From Throwaway Objects to
Premium Platforms: A Biography of Mobile Phones and
their Marketisation in the UK
(2000-2018)
A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities
2021
Harald Wieser
Alliance Manchester Business School
Sustainable Consumption Institute / Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
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2 Table of Contents
LIST OF TABLES ...... 6 LIST OF FIGURES ...... 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ...... 8 ABSTRACT ...... 9 DECLARATION ...... 10 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ...... 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 12
1 INTRODUCTION ...... 14
1.1 FROM PRODUCT ‘LIFETIMES’ TO ‘ENDURANCE’ ...... 19 1.2 OUTLINE OF ARGUMENT ...... 25
PART I – THEORY AND METHOD ...... 30 2 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DYNAMICS OF PRODUCT ENDURANCE ...... 31
2.1 CYCLICAL CHANGE: PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE PERSPECTIVES ...... 31 2.1.1 The product life cycle and S-curve ...... 32 2.1.2 Diffusion of innovations ...... 33 2.1.3 Technology life cycles ...... 35 2.1.4 Fashion cycles ...... 38 2.2 ACCELERATING CHANGE: THEORIES OF PURPOSEFUL OBSOLESCENCE ...... 40 2.2.1 Planned obsolescence ...... 42 2.2.2 Desire for the new ...... 46 2.3 DISCUSSION ...... 49 3 THEORETICAL APPROACH ...... 52
3.1 MARKETS AS CALCULATIVE COLLECTIVE DEVICES ...... 54 3.2 VALUATION: BEYOND CALCULATION AND JUDGMENT ...... 60 3.2.1 Organising modes of valuation I: freeze-frame and productive frictions ...... 62 3.2.2 A pragmatics of valuation ...... 63 3.3 MARKETISATION ...... 64 3.3.1 Market agencements ...... 66 3.3.2 Organising modes of valuation II: singularisation and multivalence ...... 68 3.4 CONCLUSIONS ...... 71 4 METHODOLOGY ...... 73
4.1 CASE STUDY RESEARCH AND THE BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH ...... 73 4.2 CASE SELECTION ...... 79 4.3 DATA COLLECTION ...... 81 4.3.1 Documentary evidence and scoping interviews ...... 82 4.3.2 Mass media ...... 86 4.3.3 Household interviews ...... 93 4.4 DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION ...... 99 4.4.1 Developing a database and identifying patterns of innovation ...... 100 4.4.2 Research questions ...... 103 4.4.3 Framework analysis ...... 104 4.4.4 Narrativisation ...... 106 4.5 CONCLUSIONS ...... 108
3 PART II - BIOGRAPHY ...... 110 5 WHAT WAS A ‘GOOD MOBILE PHONE’? ...... 112
5.1 TOYS ...... 112 5.2 FASHION ITEMS ...... 115 5.3 TOOLS ...... 118 5.4 ABSENCES ...... 120 5.5 ETHICAL ITEMS ...... 122 5.6 COMMODITIES ...... 124 5.7 OVERVIEW AND DISCUSSION ...... 127 6 THE PLATFORM MARKET...... 132
6.1 EXCHANGING PLATFORMS ...... 133 6.1.1 The ‘squeezing paradox’ ...... 134 6.1.2 Building up the network infrastructure for technological convergence ...... 137 6.1.3 Interchangeable covers ...... 139 6.1.4 Mobile internet ...... 140 6.1.5 Leaving a void in hardware innovation ...... 142 6.1.6 The replacement market and financial struggles ...... 143 6.2 PERSONALISING PHONES IN USE ...... 146 6.3 CONCLUSIONS ...... 149 7 THE SINGULARITIES MARKET ...... 151
7.1 TECHNOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE ...... 152 7.1.1 The colourful paths to multimedia ...... 157 7.1.2 Keeping it simple ...... 161 7.2 FASHIONISATION ...... 164 7.2.1 Fashion phones and the youth segment ...... 164 7.2.2 Mass appeal of fashionable mobile phones ...... 168 7.2.3 High fashion and the limits to fashionisation...... 171 7.3 CONCLUSIONS ...... 176 8 THE PREMIUM PLATFORM MARKET ...... 178
8.1 TOUCHSCREEN SMARTPHONES ...... 179 8.1.1 The iPhone ...... 180 8.1.2 Reception of touchscreen smartphones ...... 185 8.1.3 Replacing feature phones for smartphones ...... 188 8.1.4 Resisting and delaying the shift to smartphones ...... 191 8.1.5 Shifting emphasis to look, feel, and reliability ...... 194 8.2 DECELERATION ...... 199 8.2.1 Lengthening bundled contracts ...... 199 8.2.2 Ethical concerns ...... 205 8.2.3 Phone cases between protection and personalisation ...... 206 8.2.4 Careful use ...... 210 8.2.5 Slowing down the slowing down of software ...... 212 8.2.6 Distancing from new mobile phones ...... 213 8.3 CONCLUSIONS ...... 217 9 THE CIRCULAR PLATFORM MARKET ...... 219
9.1 UP-TO-DATEISATION ...... 220 9.1.1 Concerns about longer bundled contracts ...... 221 9.1.2 Leasing ...... 224 9.1.3 Split contracts ...... 225 9.2 SUCCESSIVE OWNERSHIP ...... 228 9.3 CONCLUSIONS ...... 233
4 PART III - DISCUSSION ...... 235 10 PERFORMING ENDURANCE ...... 238
10.1 HABILITATION DEVICES: ORGANISING DETACHMENTS FROM NEW MOBILE PHONES ...... 241 10.2 PROSTHETIC DEVICES: COMPLEMENTARY GOODS AND SERVICES ...... 246 10.3 ADDICTION DEVICES: COMPETING AGAINST OTHER CONSUMER GOODS AND SERVICES ...... 248 10.4 CONCLUSIONS ...... 250 11 VALUATION STRUGGLES ...... 253
11.1 PLATFORM VERSUS SINGULARISED GOODS ...... 254 11.2 PREMIUM VERSUS COMMODITISED PLATFORMS ...... 259 11.3 OPEN VERSUS CLOSED PLATFORMS ...... 263 11.4 CONCLUSIONS ...... 264 12 CONCLUSIONS ...... 266
12.1 PRODUCT ENDURANCE AS AN EFFECT OF MARKET AGENCEMENTS ...... 267 12.2 THE PACE OF MARKET INNOVATION AND THE POLITICS OF VALUE ...... 270 12.3 METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ...... 272 12.4 RÉSUMÉ AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ...... 274
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 278 APPENDICES ...... 311
APPENDIX A: SCOPING INTERVIEWS ...... 311 APPENDIX B: HOUSEHOLD INTERVIEWS ...... 314 Appendix B1: letter to residents ...... 314 Appendix B2: poster ...... 315 Appendix B3: leaflet (two–sided) ...... 316 Appendix B4: participant information sheet ...... 317 Appendix B5: interviewee profiles ...... 319 Appendix B6: interview guide ...... 320 APPENDIX C: TRENDS IN MOBILE PHONE ENDURANCE IN USE ...... 322
5 List of Tables
Table 1: Cyclical and accelerationist perspectives on product endurance dynamics ...... 50
Table 2: Overview of selected mass media ...... 87
Table 3: Sample sizes of articles from The Sun and The Guardian ...... 91
Table 4: Frames of valuation of mobile phones ...... 129
Table 5: Habilitation, prosthetic, and addiction devices across the four mobile phone market agencements ...... 252
Table 6: List of scoping interviews ...... 311
Table 7: Interviewee profiles ...... 319
6 List of Figures
Figure 1: Development of average endurance of mobile phones in use in the UK (2000-2017) ...... 17
Figure 2: Quote from a Stuff product review ...... 89
Figure 3: Typical overview of articles in Factiva database...... 92
Figure 4: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as platform goods ...... 133
Figure 5: Share of pre-pay and post-pay mobile subscriptions (1997-2007) ...... 145
Figure 6: Relative prevalence of mobile phones exchanged as singularities...... 151
Figure 7: Share of British population (aged 15+) owning a mobile phone with a specific feature (2003-2008) ...... 154
Figure 8: Share of British population (aged 15+) that used a specific mobile phone feature (2003-2008) ...... 155
Figure 9: Dominant mobile phone shapes; share of all models released on the Global market (2000-2010) ...... 169
Figure 10: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as premium platforms ...... 178
Figure 11: Contract lengths for post-pay mobile connections (2005-2010) ...... 201
Figure 12: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as circular platforms ...... 219
Figure 13: Market agencements and mobile phone endurance in use ...... 238
7 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
2G Second generation mobile telecommunication network 2.5G Second-and-a-half generation mobile telecommunication network (see GPRS) 3G Third generation mobile telecommunication network (see UMTS) 4G Fourth generation mobile telecommunication network (see LTE) ARPU Average revenue per user CSR Corporate social responsibility GPRS General Packet Radio Service (see 2.5G) GPS Global Positioning System LTE Long Term Evolution (see 4G) MMS Multimedia Messaging Service OS Operating system OTT Over-the-top media service PAYG Pay As You Go PDA Personal Digital Assistant PSS Product-Service System RIM Research in Motion SIM Subscriber Identity Module SMS Short Message Service STS Science and Technology Studies UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (see 3G) WAP Wireless Application Protocol
8 Abstract
The poor ability of many consumer durables to last has given rise to serious environmental concerns. How this ability can be improved at the scale of an entire market, however, remains a puzzle. In an exploratory effort to build a first evidence base, this thesis examines a little noticed transformation of a highly conspicuous good: how mobile phones, once considered ‘throwaway objects’ with an average life expectancy of 12 months, morphed into ‘premium platforms’ used for about twice as long.
The case challenges long-standing perspectives according to which the ability of consumer durables to withstand obsolescence either inevitably declines over time or follows an uncontrollable, cyclical development. To make sense of the aforementioned development, I draw on scholarship of market innovation, performativity, and valuation.
The analysis of the case offers, first, much-needed insights on the concrete market settings that can bring about deteriorating or improving levels of product endurance. Building on analogies with the issues of disability and addiction, I discuss the roles that three types of market devices played in shaping the dynamics of mobile phone endurance throughout the years: prosthetic devices, habilitation devices, and addiction devices.
Secondly, the analysis directs attention to the significance of struggles over the valuation of goods for the dynamics of product endurance. Such struggles can be located at the heart of the troublesome emergence of the premium platform market as well as its uncertain future. The findings from this case are discussed in relation to wider debates on the implications of the politics of value for the temporal dynamics of market innovation. I conclude that for studies of product endurance there is much to be gained from the analysis of historical market dynamics.
9 Declaration
No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.
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11 Acknowledgements
My first acknowledgements go to my principal supervisor, Andy McMeekin. I have no idea how you were able to keep your cool and stay calm during the past four to five years.
More importantly, I cannot think of a better role model for an aspiring researcher and have always taken away a lot from our meetings. I would also like to thank David Evans and Dale Southerton. Both acted as co-supervisors and provided invaluable advice at different stages of this project.
Furthermore, I want to thank all members of the Sustainable Consumption Institute I had the fortune to interact and exchange ideas with over the past few years. The institute funded this PhD and provided a highly supportive environment throughout. Most of all, I am grateful for the many stimulating debates with my fellow PhD students: Ulrike
Ehgartner, Steffen Hirth, Marc Hudson, Malte Rödl, and Anna Wienhues. I will also fondly remember having regular lunch and coffee breaks with Cristina Inversi, Mette
Jacobsen, and Gregor Kungl.
Outside my home university, I am especially grateful for the support I received from my former colleague Nina Tröger, both in supporting my application for the PhD scholarship and giving me the opportunity to work on a research project about product lifetimes.
Without this opportunity and the trust you put in me throughout the whole project, I would not have ended up writing a PhD thesis about this topic. I also want to express my gratitude to Melanie Jaeger-Erben and Janis Winzer for inviting me to Berlin and sharing their enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research.
Above all, I am deeply thankful for the support I received from my family and closest friends during the PhD and in the many years before. I cannot express in a few words how much I owe to my mother. The least I can do is to dedicate this thesis to her. I hope
12 that also Jasmin, Natalie, Herbert, Paul, and my grandparents know how much I appreciate their support. Lastly, I want to express my deepest thanks to Brenda. I sincerely regret having spent so much time working on this thesis and away from you.
13 1 Introduction
This thesis presents a sociological analysis of market dynamics with a focus on the changing ability of consumer durables in use to ‘endure’, that is, to remain of value to their users and withstand obsolescence. Its point of entry are debates on the malleability of markets and their roles in relation to changing levels of product endurance. Opinions regarding the possibilities of achieving higher levels of product endurance in particular – a declared aim of contemporary environmental policy making in the European Union and many of its member states (e.g. European Commission, 2020; HM Government, 2018) –, critically hinge on the roles attributed to markets and economic competition. Do markets contribute to deteriorating levels of product endurance? Can markets be transformed to produce the opposite effect? Or are markets and product endurance two different matters entirely?
The latter perspective is at least implicated in conceptions of markets as pre-existent
‘interfaces’ (see Callon, 2016) or synonyms for a collection of potential customers (see
Kjellberg, Azimont, & Reid, 2015). In both conceptions, which are still dominant in economics and studies of innovation respectively, changes in products are considered as matters separate from markets. Economic competition puts companies under pressure to speed up processes of new product development, but in the end, the argument goes, it is a matter of the dynamics of technology or fashion that define how frequently the old makes place for the new. To understand how product endurance changes over time, then, one would need to study cycles of technology or fashion, not markets. I reserve the term
‘cyclical perspective’ for this theoretical position.
A second widespread perspective, by contrast, attributes markets a central role in accelerating the pace of product obsolescence. This is because, following this
14 ‘accelerationist perspective’, economic competition forces manufacturers to constantly seek for novel ways of profit making, even if this means to produce goods of inferior quality and interfere in their consumption (see Guiltinan, 2009). The endurance of products, here, turns into a calculable variable that, like the production process itself, can actively be ‘planned’ and designed to generate higher profits. This second interpretation of the role of markets as ‘barriers’ underpins much of contemporary debates concerning the possibilities of achieving higher levels of product endurance, giving rise to both pessimism and optimism.
On the one hand, it remains unclear how, under these conditions, a stronger orientation towards sufficiency could be achieved at the scale of an entire market. As some commentators have noted, existing offers of longer-lasting products tend to be locked in niche markets and often come at a premium price (Bocken & Short, 2015; Hofmann,
2019). On the other hand, it has also led to much optimism that overcoming this barrier would pave the way for longer product lives. By shifting to alternative business models, in particular product-service systems based on rental instead of ownership, it has been reasoned that manufacturers could avoid competition between the new and the old.
Despite initial enthusiasm, however, it has been noted that such product-service systems have equally failed to be taken up more widely so far (e.g. Ceschin, 2014; Tukker, 2015).
Does this mean, then, that markets are the wrong sites of intervention for improving the endurance of products in use? This thesis aims to contribute to this debate by exploring an alternative perspective on the relation between markets and product endurance stemming from the field of (constructivist) ‘market studies’ (Araujo, Kjellberg, & Spencer, 2008) in economic sociology. The theoretical ideas developed in this field have the potential to radically shift the terms of debate by putting forward a performative perspective on markets. Instead of inanimate, stable interfaces or barriers, it invites conceiving markets as
15 dynamic, emergent phenomena. Markets, from this point of view, are neither inherently good nor bad but highly malleable devices whose effects depend on how they are shaped and managed.
A key contribution of the field has been to elucidate the intricate ways markets are reorganised to take matters formerly treated as ‘externalities’ into account. For example, previous studies examined the import or inscription of green values in markets for medical devices (Reijonen & Tryggestad, 2012), food (Kjellberg & Stigzelius, 2014), clean technologies (Doganova & Karnøe, 2015), and carbon (Callon, 2009). Collectively, such empirical research ‘on the ground’ demonstrates that markets can address various societal concerns far beyond narrow economic considerations of the efficient allocation of resources. It also shows that responding to emerging concerns and their internalisation are central operations underpinning processes of market innovation (e.g. D’Antone et al.,
2017).
Analogous to these insights, my contention is that a dynamic and anti-essentialist perspective on markets can open up new avenues for studying product endurance. Most fundamentally, it raises doubts over the supposed lock-in of more enduring products in niche segments. Indeed, a look at the empirical evidence shows that the ability of products to endure is not just unevenly distributed across markets but tends to vary considerably over time (cf. Dobeson & Kohl, 2020; Oguchi & Daigo, 2017; Wieser, 2017). In some cases, levels of product endurance have even been increasing for decades. Instead of studying predominantly niche phenomena and existing barriers to their diffusion (see
Bressanelli et al., 2020), this suggests that potentially important insights can be generated from learning how markets have been changing – or shaped – in the past. In particular, I would argue that the study of market innovation processes can contribute to a more holistic understanding of how changes in product endurance come about, an area that
16 researchers have begun to explore only recently (Konietzko, Bocken, & Hultink, 2020).
In developing this perspective, this thesis mobilises the theoretical resources of the
‘marketisation programme’ (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010) and complementary insights from studies of valuation and waste to shed light on the developments of product endurance in a specific case: the British mobile phone market.
Figure 1: Development of average endurance of mobile phones in use in the UK (2000-
2017); own calculations (see appendix C)
Since the turn of the millennium, mobile phones have undergone a somewhat miraculous, yet little noticed transformation in the UK that I will characterise as one from
‘throwaway objects’ to ‘premium platforms’. Having been used for only about twelve months on average in the past, mobile phones are nowadays used for about twice as long before being rendered obsolete or exported elsewhere (see Figure 1). In the typical reactions to and explanations of such evidence, one can see both accelerationist and cyclical perspectives at play.
Most people I presented this to (predominantly laypeople and environmental social scientists) acted surprised. ‘Have mobile phones not been indestructible before
17 touchscreen smartphones came around?’ ‘Aren’t consumer durables, in general, thrown away at an ever-faster pace?’ In the literature too, it is widely assumed that mobile phones would underlie such a trend (e.g. EEB, 2019). Part of what makes the case intriguing, then, is that mobile phones are all around us and highly conspicuous, even at the centre of contemporary debates on built-in obsolescence and consumer culture, yet somehow they are able to survive for ever-longer periods with hardly anyone taking notice in environmental debates. In so far, I believe there are some important lessons about the power of theories and value of grounded empirical research to be drawn from an analysis of this case.
The other typical reaction, reflective of cyclical accounts of change, is to explain the higher endurance of today’s mobile phones with reference to a slowdown in the pace of innovation, conceived in terms of the innovativeness and added value of new products
(see Watson et al., 2017). Following this line of reasoning, the development is the result of a (temporary) failure of manufacturers to deliver exciting innovations rather than an outcome of purposeful market making. However, as the analysis presented below will show, this explanation misses out on several crucial elements of the transformation process, in particular the struggles over the direction of change and the various explicit efforts at shaping the endurance of mobile phones. As a result of such processes, the development was not just highly non-linear but also marked by a partial ‘decoupling’ of changes in product endurance from the pace of innovation as conceived in classical theories of cyclical change. In a nutshell, the alternative interpretation advanced in this thesis is that the development is better characterised as a successful marketisation process of establishing a ‘fewer, but better’ approach to the consumption of mobile phones, similar to the developments witnessed in wine markets for example. The thesis will describe both the marketisation processes that led to the ‘premium platform’ market and
18 how ongoing efforts towards the ‘circularisation’ of mobile phones in use have recently been undermining the stability of this precarious market.
Before outlining the overall argument and contributions of this thesis in more detail, however, it will prove useful to provide some background on how this thesis evolved.
This will allow me to specify the focus of this thesis more clearly and clarify why I believe that established notions such as durability, product lifetime, or replacement cycles, which informed earlier stages of this work, are insufficient for capturing the dynamics at play in the case of mobile phones.
1.1 From product ‘lifetimes’ to ‘endurance’
An interest in the ‘lifetimes’ of consumer goods can be traced back much further, but it is only recently that a field devoted to its study has emerged. Following Cooper (2010), two projects initiated in the 1990s, ‘Eternally Yours’ at Delft and the ‘Network on Product
Life Spans’ in Britain, were instrumental in reigniting research interest in the Anglophone world. Since then, a growing body of works across the environmental social sciences, fuelled by the uptake of Circular Economy principles in many countries’ policy agendas, have coalesced around the theme of ‘Product Lifetimes and the Environment’ (e.g.
Cooper et al., 2015). It is this field where this thesis drew its first inspirations from.
Before commencing work on this thesis, I was commissioned to conduct a small research project in Austria. Against the background of a prominent public discourse around alleged manufacturer practices of designing products with built-in defects, its purpose was to develop a more nuanced perspective that takes the time in use or ‘use-time’
(Nutzungsdauer) rather than the physical lifetime (Lebensdauer) of products as its unit of analysis (Hübner, 2012; Wieser, Tröger & Hübner 2015a). The initial idea for this thesis, then, was to build on the evidence collected through qualitative and quantitative
19 household surveys and gather additional materials to develop a more contextually sensitive, holistic account of how shortening use-times come about (cf. Wieser, 2016). In adopting a (broadly) cultural approach to this dynamic, the project would move beyond debates that sought to place the onus of responsibility on specific economic actors.
Considering that debates have changed very little since then and research projects continue to exert an ‘economic actor bias’ (Giesler & Fischer, 2017), the intervention is as timely as ever (cf. Jaeger-Erben, 2017). What I took for granted, however, was that peoples’ attachments to consumption objects would become ever-shorter over time, an assumption that was not just undisputed in the field but even received fresh empirical support by several studies published at the time (Bakker et al., 2014; Huisman et al., 2012;
Prakash et al., 2016). It was only when I began collecting data to calculate by how much the endurance of mobile phone had been deteriorating that I discovered that its development (in the UK) was far more interesting than I had anticipated. What soon became clear is that mobile phones were far from an exception. In fact, such developments can be observed across many markets (Dobeson & Kohl, 2020; Oguchi &
Daigo, 2017; Wieser, 2017). In retrospect, one may wonder how anyone could have assumed that people would use mobile phones for ever-shorter time periods in light of nearly a decade long of concerns voiced in the trade press about declining sales and omnipresent talk of a ‘peak smartphone’ (e.g. Economist, 2015).
Part of the reason for this striking disconnect, I would argue, lies in a language that is tightly linked to powerful narratives of the throwaway society, linear economy, and planned obsolescence. Outside the environmental social sciences, where such narratives are far less common, it is notable that the notions of product lifetimes or lifespans find little use. Economists, for instance, are mainly interested in the durability of products (e.g.
Avinger, 1981; Bulow, 1986). In contrast to the language of lifetimes, which emphasises
20 that products have lives that come to an end, thus being closely associated with concerns about waste, the durability of a product is often seen to be in the hands of producers and consequently approached as a mere problem of profit optimisation under different scenarios of market competition. In marketing, meanwhile, a more dynamic terminology of change at the level of product categories tends to be preferred, such as ‘repeat purchases’ (Grewal, Mehta, & Kardes, 2004) or ‘replacement cycles’ (Bayus, 1988;
Gordon, 2009). This is also the language typically deployed in the trade press. An up and down of ‘replacement cycles’ is hardly considered surprising in these circles but recognised as a core prediction of product life cycle theories (see section 2.1).
Besides being closely linked to specific assumptions regarding the historical dynamics of product endurance, existing terminologies fail to capture a critical element of processes of innovation and obsolescence: that the speeding up or slowing down of product change alters their form (cf. Akrich et al., 2002; Boczkowski, 2004; Lievrouw, 2006). This limitation expresses itself in two ways. First, it is notable that the concepts of product lifetimes or lifespans are typically invoked without specifying the boundaries of analysis. In fact, few studies using these terms actually examine the duration of a product’s life from beginning to end, based on the (implicit) assumption that a short-lasting stint in any particular phase of a product’s life is directly linked to the overall lifetime of a product and generation of waste. That this assumption is unfounded has been amply demonstrated in the literature. The obsolescence of goods is frequently only the beginning of a new journey rather than just a step in a linear transformation towards waste (Gregson,
Metcalfe, & Crewe, 2007; Lepawsky & Mather, 2011).
Second, studies of product lifetimes and replacement cycles pay scant attention to the fact that products may undergo significant transformations as their ability to stay alive changes.
The language of replacement in particular conveys an extremely narrow and linear
21 understanding of change in terms of renewal and destruction. Processes of innovation and obsolescence, by contrast, do not immediately contribute to the destruction of things: “In obsolescence”, Fitzpatrick (2018) writes, “the object endures while our desire for it disappears” (p.330).1 Reversely, innovation processes tend to go beyond renewals and involve changes in directionality. There are arguably few consumer goods where this holds more true than in the case of mobile phones, which have changed almost beyond recognition and took on various identities in the course of a few decades. It seems to me that it is partly a result of this neglect that extant studies on product lifetimes, replacement cycles and so on focus predominantly on intended changes, less on the more ‘accidental’ or unintended consequences of struggles about product qualities at large.
For once, my notorious undecidedness came in quite handy here, as switching between different terms and concepts allowed me to explore the unknown from different angles. It is only in later stages of analysis that I began to settle on an alternative and more flexible terminology, using the rather unwieldy term of ‘displacement cycles’ to capture the different aspects of the phenomenon that I sought to describe. There are also other options that could be considered. For example, Dobeson & Kohl (2020) seem to have had similar concerns in mind when translating the language of durability from economics into economic sociology, proposing to focus on the ‘socially expected durability’ of goods.
However, in my view, the emphasis on expectations is misleading and easy to conflate with what has been studied as people’s expectations of product lifetimes (e.g.
Gnanapragasam et al., 2017; Jaeger-Erben & Hipp, 2018; Wieser, Tröger, & Hübner,
2015b). McFall, Cochoy, and Deville (2017) made yet a different attempt in mobilising the language of ‘attachment’ (from sociology) and even ‘stickiness’ (from industry
1 Against the popular expression of innovation as ‘creative destruction’, I agree with previous commentators that the other (‘dark’ or ‘shadowy’) side of innovation is obsolescence, not destruction (Fitzpatrick, 2018; Gravier & Swartz, 2009; Shove, 2012).
22 parlance). But again, I am not convinced that these terms are able to capture all relevant phenomena. While working well to describe specific relations between products and users, they are less suited to account for the ability of products to repeatedly attach and detach themselves from users.
This is where the notion of ‘product endurance’ comes in. I have rediscovered it only towards the end of this thesis when I was working on revisions. Interestingly, this term was used in the very title of the book volume that sprang from one of the two influential projects mentioned above: “Eternally Yours: visions on product endurance” (van Hinte,
1997). This use at an early stage of the debate speaks for its intuitiveness (in contrast to
‘displacement cycles’). However, whereas the book and project had an enduring effect on the debate, the term itself did not. Indeed, the term was barely used in the book itself and to my knowledge, the environmental social science literature has linked it to products only occasionally and in passing. It is predominantly in engineering and in the specific context of quality tests that the term finds its use.
However, product endurance tends to be understood in a much narrower sense there. For
Alfieri and colleagues (2018), for example, endurance tests are synonymous with reliability tests in that they determine their “ability to perform as required, without failure, for a specified duration (e.g. time, cycles, distance) and under given conditions of use” (p.34).
For the purposes of product testing, the narrow focus may well make sense considering the limited possibilities of estimating how products will perform in the future. From the point of view of the product, however, their endurance often goes much beyond reliability. To cope with stress of all sorts and remain in use, products may have to undergo changes in their qualities throughout their lives and adapt to changing conditions
(cf. Haug, 2018). Product endurance, then, is quite different from durability and reliability. In contrast to the latter, which emphasise stability and are often interpreted as
23 intrinsic, predominantly technical characteristics of products, endurance centres attention on the situation and bare survival, etymologically referring to a “capacity of continued existence” and “power of lasting” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2020). Also different from product lifetimes, a focus on endurance stresses the need to define what a product is supposed to endure: a specific shock like dropping a phone on the floor or three different users in a row? To remain functional or survive without scratches?
In this thesis, I employ the notion of ‘product endurance’ to refer to the ability of mobile phones to remain in use in the UK. This may include potentially multiple successive users but does not consider possible uses as secondary phones and product lives beyond British borders (see appendix C for more details). The link between product endurance as defined here and actual patterns of waste generation is thus indirect at best. However, it gives some indication of how many mobile phones had to be produced, which is environmentally just as, if not more significant (cf. Spinney et al., 2012). Unlike in cases like automobiles or fridges, the environmental benefits of improving the endurance of mobile phones are relatively straightforward and widely recognised. This is because by far the largest share, more than 70%, of the environmental impact created in the life of a typical mobile phones originates in the processes of resource extraction, manufacturing, and disposal (Frey, Harrison, & Billett, 2006; Suckling & Lee, 2015). It is estimated that an additional year of usage can reduce the carbon footprint associated with the production and consumption of smartphones by about 30% (Benton, Coats, & Hazell, 2015; Rizos et al., 2019). Adding the sheer quantity of devices and the rare and toxic resources contained in them, it is little surprising that addressing the rapid obsolescence of mobile phones has been identified as a priority area of environmental product policy in the EU (e.g.
European Commission, 2020; EEB, 2019).
24 1.2 Outline of argument
With a clearer delineation of ‘product endurance’ vis-à-vis related concepts in place, the following chapters develop the argument sketched out in the opening paragraphs of this thesis and discuss the implications of this case study for wider debates on the relation between the politics of value and temporal dynamics of market innovation. The chapters are organised in three parts: a first part presenting the ‘theory-method’ package (chapters
2-4), a second part that presents the case study (chapters 5-9), and a third part that discusses the case in conversation with the literature and brings the thesis to a conclusion
(chapters 10-12).
Situating this thesis in debates on the historical dynamics of product endurance and the roles of markets, chapter 2 begins by reviewing and discussing the two dominant meta- theoretical perspectives, alluded to in the introduction, in more detail. The first, which I refer to as the ‘cyclical model of change’, predicts an up and down of product endurance irrespective of how markets are organised. The second, the ‘accelerationist model of change’, predicts deteriorating levels of product endurance with markets playing a central role in this development. In discussing these perspectives and their limitations, I draw out several key lines of separation and present some of the core critiques that have been directed at them in the literature. To this, I add that the two dominant perspectives critically fail to account for multiplicity and the possibility of reorganising markets for higher levels of product endurance.
In search for just such a perspective, Chapter 3 engages with a range of promising theoretical ideas developed in the field of market studies, specifically in relation to the constitution of markets and the consequences of conflicting definitions of value. The first theoretical argument advanced in chapter 3, then, is that product endurance is an effect of socio-technical ‘market agencements’. This is a highly consequential step. In line with
25 other traditions in the field, this conceives markets as highly malleable entities and paves the way for a more holistic account of how product endurance comes about.
Furthermore, as previous commentators have pointed out, this theoretical – sociotechnical – approach is particularly suited for shedding light on the ‘missing masses’
(Latour, 1992), i.e. the material and often invisible devices that shape the consumption of goods (Cochoy, 2014; McFall, 2009).
The second argument put forward in chapter 3 is that the study of product endurance stands to benefit a great deal from approaching the dynamics of markets innovation through a ‘valuation lens’. The cross-fertilisation of analytical concepts from studies of marketisation and valuation is well established in the literature. Of particular relevance for the purposes of this thesis are debates concerning the implications of conflicting and potentially incommensurable modes of valuation for the production of value and pace of innovation. The field of market studies has produced different perspectives on this matter, providing a diverse repertoire of ideas that can be put to work in analysing the case.
Chapter 4 describes the specific methodology of case study research deployed in this thesis, which draws on the ‘biographies of artefacts and practices approach’ developed in science and technology studies. The biography can be characterised by a longitudinal, multi-sited, and theoretically informed approach to case study research. Following methodological reflections, I discuss the important issues of case selection, considerations regarding data collection, and analysis. I have already outlined some interesting features of the case, in particular its non-conformity with existing theories. However, the case also pushes the boundaries of market studies. So far, researchers in this field have predominantly studied extreme cases of either economisation (‘interested markets’), especially financial markets, or markets for so-called ‘singularities’ (‘contested markets’) where uncertainty and conflicts about the value of objects prevails, such as wine or arts.
26 Industrial mass markets that are operating somewhere in between these extremes have received far less attention (Beckert & Aspers, 2011; Dobeson & Kohl, 2020; Pallesen,
2016). The case of mobile phones is particularly instructive in this respect, representing a
‘concerned market’ (Geiger et al., 2014b) whose dynamics were characterised by a tug of war between competing ways of organising the multiplicity of modes of valuation.
This leads me directly to the analysis of the case. Moving to empirical observations, chapters 5 to 9 describe the marketisation of mobile phones in the UK. At its core is the biography, presented as a narrative that spans four chapters. Instead of diving immediately into the story of how events unfolded, however, I begin the presentation of the case with a discussion of the multiple directions in which mobile phones were pulled throughout the years. Chapter 5 is guided by a straightforward question derived from studies of valuation: What were considered good mobile phones (across different sites and periods)?
The chapter demonstrates that there was no agreement on the direction of change, with competing efforts seeking to establish different versions of the ‘good mobile phone’: from
‘toys’ to ‘fashion items’, ‘tools’, ‘absences’, ‘ethical items’, and ‘commodities’. By outlining the range of possible directions, the chapter helps to counterbalance the common tendency to over-rationalise chains of events in historical analyses. At the same time, the multiplicity of different values and interests mattered greatly in the marketisation of mobile phones and represented a key source of struggle. Considering the centrality of this multiplicity, the presentation and comparison of different frames aims to provide a point of reference for subsequent discussions by clarifying what I came to understand under terms such as ‘fashion items’ in the context of mobile phones.
Chapters 6 to 9 guide through the marketisation process. The breakdown in four chapters is not a coincidence but reflects a core outcome of the analysis: that the marketisation of mobile phones unfolded through a series of distinct but temporally overlapping market
27 agencements. Each chapter focuses on a different market agencement and describes how it had achieved its dominant status: the ‘platform market’ in the early 2000s (chapter 6), the
‘singularities market’ in the mid-2000s (chapter 7), the ‘premium platform market’ in the
2010s (chapter 8), and the ‘circular platform market’ that is emerging and increasingly challenging the established order (chapter 9). The discussion in these chapters focuses on an important aspect of market innovation in the case at hand: how each market agencement organised the multiplicity of modes of valuation.
The third part of the thesis discusses two critical issues in more detail. Chapter 10 expands on the argument of product endurance being an effect of market agencements, examining the relations between the dynamics of mobile phone endurance and processes of market innovation. Specifically, the chapter discusses the roles that three market devices have played throughout the years, drawing on analogies with the study of disability and addiction: ‘prosthetic devices’, ‘habilitation devices’, and ‘addiction devices’.
Chapter 11 then engages with the overall dynamics of marketisation, addressing two overarching questions: Firstly, considering the multiplicity of competing efforts, why did mobile phones transform into premium platforms? And secondly, why was the marketisation process marked by such non-linearity, setbacks, and discontinuities? The discussion thus touches upon some of the core issues for understanding how the premium platform market, as a specific market agencement that supported increasing levels of mobile phone endurance, was brought about. The interpretation I put forward in this chapter is that the dynamics of market innovation in the case at hand can be linked with three salient struggles of valuation, relating to the realisation of 1) platform instead of singularised goods, 2) premium instead of commoditised platforms, and 3) open instead of closed platforms. Furthermore, the analysis directs attention to a critical issue in the organisation of multiplicity neglected in the literature: the framing of intertemporal
28 relations between modes of valuation. I introduce the notion of ‘calculated backflows’ to account for the precariousness inherent to such framings.
Bringing the thesis to a conclusion, chapter 12 revisits the central arguments made throughout the thesis and teases out its core contributions vis-à-vis debates on product endurance and the role of multiplicity in the temporal dynamics of market innovation.
Furthermore, the chapter offers some suggestions for future research and reflections on the theoretical and methodological approach taken in this thesis.
29
Part I – Theory and Method
In this first part of the thesis, I develop the theoretical and methodological building blocks underpinning this study. To this end, I first engage with the two dominant meta- theoretical perspectives on the dynamics of product endurance (chapter 2). Building on a critical appraisal of their respective limitations, chapter 3 engages with a set of promising ideas from the field of market studies. More specifically, I discuss how a valuation perspective on processes of market innovation, in conjunction with the marketisation programme, could inform the analysis of the dynamics of mobile phone endurance.
Chapter 4 then adds an additional building block in the form of the biographical approach to studying artefacts.
30 2 Theoretical perspectives on the dynamics of product endurance
In this chapter, I discuss existing understandings on the dynamics of product endurance.
The objective of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive overview of what has been written about this phenomenon but, first and foremost, to sketch out the dominant lines of thinking. While the matter of product endurance has been approached from a variety of angles, existing research is highly scattered and may not be immediately associated with this issue. The different terminology that tends to be used across disciplines certainly contributes to such a scattering of research. Even so, I propose that existing theories tend to fall in one of two meta-theoretical perspectives, which I refer to, based on their assumptions regarding the temporal patterns of change, as the ‘cyclical’ (section 2.1) and the ‘accelerationist’ (section 2.2) perspectives. Following a review of their respective arguments, I conclude this chapter by teasing out their main differences and discussing what I consider to be their core limitations.
2.1 Cyclical change: product life cycle perspectives
Predicated on Schumpeter’s (1942) analysis of economic change as a process of ‘creative destruction’, the predominant view on the dynamics of product endurance is to conceive them in terms of a cyclical pattern, fluctuating as the class of artefacts moves through potentially multiple life cycles. More specifically, this perspective is supported by a family of theories that can be linked with the concept of the ‘product life cycle’. Focusing on the most influential approaches, this section categorises them into theories of the diffusion of innovation, fashion cycles, and technology life cycles. While the former two tend to focus on the demand side, the latter pay closer attention to research and development and the
31 competitive strategies of firms (see Adner & Kapoor, 2016; Hauser, Tellis, & Griffin,
2006). Principally located in innovation studies and marketing, this ‘cyclical model of change’ holds that changes in the endurance of products in use are an indirect consequence of a fluctuating capacity to innovate along some predetermined path.
