Planned Obsolescence?
One of the least-understood but most-cited economic principles is "planned obsolescence." As commonly described, there is a conspiracy among manufacturers to ensure that all products have a limited lifespan in order to drive future sales. It is capitalism run amok to exploit the consumer.
No repairs! Original image
This is not wholly false. Many goods are built of low-quality materials with little to no means for repair. Design changes can make it difficult to replace broken internal parts or external housings. Components may no longer be manufactured. Proprietary electronic connectors, security fasteners, and other means prevent the owner from accessing their own property. Licensing agreements and reliance on network connections are now becoming common requirements for electronics and software. Sometimes the cost of the replacement parts is such that it makes more sense to replace the whole item in question. There is no denying these facts. However, it is at best an oversimplification to say it is all planned like a supervillain's scheme in a bad movie.
Many factors are in play when manufacturing is concerned. Market analysis seeks to determine what the average consumer is willing to pay, because making something that doesn't sell is wasteful. Designers weigh the benefits of various materials, assembly costs, available components from outside suppliers, and the need to generate income in order to continue the business.
What are the buyer's considerations? Suppose I need a new drill. Do I buy a drill from Harbor Freight or Hilti? Well, what is my budget? Will I be lending it an idiot relative, co-worker, or industry apprentice who breaks everything he or she touches? Is theft a major problem? Will it be used in an environment that damages the tool no matter the quality? Do I only need it for one job, and not expect to need it in the foreseeable future? On the other hand, am I going to be in the middle of nowhere and need a tool that is as absolutely reliable as possible? Am I better off buying two middle-of-the-road options so I have a backup, versus one expensive but good drill? There are reasons why a consumer might choose to buy anywhere along the quality spectrum in power tools, and the same applies to anything else, too.
New, then old, then obsolete, and now a classic. Hmm. Image credit
It is certainly true that auto manufacturers use cosmetic design changes to their cars in an effort to make previous vehicles less desirable, but the consumers are all well aware of this. Debates range over whether a new car looks good, or should have been left on the drawing board. But the mechanical aspects are vastly improved. 10-year warranties on drivetrains are becoming quite common. When 100,000 miles once meant a car was probably worn out and destined for the scrapyard, now it means a car is merely broken in if it has had proper maintenance. On the other hand, we do have problems with recent fuel economy mandates. Consumers like fuel efficiency, but adding complex superchargers and turbo chargers means more mechanical complexity. Electric cars and hybrids have batteries that will eventually need complete replacement. The subsidies for "green" cars are proof that the political demand far outpaces market demand, and the real market price has not been achieved to make them feasible yet.
In the market, new technology is expensive and rare. As the product is refined, the price drops. Remember when flat-screen TVs were the domain of only the rich and the enthusiasts 15 years ago? Now a large 4K HDTV costs less than a big screen CRT TV did then. Here, the nature of the technology is more difficult for the end user to repair, but we have better image quality and energy efficiency unimaginable in the past. Is this what "planned obsolescence" brings? if so, it's no bad thing at all.
The nature of technological advancement also comes into play. An old computer wasn't necessarily planned to be obsolete, but it was definitely built with the knowledge that obsolescence was inevitable. Technology is being developed at an incredible rate, and programmers are always eager to use any new features that become available. Only in a few rare instances do we see old computers toiling away at the same task for a long time with little upgrade. It does happen, though.
Obsolete? Yes. By design? No. Image credit
The laptop I am using now is obsolete. It was built for Windows Vista, as the sticker on the case still proudly proclaims. It has an Intel Celeron processor. Whoever bought it wanted a computer ca. 2007, and had a budget for only this much quality. Microsoft long ago ceased to support the original OS. The battery has a lifespan of minutes, not hours. Most modern software doesn't work. I am only using it now because I installed Linux as an alternative. I want to upgrade eventually because it is almost entirely useless, but the web browser works, wifi works, and for the simple purpose of posting to Steemit, it does what I need when I am not at a desktop computer. I know that unless I spend significant cash on a laptop, it will soon be little better than this one now as technology marches on.
According to the Wikipedia link at the start of this post, "planned obsolescence" has even been proposed as a Keynesian solution to boost aggregate demand and spark economic growth by government mandate. I shouldn't need to explain how silly this is in the real world, but there is a pervasive erroneous belief that replacing stuff creates wealth. Heck, every war and natural disaster inevitably results in some moron saying rebuilding will bring prosperity. Never mind that the people rebuilding would have preferred to keep what was destroyed and use their wealth for alternative uses instead. If this principle isn't clear, please read Frédéric Bastiat's That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.
