Mike, Your reasons for not seeing any new Fat Cat models in future seem based in 'economic' soundness. I'm sure many would join me in adding that this bodes well for healthier land fill, water and air. When Darryl and I lived in a rural area in S.E. Ontario, we had to use a local dump for our garbage. Though we benefited from the disposal of other people's antiques, the sad reality was that of seeing TV's and other electronics lying in the adjacent creek bed. I don't know if we were the only people to have reported this to the authorities, but we learned that the dump would be closing soon afterwards because of complaints. Astonishing that it had been allowed to be so obvious, for so long. The farmer relating this news was shocked (and pissed over the inconvenience) because the creek appeared full of life. He was quite mistaken.
I'd like to think that environmental impact and ensuing restrictions have also helped to shape some of these decisions not to mass manufacture. Of course, production can be moved abroad without the restrictions, but perhaps in twenty or thirty years, once the ill effects sink in and disperse, developing countries, too, will introduce such laws that will in time be enforced. Meanwhile, Western countries have an insurmountable volume of toxic trash and weaponry, over a century's worth produced without a thought to recycling or planetary health, that has miraculously stalled on obliterating us. If not for the politics, it would be far safer to live in developing countries that still have potable water, trees, and good soil. There should be two or three left. I wonder, should Japan or Korea bear some responsibility for pollution over here? As we welcome the dawn of sustainability, I still hope for a reasonably priced personal aircraft, fully recyclable and non-polluting. I think Keith should bring it to market!!! Natalia On 10/28/2010 12:24 PM, Mike Spencer wrote: > Keith wrote: > >> Find me a new consumer product that's highly desirable by the rich, >> very expensive -- say, equivalent to what the car was in the >> 1910s/20s -- but capable of repeated phases of mass production until >> it reaches down to everybody in due course. > I'm not sure you thought here is the right one, Keith. > > In Made in America [1], the authors point out (1989) that US > manufacturers have done as you describe, introducing a New Thing that > only the rich (or industrial users) can afford. All-cast-iron, gold > plated with hand-fitted parts, so to speak. Once the carriage trade > market is saturated, they introduce the Elite model, then the Pop > model, then the Consumer model followed eventually by the Commodity > model for the lowest consumer base. > > But way back at the intro of VCRs, the Japanese used a different biz > model. Engineer for production. Make a consumer model and flood the > world with it. Because they have a million units in use (rather than a > few thousand) they get statistical quality control, feedback on where > the design or engineering failed. They fix that for the next run. At > the end of a year or a few years, the US producer is just getting > tooled up for production engineering for the mass-production version. > But the Japanese already have the expertise, the technology, the > machinery and the data on what does and does not work in a consumer > product. They own the market and can recover any losses sustained > back when their first mass release had, perhaps, a large number of > returns, call-backs, plant design failures or whatever. > > So maybe we won't ever see any new FatCat models of anything anymore. > Thirty years on, Apples seems to have adopted the Japanese model, > releasing the iPhone, not for the rich but for the merely reasonably > well-off, in vast quantities. > > - Mike > > > [1] Made in America: the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, > Michael Dertouzos, Richard Lester, Robert Solow, et al., MIT > Press, 1989 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