According to this perspective, both technology and fashion follow a characteristically cyclical logic of their own that cannot be planned (Röper, 1976, 1977). The conceptual focus in this model is on sales rather than product endurance, as the supply and demand for new and innovative products are considered to be the principal drivers of change.
Before introducing each set of theories on this dynamic, I provide a brief description of the two central imaginaries of sales patterns: the product life cycle and S-curve.
2.1.1 The product life cycle and S-curve
Based on a biological analogy, the concept of the product life cycle describes the sales evolution of products. In its most widely recognised form, the sales volume is plotted against time and depicts a bell-shaped curve. Furthermore, in its classical formulation a product’s life is imagined to go through four sequential stages (Levitt, 1965) but has since been extended to better account for the turning points (Golder & Tellis, 2004). In the introduction stage, sales are low as the product is still unknown to most potential buyers and it remains unclear whether the product will succeed in the longer term. The point of take-off then marks the start of a phase of rapid sales growth. But as sales start to slow down, the product enters the maturity stage. This occurs when the bulk of sales comes from repeat or replacement purchases rather than first-time purchases (Harrell & Taylor,
1981; Midgley, 1981). This stage is characterised by intense price competition and ends as the product eventually moves into the final stage of decline.
32 A defining feature of the product life cycle is that, when looked at it in terms of cumulative adoptions, it can be expressed as an S-curve. This widely observed pattern in sales of successful products has been subject to a vast amount of research, examining the steepness of the curve, the timing of take-off and slowdown, and the mechanisms that create this pattern (see Chandrasekaran & Tellis, 2018). However, the empirical validity of the simple pattern depicted in the product life cycle is contested, especially in relation to the long-term development beyond new product diffusion. For one, the length of the life cycle and the timing of each stage tend to vary significantly across products (see
Grantham, 1997). But beyond such variations in timing, early reviews of empirical research found that sales patterns may take quite different shapes, with sales volumes going through multiple cycles of growth, increasing steadily, or remaining stable over time
(Rink & Swan, 1979; Tellis & Crawford, 1981). Since such developments relate to periods when replacement purchases dominate, explanations of these patterns are of particular significance in terms of the dynamics of product endurance. The following section first turns to theories of the diffusion of innovations and how they account for such patterns.
2.1.2 Diffusion of innovations
Research on the diffusion of innovation examines the process of how a product or technology is adopted by a population over time. Taking the existence of a new product as a starting point, an important focus in this strand of research is on the rate of adoption.
Much diffusion research is specifically concerned with the quantitative modelling and forecasting of sales (see Geroski, 2000; Meade & Islam, 2006; Peres, Muller, & Mahajan,
2010). As such, this approach has been widely used for studying the sales dynamics of
33 mobile phones and telecommunication services (see Meade & Islam, 2015). Accounts of diffusion provide various explanations for the rate of adoption.
According to the well-known account of Rogers, for example, diffusion is “the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system” (2003, p. 5). Information about an innovation flows from one person to another as people recommend it to each other in face-to-face exchanges, observe how others use it in practice, or learn about it through mass media or over the internet. This process can be either planned or spontaneous, but the key element that defines all diffusions according to this perspective is that innovations spread in a heterogeneous population. More specifically, people, who are primarily considered as adopters, vary in terms of their propensity to take risks and adopt new ideas, taking different positions in the communication system. Conveniently, it is assumed that this risk propensity in a population follows a continuous and normal frequency distribution.
Furthermore, the theory suggests that the newness of an innovation not only tends to be perceived differently across people, but that those who recognise its newness earlier are the ones to adopt it earlier. The rate of adoption is thus symmetrical to the distribution of people’s readiness to embrace innovations.
Since Rogers’ seminal contribution, diffusion research has developed a wide range of potential explanations for the S-curve. A significant extension in the context of this thesis was to consider sales dynamics beyond the initial diffusion of an innovation, As noted above, empirical evidence indicates that throughout a product’s life, sales may go up and down or temporarily stabilise. This challenges the view of an inevitable decline and predefined sequencing of events. The diffusion literature offers two responses to this.
First, it is argued that products can live for extended periods of time and experience multiple lives when being rejuvenated through innovations or promotional activities.
34 From this perspective, the process can be characterised in terms of repeated diffusions of new generations or alternations of existing products (Norton & Bass, 1987). In contrast to early diffusion research, this recognises that innovations compete with earlier ones.
Subsequent research examined whether the patterns of diffusion change across generations of a product. Despite some evidence that the consumers’ propensity to innovate and other, supply-related factors may change from one generation to the next (Huh & Kim,
2008; Islam & Meade, 1997), diffusion research provides little theorising on why such changes occur. The general expectation is that diffusion dynamics remain constant across generations (Stremersch, Muller, & Peres, 2010). Second, a few researchers considered the scenario of stagnant markets where innovations are lacking and price competition prevails.
In this case, sales are assumed to stabilise at the rate of product replacement. Changes in product endurance in stagnant markets, then, are argued to depend on macroeconomic developments, largely falling out of scope of diffusion research (Clark, Freeman, &
Hanssens, 1984; Deleersnyder et al., 2004; Harrell & Taylor, 1981).
2.1.3 Technology life cycles
An alternative perspective on product life cycles locates the sources of acceleration and deceleration in the evolution of technologies. In contrast to diffusion research, which assumes relatively stable products spreading in a population of limited size, theories of technological change focus on unstable product qualities in the context of insatiable demand (Adner & Levinthal, 2001). This section focuses on the ‘cyclical model of technological change’ formulated by Anderson and Tushman (1990), which integrates multiple insights from previous theories of technological change and makes direct links to the dynamics of sales.
35 According to this model, technologies tend to follow the same cyclical and S-curve patterns as adoptions of innovations, only that change is measured in terms of performance indicators rather than sales. Studying the dynamics of technology evolution can thus provide an entry point for explaining product life cycles. A central notion in accounting for cyclical patterns is the ‘dominant design’. This concept denotes a product architecture that has broad appeal for a wide range of potential users and constitutes the de facto industry standard, being imitated by most competitors (Abernathy & Utterback, 1978).
The emergence of such a dominant design is argued to be a game-changer in any industry, shifting the nature of competition and altering the process of technological innovation.
Various mechanisms that can give rise to and stabilise a dominant design have been put forward (see Murmann & Frenken, 2006; Suarez, 2004). Abernathy and Utterback (1978) themselves suggest that a dominant design represents the best technical solution and settles debates among designers, leading to a shared focus on specific routes of improvement.
Anderson and Tushman (1990) add that dominant designs further reduce uncertainty among both firms and consumers, reinforcing and extending the dominance of the most established solutions. Once established, dominant designs work as ‘selection environments’ for innovations, which, as variations of existing artefacts, are selected or rejected based on their alignment with prevailing product architectures and related industry structures. Another set of explanations for the stabilisation of technological change concentrate on processes of ‘path dependence’ (Arthur, 1989; David, 1985). The premise is that previous developments can condition the selection and thus future paths of innovations, making the temporal order of their introductions potentially more important than their respective qualities. Path dependence can therefore produce inefficient or suboptimal outcomes, while also creating strong ‘lock-in’ effects that make previous changes irreversible. The process is self-reinforcing and can be associated with multiple
36 mechanisms of positive feedbacks, including economies of scale, learning by doing, and network externalities. Moreover, increasing investments, built-up competences, and standard-setting can reinforce commitments to a specific path. The same mechanisms, however, can also operate in relation to entire industries or economies, where the development of interdependent subsystems can produce strong lock-in effects (Unruh,
2000). As a result of these processes, one solution is likely to succeed and dominate in the end. Finally, dominant designs may also be established through negotiations, involving a potentially diverse set of actors across industry, governments, and other organisations to realise economies of scale and ensure technical compatibility (e.g. Rosenkopf &
Tushman, 1998).
For Anderson and Tushman (1990), the establishment of a dominant design marks the turning point from an ‘era of ferment’ to an ‘era of incremental change’, bringing about a significant shift in overall pace of technological innovation. In eras of ferment, a variety of different solutions are available and the criteria of what constitutes the best design are contested. But as technologies gravitate towards a dominant design and uncertainty over criteria is reduced, innovation efforts shift towards cost reduction, minor modifications, and improving the reliability of products. Moreover, the emergence of a dominant design is associated with an increasing importance of ‘complementary assets’ like after-sales services (Teece, 1986). While the rate of innovation may therefore continue to be high, performance improvements are less pronounced and lead to a slowdown in sales growth.
However, a new era of ferment and rapid sales growth can be ignited through what are variably called ‘breakthrough’, ‘radical’, or ‘discontinuous’ innovations. Technological change can thus be characterised as a ‘punctuated equilibrium’ pattern, based on consecutive cycles of eras of ferment and incremental change.
37 The overall pace of innovation depends also on the periods between technology substitutions. In relation to this, Adner and Kapoor (2016) suggest that the frequency of technology cycles may vary over time where the performance of a technology depends on complementary infrastructures and how they fit into the wider ecosystem. In such cases, the rate of substitution of the focal technology tends to fluctuate in interaction with the relatively slower rates at which the ecosystem is substituted. In more general terms, however, the timing and frequency of discontinuous innovations is considered unpredictable (Anderson & Tushman, 1990).
2.1.4 Fashion cycles
Besides cycles of technological change, product life cycles have been linked to fashion cycles (Osland, 1991; Sproles, 1981). While fashion cycles may also refer to the sellers’ release cycles, the connection to product life cycles highlights the ups and downs of fashions in consumption. This is an important difference, since in contrast to seasonal variations in styles in the products released on the market, which can be a highly structured process and represent a form of “prescribed and routine obsolescence” (Barnes,
2013, p. 192), fashion at large is argued to be a characteristically “unplanned” process
(Aspers & Godart, 2013).
Most fashion theories describe fashion as a relatively continuous process of replacement, implying that the cycles each individual object or style go through may not affect the average level of product endurance. Cappetta and colleagues (2006) made an insightful contribution in this respect, arguing that ‘stylistic’ innovations may follow very similar patterns to technology cycles, regularly stabilising around ‘convergent designs’ in an evolutionary process. The mechanisms of change are quite different though. In this respect, Cappetta et al. distinguish between two dynamics that produce stability, related to
38 social and aesthetic compatibility, respectively. The social dynamic on the demand side is linked to two alternating effects. A ‘bandwagon effect’ exists when the demand for a product is positively associated with its popularity among a certain group of people.
People seek to imitate others for identity formation and gain social approval. As a result, products spread in society until the ‘snob effect’ kicks in. This refers to the phenomenon when the demand for a product goes down because it is consumed by others. Such acts of distinction can be related to the desire to stand out from the masses and express one’s social status, uniqueness, or sense of style. These two effects produce a self-reinforcing dynamic that is paralleled on the supply side. Following Cappetta et al., the process of imitation and formation of group identities relies on a common language and the existence of relatively stable stylistic trends. In response to this, companies tend to reduce the variety of styles and focus on incremental change until the next fashion cycle sets in.
In addition, Cappetta et al. suggest that the aesthetic compatibility of things matters too, contributing to the stabilisation of styles. This relates to the ‘Diderot effect’, which is based on the desire to produce visual coherence between different items in terms of colour, materials, or shape (McCracken, 1988). A deviation from this coherent style may kickstart a process in which potentially all of one’s possessions are replaced that do not match the new style. The more items are implicated in this, the stronger are their co- dependences, contributing to more stable aesthetic trends. Like Adner and Kapoor’s argument that developments of an artefact may be linked to cyclical changes in the wider ecosystem, here too a product may go through eras of ferment and incremental change in relation to alternating stylistic trends that span across multiple products.
Despite such mechanisms of stabilisation, Cappetta et al. argue that a truly ‘dominant design’ is unlikely to be found in fashion products. This is because snob effects and the desire for distinction prevent any single design from disseminating too widely. In contrast
39 to technology, multiple convergent designs are therefore likely to co-exist. Irrespective of such differences between technological and stylistic change, however, it has been suggested that stylistic innovations may intersect with technological change, producing a co-evolutionary process of change. For instance, new meanings and designs are proposed as effective means in mature markets for enticing consumers to replace their possessions earlier (Eisenman, 2013) and revitalising products for a longer life cycle (Verganti, 2009).
In sum, the different theories presented in this section foreground the importance of the direction of change. While the competitive pressure to innovate is an important driver of change, the temporal pattern is primarily a result of the logics of technological or stylistic change, respectively. These are characterised by synchronic (e.g. co-dependences) and diachronic (e.g. knowledge accumulation) relations between artefacts which produce strong lock-in effects that slow down the pace of change until a breakthrough innovation cuts existing ties and initiates a new cycle. By contrast, the perspectives presented in the following section contend that concerns about the pace of change take precedence and contribute to lower levels of product endurance.
2.2 Accelerating change: theories of purposeful obsolescence
Debates on product endurance have a long history in environmental and cultural critiques of consumer society, being tightly linked to the thesis that the obsolescence of artefacts is a matter of deliberate planning (for an overview, see Weber, 2018). While the discourse surrounding this thesis does not correspond to any single research tradition, cutting across critical theory, postmodernist thought, and economic theory among others, the varied contributions to this analysis converge in several important ways, representing a distinct family of explanations. First, such accounts identify the roots of changes in product endurance in macro-level social or economic structures, suggesting that the mechanisms
40 of change operate across all consumer durables. Second, the existence of a temporal rhythm of technological or stylistic change independent from deliberate interventions in the temporalities of change is strictly rejected (Bodenstein & Leuer, 1981). In this view, considerations regarding the pace of change figure centre stage and permeate all decisions, with the endurance of products in use constituting a strategic variable subject to purposeful intervention. And third, the overall dynamic is described in terms of acceleration, indicating that consumer goods are replaced at an ever-higher rate.
The imaginary of a product life cycle has its counterpart in the notion of the ‘throwaway society’, which, more than a social theory on its own, represents a diagnosis of modern- day consumerism and the dynamics of change (Hellmann & Luedicke, 2018). It is argued that the post-war period saw profound changes in the status of things in society, being no longer stewarded and cared for but having become transient objects of consumption. For the futurist Alvin Toffler, transience is the defining feature of this new era, increasingly characterising the relationship between people and things:
“The turnover of things in our lives thus grows even more frenetic. We face a rising flood of throw-away items, impermanent architecture, mobile and modular products, rented goods and commodities designed for almost instant death. From all these directions, strong pressures converge toward the same end: the inescapable ephemeralization of the man-thing relationship” (Toffler, 1970, p. 73).
In contemporary writings this process of ‘ephemeralisation’ is situated in wider trends of social acceleration, where its continuing success is seen as a structural necessity (Campbell,
2015; Crocker & Chiveralls, 2018; Rosa & Lorenz, 2009). Despite scant empirical evidence, there is thus a strong assumption in this discourse that product endurance has been deteriorating have been for decades and across the board. Besides statements about historical trends, the expectation of ever-lower levels of product endurance is reflected in recent modelling efforts based on the theories discussed in this section (see Brouillat,
41 2015). In accounting for historical changes in product endurance, both economic and cultural logics have been foregrounded (see Tischleder & Wasserman, 2015).
2.2.1 Planned obsolescence
Relating to economic logics, ever-lower levels of product endurance are argued to be bound up with capitalist dynamics of accumulation. This has to do with profits being the ultimate goal of production in capitalism. With time being commodified (‘time is money’), producers look for ways to speed up the circulation of capital to increase their profits (Harvey, 1989; Rosa, 2015). Since the period for which goods stay in circulation is of critical importance to this, producers have an economic incentive to intervene in the process and ‘plan’ the obsolescence of goods, especially (but not exclusively) under conditions of imperfect competition (Brouillat, 2015; Bulow, 1986; Grout & Park, 2005;
Waldman, 1993).
Debates on practices of ‘planned obsolescence’ are tightly linked to the throwaway society thesis. However, it should be noted that the origins of these debates are not in the publications of Vance Packard and other cultural critics with whom the term is mostly associated but in industrial design and marketing where the realisation of these new opportunities for increasing sales were very much celebrated (Slade, 2006; Whiteley,
1987). This is significant because early critiques were, for the most part, reactions to the proliferation of such practices among manufacturers rather than to shrinking levels of product endurance. It was more about moral decay than environmental concerns (cf.
Trentmann, 2016). The link between planned obsolescence and product endurance was thus not based on historical evidence but largely inferred deductively. With few exceptions, this still holds true today.
42 In one of the earliest definitions put forward by Paul Gregory, purposeful obsolescence is strongly linked to the practices of manufacturers and argued to occur:
“(a) whenever manufacturers produce goods with a shorter physical life than the industry is capable of producing under existing technological and cost conditions; or (b) whenever manufacturers or sellers induce the public to replace goods which still retain substantial physical usefulness” (Gregory, 1947, p. 24).
This definition points at two interrelated dimensions to planned obsolescence that have continued to be of central interest in the literature on product endurance. The first is that obsolescence can express itself in multiple ways. The basic distinction made by Gregory between obsolescence due to the end of a good’s physical life and obsolescence related to any other reasons, has been reproduced many times since then (see Bayus, 1988; Cooper,
2004; Grewal, Mehta, & Kardes, 2004). The question of how to categorise obsolescence remains an ongoing concern, however (see Burns, 2010). The second point made by
Gregory, is that there are various means for manufacturers to induce obsolescence and that this is not restricted to product design.
Following Packard’s (1961) influential categorisation, the first set of strategies relates to
‘obsolescence of function’, which occurs when products are superseded by technologically improved versions. While this source of obsolescence may be the least controversial, it has been argued that the pace of technological change may itself be planned. As Slade (2006) points out, the orientation of manufacturers around Moore’s
Law as the predominant prediction of the rate of technological development means that all devices with a micro-chip are effectively ‘death-dated’ from the start. In this sense, the naturalisation of technological change as an inevitable path of social progress can be regarded as a form of planned obsolescence. Other researchers have also stressed that technical incompatibilities between new and old technologies should not be taken for granted. Looking at the gaming industry, Newman (2012) argues that gaming consoles are
43 not necessarily rendered obsolete by the mere introduction of successors but by the simultaneous decisions of manufacturers to stop providing sufficient support for existing platforms. This affects the games offered on previous platforms too, as the backward compatibility of new consoles is not always ensured.
Still following Packard, the second set of strategies concerns the ‘obsolescence of quality’, relating to the technical life or durability of a product. Manufacturers can design products for limited durability, potentially selling them with built-in defects to make sure that their lifespans do not significantly exceed minimum warranty periods. The materials used and quality of assembly have a bearing on a product’s ability to withstand wear and tear, but also its reparability and upgradeability fall into this category and may be configured in different ways in its design. Moreover, the quality of after-sales services and length of software support periods may impact a product’s endurance. The infamous Phoebus cartel in the lightbulb industry is widely considered the first documented application of the strategy of ‘built-in obsolescence’. Formed in the 1920s, the ambition of this cartel among the leading lightbulb makers was to secure increasing sales figures through reducing their life expectancy from the 1,500-2,000 hours that have been common at the time, to a predefined 1,000 hours (Krajewski, 2014). Besides engineering lightbulbs in a way that made them reliably fail after this agreed-upon period, the cartel installed fines for companies that did not meet this requirement.
A third set of strategies seek to induce ‘obsolescence of desirability’, which relates to products that are displaced because they are perceived as old-fashioned or out of style. In this context, it is argued that the former focus on functionality and durability has given way to more sophisticated strategies of moving goods into the transient, inherently unstable sphere of fashion and symbolic meaning (Baudrillard, 1998; Lipovetsky, 1994; see also Maycroft, 2009; Pope, 2017). For Baudrillard, the disposability of things,
44 achieved through their fragile state as symbolic goods, is critical for sustaining the prevailing economic order:
“What is produced today is not produced for its use-value or its possible durability, but rather with an eye to its death [...] Now, we know that the order of production only survives by paying the price of this extermination, this perpetual calculated ‘suicide’ of the mass of objects, and that this operation is based on technological ‘sabotage’ or organized obsolescence under cover of fashion. Advertising achieves the marvellous feat of consuming a substantial budget with the sole aim not of adding to the use-value of objects, but of substracting value from them, of detracting from their time-value by subordinating them to their fashion-value and to ever earlier replacement” (Baudrillard, 1998, p. 46 emphasis in original).
What is notable about this argument is that the economic imperative of profit maximisation is believed to determine the direction of change, pushing in the direction that promises the lowest levels of product endurance. The pressure to accelerate the turnover of capital thus becomes the all-dominating force shaping the paths of artefacts.
Taken to the extreme, this leads to a radical questioning of the value of innovations in the first place, where extra features or stylistic elements are read as superfluous introductions with the only aim of inducing premature replacements (Lodziak, 2000; Maycroft, 2009).
Advertising and innovations in style were at the centre of attention among early critics of planned obsolescence and the throwaway society. Undoubtedly the most studied case and the one that ignited much of the early debate on planned obsolescence is the rise of
‘Sloanism’ in the automobile industry between the 1920s and -60s (Cader, 2012; Flink,
1988; Frank, 1997; Gartman, 1994; Slade, 2006). Alfred Sloan from General Motors is credited for changing the rules of the game by introducing annual model changes, predicated on variations in style and colour as opposed to the simplicity, durability, and reparability supposedly held high by Henry Ford. General Motors introduced colouring, luxury lines, and added new technical features to each model with the explicit aim of
45 rendering previous ones obsolete more quickly. Historical research suggests that this strategy was taken up widely across various sectors in the 1960s as obsolescence became the key word in the industry (Frank, 1997; Whiteley, 1987). For example, Frank reports that manufacturers took inspiration from the automobile industry and forcefully moved menswear into fashion territory, up to the point where the ‘latest’ became the sole selling point. At first, this reorientation sparked resistance among competing manufacturers and consumers in both automobiles and menswear, but according to Frank, proponents of the model of rapid obsolescence successfully aligned themselves with youth counterculture to establish fashion dynamics in menswear.
2.2.2 Desire for the new
Besides producers’ efforts at accelerating obsolescence, underpinned by the pursuit of profits, the literature recognises several cultural logics of acceleration that according to some commentators operate in concert with the economic logic (e.g. Appadurai, 1996;
Jackson, 2009; Rosa, 2015). In this respect, some speak of a throwaway ‘culture’ (Cooper,
2010; Whiteley, 1987), ‘ethic’ (Slade, 2006), or ‘mentality’ (Heßler, 2013) to emphasise the carelessness and profligacy in the handling of material possessions that is believed to characterise people’s relationship to things. Campbell’s (1992, 2015) discussion of the desire for the new represents a useful entry point to this. He advances the argument that much of the acceleration of consumption as expressed in ever-lower levels of product endurance can be put down to the high value placed on the new, of which Campbell identifies three forms: the ‘fresh’, the ‘novel’, and the ‘innovative’. The typology maps onto the three categories of obsolescence put forward by Packard, indicating that there is a counterpart in consumption to each of the strategies of manufacturers discussed above.
46 First, there is the ‘fresh’, relating to the newly created, the opposite of old. Something repaired and cleaned, for instance, might regain its freshness, looking ‘like new’ again. To
Campbell, this typically corresponds to the purchase of products that are disposable or have a short useful life. They are bought with the expectation that they need replacement.
In this case, the preference for the new does not express itself during use but at the point of purchase where a repeated cycle of short-lived, yet fresh products is favoured over one with high life expectancy. Campbell suggests that this is often based on considerations of price and convenience. Cheaper products bear less risk as potential breakdowns, losses, or thefts weigh less heavily. Previous research suggests that consumers often have low expectations in terms of product life expectancy, which reduces the attractiveness of buying second-hand, premium quality, and repairing broken items. Moreover, this was found to be frequently based on the widespread belief that manufacturers plan the obsolescence of products, effectively turning the discourse around ‘planned obsolescence’ into a self-fulfilling prophecy (Wieser, Tröger, & Hübner, 2015a). Besides involving financial risks, long-lasting products may also be considered less convenient, requiring repair and maintenance work and turning into a liability in times of increasingly flexible, mobile, and uncertain lifestyles (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2017). The rapid obsolescence of goods may therefore be tolerated by consumers, having grown accustomed to the idea of consuming as a process based on the ongoing delivery of goods rather than one-time purchases of more durable goods (Tomlinson, 2007).
Further facilitated by increasing technological capabilities, the historical decline in prices for many consumer goods is understood as a key driving force of the throwaway society.
Writing on the rise of fast fashion across various industries, Schor (2013) argues that the cheapness of materials and products inevitably contributes to low levels of product endurance. The above-described link between prices and product longevity may also work vice versa, as products may be perceived as disposable by virtue of being so cheap.
47 Furthermore, falling prices of new products tend to increase the relative costs of repair, which has been highlighted as the main determinant of the decline of repair activities
(McCollough, 2012). Returning to Campbell’s discussion, the preference for fresh products, associated with the high value placed on convenience and low-cost offers, can thus be seen as complementary to manufacturers’ efforts at reducing the durability and reparability of goods, jointly producing a dynamic of regular product displacements.
The second meaning of the new identified by Campbell is the ‘innovative’, pertaining to the improved or technologically most advanced. Products are presented as innovative when they are believed to be better at meeting someone’s needs, being more efficient or powerful than existing technologies. In this case, Campbell suggests, the production of technical incompatibilities and new products at increasing rates on the part of manufacturers finds its counterpart in “technophiles or gadget fans” who crave for the latest technology. In social-psychological accounts of desire for the new, the regular influx of technologies is understood as the basis for new experiences, providing emotional stimuli that can alleviate boredom (e.g. Hirschman, 1982; Scitovsky, 1992). According to some commentators, instant gratification and impatience are the defining features of postmodern consumerism and underpin shrinking levels of product endurance. Bauman, for example, describes the consumption experience as an endless cycle of stimulation and frustration, as consumers compulsively desire new stimuli and are unable to gain satisfaction from a good for very long (Bauman, 2005).
The third form of the new is the ‘novel’, relating to unfamiliar, fashionable, and aesthetic product qualities. An artefact can be novel, for instance, when being handed on, which is experienced as new by the recipient despite the artefact being neither fresh nor innovative. Campbell suggests that from this perspective, the evaluation of goods is mainly a matter of taste. In this case, the accelerating dynamic stems from the roles of
48 consumer goods in people’s formations of identities and expressions of the self. Following theorists of postmodernity (e.g. Bauman, 2000; Giddens, 1991), a person’s identity increasingly relies on the symbolic values of goods as previously dominant social and institutional frames of reference dissolve. Instead of long-term identity projects, people continuously and flexibly need to redefine their identities through the purchase of novel goods.
To summarise, the various perspectives presented in this section point at a set of mutually reinforcing dynamics that are argued to contribute to lower levels of product endurance.
By putting the pace of change at the centre and linking this with economic and cultural logics of acceleration, they challenge cyclical models in multiple ways. From this perspective, artefacts do not lose their connections to producers after being acquired by consumers, continuing to be important objects of planning. Neither are they principally defined by the class of artefacts to which they belong. Instead, the diachronic relations between new and existing artefacts are foregrounded as the main source of concern in markets and consumer culture, dictating the direction of change so that the lower- possible level of product endurance can be achieved.
2.3 Discussion
The preceding sections described the contours of the two dominant meta-theoretical perspectives on the dynamics of endurance of products in use. The juxtaposition of the two perspectives reveals some striking differences that are summarised in Table 1. For the most part, these boil down to the assumed power of producers to exert control over the lives of singular goods beyond the point of exchange. Following cyclical perspectives, there is a clear line of separation between production and consumption. Economic competition forces producers to innovate and launch new products on the market at the
49 highest-possible rate, but in the end, it is up to consumers to assess whether the new product is worth it. Accelerationist perspectives, by contrast, highlight the various possibilities through which producers can influence the course of a singular good way beyond the moment of exchange of ownership. Product endurance emerges as a calculable variable for producers.
Table 1: Cyclical and accelerationist perspectives on product endurance dynamics
Cyclical perspectives Accelerationist perspectives
1) Predicted patterns
Product endurance Cyclical Deteriorating
Temporal dynamics Substitution, overthrow Gradual, linear
2) Foregrounded normative orientation
Predominant concern in Direction of change Pace of change consumption
Desired direction of change Predetermined product Towards direction promising category shortest displacement cycles
Intentionality of changes in Indirect consequence Purposeful product endurance
3) Conceptualisation of artefacts and context
Artefacts in use Fixed qualities, adding value Malleable qualities requires replacement
Relations between concrete Synchronic, diachronic Diachronic artefacts (emphasis on lock-ins)
Relations between Separated Producers exert a high degree production and of control over products in consumption consumption
Macroeconomic Schumpeterian innovation Throwaway society, context patterns, entrepreneurial postfordism economy
Exemplary critiques of Swan (1970), Röper (1976, Bodenstein and Leuer (1981), other perspectives 1977) Lodziak (2000)
50 Notwithstanding to say, the two perspectives have been seriously challenged throughout the years (e.g. Edgerton, 1999; Gregson, Metcalfe, & Crewe, 2007; Lepawsky & Mather,
2011). In this concluding section, I wish to briefly point out two limitations in particular.
The first is that neither perspective leaves any room for the possibility of increasing the level of product endurance. To the extent that such a trend is considered, it is interpreted merely as a temporary, cyclical failure to deliver exciting innovations. As I have argued in the introductory paragraphs to this thesis, this is a common interpretation of the trend could be witnessed in the British mobile phone market in the past decade or so.
The second major shortcoming I wish to highlight is that both perspectives take the direction of change for granted. In cyclical perspectives, this is typically the progression along some predefined path of technological or stylistic change. In accelerationist perspective, change is equally unidirectional, directed towards the disposability of goods.
As work in the sociology of markets shows, this is an extremely unrealistic assumption. In many markets, there are competing definitions of goods and the direction of change is highly contested, with potentially important implications for the pace of change. If we believe the vast literature on mobile phones, such multiplicity is a core characteristic in this market (e.g. Goggin, 2006). In the following chapter, I further elaborate on these two points in conversation with the field of market studies. This will enable me to articulate an alternative perspective through which to study the case at hand.
51 3 Theoretical Approach
Making steps towards an alternative perspective to the dynamics of product endurance, this chapter explores how theoretical ideas from the interdisciplinary field of ‘market studies’ can be put to work to analyse the empirical case at hand. The label of ‘market studies’, sometimes accompanied by the prefix ‘constructivist’ (e.g. Nøjgaard & Bajde,
2020), demarcates not so much a coherent research programme than a collection of research streams approaching markets as ongoing, practical accomplishments (Araujo et al., 2008; Geiger et al., 2012; Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007).
In this chapter, I focus on two generic ideas from the field that I believe can help bring this project forward. The first, only briefly touched upon in the introductory chapter, is to embed the dynamics of product innovation and obsolescence in wider processes of
‘market innovation’. Kjellberg, Azimont, and Reid (2015) suggest that market innovation can be broadly conceived as “altering the way business is done” (p.4). Notably, this implies a significantly more encompassing and dynamic conceptualisation of markets as opposed to the common view of markets as pre-existent collections of potential customers (ibid.). Processes of product innovation, of whatever kind, are not located outside but at the very heart of markets.
The second idea originates in debates on ‘economic ordering’ (Geiger et al., 2014b) or
‘economising’ (Kornberger et al., 2015) in markets in the presence of multiple, potentially conflicting values and interests. Market studies exploring this issue raise important questions ignored in the perspectives described in the previous chapter, such as: Do conflicts over evaluation impede the production of value and slow down the pace of product innovation? How do situations of dissonance need to be organised to avoid unproductive conflicts and possibly even create the opposite effects?
52 Market studies do not offer conclusive answers to these questions, but they highlight that multiplicity is an important issue that market agencies frequently have to grapple with and that the organisation of the relations between contradictory modes of valuation has consequences for the production of value and pace of innovation (see Antal, Hutter, &
Stark, 2015; Beckert & Aspers, 2011; Geiger et al., 2014b; Helgesson & Kjellberg, 2013;
Kornberger et al., 2015). At the same time, work in this direction has increasingly coalesced around common notions of ‘worth’, ‘concern’, and ‘valuation’, signalling a collective interest in the pragmatics of value.
In what follows, I specifically build on the ‘marketisation programme’ (Çalışkan &
Callon, 2010) and elaborate, in conversation with previous research in the field of market studies, how it can be pushed further to inform the analysis of product endurance dynamics. In so doing, I begin with a brief introduction to the performativity programme, the legacy of which continues to shine through in studies of marketisation. With its focus on economic calculation and the dynamics of valorisation and devaluation, this line of research is particularly close to the interests of this study. But it also comes with important limitations, including a neglect of multiplicity in valuation. I discuss these at the end of section 3.1. Taking a short detour to debates about the plurality of values in markets
(section 3.2), I then explore how the issues raised in the same debates have been approached in studies of marketisation (section 3.3) and the questions that remain unaddressed (section 3.4). By the end of this chapter, we should thus arrive at an approach to market innovation that takes the dynamics of markets and their constituents as a starting point and is attentive to the various ways markets can organise the competition between different valuation efforts.
53 3.1 Markets as calculative collective devices
The relevance of sociological theory to the study of economic phenomena, such as the dynamics of valorisation and devaluation of goods, is perhaps not self-evident. As Stark
(2000) has pointed out, economic sociology has long been defined by what he coined
‘Parson’s pact’, an arrangement according to which economists study the economy and production of ‘value’ (singular), while sociologists examine how economies are embedded in social relations and the multiple ‘values’ (plural) on which this is based. This division of labour, however, has been seriously challenged in the past two or three decades.
Questions relating to the production of value are no longer seen as the sole preserve of economists, having become of focal interest in the sociology of markets and other economic phenomena.
The performativity programme provided a significant impetus to the sociologists’ grown interest in economic phenomena. While it is always somewhat arbitrary to identify a single starting point, the seminal book The Laws of the Market (Callon, 1998b) is widely credited as the catalyst. Its provocative claim was that markets with rationally calculating agencies (homo oeconomicus) and objectified goods, as envisioned in neoclassical theory, do exist after all, challenging the consensus among sociologists at the time that this theoretical construct would have nothing in common with markets in real life. Instead of focusing on the identification of blind spots and weaknesses in economists’ accounts,
Callon argued, economic sociologists should rather examine how economists and their theories contribute to the realisation of economic phenomena. The issue, then, would not be one of accepting or rejecting the neoclassical conception of markets but of studying how this particular type of market is performed.
To clarify what it means to perform something, Callon (2010) recalls the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary performativity introduced by Austin (1962).
54 Following Austin, speech acts such as “I sentence you to die” do not simply refer to a state of reality but bring it into existence through their very performance. In Austinian terms, such statements have an “illocutionary effect” if they are enough to bring about the intended effect. However, Austin also considered another type of performativity that he called “perlocutionary”. While the act of saying ‘I sentence you to die’ realises the sentence and constitutes an important part of a trial, having an illocutionary effect, it does not lead to the execution of the accused. For this to come about and the statement to be performative in a perlocutionary sense, a series of what Austin calls ‘felicitous conditions’ need to be met. In the example at hand, this could be a stable regulatory setting and the reliable work of people and objects in carrying out the execution, among others.
The reference to felicitous conditions is critical in so far as it highlights the importance of mutual adjustment processes between economic theories and other entities populating markets. Perlocutionary performativity thus draws attention to the various operations necessary to realise neoclassical or any other type of markets, operations Callon (1998a) refers to as ‘framings’. Through the framing of markets and their constituents, boundaries are established that allow interactions to take place more or less independently of their surroundings. A common frame reduces uncertainty and stabilises relations, operating as a space within which agents can interact in mutually meaningful ways.
It goes without saying that performing a market as conceptualised in neoclassical theory is particularly challenging. For a human agency to turn into a homo oeconomicus that acts in a calculative, rational, and predictable matter, for example, it needs to be disentangled from its social relations, confronted with a set of comparable objects, and given the capacity to calculate the differences (Callon & Muniesa, 2005). That this is not a complete illusion, however, owes much to the contributions of technical or material devices. In the
‘technological economy’ (Barry & Slater, 2002), human agencies are deeply entangled
55 with a swarm of devices, from pricing formulas (MacKenzie & Millo, 2003) to shopping carts (Cochoy, 2008) and ethical consumption apps (Fuentes & Sörum, 2019). The higher the expectations of humans to act independently from one another, the more effort tends to be invested in equipping them with the necessary tools.
Economic calculation, then, is not intrinsic to human agencies but an outcome of collective, distributed action. It is just as amenable to sociological analysis as the processes through which people arrive at specific judgments. The challenge for economic sociology is to study how markets in all their forms, as one such ‘calculative collective device’
(Callon & Muniesa, 2005), are organised. This holds particularly true for highly economised markets traditionally left out in sociological analyses and favoured by economists. The study of financial markets and the roles played by economic theories and mundane, frequently overlooked market devices, have thus received particular attention in early contributions to the marketisation programme (see McFall, 2009). However, its implications go much beyond the study of specific situations of market exchanges and identification of neglected agencies, originating in a fundamentally dynamic conception of markets.