I hope my disjointed ramblings here have at least opened your eyes to the possibility that more factors than "capitalist greed" are in play when discussing price and quality of goods, and "planned obsolescence" isn't nearly the bogeyman it is perceived to be. Whenever there is a complicated question in economics, never trust someone whose only answer is a single term, especially if they cannot elaborate when pressed.
I still have clothes, like by NIKE, that I bought as a teen and I used to wear outside; now I wear them indoors cos I can't bear to get rid of them, seeing as they're still totally intact and functional!
But they cost a lot back then, and the fact that I don't wear them outside says that fashions have changed. Now I can buy t-shirts from Pull&Bear or somesuch that cost 10 euro a piece, and if they get worn out by the time the season ends, who cares, the fashion has probably changed anyway.
Same with computers, as you mention: I have some very old laptops that still work, and my first desktop would probably still work if I had kept it around. But seeing how fast technology moves, isn't it better to make them less lasting and cheaper?
So even though some part of me longs for the days when stuff was robustly made - and you could feel it in their construction, be it furniture or kitchen gadgets or piano keyboards - still, overall, it makes more sense to make them more obsolescent and cheaper to keep up with the pace of technology.
I am not one for keeping up with fashion, though. I prefer clothing I can wear for years. Basic Oxford shits and khakis don't really go out of style. Sure, it's a bit conservative, and I only wear that because it suits my work environment, but I have never really cared for logos and prints on my T-shirts either. I'm about due to buy another batch of various solid-color tees, but most are made from a thinner fabric nowadays. They won't last. And that irks me.
I always repair my vehicles, appliances, and most electronics but I have been seeing more and more cheap plastic parts in newer products. Not just that, alot of motors in cheap consumer electronics are not using aluminum windings instead of copper.
As an engineer myself, I understand that all these companies are doing is reducing costs. They tell their engineers to come up with ideas to reduce costs and using a material that is "good enough" is an easy way to reduce costs.
The consumers and producers alike are also being squeezed by arbitrary taxes and regulations that necessitate skimping on quality for the sake of price on each end of the exchange. When the corporate interests are subsidized, that tends to produce the perverse effect of increasing costs and incentivising worse quality too.
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@jacobtothe You are so right. My husband's nephew is an appliance repairman and he tells us the newer appliances are junk he says to keep our old ones or buy used old ones and do not buy new ones. I do not like these drills they make nowadays, the chuckless ones, they are crap!!!!
I wonder what part formal standards play in this. Take a home cinema projector as an example.
It may be reasonably cheap to source all of the individual parts, good enough to last 15 years; except one, the bulb itself.
Building a bulb at a reasonable price means it'll only last 5000 hours.
In jurisdictions where the customer can change the bulb themselves, the manufacturer wants to build a quality projector that'll last 15 years, with reasonably priced replacement bulbs either included at purchase, or reliably available to order.
In areas where the formal standard doesn't allow products which require end users to tinker with the product in a given manner; and unless he can design the projector so that replacing the bulb doesn't require that type of tinkering; he has no incentive to design the rest of the projector to last more than 5000 hours.
Accordingly he'll source very low quality housings and internals to make the entire product as cheap as possible; then be blamed for 'Planned obsolescence' when the projector falls to bits after 6000 hours of usage.
Nice topic - not talked about enough.
Comments by you like: 'Obsolete? Yes. By design? No' show a problem with how you dichotomize the issue. Try beginning with planned obsolescence as a monetize-able factor shaping design choices, and continuing it with something more like 'To what degree is it present in product/market X?' You will discover that as the complexity of the competitors in a market rise, the finer the granularity of features can be monetized. Naturally, that includes planned obsolescence as well many other aspects - provided they actually translate into real monetization.
Take any market/product, add competition, and the complexity of the successful competitors will rise as an intrinsic property of that system. This is due, in large part from the simple fact that a more complex competitor can have all the acquired advantages of a less sophisticated adversary PLUS additional methods. A little recognized consequence to this is something I call 'Inverse Occam's Razor'. In domains subject to competition, when the complexity of competitors is low, Occam's Razor roughly holds as a good description of action causes. As the complexity of competition rises toward infinity, Occam's Razor completely inverts and the most accurate description of the reasons for actions will drawn from the pool of descriptions with the most complexity.
