Dr. Rashid AlSaadi
Businesses around the world innovate continuously not only in developing
new products but in marketing their products to maximize profits. Consumers buy
their goods and sustain such business ventures; But for how long?
Before the eighties, companies competed for quality. Then, new
philosophies entered the market: Sell cheaper with volumes and benefit from the
"volumes of scale", followed by another marking philosophy that introduced
new versions of the same products or software more frequently with new or
enhanced features. These philosophies or marketing strategies have influenced
consumers to the extent that consumers blindly plan a new replacement, just for
the sake of using the new features of such new products. The features may
warrant new first-time-buys, but definitely do not deserve replacing older
products that are in full functional conditions.
Most of us are in need of communication devices, personal
computers, software, machines or appliances. If all of these industries follow
the above philosophies (which they do), the consumer is in trouble financially.
What aggravates the consumer financial deprivation is today's consumer
psychology. They are internet-connected. They need things immediately. Finally,
Brands influence their buying behavior.
Moreover, the limited support for older products and the eventual
closure of their support lines forcefully drives consumers to switch to or
seriously consider buying these new goods. In the eighties, Apple developed the Macintosh,
but in the nineties it developed the PowerBook, the Power Macintosh and the
iMac. Similarly, Microsoft developed Office 1.0. Almost every year since then,
Microsoft would introduce a new version of Office. The iPhone has gone into similar
trends, see Figure 1.
These business entities understand that selling products cannot
sustain and maximize their profits. They have to exploit other means like
extended-service, live chat, remote access, and repair.
Figure 1: iPhone Timeline
Source: Author
The above discussion is taken further recently by the cloud
technology. To represent an example of the software market, Adobe has switched
from Creative Suite Product Line (used by designers and web developers) to
Adobe Creative Cloud, a huge departure from its traditional model. This
creative cloud move changed the "selling of a standalone package" to the "paying of a monthly fee
service." Now, designers and web developers subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud to
use a package of programs over the cloud for a monthly fee. A product has been
transferred into a service! Need is the mother of invention.
Consumer's financial health cannot continue to sustain such
deprivation. Consumers are exploited extensively. They have no consumers'
rights when it comes to challenging business agglomerates. Most buyers know the
above but they do not have the power to change it. They know that manufacturers
can make reliable products that last for a better acceptable duration. They
know that they should not be charged for the whole month but they should be
charged reasonably for the service they used during the time the asked for it. Consumers succeeded to report false advertisements, failure of
services, deceptive internet sales, and failure to deliver but for the above:
Oh consumers! You cannot appeal to consumer protection's dead body or deaf ears
in this issue.
