On the Up and Up(grade)
I’ve been using personal finance software for years to track my expenditures and have some sense of where my money is coming from, as well as going. I tend not to use too many features beyond the electronic check register and the occasional simple report or graph, but one thing I have become quite accustomed to is the ability to download transaction information from my credit card company. It saves some typing, allows me to keep things synchronized, and is in many other ways simply nifty. So I was slightly perturbed when I learned that Intuit would stop supporting that capability in the version of the software I own, which I bought a little over four years ago. I would need to jump ahead at least to the 2002 version, and I’m sure deep down Intuit wanted me to go get the brand spankin’ new 2004 edition.
The most significant problem with that strategy is that Amazon reviews and Usenet comments achieved the almost unanimous conclusion that Quicken 2004 was best suited for use as a coaster rather than an actual piece of software. (The problems seemed to be largely felt by people upgrading from prior versions with years’ worth of accumulated data – in other words, folks like me – and so they didn’t show up as much in the professional reviews I read in the computer press.) Further research suggested that the 2002 version was probably the most stable, so I snagged a copy of that from eBay and bought myself at least another couple of years.
Truth be told, even if 2004 had been a good year for Quicken, I still would have tried to go the secondhand route. The idea that a part of the functionality I originally purchased could be turned off in order to get me to re-purchase something just rubs me a bit wrong. Yet I can’t deny that it seems to make perfect sense in an upgrade-happy culture whose economy depends on folks always going out and Getting More Stuff, a world where it’s cheaper to throw out an appliance than it is to get it fixed. To get a sense of the cultural impact this has had: the producers of Sesame Street recently turned the Fix-It Shop into a Kinko’s/post office hybrid called the Mail-It Shop, because kids today just can’t relate to the notion of getting their toaster repaired.
I’ve even had a chance to see the process from behind the scenes. I actually spent a couple of months working at Intuit’s PR firm in 1997, when they were just getting the whole annual-upgrade program underway. I remember one of the priorities of the PR campaign for the rollout of the new version was to convince users of older versions that now was a good time to upgrade. And at the time I think they had a fairly compelling case; things like investment tracking and Web connectivity were becoming important features at the time, and older versions didn’t have them. But in the years since I don’t think there’s been the quantum leap forward that makes one year’s version clearly preferable to the previous. But that pressure to upgrade, to be up to date, continues.
Software’s not the only place you find Upgrade Fever. It seems like just about every company I do business with crams my billing statements with special packages, added features, etc. If I like cable, I’ll love digital cable. And if I love digital cable, imagine how I’ll feel about high definition digital cable! Perhaps a premium channel or three would be to my liking. And would I like to tack some high speed internet access on there? And if I don’t want it from the cable company, I can get it from the phone company, to go along with the caller ID and the three way calling and the voice mail and the discounted long distance and my God why are they calling me again please just make it stop I only want a dial tone for crying out loud . . .
Sorry. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes, like I said, especially to a consumer electronics junkie like myself. Over the last few months, I’ve been following the story of the “next generation� of video players, the successor to DVD. Many of you are probably wondering why we need a successor to DVD; it seems to be working pretty well, and there’s still a ton of material yet to be released in the format. The technological answer is that, as good as DVD is, it’s not quite up to the resolution and performance standards of HDTV and the highest-quality TV screens now being made. The more pressing financial answer is that the more people buy DVD players, the more the players become a cheap commodity like toasters. Studios and manufacturers want to get the high-end videophiles to upgrade their equipment again on high-margin top of the line stuff. And studios want to replicate the cash cow of DVD by getting people to buy their favorite older titles on high-definition video. Planned obsolescence. Gotta love it.
Of course, as the experts at The Digital Bits warn us over and over, the video folks might want to take a warning from the music industry. For years record labels made tons of cash from customers buying compact discs to replace their vinyl and cassettes. (Even though I know audiophiles who will explain at length and with firm conviction that CDs aren’t anywhere near as good as vinyl anyway.) That gravy train started drying up, and so the labels looked for the next upgrade. Right now there are two competing formats for top-of-the-line digital audio, DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD. I own two DVD-A titles. One is Glen Phillips’ Abulum, which came with over an hour of live performances and a hefty interview/commentary section as extras. Since I hadn’t bought a copy of the album for myself, it was relatively easy to talk myself into getting that. The other is a copy of R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, which is, if not my favorite album of all time, pretty damn close. Its only enhancements are a short documentary and new sound mixes. Now I will admit that I hear a difference between the CD and DVD. But that is because I have listened to Automatic for the People hundreds of times. An R.E.M. junkie might find reason to buy these new versions, but the everyday music listener probably isn’t. Throw in the Betamax/VHS-esque format war, and it’s no wonder no one’s really paying attention to either format. It’s an upgrade in search of a rationale.
I guess I can take comfort in the fact that while marketers can lead us to water, they don’t always make us drink. But if Warner Brothers ever tries to turn off my CD player’s ability to play “Nightswimming,� I’m storming the gates.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.