Embracing Disposability

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Americans who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s – which lasted into the 1940s – learned through hard necessity about the value of frugality. About not wasting money on things they didn’t need. Especially things that caused them to waste more money.

What is styled “keyless” ignition (and door unlocking) is a modern-times example of this. One of many, unfortunately.

Until circa the late 1990s, you unlocked the door of a car by inserting a key into a slot and turning the lock open by hand. Similarly, you would start the car’s engine by doing essentially the same. Insert key into lock, turn – and hold, completing a simple electrical circuit that caused the starter to rotate the engine. When the engine fired up, you released the key – which remained in the lock – and drove until you reached wherever you were going. Then you turned the key to shut off the engine and removed the key from the switch, which locked the steering column to deter theft.

Simple. Easy.

Then along came gimmicky. The physical key was replaced by an electronic fob – and electronic push-buttons. The door unlocked automatically, just by touching the handle (the electronic lock recognizing the signal emitted by the fob). The engine was started by pushing a button – which registered the signal emitted by the fob and sent a signal to the computer to turn the starter, which turned off automatically once the engine started.

What has been gained? And what has been lost?

One no longer needs to reach into his pants pocket (or her purse) to find the key to unlock the door to the car. One no longer needs to exert the effort of putting a key into the ignition lock and turning it.

Are you not entertained? 

As result of this entertainment,  it is no longer possible – if you own a new or late model car with “keyless” ignition/locks – to replace what’s no longer a key for about $10. A key that could be run through the wash and just be clean when it came out that  would likely last the life of the vehicle – because it is not electronic. It emits nothing. It contains no transistors or resistors or anything at all. It is a roughly serrated piece of metal, that’s all.

The lock that used to be in the door is a simple and discrete (i.e., not connected to anything else) mechanical mechanism that is much simpler than the sensor-based system of unlocking a door automatically, that adds electronics and computer controls into the mix. Multiple additional potential failure points, all of them expensive and not easily remedied by the average person equipped with basic hand tools, some common sense and patience. The same with the push-button that electronically controls the ignition. It was easy to enough to replace a not-working ignition lock cylinder because it was just a simple mechanical device with a few basic complete-the-circuit electronic connections. There was no computer involved. Everything was directly and so comprehensibly connected.

What has been gained by replacing the latter in favor of the former?

Well, the manufacturers gained “plug-and-play” assembly during manufacturer, which reduces their manufacturing costs and increases their profits. They sell you a gimmick that costs you money – on the front and back end. Anyone who has had to replace an electronic key fob – perhaps one that was inadvertently run through the wash already knows all about it.

Americans who lived through the Depression – a time of scarcity – were wary of such gimmicks and what they cost. Few would have considered it worth the cost – of the “convenience” – to have a fob (and a button) rather than the key.

Unfortunately, their children and especially their children’s children grew up in a time of seemingly perpetual and easy prosperity. Such times encourage a cavalier attitude toward what things cost and the price paid for them. A glib fascination with gimmicks over substance, which they buy because they think they can afford to.

Is it coincidental that the latter mindset coincides with a degree of general indebtedness never before seen in this country? It is said that eight-out-of-ten people could not pay – in cash – for a suddenly necessary expense, such as needing to replace a refrigerator that unexpectedly broke down. A refrigerator that, by the way, is more likely to break down – and not be worth fixing – for the same reason, essentially, that electronic key fobs are more likely to suddenly stop working and not be worth fixing, either.

One that eight-of-ten people can’t afford to replace, either – because they were glib about wasting their money on gimmicks such as “keyless” ignition.

And that’s just one of many such – but it makes the point, which I hope gets through. Especially to young people who have no idea there was such as thing as the Depression, much less what it was like to live through it.

My guess is they’re going to find out first-hand.

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