Could Moore's Law be a Form of Planned Obsolescence?

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It's been some time since we heard about Moore's Law in the media,
but this item appeared in the BBC tech section today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2748281.stm

Moore's law, is the prediction in 1965 by one of the founders of Intel, Gordon Moore, that the number
of transitors/area in integrated circuits would double approx. every
18 months. As we've heard again and again, the actual history
of integrated circuits bore this out with amazing accuracy over the
subsequent 35 years.

Now what I'm wondering is that I've never seen anyone discuss whether
this mightened have had something to do with planned obsolescence.
So, Intel and other tech. companies may have been able to make much
more powerful circuits much earlier, but they agreed that there was
much more to be gained in capitalist terms from ramping up the technology gradually. In environmental terms this is of course a disaster, for example, various parts of the world are litered with
obsolote digital hardware, not to mention the vast inefficiency
and waste of changing the whole IC manufacturing process every couple of years.

Isn't it suspicious that the person who proposed the "Law" was actually the owner of the company driving the development of the technology? Could it be that this is more of an Edict than a scientific law?

― logjaman, Thursday, 27 February 2003 04:17 (twenty-two years ago)

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP TO THREAD!

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Thursday, 27 February 2003 04:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I once interviewed with McKinsey just for the experience (not sure I would have taken the job if I had been successful, which I was not).

One of the questions they asked: "If you found out that an indestructible, everlasting lightbulb had been invented, what
would you advise a light bulb manufacturing company to do?"

I'm not sure what kind of answer they were looking for but probably
something along the lines of phasing in longer and longer lasting
lightbulbs just quickly enough that you can stay ahead of the
competition and estabilsh a rich empire which can then dominate
other forms of affiliated technology.

'I hope they stop vacuuming when it doesn't matter anymore'
is not the answer they want to hear.

― logjaman, Thursday, 27 February 2003 04:44 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.geocities.com/picturesref/moreslaw.jpg

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

ok a google search for "moore's law" and "planned obsolescence"
shows that many people have discussed this or written about
the topic.

But no one seems to have suggested that Moore's Law would be
more accurately called "Moore's Edict"

― logjaman, Thursday, 27 February 2003 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

saying "Moore's Law" is accurate allright.
Laws are dropped when they become obsolete.
eventually nanotech will bring a paradigm shift in calculation capacities and a new "law" will be instituted instead of this one, hoo hah!

the big picture is about calculation capacities and as seen in the picture I posted, it started way before Moore was in the game and will continue after him too. Processing power have been doubling like, since the past 100 years. Before we were processing info with abacus, now what is key is the number of transitors/area in integrated circuits and great tech is yet to come. *existential tech*!
HOOO HAH!

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 06:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that when Moore proposed the "law" there were about 3 or 4
points on his graph. What I'm suggesting is that the log-linearity
(ok exponential shrinkage) of IT fab limitations is presented
almost as if it is a natural law, when in fact there is a lot of
sociology behind what determines the next iteration of circuit
manufacturing technology. co-operation within and between corporations have to agree on certain targets, and rates of development so that the whole thing keeps running along in step.
and the easiest way to do this would have been to pick a reasonable
but progressive rate of development. so this is more like a plan
than a consequence of the natural rate of progress. what i'm saying
is that economic and marketing factors were figured into this.
environmental and human factors almost certainly were not: as
with other industries only the bottom line counts.
hence my guess is that "Moore's Edict" may well be the more accurate historical description of the early development of IC's.

― logjaman, Thursday, 27 February 2003 07:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been to Menlo Park and seen Edison's carefully preserved workshop. A couple of the incandescent lightbulbs he designed are STILL BURNING. ??

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 27 February 2003 07:33 (twenty-two years ago)

So the 12 ft lizards started their plan to control the rate of progress back in the day of prehistory but the meek humans got a techno ball rollin' on their own and eventually the lizards were bz skeeming then boom boom a paradigm shift in how the game is played happen and catch them off guard : humans foiled their shenanigan using their unstoppable evolutionary weapon called the capitalist competitive market. the lizards regrouped soon enough but only to see the pattern reoccur again and again. (to be continued? ...)

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 07:48 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah this is interesting tracer but did you asked them about their electricity bill? was it a strong light source?
in any case there I'm sure the design could have been perfected to save a lot of money to everyone but that could have caused marketting problems, just like the the motors fuled by water sitting on the dusty shelves of Ford and those unusable boots that I've heard of. maybe communist parties could put those things in their electoral contract.

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 08:00 (twenty-two years ago)

sergei bubka to thread!

― gareth (gareth), Thursday, 27 February 2003 08:04 (twenty-two years ago)

...mmm

indestructible boots sounds closer to what I had in mind of course.

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 08:13 (twenty-two years ago)

no blood for oil: fuel by water.
ok it's 3:25am and I must go to sleep.
I'll have to check this life changing thread tomorrow morning before I go to work.

― the hegemon, Thursday, 27 February 2003 08:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Moore's law doesn't really work as planned obsolescence for the simple reason that a lot of people have reach a power needs plateau in terms of computing. My 2.5 year old laptop (design about 3 years old) still does me proud. I don't really need any more power than what I already have for what I do and what I want to do. The only things driving me to a new laptop are a bigger screen a better designed case and a glowing keyboard.

In terms of personal computing, those of use who don't run games probably have enough power to do what we want to do into the future. Of course this relies on whoever provides our OSs not ramping up the power demands. Happily Mac OS X appears to get faster and more stable with every revision. I restart my computer at most every week or so.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Gates' Law says that every time PC performance doubles, actual system responsiveness goes down slightly.

― Dave Fischer, Friday, 28 February 2003 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

twenty years pass...

Big Tech Lobbyist ‘Stunned’ People Think Planned Obsolescence ‘Conspiracy’ Is Real
https://www.404media.co/big-tech-lobbyist-stunned-people-think-planned-obsolescence-conspiracy-is-real/

"At an electronics repair industry conference last week, an exec for one of the nation’s largest tech lobbying groups said that he and the industry are “stunned” by the fact that many consumers believe planned obsolescence is real. He added that consumer complaints about device longevity and repairability “are not from any sort of plan, a conspiracy, but frankly because these companies compete with each other today on providing the best value for their customers and for the public demand that’s out there.”

― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 28 September 2023 01:28 (two years ago)

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