> Also I fear this is really changing society. Many years ago, as you got older you got into a better place in life because you had saved up and bought all the stuff you need and slowly aqquired good equipment and everything you need.
Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.
Believe it or not the wheelbarrow was considered modern technology at one point.
Software is fixed cost to create and near-free to distribute. Sure there are tiny cloud costs for running things and maybe you need a couple engineers to fix bugs, but the subscription pricing model doesn’t fit this.
Yeah, your grandfather was still respectable to the average person in his class/social group. Now it's really hard to imagine someone being able to engage socially without having technology of some form.
Fixed cost to create, sure. Not fixed cost to keep up to date, running on the current version of OS, hardware. The basic design of a simple wheelbarrow has not needed to change since its invention. A wheelbarrow made 30 years ago will still work just fine. Almost no software written 30 years ago will still work on modern systems without someone doing additional work to support it. And for the few that do, no one wants to run the 1990s version. They want to run the 2020s version.
Are future-proof wheelbarrows being made now? If the trend of lower quality power tools has reached wheelbarrows, you probably still have to replace one every few years.
They're only slightly lower quality, but now you rent them in kg/m increments. Once your account is empty, the wheelbarrow will be disabled until you recharge through the app. If you're done with the wheelbarrow, you should just leave it on the sidewalk. I'm sure someone will pick it up.
Your grandfather's wheelbarrow didn't need replacing every 2 years but he also didn't have Netflix. You can easily have your grandfather's lifestyle by buying a future-proof wheelbarrow and cancelling your Netflix subscription.