First—why, actually, should there be “a few examples of declining progress”?… It doesn’t seem to me to be what we’d expect, on the basis of the naive view of free-market capitalism and so on.
Well, the answer’s obvious, no? The naive view is wrong.
Economists have studied ways how markets don’t reflect consumer preferences for decades. There are reasonable people on both sides: some people say that these failures are exaggerated, and some say that they haven’t been emphasized enough. But I haven’t seen many respectable economists argue that the market always and uniformly reflects the needs of fully informed consumers.
Here’s one example of Tyler Cowen, a pro-market economist, talking about planned obsolescence. Or you can read his book in which he claims that progress in consumer goods has been unimpressive recently.
As you fully admitted, you are not providing the full evidence for your claim about computer hardware, and so I cannot meaningfully evaluate it.
However, I should note that such debate often draw people into intense, but rather fruitless disputes over definitions. What does progress mean? How can we judge the quality of a consumer good from an objective point of view?
I don’t mean to downplay the strength of the examples you pointed to. I think they’re actually rather fascinating. But, if we were to continue the debate further, I would wish to caution you about the following.
I have now been in many similar debates about “progress” with people before, and it seems that one or both sides will often merely assert an “obvious” benchmark for progress. Yet this obvious benchmark usually seems oddly ad-hoc and, uncharitably, appears to be chosen deliberately to make the speaker’s thesis look correct. Alternative benchmarks, which to others seem profoundly important, get handwaved away as “not ultimately meaningful” by the other side, and vice versa.
I think ultimately a lot of this comes down to simple differences in preferences. People often just disagree about what’s considered “good” and that’s OK; not unexpected at all. A diversity of opinion about whether something is “better” than another thing is pretty much exactly what I’d expect, given the diversity of human thoughts, feelings, and values.
Well, the answer’s obvious, no? The naive view is wrong.
Economists have studied ways how markets don’t reflect consumer preferences for decades. There are reasonable people on both sides: some people say that these failures are exaggerated, and some say that they haven’t been emphasized enough. But I haven’t seen many respectable economists argue that the market always and uniformly reflects the needs of fully informed consumers.
Here’s one example of Tyler Cowen, a pro-market economist, talking about planned obsolescence. Or you can read his book in which he claims that progress in consumer goods has been unimpressive recently.
As you fully admitted, you are not providing the full evidence for your claim about computer hardware, and so I cannot meaningfully evaluate it.
However, I should note that such debate often draw people into intense, but rather fruitless disputes over definitions. What does progress mean? How can we judge the quality of a consumer good from an objective point of view?
I don’t mean to downplay the strength of the examples you pointed to. I think they’re actually rather fascinating. But, if we were to continue the debate further, I would wish to caution you about the following.
I have now been in many similar debates about “progress” with people before, and it seems that one or both sides will often merely assert an “obvious” benchmark for progress. Yet this obvious benchmark usually seems oddly ad-hoc and, uncharitably, appears to be chosen deliberately to make the speaker’s thesis look correct. Alternative benchmarks, which to others seem profoundly important, get handwaved away as “not ultimately meaningful” by the other side, and vice versa.
I think ultimately a lot of this comes down to simple differences in preferences. People often just disagree about what’s considered “good” and that’s OK; not unexpected at all. A diversity of opinion about whether something is “better” than another thing is pretty much exactly what I’d expect, given the diversity of human thoughts, feelings, and values.