Sadly, there are two ways tech companies make money. They either blast you with commercials (ads) or get paid for upgrades. In the latter case, they must find ways to either entice you to upgrade or force you. Many of us are OK with the features we currently have so that means the tech company must force us to upgrade. They do that by making our current situation not function properly anymore.

For most of us, we prefer to not upgrade. Upgrading takes time and we must learn something new. They usually change things to “improve” them but, from our perspective, it’s simply different and doesn’t do anything better than before.

So, we procrastinate, or we feel cheated. Both are reasonable reactions. We procrastinate because we don’t want to take the time now. It takes time to research and decide what’s the best option today; time to acquire the new tech; time to convert to the new tech; and time to learn how the new tech does the things we used the old tech for.

Or we feel cheated that we invested time and money into a solution only to find that a few years go by, and that investment is no longer a viable solution.

A good example from my lifetime is the ability to watch movies at home. Way back in the 70’s they invented video tape and that allowed all of us to watch movies at home. We were no longer tied to the whims of the theater managers and could purchase or rent movies to watch at home on our own time. However, a decade later they invented DVDs. These were much more convenient and higher quality but to take advantage, we had to upgrade our tape players to DVD players and our TVs (since now the higher resolution requires a newer TV).

Then Netflix came along, and the purchase of DVDs was no longer necessary as you could get DVDs in the mail within a day or two of ordering it from their website! Then DVDs turned into Blu-ray which did require another upgrade of both the player and the TV. This also led to the ability to stream movies/shows. After all, it was the same as ordering the DVD/Blu-ray only now you could get it instantaneously.

At first, streaming required faster internet but, later, they came out with 4K which did require a new TV.

As a result, I purchased the same movie multiple times. First on VHS tape, then on DVD, then on Blu-ray and finally online to get the 4K version!

Folks, that’s the world we live in. Get used to it. It is not like the 20th century when you could buy and use a product for the rest of your life or until it wore out. Today, instead of “owning” things think of them as just “renting”. At some point, you will need to replace it to keep up. That’s what the market wants and that’s how they continue to survive. If you postpone staying up to date, you will have to spend a lot more time/money to get upgraded at some point. So, like exercise, do a little bit at a time.