Durability

The issue of durability concerns the material qualities of classes of particular consumer goods, the durability of the relationships that consumers have with those goods, and cultures of repair, reuse, and recycling. Durability is complex and not simply a matter of condemning an apparent rise in the disposability and disposal of frivolous and less-durable consumer goods.

In relation to classes of commonplace consumer goods, somewhat contradictory dynamics affecting durability can be identified. A general improvement in the quality of manufacture, reliability of components, and precision of engineering has increased the reliability and longevity of many consumer goods. However, durability is not reducible to longevity or reliability: Goods may last a long time, but with impaired and diminishing functional capacity, whereas reliability may be ensured in function, while overall durability diminishes over time. Durability requires reliability and functional longevity, and it is this complexity that may encourage practices that work against the effects of higher quality design and manufacture working their way through into always more durable products.

[Page 109]As a consequence, various forms of built-in obsolescence can be seen to work against this general increase in product durability. These include the following:

• Built-in technical obsolescence, such that products are designed to fail as a result of the inclusion of a particularly vulnerable, short-lived, or irreplaceable component. This has been more assumed than proven, but it remains a strong suspicion and was certainly widely advocated as making economic sense for manufacturers in the middle decades of the 20th century. There is, however, an evident form of this obsolescence in contemporary product design. Many objects increasingly tell the consumer when they have apparently worn out. For example, dye-pigmented toothbrush bristles that advertise the end of the brushes' functional efficacy. The discovery of surprisingly prolonged durability is often the outcome of ignoring these built-in suggestions to discard, dispose, and replace.
• Stylistic obsolescence denotes an object's loss of semiotic durability. Previously associated with a small range of goods, especially clothing, fashion, or product styling, it is now a strongly pronounced feature of practically all consumer goods. Functionally durable goods, it is suggested, stylistically wear out, necessitating replacement.
• Objects are increasingly nested in networks of supporting products. The proliferating range of misnamed peripherals associated with the purchase of a computer provides a good example of systems of objects in which there are multiple opportunities for a lack of durability to compromise the whole nested arrangement. Often, all forms of built-in obsolescence are seen to work in concert.

Manufacturers, keen to protect revenues, have also turned to other techniques to counter the general increase of product durability, much of which is abetted by environmental legislation. The increasing promotion of services as necessary adjuncts to products is commonplace, particularly the often-aggressive selling of extended warranties offering information services, upgrade options, and service contracts. These can be regarded as an attempt to recoup income previously accruing from the regular repair of physically less durable goods. They have proven to be highly controversial, as their cost is often a large proportion of the purchase cost of the goods. Moreover, against a background of increasing product reliability and consumer protection, it is argued that such warranties are unnecessary.

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