From a performative perspective, markets are not just sites where buyers and sellers meet to determine the price for an already stabilised object. For transactions of consumer goods to come about, for example, consumers must be simultaneously detached from their existing networks and attached to new products. The metamorphoses of products thus become of central interest:
“Instead of starting the analysis with agents who calculate their utility with regard to a set of given goods, the analysis starts with goods and follows their metamorphoses, careers, qualifications and re-qualifications, from laboratories to marketing departments, to the consumer. The consumer himself becomes increasingly less the endpoint of the analysis, as the process of re-qualification of goods now more and more entails the
56 recycling of goods, which hence change hands many times during their social lifetimes.” (Callon, 2005a: 97)
By studying their careers, we can begin to appreciate the significant effort required to transform products, even just temporarily, into ‘goods’ that are of value to consumers and can be traded on markets. At the same time, it becomes clear that the qualification of products is at the very heart of market competition (Callon et al., 2002). To compete in markets is to constantly explore new ways of mutually adjusting the worlds of the product and the consumer, a process that has no clear beginning or ending.
This dynamic conception of markets is particularly significant in the context of this thesis because it creates a crucial link between the valorisation of goods and their requalification.
As Çalışkan and Callon (2009) emphasise, valorisation and qualification go hand in hand:
“The forces that explain the circulation-transformation of things are the same forces that give things value” (p. 389). In organising the valorisation of goods, markets thus simultaneously define where products are transformed throughout their lives and how frequently the new displaces the old.
Given the emphasis on the careers of goods in early works and the approach’s potential for thinking about their circulation (see Lepawsky & Mather, 2011; Spring & Araujo, 2017), surprisingly few studies have mobilised these theoretical ideas so far to explore the dynamics of innovation and obsolescence beyond processes immediately leading up to the acquisition of goods. Market studies are quickly catching up on this front, however, paying increasing attention to processes of use (e.g. Hagberg, 2016; Stigzelius et al., 2018), maintenance (de Wilde, 2020), detachment (e.g. Le Velly & Goulet, 2015; Le Velly,
Goulet, & Vinck, 2020; Mallard, 2020), reuse (e.g. Brembeck & Sörum, 2017; Cholez &
Trompette, 2020; Corvellec & Stål, 2019), and recycling (e.g. Gregson, Watkins, &
Calestani, 2013; Kama, 2015; Lepawsky & Connolly, 2016).
57 A great, early example of this line of work is the study of Spinney and colleagues (2012) on the dynamics of product obsolescence in the laptop sector. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with employees of a computer firm and end users, the authors explored a specific aspect related to the ‘psychological obsolescence’ of laptops: the availability of a new laptop. The organisation of the relation between the new and the old thus moves centre stage in their analysis. In the first part of their analysis, they show how the existence of newer laptops prompts consumers to re-evaluate the product qualities, leading to higher levels of dissatisfaction with their own laptops and ultimately their premature disposal. In the second part, the authors go on to demonstrate how the company’s research and sales departments created an image of consumers constantly demanding innovation that was then used as a rhetorical device to legitimise the short time intervals between releases of new products. This may read like a confirmation of accelerationist perspectives, but it is nothing of the sort. In tracing the concrete, distributed actions and devices that led to premature product disposals, the study did not have to rely on essentialist statements and assumptions about the nature of consumers or capitalism.
Yet, there is also an important element that is as characteristic for the performativity programme as it is for accelerationist perspectives. The starting point, in both, tend to be the causes rather than effects. Lepawsky and Mather (2013) summed the issue up nicely in their critique of accelerationist accounts: Planned obsolescence may well be practiced and work, but it cannot be the all-powerful force it is claimed to be given geographical and historical variations in product endurance. One of the risks in focusing on causes is to pay disproportionate attention to relatively insignificant phenomena. Indeed, in the laptop sector studied by Spinney and colleagues, levels of endurance had actually been increasing
(Euromonitor International, 2019) in spite of the processes they describe, a phenomenon left unaccounted for.
58 The contours of a different approach to the (temporal) dynamics of innovation and obsolescence less prone to the same failure can be grasped in Weber’s (2016) study of property cycles. For Weber, property cycles were, at least in part, the result of multiple market devices: 1) expectations of obsolescence, which legitimised change similarly to the consumer image described in the aforementioned study, 2) the metaphor of cycles, and 3) the herding behaviour of professionals. The study shows that cycles are neither natural phenomena nor mere fictions. Furthermore, by relating the performativity of concrete market devices to overall temporal patterns of innovation and obsolescence, Weber was able to go some way towards an account that tackles also questions of significance and power.
That the study succeeds only partially, however, is less a matter of poor research design than located in the fact that this is not what Weber had been looking for. With firm roots in the performativity programme, her main interest was in drawing attention to neglected market devices, not in developing a comprehensive account of how cycles come about.
Even so, the same orientation has faced considerable criticism for putting too much emphasis on economists and technical devices at the neglect of other important, potentially non-economic agencies contributing to market shaping (e.g. Blok, 2011;
Pellandini-Simányi, 2016; Entwistle & Slater, 2014). Furthermore, the focus on the performativity of market devices tends to overemphasise success and stability (Overdevest,
2011; Cochoy, Trompette, & Araujo, 2016), a tendency that also a shift to analysing multiple devices are even ‘market infrastructures’ (Chakrabarti et al., 2016; Kjellberg,
Hagberg & Cochoy, 2019) will not be able to prevent.
The studies on the pace of innovation and obsolescence introduced in this section are able to partly evade this criticism, shedding also light on non-technical devices like metaphors and images. In other respects, however, it is noteworthy how little they paid attention to
59 instability and failures as well as the contributions of non-professionals and non-economic agencies. There is also no mentioning of co-existing or competing values. The aforementioned critiques have not remained unaddressed, however, having partly been incorporated in the marketisation programme. But before turning to this agenda, it is time to step back for a moment and revisit the debates that have led to the contemporary interest in matters of multiplicity and valuation.
3.2 Valuation: beyond calculation and judgment
The performativity programme’s emphasis on calculation sparked considerable controversy in economic sociology (for more comprehensive and entertaining accounts, see McFall, 2009, 2014; McFall & Ossandón, 2014). After all, sociological research had put much effort into challenging the assumption of standard economic theory according to which prices would carry all the information necessary for market agencies to make rational decisions. Karpik (2010) highlights three dimensions that make it difficult to calculate the differences between alternative offers and thereby hinder the formation of prices: uncertainty, incommensurabilities, and multidimensional product characteristics.
Categories of goods and services where all of these may be prevalent, such as wine, pieces of art, restaurants, and fashion, thus represent particular challenges to economic theory and demand alternative, sociological explanations. For Karpik, markets for such goods, which he calls ‘singularities’, can only exist because an array of ‘judgment devices’, including personal networks, professional critics, advertising, and rankings, help to
“dissipate the opacity of the market” (p.44).
Karpik’s work on judgment devices resonates with the economics of conventions in its emphasis on uncertainty (see Musselin & Paradeise, 2005). Again, the starting point is in many ways diametrically opposed to Callon’s. Markets, from the perspective of this school
60 of thought, are notoriously unstable and liable to various types of coordination problems, with the ‘value problem’ (Beckert, 2009) ranking among the most critical. Without some shared expectations of what is quality, it is argued, it is impossible for consumers to judge and sellers to demonstrate what product is best. In contrast to Karpik’s account, which, in drawing a sharp line between (qualitative) judgment and (quantitative) calculation, ultimately remains limited in its applicability to ‘singularities’, the conventions school directs attention to different forms of coordination through which agreement can be achieved. A key contribution in this respect has been to move beyond the monolithic theorisation of value in economics and strict distinctions between value and values.
The work of Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) in particular has been instrumental in establishing symmetry between economic and social registers of value by articulating a plurality of economies or ‘orders of worth’. As Stark (2000) pointed out, the price of a good is only one expression of its worth. He reminds of the work of Dewey (1939) who drew attention to the common roots of the notions of ‘price’, ‘prize’, and ‘praise’. In terms of prize, something is considered worthy when a person holds it dear and in esteem, seeing therein a source of inspiration and amazement. While this emphasises the emotional and personal moments of valuation, praise establishes worth through making comparisons and estimations, highlighting the intellectual aspect of this practice. Being polysemic in character, the notion of worth thus encompasses these different meanings, establishing the ground for a ‘sociology of worth’ (Stark, 2000) that studies economic value side by side with other conceptions of value.
61 3.2.1 Organising modes of valuation I: freeze-frame and productive frictions
In the conventions school, orders of worth play a key role as collective conventions or principles of evaluation that reduce uncertainty in markets. In the presence of multiple conventions, the ability to calculate, valorise, and set prices is thus tightly linked with the question of whether an agreement or compromise can be achieved. From this line of work, we can thus discern a first thesis concerning the relation between disagreements and the pace of innovation. Borrowing from Kjellberg, Azimont, & Reid (2015), I use the term ‘freeze-frame’ to denote the thesis that collisions between competing values temporarily stop progression.
A radically different interpretation of this relation, however, can be found in the works of
David Stark (2009). Studying confrontations between orders of worth in a variety of organisational settings, Stark arrives at the conclusion that value does not derive from establishing shared expectations. Instead, it is precisely the ability to “keep multiple evaluative principles in play and to exploit the resulting friction of their interplay” (p. 15) that creates value. The pace of innovation, then, depends on the extent to which
‘productive frictions’ can be fostered.
As this debate on the dynamics of valorisation shows, the sociology of worth makes an incisive step towards overcoming Parson’s pact. Furthermore, this stream of work is persuasive in drawing attention to the plurality of values or orders of worth that need to be grappled with once we leave the narrow confines of financial markets that had been at the centre of interest in early contributions to the economisation programme. Indeed, proponents from both camps seem to agree that product differentiation as well as aesthetic and moral values are likely to increase in significance (Aspers & Beckert, 2011; Callon,
2007a).
62 3.2.2 A pragmatics of valuation
Even so, the gap between the economisation programme and the perspectives presented in the foregoing section remains wide. While the former considers transformations throughout the careers of goods, as we have seen, the latter’s accounts of valorisation/devaluation have so far predominantly focused on situated ‘moments’ or ‘sites’ of dissonance (e.g. Antal, Hutter, & Stark, 2015). Such an approach tends to take the production of value for granted, very similarly to the way the economisation programme has been accused of taking evaluation for granted. Proposing a perspective of ‘broken world thinking’ (Jackson, 2014), by contrast, Greeson (2020) argues that value is never stable. The focus on isolated moments and the overcoming of uncertainty on the demand side, she suggests, implicitly reproduces a linear sequence in which value is first produced, then evaluated, and destroyed.
In a related critique, sociologists in the pragmatist tradition have challenged the substantivist idea of values as stable and pre-existent entities, moving instead to a more processual approach to ‘valuation’ (Dussauge et al., 2015a; Muniesa, 2011; Stark, 2011).
This approach diverges from a focus on worth in two significant ways. First, and specifically in contrast to deductively derived frameworks of values operating at a high level of abstraction and generality, a pragmatist approach to valuation highlights the specific ways in which values are enacted. Rather than belonging to pre-defined domains or registers, it is suggested that values can be made commensurable in different ways, calling for detailed attention and an agnostic approach to the specific ‘frames of valuation’ inscribed in practices. The second important contribution of a focus on valuation as process is that it emphasises the entanglement of processes of evaluation and valorisation.
The notion of valuation, as Vatin (2013) argued, encompasses these two meanings. But while Vatin links the former with the market/demand and the latter with the production
63 process, Heuts and Mol (2013) convincingly demonstrate that in practice it is hard to distinguish between them.
The theoretical idea of valuation as process has had a considerable impact in the study of markets to date and has since acted as a bridge between the aforementioned lines of inquiry. In the following and last section of this chapter, I explore how this idea and more general attentiveness to multiplicity have been incorporated in the marketisation programme that has evolved out of the performativity/economisation programme. From this, a radically different view on the relationships between the plurality of value and the pace of innovation emerges.
3.3 Marketisation
Partly in response to aforementioned critiques, the performativity thesis has been significantly elaborated over the years. Subsequent theoretical work paid much more attention to the sources of failure. At the heart of this shift, I locate the notion of
‘agencements’, which can be interpreted as a move to bring the notions of ‘device’ and
‘felicitous conditions’ closer together. It is worth elaborating the meaning and implications of this move in brief.
Borrowing the term from Deleuze and Guattari, Callon defines agencements as “socio- technical arrangements when they are considered from the point of view of their capacity to act and give meaning to action” (2005b, p. 4). In tying agency and arrangement together, the notion of agencement highlights that the capacity to act is not a property of a single actor but distributed in a wider apparatus of prostheses and tools that participate in generating a specific outcome (Callon, 2008; Hardie & MacKenzie, 2007). The term
“demands that a panoply of entities be flexibly taken into account and described, in detail,
64 whether they are human beings or material and textual elements” (Çalışkan & Callon,
2010, p. 8).
Besides indicating the distributedness of action, the term agencement includes a dynamic component, also invoking the process of the continual and open-ended re-arranging of entities. An agencement is inherently dynamic and does not need any stimulations from outside for it to move or change its form:
“Nothing is left outside of agencements. That is to say, there is no need for analysts to seek further explanation, because the (eventual) construction of its own meaning is by definition an integrated part of the agencement. An STA [socio-technical agencement] eventually includes the statement(s) pointing to it and interpreting it, just as creating instructions are part of a device that participate in making it work” (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010, p. 9 emphasis in original).
Agencements thus carry their own agendas for change as well as the resources necessary to execute them. If there is nothing outside an agencement, however, then this includes also the counter-efforts at instantiating different, often conflicting, versions of the agencement
(Callon, 2007b; MacKenzie, 2006). Instead of studying the performativity of economic theories or material devices in isolation, this calls attention to performativity or ‘co- performation’ struggles (ibid.) as well as the impossibility of complete framings that account for all contingencies. By marking and establishing boundaries, framing is not just constitutive of a specific version that is taken into account but generative of the other, that which is left outside and absent. In other words, framing inevitably produces its own
‘overflows’ that are rendered inactive and invisible (Callon, 1998a; Czarniawska &
Löfgren, 2012). Such overflows can be positive or negative, as in Callon’s example of music from a neighbour’s party that may be perceived as enjoying or annoying. Negative overflows in particular may raise concerns and ignite counter-efforts at re-framing the agencement. But even when overflows are positive or remain unrecognised at first,
65 agencies remain open to the possibility of drawing boundaries differently, retaining the reflexive capacity to contest existing frames and potentially draw on alternative ones
(Finch & Geiger, 2010; Slater, 2002).
3.3.1 Market agencements
Approached as agencements, we can begin to appreciate more fully the multiplicity of potentially contradictory efforts competing in markets (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010). This is, crucially, not (necessarily) limited to competing economic interests. In light of the critiques mentioned above, the language of calculation, after attempts to stretch its meaning beyond recognition (see McFall & Ossandón, 2014), has been given way to a pragmatist approach that is attentive to alternative ‘modes of valuation’, be they primarily economic or otherwise (Çalışkan & Callon, 2009; see also Hauge, 2017; Roscoe, 2013).
In combination, the concepts of valuation and ‘market agencements’ thus lead to a perspective that departs significantly from the idea of markets as de-socialising forces.
Instead, markets emerge as malleable, highly flexible spaces in which different interests and values compete, with indeterminate outcomes.
This dynamic conception of markets has inspired many interesting studies to move beyond moments or sites of dissonance and explore the processes of how non-economic, especially ethical and green modes of valuation are realised in concrete market settings
(e.g. Blok, 2011; Pallesen, 2016; Reijonen & Tryggestad, 2012; see also Helgesson &
Kjellberg, 2013). At the same time, the shift to market agencements has also revived an important research agenda that had been articulated already in The Laws of the Market but since been largely suppressed by a focus on performativity: “to explore the diversity of
[…] organized markets” (Callon, 1998b: 51). The marketisation programme, as set out by
Çalışkan and Callon (2010), aims to take markets as starting points and study their shape,
66 constitution, and dynamics in all their forms. To this end, they propose a flexible definition of market agencements that highlights three characteristics. I quote it here in full because it plays an essential role in providing a basic orientation of what to look for when studying markets:
1. “Markets organize the conception, production and circulation of goods, as well as the voluntary transfer of some sorts of property rights attached to them. These transfers involve a monetary compensation which seals the goods’ attachment to their new owners.
2. A market is an arrangement of heterogeneous constituents that deploys the following: rules and conventions; technical devices; metrological systems; logistical infrastructures; texts, discourses and narratives (e.g. on the pros and cons of competition); technical and scientific knowledge (including social scientific methods), as well as the competencies and skills embodied in living beings.
3. Markets delimit and construct a space of confrontation and power struggles. Multiple contradictory definitions and valuations of goods as well as agents oppose one another in markets until the terms of the transaction are peacefully determined by pricing mechanisms.” (p.3).
This focus on the markets and their organisation as dynamic outcomes is consistent with a heightened sensitivity to failures and multiplicity but also pushes this further by drawing attention to the possibility of unintended effects (Pellandini-Simányi, 2016). To
Zuiderent-Jerak (2009), such a historically sensitive approach to concrete markets can complement insights from performativity studies by providing a better understanding of the conditions under which markets can be re-organised. This may help to dampen over- enthusiast expectations in the performativity of market devices just as it can contribute – closer to the aim of this thesis –, to an articulation of ‘forms of the probable’ (ibid.;
Thévenot, 2002).
67 3.3.2 Organising modes of valuation II: singularisation and multivalence
Where do the ideas presented in this section leave us in terms of the pace of innovation and obsolescence? Two different, ideal-typical ways of how markets organise the relations between modes of valuation can be identified in the literature. The first has primarily been laid out in a series of Callon’s theoretical works (Callon, 2005a, 2016; Callon et al., 2002) and can be summarised with the notion of product innovation as a process of
‘singularisation’. The basic claim behind this idea is that the logic of economic competition is first and foremost to establish bilateral monopoly-situations with customers. Companies, following this view, constantly thrive to differentiate their products from the competition to reduce the number of alternatives available to their customers. Under intense competition, then, every customer owns an individualised good. Callon reserves the term ‘market-agencements’ (with hyphen!) for markets agencements that organise multiplicity through singularisation.
Notably, moments of dissonance or collision are an unlikely occurrence and thus not a problem for innovation from this perspective, as different modes of valuation can exist side by side. In other words, there is no direct confrontation between modes of valuation.
Fuentes and Fuentes’ (2017) study of the marketing of vegan milk substitutes provides an illustration of how singularisation may work in practice. They find that the company
Oatly has been able to simultaneously ‘convenienise’ and ‘alternativise’ the product through selling it, on the one hand, in convenience stores and with convenient packaging, while also advertising them as healthier and more sustainable than conventional milk on the other hand. By mobilising different channels, Oatly could thus reach different customers and avoid potential conflicts between the two modes of valuation.
68 What is notable about Callon’s interpretation is that multiplicity is not taken to be just
‘out there’ but seen as an outcome of economic competition. Indeed, the entire singularisation process seems to be defined by the sellers’ economic interests, a position that Callon (2016) indirectly justifies with reference to the greater calculative power of firms. With singularisation processes giving a free rein to the dynamics of economic competition, markets emerge as “force[s] of investigation and renewal” (p. 31) that are extremely efficient at accelerating the pace of innovation, a dynamism that according to
Callon can be highly beneficial when channelled in the right direction, following the credo “creative destruction is not bad per se, but it needs to be organized!” (p. 32). Except some greater optimism regarding the malleability of markets in terms of the direction of change, we thus end up in a position that is strikingly close to the accelerationist perspectives outlined above.
In discussing the key characteristics of market-agencements, Callon juxtapositions this market organisation with an alternative, so-called ‘interface-markets’, that can be derived from neoclassical economics. In the latter, the ideal-typical good is not the singularity but the ‘platform-good’, whose qualities have been stabilised so that buyers and sellers only have to agree on its price. As platforms, “goods are only taken into consideration from the point of view of the articulation they provide between supply and demand” (p. 23).
Callon rejects this conception of markets on the grounds of its (supposed) inconsistency with empirical findings, suggesting that the notion of market-agencements and singularisation offer a far more realistic perspective on how markets organise competition.
But it is an unequal fight. By associating platforms with a static and singularities with a dynamic view of markets, the discussion leaves out a crucial dynamic: how products turn into platforms, i.e. their platformisation. Pursuing this line of thought further, we may ask whether there is more to platformisation than the mere standardisation and stabilisation of their qualities.
69 Empirical studies on market organisation considering co-existing modes of valuation show that singularisation is not the only possibility. Geysmans, de Krom, and Hustinx
(2017), for example, take a different route than Fuentes and Fuentes by shifting attention from the product to the supermarkets and examining how fair trade has been performed in the specific retail settings of world shops. Their analysis shows how world shops were organised to enact multiple versions of fair trade. More than mere, standardised ‘platforms’ where buyers could interact with products, the world shops they studied thus constituted
“multivocal shopping environments” (p. 539). That a similar approach to marketisation is also possible in relation to consumer goods is demonstrated by Reijonen and Tryggestad’s
(2012) analysis of the ‘greening’ of urinary drainage bags. The environmental friendliness of these bags had a poor standing in relation to other qualities like price and functionality.
To succeed, it had to evade a ‘trial of strength’ in relation to these qualities. Instead of a process of singularisation, however, the authors argue that the key to its success was that manufacturers, through a series of experiments, found a way of making PVC-free bags without compromising on other qualities. The bags were thus given the capacity to take multiple matters of concern into account.
As these exemplary studies indicate, a dynamic understanding of markets does not necessarily lead us to singularisation. The marketisation of platforms or standardised, mass- market goods, while being given little attention in market studies, should be an important area of study (see also Dobeson & Kohl, 2020; Dubuisson-Quellier, 2013). The successes and failures at performing ‘multivalent’ agencies (see Gerlitz, 2017; Kjellberg &
Helgesson, 2006; Law & Akrich, 1996) seem to be particularly relevant in this context.
Like singularisation, multivalence makes it possible to evade conflicts and thereby contribute to the value of goods. As the aforementioned studies illustrate, it can be a decisive strategy for reaching mainstream success.
70 3.4 Conclusions
This chapter engaged with core debates in the field of market studies to develop an alternative perspective on the dynamics of product endurance. To this end, I have first discussed the potential and limitations of an approach rooted in the performativity/economisation programme. This programme locates the careers of singular goods in the dynamics of markets and draws attention to the various market devices participating in the construction of specific temporal patterns of innovation and obsolescence. Taking note of a lack of attention to struggles over the evaluation of goods,
I have then explored four different ways discussed in the literature through which such struggles may come to matter for the pace of innovation, a discussion closely linked to the question of how markets organise competition between different definitions and valuations of goods (cf. Callon, 2016; Stark, 2009).
The first two can be derived from debates on the implications of collisions of contradictory evaluation principles in specific moments of market making, suggesting that such collisions can either lead to a slow down (‘freeze-frame’) or acceleration (‘productive frictions’) of innovation. The third and fourth possibilities, meanwhile, tie the question of the pace of innovation to the successes and failures at avoiding collisions. Whereas
‘singularisation’ achieves this through the production of different goods for different consumers, ‘multivalence’ is based on the idea of goods that are able to create multiple values.
The field of market studies thus provides a promising repertoire for thinking about the consequences of valuation struggles for the pace of innovation and obsolescence. At the same time, many important questions remain unaddressed. In particular, the line of work on valuation struggles presented in the previous section has been able to move beyond isolated moments or sites of conflict, but it is still a long way to the analysis of the
71 temporal patterns of innovation and obsolescence similar to the ones presented in section
3.1. The number of studies that have moved into this space can be counted on the fingers of one hand and have mainly focused on the recycling of goods (D’Antone et al., 2017;
Gregson et al., 2013; Hawkins, Potter, & Race, 2015; Kama, 2015; Lepawsky &
Connolly, 2016). An important complication in this respect is that to consider the pace of innovation and obsolescence in general is not the same as looking at the endurance of singular products in use. How the various ways of organising modes of valuation affect product endurance is yet to be explored.
Furthermore, an important issue that is given little attention to in extant debates relates to the competition between different ways of organising multiplicity in valuation itself. Why are some markets characterised by singularisation dynamics and others by the creation of multivalent agencies? How do they interrelate within markets? Taking markets rather than modes of valuation as a starting point, I would argue, constitutes a key step to making such dynamics visible. At the same time, I acknowledge that the approach outlined in this chapter is not without prerequisites. Even with an etic definition of markets in the pocket, the methodological challenges of studying processes of market innovation are considerable. The following chapter discusses these in detail.
72 4 Methodology
In this chapter, I introduce the remaining part of the ‘theory/method package’ that underpins this research. I begin by outlining the methodological framework, which draws its main inspirations from the ‘biographies of artefacts and practices approach’ (section
4.1). The biographical approach principally relies on in-depth case study research and is well aligned with the analytical sensibilities introduced in the previous chapter, especially the need to attend to multiplicity and transformations of products across multiple sites.
However, this approach also adds an important building block through its insistence on considering the multiple temporalities and scales of change. Subsequent sections describe the key components of the research process, starting with the selection of the case (section
4.2). I pay particular attention to the rationale for choosing each method and the practicalities of data collection (section 4.3). At last, I describe each step of data analysis and how the data will be presented in the chapters that follow (section 4.4).
4.1 Case study research and the biographical approach
Following Merriam (1998), a case study can be distinguished from other approaches based on three characteristic elements: it is particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic. While the first relates to their focus on a single instance, unit, or phenomenon in a bounded context, the latter stress that case studies are forms of inquiry that involve an in-depth and holistic description and analysis of a complex issue, often in its real-life context. The ambitions of single-case study research are very different but can be seen as complementary to variable- based, large-N research (della Porta, 2008; George & Bennett, 2005; Van de Ven, 2007).
Whereas the latter can establish the effect sizes of specific causal relationships through statistical correlations across a large number of observations, the former are fundamental
73 for understanding the processes through which the same effects are produced (Van de Ven
& Poole, 2005). In studying processes, case-based research takes many relations into account rather than a few isolated variables and pays particular attention to the timing and sequencing of events. This makes case studies particularly suitable for examining complex, time-sensitive dynamics like path dependency, interaction effects, evolutionary processes, tipping points, and feedback loops (Bennett & Elman, 2006; George & Bennett, 2005).
Beyond such unifying elements, however, case study research varies greatly in terms of empirical scope of enquiry, selection of methods, and theoretical ambition, depending on the epistemological assumptions on which research is based (see Blatter & Blume, 2008;
Harrison et al., 2017; Welch et al., 2011; Yazan, 2015).
A key issue in any case study research concerns the unit of analysis and drawing of case boundaries. Should it be defined a priori based on existing theories or explored as a part of empirical analysis? Tending towards the latter end, the definition of market agencements presented above is deliberately broad and flexible to encompass different versions of existing markets and make their dynamics visible. To deal with the complexity imposed on the researcher by such a theoretically parsimonious approach, scholars often advise to
‘follow the actor’ and produce detailed descriptions of the networks of association that constitute them (Latour, 2005). However, one may interpret this guideline in two different ways. One approach is to follow an actor/actant, ethnographically for instance, to examine how it engages in world-building activities and how this, in turn, transforms the actor/actant. Another productive approach of following an actor/actant, especially for tracing networks historically, is to select a single source that acts as a ‘peephole’ from which to study a potentially wider network without requiring researchers to adopt a bird’s eye view (e.g. Cochoy, 2009; Hagberg, 2016). In contrast to the former, such a peephole approach follows an actor to learn about other phenomena rather than the actor itself.
Both approaches, however, share a strong empiricist orientation and reluctance to
74 intervene in the process, reflecting a preference for a more selective approach to method over a narrowing down of empirical enquiry on theoretical grounds.
The combination of highly abstract, non-predictive theory and an open-ended process of following an actor/actant is attractive for breaking down misleading preconceptions of all kind and it is in this spirit that I mobilise the notions of market agencement and valuation.
But this approach to research has also received considerable criticism for its naïve empiricism (e.g. Bruun & Hukkinen, 2003; Geels, 2007; Krarup & Blok, 2011; Williams
& Pollock, 2012). Furthermore, how does one ‘follow’ something that is ambiguous and chronically unstable (Hoholm & Araujo, 2011; Law & Singleton, 2005; Slater, 2014)?
The ‘biographies of artifacts and practices approach’ introduced in this section represents an alternative methodological strategy that emerged precisely from a dissatisfaction with an overemphasis on local action and unreflective choices of study sites (Hyysalo, Pollock,
& Williams, 2019; Pollock & Williams, 2009; Williams & Pollock, 2012). A central tenet of this approach is that change needs to be studied with sufficient temporal and spatial reach and take the framing effects into account that result from focusing on specific empirical phenomena rather than others. Proponents of the biographical approach argue convincingly that studies with restricted attention to a single site and short timeframe risk to exaggerate the influence of examined actors/actants and leave too soon or arrive too early to make inferences about the success or failure of an innovation. Since many processes take significantly longer time periods than ethnographers are able to study, the analytical value of such ‘snapshot’ studies is limited (Pollock & Williams, 2009). At the same time, the same proponents warn against relying solely on a bird’s eye view, arguing that this tends to over-rationalise situated actions and miss out on important intricacies. In research on historical phenomena and processes in particular, it is important to gain an understanding of how they unfolded in real-time. Without an appreciation of the views
75 actors had at the time, past events and developments tend to appear as inevitable to the researcher (Garud et al., 2010).
The ambitious methodological programme for studying artefacts advanced by Hyysalo,
Pollock, and Williams builds on the metaphor of a biography of things. First proposed by
Kopytoff (1986), this metaphor has a rich history in the social sciences on its own and constitutes a powerful tool for creating links between production, distribution, consumption, and divestment. A biography invokes the sense of a long life but also reminds us that all lives come to an end; that every object has a finite life span (Gurova,
2009). Importing the biographical approach into STS territory, Pollock and colleagues first couch the notion of artefact in sociotechnical terms and emphasise that biographies are not just cultural, as in Kopytoff’s original formulation, but material too (Pollock &
Williams, 2009).
The more innovative part of their approach and especially valuable in the context of this study, however, is to highlight the importance of addressing the ‘nested’ character of biographies, where changes in an individual artefact (e.g. a user’s phone) flow into the history of the specific model (e.g. Samsung Galaxy A3), which in turn form part of the wider class of artefacts (e.g. mobile phones) and so on. To be sure, the assertion that multiple timeframes need to be recognised is not new. Theorists in the domestication of technology tradition, for instance, have long demonstrated a sensibility to the
“interweaving temporalities” in the histories of artefacts (Silverstone & Haddon, 1996;
Silverstone, Hirsch, & Morley, 1992). In the ‘biographies of artifacts and practices’ approach, however, this nestedness becomes a cornerstone in the design of research projects and selection of methods.
In contrast to the two approaches to following the actor/actant introduced above, the biographical approach rests on a combination of longitudinal, multi-sited, and
76 theoretically informed research (Pollock & Williams, 2009). The strategic selection and triangulation of methods is of paramount importance in such a research design and receives much attention. By investigating a phenomenon from multiple points of view, it becomes possible to generate more robust analyses based on cross-validations of results and to capture a greater range of situations and timeframes. Of particular importance here, and connected to the nested character of biographies, is to consider the studied phenomenon at multiple scales. A typical characteristic of the biographical approach, which I replicate, is thus to combine analysis of phenomena in their local settings with longitudinal analyses of the wider contexts within which the same phenomena are located.
The multi-layered, messy, and fragmented data that such an approach inevitably brings about is compensated by a more central role of theory and the interpretative capacities of the researcher. But the point here is not in giving up inductive research and idiographic accounts of change for a strictly deductive approach and the search for universal logics.
Although Pollock and colleagues did not make their epistemological stance explicit, I would argue that their perspective on this matter, just like their embracement of multiple methods, is well aligned with pragmatist approaches to case study research (e.g. Merriam,
1998).
The pragmatist tradition occupies an intermediate position between rationalism and empiricism (Avenier & Thomas, 2015; Beach & Pedersen, 2016; Van de Ven, 2007). The production of knowledge, from this point of view, is inseparably intertwined with empirical research. The mutual adjustment process between statements and the worlds they refer to, as described in section 3.3, applies also to the research process, which can be expressed as an ongoing attempt at improving the verisimilitude between the researcher’s knowledge and reality. A central pragmatic strategy for achieving this verisimilitude is the
77 inferential process of abduction or retroduction as outlined by Peirce (1935). Following
Peirce, most research takes its starting point in the encounter of an anomaly, something unexpected that poses a problem in so far as it does not conform with one’s theoretical understanding. This suggests that prior knowledge of a phenomenon is not something that can be abandoned before commencing with a research project but a key ingredient that prompts the re-examination of an issue in the first place and thereby frames the questions that give research its orientation.
Acknowledging this fundamental role of analytical templates, Pollock and Williams (2009) recommend engaging with existing literature to make oneself better aware of one’s preconceptions of a given phenomenon. Furthermore, heuristic frameworks, while always provisional, provide analytical cues as to what could be important sites to study and the foundation for a more systematic case study design (see also Merriam, 1998). From a pragmatist perspective, the art is in following a problem-centred and focused research strategy while cultivating the potential for surprising observations (Timmermans &
Tavory, 2012).
Abductive reasoning begins precisely in the moments in which discrepancies between empirical phenomena and existing knowledge become apparent. Once recognised, alternative analytical templates are created that could explain the observed anomalies.
These templates are then confronted with the evidence and revised until a satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon is achieved. Through an iterative and recursive process of moving back and forth between analytical abstraction and data, prior knowledge is refined or revisited (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012; Van de Ven, 2007). In highlighting the importance of existing understandings, the pragmatist view emphasises that research is never an isolated activity but situated in a wider project of cumulative knowledge production. However, it rejects the positivist ambition of accumulating knowledge
78 through uncovering universally true statements and strict testing of theories, as knowledge can never be fully detached from the case studies in which it was created. Rather than seeking for a close correspondence between theory and a ready-made world, and thus aiming for law-like statements and focusing on specific causal relations, pragmatist perspectives foreground the provisional and contingent character of truth in a complex world that is co-produced by the heuristic devices used in practice. As Friedrichs and
Kradochwil (2009) point out, pragmatist research seeks to enable a better orientation in a relevant field. To this end, an integrated and holistic understanding of a case and identification of the most significant patterns and differences, which may allow for some contingent generalisations, is often more valuable than causal theorising about a limited set of phenomena. Biographies of specific artefacts in particular, by combining detailed narrative with analytical insights, have come to play an important role in the collective sense-making about technologies in society (cf. Natale, 2016).
Having outlined the main elements of the methodological framework, the following sections turn to each component of the research design. As it should transpire from the justifications for each component given below, the research design draws its inspirations from the biographical approach and the theoretical perspectives presented in chapters 2 and 3.
4.2 Case selection
The criteria of case selection in qualitative research markedly differ from variable-based research. While some suggest that cases may be selected based on their representativeness, typicality, or randomness (e.g. Yin, 2014), case study research arguably derives its main strengths from the purposeful selection of information-rich cases that elucidate specific empirical phenomena or theoretical concepts (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Siggelkow, 2007). Ideally,
79 then, the selection of a case is tightly linked to the overall purpose and ambition of a study. As set out in the introduction chapter, this thesis seeks to generate a better understanding of the specific dynamics of mobile phone endurance in light of the inability of existing perspectives to account for this particular phenomenon – the anomaly referred to above.
Extreme cases that deviate in important dimensions from existing theories are particularly valuable for advancing the knowledge base (George & Bennett, 2005). The selected case is situated precisely at the interface where both theories of product life cycles and purposeful obsolescence are claimed to be particularly relevant. On the one hand, previous studies indicate that mobile phones are a technology where diachronic relations between individual objects play an exceptionally important role, being connected to each other through their very functionality as communication devices (Ling, 2012) and relying heavily on technological platforms and standard-setting (e.g. Bohlin, Gruber, &
Koutroumpis, 2010; Funk, 2009; Hess & Coe, 2006). It is little surprising then that product life cycle perspectives have been mobilised to make sense of their developments
(e.g. Cecere, Corrocher, & Battaglia, 2015; Giachetti & Marchi, 2010; Koski &
Kretschmer, 2007; Miranda & Lima, 2013; Pon, Seppälä, & Kenney, 2015; Yeo et al.,
2015). On the other hand, mobile phones figure centre stage in debates on purposeful obsolescence, being one of the most studied and debated objects. In a key contribution to the literature on purposeful obsolescence, Slade noted that mobile phones had “become the avant-garde of a fast-growing trend toward throwaway electronic products” (2006, p.
264). More recently, academics investigated how various economic actors, including manufacturers, network operators, recycling companies, and mass media contribute to the acceleration of obsolescence of mobile phones (Collins, 2013; Good, 2016; Valenzuela &
Böhm, 2017; Vonk, 2018; Wieser, 2016). Other research further suggests that the timing of replacing mobile phones is a key consideration to consumers (e.g. Arruda-Filho &
80 Lennon, 2011; Bellezza, Ackerman, & Gino, 2017; Tseng & Chiang, 2013). Taken together, extant studies thus indicate that concerns over the direction and pace of change as well as potential conflicts between them can be expected to be particularly dramatic and salient in the case of mobile phones. For the same reason I specifically focus on the period since 2000, the first year that replacement purchases exceeded the number of first-time purchases of mobile phones in the UK (see appendix C).
In focusing on a specific country, I am following the convention of case studies on mobile phone markets and cultures (e.g. Ansari & Garud, 2009; Giachetti & Marchi, 2010;
Lacohée, Wakeford, & Pearson, 2003; Linge & Sutton, 2015). Despite the international orientation of most equipment manufacturers and network operators, previous research demonstrates significant variations in the consumption, regulation, and provision of mobile telephony across countries (e.g. Agar, 2013; Curwen & Whalley, 2010; Hamill &
Lasen, 2005). Also, product endurance did not develop uniformly (Euromonitor
International, 2019). To a significant extent such variations are reflected in media and analysts’ reports, which are frequently country-specific. The British market offers a privileged position in this regard, being the largest in Western Europe and considered to be one of the most competitive and technologically advanced in the World (Curwen &
Whalley, 2010; Linge & Sutton, 2015).
