If there was one thing that might define the last 10 years or so, it would be an Apple product. Whether it be an iPod, iPhone, iPad, or a computer the Apple brand has dominated the techy consumer market for quite sometime now. So basically, If you don’t have an iWhatever you’re a loser.
Or are you? Perhaps you care about the environment and have decided that Apple’s business strategy is not palatable for you? Well if you are you’d be smarter than just about everyone these days. Apple simply doesn’t have a very good environmental record which is completely the opposite of its fresh new and innovative corporate identity. This is why people ought to start thinking twice about buying the latest Apple gizmo, and then buying it again 8 months later…again 8 months after that…. and again…..
See Apple is like a drug dealer that gets you all F’d up on fun software and a flawless user interface but then has you coming back again and again like a junkie with endless upgrades and releases of the latest products. This is why having consumers constantly buying new pads, phones, and pods is great for business, but horribly unsustainable, and ultimately bad for the environment.
Apple’s business model leads to untold amounts raw materials being extracted, harmful chemicals and processes molding and creating plastics and components, massive amounts of energy (very little of it from renewable sources) needed to transport materials build and ship the products, and finally there’s the ever growing pile of iTrash. Whats scarier to think is that the rest of this decade will see Apple blowing up in China and possibly India. This would mean billions of new Apple consumers buying hundreds of billions of new Apple products every year.
Proponents of Apple would argue that planned obsolescence and rapid release of new generation products isn’t their business model but that’s its a byproduct of the exponential development of new technologies and capabilities. I do consider this to be part of the equation, however that does not mean that it’s not done so on purpose. It’s in fact the very reason why they’re so successful and that if you had a time machine you would go all the way back to the year 2000 and invest heavily in Apple.
Is it too much to ask for an iPad or an iPhone that you can own and happily use for 10 years? I don’t think so.
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