It seems that many of our common products are not necessarily better than their predecessors. Are we still progressing?
One of God’s commandments to Adam was to “conquer the world”. The upshot of this order is that humans have a drive to always improve things. Look at Apple. The iPhone 1 was a revolution—it was the first smartphone that had a normal internet screen in color. I had a Treo when that phone came out, and I only had gray text with no pictures, and the weak battery meant that it was a good phone for a person who did not have many friends. Apple could have said that the first and only iPhone would be the end of the line. Instead, we are shortly approaching the iPhone 16 launch. The current top model, the 15, is lightyears ahead of the iPhone 1, which was much smaller, thicker, had no camera, and was far less capable.
While most observers would agree that Apple has progressed with its iPhone and other products, one might be tempted to question how we measure progress. If you were alive in the summer of 1969, you could have flown a Concorde flight from London to New York in half of the time currently required. If you were a top astronaut, you would be on your way to the moon and back, a feat that we can no longer accomplish. And finally, if you were an Air Force officer, you might be flying over Mach 3 in your black SR-71 while taking highly detailed pictures of North Korea or China. There is no plane in the Air Force inventory that can approach Mach 3, though if you treat your F-22 nicely, you might be able to fly at Mach 2.2 briefly. The SR-71 flew on its two J58 engines in afterburner at Mach 3-plus for an hour or more at a time.
It is hard to fathom the incredible technological jumps required to achieve these feats in flight back in the 1960s. There is a story about the Concorde when it was flying not far from Cuba. A U-2 spy plane flying at 60,000 feet was ordered to move its position, no explanation offered. The pilot, in a space suit, soon looked out of his window and saw passengers sipping champagne on the cruising Concorde, the first plane to have fly-by-wire flight control. Kelly Johnson, the chief designer of the SR-71 and U-2 once said that every plane needs a miracle, while the SR-71 was all miracles. It dropped half of its JP7 fuel on the runway before takeoff because there was no way to seal its fuel tanks. Any organic sealant would simply melt at the 1000 degrees Fahrenheit temperature reached on the titanium surfaces of the plane. Oh, in 1969, the 747 also took to the skies, forever making air travel available to the masses.
While we do not have the capabilities we had 50 years ago, we have made progress—of a different sort. We currently cannot go to the moon, but Elon Musk can routinely send payloads into space and return his rockets standing up, something that was once only the fantasy of Herge, the author of TinTin. No, we don’t fly as fast as the Concorde, but our planes have much larger engines and are extremely reliable and fuel efficient. The longest non-stop routes are 19 hours or so. And as to the SR-71, there is nothing close for speed. But our current drones do not risk human pilots and can loiter for hours. Some are armed and others are even of a suicidal nature when they lock on to their targets. So, yes, we have made progress. But progress has not been defined as going faster or going to space. Rather, it is more readily defined by reliability, efficiency, and availability. Around the time when Airbus bet on its massive jumbo A380, Boeing went for the lighter carbon fiber/polymer 787, with huge fuel efficiencies associated with a much lighter plane. The A380 is no longer being produced, while not only Boeing is making a “plastic” plane, but Airbus joined them with the A350 line.
I was reminded of progress as I saw all of our fixtures and appliances going kaput after a few short years. When I grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, our appliances lasted forever. I do not remember changing the stove or refrigerator ever. The washer and dryer were swapped out after 20 years of service. Not today. Our washing machine sounds like it is going to launch a nuclear missile when it does its spin cycle. So we asked around. The advice—from those who fix the things—was to buy a unit for five years of use and when it starts to get kvetchy, throw it out and get a new one. When a beautiful three-foot in diameter LED light in our kitchen started to go dark, we were asked how long it had lasted. I told the saleswoman four years. “That long?! You should really be grateful. They usually die much sooner.” There are no replacement parts available anywhere, including on the internet. The guy who sold us our car said that he buys a new car and holds it for 3 years and then sells it before the problems start and while the manufacturer’s warranty is still valid. A month after I bought it, I changed all four brakes. Later, the turbo went, for a $1500 repair. Every person who has owned a car, water heater, refrigerator or the like has been faced with the question: “Should I spend X to fix it or just spend Y to get a new one?” As our appliances, lights, cars, and such are made to last for shorter and shorter periods of time, the answer is more in the direction of buying a new one. If I fix my washing machine, one that we really like, the electronic card could go the next day. Smart money says to take it out and shoot it and just get a new one in its place.
Progress is how we define it. Apple, Microsoft, and other big tech companies eventually stop supporting their early models of hardware and software. So if you are enamored with your iPhone 6S, you will find that there are no further operating system updates and that your apps stop working because they are no longer compatible with the dinosaur in your pocket. While battery life has been steadily improving in smart phones, after a couple of years, a typical phone no longer can make it to the end of the day without a charge along the way. So do I always want to have a charger or battery with me or will I go with the new, thinner, faster, sleeker phone? The answer for those who can afford it is usually the latter.
In the past, companies took great pride in making products that lasted a long time. “The quality goes in before the name goes on” was a Zenith ad I still recall today. Our products in this age are meant to be awesome for a short period of time and then replaced. That is how tech companies today define progress and apparently we agree with them.
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