4.3 Data collection
The biographical approach introduced above sensitises the biographer to the importance of paying attention to several critical issues in making decisions about the selection of methods and sites of investigation. A first important consideration relates to the breadth of observations, particularly in relation to the transformations of singular mobile phones throughout their lives. This calls for multi-sited research that does not take the
81 importance of a single actor or site of change for granted. This sensitivity is consistent with the argument made above that it is important to study the careers of goods beyond moments of acquisition (see section 3.1). A second important consideration relates to studying multiplicity and conflict. In this regard, controversies are considered privileged sites for studying the competing frames of reference and identifying prevailing conflicts, as this is where actors engage in the setting of boundaries and critique of opposing programmes (Blanchet & Depeyre, 2016; Dussauge, Helgesson, & Lee, 2015b; Helgesson
& Kjellberg, 2013). While these two considerations are derived from relational theories of sociotechnical change and as such well aligned with the arguments made in chapter 3, a third consideration has a stronger methodological foundation and is more specific to the biographical approach, underpinning the encouragement to deploy multiple research methods to counteract the ‘data grain size framing effects’ resulting from approaching an object solely through a bird’s eye or ‘frog’s eye’ perspective (Hyysalo et al., 2019).
With these considerations in mind and weighing them against the accessibility of data as well as time and budget constraints, I collected data from scoping interviews, existing documentation, mass media, and household interviews. The data collection was a process of ‘progressive focusing’ (Stake, 1995), starting with the most accessible and comprehensive data sources and making decisions about additional and more detailed data sources along the way. To avoid privileging one method over another, however, the sampling strategies in each phase were devised independently of one another.
4.3.1 Documentary evidence and scoping interviews
Documentary evidence is a key element of most case study research, especially for cases with a historical scope. Documents are an easily accessible and rich source of data on a wide range of issues, while also being produced in real-time and including representations
82 of the future, past, and present. Moreover, documents made available in archives and databases are produced by professionals with varying backgrounds (e.g. academics, industry analysts, journalists, employees), offering multiple entry points into a case and providing data that comes in different forms, ranging from narratives and opinion pieces to statistical analyses. Some of this data is essential for the purposes of this study and could not be collected through other means. For instance, quantitative data is required for calculating an estimation of changes in the average level of endurance of mobile phones.
More than a mere resource, however, the performativity programme emphasises that also professionals such as academics and analysts contribute to the shaping of markets and society, for example through producing categorisations of technologies (Pollock &
Williams, 2011), framing the evaluation of companies (Beunza & Garud, 2007), and designing market exchanges (Garcia-Parpet, 2007). Rather than acting as ‘truth machines’, they provide alternative and frequently competing accounts of the same events. An analysis of documentary evidence can thus provide insights into the varying concerns and debates about mobile phones.
In selecting appropriate documentary sources, the aim was to cover a broad range of phenomena and focus on established sources with privileged access to key informants and actors in the world of mobile phones. I made use of the following sources of data:
• Academic publications: Mobile phones are much-studied objects, and a fair
amount of work has been produced that can be related to their specific biography
in the UK. This includes books and journal articles on the history of mobile
phone technology, competitive strategies of firms, product innovation, and
ethnographic and survey evidence on mobile phone consumption. Especially
valuable are dedicated journals such as Telecommunications Policy and Mobile
Media & Communications.
83 • Business journals: The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The
Economist, all accessed through ProQuest’s ABI/Inform database (covering all
years from 1990 to 2019), provide a mix of up-to-date news and detailed analyses
of key trends in the mobile phone market.
• Specialist trade journal: Mobile News claims to be the leading trade journal in the
British mobile communications industry. Published bi-weekly, this journal offers
in-depth insights on the British market, with a focus on retail and network
operations. Print copies of the magazine were accessed at the archive of the British
library in Boston Spa (Yorkshire). Due to limitations on the number of copies that
can be ordered at once, a lack of permission to take photographs, and the
remoteness of the library, it would have been too time-consuming to access all
issues. Instead, I focused on the period between 2000 and 2007, taking notes of
insightful information and quotes found in the magazine. For the period from
2008 to 2018, I was able to make use of the website’s archive and search function
(http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/), which allowed for a more flexible use and
targeted searches.
• Market research reports from Mintel, Euromonitor International, Deloitte, Frost
& Sullivan, and WARC, accessed through their respective online databases
(except Deloitte, for which I used only publicly available reports). The most
comprehensive source are the reports prepared by Mintel, a company that
produces UK-specific reports combining consumer-survey evidence and
information on product innovation and marketing. Multiple series are available,
directed at mobile phone manufacturers, network providers, and retailers,
respectively. Their archive includes reports dating back to 2001. Deloitte’s reports
are equally based on consumer surveys but tend to be centred on more specific
issues and are available for most recent years only. The reports available from Frost
84 & Sullivan go back to the late 1990s and provide assessments of key market
developments. Euromonitor International offers statistics on sales, penetration
rates, market share, prices, and revenues among others, covering the period from
2002 onwards. WARC (World Advertising Research Center) provides access to
reports submitted as entries to advertising award competitions. The reports are
produced by the companies and advertising agencies themselves, with each
describing a specific campaign and its success. While far from a complete database
of advertising campaigns, the reports highlight particularly successful ones and
provide insights into the backgrounds for engaging in influential campaigns.
• GSMArena.com: An extensive online database of launch dates and technical
specifications of mobile phones. Regarded as a key reference in mobile phone
research (e.g. Giachetti & Marchi, 2010).
• Annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of major
companies made available on their websites, which contain information on
financial performance, customer acquisition costs, product launch and CSR-
related activities.
• Statistics from Eurostat (population size), World Bank (mobile subscription
numbers), and the British regulatory authority in telecommunications (called
Ofcom). Ofcom produces detailed annual reports based on consumer surveys and
data provided by network operators. The reports offer analyses of key trends in
mobile services as well as quantitative data on mobile phone use and expenditures
on mobile services.
Since most of this data (except Mobile News 2000-2007) was available online or at the local library, I was able to flexibly access documents at any time and draw on different sources simultaneously. Before using documentary evidence more systematically with targeted keyword searches (see section 4.5), however, it was necessary to gain a basic
85 understanding of the field and content of each database. In addition to an initial broad stroke review of the literature, I conducted eight scoping interviews with leading experts in mobile telephony and people who have been involved or have written about specific events about which data was not immediately identifiable (conducted between March and
May 2017; see appendix A for a list of interviewees and topics of conversation). The interviews were helpful in identifying relevant sources of data and, in conjunction with extant literature, allowed me to gain a preliminary understanding of important trends in the history of mobile phones and the specifics of the British case that formed the basis for more targeted use of documentary evidence. An unexpected meeting with a key figure in the history of mobile phone design in January 2019 led to a ninth interview. Taking place after completion of data collection and at an advanced stage of analysis, I took this opportunity to ask remaining questions and seek validation for my understanding of the case.
4.3.2 Mass media
The sources presented so far predominantly centred on professionals in the mobile phone business. While mediating between firms, their role in connecting consumers and producers is mainly unidirectional from the former to the latter. As a result, the representations contained in analysts’ reports and business media, while insightful in their own right, are predominantly based on questionnaire survey evidence and focus on market shares, providing little information about the consumers’ rationales and wider societal concerns about mobile phones. Due to a lack of consistency in the questions included in questionnaire surveys, the results obtained at different points in time are also difficult to compare.
86 Mass media, by contrast, produce content for the general public – while coming with similar benefits and limitations for historical research like other documentary evidence.
For the purposes of this study, I specifically selected print newspapers and magazines because of their wide scope, reach, and accessibility. Such mass media can be expected to be particularly rich sources of data in the case of mobile phones due to the prominence of these artefacts in the public discourse. Mobile phones have been at the centre of many public controversies and debates for which mass media traditionally constitute important platforms. Moreover, mass media are also important market agents, offering readers advise on which products to buy and how to use them (Karpik, 2010; Mallard, 2007). According to a recent survey, 18% of respondents indicated to have chosen their phone because it received the best reviews (Davies, 2015).
Table 2: Overview of selected mass media
Print medium Stuff The Guardian The Sun
Description Specialist magazine National broadsheet National tabloid newspaper newspaper
Publication frequency Monthly Daily (excl. Sundays) Daily (excl. Sundays)
Monthly audience in 179,000 4,099,000 10,123,000 20161
Readership Predominantly male, All age groups, high All age groups, low characteristics1 young, high income education education
Access British Library; Factiva database Factiva database second-hand; digital copies
1 Source: National readership survey (http://www.nrs.co.uk/)
Since the content and framing of debates tend to vary significantly across different media outlets, I chose three outlets aiming for high diversity: The Sun, The Guardian, and Stuff
(see Table 2). As national and daily newspapers, the former two cover a broad range of issues of public interest. In selecting a diverse sample of newspapers, it is common to
87 distinguish between tabloid and broadsheet newspaper for their different readership profiles and content (e.g. Bellotti & Panzone, 2016). The Sun is the national newspaper in the UK with the largest audience and predominantly read by people with low-skilled and low-grade occupations. The Guardian is one of the most widely read broadsheet newspapers, reaching a readership with a strong background in higher education. Stuff is the best-selling specialist tech-magazine in the UK, with a strong focus on detailed product tests and speculation about future technology trends. While heavily biased towards a male, tech-savvy audience and being openly celebratory about technological change and consumer culture (see analysis of Slater, 2007), a first overview of providers of product reviews (print and online) indicated that this approach is far more common as opposed to the rational and self-disciplined approach to consumption promoted in consumerist and subscription-based product test magazines like Which? (on the latter, see analyses of Aldridge, 1994; Mallard, 2007). A comparison of product reviews in Stuff with the ones printed in The Sun and The Guardian revealed many parallels, suggesting that the practice of product testing is the domain of a relatively homogeneous group of critics and, with some exceptions like Which? and Ethical Consumer, largely independent of the outlet in which they are published. A further indication of this is that many editors writing for Stuff continued to publish also in other outlets and were regularly quoted as experts in newspapers. Finally, it should be noted that the influence of Stuff goes beyond direct contacts with consumers as test results are frequently integrated in the advertising of the latest handsets (see Figure 2). Despite relatively low circulation numbers, an analysis of
Stuff therefore promises insights into the dynamics of evaluation criteria used by an influential group of actors and complements the analysis of newspaper content based on a larger quantity and more detailed product reviews than those published in The Sun and
The Guardian.
88
Figure 2: Quote from a Stuff product review (Source: author, 2018)
For each media outlet, I considered all articles published in the years 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2016. The years were deliberately chosen independently of the knowledge about the biography of mobile phones acquired from the scoping interviews and analysis of other documentary evidence to counteract the danger of a confirmation bias and account for the possibility that representations in mass media may follow dynamics of their own. For example, Pantzar (2003) found that representations of mobile phones and washing machines in newspapers took very different routes than those in advertisements. At the same time, I selected these years in expectation that a comparison of representations would offer insights about the development of the average level of endurance of mobile phones, as each year captures a critical moment (see Figure 1).
While in principle it would have been possible to select data from more years and compensate the higher workload with shorter timeframes, the specific temporalities of the mobile phone market call for one-year timeframes. Many manufacturers follow one-year product release cycles and launch new models at different points in the calendar year.
Because of such release cycles, promotional offers, and the popularity of mobile phones as
89 Christmas gifts, sales tend to follow strong seasonal patterns (cf. evidence from Finland, see Kivi, Smura, & Töyli, 2012). Furthermore, shorter timeframes are more susceptible to short-lived public debates on extreme events which may lead to a biased impression of media coverage and weaken comparability across different periods.
Data collection took place between November 2017 and March 2018. To allow for flexible access to data, I purchased as many issues of Stuff magazine as possible from the publisher (obtaining digital copies for most of 2011 and all from 2016) and at the second- hand market (one from 2001, three from 2006, and five from 2011). The remaining issues were accessed at the British Library archive where I took detailed notes of each article.
The content from The Sun and The Guardian could be retrieved using Factiva database.
The database helped to significantly reduce the search effort for relevant content but required precise and unambiguous keywords. This proved challenging considering the many different names that exist for mobile phones and overlaps with related technologies.
Mobile phones are frequently referred to as ‘handsets’, ‘smartphones’ or just as ‘mobiles’ or ‘phones’. The latter may also refer to landline phones, however, and terms like
‘mobile’ are used in various contexts. Including all words in a keyword search would thus have led to an unmanageable amount of largely unrelated material to work through. With these considerations in mind, I used the following search term (including operators):
“mobile* and phone* or (smartphone* or smart phone*)”. This includes the most frequent words ‘mobile phone’ and ‘smartphone’ as well as the words ‘mobile’ and ‘phone’ when used in the same article. While reducing the amount of unrelated material to a minimum, this means that articles referring to mobile phones only colloquially as ‘mobiles’, ‘phones’, or ‘handsets’ were excluded from analysis. Assuming editors rarely use these words in isolation to avoid ambiguity and that these words are used interchangeably with ‘mobile phones’, I do not expect this sampling strategy to significantly compromise variation in mobile phone representations.
90 A further challenge in analysing newspaper articles about mobile phones is the large sample size and high degree of repetition. Whereas each issue of Stuff magazine contained about 3-15 unique articles on mobile phones, the total number of articles was significantly higher in the two newspapers (see Table 3). Most articles (excluding duplicates) covered the same topics rather than revealing something new. For example, The Sun featured dozens of articles inviting readers to submit their pictures or send in text messages each year. Also instances of mobile phone theft or phone use while driving were frequently reported about without significant variation in content.
Table 3: Sample sizes of articles from The Sun and The Guardian
Total sample size Randomly Purposively Total articles sampled articles sampled articles coded for coding for coding
The Sun
2001 870 119 43 162
2006 1,104 113 61 174
2011 2,189* 143 90 233
2016 2,561* 159 89 268
The Guardian
2001 1836* 121 61 182
2006 2819* 146 88 238
2011 1854* 134 80 214
2016 2421 139 98 237
* Includes duplicates, approximately 30-50% (the elimination of duplicates in Factiva database did not work in these cases)
91 Because my interest was first and foremost in gaining a qualitative understanding of newspaper coverage and in all its breadth, I followed a two-step procedure that combines random and purposive sampling techniques. In a first step, I randomly ordered all articles of a given year/newspaper and started inserting them into qualitative data analysis software
NVivo, assigning codes to the text of each article for every distinct element I could identify. I continued this process until the returns of analysing an additional article diminished sharply, that is, after analysing about ten articles without assigning any new codes in a row (i.e. there were no new elements in additional articles anymore). Through this process I familiarised myself with the data and acquired a sense of the articles that tended to be instances of the same kind. However, there were still many articles in the total sample with some distinct content.
Figure 3: Typical overview of articles in Factiva database
In a second step, I thus proceeded by going through the full list of articles published in the same year and inserting all articles with a new element in NVivo for coding, selecting them based on their title and short text passages containing the keywords (see Figure 3) and opening them only when in doubt about the content. In so doing, I used highly detailed codes (between 160 and 250 for each year/newspaper) so as not to exclude fine-
92 grained differences from the categorisation of the data at a later stage (see section 4.5). In combination, these two steps thus allowed me to capture the diversity of media coverage in each year without having to open, read, and assign codes to each article. In addition to this sampling approach, I took notes on the prevalence of different themes in each year/newspaper.
4.3.3 Household interviews
As a final step of data collection, I acquired a third set of data through conducting household interviews. While constituting an unusual source of data in case study research with a national scope, the interviews proved invaluable for the purposes of this study and can be located very much at its heart, insofar as they brought me closest to the specific relations between mobile phones and their users, the endurance of which I am interested in. In this respect, the interviews provide an important counterbalance to the previous data sources which operate at a relatively high level of abstraction. As noted above, by taking a ‘frog’s eye’ perspective, the researcher can obtain a more grounded understanding and appreciation of the intricacies of how mobile phones were transformed at sites of consumption, contributing to the overall project in two important ways.
First, the interviews inquired into the various moments of mobile phone consumption
(i.e. from acquisition to divestment) and how they changed over time based on the narrative accounts of individual consumers about their lived experiences. Narratives offer a great entry point for gaining an understanding of change, combining a chronology of events with a plot that connects them in a meaningful way (Elliott, 2005). They do this, on the one hand, by eliciting the processes of how changes in concrete consumption practices came about, complementing the representations of large-scale consumption patterns found in mass media and other documents (cf. Greene & Rau, 2018). On the
93 other hand, narratives bring the frames of reference to the fore that guided consumers’ engagements over potentially sustained periods of time. While such narratives may tend to overemphasise coherence, they are valuable sources of data in a sea of representations of highly specific and seemingly unconnected events, providing important insights on the question of why changes came about from the point of view of individual consumers.
The second added value of conducting biographic-narrative interviews is that they can be powerful devices for studying the intersections and interrelations between situated experience and the structures shaping it (Wengraf, Chamberlayne, & Bornat, 2002), for which they are finding increasing use in sustainability transition research for example (e.g.
Greene, 2018b; Greene & Rau, 2018; Hards, 2012). This is because, against the common misconception that narratives are mainly about how individuals make sense of how they experience the world, narratives frequently tend to integrate the contexts in which the same experiences unfold (Mason, 2004; Riessman, 2008). Given the exploratory nature of this study, interviews can thus provide important clues about significant market devices that have not been discussed in the literature so far. Furthermore, rather than taking the effects of already known market devices on consumption and product endurance for granted, studying their effects in concrete situations may offer a more nuanced picture of how the same devices can operate or be integrated in different ways at sites of consumption.
Like other methods, qualitative interviews, and biographic-narrative ones in particular, come with limitations of which it is important to be aware of. Holstein and Gubrium
(1995) highlight that interviewees are not passive containers from which one can retrieve objective, substantive information about what is happening outside the specific interview situation. Narratives tend to be directed at a specific audience (Elliott, 2005) and will thus depend on what participants expect to be of interest to the researcher and how they want
94 to present themselves. Moreover, participants may borrow from cultural discourses rather than strictly reporting about their own experiences. Especially in the context of biographical and life history interviews, collective memories of the past may overshadow events as they happened in the past (Harding, 2006; McLeod & Thomson, 2009).
Rejecting a naïve realist approach to interviews and acknowledging the situated and collective performance of narratives, however, does not imply that there is nothing to be learned about the past from interviews (see Alvesson, 2003). Narratives are not the opposite of chronologies but contain them, and the role of collective discourses and memories likely depends on the topic of conversation. The triangulation of biographic- narrative interviews with an analysis of mass media is particularly powerful in this regard.
A good interview design will also help alleviating some of the problems arising from the respondents’ inability to recollect memories accurately. Below I describe a set of tools through which I sought to address this challenge. At the same time, the problems of memory loss can be overstated. The process of recollecting past experiences itself can reveal a great deal about people’s attachments to specific handsets and their relationships with mobile phones in general.
In recruiting participants for interviews, I aimed for a diverse sample to learn from a variety of different experiences with mobile phones. Considering a lack of conclusive evidence on how mobile phone consumption patterns vary across different socio- demographic groups, however, I decided to start with a convenience sampling approach and adjust the process if participants’ accounts would turn out to diverge heavily as a result of sampling choices. The only two criteria were that people (1) had been using mobile phones for a substantial period during the past two decades and (2) been living in the UK for the past 15 years. The initial strategy of recruiting participants through publicly displayed posters in supermarkets and dropping leaflets through letterboxes proved ineffective (see appendix B1-3 for materials), however, each recruiting only one person
95 within a period of three weeks. I therefore continued the recruitment process through door knocking in evenings (see Davies, 2011), equipped with leaflets and a lanyard displaying my student card. All participant recruitment practices and materials received approval from the University ethics committee.
Located in South Manchester, the areas for recruitment were selected based on official statistics on the socio-demographic representation of inhabitants, covering different household structures and individuals of varying age, income, and different educational and ethnic background. The final sample obtained through this method turned out to be fairly balanced in terms of age and gender (see appendix B5 for a list of interview participants) but heavily skewed towards individuals with average to high household incomes and backgrounds in higher education. Based on my experiences, I mainly attribute this to greater difficulties in persuading people that are less familiar with research to participate, but also a higher social distance between me and working class or non-white groups may have played a role. In general, however, most people expressed great interest in my research, with a lack of time being most frequently given as the reason for declining to participate. A common misperception among potential participants was that they thought that I was looking only for people that are really ‘into phones’. It was therefore particularly important to clarify that I was interested in hearing about their views and experiences independently of their technical literacy.
I recruited all participants within a 10-weeks period between April and June 2018, judging 20 interviews to be sufficient. In contrast to the common strategy in qualitative research to determine the sample size based on the principle of (theoretical) saturation, I did not strive for comprehensiveness. The main purpose here is to gain a better, in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of people’s attachments to and detachments from mobile phones (the ‘frog’s eye’ perspective alluded to above) and of how people make
96 sense of their experiences. The quality of data is more important than the number of interviewees to this end (Malterud, Siersma, & Guassora, 2016). While the level of information about the many situations that people have encountered in their mobile phone careers inevitably varies, I found that the chosen sample size is sufficiently rich in information to allow for a contextualised, fine-grained analysis of key events and developments in the biography of mobile phones from the perspective of individual consumers. At the same time, the sample is large enough to provide valuable insights about variations in people’s experiences and, in conjunction with the other data sets, allow for a systematic categorisation of expectations about mobile phones (see section
4.4.3).
With the exception of two participants who preferred to meet at university campus, all interviews took place in people’s homes at times most convenient to them. This gave me the opportunity to make observations about their consumption lifestyles. Taking slightly more than an hour on average, each interview began with a short introduction of the general purposes of this study, clarification of procedure, and explanation of how I handle the data before obtaining the participant’s informed consent to tape the conversation and use anonymised excerpts for publications (see appendix B4 for participant information sheet, also approved by the ethics committee).
The remaining part of the conversation took the form of a semi-structured interview based on a broad guide and was divided into three segments (see appendix B6). At the beginning I asked some general questions on how life has changed for interviewees in the past 20 years, probing on their mobility, family situation, career, and general interests. To assist this process, I made use of a timeline on which I indicated key life events and turning points, a common methodological tool in life history interviewing (e.g. Greene &
Rau, 2018; Hards, 2012). The timeline invited participants to locate events in time as
97 precisely as possible. This device was also at the centre of the second set of questions in which I asked participants to recall the various mobile phones they had so far and provide brief descriptions of each. Expectably some participants found this quite challenging and with few exceptions, participants were not able to immediately recall all phones and provide precise information for locating them on the timeline. Instead, it was common for participants to remember specific phones at later points during the interview. The point of this exercise was not to obtain a complete and exact representation of the participants’ mobile phone careers, but to get interviewees thinking about the phones they had used in the past. As noted above, the recalling of memories is itself an insightful process. Furthermore, in most interviews the timeline became a central orientation device for both, participants and myself. While interviewees regularly pointed at the timeline to avoid ambiguity, I used it to retain an overview of participants’ lives and relate their experiences with particular phones to the specific life situations they went through. The timeline also made visible interesting coincidences or parallel developments and helped me to identify inconsistencies in participants’ statements.
The third set of questions inquired about the consumption of mobile phones and how this changed over time. In designing the interview guide, I benefitted from my experiences in conducting similar interviews in a previous research project (Wieser et al., 2015), where I talked with participants about each phone they had used so far separately and in a chronological order. While this method worked reasonably well for eliciting the processes leading to the replacement of handsets, it was time-consuming and involved repeating the same questions. By contrast, my aim here was to learn more about the most salient changes in consumption patterns in each case and understand the contexts within which they unfolded. To this end, my strategy was to invite participants to narrate their experiences in relation to three overall themes, drawing inspiration from Evans’ (2018) comprehensive definition of consumption: use and personalisation (relating to
98 appropriation and divestment), exchanges (relating to acquisition and disposal), and meanings of phones (relating to appreciation and devaluation). For each theme, I began with more general questions to invite narratives (“Can you tell me...?”) and continued with follow-up questions, asking for specific examples and confronting participants with instances that intrigued me. In so doing, I provoked sense-making at different levels of abstraction. Narratives of changes over long time periods are likely to be overly coherent and convey a sense of inevitability (Lamont & Swidler, 2014), but they also give a chance to interviewees to situate their engagements in the wider history of mobile phones, ranging between active and project-like engagements with a clear aim that produces coherence over sustained periods of time (“I always wanted a phone that...”) and more passive engagements with a high degree of coincidence (“I used to take anyone’s rubbish”).
4.4 Data analysis and presentation
This section describes the specific approach to process tracing that is employed here to make sense of the data. Having become predominantly associated with positivist methods for drawing causal inferences from process data, process tracing has more recently been recovered as a fundamental method of analysis in pragmatist case study research with a strong interpretive component (see Norman, 2015; Parsons, 2018; Pouliot, 2015;
Vennesson, 2008; see also Beach & Pedersen, 2016; Gerring, 2007). From this perspective, the focus is on producing an explanation of a particular outcome based on the specific frames of reference (e.g. beliefs, meanings, goals) used in a given context rather than some predetermined theoretical constructs. This emphasis on constitutive elements should not be taken to imply that there is no analytical value in conducting a single case study. As Pouliot remarks, “no social relationships and practices are so unique as to foreclose the possibility of theorization and categorization” (2015, p. 237). Once an in-
99 depth understanding of the particularities of a case is achieved, the researcher is in a better position to abstract from the case by identifying recurrent patterns. Rather than true representations of and empirically generalisable phenomena, the resulting analytical constructs allow for contingent, context-dependent generalisations beyond a single case.
There are probably as many process tracing strategies as there are studies claiming to use this approach (see Kittel & Kuehn, 2013). Interpretive analysis in particular is often highly idiosyncratic, non-linear, and based on moments of creativity that are often difficult to account for and impossible to convey in a linear text. As a result, the codified reports written by case study practitioners “often seem to lose something of the creativity, ingenuity and flexibility that was the trademark of their practice” (Vennesson, 2008, p.
239). Having said this, I describe the strategy pursued here as a distillation process consisting of multiple sequential steps of analysis at an increasingly granular level. The first step, presented in section 4.4.1, was about familiarising myself with the entire data corpus and preparing it for subsequent treatments. It was not until after this phase of familiarisation that it occurred to me that the concept of frames of valuation might offer a useful entry point for dealing with the messiness and complexity of observed phenomena.
This insight and a preliminary trialling of the concept’s usefulness in the case at hand formed the basis for working with the theoretical framework presented in chapter 3 and the research questions that can be derived from it. Before continuing to describe the analytical process in section 4.4.3, I will therefore present the research questions that structured the remaining steps of analysis (section 4.4.2).
4.4.1 Developing a database and identifying patterns of innovation
Data analysis began with the collection of first pieces of data by creating a system for storing and naming electronic files and starting to organise them based on thematic issues.
100 Beyond building an organised database to enable the quick retrieval of data at later stages of analysis, the purpose of this first step was to familiarise myself with the case and generate an understanding of the breadth and depth of the data. Depending on the type of data, I made use of different categorisation systems. Documentary evidence was organised by market agents, since most business and analyst reports were either prepared for or investigated specific groups like consumers, network operators, or manufacturers. For each manufacturer and network operator with a significant market share (this excludes, for instance, most mobile virtual network operators, of which there are more than a 100), I prepared an overview of its history and key milestones. In contrast to conventional network perspectives, however, I produced similar accounts for non-human agents such as mobile phones, subsidies, service contracts, and trade-in schemes, seeking to reconstruct their changing qualities throughout the study period using qualitative and quantitative data. An important part of this step was to gather reliable data for producing an estimation of how the average endurance of mobile phones developed, a process described in detail in appendix C. In a separate document, I started to map the network of market agents and explored how it developed over the years, paying attention to market shares, mergers and acquisitions, market entrants, and changing relations between different agents. I concluded this part of analysis by pulling the different sources of data together into a condensed narrative of change in mobile phone market and technology.
The analysis of mass media complemented the preliminary picture of the evolving techno-economic network by adding a sense of the dominant cultural representations of mobile phones at different points in time. As described in section 4.3.2, I created a database by importing articles from Factiva into NVivo and assigning them codes at a high level of granularity. A first round of thematic categorisation helped to reduce the complexity of the data and allow for a comparison of representations across the three outlets and each year, drawing on four broad and recurrent themes that I derived to make
101 sense of the data set as a whole: 1) fashion and style, 2) technological change, 3) addiction and social relationships, and 4) health, safety, and environment. Based on this categorisation, I systematically compared representations of mobile phones, noting down presences and absences in each year, to develop an account of change from the perspective of mass media.
The tape recordings, timelines, and field notes from household interviews formed the third source of data. For each interviewee, I produced a detailed profile, selectively transcribing timestamped pieces of the conversation and organising the data in three steps.
First, I filled gaps in the timeline based on other important events mentioned in the conversation to develop a fuller picture of the sequence of events. Second, I categorised the data using similarly broad themes as in the analysis of mass media but without imposing an overarching category system across all participants as there were strong variations in the issues foregrounded in each interview. In a third step, I wrote a brief, single-page narrative about each participant’s career in which I linked the event sequence with the categories.
Combining the sampling methods outlined above with this first analysis of each dataset, the data could be organised and reduced to a more manageable size for more detailed investigations. By remaining close to the data and using only broad thematic categories specific to each dataset, my aim was to preserve the heterogeneity of the data. Moreover, the separate narrative summaries written at the end of each dataset and interview gave me a sense of the key patterns of innovation in mobile phones and how they unfolded from different perspectives. Building on this, the next steps of analysis sought to develop a more systematic and integrated understanding of the case at hand, following the logic set out in the following section.
102 4.4.2 Research questions
Following an agnostic approach to the study of values (Dussauge et al., 2015b) and taking inspiration from Heuts and Mol’s (2013) investigation into the production and consumption of ‘good tomatoes’, I first inquired into the plurality of frames of valuation guiding the shaping of mobile phones:
1. What were considered good mobile phones across different sites and periods of
time?
The question leaves it open whether controversies were about different evaluation criteria for goodness or about different preferences regarding the pace of valorisation and devaluation. Neither does the question come with assumptions on the importance attributed to endurance and the prevalence of concerns they may have raised. Moreover, rather than taking the stability of such frames across space and time for granted, a pragmatist approach demands that their dynamics are subjected to empirical investigation.
Building on the first component, the second question relates to the performativity of frames of valuation.
2. In what form was each version of the good mobile phone realised?
This question moves from abstract frames of valuation to the concrete practices that they informed. As Callon suggests, the “performativity program starts with an ethnography of socio-technical agencements” (2005b, p. 5 emphasis in original). This is about generating an understanding of the varied agencies involved realising each frame, their specific contributions, and their interconnections. But as the success or failure of each mode of valuation depends on its relation to competing modes, it is also important to examine their organisation.
103 3. How were competing efforts at realising different versions organised?
This question relates to the analysis of market organisation for multiplicity in values and the respective paths of innovation that were created. Depending on the specific forms of organisation between different modes of valuation, potentially multiple temporally and spatially bounded paths may be delineated. Moreover, this component is aimed at producing an understanding of the processes underpinning the formation and dissolution of paths. The resulting biographical account of mobile phones, organised based on differentiated paths of innovation, is the main product of this research.
4.4.3 Framework analysis
The first research question calls for a categorisation of the data. But instead of applying predefined categories from the literature, a pragmatist approach encourages the study of how goodness is done in practice and framed by actors in the field (Dussauge et al.,
2015b). To this end, I broadly followed the procedures of ‘framework analysis’ (Ritchie &
Spencer, 1994), an approach to qualitative data analysis well suited for research based on a relatively clear research question and large amounts of data. In contrast to analyses that begin coding at a highly detailed level, the identification and formulation of a thematic framework begins prior to a formal coding of individual data segments, immediately following a first stage of familiarisation with the corpus of data. Ritchie and Spencer suggest that a more selective approach may be preferable to handle the volume of data.
Following this advice, I used multiple tactics to elicit frames of valuation and develop a preliminary thematic framework. The first is, as noted above, to focus on controversies as
“prime arenas for surveying the articulation of various conflicting values” (Dussauge et al.,
2015b, p. 269). Controversies likely reveal the various diverging positions and are insightful for understanding the boundaries that are drawn between them. In addition, I
104 paid particular attention to moments of narration and reflection about longer-term developments in mobile phones, which can be found across all three sites. In such moments, multiple concerns were frequently woven together and put into a common frame (see also Pentland, 1999), revealing modes of valuation at a higher level of abstraction than it tended to be the case in controversies.
Some of the themes included in the interim framework guided my understanding of the case early in the research process and reappeared in similar forms in the controversies and reflections analysed at this stage. Engaging with the debates surrounding mobile phones, I took notice of the many evaluative labels people were assigning to them and began to explore this more systematically. I found that the different perspectives were highly unequally represented in debates, however, both because some may not have been influential enough to cause much controversy and because some did not seem to be mobilised in critiques as much as others. Studying only controversies and reflections at high levels of abstraction would thus have meant to both rely heavily on the representations of critics (as opposed to how people describe their own positions) and leaving other positions relatively underexposed. To flesh out each frame it was therefore important to complement prior observations with an analysis of the various specific concerns that have been voiced throughout the years. Hence, the refinement of each theme and revisions to the categorisation strongly overlapped with the third stage of framework analysis (‘indexing’) in which the thematic framework is applied to data beyond the initial selection (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994). In a subsequent stage of ‘charting’, the data is translated into distilled summaries and reorganised based on the thematic framework to create a comprehensive overview. The resulting charts, which include references to the respective sources of data, could then be used as organisation devices for further analysis of the data as a whole.
105 4.4.4 Narrativisation
The frames of valuation identified in the previous step formed a central element in developing an analytical narrative of changes in the examined mobile phone agencement.
Narratives are best suited for presenting “as completely as possible the different viewpoints on the process studied” (Langley, 1999, p. 695). Following Pentland (1999), narratives have five characteristic features. First, they give a sense of the chronological order in which events unfold, without necessarily presenting events in the same order. Second, they are about some focal actors, assign them specific roles and clarify how they are related to one another. Third, narratives have an identifiable voice. They are always told by someone and may include multiple points of view. Fourth, narratives require indicators of content or context that specify the characteristics of events and situate them in time and space. Fifth, narratives carry meaning, conveying a more or less explicit message of what is right or wrong. In the case at hand, this includes both the meta-meaning inscribed by the narrator and the frames of valuation that underpinned mobile phone practices. As
Pentland stresses, every narrative inevitably foregrounds some of these features over others, as trade-offs need to be made between accuracy, simplicity, and generality (see also
Weick, 1999).
While the analytical narrative developed here includes all elements listed above, it is principally grounded in the frames of valuation articulated in the empirical material, based on the assumption that the interplay between their respective modes of valuation can both give coherence to action (sustained paths of innovation) and produce discontinuities.
Instead of producing a purely chronological account, the written biography presented in the following part of the thesis is organised based on temporally as well as spatially bounded paths of innovation. They are limited to specific spaces and progress in parallel because they are the results of distinct and ontologically incompatible (sets of) modes of
106 valuation, and they are restricted to specific time periods because of discontinuous reorganisations of the relationships between competing modes of valuation (this will be explored in more detail in Part II of the thesis).
To identify and make sense of the paths of innovation, I confronted the predominant patterns of innovation in product qualities identified at an earlier stage (see section 4.4.1) with the categorisation of frames of valuation. In so doing, I encountered three different situations that called for different analytical decisions. In the first, the solution to which is most straightforward, different patterns of innovation can be linked to the same, potentially multiple and overlapping frames of valuation. This indicates a common path of innovation. The absence of such overlaps suggests, in turn, that there were multiple paths of innovation progressing in parallel. The second situation, by contrast, is much more difficult to resolve. This is the case when different patterns do not overlap at one level of abstraction but share a common framing on another. In such instances, there are no absolute criteria on which basis to determine what and how many paths of innovation
(co-)existed. Instead, this requires judgments on the part of the researcher about the relative strength of framings at different levels of abstraction, which I made upon paying detailed attention to the level of abstraction at which conflicts took place (conflicts within frames can be assumed to be weaker and easier to resolve, see Ascui & Lovell, 2011).
Finally, a third situation encountered in the analysis concerns the inability of modes of valuation to make any significant progress in realising the respective frames of valuation during a specific period. This is to say that they did not produce any significant patterns of innovation. Nonetheless, such programmes need to be taken into account as they resisted or slowed down specific changes and thereby shaped dominant paths of innovation.
Beyond considerations regarding the structure of the narrated biography, a brief note on the style of presentation is in order. Throughout the biography, I mobilise all three types
107 of evidence described above. Especially the extensive inclusion of descriptions and quotes from household interviews may struck some readers as an odd decision. But again, the interviews must predominantly be judged in terms of the analytical value they provide.
For the most part, I thus mobilise the interviews to show how various market elements and innovations worked at the sites of consumption. There is, however, also a communicative value in presenting data from household interviews. For readers less familiar with the case, I would argue that this makes it easier to build on their own experiences with mobile phones and connect them to wider developments. For experts in the mobile phone market, meanwhile, the interviews can help them to generate an understanding of market innovations that is more grounded in concrete situations rather than in the abstract.
