J is for junk.

This will probably raise ire.

I think that a lot of things today are wasteful.  When I was small, I recall Dad saying, take care of your (tools), and they'll take care of you.  Mom said that if you took care of something, you would have it later...

So, when I was... first or second grade?  Somewhere around there, my parents bought me a record player.  They showed me how to use it.  And I took care of it... Ok, once I put a kitten on it, to see what it would do, but other than a really dizzy kitten, no harm done. (Note: it doesn't really take that many spins to dizzy up a kitten.) But, I made an effort to not mess up my 'player.  And I still have it.  It might need some lube and care, having been stored in the attic, but when it was retired, it still worked.

In high school, they surprised me with a stereo system.  Played records, cassettes, 8 tracks, and had AM/FM.  I still have it, and it still works, and this one has remained kitten free...  But how many cassettes and 8 tracks are coming out now?

I picked up a CD player with my computer, I don't recall having that as a separate unit, and later an MP3 player.  I have gone through about 3 or 4 computers, and I didn't rough house them.  I didn't abuse them.  They just ran out of memory, or, in one case, a part burnt out, that after about 4 years of owning the computer, would have cost more than the computer to replace!  And now, with tablets, and 'stuff' online, CD's seem to be going out of fashion, too.

Now, the MP3 player.  I had one for about 6 years? Maybe a little more.  Um, well, it was not treated as well as I could have, played the heck out of it, while I was gardening, or exercising, so it was bounced and bopped a bit.  So I suppose that I can say I didn't care for it as well as I could have.

Still, it seems odd that something like that is built to last about 2 years.  At least that was the shocked statement from the clerk where I bought it.  I had thought about replacing parts.  She had to go into records to find what it was, they'd stopped selling it about 4 years ago, and the parts, again, were more than the player was worth.  So, I sighed, and now have a new one.

I guess I am sort of confused.  If we were so wasteful, and didn't save the resources, etc., that we needed to improve and make things work better on less...

Why do we have to throw things away after such a short time?