People do not naturally “want” a microwave with a 5-level deep menu. This “want” is carefully engineered through decades of advertising, marketing, and cultural narrative that equates “new” with “better,” “connected” with “smart,” and “touchscreen” with “premium.” The desire is not organic; it is cultivated. Companies spend billions not just responding to demand, but actively creating it.
People often buy these products due to social pressure, the fear of being left behind, or the promise of convenience sold to them. The choice is rarely between a simple knob and a complex touchscreen; it’s increasingly between a complex touchscreen and nothing, as the former replaces the latter in the market. This is not consumer sovereignty; it’s a forced march.
The relationship between a massive multinational corporation and an individual consumer is not an equal negotiation. The corporation has vastly more information, resources, and power to shape the terms of the transaction. They design products for their benefit (planned obsolescence, data harvesting, proprietary lock-in), not for the user’s benefit (longevity, repairability, intuitive use).
This is true. Until it isn’t any more and the cycle breaks again.
It just needs one stylish brand grasping the chance and offer a simple, user centric product it manages to market as desirable.
Consider what Apple did at the end of the 00s to the oligarchical structured phone market that was only selling crappy, complicated phones with features mainly dictated by network providers at the time.
Sure, nowadays Apple is on the crappy product side again, together with most Android manufacturers. Guess that is just the nature of such enshitification cycles…
Another example are the most popular WIFI routers in my country (FritzBox. Yes the name is real…). Instead of selling cheap trash with crappy update support as was common 20 years ago, they listened to their customers and offered powerful, but easy to operate alternatives with supreme support. People are happy. Although today they almost have a monopoly, and the enhitification cycle may soon restart again…
So, I won’t share your depressing view. Buyers have power, and markets work. Sometimes it just takes time and a market niche to be opening and gaining popularity. Like high-end fridges without IoT-crap but with simple, functional controls.
People do not naturally “want” a microwave with a 5-level deep menu. This “want” is carefully engineered through decades of advertising, marketing, and cultural narrative that equates “new” with “better,” “connected” with “smart,” and “touchscreen” with “premium.” The desire is not organic; it is cultivated. Companies spend billions not just responding to demand, but actively creating it.
People often buy these products due to social pressure, the fear of being left behind, or the promise of convenience sold to them. The choice is rarely between a simple knob and a complex touchscreen; it’s increasingly between a complex touchscreen and nothing, as the former replaces the latter in the market. This is not consumer sovereignty; it’s a forced march.
The relationship between a massive multinational corporation and an individual consumer is not an equal negotiation. The corporation has vastly more information, resources, and power to shape the terms of the transaction. They design products for their benefit (planned obsolescence, data harvesting, proprietary lock-in), not for the user’s benefit (longevity, repairability, intuitive use).
This is true. Until it isn’t any more and the cycle breaks again.
It just needs one stylish brand grasping the chance and offer a simple, user centric product it manages to market as desirable.
Consider what Apple did at the end of the 00s to the oligarchical structured phone market that was only selling crappy, complicated phones with features mainly dictated by network providers at the time.
Sure, nowadays Apple is on the crappy product side again, together with most Android manufacturers. Guess that is just the nature of such enshitification cycles…
Another example are the most popular WIFI routers in my country (FritzBox. Yes the name is real…). Instead of selling cheap trash with crappy update support as was common 20 years ago, they listened to their customers and offered powerful, but easy to operate alternatives with supreme support. People are happy. Although today they almost have a monopoly, and the enhitification cycle may soon restart again…
So, I won’t share your depressing view. Buyers have power, and markets work. Sometimes it just takes time and a market niche to be opening and gaining popularity. Like high-end fridges without IoT-crap but with simple, functional controls.