The International Herald Tribune asks if we've ever had it so good for gadgets. It's evidence for "Aye" is as follows:
1. You can buy something explicitly designed to annoy others.
2. Gizmodo, Engadget, TechCrunch and BoingBoing are the top four most popular blogs on Earth.
3. They're cheap.
4. They give people a sense of control over their lives, but (conversely?) the ability to escape from them.
It's actually a great story, optimisitic and effusive, but that can't hide the fact it's just quotes in service of the author's opinion. As gadget lovers, we're aware of the consumerism threaded throughout our area of interest, but there comes a point of revulsion. Mine comes about here:
This doesn't jive with prior arguments, which focus on how useful these things are and how we use them, utilize them, and generally plug them into our real lives. That the story ends with the same lady quoted saying ""It's nonsense. I know it!," well, sure, we're being tipped off that it's bullshit. We're given a laughing-but-curiously-steely-eyed sense of the lurking darkness. But, come now: why write it in the first place, then? Why not write "a golden age for people who sell gadgets."
Also, massive choice isn't always a good thing. Sometimes it's a sign that innovation has turned to commoditization, that capitalism has become business as usual, or however else you want to put it.
When digicams were cool, you couldn't buy them for $25 at WalMart. As m'colleague Becker wrote, "they're about as interesting as flour."
A golden age for gadgets [IHT]
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