Cracking the Apple Trap
October 31, 2013
At first, I thought it was my imagination. Around
the time the iPhone 5S and 5C were released, in September, I noticed
that my sad old iPhone 4 was becoming a lot more sluggish. The battery
was starting to run down much faster, too. But the same thing seemed to
be happening to a lot of people who, like me, swear by their Apple
products. When I called tech analysts, they said that the new operating
system (iOS 7) being pushed out to existing users was making older
models unbearably slow. Apple phone batteries, which have a finite
number of charges in them to begin with, were drained by the new
software. So I could pay Apple $79 to replace the battery, or perhaps
spend 20 bucks more for an iPhone 5C. It seemed like Apple was sending
me a not-so-subtle message to upgrade.
Of course, there are more
benign explanations. The new software and recent app updates offer fancy
new features that existing users want; maybe the battery is sealed with
tiny five-point screws for aesthetic considerations. Perhaps, but this
isn’t the first time that tech analysts and random crazies on the
Internet have noted that breakdowns in older Apple products can often
coincide with when upgrades come onto the market. Many have taken this
as evidence of “planned obsolescence,” a term that dates to the Great
Depression, when a real estate broker suggested that the government
should stimulate the economy by placing artificial expiration dates on
consumer products so people would buy more.
To conspiracy-theory-hungry
observers (and some of the rest of us), it might make sense that Apple
would employ this business strategy. The tech giant, after all, has
reached near-saturation levels in the U.S. smartphone market. If iPhones
work forever, people who already own the devices won’t buy new ones.
Furthermore, selling products with finite life spans can be good for
consumers, depending on their tastes and how informed they are. The
fashion industry, whose entire mission is to essentially render products
obsolete long before they cease to be functional, does this regularly. I
buy clothes from H&M and other low-cost, trend-driven stores
knowing full well that the pieces might fall apart after a year’s worth
of washes. And if the clothes won’t be fashionable next year anyway, who
cares? Improving the durability — and thereby cost — of the clothes
would probably just drive away price-sensitive shoppers like me. Apple
has similar considerations. Would the additional longevity of the
battery be valuable enough to its core consumers to justify the
inevitable higher price?
Economists have theories about
market conditions that encourage planned obsolescence. A company has
strong incentives to degrade product durability when it has a lot of
market power and when consumers don’t have good substitute products to
choose from. (That’s what happened with the international light-bulb
cartel of the early 20th century, which penalized its members for
manufacturing bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.) When Apple
started making the iPhone in 2007, its product was so innovative that it
could have deliberately degraded durability without fear. But in the
last couple years, the company has faced stiffer competition from
Samsung and HTC, among others, which should deincentivize planned
obsolescence. “Buyers are smart, and if they start figuring out that one
of the costs of buying Apple’s products is that they’re constantly
nickel-and-diming you, they’ll switch,” said Austan Goolsbee, an
economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of
Business.
Well, maybe. A company could
still be encouraged to engage in planned obsolescence if consumers
perceive large “switching costs” associated with going to a new brand.
There are plenty of economics textbooks to choose from, for instance,
and yet publishers still artificially make their old editions unusable
by changing pagination or scrambling homework questions because they
know teachers don’t want to deal with learning a whole new book.
Similarly, iPhone users have
probably purchased complementary products, like apps, that won’t
transfer to Android phones. They also probably have a network of
iPhone-using friends with whom they can chat free using Apple’s Messages
app (instead of paying for text messages). These switching costs
increase Apple’s incentives to force its existing customers to upgrade
by making older models gradually become more dysfunctional.
There is, however, a simple way
to effectively render an old product obsolete without fleecing your
existing customers. Instead of degrading the old model, companies can
offer innovations in the new model that make upgrading irresistible.
Apple succeeded at doing this for a while, offering new iPhones that
included major improvements. In the past, consumers were so excited
about the cool new features, like Siri, the voice-activated interface,
that they may not have minded (or even noticed) if their old phones
started to deteriorate; they planned on upgrading anyway. This time
around, that’s less true. The iPhone 5S and 5C offer fewer quantum
improvements. Consumers are more likely to want their old phones to
continue working at peak condition in perpetuity, and to feel cheated
when they don’t.
When major innovations remain
out of reach, and degrading durability threatens to tick off loyal
customers, companies like Apple can still take a cue from the fashion
industry. If you can brainwash consumers into developing new tastes that
make the old stuff look uncool for aesthetic rather than functional
reasons, you still have a shot at harvesting more sales from your
existing customer base. But it seems Apple may have already figured this
out too. Just check out the wait times for the iPhone 5S in that shiny
new gold color.
