Buying a New Device Just Because You Want It, Not Because You Need It
Do we always need a use case?
If you’re deep into the Apple ecosystem like I am — or enjoy keeping up with new tech — a new product launch is a time of joy.
You can’t just read one or two reviews. You need to dive deep.
It’s a fun escape, but soon the reviews all begin to sound the same.
For some reason, every tech journalist feels a need to rehash the same basic specs, as though we’re hearing them for the first time. Most reviews don’t go much further.
What we really want to hear more about is the promise of the device — or the lack thereof.
Will it live up to the romance you’re already harbouring for it?
The functional slant of all tech reviews
Tech reviews often come up short on this score because almost all of them are narrowly focused on the idea of a use case.
They make an implied assumption: to decide whether you should buy a device depends on its fitness for a given use.
If it does fit your use case, you’ll want to buy it. If it doesn’t, not only should you not buy it, you shouldn’t even want it.
In most tech reviews, then, desire can only flow from practicality.
But what if it really works the other way around?
The romance theory of tech purchasing
We know that sometimes we want a device because it captures our fancy — and that when it does, we try to rationalize it by seeking out a use case.
But it is a bad thing to buy an expensive new piece of tech primarily for aesthetic reasons?
Is having a serious and pressing use case the only good reason to buy a new device?
Why do we feel the need to justify a purchase in these terms? What is the obscene truth we’re seeking to repress when we rationalize around use cases?
The uncomfortable truth is that without a real use case, we’d be spending a lot of money for mere aesthetics, for something more or less ornamental, superfluous, and unnecessary.
The anxiety around upgrading
We see this anguished psychological shell-game — ‘do I really need it or would it just be nice to have it?’ — in so many reviews of new Apple gear.
Should I upgrade to the 12 when I have the 11? Should I get the new Pro instead of sticking it out for a bit longer with my Air?
In all of these cases, we’re in essentially the same boat: what we have at the moment is perfectly adequate. We have no truly pressing, practical need for the new device.
But the mere sight of it — the idea of owning it — calls out to us.
In some twisted corner of the Apple universe our psyche dwells in, the fact that we don’t have the new device in our possession makes our lives seem hopelessly incomplete.
For days, we walk around with the nagging thought that everything about the world would be so much better — we’d finally be existentially whole — if we could just get our hands on this glorious new thing.
Whether we would notice any difference the fancier new camera would make, more ram, the slightly larger screen, is not the point.
What we’re buying is the idea that we have such power at our disposal.
Whether I need the 14” Macbook Pro when last year’s 13” M1 Pro would perform identically for the vast majority of my tasks doesn’t matter.
It’s new, it’s obscenely beautiful, and I want it.
Taking a romance to the extreme
How far can we go with this? Does function play no real role in purchase decisions? Are we at the point now with both Macs and the iPad Pro where functional considerations are nothing more than exercises in self-directed smoke blowing?
Put differently, do we not derive real pleasure in having a better keyboard, more and faster ram, a bigger screen?
On closer inspection, does the very distinction between form and function break down?
Could you imagine buying a device that made no functional difference at all and offered nothing more than a fancier new design?
The marriage of form and function
Possibly, but it almost never happens. Whenever we get new designs, we tend to get spec bumps as well.
Yet that doesn’t get at the nub of the issue. If we were presented with a device that offered identical specs in a new, more compelling form factor, would we want it? Would we fork out money to buy it?
I think we would, but we’d be inclined to justify it in functional or practical terms.
We’d say ‘the new form factor makes carrying it, holding it, pulling it out, etc, easier, faster, better.’ And this alone is a function worth upgrading for. I’d be so much more productive if…
Bottom line
It’s hard if not impossible to separate form and function in tech.
But when we do — when we find a device compelling mainly on aesthetic grounds — there’s nothing wrong with wanting to own it primarily for that reason.
The fact is that we’re almost always getting some functional benefit to buying a new device to replace the older one that sufficed until then.
But to be clear, aesthetics alone can be a good reason to make a purchase. If it pleases you to own something faster and more capable — even if you don’t need it — fine. Buying Apple gear, after all, has more in common with buying jewelry or nice furniture than buying a Thinkpad.
There’s a value in the pleasure to be derived from knowing you have an M1 chip in your iPad, or having a new form factor you just like looking at, touching, holding.
Function matters. It can make you more productive. But what brings you pleasure and joy also matters. Sometimes more than anything.