Market Segmentation

Market segmentation is now a major theme promoted by big companies in a number of industries. Is it a good thing, as they say?

About the same time really good solutions to the random read bottleneck became technically viable, major PC sellers instead responded by introducing market segmentation, a strategy that draws market focus away from the real issues, making it seem as though the problems (such as the random-read bottleneck) and their solutions are instead specialized and therefore in need of market segments to address them case-by-case. A sort of compartmentalized approach in sales that fools the market into thinking they were getting a better fit for their needs, when the problems and their solutions really have nothing to do with specializations.

Someone good at visualizing math will see that this instead increases opportunities to charge more. And more often. There will be more parts monopolies, toll features, hype features, more aftermarket manipulation, and more planned obsolescence.

Instead of telling the consumer that their new PC will also get slower over time, they instead draw them into a market segment (compartment) to tell them why this specialized PC will be a better fit for their needs. And they proceed to sell them a PC that further enhances planned obsolescence, rather than fixes it.

The more you delve into this the more angles you'll find to this scheme. This page only covers the tip of the iceberg.

Planned obsolescence is entrenched into numerous attributes of products and services throughout society. Just as you think you have everything you need working the way you want, something breaks and requires more money, again, and again.

In studying how major products work it is easy to spot the technical issues that build planned obsolescence into them. Miles of articles could be written about these core issues. Why don't they fix them? It has to do with short-sighted bottom-line-centric thinking. If they thought long-term they would realize that what society really wants is something that lasts. Like a Toyota. Their engineering incorporates far less planned obsolescence. It didn't help them early in the game, but it is behind the reputation that keeps them on top in the long game.

Our Unified-PC is built around the long game principle.