蘋果為消費者設下的美麗陷阱
科技2013年10月31日
Illustration by Kelsey Dake
一開始，我還以為這只是我在瞎猜。9月份，iPhone
5S和5C面世前後，我發現我那可憐的老iPhone
4變得遲鈍了許多。電池用的也越來越快。但很多人也遭遇了同樣的情況，他們和我一樣，都是果粉。後來我給科技業分析師打電話，他們說，硬推給現有用戶的新
操作系統(iOS7)讓人們手裡的較老款產品變得異常遲緩。蘋果手機電池本來就有固定的充電次數壽命，在使用新操作系統後，電量更是消耗得非常快。這樣一
來，我要麼付給蘋果79美元來更換電池，要麼再多花20美元去購買一個iPhone 5C。看起來，蘋果發出了一個挺直白的信號，就是讓我趕快升級換代。
當然，你也可以給出比較善意的解釋。新操作系統和最近的軟件升級，
能夠給予老用戶一直想要的酷炫新功能；而蘋果之所以把電池用五點螺絲(five-point
screws)封裝起來，完全是出於對美觀的考慮。也許吧，但是這也不是第一次；之前，科技分析師和網上的某些狂人也曾提出，每當新升級問世，老款蘋果產
品碰巧就會崩潰。很多人以此為據，認為這是「按計劃報廢」(planned
obsolescence)。這個詞起源於大蕭條時代，那個時候，一個地產經紀人給政府提建議，認為可以給消費品人為設定一個有效期，這樣人們就會消費得
更多，從而提振經濟。
對於那些總想要尋找陰謀論的觀察員來說（還有我們當中一些別的人也
是），蘋果採用這樣的商業策略，其實是能夠說得通的。不管怎麼說，作為科技界巨頭，蘋果在美國智能手機市場上的佔有率已經達到近乎飽和的程度。如果
iPhone永遠不壞，那些已經持有的用戶就不會繼續購買新設備了。此外，考慮到消費者的品味和信息靈通程度，出售有着固定使用壽命的產品對於消費者也是
有好處的。時尚產業經常在其產品尚有使用價值的時候，就讓它們變得過時，這就是時尚產業的全部使命。我從H&M和其他廉價時尚品牌那兒買衣服時，
非常清楚，在一年之後，這些衣服就會因為漂洗而散架。但是又有誰會在意呢？畢竟這件衣服明年不會再流行了。如果提高衣服的使用壽命（也就意味着提高衣服的
成本），那麼很有可能會趕走那些像我一樣，對價格敏感的消費者。蘋果也有類似的考慮。如果提高電池的使用壽命，那麼對於蘋果的核心消費者來說，額外增加的
成本是否能夠帶來足夠的價值？
經濟學家提出了各種理論，指出在有些市場條件下，故意讓老產品落伍
是被鼓勵的。當一家公司在市場上力量極大，而消費者又沒有好的替代品可供選擇時，該公司就會有強烈的意願降低產品的使用壽命。（這就是為什麼在20世紀
初，國際電燈企業聯盟有規定，如果該組織成員生產的燈泡，使用壽命超過1000個小時，聯盟就會對該成員進行處罰。）2007年，蘋果開始推出
iPhone，這一產品在當時極具創新性，因此蘋果可以故意降低產品的使用壽命，而沒有任何擔憂。但在最近一兩年，蘋果遭遇了來自三星和HTC等競爭者的
挑戰，且競爭日益激烈。這本來是應該抑制「按計劃報廢」這種策略的。奧斯坦·古爾斯比(Austan
Goolsbee)是芝加哥大學布斯商學院(University of Chicago』s Booth School of
Business)的經濟學教授，他指出，「消費者是很聰明的。如果他們發現，購買蘋果產品之後，總會遭到蘋果的算計，他們就會換別的產品。」
好吧，有可能是這樣的。不過，如果消費者們認為，去換另一個牌子的
產品會有很大的「轉換成本」，那麼原來的公司還是有「按計劃報廢」的衝動。比方說，市場上可供選擇的經濟學教科書非常多，但出版商知道，老師們不願意花時
間為新書備課。因而出版商還是會採用各種詭計，比方說更改書的頁碼或者打亂問題的順序，人為地讓老版教材變得難以使用。
類似的，iPhone用戶很有可能購買了iPhone的配套產品，
例如應用程序，這些是沒有辦法移到Android手機上的。用戶身邊的朋友圈可能都在用iPhone，因此使用蘋果的短訊息應用，就能夠免費聊天（而不用
花錢發短訊了）。因為這些轉換成本的存在，蘋果會有動力去強制老用戶升級；他們只要讓老款產品慢慢無法正常工作就行了。
但是，還有一個簡單的辦法，能夠在不壓榨老用戶的同時，讓老款產品
落伍。公司完全不必讓老款產品越來越不好使，他們可以在新產品中加入創新功能；面對此類升級的誘惑，消費者將無法抵抗。過去一段時間，蘋果成功地做到了這
一點，他們推出的新款手機總有重大改善。過去，消費者總是對這些新功能非常興奮（比方說Siri，那款聲控交互界面）。這樣一來，消費者不會介意（甚至不
會發現）他們的老款手機是否不好用了，反正他們早就計劃好要升級了。而這一次似乎不是這麼回事兒了。iPhone
5S和5C提供的重量級改進要少得多。消費者更可能希望，他們的老款手機能夠以最佳狀態一直工作下去，如果他們發現不是這樣，他們就會有種被欺詐的感覺。
如果沒有重大創新，而且降低使用壽命會讓忠誠的顧客灰心，蘋果這樣
的公司還是可以借鑒時尚產業。如果你能對消費者進行洗腦，讓他們改變品味，僅僅從審美角度認為老產品不再炫酷，而不考慮其是否能夠正常工作，那麼你還有機
會從現有顧客身上獲得更多的銷售機會。不過，蘋果似乎已經搞懂這一點了。你不妨算算，光燦燦的新「土豪金」色iPhone 5S的購買等待時間有多長。
凱瑟琳·拉姆佩爾(Catherine Rampell)是《紐約時報》經濟記者。亞當·戴維森(Adam Davidson)撰寫了本周關於奧巴馬醫改的特寫。翻譯：鄧力
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