An unpopular corollary of this applies to markets in general. Contrary to 'free markets' being the stable point of economic competition, it is a transitory phase of an immature market. The stable point is a single dominant competitor, which once it arises has an accelerating advantage over other competitors -i.e. a monopoly. Collisions are just a group that functions as a monopoly, but appears as competitors. It is clear to me that embedded interests in the market system benefit from preventing this view from becoming the common understanding.
Keep these points in mind when you hear an idea that rests its conclusion on capitalism alone. I continue to study the very difficult problem of 'abstract corruption' looking for means to counter negative systemic properties like these - but with limited successes. So far most successes come from developing the language required to think about the problem in new ways.
Monopolies are not something that arises out of market competition, though. The bigger the bureaucracy, the more it wastes and the slower it can adapt to change. This creates room for innovation and competition. Only with political protections can megacorps succeed. What we have now is a consequence of political plunder, not free markets.
Complexity IS difficult to do efficiently, that is true. I was simplifying. It is scaled by efficiency. Just because a competitor manages equivalent complexity with more efficiency doesn't mean the system is prevented from converging into a typical competitor dominance model. It just means the system is still transitioning. The complexity of the system increases because of it and the bar of entry for new competitors ratchets up. Competition decreases in proportion to how many competitors there are - which is strongly correlated to the cost of entry. The competition system (market) matures in an iterative process like this, with the overall effect of a gradual decrease in competition and an overall increase in the value-lead established competitors enjoy over new entries. It has the effect of the dominant position being occupied for a longer and longer time with a lower and lower probability of disruption until they are effectively perpetual monopolies.
If it is a market, information flowing from the consumer becomes increasingly decoupled and the actions of the dominant producer become less responsive. At that point, monopolies usually select a point that extracts maximum value from the system while retaining the minimal responsiveness required to suppress new disruptions as they arise. Generally they park there until they are dislodged by black swan events acting on the system from outside.
Mega corporations don't exist only because of governments. Governments tend to be just another example of this competition process. They will reform about as rapidly as monopolies once the system restarts and for identical reasons. I have been studying 'abstract competition' as a converse of 'abstract corruption' to look for features that may lead to alternatives, but as I said, it is a hard problem.
Again, technological innovation and evolving markets make this true only in immutable markets. Paradigmatic evolutions often - and more often of late - sometimes simplify rather than increase complexity of a niche, and enable upstarts to innovate into a market.
Much like biological evolution, species of products arise from hybrids of extant varieties, and then target specific metrics that make them a better fit to conditions, until a new product arises that simply replaces the former best product. The fossil record reveals this just as well as the history of technology.
Regarding abstract competition and corruption (which is an endemic feature of markets obscured for competitive advantage and of which understanding is far too poorly disseminated) I note that decentralizing means of production are simply obviating the problem - as novel and disruptive technology is wont to do. I expect that the advantage of having control of every aspect of products by consumers competent to produce them themselves is relegating most economic theory to obsolescence, along with collectivism and centralization in every form. This is not to say that cooperation is obsolete, merely forced compliance with institutional authority.
I think you are asserting that technological advancement represent a force that continually erodes the bar of entry (tending to increase competition as a result). If that is an accurate paraphrase of your point, I agree. My point about the new competitor raising the complexity of the system is still valid, but the upward pressure it exerts on the bar of entry is significantly countered countered by the downward pressure that technological advancement exerts.
Good point.
I feel like too much ambiguity still remains in the terms 'technological advancement' and 'complexity' at this point and they are placeholders waiting for more precise descriptions.
Your last point is an important aspect and needs to be included in any understanding of this. I suggest using the following thought experiment as a proxy for capturing the effects of 'technological advancement' on a competition system: Imagine the players in the competition system have a capability slider that can be moved from near zero to near infinite. Set to the low side, it would mean players were roughly like amoeba, primarily helpless to create or affect the majority of their environment (external control locus). Set to the high side, it would mean players are god like and their environment is helpless to resist the affects and intentions of the players (internal locus of control). It is clear that such a conceptual slider would have large effects on a competition system/market. Historically, I would say that typical people have their sliders set quite low, and companies have traditionally been many multiples higher. Looking at how competition occurs with the capability sliders set to different experimental settings seems important for gaining information about competition in general. It is almost time for me to write a program modeling this to take measurements. I haven't figured out the details of modeling the group dynamics represented by super-organisms however. I call them ubermensch and they are capable of cohesively pursuing goals as an atomic player does, but they consist of a group of players. It is hard to model ubermensch correctly in a simple fashion.