4.5 Conclusions
In this chapter, I presented a methodological approach for studying historical changes in market agencements as defined in section 3.3, drawing particularly on the ‘biography of artefacts and practices’ approach. I have argued that this approach is more suitable than conventional ‘follow the actant/thing’ approaches for a historical case study that takes effects rather than specific causes as a starting point. The insistence on the multiple temporalities and scales of change is especially relevant. By studying change at different scales – from singularised phones examined through household interviews to the entire market as discussed in much of the collected documentary evidence, it becomes possible to counteract ‘data grain size framing effects’ (Hyysalo et al., 2019) and develop an account that connects the transformations of individual artefacts with the wider contexts within which these take place.
108 Furthermore, the selections of the case and specific methods are reflective of the exploratory character of the study. The overall aim is not to develop a theory but to challenge existing theories and explore how the observed anomalies come about based on a holistic, in-depth analysis of the case chosen. As discussed in chapter 3, two dimensions are particularly relevant to take into account: the transformations of singular products throughout their lives and the multiplicity of efforts at realising different versions of a good mobile phone. I seek to address the former by mobilising a wide range of data sources and methods which elicit different moments in the lives of products. To account for the latter, I collected data from diverse sources as well as from some of the sites where differences are most likely to emerge: controversies in mass media and conversations with individual consumers. In the concluding chapter I will offer some reflections on whether these methodological strategies paid off.
109
Part II - Biography
Having laid down the theoretical and methodological foundations of this thesis, this part turns to the biography of mobile phones and the dynamics of market innovation. As explained in the previous chapter, narratives are best suited for cases that are highly dynamic and where different perspectives and practices strongly interact. However, such interactions do not need to occur all the time. In such cases, it can be more productive to tell multiple stories of temporally overlapping, but parallel developments rather than relying on a preliminary and tentative periodisation as an organisation device. More productive, in so far as it allows for better readability and takes off some pressure from subsequent discussion chapters.
The biography that follows thus carries an important analytical component. It emerges out of an understanding of the market innovation process as a series of distinct yet overlapping market agencements. A central task of this part of the thesis, then, is to tease out the differences across market agencements. The chapters 6 to 9 each describe the marketisation of a specific mobile phone market agencement: the platform market
(chapter 6), the singularities market (chapter 7), the premium platform market (chapter 8), and the circular platform market (chapter 9). These shortcuts, it should be pointed out, are not meant as generalisations. Throughout the thesis, I use them to refer to the situated mobile phone market agencements described in this part rather than some general versions of markets.
110 Another key characteristic of the market innovation process studied here was that, very much in line with the formulation offered by Kjellberg, Azimont, and Reid (2015), change was consistently ‘channelled’ so that conflicts between competing efforts did not lead to situations of standstill. In light of persistent complaints about the slowdown of technological innovation in the world of mobile phones, this is a provocative thesis. My point is not to deny that such a slowdown has occurred. It has its place in the biography
(see chapter 8). But I doubt its significance. The overall pace of market innovation, I suggest, was relatively stable throughout the years. The more interesting part of the story, then, is how the channelling of innovation efforts, in connection with the organisation of competing valuation efforts, has laid the foundations for permanent change and how this, in turn, has affected the endurance of mobile phones in use. For each market agencement,
I discuss how this channelling worked.
Before turning to the biography, however, the following chapter provides an overview of the various modes of valuation that I have identified in the British mobile phone market.
In this chapter, I deliberately abstract from the many specific concerns that have been expressed at various points in time. It fulfils multiple purposes. First, it should give a sense of the range of issues that were at stake, thereby drawing attention to the salience of multiplicity in the case at hand. Second, the analysis makes the different directions visible in which mobile phones have been pulled throughout the years. This can help to counterbalance the tendency in historical analyses to present the chain of events as a logical and necessary development. And third, the discussion allows me to clarify what I came to understand under terms like ‘fashion items’ or ‘toys’. Such abstractions have been highly influential in the world of mobile phones. I mobilise them at various points to organise the discussion.
111 5 What was a ‘good mobile phone’?
Mobile phones were at the centre of numerous and intense controversies, from annoying ringtones to the use of phones at concerts and the toxic materials contained in them.
Studying these controversies and moments of narration and reflection (see section 4.4.3) reveals an endless list of concerns raised in relation to mobile phones. While many concerns faded away as quickly as they emerged, others proved surprisingly enduring. In this chapter, I suggest that the varied concerns were not isolated phenomena, but that they can be linked to a limited number of relatively stable and intersubjectively shared expectations of what constitutes a ‘good mobile phone’. Put another way, this implies that there is neither a single objective answer to the question posed in the title of this chapter nor an endless number of possible viewpoints. In advancing this point, I mobilise evidence from multiple sources to show that the presented frames were recognised and enacted across different sites. Specifically, I distinguish between six versions of the ‘good mobile phone’2: ‘toys’, ‘fashion items’, ‘tools’, ‘absences’, ‘ethical items’, and
‘commodities’. In the following sections, I tease out their most salient characteristics and set them in relation to one another, before concluding this chapter with a discussion of their similarities and differences.
5.1 Toys
Mobile phones have been referred to as ‘toys’ throughout the entire study period. This association is particularly evident in the ways manufacturers assimilated ideas from the world of kids’ toys in the late 1990s when trying to succeed in the teenage market. Kaiser
(1999) reports that Alcatel sought the solution in “creating fun phones with bright colors,
2 I use the notions of ‘frames of valuation’, ‘versions of goods’, and ‘types of goods’, interchangeably.
112 whizzing ring tones and flashing graphic messages”, making them “cute” and giving them names like the ‘One Touch Gum’. When commentators spoke of mobile phones as toys during this period, however, they typically did not refer to such playful, technologically unsophisticated objects, but expensive, high-tech toys for ‘tech freaks’ (e.g. Jackson,
1996; Latour, 2001). Such differences reveal a high degree of variation within the toy category. But I find that there are several elements that create coherence and distinguish toys from other types of goods.
In particular, mobile phones qualified as toys when creating excitement and being playful and fun. Of critical importance is that they created a good ‘experience’. Joanna, Jeremy, and Ronnie, who enacted phones as toys throughout most of their careers, specifically remembered phones in terms of how they experienced them, using descriptions like “it was a nightmare”, “best phone ever, absolutely superb”, “that was a terrible phone”, “I’ve got nothing but grief from that phone, it was horrible”, or “a bloody brilliant phone”. A good experience often started with the excitement over discovering something novel:
“There’s nothing quite like getting a new phone. Only a few things are as satisfying as prising a mint mobile from its packaging. Until you get to using it, erratically, in 10- hour bursts.” (The Guardian, 2006c)
The experience of getting a “new shiny phone” was something a few of my interviewees explicitly longed for, considering it as a way of giving oneself a “treat” from time to time.
Joanna, for instance, appreciated pay-monthly contracts for allowing her to regularly get a new phone:
“It’s like, it’s time to renew, get a new one. And you know, I’m moderately interested in sort of technology and stuff like that, so it’s like ‘oh yeah, give me the next shiny new gadget and see what happens with it’.”
New technology was a common source of excitement and would be tried out irrespective of its usefulness. Jeremy, for instance, remembers that he was quick to buy a phone with
113 mobile internet when WAP (wireless application protocol) was released, stating: “It was awful, but you know, the idea was exciting at the time”. Similarly, an article in Stuff magazine conceded that the iPhone was the best phone at the time and an “amazing gadget” but suggested that it was “time to try something new” and get a different phone as readers must be “tiring of its ubiquity” (Stuff, 2011; Feb, p. 65). Yet another article even recommended a phone knowing that it would turn obsolete within a year, noting that a year is long enough given the average ‘gadgeteer’s’ phone replacement frequency.
Importantly, getting a new, exciting phone was not about showing off and making a fashion statement, but presented to be entirely a matter of personal enjoyment. When telling me about an expensive smartphone he bought at a time when no one else among his peers had one, Jeremy emphasised the difference:
“So that was like a needs-must, you know what I mean, it was a little bit like that rather than ‘I want to be the guy who’s got the newest tech’. It was just like, I’m psy’ twiddling my phones, you know what I mean. I feel like I need a new toy to play with to keep me going, you know that sort of thing really.”
Regularly trying out new phones was not about relationships to other people, as in fashion, but related to a curiosity of what the next features are, a general interest in technology, and connected to a sense of “living in the future” (Joanna). At the same time, toys went beyond novelty and created a good experience in use as the quote from Jeremy indicates. Likewise, Bas Ording, Apple’s famous designer, drew much inspiration from video games when designing the iPhone’s software, trying to develop features that were both functional and playful to create a “fun experience” that makes one keep on using the phone (Merchant, 2018, p. 115f). In this context, my interpretation of toys diverges from
Lindholm and colleagues (2003), who included also the enjoyment experienced in playing video games and sending text messages as evidence of how phones can be turned into toys. I suggest that there is a subtle, but significant difference between ‘toys’ and ‘tools for
114 play’. Phones were enjoyed as toys not because of the games or services they afforded, but due to their own qualities, of which their novelty, playfulness, feel, and sturdiness are key.
The ‘feel’ of a phone contributed to a good experience. An ethnographic study conducted in the early 2000s found that people liked to “keep their phones in their hands when they are not using them, fiddling with the device, almost cuddling it” (Lasen, 2005, p. 41).
Curiously, Joanna and Ronnie both linked considerations regarding the feel and sturdiness of a phone with an appreciation of designers. They strongly rejected protective cases as much as commercial practices of built-in obsolescence (see chapter 10), considering them as affronts to the designers’ work. The emphasis on “sturdy”, “unbreakable” phones as particularly “cool” product qualities, and simultaneous rejection of protective cases, reveals an important difference compared to economic and ethical perspectives concerned with the longevity of the phone.
5.2 Fashion items
Even more so than ‘toys’, mobile phones have frequently been identified as ‘fashion items’ over the years. From early on, commentators took note of the similarities between the appropriation of mobile phones and other fashion-oriented consumer goods:
“Buying a mobile phone isn’t like buying a videocassette recorder or a television set. It is a passionate purchase of a ‘personal lifestyle accessory’ that reflects an individual’s style, like a wristwatch or a pen, says Patrick Liot, president of consumer goods at France’s Alcatel SA. Alcatel targets some phones toward women, others toward teens and still others toward businesspeople. But the overall brand message is the same: ‘Very trendy, very fashionable phones that make no compromises,’ Mr. Liot says.” (Schenker, 1998)
Fashion items came in different forms, from accessories to ornaments and jewelleries (see section 7.2). What unified them, however, was that they were used to express one’s taste
115 and shunned as soon as too many or the wrong groups of people used them.
Fashionability and trendiness were thus central qualities in this world. Moreover, and unlike other types of goods, aesthetic and stylistic aspects played a pivotal role, constituting the basis on which owners can express their good taste. At the very least, a good phone therefore had to be beautiful and stylish. Consider how Catherine explained her decision to choose a specific phone:
“I liked the style of that, I thought ‘oh, that looks quite nice’. It was very, quite sleek- looking, you know, especially compared to the original Nokia. So it was purely aesthetics that I went for that one.”
Whereas there was a relatively clear path of improvement in other types of goods, fashion could go in any direction and even revive styles that had become obsolete. In fashion, individuality and uniqueness were celebrated and associated with the courage to express oneself and move against the tide. Simply being the first to take up the latest phone was not considered a legitimate strategy. Instead, fashion leaders avoided taking any predictable paths as the following extract from Stuff magazine illustrates:
“We all long to be slightly out of the ordinary – by some definition, superhuman. That’s what you’re seeing on the face of that goon who’s queued for a thousand nights to be the first to get the new iPhone...until he’s followed by the sea of me-toos pouring out of the Store doors. Buy a Sony Xperia, though, and you are superhuman for your whole two-year contract. ‘What’s that?’ people will cry. And you’ll say: ‘Why, it’s the Xperia XZ, my little counter-cultural hunk of classy-designed Sony flagship, brimming with cutting-edge camera skills and Google cleverness.’ And they’ll ‘huh’ and walk off. It’s lonely being out of the ordinary.“ (Stuff 2016, unexpected sony xperia xz)
The inclusion of a fictitious interaction in this text highlights that buying a phone with a particular aesthetic look, could have the desired effect of attracting people’s attention. In deliberately provoking attention, people could simultaneously seek affirmation of their style and build the foundation for its diffusion. As the previous quote suggests, this could
116 be solitary experience and provoke opposition. The fictitious response to criticism in this quote was not quite as sovereign as the ones I found in other instances, however, partly mobilising technical characteristics of the phone to justify the purchase. Indeed, there rather tended to be a sense that buying a stylish phone was about celebrating individuality and therefore did not need to be justified with reference to some objective criteria. In
Stuff magazine, editors did not even challenge the common critique that the fashion world is shallow, instead openly embracing this as a positive attribute, as in the following instance:
“The Slvr could easily be dubbed the Ryvita of the mobile phone world, thanks to its wafer-thin dimensions. [...] OK, it isn’t exactly bursting with features but we’re shallow and it does look gorgeous.” (Stuff 2006, May, 113)
As with other types of goods, being at the forefront in fashion required intensive engagement, in this case with the latest styles. In mobile phone fashion, style related to both the phone as well as how it made other entities look. In terms of the phone itself, colour, shape, size, and materials have been critical means for differentiating phones from each other. A strong focus on technology was strictly rejected since that would restrict the artistic potential in phone design. At the same time, it was made clear that the design of a phone must be sensitive to the characteristics of other possessions and the body.
“And when it comes to mobile phones, it’s also crucial to have a gadget that looks good. ‘I spent a fortune on the latest Nokia but it was well worth it, you can’t be wearing denim from Miss Sixty whilst holding a brick to your ear,’ says it all really.” (The Guardian, 2001b)
The statement quoted in this newspaper article relates to a common concern at the time that an over-sized phone would make one’s head look too big (see section 6.1). Similarly, there were persistent concerns about how phones ought to be worn (Fortunati, 2013).
117 These concerns demonstrate that as fashion items, the look of mobile phones was set in relation to other objects populating the fashion world and evaluated on this basis.
5.3 Tools
‘Tools’, also referred to as ‘devices’ or ‘instruments’, represent a third version to be considered. Mobile phones became tools as work was delegated to them, which allowed them to make lives easier, both through making it more convenient to engage in existing practices as well as enabling new practices that would not have been possible without them. Hence, the mobile phone as a tool created value through facilitating concrete tasks of various kinds.
Unlike toys and fashion items in particular, tools were expected to operate in the background and become completely invisible. As some of the heaviest users among my participants noted, once phones were purchased and became tools, they were not thought about anymore. Specific handsets became entirely replaceable and “incidental in life”
(Jeremy), with obsolete ones tending to fall into oblivion much more quickly than other types of goods. Good phones just worked and did not cause users any troubles, being reliable, secure, easy to use, fast, efficient, and fully fit for purpose. Interestingly, talk of phones as tools often came with claims of modesty and control. While tools supported users in potentially many practices, it was frequently emphasised that this is all they do. In the following quote, for instance, Jeremy seems to have anticipated that I could interpret his heavy use of phones as a sign of dependency or addiction, distancing himself from this and suggesting that he is in full control.
“It’s a tool. If I want to achieve X, Y, or Z, then it can do that. It’s certainly not something I’m tied to. I’m not like constantly watching for Facebook-Likes to come in, all that, you know what I mean, that’s not a big deal.”
118 The same degree of control was conveyed in talk about the purchasing criteria and conditions that would motivate a phone replacement. A good phone strictly did only what one needed in everyday life and in cases of emergency; no more, no less. While high functionality may have been required and appreciated, any additional, flashy features that could make for a good toy were rejected as technical “gimmicks” or “bells and whistles”.
The following statement from Thomas exemplifies this detached and unemotional assessment of what constitutes a good phone.
“It [current phone] does everything that I need it to do. I don’t need a high-resolution camera. I could maybe do a bit more internal memory perhaps. That’s the only thing. But apart from that, the battery lasts long enough and I don’t need any more speed. I don’t play games on my phone, so I don’t need a powerful phone. So in some sense, this is kinda what I’ve been looking for this whole process, which is a phone that just works and that is quite robust.” (emphasis added)
Tools were frequently associated with consumer-friendliness, ideally being easy to use and fitting into people’s lives. For technology-savvy product developers, this meant that they needed to show similar restraint and design a product with the ‘average user’ in mind
(Rieman 2003). At the same time, however, it was expected that technology does not stand still and that better phones are developed. As invisible phones should become in consumption, disruptions of existing routines were welcomed if new functions enhance people’s independence, connectedness, convenience, health, safety, entertainment, or privacy. From this perspective, a good phone elevated the user’s capacity to act in as many situations as possible. As a commentator remarked in 2001, the so far unfulfilled expectation was that “the 21st century human was to be a sophisticated beast, with a device for everything in the pocket” (The Guardian, 2001a).
Despite the emphasis on pure functionality, tools were not fully devoid of symbolic value, as they could demonstrate to other people that one has mastered the new technology. For
119 example, an early study by Lycett and Dunbar (2000) found that mobiles were used as
‘lekking devices’, being visibly displayed in public spaces as an indicator of status. Related to this, a piece in The Guardian reported about a practice called ‘stage-phoning’, where people made unimportant calls to impress others. Conversely, several interview participants expressed anxieties to fall behind and being seen with an outdated phone. As some of them pointed out, being conversant with new technological features made them feel being a part of modern society. But in contrast to fashion items, identity was here primarily linked to one’s competences in using phones rather than one’s taste.
5.4 Absences
In the frames presented thus far, the presence of mobile phones and absence of other entities (e.g. boredom, uniformity, inconvenience) was integral to the formers’ value.
However, in this case it is precisely the absence of phones that was valued. This was based on various concerns that mobile phones had become too powerful and would take over control at the detriment of users. Compared to other frames, it is perhaps not very surprising that this category had not been given a name so far, considering that it refers to an absence. Yet, the varied concerns and critical arguments raised in relation to the presence of mobiles have become increasingly integrated over the years and evolved into a coherent position through their collective opposition of tools.
In particular, it was argued that phones can enslave and dehumanise people rather than transforming them into “sophisticated beasts”:
“Many people feel enslaved - trapped by the buzz of a text arriving or a mobile phone ringing. Users find themselves constantly on edge because they can never disconnect or be left alone, and this is highly unnatural for humans. As a result we have fewer connections with important people around us such as our family, friends and neighbours.“ (The Sun, 2006c)
120 This comment speaks to persistent concerns that phones would negatively affect people’s relationships. Moreover, they were frequently represented as “drugs” that create dangerous addictions and distort the perception of reality. Over the years, however, this narrative expanded to include a widening array of concerns. Mobiles were increasingly discussed as paradoxical devices that can be disempowering just as much as they can be empowering. An editor in The Guardian summarised this position as follows:
“As with all technology, mobile phones can have their pros and cons, depending on how they are used. At their best, they can be useful tools for staying in touch, finding out new information and co-ordinating social activities. At worst, they can negatively affect concentration, communication and sleep, or increase fear of missing out, procrastination and stress.” (The Guardian, 2016b)
The quote illustrates how, first, debates on mobile phones were partly framed in terms of their ability to support people and, second, that a variety of different values were brought together in this context, including health, safety, productivity, and independence, among others. While these were mostly the same as in the case of tools, the importance of convenience was challenged. Most significantly, however, the proposed solution was completely antithetical, involving the distancing of the user from the phone and the disempowerment of the latter (the ‘NoPhone’, a “technology-free alternative to constant hand-to-hand contact”, takes this to the extreme).3 This could range from silencing or turning off phones in specific situations such as dinner, cinemas, and flights, to complete abstinence for sustained periods of time through a ‘digital detox’.
At the very least, a good phone was thus silent and did not intrude into people’s lives. But given their assumed power to control users and potential to expose them to various threats
(from rapists to marketers and repressive governments), more radical voices recommended to remove the phone entirely from people’s hands. But again, there was an element of
3 See https://thenophone.com/, retrieved on July 5th, 2019
121 status consumption in pursuing this, where being able to cut oneself off could signal independence and self-esteem as the following quote illustrates:
“What better way to show you’re too cool to be ‘on’ all the time; that you need space to think great thoughts? […] And perhaps that’s the only really radical thing left to do, in an era saturated with way too much information – to just stop talking. Run away from the attention everyone else seems to be compulsively seeking; disappear, disengage. There is no status symbol so powerful now as not having a status – or not, at least, in the ‘look at me’ Facebook sense – at all.” (The Guardian, 2016a)
5.5 Ethical items
Another type of good that was mobilised in relation to mobile phones is the ‘ethical item’.
Like the previous frame, the ethical phone has been proposed as an answer to negative consequences of phones. In this case, however, concerns did not relate to users, but to all other living beings that can be adversely affected throughout a phone’s life. Neither was it about wasting money as in the perspective presented below. A commentator in the
Financial Times expressed his frustration as follows:
“Like most people, I have a love-hate relationship with my mobile phone. […] Part of my frustration stems from the fact that the blasted things seem to break down on such a regular basis. If it isn’t the buttons or the screen, it’s the battery. I don’t think I’ve ever kept a phone for much more than a year, despite the fact that they are supposedly designed to last for up to a decade. […] Clearly this isn’t only a waste, it’s also a potential environmental problem. In mobile phones dating from before the 1990s, for example, batteries contained enough of the heavy metal cadmium to pollute 600,000 litres of water.” (Pincock, 2006)
Instead of a complete abstinence from phones, the solution was sought in a reconfiguration of their production and consumption along ethical standards, with the aim of minimising the negative effects on other people’s wellbeing and the environment.
An ethical phone was envisaged that is socially and environmentally responsible, does not
122 contain problematic materials, produces as little pollution as possible throughout its life, and keeps in circulation until a more ethical alternative becomes available.
To qualify as ethical, frequently expressed baseline criteria were that phones consume as little energy as possible and are free of materials that are either toxic or cannot be recycled.
But ethical standards were also expected to be upheld in the processes of production and consumption. Relating to concerns over the fairness of distribution of available resources and damages to the environment, ethical phones were presented as responses to the
“consumerist” way of treating things. In the following quote, for instance, ethical devices were specifically positioned as an alternative to fast technological change and profit-driven manufacturers.
“It’s not hard to see why e-waste has become such a problem. The steady, unrelenting flow of new tech models tend to make products feel outdated very quickly. [...] A two- year lifespan remains the industry standard. Many companies reduce or even stop supporting older operating systems in order to encourage consumers to buy the next generation of products. While this process is great for a company like Apple’s bottom line, it can levy a heavy burden on the environment. In response, a new movement of so-called ‘ethical’ electronic devices is emerging, designed with long term use in mind.” (The Guardian 2016c)
As the quote further illustrates, the toy perspective was not alone in rejecting practices of planned obsolescence. However, here it was not about principles of ingenious design.
From an ethical perspective, manufacturers were expected to make phones repairable and durable to reduce material throughput. At the same time, a commonly expressed suspicion was that measures in this direction would only be a marketing ploy. For example, one participant told me that she did not trust large corporations that claim to sell long-lasting goods, preferring to buy used phones as a form of protest. In other cases, critique was less directed at manufacturers than at consumers relying on “Chinese cost- cutting” (Ronnie) and the desire to own the latest device. As a response, it was suggested
123 that unwanted phones should be handed on or donated to those in need, either directly or via charities.
Besides environmental concerns over the fast turnover of phones, it was considered important from an ethical perspective that handsets contain only materials that were sourced in a socially responsible manner. In CSR reports, manufacturers expressed their commitments to eliminate child labour, high working hours, corruption, and slavery in the mining of materials. A particular emphasis was put on using ‘conflict-free’ materials only:
“Even though Nokia does not source or buy metals directly, we are very concerned about poor practices at some mine operations around the world. We require high ethical standards in our own operations and our supply chain. [...] Nokia became aware of the potential link between mining of Coltan and financing of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2001 and took action immediately.” (Nokia 2008, p.69)
Similar concerns, however, were raised in relation to the entire supply chain, from mining to manufacturing, use, and waste treatment. An additional element for a phone to be considered ethical, was that the conditions of production and disposal needed to be made transparent to allow for a collective evaluation of their standards and the prosecution of individuals and organisations that to did not comply. Moreover, a transparent phone was preferred to enable a collective learning process among producers and make it possible for other actors along the supply chain to repair and recycle the device.
5.6 Commodities
The sixth and final version of a good mobile phone was the ‘commodity’. Here they were set in relation to other consumer goods to determine their exchange value. As commodities, mobile phones were goods that could be traded on the market and whose
124 qualities other than their price had been stabilised. Crucially, however, this in itself would not have constituted a distinct framing of the mobile phone. That mobile phones were and should be commodities was not questioned from any of the perspectives outlined in this chapter. In other words, all frames seemed to imagine worlds in which mobile phones are traded on markets, irrespective of the non-economic value attributed to them. In line with this, it is notable that in the empirical material the term ‘commodities’ was predominantly used to signal that mobile phones had become commoditised rather just commodified. Whereas the latter only refers to the process of turning mobile phones into tradable goods, the former implies the stabilisation of their product qualities (other than price) well beyond moments of exchange. Instead of seeking to improve mobile phones in ways that may justify higher prices, as in all other programmes, commoditisation represented a counter-movement that deprioritised them.
Following the use of the term among commentators and analysts in business media, commodities implied little “distinction between high and low end” (Brown-Humes,
2001), where market actors would find it hard to differentiate themselves from competitors. Predictably, this was perceived as a threat to actors seeking to extract profits from the mobile phone market:
“While Nokia’s dominance does not seem to be threatened in the short term, in the longer term analysts see numerous challenges. These include maintaining its high margins in low-end phones as the market becomes increasingly commoditised; greater competition from Asian manufacturers, particularly for third-generation handsets; and a tough battle with operators, which are keen to promote their own brand name on phones and introduce models tailored to their services.” (Brown-Humes, 2004 emphasis added)
In this excerpt from the Financial Times, the commodity status was linked to two forces.
First, there would be more intense competition among manufacturers. Second, commodities were seen as a consequence of other market actors, in this case network
125 operators, which did not make profits with mobile phones and therefore sought to direct attention to other products and services. Commoditisation could therefore occur where it may not have been visible at first. Expanding the functionality of phones through new software applications, for instance, may have created better tools and added to product differentiation at first, but tended to reduce phones to mere platforms that were entirely replaceable: commodities with little differentiation and a low price. Instead of seeing phones and complementary products and services as one entity, this highlights the competition between providers of different offerings and the work that was invested in keeping them apart.
Beyond competition on the supply side, mobile phones competed with other goods in consumption. This is because mobile phones were expensive enough to require evaluations of their importance in relation to other consumer goods. Although one participant stated that he bought the most expensive phone simply “because I can!”, few people could afford to escape considerations of price and other costs of ownership. Some participants made it clear that they were not willing to pay a lot of money for a device that they simply did not consider to be a priority. Barbara:
“I probably always prioritised saving and living within my means. I rate that much more highly than having a flashy phone. It’s just ingrained in me to be reasonably careful with money.”
Low-cost phones were therefore sometimes preferred, also from unknown brands and second-hand as long as this did not induce higher costs in the future. Furthermore, a thrifty approach expressed itself in the use and divestment of mobile phones, requiring the taking care of possessions and making sure that they were not wasted. Despite the centrality of avoiding waste, the concerns were very different from ethical considerations.
The following quote illustrates what was at stake:
126 “Electronic waste, or ‘e-waste’, is full of valuable resources: a tonne of mobile phones, which is roughly equivalent to 6,000 handsets, contains about 130kg of copper, more than 3kg of silver, 340 grams of gold and 140 grams of another precious material known as palladium. ‘We have almost 25m mobile phones just in Australia,’ says Sahajwalla. ‘And these are the ones not in use.’ Add to that the huge numbers of TVs, computers, tablets and appliances laying around our homes and that’s a lot of opportunity. Unfortunately, we’re not capitalising.” (The Guardian 2016e, emphases added)
The concern here was primarily economic, relating to the efficient use of scarce resources.
As the quote indicates (“we’re not capitalising”), this could be framed as a collective task rather than presented as a matter of personal welfare only. In the end, however, waste was only avoided as long as it was worth it from an economic point of view. While care was taken during use, a less durable phone was accepted if this helped to reduce the total costs of ownership.
5.7 Overview and discussion
I want to start this brief reflection by pointing out that, in trying to create order amidst the vast array of mobile phone-related concerns that can be identified, I did not have to go through the painstaking process of categorising specific instances from the bottom up.
Instead, once one opens up to the different ways in which people talked about mobile phones, one can find that they were made sense of at different levels of abstraction.
Despite the high level of abstraction of the frames presented in the previous sections, I suggest that they were widely recognised in the field. This certainly includes the academic discourse on mobile phones, in which notions such as tools and toys (e.g. Crabtree,
Nathan, & Reeves, 2002; Lasen, 2005; Lindholm et al., 2003; Pantzar, 2003) and fashion items (e.g. Djelic & Ainamo, 2005; Fortunati, 2005; Juhlin & Zhang, 2011; Katz &
Sugiyama, 2005) have gained some prominence. In so far, I do not claim to be making a novel contribution in suggesting that these are important categories in the case of mobile
127 phones. Quite to the contrary, the attractiveness of these abstractions for the purposes of this thesis lies precisely in the fact that they are, for the most part, well established. At the same time, and as much as a plurality of mobile phone identities is acknowledged in the literature (see Goggin, 2006), this is not an element that has been explored in a systematic fashion so far.
Looking for commonalities across the six frames of valuation, the first thing that stands out is that they resist any straightforward schematisation along one or a few dimensions of value. They do not uniformly fit into any repertoire in which values are typically clustered, being neither purely political nor ethical, epistemic, aesthetic, cultural, social, moral, or economic values. In this sense, the situation is comparable to the experience of
Heuts and Mol (2013), who examined what a good tomato is and encountered a set of valuing practices that were hardly formalised. An important implication of this is that in practice, every frame tended to be defined in relation to two or three alternative frames only. To identify the full range of frames of valuation it was therefore necessary to not just adopt an agnostic stance to values but go beyond specific situations of controversy and trace the chain of critique through which the various frames were discursively connected.
For each version, it is possible to identify a range of desired product qualities (see Table 4).
It is important to emphasise that these were relational characteristics: Mobile phones were defined through their position in a network of relations. To turn mobile phones into goods, they needed to be given the agentic capacity to act in relation to a shared matter of concern that is specific to each frame – a capacity that is distributed in the network. What was at stake, then, were not just some characteristics ‘intrinsic’ to mobile phones, but the organisation of the entire mobile phone agencement. In so far as each frame implied a wholly different agencement or world, they were mutually exclusive.
128 Table 4: Frames of valuation of mobile phones
Toys Fashion items Tools Absences Ethical items Commodities
Product qualities Playful, novel, sturdy, Beautiful, stylish, chic Fit for purpose, easy to Non-intrusive, non- Socially responsible, Cheap, low costs of good feel, enjoyable, use, reliable, secure, addictive, safe, conflict-free, ownership exciting handy, powerful, controllable environment-friendly, efficient transparent Shared matter(s) of User experience Aesthetic comparison User practices Well-being of users Well-being of living Price concern to other items beings other than users
Collective values Excitement, fun, Aesthetic experience, Convenience, Independence, Fairness, environmental Thriftiness, efficient use ingenuity, creativity, expression of style and independence, connectivity, health, stewardship, of economic resources passion, curiosity taste connectivity, health, safety, privacy, community, solidarity safety, privacy, entertainment, entertainment, simplicity, productivity simplicity, productivity
Modes of valuation Toyification Fashionisation Toolification Absentification4 Ethicalisation Commoditisation
4 In English, there is no word that captures both processes of destruction and displacement. For the sake of precision and maintaining consistency with the naming of other modes of valuation, I use the rather awkward term ‘absentification’.
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However, and this is specific to frames of valuation, the frames also carried the forces that could make them commensurable. A commonality across the six frames is that they invoked worlds in which individual agents would occupy different social and economic positions. In fashion, this was even a fundamental element without which mobile phones could not have been assessed. But as indicated in the foregoing sections, elements of status consumption were not unique to fashion.5 Although I did not describe this for each category, opportunities for social differentiation existed in all worlds, as people could engage in different ways with the collective project of performing a specific version of the good mobile phone. Whereas some might have been pushing the boundaries and exploring new opportunities, potentially for a higher position in society, others were more likely to be passive ‘adopters’. Beyond social status, individual agents or organisations could also extract economic profits by making investments in the collective project. As suggested above, all frames implied the trading of goods in markets. This highlights that in each framing, mobile phones were both cultural and economic goods.
This analysis suggests that the realisation of the six types of goods produced different collective values (relating to criteria of evaluation), but that they all offered the possibility for social and economic differentiation among participating agents (relating to valorisation/devaluation). From an individual perspective, this means that there were even social and economic benefits in overcoming culturally defined boundaries. For instance, a manufacturer might have been able to charge higher prices for a product that fulfilled multiple criteria and was attractive to a greater population. But the important point here is that such individual interests could not be separated from collective values (see also
Cochoy, 2014). Each frame simultaneously carried a critique of other frames as well as the
5 This is an important qualification that implies a narrower definition of fashion items compared to the broad use of the term in some of the literature on mobile phones, where all use of mobiles for symbolic communication is linked to fashion (e.g. Katz and Sugiyama, 2006).
130 possibility for commensuration. There was no need of an external force to make them commensurable in any given situation.
Moving from frames to practice, this implies that modes of valuation were only partly competing, contributing to different collective values and the same individual values at the same time. One may consider the common experience of a friend that has just bought an expensive mobile phone. Practices like these frequently call for justification because they can be interpreted in multiple ways. Was it an expression of good taste, for one’s own enjoyment, or necessary for work? Independently of the criteria of evaluation, however, the practice contributes to the valorisation of mobile phones. As this example demonstrates, modes of valuation contribute to both different and a common agenda at the same time. For the analyst, this means that it is not enough to identify frames of valuation in the abstract, for there are important overlaps that prevent any neat associations between them and specific practices. The challenge then lies in finding out how modes of valuation were organised in practice, that is, how they were made commensurable or kept apart.
In practice, mobile phones were often framed in much more specific ways, which can be linked with the competition between the modes of valuation associated with each frame of valuation. In the following chapters, I turn to this competition, examining how and in what ways each version of the ‘good mobile phone’ could be realised over the past two decades.
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6 The platform market
Mobile phones underwent a period of substantial change between the mid-90s and mid-
2000s, which in retrospective may appear dwarfed compared to the later shift to smartphones. Struggling for a moment to think about his first phone, one interviewee made an interesting comment in this respect:
“It’s actually interesting to think about this. You know the smartphone is now so kind of ubiquitous that it’s almost hard to kind of remember the pre-smartphone era.” (Thomas)
In this period, however, mobile phones transformed from basic communication tools and throwaway items into, what can in many ways be considered, truly multi-dimensional objects. An important part of this transformation concerns the many new uses to which phones were put, from texting to taking snapshots and downloading ringtones, as well as the impressive expansion in functionality. Another important element was the proliferation of designs in which mobile phones appeared. Both developments in technology and fashion played a central role in this period. Rather than a smooth transition along a clear path of change, however, I suggest that there were major changes in the ways the mobile phone market organised the relations between competing modes of valuation.
This chapter focuses on the first of market agencement, what I refer to as the ‘platform market’. It describes the marketisation of mobile phones as platforms for the use of new services and accessories like text messages, ringtones, and interchangeable covers. Such platforms achieved dominance in the early 2000s (see Figure 4). Because the seeds of change were sown several years before the turn of the millennium, I start this chapter with a short description of the situation in the mid-90s to give some historical context to the changes that unfolded since then. The remaining narrative is split into a first section that
132 considers changes in the design of mobile phones (6.1) and a second one that focuses on the personalisation of mobile phones in use (6.2).
Figure 4: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as platform goods6
6.1 Exchanging platforms
That mobile phones had the potential to become much more than communication devices had been realised long before they became ubiquitous among business users. In the mid-90s, multiple competing visions of the future of mobile phones circulated in the business media and academic literature. The dominant narrative was centred on the idea of technological convergence, a concept that came in various formulations and was invoked in different contexts, but typically referred to the blurring of borders between voice, data, and media (Blackman, 1998; Kellerman, 1997; Tarjanne, 1999). There was a strong expectation in the industry that soon multiple significant technologies would morph into one and that mobile phones would be at the epicentre of such integration efforts. Specifically, it was expected that phones would soon be powerful tools used for videoconferencing, mobile commerce, downloading music, and buying concert tickets among many other things. Very much to the other extreme, however, other
6 The graphs in this figure are not based on precise statistics but represent my best judgments based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence.
133 commentators expected the prevalent miniaturisation trend to continue until phones become as thin as credit cards and be integrated in a host of other devices (Bransten,
1998). Some expected that mobile phones would eventually converge with watches and morph into ‘wristphones’ (Fitzpatrick, 1998) and yet others hoped that soon people would own multiple devices for different occasions.
But such visions were more than acts of speculation. In the second half of the 1990s, analysts warned that mobile phones were about to become a ‘commodity item’ if prevailing trends were to continue (Lavin, 1996; Nairn, 1999). In particular, network operators’ subsidies for new handsets made them more accessible to a wider population, but from a longer-term perspective posed the danger of turning them into ‘throwaway objects’ that are of little value to consumers. Network operators found themselves in a comparable situation, however, realising that it would soon be no longer enough to offer a reliable network only.
6.1.1 The ‘squeezing paradox’
The two paths envisioned, technological convergence and continuing miniaturisation, were clearly in conflict with each other. The resulting “squeezing paradox”, as designers and engineers at Nokia called it (Lindholm et al., 2003), represented a multidimensional problem entailing significant and persistent tensions. For them, it was mainly about ease- of-use:
“In the relatively brief lifetime of the mobile phone, two major technological trends have taken hold: (1) devices trend toward miniaturization and (2) applications, features, and functions trend toward expansion. Taken together, they present us with an interesting paradox – squeezing more and more applications into smaller and smaller terminals is how we try to keep users satisfied, but it makes the devices harder to use” (Lindholm et al., 2003, p. 11).
