Imagine if we made extremely durable things. Things that worked well for a very long time.
Then, we basically have to make one for every person, and then shut down our factory.
However, if you are a factory owner, you would like to have everyone continue to buy your products so that you can continue to make money. After spending your life building up the factory (or lives, as in Ford Motor Company) you are used to your income, and you don't want to give that up.
The path forward is clear, build things that fail, so that you can continue to make the things, and selling them, over and over again. Well, that is what the major corporations (the monopoly) decided to do. Instead of going down a path of providing the best product per price, something that could last a very long time, and then, when they have reached saturation, scale back production.
If you make something that doesn't last, are you selling it, or are you just renting it until the warranty expires? The next step, of course, is to just rent/lease the item. Forever getting payments, and the corporation provides the minimum it can.
This is not capitalism
What we live in today isn't anything we have a name for. Most people are taught that this is what Capitalism is, and this is just the way the markets work. We are taught that monopolies cannot exist in a free market. And then, are told that what we have is a free market.
There is no competition between corporations. Coke vs Pepsi is an illusion. Like the Steelers vs the Cowboys. It is a game, and it is just an illusion of advertising. And for advertising. (most of our programming comes from advertisements)
Ford is not outdesigning Chevy. In fact, they get together and talk about what/which "improvements" they will offer the public. (there are so many on the shelves that will never see the light of day.) And, if we actually had competition, everything written in 1970s HotRod magazine would be in cars today.
The reality is that the corporations work in lockstep. They use some markets as test beds for what they will offer to other markets in a few years.
We have refrigerators that were made when you grandma was young, that still run. And we have refrigerators, top of the line, that you can buy today that will not last the decade. Do you believe that we could fail to improve compressors?
We live in a world owned/controlled by a group of corporations. There is no competition. There is no free market.
Some say this is a corporatocracy, but this isn't about corporate survival. This is those who own/control corporations vs the people.
Competition vs Economies of Scale
A toaster manufacturer could make their toaster last twice as long by adding a bit more steel. About 12¢ worth of steel.
And the removal of that 12¢ of steel is touted as profit.
The real problem is, if someone wanted to make a better toaster, with that 12¢ of steel added back in, the toaster would cost $120 more. Without the economies of scale, you cannot even compete, even with you providing labor for free.
It is similar to Ikea vs custom cabinets. Ikea costs less than it cost for me to buy wood to build the same project. There is no room for competition. There is no, "just a little better than Ikea, i would pay a little more to have a little better". You will spend 2x Ikea if you build it yourself. You will spend 10x Ikea if you include a professional to build it for you.
Fortunately, there is a shift in building technology. Many professional wood workers now have a CNC router. So, they can cut out parts for what they need, as they need it. They can make things more efficiently now, but where it is truly better than Ikea is that the local shop can go to a much lower number of items. Whereas, with any large manufacturing corporation, there is a minimum number of units required to be produced each month, or they go out of business.
In the near future, new things are going to be invented, and they are going to be produced so rapidly, and the ability of guys in garages to build things themselves that corporations that have controlled our world, are just going to fail.
This level of changes is what is needed to overcome the economies of scale. Where a factory can build it cheaper than you can yourself, with free labor.
There are so many illusions we live under
We believe that we have choice, but really, we can only decide if we have a blue wrapper or a red wrapper. Any real technological advancement is suppressed.
We believe that there is competition in manufacturing, because we see the choice, but never look deeper to see that actual competition is squelched. You cannot get shelf space at a grocery store unless you pay for it. Meaning, unless you outbid coke & pepsi.
We believe there is competition between stores. We see different stores, and think that if you cannot get something at one store, you can get it at another. Well, if you go to 3rd world countries, you could find this. If you go to small towns, you may find this in mom & pop stores. But you do not find any real difference in the corporate mega-stores. They really do choose what things you can see.
We believe we can change the corporation by boycotting. Recently people stopped buying Bud, but none realized that they instead bought another beer from the same corporation, the same distributor. For almost everything, there is no real alternative.
We believe we can buy American. If someone in American wanted to manufacture a product in America, only with American made part, they will fail. Most bolts come from China. Most motors come from China. Electronic chips are almost impossible to source from America. If we were really serious about Made In America, we would have to recreate the entire manufacturing stack. (now there is a movement to build things in The US, because they are fleeing China, and they are going to almost full robotics, so they no longer need the cheap labor. The US is more secure for this)
We believe that advertisements pay for all kinds of things, like Goolag and MSNABCBS. Advertisement is to program the public. And there is ALL the money in the world to pay for this. (you can't compete, unless you can print money) Advertising revenue is a lie. It is a money laundering scheme / a way to pay for people who play ball, and read from the script.
Communism is mostly different from capitalism in that who they say is in charge. Corporations are govern-cement. We are still run by a group of people who want more control and power.
I wonder if capitalism can actually work. There is so little time when it was actually in effect. However, it probably won't, because capitalism means those with the capital have a large advantage. And those who are unscrupulous can buy up all the means of production.
However, that the corporations have gone evil and adopted planned obsolescence, and this will be their downfall. Especially as people in garages start producing things that a corporation cannot keep up with. Imagine GM trying to compete with thousands of people building flying cars in their garages. By the time GM brings out a flying car, people will be making improved flying cars.
And this is the way we really starve the corporations. We make and sell stuff outside of their system. And, the corporations with giant assembly lines just fail, because they can't really function at slower speeds.