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ISSUE TOPIC
“People often complain that products are not made to last. They feel that making products that wear out fairly quickly wastes both natural and human resources. What they fail to see, however, is that such manufacturing practices keep costs down for the consumer and stimulate demand.”
Which do you find more compelling: the complaint about products that do not last or the response to it? Explain your position using relevant reasons and/or examples drawn from your own experience, observations, or reading. (85)
ESSAY
In these days, even though technology improves at an incredibly high speed and thousands of innovative products come into market every single day, it is a big surprise that complains about durability of commodities are also increasing dramatically. Including some of politicians, many of consumers proclaim that the intention, from manufacturers to make inferior products which cannot last long, will not only lead to a significant waste of valuable labor resource, but also, more critically, accelerate the depletion of our natural resource. However, standing on the side of manufacturers, many insiders repute that, only because the products are not made extreme durable, consumers are able to enjoy the inexpensive prices with all. In fact, the topic has been long in controversy for decades and it is getting much more intensive than ever before. From my angle, even though it sounds reasonable on both sides, I would be more convinced by those consumers rather than manufactures, simply because unnecessary reproducing will definitely consume more scarce labor hours and raw materials, and moreover, lead to exceeding undegradable waste.
First of all, insofar as we know, the entire world is currently facing a resource crisis. Majority of natural resources on Earth are not renewable and, due to overwhelming human activities, many renewable before become one-time as well, such as unsalted water and lumbers in some area. No matter we have experienced or not, the resources are gone in a light speed and, in a foreseeable future, we may lose a great portion of them. Oil, for example, is predicted to be depleted within fifty years; meanwhile, the usage of nuclear energy has not been fully studied. Not only electricity, military, and transportation rely heavily on the oil but also clothing, chemical, furniture and many other industries require crude oil or its byproducts – Waste in any of these industries will lead a worldwide crisis. Similar in human resource, labor is always considered undeniable. If we put skilled workers together repeating a same product, which is not necessary to reproduce so frequently if built in higher quality, we’ll definitely fall into the shortage of labor force to do something more meaningful, such as science researches and public constructions. Therefore, no matter what industry a manufacturer occupies, it should take every responsibility to produce in a most efficient manner in order not to bring everybody too much toward the global resource problem.
Besides the scarce of resources, it is also notable that products lack of durability produces enormous undegradated garbage, as much deleterious to the world as its consumption of essential daily resources. Assume that a normal television, containing many lethal chemical materials, could last for fifteen years, but, it is now only five years on average. Then the waste of those lethal chemicals will triple – no need to mention that the average life time for consuming electronics now is much less than the happy five years – so that we have to figure out where to disposal millions more sets, that we would not have to worry if the televisions can last somewhat longer.
However, on the other hand, the industry insiders did also in fact hold some tenable point in the issue. Classic Economy models suggest that inexpensive pricing strategy will increase not only market share by one company but also the entire market size. As the market size is getting larger, expenses occurred during production are also declining, leading to a even lower price, which eventually benefit the end consumers. In addition, for many purchases, consumers are not supposed to keep the products for long, so that there is no reason keep the product thousands of years durable for only a couple of years usage. For example, personal laptops, which are often replaced by users to a better model every three years on average, do not have to last a more than five years. Apple, Sony, Dell and Toshiba, the major laptop producers, are all applying this strategy and their laptops with new functions and more powerful capacities are cheaper than a decade before.
Consequently, despite of the fact that compromise of durability may very probably reduce the monetary burden over consumers and manufacturers rarely reduce the usages of latest high technology into the products to stimulate the market demand based on economy estimation, it is ironic that consumers think in a completely opposite way, making entrepreneurs look sightless. Arguments from consumers focusing on the resource wasting topics are more rational and far-sighted. To balance the benefit and environment expense, it is a wise choice that most people have made decision to give up some of their personal benefits and put more attention to the environment relevant issues. | 
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发表于 2007-8-23 12:09:00
发表于 2007-8-23 21:58:00
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