I wasn't entirely joking when I said that a used bike shop is the industry's worst nightmare. The "problem" for the bean counters and shareholders is that the bike industry is too sustainable; and as you said, a good steel bike can last a lifetime with care.
Enter the E-Bike, which has advantages for many, but for the aforementioned bean counters and shareholders offers a great way to make their products incompatible with others and hard, if not impossible, to repair for small shops and end users; hey, presto, a less sustainable, more wasteful product that will break down much sooner and need replacing.
Absolutely - although I'd qualify the "too sustainable" with "to be a viable model to allow similar levels of economic exploitation to other industries". If left to its own devices every supply-and-demand economy should find its own equilibrium. However, in the dying days of capitalism the artificial manipulation of this equilibrium through marketing and legislation, in ever-more desperate attempts to maintain unsustainable perpetual grown is increasingly, painfully obvious.
This compromising of products is rife across pretty much all manufactured goods; with longevity taking by far the biggest hit. This doubly-serves the manufacturer through cheaper production costs and higher sales volumes. I totally agree about electric bikes - far less standardisation and greater complexity so lifespan can so much more easily be controlled by limiting third party and end-user ability to repair and spares provision. Plus of course they're a lot more expensive.
Sadly this attitude is also prevalent throughout the rest of the industry - most notably in terms of frame material, where marketing appears to have convinced *everyone* that saving mass is far more important than longevity, so fatigue-failure-prone ally and might-explode-without-warning CFRP rule the roost over far more durable and predictable steel.
Sure, buy CFRP if you're aware of the sacrifices that come with its lower mass and are happy to accept those for the (often minimal) improvement in speed. Quite why anyone still thinks making bikes out of ally by default is a good idea escapes me however - (other than the elephant in the room that it ain't going to last anywhere near as long as steel). I suspect the processing costs are more, too..
Remember the ideal promised by '50s automation; that robots would do everything and we could just sit back and relax? I bet that probably wouldn't have too far from the truth if we'd kept to our existing consumption habits. Instead we're kept spinning in that hamster wheel to buy ever more elaborate, unsustainable trinkets on the false, establishment-sponsored, marketing-driven assumption that these correlate with happiness; when in actual fact the reality is often the opposite.
I remember discussing a mate's mate who'd just bought a newish car on finance. The monthly repayments cost her about 20% of her wage; and not that society wishes to support this approach, but if you had the choice which would you rather - a 5 day week to pay for a car that'll be worth next to naff all in 10yrs, or buy a thousand quid banger outright and work a four day week instead..?
Environmental argument aside, speaking personally as someone who struggles with producivity and needs a lot of down time, I bitterly resent having to push myself well past my comfortable limits simply to exist in a world that's defined by irresposible, shallow and often debt-led spending and excess, with no place for those who distance themselves from such nastyness.
If people were less shallow, unquestioning and easy to manipulate we could all enjoy a far more sustainable, lower stress, sociable existance.
I'm glad to hear this from people who know what they're talking about. We get a lot of this hype, especially in Stuttgart where EV's are expected to offer a like-for-like replacement for cars, trucks and everything else, so we can just carry on with business as usual. I've long wondered at how this is supposed to work with my limited understanding of the resources and energy requires but I was always told it would be fine and I was just being a tree hugging hippy, again, and everything would work out...
I'm glad to hear this from someone else! Tbh I only have a loose grasp of the fundamentals, but if you ignore the offensively simplistic establishment line the "electric=green" and look below the surface to sources that actually know what they're talking about, you'll see there are all manner of holes in this mantra being raised by all manner of different individuals from a range of backgrounds.
It's just another massive con, and sadly people are, for whatever reason unable to see it or unwilling to accept it. Same as the wider environmental arguments - for decades we've had compelling evidence of our increasingly destructive effect on the planet, however society appears largely made up of people who are aware but can't be arsed to do anything about it. On top of that we have a vocal minority (often older men, it seems) who reject the whole thing out of hand as a conspiracy; bitterly attacking anyone who tries to address or even recognise such issues.. I can only assume this is because they lack the strength and emotional intelligence to admit their part in the situation, don't want their comfortable consumption curtailed by their conscience, or simply are resentful about their time on this earth coming to an end that they want to see it burn.
Even as the global situation becomes increasingly, obviously dire, sadly the one thing that's abundantly clear is that there's far too little appetite to effect meaningful change, either socially or politically. We keep coming up with fanciful ideas for more "sustainable" energy and dodges for the destruction we cause, but the bottom line is these are all flawed and the inescapable fact is is that there are simply far too many of us and we consume far too much..
As such it seems that our catastrophic trajectory is assured and the only way this madness will come to an end is when we do.
Apologies for the rant - here's to a happy and carefree new year