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In addition to such concerns about ease-of-use, media reports further suggested that additional functions tended to add weight and reduce portability, and perhaps most critically, drain battery life, which could have undermined the value of mobile phones as emergency and safety devices. Yet their potential usefulness in emergency situations was a major source of legitimacy and for many a prime reason to get their first phone (see also
Crabtree, Nathan, & Roberts, 2003; Ofcom, 2006b). The status of mobile phones as emergency and safety devices was clearly conveyed in many media articles documenting cases in which people were rescued and criminals were tracked down thanks to phones. A poor battery life may therefore not have been considered acceptable.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the vision of owning multiple phones never fully materialised in the UK. Apart from the common practices of using a separate phone for work and private purposes and using an old phone for holidays, the bulk of consumers never switched from one private phone to another quite as the industry had envisioned.
This is most likely related to the network operators’ practice of locking phones to SIM- cards which made it difficult for consumers to switch from one phone to another. As long as operators were spending vast sums of money on subsidising handsets, they had to make sure that customers would use handsets to access their services rather than switching provider (The Economist, 2014). Instead of encouraging multiple handsets, operators rather paid out subsidies to make people move up to higher-end devices. Even using multiple unlocked phones would have been a tedious affair, requiring consumers to transfer their SIM-card into another phone each time they wanted to switch.
But the quest for multi-functionality was also at odds with prevailing rules of fashion.
Made possible by the shift from analogue to digital technology, the average size of mobile phones drastically decreased in the 90s and early 2000s (Koski & Kretschmer, 2007), a trend that can be associated with multiple stylistic considerations. A phone’s size was reason enough to trade in one’s phone for a smaller one as several episodes in my
135 participants’ early careers reveal. As Ronnie points out, “it was part of the business of having a phone that was as small as possible. That was always the goal, initially”. The matter of size was particularly important to Fiona who replaced several of her phones in favour of smaller ones. While Fiona was explicitly not concerned about having the latest phone, it was of paramount importance to her that phones would fit into her pockets.
When we talked about her experiences with a chunky clamshell phone she once had,
Fiona told me what she found disturbing about it.
Fiona: “It was just thick. It was small, wasn’t it? That big [showing with hand] but double the thickness. It took up more space in your pocket. Well, it didn’t take up more space, but you know, if you were wearing tight jeans or something it would show (laughs).”
Me: “It would be a huge bulge.”
Fiona: “Yeah (laughs).”
Me: “So that’s what you didn’t like about it?”
Fiona: “Yeah. But I remember I liked the functionality of the phone, in terms of the use, but I didn’t like the size of it. So that’s probably the one that I kept least in terms of time.”
Indeed, embarrassing trouser bulges were a recurrent concern as product reviews from
2001 and 2006 reveal, a time in which great attention to the size and weight of handsets was paid. This was especially the case in relation to all-in-one handsets, which tended to be bigger. In a comparison of different ‘PDA phones’ (first phones integrating the functionality of portable digital assistants) in Stuff magazine, the first question that was addressed was: “Will I look stupid using it as a phone?”. One answer, given in relation to the latest ‘convergence device’ from manufacturer Trium, reveals an additional concern about phone size: “The Trium is a little on the bulky side, it has to be said, so you may look a trifle odd as you press it to the side of your face” (Stuff, 2001, Sep, pp. 50-52).
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Manufacturer RIM faced precisely the same problem when entering the mobile phone business. The company’s own research showed that people were embarrassed to use its
Blackberrys before they found a solution to miniaturise them:
“It was a calculator, a piece of toast. You’d hear these comments in our research. People didn’t feel comfortable drawing attention to themselves holding up a device that was so wide. But they loved the BlackBerry. There was a huge difference between holding it in front of you and typing and holding it to your head.“ (Jason Griffin, RIM chief product designer, quoted in McNish & Silcoff, 2015, pp. 112–113)
Such fashion concerns thus turned into material, rather than just symbolical, constraints to technological convergence that were manifested in the size of trouser or jacket pockets and people’s heads. At the same time, the human body also posed limits to miniaturisation. As phones got smaller, concerns grew among product testers over the decreasing size of buttons, which made it harder to type.
6.1.2 Building up the network infrastructure for technological convergence
The tensions surrounding the ‘squeezing paradox’ were reflected in the various potential solutions that were devised in the second half of the 1990s. They ranged from ‘data- centric’ devices pitched at business users and technology enthusiasts to traditional ‘voice- centric’ mobiles with limited extra features. A case in point for the former approach was the ‘Communicator 9000’ that Nokia had started developing in 1992 and released in
1996, a phone that also worked as a portable computer with internet access (Doz &
Wilson, 2017). Commentators interpreted this as a bet on all-in-one solutions by the largest manufacturer and saw in the handset a demonstration of the potential of technological convergence between mobiles and computers (Copetas, 1997; McIvor,
1997). Also other manufacturers started developing ‘smartphones’, a strategy poignantly
137 called “the melting pot” at Ericsson (Woyke, 2014). A central feature of this approach was to equip handsets with operating systems that support the use of third-party software applications. Another clear step towards convergence with computers was the formation of the Symbian operating system emerging from an alliance of multiple mobile phone and
PDA manufacturers. Symbian was licensed to all manufacturers for free in the hope that it would become the standard platform before software companies, especially Microsoft, would enter the market (Doz & Wilson, 2017; Kenney & Pon, 2011; Shillingford,
1998a). Such solutions were more akin to the world of computers and did not provide much space for network operators beyond data provision. “The ultimate aim,” according to Motorola’s technology-marketing manager, was “to have the world united by a common Internet backbone” (Pringle, 1999). Yet, leading mobile phone manufacturers did not seem to fully embrace a turn to computers, not seeing themselves as software companies and retaining a focus on hardware (Doz & Wilson, 2017). In terms of the critical matter of user interface, manufacturers experimented with various solutions such as pens, voice-activation, keyboards, and touchscreens. But it was clear that for technological convergence to become a reality, solutions at the network level had to be found first.
The existing second-generation network was not considered up to the task of supporting a future of fast, always-on internet access and multimedia communication, and started to reach its limits in providing basic voice services in densely populated areas. Ansari and
Garud (2009) note that there was significant pressure to set up a better network infrastructure, not just from shareholders and analysts, but also from European politicians wanting to establish a global European standard. Moreover, the development of the third- generation (3G) network was framed in overwhelmingly positive terms and the potential uptake of services like videoconferencing and mobile TV promised massive opportunities for revenue generation. The alternative solution to develop a WiFi network was not
138 pursued at a large scale at first. According to Lehr and McKnight (2003), 3G better suited existing monthly billing systems. In the shorter term, however, the main efforts were about turning mobile phones into platforms for accessing the mobile internet and customising their covers.
6.1.3 Interchangeable covers
Early mobile phones were regarded as major status symbols, signifying busyness, technological competency, and economic success (Katz & Sugiyama, 2005). Up to that point, fashion-related concerns were limited to the size of the phone. The introduction of additional fashion elements in the world of mobile phone coincides with the period when possessing a mobile phone was no longer enough to differentiate oneself from others.
Previous research identified multiple events occurring in the mid-90s that incited a shift to fashion and Nokia is widely credited to have played a central role in this process
(Ainamo & Pantzar, 2000; Djelic & Ainamo, 2005; Zhang & Juhlin, 2016b). Both market research and visionary thinking fed into the emergence of fashion in the world of mobiles.
In the second half of the 1990s, manufacturers fuelled the race for the latest and smallest phone by shortening product release cycles (Djelic & Ainamo, 2005; Latour, 1998;
Mehta, 1998; Zhang & Juhlin, 2016a). At the same time, the production process was redesigned to follow a modular product design, taking inspiration from the automobile industry. Beyond allowing for flexible production of high volumes, this made it possible to customise various elements of the product to specific markets and consumer groups. A defining element in terms of fashion that could be customised was the phone’s cover. In
1995, Nokia released the 2110, the first phone with interchangeable covers. According to
Oksman (2002, cited in Haddon, 2005), this move was inspired by Finnish girls painting covers of their phones with nail varnish and putting stickers on them. Realising the
139 potential of mobile phones for personalisation and self-expression turned into a major sales strategy at Nokia in this period, at a time when most manufacturers were still preoccupied with technological change (Ainamo & Pantzar, 2000). The strategy was furthermore based on the visions of Frank Nuovo, the new design director that joined
Nokia in 1995. His inspiration came less from automobiles than from other consumer wearables like watches. Nuovo anticipated that visual variation would become more important as technological change slows down and the market reaches maturity (Zhang &
Juhlin, 2016b). The idea was that mobile phones would reflect the owner’s personality and mood (McCartney, 2003; Redhead, 2003).
In more general terms, the move to fashion can be interpreted as an expression of the growing sensitivity of the industry to the demands of consumers beyond the traditional business segment. Djelic and Ainamo (2005) report that Nokia’s market research revealed that their brand was perceived as rather ‘feminine’ because of their products’ ease of use.
Nokia embraced this and turned it into a strategic advantage by focusing on the style of mobile phones, being particularly attuned to changing consumption trends through strong interaction with lead users.
6.1.4 Mobile internet
The other major innovation effort relates to the establishment of mobile phones as platforms for accessing the internet. In 1998, network operators started collaborating with manufacturers to develop a standard for mobile internet that would provide a potential solution to the ‘squeezing paradox’, making it possible to circumvent it with server-based services that reduced the hardware requirements of handsets (Savage, 2005). Moreover, it specified a way for depicting web pages more parsimoniously than existing HTML standards, thus draining less battery life and requiring a less speedy internet connection.
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Crucially, however, this route would have seen operators occupying the critical position as mediators between users and the internet, allowing them to control content and embed their own services within so-called ‘walled gardens’ (Peppard & Rylander, 2006; Weber
& Scuka, 2016). This solution would thus enable them to maintain their position as the main providers of mobile services and avoid the same fate of fixed internet service providers, which had turned into mere pipelines. Rather than converging technologies mainly through hardware, which for operators would have meant to increase expenditures on expensive handset subsidies, the model envisaged new features and services to be provided over the network.
Compared to all-in-one hardware solutions, WAP gained much more momentum in the late 1990s. Network operators’ existing customer relations and billing systems meant that they enjoyed a powerful position compared to operating system providers and manufacturers of handsets (Ansari & Garud, 2009; Peppard & Rylander, 2006), but operators also managed to get other key agents on board. The release of the WAP standard in June 1999 was accompanied with massive hype in the industry, both being part of and contributing to the wider dotcom hype (Latour, 1999a). The much-repeated promise was that it would be “like having the internet in your pocket”. Content providers too had been pushing for mobile internet devices for some time, seeing therein an opportunity to boost not just mobile phones sales, but also internet uptake (Nairn,
1998). Manufacturers, in turn, hoped that WAP would encourage consumers to replace their handsets. Already “by the year 2000,” Nokia’s CEO told the Financial Times,
“browser phones will outsell portable computers” (Shillingford, 1998b). The endurance of mobile phones in use was expected to continue the downward trend and go down to less than a year (Dempsey, 1999; Mobile News, 2000a). However, none of these promises and hopes could be realised.
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6.1.5 Leaving a void in hardware innovation
In July 2000, business media started reporting that take-up of WAP phones had been unexpectedly sluggish (Roberts, 2000c) and internet usage on such devices too low
(Green, 2000). In the literature, multiple reasons for the flop of WAP were identified, relating to technological immatureness, an overly network operator-centric orientation, and a failure to identify the right lead users (see Baldi & Thaung, 2002; Funk, 2004;
Kumar, Parimi, & Agrawal, 2003). First, the user experience for using mobile internet was extremely poor, suffering from slowness and a screen too small for surfing. The poor security of the service further meant that banks had to find ways to deal with this issue, which made m-commerce services, a central proposition of WAP considering their main target of business users, were nearly impracticable. Second, network operators did not share revenues with content providers and insisted on their role as gatekeepers, dis- incentivising developers to provide good content. Frustratingly to network operators, also manufacturers delayed offerings by testing WAP phones extensively with users (Latour,
1999b). Third, the bet on business users and related services meant that the industry missed out on the importance of entertainment content for personalisation that proved highly successful with young users in other countries (especially Korea and Japan).
In line with studies suggesting that the designs of different mobile phones were converging (Koski & Kretschmer, 2007), analysts suggested that the failure of WAP created a void in mobile phone technology, specifically noting a lack of exciting new phones (Latour, 2001). To some extent, this sentiment was shared in the mass media.
Especially in Stuff magazine, mobiles were notably underrepresented in 2001 compared to later years. In contrast to PDAs, phones were considered rather boring from a technical point of view, only presented with brief notes on their weight, size, style, and a checklist of features to make sure “all the usual suspects” (e.g. calendar, games, address book) were there. From the perspective of Stuff, phones were mainly accessories for the “text-
142 obsessed youth” and thus much less exciting than heavily feature-packed PDAs. But apart from this shortcoming of new features, newspaper articles expressed much excitement over the latest developments in the world of mobile phones, very much in contrast to the industry’s woes (see below).
6.1.6 The replacement market and financial struggles
The failure of WAP was not the only problem for the mobile phone industry. The new
UMTS standard for a third-generation network was agreed in 1999 and auctions for licenses took place in April 2000, with an expectation that 3G would launch by 2002
(Harvey, 2000; Pringle, 1999). On the back of the hype around 3G and before WAP turned out to be a disaster, network operators paid huge sums (nearly £22.5 billion in total) for licenses in the UK alone, in addition to committing to make even larger investments in building an entirely new infrastructure (Linge & Sutton, 2015), building up significant debts. The huge financial commitments and simultaneous failure to turn mobile internet into a success put network operators under significant economic pressure in 2000. In light of these events, investors became increasingly worried that network operators might not be able to stem the costs for investments at the scale required for building up the 3G network, especially as it became clear that the costs involved for such a project had been significantly underestimated (Ansari & Garud, 2009). Under these conditions, investors anticipated that network operators might seek to recoup costs through cutting back on handset subsidies and requiring manufacturers to contribute
(Daniel & Roberts, 2000).
In addition, mobile phone penetration exceeded half of the British population in 2000.
This high level of penetration meant that the strategy of subsidising new phones at a large scale was no longer sustainable and raised concerns among network operators
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(Shillingford, 2002). First, late adopters of mobile phones made much less use of their services, implying a declining average revenue per user (ARPU) (Latour, 2002). Second, subsidies were higher than almost anywhere else in the world. Since subsidised phones were available via pre-pay and thus not locked to a specific provider, this made it attractive for organised gangs to buy cheap phones in bulk and sell them on in other countries. An estimated half a million mobile phones were sold abroad as a result, meaning that subscriber numbers had been overestimated and subsidies paid out without a chance to recoup the costs (Roberts, 2000b). Third, network operators relied less on retailers for distribution because they increasingly build up their own retail presence in the market to strengthen their brands and relationships with customers (Financial Times,
2000). Fourth, pre-pay proved successful in getting mobile phones into people’s hands, but their ARPU was significantly lower than comparable offers on pay-monthly plans and they did not encourage consumers to ‘upgrade’ to more advanced phones. Because new handsets were available on pre-pay almost for free, there was a lacking economic incentive for consumers to tie themselves to a contract (Mobile News, 2000c). At this stage, the focus of network operators shifted away from customer acquisition towards customer retention:
“We are all going to have to focus on keeping our customers and generating revenue rather than simply going for connections. We’re going to have to think more about upgrading people’s equipment. We will have lots of new types of devices in the market. The whole nature of the business is going to move to device and handset replacement, upgrade, and people having multiple devices to do different kinds of things.” (Peter Bamford, CEO Vodafone UK, Mobile News, 2000b, p. 18)
As part of this shift, operators put more efforts into providing better after-sale services like repair (Mobile News, 2002b) and offering handsets under their own brands (Pringle,
2002). More significantly in the short term, however, operators started to reduce subsidies on pre-pay plans from March 2001 onwards, increasing prices by about 40% (Malkani,
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2001a, 2001b; Perks, 2002). To increase the attractiveness of pay-monthly contracts, many of the latest handsets were made exclusively available through them (Perks, 2002) and dealers were given higher commissions for signing up customers for post-pay
(Roberts, 2000a). Annual financial reports further reveal that the savings from pre-pay were reinvested in higher subsidies for pay-monthly contracts. This simultaneous increase in subsidies for pay-monthly shows that network operators were committed to moving up consumers to higher revenue-generating services through technologically more advanced phones, despite financial difficulties. In addition to shifting focus towards customer retention, the rechannelling of subsidies marked a move to accelerate the toolification of phones. With the arrival of new handsets supporting the latest extension to 2G networks,
2.5G (or GPRS), network operators did not have to wait until the launch of first 3G devices to reignite this transition. Even so, the measures taken had the immediate effect of bringing the growth of pre-pay at the expense of post-pay to a halt (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Share of pre-pay and post-pay mobile subscriptions (1997-2007); Source: data from Frost & Sullivan (2001) and Ofcom (2004, 2005, 2006b, 2007)
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6.2 Personalising phones in use
While the industry put all of its efforts into mobile internet and building up the infrastructure for 3G, consumers had started to send each other text messages. SMS (Short
Message Service), a technical feature originally built into handsets to allow for communication between engineers and technicians, unexpectedly started to be widely taken up by consumers in 1998 (Ansari & Phillips, 2010; Taylor & Vincent, 2005). First being mainly used by teenagers, texting started to spread to other social groups from 2001 onwards. This explosion in text messaging and mobile communication, especially among kids and teenagers, was a recurrent theme in newspapers in 2001. Articles in The Sun noted that Brits have gone completely “text-mad”, with text messages being increasingly preferred over voice conversations and used to communicate even the most personal things such as marriage proposals, goodbye letters, and the dumping of partners. Especially the potential for flirting and improving one’s sex life was a source of excitement in The
Sun as the following quote illustrates:
“WE’RE all going mad for text messages! The bleeping alert of an incoming text message seems to send us into a frenzy. Could this be because text is the new sex? […] Technically aided, flirtation couldn’t be simpler or more effective. [...] If you want a man and you want him fast, SMS is the ultimate in speed seduction this Millennium - and don’t worry about appearing forward. If he doesn’t appreciate your textual intercourse, there’s always plenty more numbers in the phone book!“ (The Sun, 2001b)
Texting was represented as a cool and youthful way of communication, reminiscent of the passing on of notes at school. Any competent user thus had to know the new texting language and The Sun published several guides. While articles in The Sun celebrated texting as a fun and novelty way of communicating, thus positioning phones as tools for entertainment, The Guardian represented texting more as a youth thing and engaged little with this phenomenon. One article, however, made the point that texting may be a useful
146 tool after all, reducing the amount of planning, relieving office boredom, facilitating flirts, and just being useful for keeping in touch.
Texting is also the main phenomenon my participants remembered when thinking back of this period. Susanna, for example, was quite suspicious of mobile phones at first, but enjoyed sending text messages:
“That seemed like a really good way to contact people because it was, instead of having to both be available at the same time so you can have a contemporaneous conversation, you could just let someone know you were thinking of him or you wanted something. And then when they were ready they could get back to me. And yeah, that seemed like a really virtuous thing, you know, a really positive aspect of it.”
As Susanna points out, texting was more flexible than taking calls and especially appreciated for expressing one’s affection and maintaining romantic relationships. Theresa was in her teenage years at the time, recalling that she used to text her boyfriends a lot and preferring SMS over more expensive calls for which she could use her parents’ landline phone. An important part for her was to keep nice messages from friends and boyfriends, a practice that strengthened the attachment to her phones. As Theresa remembers, she was devastated to lose those messages when her phones died.
The relationship between the youth and mobile phones and the latter’s sudden ubiquity in the UK also led to multiple concerns as media reports from 2001 show. For instance, some reports raised concerns over the massive bills that some ‘texting-obsessed’ teens had produced. Some argued that texting would also encourage more meaningless and superficial communication, potentially harming the quality of social relationships, and other reports wondered whether the new texting language would negatively affect children’s literacy. But the most commonly raised concerns relate to the ways phones were used in public spaces. On the one hand, several media reports took issue with the common practice of taking phone calls in places like libraries, trains, and theatres. People
147 were criticised for shouting into their phones, using loud ringtones, and even using them in airplanes where phone use was forbidden. On the other, the newspapers reported several incidents where victims of phone theft were harmed or even murdered, suggesting that it can be dangerous to carry a phone in public.
SMS was not just a means of communication but opened up new possibilities for personalisation. As Ansari and Phillips (2010) note, many content providers stepped in while network operators remained focused on mobile internet, using SMS to provide a wide array of services from weather forecasts to interactive games, taxi orders, and football score updates. Not the least because of such innovations in content, one commentator remarked that the year 2001 “will probably go down as the most innovative year in the industry’s brief history” (The Guardian, 2001c). Both The Guardian and The Sun strongly embraced the many new messaging services that became available to consumers and educated them about the latest additions. The Sun also offered its own messaging services like polls, poetry competitions, and celebrity voicemails. According to The Sun, messaging services turned phones into all-purpose devices: “Travel, sport, food, entertainment … whatever you want your phone’ll find it” (The Sun, 2001a).
Furthermore, The Sun praised services like voicemail, ringtones, and screensavers as fun ways for personalising phones. Articles in The Guardian were less involved in promoting such services, but reported about the trend as in the following excerpt:
“For many youngsters the mobile is the first accessory they throw into their bag; school playgrounds are buzzing with talk of the latest ringtones and coolest snap-on covers. And with innovations such as multimedia messaging and enhanced gaming set to take off next year, the love affair between teenagers and their mobiles is unlikely to cool.” (The Guardian, 2001e)
As expected by this commentator, the personalisation of phones had been significantly enhanced with the availability of multimedia handsets, in particular colour screens and
148 music players. Several of my participants found great joy in the new possibilities for personalisation. Susanna, for example, highlighted that she was not into technology at all, but thought that the choice of background colours was “amazing and fun”. More than any other, Lucía found much pleasure in personalising her phone in every way possible, adding covers and screensavers to her phones, putting them in small socks, and hanging small figures on them – each item displaying her favourite manga characters. Especially among children and teenagers, such personalising of the phone was highly popular.
According to a survey from 2005, 20% of the population had downloaded a ringtone by then, followed by screensavers and games (each 8%) (Reynolds, 2005). For most of the
2000s, calls, SMS and the various offers of content mentioned so far accounted for the lion share of operators’ revenues.
6.3 Conclusions
The platform market described in this chapter, as troublesome as its emergence was, marked a significant break compared to the focus on miniaturisation that had prevailed in the 1990s. I have identified several concerns that emerged in the mid-90s and called for a change of course. With penetration rates increasing and the looming saturation of the market, manufacturers in particular became increasingly concerned about the lack of differentiation in handsets and commoditisation of mobile phones. The increasing proliferation of mobile phones meant that they were losing their appeal as novelties and status symbols. Network operators equally knew that they had to extend their offers significantly to secure their position as service providers and avoid being turned into mere data pipes.
At the same time, the design of mobile phones in particular was a highly contested field and subject to competing demands. The many issues that were at stake could not be fully resolved. However, it was still possible to carve out enough space to change mobile
149 phones fundamentally within a very short period. To understand how the platform market was able to progress, I suggest it is necessary to pay attention to a central, perhaps even its defining characteristic. The mobile phone platforms performed at the time did not just articulate the relation between supply and demand (cf. Callon, 2016), but also the relation between toolification and commoditisation. The two were temporally ordered along the careers of singular mobile phones, a separation that allowed me to discuss them separately in this chapter. Up to the point of exchange, innovation efforts heavily focused on the toolification of phones in the forms of better platforms. After points of exchange, in use, mobile phones were increasingly commoditised through text messaging, interchangeable covers, and other services available for download.
In principle, this was a symbiotic relationship: without complementary goods and services, the demands on battery life, size, weight, and other qualities would have been disproportionately higher – compromises that few people seemed to be willing to make.
In turn, platforms were a prerequisite for complementary goods. In practice, however, it was not a balanced relationship at all. The main interest among consumers did not lie in mobile phones, but in the various complementary goods they afforded. As the following chapter explores, this balanced tipped to the other side in the mid-2000s.
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7 The singularities market
The popularity of mobile services like text messaging and ringtones in the first half of the
2000s had not been anticipated by the mobile phone industry. While manufacturers and network operators banked on internet-enabled handsets, consumers showed little interest in such technologically sophisticated offerings, preferring to send each other text messages and change the fascia of their phones. The size of handsets continued to be an important purchasing consideration and prices remained low. Already in the mid-90s and in parallel to the development of WAP, however, two alternative innovation efforts were beginning to take shape, striving for technological convergence and the fashionisation of mobile phones. Both took off more or less in parallel in the first half of the 2000s with the emergence of the singularities market. In what follows, I first describe the process of technological convergence (section 7.1) and then the process of fashionisation (section
7.2).
Figure 6: Relative prevalence of mobile phones exchanged as singularities
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7.1 Technological convergence
In the previous chapter, I have described how the mobile phone industry began to build up the infrastructure that would allow the convergence of voice, data, and media (see section 6.1.2). In the 1990s, while the first steps towards a third-generation network were made and with the exception of some bold moves like Nokia’s series of ‘Communicators’, a more conservative approach to adding hardware features prevailed. Most handsets launched in the late 1990s and around the turn of the millennium were equipped with much less sophisticated features such alarm clocks, address books, calculators, calendars, voice recorders, and games (Koski & Kretschmer, 2007; Linge & Sutton, 2015). This process started to accelerate massively in the early 2000s.
Between May 2001 and June 2002, all four network operators launched the new GPRS
(2.5G) service for consumers in the UK. Introduced as an interim solution before 3G would go live, this specification promised an ‘always-on’ and high-speed internet connection. The industry’s hope was that this would pave the way for a smoother transition to 3G by revitalising WAP (with a second version being released in 2002) and ushering in an era of multimedia services. While the early focus was on internet speed, attention soon shifted to ‘imaging’ - colour screens and built-in cameras. For operators, the immediate attractiveness of this technology lay in the potential for increasing revenues from picture messaging, with a corresponding service (MMS) being set up in 2002. The first phone with colour screen arrived in the UK market in 2000, followed by the first phone with built-in camera in 2002 (Linge & Sutton, 2015).
The launch of GPRS with its always-on connectivity marked a turning point for the relationship between mobile phones, pagers, and PDAs. Pager and PDA manufacturers rushed to be the first ones to release a convergence device and RIM introduced its first
Blackberry smartphone in 2002 (McNish & Silcoff, 2015; Woyke, 2014). Furthermore,
152 mass media were overwhelmingly supportive of this convergence and the turn to multimedia functionality, expressing much optimism for the future. The hybridisation of
PDAs and mobile phones and thus increasing power of the latter was much awaited; “a match made in heaven”, as one commentator called it (Stuff, 2001; Jan, p. 34). All three mass media outlets celebrated the latest phones at the end of 2001 and suggested that a
“bright future” would lie ahead, with more and more features being integrated into phones and 2.5G promising to make users forget the painfully slow and limited internet experience associated with WAP.
Following the economic slump, network operators significantly increased subsidies again to lure consumers to technologically more sophisticated handsets with imaging capabilities, especially as 3G-compatible devices became available (started selling in
2003/2004) and the new operator Three UK entered the market with an aggressive pricing strategy (Budden, 2002, 2004a). However, developments in mobile phone consumption in the period between 2001 and 2008 were in many ways diametrically opposed to the network operators’ expectations. While mobile phones became more sophisticated, service usage remained, at large, limited to calls, texting, and content.
Consumer survey data from Mintel reveals that several important handset features made it into a significant number of pockets throughout the 2000s (see Figure 7). Beyond voice calling and other standard features like alarms, the most widely spread product features in the early 2000s were text messaging, voicemail, and games. Internet and e-mail were relatively common too, but two other trends stand out. The first is the rapid uptake of built-in cameras, having reached more than 50% of the handset population within less than five years. The second is the mp3 player functionality for portable music which was made more widely available in handsets a bit later than built-in cameras. A comparison with usage statistics (see Figure 8) further reveals a striking discrepancy between the uptake of mobile internet and multimedia features. Whereas both imaging and music
153 were taken up quickly and widely in the UK, just a minority of consumers used e-mail and internet. However, Figure 8 suppresses the actual usage frequency of services. While a relatively large share of the population used MMS, such usage was irregular and did not come even close to SMS usage. Of 59.1 Billion messages sent in 2007, less than one percent were MMS (Ofcom, 2008). On top of that, network operators failed at shifting consumers to post-pay deals, as pre-pay continued to be popular (see Figure 5).
Figure 7: Share of British population (aged 15+) owning a mobile phone with a specific feature (2003-2008); source: data from Mintel Research (Caines, 2007; King, 2008; Perks, 2004)
In light of such developments, commentators increasingly came to interpret the situation in terms of a discrepancy between the expectations of network operators on the one side and consumers on the other (Cane, 2004). Furthermore, it was a problem for manufacturers, who were unable to increase price levels despite inserting more and more functionality into mobile phones. The head of consumer marketing at Siemens described it as follows:
“There is a mismatch between what the operators and consumers want. Only in the realms of voice and SMS is there a cross over. When consumers look for a handset they decide on size, design, MP3’s, handset brand, voice services and SMS. Operators want
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handsets to push voice, SMS, JAVA, MMS, WAP, GPRS and UMTS. But at the moment 70 per cent of the products we sell are in the low-price bracket. This is not because we don’t want to sell high-price handsets, it’s because people are very price driven and concentrating on voice.” (Dirk Hofmann, Siemens head of consumer marketing department, Mobile News, 2002a, p. 46)
Figure 8: Share of British population (aged 15+) that used a specific mobile phone feature (2003-2008); source: data from Mintel Research (Caines, 2007; King, 2008; Perks, 2004)
In many ways, this period was further characterised by a tug-of-war between network operators and manufacturers who increasingly crossed each other’s territories, arguably slowing down progress in either direction (Kushida, 2015; Weber, Haas, & Scuka, 2011;
Weber & Scuka, 2016). Whereas manufacturers, first and foremost Nokia, introduced their own services for content downloads, operators rejected this and sought to gain control over pre-installed software and the design of handsets in turn. Music services, for instance, never received the kind of support from network operators that imaging received due to their insistence that music would need to be downloaded through their own wireless stores, which significantly delayed offerings of attractive solutions for portable music on mobiles (Parker, 2008; Wilcox, 2005).
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Furthermore, operators had started exploiting the SMS market from 2003 onwards, which turned into their major revenue source in the mid-2000s (Ansari & Phillips, 2010).
Following Weber and Scuka (2016), the potential cannibalisation of this lucrative business made operators especially wary of efforts towards open access to the internet, which would allow users to send text messages and e-mails for free. Indeed, despite some efforts at opening ‘walled gardens’ (e.g. the ‘semi-walled’ offer ‘Vodafone Live!’), the operators’ internet portals remained unattractive to content developers (Ballon, 2009; Funk, 2004;
Tee, 2005). Prohibitively high costs for using data services were another persistent problem. Kallio, Tinnilä and Tseng (2006) note that the pressure to recoup 3G investments and the fear of turning into mere ‘bit pipes’ with no stake in content provision may have contributed to high consumer prices and unattractive revenue-sharing deals with content providers.
Looking at the consumption of mobile phones in the mid-2000s, it becomes clear that network operators had underestimated the importance of handsets over services. While they sought to direct consumption towards mobile internet, MMS, videotelephony, and mobile TV, most consumers followed completely different paths, often finding pleasure and new uses in more richly equipped, but otherwise relatively low-priced, small, and easy-to-use mobile phones. Ironically, network operators even fuelled this path through extensive handset subsidies. The household interviews I conducted offer some insights into how consumers went from using mobile communication devices to multimedia tools in the pre-iPhone period. Furthermore, adding insights from mass media reports provides a more detailed sense of the considerations and trade-offs consumers faced at the time.
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7.1.1 The colourful paths to multimedia
In line with the general patterns described above, most of my participants mainly used mobile phones for calls, texting, and gaming in the 2000s but moved on to more multi- functional devices, nevertheless. However, the use value of added functionality was only one and not necessarily at the forefront of their considerations. Instead, they followed fairly different approaches. While for some it was about playfulness and excitement, others saw new features more as status symbols or just moved with the times without much involvement. Yet others were not interested in new phones at all but still happened to replace their handsets relatively frequently.
To begin with, some participants remember the 2000s as a very exciting period with a flurry of new desirable features. Ronnie was one of them:
“Yeah, it was more exciting in the early days. The market was less homogenous and yeah, the space for innovation was much better. As much as I can see there were lots of new things to get excited about. I remember the A300, that had a multi-coloured light you could customise when your phone rang. So ‘woow, that’s really exciting’.”
Many reports from 2006 in Stuff and The Guardian echoed this sentiment, celebrating the pace of change and suggesting that ‘gadgeteers’ are in “techno-heaven”. As in 2001, product reviews still paid much attention to the number of features packed into phones, with many new ones having become standard by 2006. For Ronnie, as for Jeremy and
Joanna, technological change was a source of excitement and the main reason to replace their phones, but they also saw use value in some new features. All three had signed up to pay-monthly contracts and took the opportunity at the end of each period to get a “new shiny thing”.
Built-in cameras clearly had the largest impact in society but not the way envisaged by the industry. Contemporary research on mobile phone consumption suggests that built-in
157 cameras had a largely playful and affective character rather than functional. Instead of sending pictures via MMS, consumers often took pictures just for fun and later showed them to friends on the screen (Kindberg, Spasojevic, & Fleck, 2004; Lasen, 2005;
Vincent, Haddon, & Hamill, 2005). But consumers also developed new uses:
“Usage of camera phones is developing in totally unexpected ways. Photos used to be means for storing information; they’re turning into tools for communicating it. They used to be meant to last; they’re now becoming disposable. People use camera phones to ask for instant advice on a purchase, to set up meeting points or to document the scratches before driving off with a rented car.“ (Giussani, 2003)
At the same time, and not visible in studies of everyday life, built-in cameras unexpectedly elevated the value of mobile phones in emergency situations. As the 9/11 attacks did in 2001, the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 revealed a new benefit of phones.
According to The Guardian, the bombings were the “first domestic news story where the most significant coverage came from people at the scene – via mobile phones – rather than news outlets” (The Guardian, 2006e). In 2006, the newspapers were full of reports of situations in which evidence from mobile phone cameras helped to solve criminal cases.
Through built-in cameras, mobile phones became the centre of what has been dubbed
“citizen journalism”, where users reflexively pull out their phones to record crime scenes for the benefit of public safety.
Beyond these functional and playful aspects of new technology, some participants noted that they had to have the phone with the latest and most features because that was the social norm. Especially to Enora and Gareth, both were in their teenage years, it was important to have an up-to-date device. Enora described her experiences during this period as follows:
“It was cool. Cause like phones were cool. You know it felt like you were right there you know with all the cool people. [...] I remember there was constant talk about makes and models of phones. And people, if you had a new phone, people would want
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to have a look at your phone, so they would be much nicer to you so that they could have a look at your phone.”
Again, mobiles with colour screens and built-in cameras were considered particularly desirable:
“When they first introduced camera phones, everyone had to have camera phones and you know, things like that. […] I guess at the time I did play into a little bit. Got a camera phone pretty much as soon as I could and got the ‘O2 Ice’ thinking that was cool.” (Gareth)
Part of the attraction of mobile phones to teens, as Enora explained, was that they felt like an “adult thing”. Like Ronnie, Jeremy, and Joanna, Enora made use of a pay-monthly contract to guarantee an annual supply of the latest phones. But in her case, it was mainly a status symbol, having shown no interest in the affordances of new technology itself. The contract was critical for this, allowing her to get new handsets without having to negotiate with her parents whether replacements were necessary.
Other participants equally emphasised the symbolic value mobile phones had at the time but did not seek to replace early to get the latest phone. While Thomas never went for the “sort of super flashy ones”, he recalls that the latest models and features were a recurrent topic of conversation, with mobile phones being “associated with a kind of certain modernity, something moving towards the inevitable future in some way”. In line with this, some participants just “moved with the times” (Victoria). Both Kyle and
Victoria received phones from work and simply took more technologically advanced ones without making use of the added functionality. Shera too did not specifically look for the latest handsets but took it for granted to follow technological change and pick one with improved or new features each time she had to buy one.
While added functionality was thus appreciated for multiple reasons, it is notable that all- in-one devices were not taken up widely in the first half of the 2000s. As of the first three
159 months of 2005, only 170,000 smartphones were sold in the UK, representing less than
4% of total sales (Ofcom, 2005). Early all-in-one handsets, including smartphones, clearly compromised on size, weight, battery life, and ease-of-use and received much criticism for this in product reviews (relating to the squeezing paradox). But the problems with all- in-one devices and multi-functionality in general can also be related to several new concerns that had emerged in the wider public debate by 2006. In particular, mass media reports were full of concerns related to potential misuses among children and the extent to which mobiles could expose them to various threats. Multimedia and mobile internet- enabled phones were represented to bear a higher risk of exposing children to inappropriate content. The new youth phenomenon of ‘happy slapping’ - a form of bullying where children recorded various acts of violence to be sent around or uploaded to the internet, received massive media attention and sent out a warning to parents, making them aware of the problems of handing children such powerful devices.
