Things and stuff

Seeing Core77’s coverage of the current Home and Housewares show is making me kinda depressed.

Now I like nice stuff. Hell, it’s my job to make nice stuff. But stuff comes at quite a cost to the world, as we all know by now. So it seems to me, that to justify the making of a new thing you have to have make a pretty compelling case that that thing is going to make the world a better place, someone’s life a little easier, or at least nicer.

When a new design replaces something else with a truly better version, or provides a new version more suited to a specific kind of person that case is easily made. In stead of buying the old thing, people can now buy your new thing. Worst case scenario: no (extra) harm done.

But when a product is something wholly new it has to be pretty damn awesome to justify the resources needed to make it, no?

And then you see the seemingly endless parade of gizmo’s and thingamajigs coming out of the Home and Housewares show, each being presented as the second coming…

Not so nice.