The concept of scarcity, scale and freedom take on highly specific meaning and can produce counter-intuitive implications for some capability slider settings in this thought experiment - an additional perspective to consider the problem-space from.
You are rightly parsing my thoughts on technological advance. I also agree that such punctuations are occasional, and that between such events complexity increases, as you state.
Considering the bulk of your remark, I will need time to parse it. However, decentralization of means of production will continue to erode centralization of wealth, and power derived from it. It doesn't seem likely that force can be prevented as long as people tinker. I reckon of post market economy will eventuate, and non monetary aspects of society will become far more valuable as a result. Not sure how that impacts your concept of ubermensch and competition.
Something about how you put that reminded me of an observation I had related to the capability slider thought experiment. It goes like this:
-Begin with a population of super-AIs (slider set high)
-Value shifts entirely to the scarcity of resources used for production
-Now begin each AI player with an identical set of resources
?does any trade occur?
At first I thought no, but after looking at it more closely, I think some players would choose scarcity in some areas to have fulfillment in others in accordance with something equivalent to their version of 'Maslow's pyramid of drives'. There are a couple of solutions, one involving 'time sharing' with each player solving scarcity intermittently, and another involving seeking different equivalencies in the 'drive pyramid' and the players trading accordingly. In any event, it reveals the importance of a 'drive model' for evaluating competitions. Maslow's thingy is just a low rez proxy for a method of detecting and mapping goal structures in general.
Lol, when I removed all scarcity of production resources, I found I expected no trade to occur at all. For some reason, I am suspicious of that, as if I expect the AI to create artificial scarcity intentionally due to qualities from some possible goal structures. .
Markets will persist for the foreseeable future, and resource scarcity continue to necessitate trade. Resource scarcity will eventually become incompetent to affect production - but eventually is a broad term. We're not gonna see personally owned automated asteroid mining for some time, and such mechanisms are the only obvious means to eliminate resource bottlenecks.
I think it was Neal Stephenson that described a communal resource sharing mechanism in 'The Diamond Age' that might accelerate the end of resource scarcity to a large degree, but even that wouldn't preclude rockhopping robots hunting down rare Earth metals and the like.
I reckon you're quite right that in the meantime, resource scarcity will drive specialization and interindustrial trade, as that potentiates greater profit and market share, even desirable state of monopoly.
Interesting comment.
While I understand that Occam's Razor implies simplicity as the best explanation, in complex systems, such as you describe here, it still completely applies. I suspect you do know and agree, but point out how Occam's Razor applied to complex systems seems to devolve to complex solutions. The essential fact of Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation applies, remains evident even in complex systems, as the advantageous features of the many aspects of complex systems each apply where they do, and the aggregate result of such advantage is complex. Despite complexity being extant, the most competitive mechanism still tends to be the simplest preferential system, and Occam's Razor is confirmed, generally. In markets that are governed by subjective, rather than naturally occurring and objectively preferable, design, products don't always conform to Occam's Razor.
Thus arises competition. It is not uncommon for a product to rise to dominate a market for reasons unrelated to it's design features, such as marketing. Subjectivity of markets doesn't disprove Occam's Razor, but do indicate that very complex systems involving subective interpretations by people of desirability can make even the simplest solution inexplicably complex.
This is only true in a market with immutable factors. Given technological advance, variable supply of materials, and evolving demand, monopolies aren't actually stable. Only when collusion and corruption of free markets prevail (as inevitably are engendered by government) are monopolies even very common. Since presently government is invariably a feature of markets, and very little acknowledgment of the corruption government exerts is accounted for in economic theory, you are more right than wrong regarding monopoly. I agree these 'embedded interests' prefer to keep this understanding cryptic, as well.
Thanks!
Regarding Occam's razor, I don't find your dichotomy useful. That isn't to say the way you break it down doesn't have value or is wrong. Don't worry, my agreeing with it or not shouldn't affect the utility of your version for you at all. True things aren't affected by popularity in the slightest.
Expand your intended meaning for 'immutable factors'. So far I disagree, but perhaps if you elaborate it I can understand in what sense it is true in the way you are using it.
