DorganMatrix2Post

=Product Over-Saturation= //We are biologically wired to want what we can't have. Products that are harder to obtain automatically become more valuable, as defined by the laws of supply and demand. When everyone on the planet has easy access to a certain good, that good ceases to have any meaning or value and becomes a disposable product of a consumer culture.//

Misguided Motives
Back when products were produced by hand, and having a pen was a unique privilege of the scribe, many common products that we all have in our households use to be luxuries that only certain important people owned. The material wealth were not shared by all like it is today. From that point of view, it's understandable why there was such a focus on maximizing productivity and creating a culture where everyone has access to these goods. I'm sure that they expected the future to be a land of prosperity, where everyone lived like kings.

Unfortunately, it seems they had a case of expectation bias, a logical fallacy that everyone goes through. Expectation bias is defined as overestimating and exaggerating how much good or bad events will affect us. For example "If only I get a car then I will be happy" only lasts for so long before we feel ourselves wanting more. In the end, the flood of massive numbers of products allows everyone to have access to these possessions, which has many advantages, but what's the cost? As science historian James Burke says:

"This place, America, is a democracy of common possession, and the rest of the rest of the industrial world is rapidly going that way too. But there's a price: the way our lives have to become an extension of the production line. We work together, we holiday together, we sit in the same traffic jams together we wear the same clothes, we live in the same house, we drive the same car and we have the same ambition. That's the price; watching the clock. And ironically we're back to the question we were asking the beginning of this program: What happens to individuality? Oh sure! Superficially it's there; my car is a different color from your car, I watch a different television program from you, but empty your pockets and see what you get: A pen, a watch, checkbook, some money, a credit card, some money, keys, drivers license, lighter. The paraphernalia of people's private lives, and yet is there one object here that thousands of other people don't own? All made by machine, not one object uniquely, individually, me. And if I'm not here, where am I?"

A Culture of Valueless Possessions
We live in a massive consumer culture, defined my excessive materialism and a strong desire to seek out the cheapest deals for all the stuff that we own. It's unclear if it was industry or consumers who started this view, but our culture today is defined by who can produce things for the absolute cheapest price. Combine this with the convenience culture, where industries try to make products as readily viable all the time, and the result is a situation where almost anyone can buy almost any thing at almost any moment no matter where they are.

And then, suddenly, any meaningful connection we have with the product is lost. After all, how can we possibly care about something when our society makes it extraordinarily easy to get a replacement? This is especially true for complicated technology that breaks more easily. Replacement has become the norm, when before, things would be re-used as much as possible. This creates massive amounts of waste, and our attempts to recycle have only marginal impact against the tidal wave of throwaway products. Industries don't lose any sleep over this matter and will even encourage it, since they get to sell the same product to someone over and over again. This is where planned obsolescence comes into play, yet another sustainability problem. In the end, the fact that these products are easy to obtain is exactly what makes them valueless. In order for them to become more meaningful, we would need to completely change the way our culture goes about making products and find a balance between mass production and unique hand-craft.

Ultimately, any sustainability problem involving waste is a result of Product Over-Saturation. After all, the antiques that we cherish are things that we would never think to dispose of. Product Over-Saturation also leads to other sustainability problems, many of which are social problems. Usually, it's one manufacture that produces all the goods, and so any subsequent small business that tries to compete will be extremely disadvantaged. How could a local business hope to compete when Wal-Mart gets their products from cheap sweatshops in China? These gigantic business end up leeching off of all the communities that they operate at and therefore drive out other businesses, which in turn makes it extremely difficult for the consumer to find options that are not Wal-Mart and this continues in a vicious cycle. This creates an overall loss of a sense of community - another very important sustainability problem.

**The True Nature of Value and Consumer Behavior**
So now that it's established that Product Over-Saturation leads to a throwaway culture where the meaning of a product is loss amongst the ultra-conformity of mass production. As it turns out, a lot of external factors end up influencing the value of the product and the meaning it has to people - some of them have nothing to do with the product or the person! For example, imagine you had a plastic water bottle and it was empty, you would be looking for a place to throw it away since you know that if you ever needed water in a container again, it would be extremely easy to obtain another one. But now imagine that you are on a desert island away from society and you happen to see a plastic water bottle on the beach. In a survival situation, containers are EXTREMELY important and having a container for carrying fresh water can be the difference between life or death. In that situation, the plastic water bottle would be treated like a sacred artifact instead of the disposable product it usually is. This really goes to show that the context plays a very strong part in the value of a product.

Furthermore, studies on Consumer Social Responsibility has shown that even when people are informed about the origin of a product, they won't make much of an effort to change their buying habits. Many will say that it's the government's job, others will rationalize it and say that it's only natural to go for the least expensive option. This means that the common defense that unsatisfied consumers can "vote with their dollars" is completely incorrect, and the factors that dictate consumer behavior have much less to do with the consumer and much more to do with the context they find themselves in as well as the culture that surrounds the products. This means that the options presented on the market must be very carefully crafted so that consumers are encouraged to make good decisions.

Changing the behavior of people
It's going to be a little bit difficult to go to McDonalds and tell them that consumers who buy their product really shouldn't and their product shouldn't even be an option on the market, so the other alternative is to fight fire with fire. Attack businesses that create floods of product by creating another business with sustainable and meaningful products. How to compete against these behemoths is going to be a nearly impossible challenge but creative innovations have tackled plenty of impossible challenges in the past. It would also help if government would get rid of some subsidies such as the ones that keep the insane corn industry profitable, but how would a candidate possibly justify this and expect to get votes? Even if they do, they wouldn't have much financial backing from companies, which leaves us in a fine predicament. One thing is for sure, this massive flood of consumer goods can only continue so long as resources are available. This situation will not last forever.