermarket. As those “infotainment” systems do more and  more of a car’s basic functions, this becomes more and more of a liability for a car that otherwise is in perfect working order--and can be had for less than half the price of a new one. 

There’ll be no crystal-balling in this piece; that’s not what we do, and I don’t believe in it anyway. (Especially not any more.) I can just mention what HoT might have to tell us.

In societies where manufacturing and high-cost service facilities are not present, people have had a strong tendency to rely on technologies that either they can repair or someone they know or at least have access to can repair. Because what people in these societies can generally afford is older stuff, the repair and maintenance infrastructure that exists is able to function at a low-capital level; those who are handy at fixing stuff do not have the money to buy a huge inventory of expensive tools, proprietary diagnostic equipment, etc. They invent ingenious work-arounds for problems for which, here, we would automatically use throw-away-and-replace. They are not prevented from doing the work that makes their living by reliance on equipment that they cannot get repaired if it breaks. We can’t separate that reality from the reality that these societies are “poor” in terms of the international capitalist world economic order. But I’m not sure that matters here.

As most of us in the U.S. continue to become poorer, relative to the oligarchy that we allow to rule us, will we, perhaps to a lesser extent than in Mali, become more wary of bright shiny things we can’t fix, even if we think we can afford to buy them in the first place? Will we start to think about durability and repairability in our purchasing decisions? And if so, will that have a slowing effect on the current trend of automatically adopting the next iteration of the latest electronic gadgetry--and the continued grafting of electronic gadgetry onto technologies that used to work just fine without it? My refrigerator is 23 years old. The longer it lasts, the happier I’ll be. I have zero desire to have a refrigerator that can “talk” to my phone. Will those refrigerators last 23 years or more?

As of next month I’ll have entered my late 50s, but I am thinking of people in their thirties whom I read or watch who wonder out loud about this stuff, and who seem attracted to things with “physical buttons” and “analog” operation. I love on-board navigation and phone-integrated audio in my cars. But I don’t love how quickly on-board navigation becomes obsolete and phone-integrated audio is so temperamental. 

Last time I checked, which has been probably two or three years, the age of the average car on U.S. roads was eleven years. At the same time, the average cost of a new car was $43,000 and I know that has gone up since. Any eleven-year-old car with “infotainment” in it has obsolete “infotainment” now. A 2000-model-year car did not automatically have something in it that did not work the way it did in 1989 and never would again. People don’t like things that don’t work the way they’re supposed to. And they shouldn’t. HoT suggests there will be an adjustment. I’m just musing on what that might look like.