The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

[dharh]

famousringo said:
This is a phenomenon which has been going on for quite some time. It works well for electronics which only last 5-10 years before becoming obsolete, but I get frustrated at how hard it is to find something like a screwdriver which will survive several jobs rather than being "good enough" for only so many jobs or so much force. I recently visited four hardware stores to find a particular one which was only cheap instead of being outright flawed in design.

Basically, I'm whining because this "good enough" philosophy is creeping into markets where a "good enough" widget is lasting x years for y dollars, and it could be lasting 10x years for 5y dollars. Too many goods are becoming disposable because people only look at short-term costs and benefits rather than the long game, and it seems wasteful to me.

But hey, I'm just one consumer who wants to be able to find upmarket hardware. I guess there's more money in selling a new screwdriver every two years.

The Good Enough phenom doesn't really fit stuff like screw drivers or quite a few other things. It's mainly about technology that tends to be feature rich but never really good and easy to use for its core features.  Making something Good Enough means generally means focusing on the core of what that something is, making it cheep (not necessarily disposable, though that works too) and easy to use. Besides which, alot of the time there should still be that company that makes the 5x cost item that last 10y years, though those items tend to still be encumbered with lots of useless features.