I came across this headline in the business section of the the newspaper

Bulletproof demand for must-have gadgets drives half year profit to $306 million for JB HI-FI.
Herein lies a major problem with society today.
It seems that the majority of people must upgrade their "obsolete" devices. Is this driven by the consumers or the companies producing these must-haves?
I believe a huge portion of this question is, it is the companies driving this want. Continually upgrading systems forcing the consumer to ditch their perfectly working gadgets. Sure, keeping up with the Jones and fear of missing out plays a huge role as well.
One can go through life with a minimum of technology. Heck, I do not own a smart phone and still manage to navigate the world.
What say you?

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

I don't think people must upgrade. As you say keeping up with the Jones plays a big part. It's just that many people feel a need to keep up with their friends, family, people they admire. There is always someone in any group who has the highest income or merely willingness to spend. So when they flash the latest iPhone many of their friends, family, acquaintances who are several versions behind feel some pressure to upgrade.

And there is also a seemingly paradoxical drive to upgrade amongst people who actually don't have much income. I know of people who are earning just barely enough pay their bills yet they always have the latest iPhone. I think some of this sort of thing gives people a vicarious sense of achievement and belonging.

I do have a smartphone but I don't have a subscription to the phone network, I use a pay as you go SIM. Each call I do make is quite expensive but as I make hardly any calls it would be a waste to pay every month. And it makes data so expensive that I will only use it when absolutely necessary which encourages me to be offline until I can find free Wi-Fi.

However I think that there is another thing driving some of the demand for gadgetry and that is that the prices of certain categories of goods have swapped places. It used to be that housing was affordable and good hi-fi, fancy appliances, cameras, were expensive, bulky, required expertise to use, etc. But now we have a generation, or two perhaps, who can't afford to buy a house and are living with their parents until middle age or in a tiny flat. This means that they have more disposable income than the generation before who spent theirs on a house. Combine that with the astonishing drop in prices of good quality audio and video equipment, the equally astonishing reduction in size, and the switch from film to digital means that people have opportunities to buy useful or at least interesting things that they simply didn't before.

The same thing happened with clothing but it is now so long ago that no one remembers. In Victorian times a decent winter coat cost a month's income for a lower-middle class person but by the middle of the last century clothes production had become so industrialised that it was down to less than a week's income.

Now even someone on UK minimum income (12 GBP, 16 USD, 23 AUD) can buy such a thing for less than a tenth of the Victorian 'price'.