When the technology does not advance, neither supply nor demand are variable, governmental regulation will not change, etc. Those critical factors being immutable potentiate persistent monopoly. Where these factors can change, disruption can occur, and monopolies broken.
I rather prefer being proven wrong than not. I get to learn stuff.
Thanks!
I was including capacity to react to perturbations as part of the meaning of competition- with better competitors having more capacity to react. To you point: A highly turbulent market seems to require competitors to spend more resources reacting automatically decreasing the amount of value that a monopoly can just extract directly without endangering its own viability/market position. ..So you are right, 'market volatility' seems to be a factor that opposes some characteristics of monopolies.
I try to translate the problem into information theory so I can access those tools. In doing that, I was using a signal model as an analog of market conditions to represent the sum of the forces acting on the market. You can imagine a signal that moves around quasi-randomly, sometimes with large amplitude changes, sometimes with changes happening quickly with high frequency. An impossibly competitive and efficient player would conform to that signal exactly. The difference between the 'true' market signal and the signal that a competitor generates is a measure of how efficient that competitor is in the market and how much value they can extract. I find thinking of it this way is somewhat generative - despite the obvious difficulty of translating an actual market into this abstract form.
I can see how models of markets would be potentiated at this point by such signal substitution for what are presently ineffable non-random effects. Such models would reveal many interesting things about markets, and I suspect would particularly reveal the far more substantial than expected influence of corruption. My guess is that as various influences were quantized, more and more of the cryptic influences would be shown to be such collusive forces.
I am well heartened to hear of your work in this regard.
Thanks!
Well, when you know Fjord® engineers who are paid to make a part last 100k miles and no more. (even if it costs more to manufacture) Well then, that kinda proves "planned obsolescence"
And, as an engineer type person, you look at something and see... this wasn't done to make this thing better, this was done to make it impossible to repair.
Take some of the new GiMiCk® trucks, where you have to pull the cab off the truck to get at important parts of the engine. Of course the factory technicians now have a cab crane.
Further, let us look at electronics. They have been made in such a way that specific components WILL burn out just after the warranty time. And there is nothing that you can do that will convince me otherwise. They "MIGHT" have saved 1¢ putting in the cheap component... maybe, but the way it was put in says, this was done on purpose.
And now we have Boogle® actually putting in code that makes the android software run slower over time.
So, from my perspective, planned obsolescence is real and in my face all the time. I can't go to HomeyDepot and buy a drill of the quality i did twenty years ago. They just don't exist there. However, we could do a lot better with computers if we make them in a way that allows one to use them for slower/non-important stuff as they become obsoleted.
If the CPU board in your typical laptop was something that looked like a hard drive. Then you could pull it out and plug it into another box and have it run a file sharing server, or a firewall, or even a music box. But no, it is a specialized thing that sits only in that old clunky case. And all of its connectors are proprietary. It doesn't have to be that way.
Yep, I agree. It is infuriating. I would make a ballpark estimate that adverse engineering comprises 20%-30% of engineering time spent on most products.
I'd like to see evidence to support that claim outside the realm of government mandates.
You are using the word evidence as if it were evident. It isn't. It is the crux of most problems reaching consensus. If you don't believe that, just try to give me a careful description of you would consider acceptable evidence to be.
The topic of how planned obsolescence (a special case of artificial scarcity) could be measured is worthwhile, but not trivial.
What I would consider the best 'evidence' for me is the simple fact that If a company can sell 2 things instead of one, it tends to profit (up to) twice as much. To the degree that that is true, it guarantees the inclusion of artificial scarcity in markets given enough time for it to arise.
A better question seems to be are there any markets where artificial scarcity doesn't arise? If so, what special traits of that market act to suppress it?
Ford likes to claim they sell the longest-lasting trucks. Their market isn't just former Ford owners, but current Chevy and Dodge owners, current Nissan and Toyota owners, and a growing population. To say a limited lifespan is ipso facto proof of artificial scarcity and planned obsolescence doesn't pass muster.
I do know engineering to reduce costs happens, but the mandate is usually "meet this high target within these material and cost parameters," not, "pare it down to this this bare minimum," unless you're talking about Harbor Freight junk.
Don't shift the goalpost or the burden of proof. I never denied that planned obsolescence never happens or that artificial scarcity isn't a thing, i said it was a more complex subject than typically understood, and not the open-and-shut case it is considered to be. Yes, it is difficult to measure. that is why you need to offer verifiable evidence that it has happened in order to demonstrate any specific allegation that it has occurred.
