> A 20 year old PC still works
A horse and buggy still work, that doesn’t mean the only purpose of cars is creating waste.
A horse and buggy still work, that doesn’t mean the only purpose of cars is creating waste.
There are 50 year old cars on my road - our cars could probably go on forever (though they won't, within 10 or 20 years my city will probably mandate electric drivetrains).
I think that newer cars are more likely to create waste for many of the same reasons.
Of course we can't extend the timeline out forever, but we can at least take steps to not _artificially_ cause obsolescence, this is distinct from the way in which a car is inherently far more useful than a horse and buggy.
Your response to a comment about decades-old cars still working is to pitch a planned-obsolescence conspiracy theory?
A better comparison is old cars and new cars. Creating waste is not the only purpose of cars, but manufacturers sure do like to push newer models for the sake of sales, disregarding the waste problem.
Right now my 40 year old car still runs just fine. But that's because public infrastructure still supports it. With tricks like manufacturer-specific garages and forced software obsolescence, a car I buy today might well not be usable in 40 year's time.
But it doesn’t have modern safety features, to say nothing of its fuel efficiency.
> that's because public infrastructure still supports it
Public infrastructure supports old computers fine. Just like with old cars, people value the new things being brought to the table.
That doesn’t mean every new feature is wanted. But on the balance, most people upgrade their phones and computers out of choice.
Whether you or people in aggregate choose to do things is distinct from whether they are effectively forced via planned obsolescence. That's what makes it planned.
I know that my old car has lower fuel efficiency. It's actually not that bad, my 20 year old car gets about 45-50 UK MPG, a new one of the same shape etc would get about 60-70. The distinction is small enough that scrapping the car and making a new one would be worse overall from an emissions perspective.
But again, that's my choice. New phones have better cameras than mine. I don't care, I have a real camera for that.
I have a grandparent who uses the same phone we got her a decade ago. It runs entirely on closed-source software. It works fine. Same for the Windows computer we got her five years before that. Meanwhile, my friend who runs AOSP on his phone has a new device every six months.
(Just counteracting your anecdote about the friend...shrug)