1980 Atari 800 ad: “It will never become obsolete”
Quick rant, downvote away but I thought I&#x27;d share something that&#x27;s really going to be important to the future of tech: Obsolescence in technology is a completely broken mental model. As a communications tool it mainly serves the purpose of justifying new development and economic growth. The obsolescence model is based on a breadth-first estimation of technology (what&#x27;s out there, what&#x27;s going on, how have things changed out in the tech world, what else is available) rather than a depth-first estimation (what&#x27;s in here, what can this baby do, wow what a miracle in this way or that one).<p>By using the word &quot;obsolete,&quot; the communicator is being--intentionally or unintentionally--intellectually shallow. Even if the word serves their purpose, they are also wrong in a big way.<p>The fact is, this machine still does what it started out to do, technically speaking. If you look up the dictionary definition of obsolescence though, you&#x27;ll find some really terrible news: &quot;no longer useful.&quot; An Atari 800 is no longer useful? That&#x27;s arguable, to say the very least.<p>The best way to communicate obsolescence with accuracy, precision, and rationality is with a reference point, like a market: &quot;This tool no longer serves its original target market with the efficacy that it once did.&quot; This is much more precise. However, it opens the door to another depth question: Which markets or sub-markets might it _still_ serve, and even speak to rather loudly?<p>IMO the discourse of obsolescence is a curse on modern civilization. We are missing out on some huge _qualitative growth_ lessons until we learn to think in a more nuanced way about how technology serves us all.