You speak of 100K miles as though it is nothing at all. And on a truck, that's 100K miles including rough roads, heavy loads, and hard driving. It's no small feat to make something last through that and still remain somewhat affordable.
i understand what you are trying to say, however, with today's metalurgy, we should be talking about 1M miles at affordable prices.
100k was a bar to reach for in the 1950s
it isn't even a hurtle today.
Why do you think we should, and on what parts? Modern alloys and steel formulations are amazing, but there remain material limitations. With proper PMCS, engines can last 500K miles or more. I personally know someone with many Volvo badges for mileage. But anything that moves wears. Some materials resist wear better than others, but there are also usually downsides such as brittleness that make them less suitable for automotive applications. Electrical components, suspension, and pumps experience incredible mechanical stresses from vibration, temperatures, and the nature of their operation that shorten their lifespan and necessitate them being designed as consumables. And people don't always change oil and maintain coolant levels as they should.
Meanwhile, costs are artificially inflated by taxation and regulatory mandates, making it harder to meet a consumer price point, but that is a different subject entirely than the allegation of planned obsolescence, which still needs specific evidence for specific accusations.
You may find Oliver Wendell Holmes' The Deacon's Masterpiece or, the Wonderful "One-hoss Shay": A Logical Story amusing, though.
I am sorry, none of what you said here makes any sense in relationship to what we were talking about.
As an engineer type person, you can tell what the design engineer was thinking when they created the product. You can easily see, "here they were cutting corners to save money," and you can easily see, "here they were making the product so it would fail earlier."
There is nothing that you can say that will get me to disbelieve my own eyes.
Back in the 50s americans had a mission to build things better AND cheaper. There are designs that use less material and last longer.
At some point in the 70s they decided to make things cheaper and cut back on the quality. Not because they had to. Not because they were trying to save money. But because they were making a car to fall apart and need replacing. There are books by Fjord® engineers discussing this.
Today you have great big Dodgem® trucks who's supension, if you don't take it to a shop and have reinforcement welded on, will fail disastrously during normal driving.
At the same time you have Toyota® sponsoring baja rally trucks to find out where their suspension breaks down.
Right now, we should be aiming at cars lasting 1M miles.
We should be aiming at cars that have tons of standardized, bolt on parts. Like we can go buy cool new wheels and just bolt them on, so should most of the parts in a car. There should be 4 brake rotors total. Auto part stores should be an easy stop. As in, do you have the 7" or the 10" rotor.
But we have nothing like that. Manufacturers specifically make parts that are not standard. AND they make parts that will fail sooner by design.
Link to the books, don't just say, "they exist!"
There are major failings past and present in all makes and models, some of them incredibly short-sighted. I readily acknowledge this, It doesn't prove your case, though. Talk to any mechanic and they will tell you what was designed without repair in mind, but is that engineering oversight or planned obsolescence? That's a harder case to make, and you still bear the burden of proof.
Toyota has led the way in using GD&T in their design, have less trade union BS, and have a better corporate design philosophy than US manufacturers, but that still doesn't prove corporate planned obsolescence. And you haven't even offered a link to support your suspension issue assertion.
Standardized bolt-on parts? It's the Society of Automotive Engineers that standardized those bolts in the first place. Chevy small block engines and Honda 4-cylinders are very popular for modification, but engine technology is still evolving and there are valid reasons for there to be so many engines used, even if we set aside the regulatory mandates complicating matters. What do you want to be universal, specifically?
There are many factors in brake design besides diameter, and each application has specific needs based on mass, engine power, intended use, etc. Why do you discount the advantages of rear drum brakes? Those aren't obsolete at all in certain applications.
You just keep vomiting assertions without making any real case.
And the same with you.
I am just telling you what i see.
Of course, to me it is obvious.
And you keep dancing on either side of the issue.
So, it is apparent that you do not see.
How do you "prove" to someone who cannot see, what is obvious in front of your eyes?
I can design and build a car from the ground up. Can you?
Lets take a easily verified thing.
It is all the rage lately for a high end car to come with tires of a size that has never been used before.
Now, was this because that was mathematically the exact best size, or did they do this so that they could make a deal with tire manufacture to be the only supplier?
I have had better engineers than me lay out a good argument for their only needing to be four tire sizes.
In the automotive industry, i see shenanigans everywhere.
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