Blog post 8

My first blog post spoke of Apple's marketing campaign that uses product disposability in order to generate sales.  This business model spews over into many other markets.  One market being automotive manufacturing.  Volkswagen for example, has a car with a turbocharger and a supercharger installed on the same engine.  Volkswagen touts this as a selling point. An extremely efficient and modern engine that's ahead of its class.  This might be ok if the customer has deep pockets.  However the average person buying a new car probably wants it to be very reliable and cheap to fix when it breaks down.  An engine with two forced induction methods is an extremely delicate setup.  The car might get 40mpg right off the lot, but after hard use, its complicated parts can come out of adjustment and destroy the engines efficiency, requiring precise mechanical adjustment. Often only available at a dealer.  It's no coincidence that the same type of people willing to shell out big bucks at the Apple Store every year will do the same when their Volkswagen hits above 50,000 miles on the odometer.  It's a marketing strategy both companies and many more share.  Trick your customer into buying a complicated and expensive product with the false insight that the product is better because of its complexity.  The product shows its age quicker and the customer buys a new one quicker.  An added bonus is the companies ability to charge a high amount to service the product with the products complexity preventing third party servicing.  With Apple, your buying the logo, with Volkswagen, it's the same story.