Moreover, new handsets and services were accused of making children use up their credit even faster as well as being more attractive for thieves:
“It’s a nightmare for parents, with limited medical advice about the damage phones may do and the expensive bill they pick up. And now youngsters can spend even more time on their mobile with the new-fangled links. Then there’s the scam of those annoying ringtones that use up credit, making phones run out just when your child needs picking up from the leisure centre or somewhere more dangerous. Oh yes, and the new models are a target for thieves.” (The Sun, 2006b)
Altogether, these concerns led to recommendations for parents to purchase only cheap and simple phones for children and teenagers, preferably on pre-pay tariffs where expenditures could be controlled. In so far, heavily feature-packed mobile phones were considered unsuitable for the group that exhibited some of the most dynamic consumption patterns. Besides such considerations from a consumer’s perspective, it should be noted that manufacturers did not seem as desperate as network operators in
160 pushing all-in-one solutions. Nokia, for instance, categorised phones in the early 2000s according to their key functions, including voice, media, entertainment, business, and imaging. This not only allowed for different compromises for specific user groups in dealing with the ‘squeezing paradox’, but also fed into the idea of owning multiple phones for different purposes and made all-in-one phones stand out as premium offers (Doz &
Wilson, 2017).
The discussion so far shows that new functionality was considered desirable from multiple perspectives, but that there were also several concerns related to size, performance, battery life, and misuse that made especially all-in-one solutions less attractive compared to more specialised categories like camera or music phones. What I left out so far, however, is the sizable group of consumers that did not show much interest in new technology.
7.1.2 Keeping it simple
Consumer surveys and segmentation studies suggest that a significant share (at least a third) of consumers were very price-conscious and did not look for more functionality in mobiles (Crabtree et al., 2002; Ofcom, 2006a). In a survey from 2007, 31% of respondents indicated not to care about extra features as they used phones for calls and texts only, compared to only 10% indicating that they like to have mobile phones with the latest features/technology (Caines, 2007; see also Laryea, 2011). About a quarter of the population used phones only for emergency purposes (Caines, 2007; Laryea, 2005).
Almost half of my participants did not actively look for more technologically advanced phones at all during this period. To them, phones were simply not a priority in life, preferring pre-pay tariffs and cheap phones. They used mobiles for calling and texting only and did not see much benefit in other features. In addition to such scepticism over the benefits of extra functionality and different priority-setting, there were many concerns
161 related to the latest developments in mobile phones that may have discouraged consumers from buying new phones. In 2006, both newspapers strongly engaged with the problems associated with various forms of over- and misuse, especially those that were believed to have detrimentally changed the social fabric. Were phones praised for connecting people in 2001, several articles published in 2006 painted a more dismal picture, suggesting that mobile phones may also disconnect people from each other. The incessant use of mobiles in both social and private situations like mealtimes, concerts, cinemas, when taking a bath, and on the loo was strongly rejected and considered a clear indication of mobile phone addiction and a threat to one-to-one communication. Disbelievingly, The Sun reported survey results suggesting that British women would need mobile phones more than their partners and some “would rather give up sex for a month than their beloved handsets”
(The Sun, 2006a). Relatedly, phones were put in the pillory for facilitating unfaithful behaviour, especially in The Sun. Furthermore, it was argued that due to the rise of mobile phones, close social relationships and storytelling would be replaced by an “instant society” where only the present really matters and “instant yuk and wow factors take over” (The Guardian, 2006b). The overall sentiment was that mobile phones would isolate rather than connect people. Such concerns resurfaced in many of my participants’ accounts and for a few were reason enough to stay away from the latest technology. Peter, for instance, presented himself as rather “a bit conservative” in relation to technology, knowing from experience that many technologies do not keep their promises and thus being rather suspicious about the latest phones.
“I could see over time [phones] becoming indispensable for people. They are not a human being unless they got a phone or have their headphones in. I didn’t want to become that kind of person, keep a distance from it.”
An interesting pattern in cases where mobile phones were considered a low priority, however, is that phones were still replaced regularly, posing somewhat of a puzzle
162 considering that mobile phones were renowned for their durability, by some estimates lasting 5 to 10 years (Geyer & Blass, 2010). Even among the participants that were most disinterested in mobile phones, there were few devices that were used for more than four years. As one might expect, I find that the same participants often replaced their phones as they got a new one as a gift. Especially mobile phones on pre-pay (‘phone in a box’) were popular gifts, leading to replacements even in cases where devices were in good condition. In 2001 and 2006, both The Sun and The Guardian featured advice on which phones to buy ahead of Christmas, writing that mobiles were high up on children’s’ wish lists. Overall, about 13-16% of people received their phones as a gift, a share that was particularly high among children, elderly, and women (Caines, 2007; Laryea, 2001).
More surprisingly, however, incidences of phones breaking down and being lost or stolen were quite common among my participants in the pre-smartphone period. Several participants noted that they were very clumsy with phones, at times accidentally breaking or losing several phones in a row. Susanna was not the only one to link this with the small size of phones and practice of putting them in pockets:
“Some of it might just have been carelessness from not being used to carrying it around, like having it in a pocket wasn’t really secure. I don’t think I’ve been rubbed. I think I just lost them, like sat on a train and falling out of the pocket. Cause partly it’s, you sort of want it near you and easy to get at, but I tend not to carry a handbag and women’s clothes have stupid pockets that don’t work very well.”
As a response, Susanna just bought very cheap phones:
“I’ve had a series of losing or breaking phones and so I’ve started buying just cheap phones that could just do basic, you know like take calls and send SMS messages. I probably had several, you know, 20 quid phones.”
Yet Susanna was not bothered about buying new phones at all, remarking that phones were cheap anyway and one could “just buy another one”. This and similar experiences
163 of other participants suggest that the combination of a low price, small size, location in pockets, replaceability, and lack of experiences of constantly carrying an object made also the simplest and most robust phones prone to short lives.
In this first half of the chapter, I have told the story of how mobile phones turned into multimedia devices. While the process of technological convergence did not stop in the second half of the 2000s, it did no longer develop in relative isolation from other innovation efforts. This will be the subject of the next chapter. Before that, I turn to the fashionisation of mobile phones that took place very much in parallel with the events described in this chapter thus far.
7.2 Fashionisation
In the mid-90s, concerns related to fashion were mainly about the size and up-to- dateness of mobile phones (see section 6.1). As discussed at the end of the previous chapter, the first steps into fashion territory were relatively cautious and merely turned mobile phones into platforms for changing covers. However, such steps were followed by ever-more aggressive ways of transforming mobile phones themselves into fashion items.
7.2.1 Fashion phones and the youth segment
The first step was to introduce customer segmentations and create distinct product categories and target specific groups of customers, specifically for fashion and luxury.
Before this shift, which occurred at the end of the 1990s, Nokia had already recognised several consumer segments including ‘posers’ (male status seekers), ‘trendsetters’ (looking for latest gadgets), ‘high fliers’ (male business users), and ‘social contact seekers’ (female, family and friends oriented), with two additional categories being added in 2000:
‘reachable’ (outdoors, sports) and ‘assured’ (hard-working, focus on reliability) (Kiljander,
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2004). By 2003, however, Nokia had established a new categorisation that explicitly took into account people following a fashion-oriented lifestyle, called ‘impressors’ (ibid.). Also other manufacturers started to recognise specific fashion-related segments around the turn of the millennium: ‘cool dynamic’ and ‘demanding connoisseur’ at Siemens, (Boston,
2000), ‘design freaks’ at Motorola, and the ‘T-segment’ and Ericsson (Kiljander, 2004). A common theme across manufacturers is that they increasingly considered women and the youth in their segmentations.
Product categories roughly reflected these segments but sometimes combined them.
Jukinen Tapani (personal communication), designer at Nokia at the time, recalls that they did some “vision work” in the late 90s that resulted in the introduction of six product categories: basic, active, fashion, premium, classic, and expression (see also Redhead,
2003; Zhang & Juhlin, 2016b). The most basic category related to fashion was
‘expression’, which was all about personalisation and interchangeable covers and specifically targeted the youth segment. Many of the most popular phones of the time such as the Nokia 5110 and 3210 can be located in this category. The categories of premium and fashion, however, were significantly bolder and aimed at the upper market.
The premium category for the luxury business market was standing out in terms of built quality and materials. Nokia spearheaded this development with the release of its 8810 model in 1998, which came “with a chrome-coloured finish to mimic a piece of jewellery” (Redhead, 2003) and was designed for “people who wear Boss suits and
Omega watches” (Schenker, 1998). In 2000, Nokia even launched a new venture called
Vertú that specialised in ‘jewellery-like’ phones (Djelic & Ainamo, 2005; Giachetti,
2018).
In between the premium and expression categories was a distinct category of ‘fashion phones’. Still coming at relatively high prices, these phones were “stylishly provocative
165 and creatively trend-conscious” (Redhead, 2003). Nokia’s model 8210, released in
October 1999, is widely considered the first fashion phone. The association with fashion is evident in its emergence from a collaboration with fashion house ‘Kenzo’ and unveiling at Paris Fashion Week. A key element of fashion phones and one where Nokia was clearly excelling at, is that their design was aligned with wider fashion trends. The analysis of trends in colour, material, and form became a key task for manufacturers (Zhang & Juhlin,
2016a). One way in which wider trends were imported in mobile phones was the designing of ‘collections’. Nokia released multiple series of fashion phones connected through a common theme over the years, including ‘Art-Deco/Bold’, ‘Ethnic-
Modernist’, and ‘L’Amour’ (Zhang & Juhlin, 2016b). In part, this strategy was used more widely across all phones. According to Jukinen Tapani, Nokia worked with “category frames” that acted as standard shapes according to which matters of personalisation, user interface, and design could be arranged. These changed every year.
The fashionisation of phones even seemed to dominate changes in mobile phone design around the turn of the millennium. When technological change was perceived to slow down in 2001 (see section 6.1.4), some analysts suggested that fashion was taking over
(Pringle, 2001), further arguing that manufacturers partly relied on fashion to encourage
‘upgrades’ in mobile phones (George & Roberts, 2001; Guthrie, 2001; Roberts, 2001).
Manufacturers and retailers pushed this especially in the youth market where the popularity of PAYG plans allowed for flexible replacements at any time. When the specialised retailer Phones 4u launched its ‘Ashamed of your mobile’ campaign in 2001, it wanted to appeal particularly to the group of 18-34-year-olds, which according to its own market research turned out “most likely to be followers of fashion and have the desire to continually upgrade their phone” (Palmer, Swainbank, & Ramage, 2003).
Explicitly a reaction to the increasing level of saturation in the market, the campaign intended to prompt consumers to consider buying a new phone, provocatively playing
166 with the social stigma of owning an outdated phone. Sony Ericsson ran a similar campaign in 2002 called ‘Cool to drool’. Again aimed at teenagers, the campaign popularised the idea of ‘drooling’, referring to the showing off and excessive appreciation of a new phone
(White, 2002). Ethnographic evidence of mobile phone consumption among teenagers suggests that such practices were indeed common, with teenagers placing high importance on having the right, stylish phone and exhibiting great competency in identifying which phones were in fashion (Green, 2003).
The strong association of fashion in mobile phones with specific groups of consumers, above all teenagers and fashion-conscious adults, was also made in mass media reports from 2001. Fashion did not figure prominently in mass media, but in presenting readers to new phones, they paid special attention to phones with outstanding designs. The following extract from The Guardian is an example of how mass media reported about fashion phones:
“The fashionistas are split as to which is the chicest mobile around. Some stick with their Nokia 8210s as if they were clasping the last bottle of Bolly. Others have had their head turned by the new V66 from Motorola with its flip-open lid and retro Batman- style logo on the facia. But the mobile that is catwalk champ this season is Samsung’s A300. Small enough to be pocketable (or more likely handbaggable), the phone teams up a neat selection of features with the oh-so de rigueur flip-open lid. And unlike most other flip-tops you can even see who’s calling you thanks to a mini, and rather fetching, blue screen. With a price more Principles than Prada it’s an Absolutely Fabulous buy, too.” (The Guardian, 2001d)
As this extract shows, media journalists did not seem to know how serious they should take the new fashion trend in mobile phones, switching to fashion talk and making fun of
“fashionistas” – even called “fashion victims” in a similar article – at the same time.
Overall, style and looks were not standard criteria in evaluating new phones and
167 considered only in reviews of mobile phones that stand out in this respect. The most important stylistic element was still a phone’s size.
7.2.2 Mass appeal of fashionable mobile phones
Despite the immediate success of fashion in mobile phones, it remained limited to young, fashion-conscious consumers and the luxury segment in the beginning. In the years up to the mid-2000s, however, fashion became a mass-market phenomenon in the UK. Two interrelated trends stand out in this period. The first is a trend towards ever-thinner phones that started around 2003. According to the database of GSMArena (2010), the average thickness of mobile phones released on the market shrank from 22mm in 2003 to
14mm in 2009. While making phones potentially lighter and easier to carry, style was an important element: “The fickle fashion world may be turning its back on emaciated size- zero models but super-slim phones are all the rage in mobile land” (Stuff 2006, Dec, p.
193). The other, perhaps more significant trend was the massive array of new ‘form factors’ in which mobile phones came on the market. Zhang and Juhlin (2016b) studied and periodised the shapes of mobile phones released by Nokia over the years. After coming mainly in the form of ‘candy bars’ with interchangeable covers in the period up to
2002, Nokia phones exhibited great diversity in terms of shape between 2003 and 2010
(decreasing in diversity since 2008). It must be added, though, that Nokia was late for once and missed out on this key trend when it started around 2001.
By far the most popular among alternative shapes was the so-called ‘clamshell’ or ‘flip’ phone design. The first of its kind was released already in 1996. The iconic StarTAC model was the smallest phone at the time and sold as a status symbol, receiving much attention in fashion magazines (Branch, 1999; Hardy & Ascarelli, 1996). An advantage of this design was that it allowed for smaller phones, but their style went beyond aesthetic
168 appearance. A designer at Motorola remarked about the StarTAC that “style is inherent even in the gesture of flipping it open” (Guthrie, 2001). A new element in the early
2000s, however, was that the clamshell design aligned well with the trend towards colour screens and built-in cameras, allowing for relatively large screens while keeping handset size low.
Figure 9: Dominant mobile phone shapes; share of all models released on the Global market (2000-2010); source: adapted from GSMArena (2010)
The massive popularity of clamshell phones in the first half of the 2000s, reflected in a larger share of new mobile phones coming in this shape (see Figure 9), coincides with the shift to ‘imaging’ described in section 7.1. The trend to combine clamshells with colour screens came from Asia where such phones had been extraordinarily successful. Asian manufacturers like Samsung, LG, and Sharp took an early lead over incumbents Nokia and Motorola in this segment (George, 2004; Pringle, Drucker, & Ramstad, 2003). The most popular phone in the UK in the mid-2000s, however, came from Motorola. The
RAZR V3, released in 2004, was extremely thin, had a clamshell shape, came with a built-in camera, and was particularly popular in pink. While conceived of as a fashion
169 phone, its appeal reached beyond the youth and ‘fashionistas’. Stuff magazine ranked it first in 2006:
“After all this time, we’re smitten with our V3s. Having updated to swank black and binned our silver versions, we still think it’s the best combination of form and function on the market. It has Bluetooth, it has a VGA cam - who uses a camphone to take ‘proper’ photos anyway? - and it has bags of kudos. Aircraft grade aluminium makes up the majority of the V3 and there’s not a millimetre of excess fat on its sumptuously designed, 95g chassis. Killer feature: Its covetable form factor. It might not have the bells, whistles, gongs and klaxons of other phones but by God it’s beautiful.” (Stuff, 2006; January, p.191)
Several of my participants had phones with a clamshell or slider design and for some this was clearly about fashion. Compared to relatively inconspicuous changes in design in the early days, these new designs were very visible and made previous models feel outdated as
Barbara’s experience shows:
“I didn’t wanna be really left behind. Like I did want a phone that resembled what other people were using. Like the slider thing and having the Blackberry with its little keyboard. Like it was reasonably important to me not to have some massive brick or some completely outdated technology, but I was never willing to spend a lot of money on it.”
By contrast, Joanna purposively bought a slider phone to stand out from the crowd in a time when flip phones were ubiquitous. In any case, the different shapes, being associated with fashion or not, were common anchors for my participants when describing the phones they had so far, which suggests that the phones’ identity was strongly defined by their shape.
In more general terms, finding the right combination of “form and function”, as in the quote above from Stuff, had turned into the key consideration in product reviews in
2006. While fashion phones were separated out and compared with each other as a
170 distinct category, a phone’s style was taken into account in all product comparisons. A phone review had become, in the words of one editor, “a testing battle of minds and shallow beauty contest” (Stuff, 2006; May, p.111). Phones that were either falling short on features or perceived as ugly or bulky, were regularly downgraded. In line with this, the commercially most successful phones in the mid-2000s were those that stood out in terms of design while fitting basic multimedia functionality – like the Motorola V3 and
‘LG Chocolate’ phone.
Meanwhile, the association of fashionable phones with the youth became weaker compared to 2001. Instead, the major line of separation was generally seen between fashion and technology, both in analyst reports and the way manufacturers categorised phones and consumers. For example, Nokia introduced a more fine-grained consumer segmentation by 2007. It included 12 segments, differentiated in terms of technology needs (high vs low) and technology desires (rational vs aspirational) (Bouwman, Carlsson,
& Nikou, 2014). The scheme separated out ‘style followers’ and ‘image seekers’ from
‘pragmatic leaders’ and ‘life jugglers’ but also identifies a range of segments that combine both fashion and technology: ‘style leaders’, ‘life builders’, ‘young explorers’, ‘technology stylists’, and ‘technology leaders’.
7.2.3 High fashion and the limits to fashionisation
Style and design had become increasingly important for handset differentiation as the fortunes of manufacturers went up and down with their successes and failures in delivering the most fashionable phones in a timely manner. Nokia had been massively successful in a time when colour and interchangeable covers were in fashion but struggled financially when missing out on the trend towards clamshells and thinner phones, only to do well again when leading the later ‘slider’ phone trend (Bryan-Low, 2007; Doz & Wilson,
171
2017). Motorola returned to success with its RAZR series but lost market shares again when failing to deliver a successor (Taylor, 2007a). Samsung, with its consistent focus on high-end fashion phones was one of the big winners in manufacturing business (Choi,
2004). Ericsson and Siemens, meanwhile, failed to find the right balance between style and function and lost significant market share (Boston, 2000; Latour, 2000; Martin, 2001).
At the same time, having experienced the success of several fashionable phones like the
RAZR, there was a was a strong sense in the industry that fashion had indeed taken over dynamics in mobile phones, having become the “zeitgeist” of the time (Laryea, 2005).
“Fashion phones will be bigger than ever. The rise of iconic phones, such as the Siemens Poppy and Pink Motorola V3, have been staggering in 2005. This is now a fashion industry.” (Graeme Hutchinson, sales and marketing director, Virgin Mobile; Mobile News, 2006, p. 20)
During this period, manufacturers became increasingly aggressive at fashionising mobile phones, especially among those who have missed out on earlier trends (Djelic & Ainamo,
2005). Up to the early 2000s, elements of fashion were successfully introduced in mobile phones without significantly compromising their functionality, but this changed. A commentator described the shift as follows:
“THE CELLULAR-PHONE industry, having pretty much saturated the market for basic handsets, is trying to turn the mobile phone into a fashion item, even if it means impairing basic functionality. Of course, owning and displaying a wireless phone has always been something of a status symbol, and a style statement. But earlier design changes, whether they trimmed the size of the phone, rounded off its corners, or added color to screens, kept the basic dialing features intact. New designs, however, are tampering with the heart of a phone’s functionality – the keypad itself.” (Mossberg, 2003)
Mobile phones had already been successfully turned into fashion ‘accessories’, but manufacturers also tried to establish phones as ‘jewels’ and ‘ornaments’ (Fortunati, 2013).
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A case in point for the latter was the Xelibri Series, a bold attempt by Siemens to turn mobile phones into ornaments for women. The series was released in 2003, came with two collections per year, was sold in department and fashion retail stores (Djelic &
Ainamo, 2005), and “had the declared aim of reducing the average life span of the mobile phone from 18 months to 12 months” (Fortunati, 2005, p. 44). The functionality and usability of these phones were clearly compromised in favour of style. While not necessarily positioning phones as ornaments, there were several similar attempts in which new shapes have been tried out at the cost of the phones’ value as tools. Zhang and Juhlin
(2016b) identified 14 distinct shapes in Nokia phones during this period including phones given the form of ‘lipsticks’ and ‘teardrops’.
The more common approach, however, was to turn to the premium and luxury end of the market. Collaborations with established fashion houses peaked in the mid-2000s
(Giachetti & Marchi, 2010; Romeo, 2008). Some of the most prestigious high fashion brands such as Prada, Giorgio Armani, Roberto Cavalli, and Dolce & Gabbana worked with manufacturers to sell their own special editions at a premium price. Some collaborations were highly successful, most notably the ‘Chocolate phone’ from LG and
Prada. Yet, taken all together, the moves into high fashion territory failed to make a lasting impression in the world of mobile phones in the UK, suggesting that manufacturers had been overconfident in the potential of fashion to overrule other trends such as those towards multi-functionality and multimedia. While the fashionisation of mobile phones was successful in many ways, the attempts at turning them into ornaments or jewels revealed multiple barriers and provoked counter-responses.
For one, Fortunati (2013) and Zhang and Juhlin (2016a) suggest that the demands of fashion created multiple tensions with more technology-oriented design, which came with different expectations over colours, materials, shapes, and the timelessness of design.
Related to this, and as noted above, mobile phones had to offer a good balance between
173 style and function. While the price tags and eye-catching designs of luxury phones guaranteed coverage in mass media, product reviewers did not consider them serious contenders for selections of best-buys.
Frictions occurred also outside the design and product purchasing process, most notably in relation to network operators. The rise of fashion competed with their aim at increasing utilisation of their networks, especially when leading to compromises in functionality (see also Giachetti & Marchi, 2010; King, 2007). Style-centred mobile phones like the Xelibri series consequently did not receive any subsidies and were often only available through independent retailers and via pre-pay schemes. Network operators also insisted that salespeople in retail stores should be tech-minded, rejecting Nokia’s efforts at replacing them with experts in fashion (Jukinen Tapani). Largely, the fashionisation of phones thus relied on the presence of powerful, network-independent retailers. In other countries, where retailers were less powerful than in the UK, fashion struggled to gain a foothold
(Rhoads, 2005). The case was slightly different for fashionable phones like the Motorola
RAZR V3 because these were equipped with basic multimedia functionality, thus being far more attractive for operators to subsidise. But the operators’ suspicion over the fashionisation of mobile phones ran deeper, as they were afraid that this would weaken the ability of mobile phones to endure and increase customer churn as a result. After all, handset sales contributed to only a small fraction of their revenues. This led to significant counter-measures by network operators, which will be discussed in chapter 8.
Finally, looking at consumption, there are some indications that for many consumers the fashionisation of mobile phones did not reach much further than selecting a beautiful design at the point of purchase. Survey evidence from Mintel shows that while aesthetic considerations ranked among the top when buying a new phone (King, 2010), only 6% of respondents indicated that a new, fashionable phone would be a reason for them to replace their current one (Laryea, 2003, 2005). Actual numbers might well have been
174 higher, but the difference between choosing a fashionable phone and replacing a phone just to stay in fashion comes out clearly in some of my interviewees’ accounts. Catherine, for instance, repeatedly distanced herself from those “queueing to buy the most up-to- date model”, something she had never been interested in. But aesthetics was still key:
Catherine: “I’ve never been wanting to study them in depth and go compare features and everything. To be honest, especially in the early days, I would pick them based on what they looked like above anything else.”
Me: “Like when you had the flip phone?”
Catherine: “Yeah, I liked the style of that. I thought ‘oh that looks quite nice’. It was very, quite sleek-looking, you know, especially compared to the original Nokia. So it was purely aesthetics that I went for that one.”
Cases like this show that choosing a nice colour or shape did not necessarily involve the same moral dilemmas as the practice of replacing a phone just for a more stylish one, which some of my participants found appalling. This suggests that there was, at least for some consumers, a clear limit to the fashionisation of mobile phones. Notably, this was also reflected in the way newspapers reported about fashion. Whereas the latest trends in mobile phone technology and use received much attention in The Sun and The Guardian in 2006, fashion trends were largely ignored except for a small number of reports introducing the latest fashion phones. Matters of style were thus largely limited to advice on which phones to choose. Overall, the combined evidence suggests that the consumption of mobile phones may not have been following the dynamics of fashion, for which regular product replacements due to changes in style are characteristic, quite to the extent that the popularity of many phones with conspicuous designs would lead to suggest.
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7.3 Conclusions
In this chapter, I have described the evolution of a market that was organised in a completely different way compared to the first, a market in which mobile phones simultaneously moved to the centre of technological convergence and became highly popular fashion items. The first process relates to the massive expansion in the functionality of mobile phones, which transformed them into multimedia devices reminiscent of Swiss Army knives, an analogy that was indeed frequently made at the time. While this extended their capacities as platforms for mobile services, enabling more technologically sophisticated practices such as picture messaging, music downloads, video calls, this was not their main function as tools anymore. Instead, they were increasingly used in ways that did not require such services, as with camera phones that were used to take pictures without sending them to friends. In contrast to the previous period, there was also a strong playful element in trying out new features, and the latest phones were again seen as status symbols.
In addition to this simultaneous toolification and toyification of mobile phones, mobile phones were increasingly moved into the realm of fashion. Compared to the use of interchangeable covers, now it was the handsets themselves that were fashionised. This took many forms, from the trend to smaller and thinner phones, to a proliferation of new aesthetic designs, the introduction of collections, and association with high fashion brands, among others. While it began with distinct product categories and customer segments, the fashionisation expanded to the mass market and became progressively bolder.
In terms of the relationship between mobile phones and complementary goods and services, the outcome of these processes was very much the mirror image of how the market looked like in the period before. While the previous focus on mobile services and personalisation contributed to the commoditisation of mobile phones in the platform
176 market, additional services were hardly taken up in the mid-2000s. The main line of separation was no longer located on the careers of singular mobile phones but between them. Multiple modes of valuation were able to co-exist because mobile phones were singularised for different types of consumers. The ever-more fine-grained categorisation of mobile phones and customer segments illustrates this well.
While the singularisation of mobile phones was the dominant way of organising competing modes of valuation, the chapter has also evidenced increasing tensions. In fact, there were persistent efforts at creating more multivalent mobile phones and as manufacturers made progress in this direction, this has increasingly become the norm.
The following chapter describes premium platform market that has emerged from such efforts.
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8 The premium platform market
Since the late 2000s, mobile phones have become vastly more powerful, personalisable, and expensive. The visual appearance and user interface of touchscreen smartphones that came to dominate are markedly different from almost anything that preceded them in the world of mobile phones. At the same time, the endurance of mobile phones in use improved considerably. These are some of the changes in product qualities that characterise the ‘premium platforms’ that have come to prevail in the 2010s (see Figure
10). As detailed in previous chapter, a ‘premium’ product category had existed for quite some time, but it remained a niche segment and average prices for mobile phones remained relatively stable. With premiumisation, I do not refer to a ‘diffusion’ of this product category. Instead, I suggest that the emergence of the premium platform market was marked by several critical shifts that not just made mobile phones look very different from the previous ‘premium’ phones but involved significant changes in the market at large. Like in chapter 6, I present the marketisation process in two steps. Section 8.1 considers changes up to and section 8.2 focuses on changes after the point of exchange.
Figure 10: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as premium platforms
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8.1 Touchscreen smartphones
About a decade after the industry had started pushing the technological convergence in mobile phones, it was still a buzzword in the media in 2006. But reports oscillated between praise and disappointment about the progress that has been made since then:
“Already, the mobile is home to up to 55 functions - from television to MP3 players - which could be sold separately. The industry has performed a miracle in making such devices, but the operators are retarding mass exploitation by erecting walled gardens around their services to shut out competition, by charging excessively for data use when it should be part of the monthly fee (as in the US) and by stifling creativity by denying content providers proper reward for effort.” (The Guardian, 2006a)
Another commentator in The Guardian added that the actual mobile phone revolution was yet to come, as mobile phones were still largely used for the same basic tasks as some years ago: calls, texts, and alarm clock. This certainly downplays the popularity of other features like cameras and music (see section 7.1.1), but the basic point was that there was a huge discrepancy between the capability of phones on the one hand, and the exploitation of this potential on the other. As in the quote above, operators were widely blamed for this. Nonetheless, there was optimism in the media about the near future. Multiple reports suggested that a better mobile internet experience would arrive as soon as 2007, with the initially clunky 3G handsets increasingly resembling small 2G phones and new phones based on VoIP promising to circumvent operators. Network operators were increasingly under pressure to move away from the profitable SMS and calls business, with
WiFi and VoIP looming as potential threats to this business (Fildes, 2006; Odell, 2006).
In fact, the smartphone segment gained some traction, with sales growing nearly threefold between the first halves of 2005 and 2007 and accounting for roughly 11% of total sales
(Ofcom, 2009). From 2006 onwards, smartphones were considered a product category in its own right in Stuff magazine and the latest models were received more positively for
179 being both smaller and better looking: “Once you had to choose between an ugly smartphone or a feature-poor fashion phone. But now you can be brainy and beautiful”
(Stuff 2006, Dec, p. 186, emphasis in original). At the same time, operators slowly made steps to opening their walled gardens, starting to allow access to internet services like
Skype and Ebay (Linge & Sutton, 2015). However, the most significant changes came about when Apple entered the market with the iPhone.
8.1.1 The iPhone
Several industries had been heavily affected by advances in mobile phone technology over the years, so when specialised music phones became popular around 2005 and 2006, the mp3 player industry was clearly under threat. In this changing situation, Apple, whose iPods were its most profitable product category, had been speculated to enter the mobile phones business for quite some time. According to Merchant (2018), Apple’s decision to produce phones was also based on a good deal of coincidence and opportunism. Apple had been working on touchscreens as new user interfaces for tablets for several years.
Because the tablets would have been too expensive at the time, the decision was made to make them smaller and turn them into phones where Apple could benefit from generous operator subsidies to offer the devices at a lower price.
The first public presentation in early 2007 and eventual launch of the first iPhone in the
UK in November 2007 were accompanied by a hype unseen before in the world of mobile phones. Touchscreens had been used in mobile phones before, but the overall design and user interface of the iPhone were very different from existing ones. A key feature was its ease-of-use. The iPhone was based on the idea of a consumer-centric, closed device where software, hardware, and content were fully integrated, offering a seamless user experience (Isaacson, 2011; Merchant, 2018; Verstraete, 2014). Moreover,
180 making the iPhone fun to use was a central element in its design (Merchant, 2018).
“People loved navigating their iPhones by tapping, swiping, and pinching their fingers”, as the smartphone biographer Elizabeth Woyke (2014, p. 39) observed in relation to the experience of using the touchscreen. Two major features of the first iPhone were its integrated iTunes Store and a version of the Safari web browser, the latter allowing for unmediated access to the internet rather than the stripped-down version offered by network operators (Kenney & Pon, 2011; West & Mace, 2010).
The iPhone had also some other serious technical drawbacks that made other manufacturers downplay its innovativeness (see Doz & Wilson, 2017; McNish & Silcoff,
2015). Not only was it incompatible with 3G, relying on the slower second-generation network, but it significantly compromised on battery life and durability too:
“Apple made some pretty interesting trade-offs. One of them was battery life and one of them is the durability of the product. Now ten years later we all kind of accept that a phone lasts for a day. And then we charge them and we have chargers next to the bed which is the new normal. And we all accept that if we are stupid and we drop our phone, then the screen will smash. We know that that will happen. Ten years ago that was not acceptable.” (Duncan Lamb, creative director at Nokia 2008-2011; Koskinen, 2018)
Furthermore, the original iPhone was technically speaking not even a smartphone, lacking third-party applications (see Woyke, 2014). Apple was initially against this and preferred erecting its own walled garden, fearing that opening up to third-party developers would threaten the device’s functionality and security. For Apple, the iPhone was closer to the iPod than computers, seeing the ‘killer feature’ in the addition of phone functionality (Merchant, 2018; Woyke, 2014). However, Apple opened up for the second edition of the iPhone, the 3G, after hackers had successfully bypassed the wall to enable third-party apps (Merchant, 2018; Tilson, Sørensen, & Lyytinen, 2012). This can be seen as a decisive step in the convergence between mobile phones and computers, one that
181 significantly improved the capacity of mobile phones to act as platforms mediating between users and third-party content providers (Ballon, 2009; de Reuver et al., 2011;
Kenney & Pon, 2011).
Beyond such innovations in hard- and software, the entry of Apple is notable for changing the roles of network operators. By granting exclusive rights for selling iPhones to a selected network operator in each country – O2 in the UK, Apple was able to negotiate new revenue-sharing deals. Network operators had to commit to pre-agreed sales targets and share monthly revenues with Apple rather than subsidising the device.
Additionally, and just as unusual at the time, operators had no say in the development of the phone and were not allowed to pre-install their own service applications. Moreover, they had to accept the iPhone’s web browser and app store, knowing that this would cannibalise their lucrative SMS revenues and turn them from content providers into
‘dumb bit pipes’, calling an end to their walled garden approach (Weber & Scuka, 2016).
After having insisted that WiFi would be removed from handsets for years, operators also allowed Apple to include WiFi, a critical feature for downloading apps and music
(Vascellaro, 2007). Since then, the role as gatekeepers to content had largely moved from network operators to operating system (OS) providers (Ballon, 2009; de Reuver et al.,
2011).
Like other smartphones, the first iPhone was pitched at the premium segment and was initially released with a relatively high price. At first Apple even insisted on the revenue- sharing model and feared cannibalisation of its iPods, not letting its partnering operator subsidise the phone (Thomas, 2007). The first iPhone buyers were mainly in their 20s and
30s with above-average incomes (Ofcom, 2011), the segment in which Apple continued to dominate (Ballaben, 2016). Related to this focus on premiumness, a relatively underappreciated element of the first iPhone in the literature is that it was considered extremely stylish and changed aesthetic standards in mobile phone design. Its design was
182 in line with the latest trends, being very thin and coming with a touchscreen which had just become en vogue. Shortly before the iPhone came on the market, LG released the sleek, all-black ‘Prada phone’ with touchscreen (Ramstad, 2007), which looked remarkably similar to the iPhone and was positioned as a high-priced fashion phone.
Apple was widely recognised as a ‘technology style leader’, focusing on minimalist design at the expense of some functionality: The iPhone had no replaceable battery and a headphone jack that required users to buy an extra adapter for earbuds. Early reviews of the iPhone in business media strongly emphasised its “beauty” (e.g. Mossberg & Boehret,
2007; Taylor, 2007b). Zhang and Juhlin (2016b) note that in contrast to previous user interfaces based on keypads, the new design with a large screen severely restricted the designers’ possibilities for experimentation and aesthetic variation (see also Woyke, 2014).
The marketing of phones changed too. Apple was the first manufacturer to sell its phones in its own retail stores where it had more control over the presentation of its premium products and could gain direct contact to customers (Jenkins, 2017; Merchant, 2018;
Rudolph & Meise, 2011). Another key marketing strategy introduced by Apple was the switch from an event- to a time-pacing strategy (see Eisenhardt & Brown, 1998), involving a fixed pattern of annual phone releases. Since Apple’s entry, this mode has become standard in the industry in releasing ‘flagship’ phones. Each release, especially of iPhones, was clouded in secrecy and accompanied with significant speculation, producing an ongoing cycle of speculation and hype (see also Merchant, 2018). Newspapers played an important role in this, with both The Sun and The Guardian having started to publish extensive product reviews upon the releases of every major manufacturers’ latest flagship model, now routinely reporting about the “shiny new” and “hottest” phones presented at congresses around the world.
Given the high entry price and failure of previous industry efforts at increasing prices, however, there was much debate in business media over the potential of the iPhone to
183 reach beyond the premium segment, with the previous commercial success of a few premium models like the Motorola RAZR providing a glimmer of hope (Yuan & Tam,
2007). But with sales falling short of expectations in the first months, Apple eventually gave in to operators and allowed them to subsidise the phone in 2008 (Parker, Taylor, &
Waters, 2008). Around the same time, several incumbent manufacturers started offering their own touchscreen smartphones, soon later at a much lower price than the iPhone
(Jung-a & Kwong, 2009).
While the iPhone and other smartphones became cheaper, the shift to premium phones was likely facilitated by several simultaneous developments that created favourable conditions. One of them is that the consumers’ monthly expenditures on mobile services started to stabilise. After increasing usage of services like SMS made expenditures rise for more than a decade, continued increases from 2005 onwards were offset by falling prices, linked to the transition to flat-rate tariffs, and the availability of ‘over-the-top’ (OTT) services that bypassed operators’ networks (Ofcom, 2010). Furthermore, several key actors appeared to re-orient themselves towards premium phones. Observing that handsets at the premium end faired best during the economic recession, some manufacturers increasingly focused on serving this segment (Sandstrom, 2009). Network operators, meanwhile, had started already in 2005 to offer longer pay-monthly contracts which allowed customers to spread the cost of a device over a longer period (see section 8.2).
The iPhone in particular led to much heavier data use compared to other smartphone models (Ofcom, 2010), which made it much more attractive to operators than competing handsets. Finally, King (2010) observed that retailers changed their strategy from encouraging sales to being more consultative and supporting a shift towards more technologically sophisticated phones. Taken together, this evidence suggests that there was a collective effort among network operators, manufacturers, and retailers in closing
184 the gap between an already existing stock of high-end, multi-functional handsets on the one hand and the comparatively low-cost devices people used at the time on the other.
8.1.2 Reception of touchscreen smartphones
The transition to touchscreen smartphones was a clear watershed in terms of usage.
Within few years after the launch of the first iPhone, many practices like instant messaging, social networking, music and video streaming, web browsing, and shopping became common ground in the UK. In the early years, media reports were overwhelmingly supportive of touchscreen smartphones considering their functionality and ease of use, the overall tone being that it would be only a matter of time until everyone would use a smartphone and that users would not be able to imagine a world without them once gotten used to it. Stuff had recommended smartphones already in
2006 (even earlier in 2001 when including PDA-phone hybrids), but now also newspapers introduced readers to the concept of a smartphone and explained in detail how they could benefit from switching to a smartphone. As the following quote illustrates, smartphones were hyped for several reasons:
“THE days when mobile phones were just for making calls, sending texts and taking the odd fuzzy snapshot are long gone. Smartphones, ushered in by the launch of the iPhone in 2007, have put the internet in your pocket. And thanks to a mind-boggling array of special phone-designed software applications, they can help you do all sorts of everyday tasks from booking a table at your favourite restaurant to scanning your shopping and ordering it. They take top-quality photos and video too and double up as sophisticated games consoles.“ (The Sun, 2011)
Above all, editors were excited about the new possibilities that had arisen from customisable apps and the richness of app stores became a key differentiation criterion in product reviews. A common theme in this context was that the large number of mostly
185 free apps would make lives easier and more fun, reminiscent of the emphasis on feature- packed phones in 2001 and 2006. In terms of app availability, Apple’s iOS and Google’s
Android operating systems quickly gained an advantage over competing platforms and benefited from network effects (Cusumano, 2010; Kenney & Pon, 2011). At the same time, it became evident that smartphones could have a liberating effect too. Again, it was a key event, the Arab Spring of 2011, which demonstrated the power of mobiles, this time as pivotal weapons in the fight against suppression: “The barricades of today do not bristle with bayonets or rifles, but with phones” (The Guardian, 2011a). Furthermore, mobile phones suddenly became the answers to many persistent problems they had been said to cause in the first place, with health and lifestyle apps figuring prominently in 2011 and 2016 media reports.
For my interviewees, the ways smartphones changed their everyday lives were at the forefront. Esther, a person with spatial dyslexia, was particularly keen to participate in my research so she could tell me about how smartphones changed her life. For our meeting she had even prepared a list of things she liked about smartphones, with GPS functionality understandably on top. Several participants also noted how convenient smartphones are for accessing information on the internet and doing work on the go. Thomas, for instance, told me how smartphones had turned into an “indispensable tool” for
“managing the flood of information”. Furthermore, many participants greatly valued games and permanent access to social media and news as “little distractions” (Victoria) for killing dead time and avoiding boredom.
An additional, significant change that comes out from both media reports and interviewees’ accounts relates to the experience of texting. Instant messaging became immediately popular, so much so that volumes of SMS and MMS started to decline after
2012 (Ofcom, 2015a). As one article in The Sun argued, instant messaging allows for much quicker exchanges, removes concerns about overspending, and enables flexible
186 switching between different devices. Fiona and Gareth added to this that apps like
Whatsapp are also convenient for texting in groups. Equipped with its own instant messaging service, Blackberrys quickly gained popularity in the youth segment between
2009 and 2011. Several participants of mine had Blackberrys during this period and were greatly attached to this service. But the case of Blackberrys is also interesting in demonstrating that also non-touchscreen smartphones, specifically those with QWERTY keypads, sold well at the time and were considered a viable alternative.
Indeed, the case for touchscreens was not clear at all as changes in the texting experience demonstrate. For some of my participants, this was an important matter they remember vividly. Ramsha, Ronnie, and Lucía did not enjoy texting at all on their previous phones, noting that the experience was “torturous” and “difficult”. For them, touchscreens represented a relief from this. Others were less convinced, at least at first. Barbara, for instance, used a Blackberry-lookalike from Nokia before switching to a touchscreen phone. She did not like texting on the new phone at all, finding it slow and unresponsive, until she discovered the swipe-typing feature, which convinced her that touchscreens might not be worse than a QWERTY keypad after all. Fiona, by contrast, remains unconvinced to this day and wishes back the old days, with the different user interface being one of the reasons why she did not get a smartphone earlier. Having been an
“expert texter” her expertise was made obsolete:
“I was really fast at like, I’d walk along and do it in my pocket and I knew it would be perfect. And that to me was a much more efficient way of working than having to stop and look and pressure thumb to recognise it and then open it up. I find that quite annoying.”
The difference between touchscreen and QWERTY was also discussed in mass media, where the two user interfaces were considered the best candidates for smartphones.
Product reviews in Stuff concluded that a large touchscreen is better for internet use and
187 gaming, while acknowledging that QWERTY keypads were great for typing. Some editors suggested that a combination of both might be the best solution, accepting that this would have made them bulkier. In the end, QWERTY keypads and Blackberrys had four important disadvantages (see also McNish & Silcoff, 2015): First, it was clear that
Blackberrys did not come close to touchscreen phones in terms of style, with the large keypad colliding with the new standard of minimalist design (Friedman, 2013; Garrahan,
2013). The second problem was that the Blackberry messenger service was not made available on devices from other manufacturers. Third, touchscreens gained a critical advantage in so far as content developers increasingly concentrated on this user interface.
Fourth, consumption practices changed in the touchscreen’s favour. More traditional services like e-mail and texting, where QWERTY keypads excelled, increasingly lost ground compared to gaming, social media, and images (the selfie trend started in 2010).
8.1.3 Replacing feature phones for smartphones
Some of my interviewees immediately wanted a smartphone as soon as they found out about it. Joanna told me that when she saw on a friend’s iPhone what it could do, it made her own phone “obsolete really, really quickly”. Theresa too was won over after she was allowed to use her friends’ iPhone, realising how useful it was for surfing the internet.
Jeremy got a smartphone much earlier than everyone else, saying that “once that tech was available to me, I would always get a smartphone”. To him the smartphone was a great novelty but also a means for avoiding boredom on the train. By contrast, for Lucía and
Shera it simply became a necessity because their friends had already moved to new apps for social networking, indicating that network effects were important too in the shift to smartphones. Despite such differences, in all these cases it was the new or improved functionality that attracted or forced them to shift to smartphones.
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However, this shift did not always occur in such a linear way. Not only did some innovation spring from usage (e.g. selfie, see Flowers & Dong, 2017), but the value of smartphones was often discovered after the purchase. Learning to exploit the functionality of smartphones was a recurrent theme among my interviewees. Partners, children, tech- minded friends, and colleagues at work regularly featured as important sources. For example, Kyle was informed by his kids:
“I think it’s just becoming aware of the potential that the phone has. […] And I think sometimes, you know, having the kids who had been, they had grown up in the internet generation. They led you know about new apps and they say you know, ‘dad you need to get on Instagram’ or you know Snapchat and things like that.”
Even without being aware of the benefits of smartphones in the beginning, there were still different ways in which smartphones got into people’s hands. One way was simply to get a smartphone being handed down. Esther and Michael were not interested in smartphones at first but received used handsets from their tech-savvy son and partner, respectively. They both started using mobile phones extensively since then. Another mechanism was to get a smartphone as part of an ongoing pay-monthly contract. Kyle,
Victoria, and Thomas were all supplied with a smartphone from their service provider and used the contract for “keeping up with the times” as Victoria expressed it. For her it was about maintaining a certain level of competence as she explained:
Victoria: “I’m always mindful of my mum who, you know, obviously was introduced as she was older to computers full-stop and seeing how she struggled with it. It’s kinda just best to keep on top of things a little bit rather than just stick to what you know and leave it to that.”
Me: “So also a little bit about building competencies in a way?”
Victoria: “Yeah, cause I think you can get left behind very, very quickly. And I think there is a lot of useful stuff out there.”
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Victoria would thus routinely get a new phone and learn about its benefits later. Kyle and
Thomas used mobile phones mainly for work purposes and appreciated improved functionality, but like Victoria moved to technologically more advanced phones through contracts without much emotional investment.
Other participants, notably Barbara and Fiona, had to confront the situation that smartphones with touchscreens became the norm and made their own phones look old- fashioned. In Barbara’s case, it was always about finding a middle-way between appearing too keen to get the latest phones and being the odd one out. Touchscreen phones and new technology had devalued her “ancient Nokia Blackberry rip-off”:
“You know there was a little bit of envy I guess, cause there’s all this new technology out there and being aware that Blackberry as a brand was dying because they had a little QWERTY keyboard and nobody else did anymore. Yeah, so I decided that I would join my friends and the rest of the world and get a touchscreen phone. But I didn’t really get into it or feel like I got any particular benefit from it until I realised it had the Satnav function and Google Maps.”
As Barbara clarifies, she did not buy a smartphone to get more functionality but realised this only later. What happened when the line between up-to-dateness and outdatedness was transgressed is revealed in the case of Fiona who did not move to smartphones until as of late:
“But I feel like I’m probably one of the last people in my age group, I would guess, to get a smartphone. You know, to say that I’ve only got one six months ago. And I would for years go out in bars, in clubs, and take out my Nokia and people were laughing at me. That’s what I meant about being quirky, people have like ridiculed me for years like going ‘what are you doing?’. Liz [partner; pseudonym] would say ‘don’t take it out! I’m embarrassed if we’re like in a fancy place and you’re taking that out’.”
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Fiona was not that bothered about other peoples’ reactions and stated that having an old phone even added to her quirkiness, but her experience demonstrates the social sanctions that were involved in breaking with the norm.
8.1.4 Resisting and delaying the shift to smartphones
The case of Fiona also directs attention to the important matter of how and for what reasons consumers delayed the move to smartphones. This was not a prominent theme in my participants’ accounts, but some stated that they had waited for the price to go down or just had not seen why they would need a smartphone. Survey evidence confirms that these were important considerations (Ballaben, 2016; Gee, 2013;
Pheeraphuttharangkoon, 2015), yet largely ignored the meanings of smartphones in comparison to feature phones. Fiona considered smartphones, besides disliking touchscreen functionality and handset size, too intrusive. In the following extract from our conversation, she told me about a brief period when she tried to use a smartphone:
Fiona: “I had a very, very brief spell of an iPhone 4 because, and that probably would have been about two and a half years ago now, so again Liz [partner; pseudonym] was changing hers at the time and she said ‘look, you’re gonna have to move to a smartphone’ and she said ‘I will give you mine and try it for twelve weeks and I’ll bet you will be sold’. And she said ‘Just do it, force yourself, you’re a late adopter, just give it a go and see if you like it and you can have it for free’. So I tried it for twelve weeks and I gave it back straight away, hated it. Just because it didn’t, I didn’t like the size of it, I didn’t like all the things coming through. So now I turn like all, like Facebook notifications or e-mail notifications, turn all those things off cause it was driving me crazy. It was like someone constantly doing this to you, you know, it takes your attention and I don’t like that.”
Me: “Then you gave it back.”
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Fiona: “Yeah I gave that one back. Yeah, cause I never gave up my Nokia easy at the time. I kept it there cause I had reservations about moving to the smartphone and they were true (laughs).”
As Fiona makes clear, she had reservations about smartphones all along, disliking their potential for taking away someone’s attention. Eventually she was “forced” to get a smartphone for work. None of my other participants was quite as resistant as Fiona when it comes to transitioning to smartphones, but with a fifth of the adult population still having no smartphone at all (Ofcom, 2018a) is far from an unusual case.
Related to this, it is notable that the intensity and range of concerns related to mobile phones increased substantially with the proliferation of smartphones and mobile internet access. Smartphones were problematised for creating a virtual world to which people can escape at all times and where virtual, less meaningful communication replaces physical contacts. The sense that people would be rendered increasingly isolated because of smartphones, while feeling isolated without them, was reiterated in light of the rise of social media:
“Technological breakthroughs, which ought to link us, isolate us even more. We lurk in bedrooms on Facebook Chat; on buses, we text, oblivious to the people around us, who are themselves enclosed in the sonic cocoon of their iPod playlists.“ (The Guardian, 2011b)
Beyond isolating people from each other, a concern that appeared already in the pre- smartphone era, this was now also about how people experience reality. Newspaper reports suggested that smartphones would effectively distance users from the real world, shaping the ways users experience meals, concerts, nature, and social relationships. In this context, some reports about mobile phones as a nuisance in public spaces re-appeared, as commentators debated what is to be done with phones in cinemas and at concerts
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(reminiscent of complaints about annoying ringtones and people shouting into their phones in the 2000s).
More than any other, however, concerns over smartphone “addiction” became dominant in the 2010s. Media reports indicate a growing realisation that it was no longer just young people being obsessed with and addicted to their devices. A commentator declared in
2016: “Yes, young people are attached to their phones. But so are old people and starting-to-get-old people. We’re all addicted” (The Guardian, 2016d). Rather than just teens, most people would feel anxious and stressed without their phone, while being constantly distracted in social situations and at work. Representations of mobile phones’ health effects significantly changed with the increasing dominance of the dependency/addiction narrative. Concerns that phones could cause eye and brain cancer, memory loss, and male fertility loss received some limited attention in the 2000s but barely featured in later reports anymore, with one article in The Guardian even downplaying them as public scares from the past. Since 2006, however, the list of detrimental effects of phone grew exponentially, mostly related to overuse, including symptoms like sleep deprivation, text necks, obesity, and transient blindness.
Another new concern that emerged in the 2010s relates to the privacy implications of smartphones. While work phones had been represented as the mediating tool through which employers could intrude into people’s lives already in the 2000s, phones themselves did not represent a significant threat to privacy at first. By 2011, however, privacy concerns became a major theme, especially in The Guardian. Commentators remarked that the growth in smartphone apps had massively increased the amount of sensitive data stored on smartphones, rendering even regular users more vulnerable to hackers and misuses by content providers. Furthermore, privacy concerns were elevated by the threat of malware that could potentially infect smartphones and access the users’ bank accounts, with financial frauds and other forms of cybercrime having become a reality.
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8.1.5 Shifting emphasis to look, feel, and reliability
The design and technology of touchscreen smartphones did not stand still after the release of the first iPhone. The UK established itself as a frontrunner in the adoption of 4G technology (LTE), which is based on a data-only communication network and guarantees higher data speed. First launched in October 2012, 63% of all mobile subscriptions were
4G-enabled by 2017 (Ofcom, 2018a). The transition to 4G facilitated the increasing use of data-hungry functions like photo and video sharing. Han and Cho (2016) further reconstructed the evolution of key technical characteristics in smartphones during the years 2012 to 2015, finding that all the characteristics they measured, including processor performance, camera resolution, battery capacity, and memory capacity, saw significant improvements during this period. Such changes in existing technology were important because early smartphones, especially in the low-end segment, suffered from many problems. As Thomas pointed out, early smartphones were quite “slow, laggy, and annoying”. In addition, several new technical features were added over the years, including virtual assistants, dual-cameras (2011), 3D touch, mobile payments (2014), and security-improving features like fingerprint scanners (2013) and facial recognition (2017).
Smartphones also got notably bigger and thinner over the years. According to Woyke
(2014), this trend emerged from Samsung’s market research in China where people demanded larger screens. Also in the UK a larger screen became one of the top criteria when buying a new phone (Gee, 2014), but the trend involved some interesting trade- offs. Ronnie and Victoria both lamented about the impact on texting. In Ronnie’s words:
“This phone [pointing at a feature phone of his I had indicated on the timeline], I could type 70 words a minute on this. And I tell you something that happened that really got on my tits. It was that you could text with one hand until this whole business of making phones bigger turned up. So as soon as I got a phone this width, I could no longer touch the phone and that was quite annoying to me.”
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Furthermore, they regretted that it was getting increasingly difficult to fit the phone into one’s hand and trouser pocket. As Victoria notes, the only reason the current phone still fits into her pocket is because it is so slim. A trade-off that my participants did not seem to be aware of, however, is that this latter compromise of making phones thinner, narrowed down possibilities for improving the phone’s battery life (see Bakker & Kuijer, 2014).
The trend towards bigger phones, in conjunction with increasingly sophisticated technology and premium materials, has increased the production costs over the years and contributed to higher prices (Zumbrun & Mickle, 2017). Moreover, such trends meant that there was still sufficient product differentiation in the early 2010s. Product comparisons in Stuff in 2011 still assigned low ratings to many phones and identified clear differences in performance and functionality, with cheaper phones generally performing worse. The situation was entirely different five years later, however, with editors at Stuff concluding that cheaper phones can be nearly as good:
“Don’t fancy shelling out more for a phone than you paid for your first car? The iPhone 6s and Galaxy S7 aren’t the only ones out there, you know. There’s a whole class of great smartphones you won’t see on billboards, and the best of them get you 90% of the smart joy of an expensive model for a quarter of the price – and they don’t have to look and feel cheap either.“ (Stuff, 2016; group test sub-200...)
Product reviewers admitted that there was little exciting innovation happening and comparing their reviews with previous years I noted how detailed they had become. It became a matter of meticulously searching for differences between new models and their predecessors. Although some disappointment is discernible in the media about the perceived stabilisation of product qualities, the general view was that this simply reflected the extraordinary achievements by manufacturers in developing near-perfect devices.
Also among my participants curiosity and interest in new phones faded away somewhat and some participants remarked that there used to be much more talk about phones
195 among friends. In Enora’s words, conversations shifted from “oh look at the new phone” to something more like “oh I have to get a new phone, this one is like breaking, or this one is like not working so well”. Ronnie described the change as follows:
“Yeah, basically I think the Galaxy S3 was probably the watershed. At that point, there was just no difference in the market. Of very, you know, just incremental improvements here and then. Prior to that there was like ‘boom’, quite big advances. The iPhone being the main one to be fair.”
Indeed, from a performance point of view smartphones became ever harder to differentiate from one another (Cecere et al., 2015), which also expressed itself in a series of high-profile ‘patent wars’ among leading manufacturers. Considering these trends, commentators began to speak of “peak smartphone” (Lee & Talbot, 2016; Reynolds,
2018b; The Economist, 2019). As the quote above hints at, several manufacturers, most notably Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, and ZTE entered the market with low-priced, high-performance smartphones, putting pressure on prices (Giachetti, 2018).
Network operators reacted to the new situation too, turning away from marketing the latest handsets towards emphasising network quality (Thomas, 2014).
Despite all this, consumers continued to pay increasing amounts of money for new phones. Especially Apple and Samsung increased prices of their high-end smartphones considerably in most recent years in what has been called a “luxury price war” (Gallagher,
2018; Zumbrun & Mickle, 2017). Notably, the original compromise of touchscreen user interface and premium design remained intact. However, most recent years were characterised less by improvements in performance than by continued innovations in design (see also Martin & Mickle, 2017) and a renewed emphasis on product reliability.
As noted above, design standards completely changed after the iPhone came about. At first, the emphasis appeared to be mainly on technology, however, at least in the media.
As prominent as fashion in mobile phones was in both mass media and business magazines
196 in 2006, references to style and fashion almost vanished with the disappearance of reports on feature phones in 2011. In light of such changes, one analyst complained that “there is a lack of fashionability in mobile phones. Where they are styled it is in a (masculine?) high tech way to appeal to those who appreciate the beauty of the technology in its own right”
(Mason, 2011). The new design criteria the analyst was referring to were considered in some product reviews at the time. According to reviewers, the size of phones was not a major issue anymore as long as phones could fit into one’s palm, with greater attention being paid to thinness and build materials. Like in the following excerpt from a review of a Blackberry smartphone, a few articles made a connection between materials and social status.
“As a business blower, looks are key – and this has its collars starched and shoes polished. It’s the slimmest Blackberry ever, only a little portlier than the iPhone at 10.5mm, and has a gorgeous brushed stainless steel edge with a high-gloss, glass-weave back. It’s a promotion in your pocket.” (Stuff, 2011; July, p.18)
While such associations with social status were relatively rare until 2011, they became standard by 2016. Product reviews engaged in much more detail with the design characteristics and elegance of phones, contributing to a sense of phones as status symbols.
As the following quote illustrates, mobile phones were now expected to look and feel premium.
“With a whopping 6in screen but a very slim profile, Huawei’s huge flagship is a mostly metal affair that looks and feels expensive. It’s not loaded with the kind of quirks that might give it a strong design personality, but it’s classy, and there’s very little excess bezel.“ (Stuff, 2016; supertest the big six; emphasis added)
The focus on classic designs formed a strong contrast to the celebration of colourful casings and attention-grabbing designs in the 2000s. Metal and glass were preferred over plastic and further preference was given to neat, curvy designs with as little protruding elements as possible. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, notable for its curved screen, but
197 otherwise identical with the Galaxy S6 model, was considered a “masterclass in desirability” that would be worth paying a premium price for (Stuff, 2016; samsung galaxy s7 edge). After having reached a size that made differences between smartphones and tablets more fluid (leading to a new category called ‘phablets’), manufacturers focused on maximising screen size by reducing any excess bezel and changing the form of the ‘notch’
(a small display cut-out for the front-facing camera) in their premium range, all of which worked to signal ownership of top-of-the-range models.
Overlapping with the appraisal of premium materials is the importance of a handset’s feel.
This quality, also mentioned in the quote above, has become a standard differentiation criterion in product reviews in 2016. Ronnie was one of the few participants who had a top-of-the-range phone at the time of the interviews and for him it was all about a phone’s feel: “My hand is like ‘what’s that feeling’”. While seeing not a lot of differences between phones in terms of performance, he chose the one with “this beautiful aluminium brush” over other phones made with plastic covers, paying a significantly higher price for that.
Another key trend in the past few years was about product reliability, as manufacturers differentiated high-end phones from the rest by making them shatter-, water-, and dust- proof (Ballaben, 2016; Pham, 2016). According to survey data, improved ruggedness came fourth in the list of the most desired features, with every fifth respondent indicating this as a potential reason for ‘upgrading’ (Ballaben, 2016). Also product reviews started to pay attention to product reliability in 2016. Having a robust and reliable smartphone was particularly to Shera who had experienced three shattered screens on her previous phone in a row. Finding it difficult to imagine life without a phone, Shera remembers this as a very annoying situation. As a response to this, she looked for a “stronger” and water- resistant phone on which she spent significantly more on her current phone than for any previous one. A second-hand phone was not an option anymore, preferring a phone that
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“was okay from the start” and would be immediately replaced if something goes wrong.
Shera’s experience thus shows how improvements in product reliability were, among others, connected to the people’s increasing reliance on smartphones.
8.2 Deceleration
While the innovation efforts described so far produced highly visible output in the form of shiny, ever-bigger objects that are carried around everywhere, many of the changes that occurred beyond moments of exchange, with the notable exception of smartphone apps, have largely been overlooked in the literature. This second half of the chapter describes the processes through which the endurance of touchscreen smartphones in use has been extended and the concerns that underpinned them.
8.2.1 Lengthening bundled contracts
Starting in the mid-2000s, network operators made significant changes to existing modes for customers to pay for mobile phones and services. Those were most likely related to increasing problems with the predominant subsidy model. Operators had used this model to acquire new customers, but this increasingly turned into a zero-sum game for them as the growth in mobile subscriber numbers declined, leading to debates over the sustainability of this model (Shillingford, 2002). As noted in chapter 7, operators continued to subsidise heavily at first, however, facing price pressures from a new competitor (Three) and hoping that the take up of multimedia services would compensate for splashing out high subsidies. But this situation changed in the mid-2000s in two important ways. For one, consumers had to be lured to more sophisticated 3G-enabled handsets for their services to be a success. This became the central preoccupation among operators in this period (see section 8.1). But since such phones were more expensive,
199 even higher subsidies were required. The other major issue for operators was that the endurance of phones in use had gone down rapidly in the mid-2000s, increasing subsidy expenditures even further and intensifying the persistent problem of customer churn. The following excerpt from a Financial Times article is worth quoting a length, providing some insights into the perception of the problem among operators and on how they reacted:
“The move to 3G may seem to be good news for handset makers - companies such as Nokia hope to stimulate interest in the latest devices by launching better and faster phones with higher-quality cameras and screens, bigger memory capabilities and slicker designs. But in the long run, 3G may mean that customers exchange their handsets at a slower rate, so that operators are not forking out expensive handset subsidies every time their customers want the latest phone. [...] Brian McBride, managing director of T- Mobile in the UK, believes 3G- powered phones with much larger storage capabilities will help slow the replacement cycle. As more users personalise their phones with colour photo albums or downloaded music or video clips, operators hope that this personalisation will make users much more hesitant to change phones, simply because of the hassles of transferring reams of data from one handset to another. ‘The replacement cycle helps the handset vendors but not the operators,’ says McBride. ‘We are trying to slow down the replacement cycle. We have already moved to 18-month contracts’.” (Budden, 2004b emphasis added).
3G phones thus were attractive for operators not only for enabling new services but also as a means for reversing the trend towards lower levels of product endurance. In addition, operators introduced longer pay-monthly contracts, moving away from the 12-months contracts that had prevailed until then (King, 2007; Valletti & Cave, 1998). Longer contracts allowed them to recoup a larger amount of the initial subsidy, thereby reducing monthly fees for customers and the upfront costs customers had to pay for 3G handsets
(Ofcom, 2009). But as McBride’s statement makes clear, this was equally a measure to improve the endurance of mobile phones in use. Tying customers to the network providers for longer periods and improving product endurance went hand in hand. The
200 shift to 18-months contracts was extraordinarily fast, as by the first half of 2007, more than
80% of all new pay-monthly contracts committed customers for a period of 18 months
(see Figure 11).
Figure 11: Contract lengths for post-pay mobile connections (2005-2010); source:
adapted from Ofcom (2010, 2012)
Rather than just a one-off reaction, however, network operators persistently continued along this path, showing that they were committed to re-orientate mobile phone consumption. First, operator Three started offering 24-months contracts to undercut monthly rates of newly introduced SIM-only deals (Ofcom, 2009; I discuss SIM-only deals in more detail in chapter 9). Just when 24-months contracts were starting to dominate in the market in 2009, operator Orange even launched 36-months contracts. A potential continuation of this trend was forestalled by regulators, however, who banned contracts longer than 24 months and obliged providers to offer also 12-months contracts
(Mobile News, 2011; see 9.1.1). While this effectively prevented 36-months and longer contracts to take off, some operators continued along the deceleration path by making early contract renewals less attractive. At first encouraged by operators who paid out bonuses to dealers for each customer renewing their contract, some operators seemed to have moved away from this practice over time as reports about Vodafone reveal. In 2017,
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Vodafone completely scrapped such bonuses, which reportedly had been between £30 and £150 per subscription (Yau, 2017).
As the careers of my study participants demonstrate, the lengthening of contract lengths was linked in different ways with the endurance of phones in use. Enora, for example, profoundly disliked the extension of contract lengths, but her experience shows that longer contract had an interesting educating effect. Talking about this episode in her career, Enora added that it is not a problem for her anymore to wait two or more years for a new phone, saying that she “got used to it” and “had realised I don’t need to upgrade my phone every year”. In so far, contracts seemed to have played a vital role in making her experience what it means to use phones for longer periods. Ronnie too thinks that the typical length of contracts affected his career. As an IT manager, he oversaw the buying of phones in his company and used his position to negotiate contracts ‘down’ to renewals every two years instead of each year. Even though Ronnie does not buy phones via such pay-monthly contracts anymore, he continued getting a new phone every two years on a routine basis, noting that he “got these two years in my head”. Comparing Enora’s with
Ronnie’s experience, one can see both similarities and differences in the workings of contracts. In each case, levels of phone endurance were clearly guided by contract lengths, but whereas Enora learned through this to keep phones longer, in Ronnie’s case contracts rather locked him into a two-year rhythm.
Victoria experienced lengthening contracts yet in a completely different way. She liked the idea of longer contracts for bringing costs down and relieving her from the burden of renewing them every year. Victoria could “not get bothered renewing” contracts, finding it tedious to ring up the provider and having to deal with them as they were trying to flog expensive insurance deals. She too was stuck to pay-monthly contracts and phone replacements every two years at first, albeit for a different reason than Enora and Ronnie:
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“You know I did a have suspicion of the phone companies. And we were doing, maybe didn’t have the memory that was needed or what have you, but they all did seem to coincidentally slow down when it was coming towards the end of the contract.”
In Victoria’s case, two-year periods of phone endurance were sustained by a combination of contracts and suspicion over the practices of manufacturers, a link that broke apart only recently when she learned through experience that phones can last longer. Instead of renewing the contract and replacing the phone, Victoria switched to a SIM-only contract. Joanna, meanwhile, remained on bundled contracts, but she kept with the two- year rhythm for the same reason as Victoria, feeling that she did not really have a choice and had to make use of ‘upgrade’ options:
“You know they’ve got that built-in obsolescence. What happens is that you notice that they start getting glitchy and they start getting a bit, sort of about three to six months before your contract is up. And then there is the big shiny advert for the new version.”
For several of my participants, the link between contract length and phone endurance has never been as strict as in some of the cases presented so far. While for some the condition of the phone was more important than the status of the contract, others were simply too lazy or forgot about renewing the contract in time. Theresa recounts that she was always offered a new phone before a contract renewal was due, but she preferred to save money:
“And then actually after the 12 months or two years, I’ve never bothered upgrading. I was like ‘well it still works’. So, I just then get a cheaper plan for me and some texts and stuff and data.”
Fiona, meanwhile, had a pay-monthly contract too, but rejected the practice of replacing a functioning phone at the end of each contract, stating:
“So I think it’s quite wasteful to go ‘oh I’ve got a perfectly working phone, I just throw it and get another one’. I think that’s criminal. No I really do. You in a society where
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people, you know, are starving and stuff, and people are like buying hundreds of pounds worth of phones just because it’s come out. I don’t understand that mentality. To me, if it’s a phone that I like, as that’s the key, if it’s a phone that I like and it works, I have no rationale for changing it. It’s madness.”
As Fiona asserts, there are conditions under which she finds replacing a working phone acceptable, having replaced several perfectly functioning phones for smaller ones herself, but she clearly separated the payment process from matters related to phone replacements and held onto phones a couple of times even though she could have gotten new phones for free.
Other participants were simply lazy or lacked experience. Lucía, for example, regrets that she used to stay with the same provider and keep the phone instead of switching and getting a new one. Enora also told me that she overran some of her contracts by several months recently simply because she forgot to “upgrade”. As of 2018, Ofcom (2018b) estimates that approximately 6% of pay-monthly customers continued to pay the full tariff beyond the minimum contract period, making this a lucrative business for operators.
The experiences of my participants thus show that the link between the length of pay- monthly contracts and phone endurance was subject to variation. Network operators used such contracts as devices to improve endurance, making them longer and it more likely for customers to overrun the minimum contract length rather than upgrade early.
Analysts, at least, expressed no doubts that declining sales were connected to lengthening contracts and started to raise concerns about the impact of higher levels of phone endurance on manufacturers and retailers (King, 2009, 2010). Even so, any account of the deceleration process during the second half of the 2000s and early 2010s is incomplete without considering the roughly 60% of the population that paid for phones and services separately and were thus not directly affected by lengthening contracts. The share of consumers on bundled contracts remained steady at about 40% until 2018 (Reynolds,
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2018a), a share that is not large enough to account for the extent to which average level of phone endurance lengthened. Moreover, processes of deceleration continued well beyond the period of lengthening contracts.
8.2.2 Ethical concerns
Besides network operators’ concerns over deteriorating levels of phone endurance and later concerns among consumers about increasing prices, it is noteworthy that also ethical concerns started to emerge in relation to the endurance of phones. Except for one article problematising the conditions under which cobalt, a resource used in all mobiles, was extracted, media reports in 2001 had ignored environmental matters entirely.
Coincidence or not, most articles problematising environmental hazards were printed in
The Guardian in 2006, during the period when phone endurance was lowest. In the following extract, specifically the “status culture” and bundled contracts were blamed:
“The status culture of mobile phones, spurred on by the pressure to upgrade models whenever we renew or change network contracts - we change our phones every 24.2 months on average in the UK - has led to a huge volume of redundant phones entering the waste stream. This urge to upgrade must be resisted if this waste is to be reduced.” (The Guardian, 2006d)7
In the same year, Green Mobile, the first self-proclaimed environment-friendly service provider launched in the UK, openly problematising low levels of phone endurance on its website.8 The connections between phone endurance and the working conditions in resource extraction as well as resulting waste streams, were highlighted again in later years spurred by a documentary (“Blood in the Mobile”, 2010) and the release of the
7 Ironically, the statistics quoted in this article were probably outdated, indicating much higher levels of phone endurance than figures provided in industry outlets and my own calculations suggest.
8 http://www.greenmobile.co.uk (accessed on 10.04.2017)
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‘Fairphone’, which was claimed to be produced using ethically sourced materials. Even
Stuff magazine, where such themes were generally absent, featured a debate in 2011 between an environmentally concerned editor and one arguing from a ‘gadgeteer’s’ standpoint (see chapter 9).
Like Fiona, Thomas expressed his dislike of waste, trying to keep things going for as long as possible. But it was Susanna who most strongly rejected anything with a corporate background or was environmentally damaging, generally following what she called a
“family philosophy of trying to use things up”. It is interesting to note, however, that
Susanna did not link this philosophy to mobile phones initially as she became aware the moment she told me about it, rather treating them as replaceable throwaway items (see section 7.1.2). Only later, around the time when she got a smartphone, Susanna started taking more care and buying second-hand.
8.2.3 Phone cases between protection and personalisation
The shift to touchscreen smartphones spawned an array of new accessories and services that sought to offset some of their major weaknesses (Mobile News, 2013). This includes a market for accessories like portable battery chargers, cases, and screen protectors that flourished since the iPhone launch (Yau, 2015). Many participants were conscious of the high costs of buying a new smartphone and sought to take more care when they became more expensive. Catherine, for instance, felt that before touchscreen smartphones came around, it was not necessary to take any care:
“But I think because they haven’t cost an awful lot of money and to be fair, I think the old Nokias were quite robust anyway. You know, some of them these days you drop, you know if you do drop them, especially if they land on the corner, that’s it. Which is why I got a screen protector for this one.”
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As Catherine clarifies in this statement, feature phones (“old Nokias”) were not only cheaper but also more robust and it became necessary to compensate for the poor robustness of modern smartphones. Several participants shared this sentiment. To Joanna, mobile phones even lost some of their appeal because of this. Talking about an unbreakable slider phone that she once had, Joanna said:
“I think that’s the end of phones being pretty cool, cause now you’re dropping them and they break. Whereas that little thing, the Sony thing, you could drop it and it wouldn’t break. Yeah, unbreakable phones, that’s what we need.”
An important part of the new smartphone design was that it came with embedded rather than replaceable batteries, preventing lay people from changing batteries themselves.
While Woyke argues that manufacturers did this to “protect themselves from warranty and injury claims” (2014, p. 108), Apple itself highlights benefits in terms of security (The
Economist, 2017), and others suggest that embedding batteries allowed for slimmer phones, sleeker designs, and larger batteries (Bakker & Kuijer, 2014), thus contributing to the design standards that defined the touchscreen period. The controversial removal of the headphone jack in 2016 may be interpreted as another move in that direction (Garwood,
2016). In any case, such changes, combined with the increasing importance people placed on phones and higher prices, provided a significant boost to the market for professional repair and insurance, especially for screen replacements (Yau, 2016b).
At the same time, protective cases became immensely popular. Although mass media provided little guidance for readers on how to take care of phones, they started recommending the use of protective cases to make sure that this “expensive but essential accessory” stays safe. Some of my participants corroborated this view and linked the use of protective cases with the importance of the phone. Lucía, for example, initially put phones only in fashionable socks, but as they became more important so did protection.
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Afraid of being without a phone, she does not leave the phone unprotected anymore, treating it like an extension of herself:
“I don’t like to have my mobile phone unprotected. People that go around with their phone in their pockets without anything else, no I couldn’t do that. So before taking my phone out of home it has to have like a cover, a place to put it in, so it’s safe.”
For others it was not just about ensuring the reliability of the phone but an act of making phones last longer. For Gareth, for instance, it was highly important that his iPhone would survive as long as possible, not being in the financial position to buy a new one. He had observed how susceptible smartphone screens can be to damage and became extremely devoted at protecting them:
“The majority of people I know with iPhones managed to shatter the screens at one point or another. So because of that I’m like, I’m not gonna be that guy.”
After having dropped the phone several times and observed the consequences on other people’s phones, he bought an ‘Antman’ case made of hard plastic. But as this case unexpectedly shattered, Gareth got an “over-the-top rubber case” (literally doubling the size of the phone) to make sure it would not break. The case highlights the importance of learning from experiences, both from one’s own and other people’s ones. This was also evident in other careers. Fiona, for example, started using screen protectors and replacing them every 3-4 months ever since she experienced how the screen of her very first phone wore off. Jeremy and Shera said that they realised over time how badly they treated their phones, dropping them again and again. As Shera put it, she had to protect the phone from herself. In all these cases, using accessories for protecting phones were not just about ensuring their reliability during pre-defined periods but about improving their endurance as such. Protective cases appeared to be particularly important in the early days of touchscreen smartphones when bundled contracts lengthened. Industry commentators suggested that the increasing prevalence of longer contracts intensified the need for
208 consumers to protect their devices (Mobile News, 2013). A broken phone would have put consumers on bundled contracts in the uncomfortable position of having to decide between living without a phone or accepting high early termination charges. As I will discuss in the following chapter, one of my participants was particularly afraid of this scenario and opted out from taking bundled contracts.
Another important element of phone cases is that they are personalisable and thereby compensate for the relatively uniform look of touchscreen smartphones. A few of my participants liked to buy cases as fashion accessories, an approach that is also evident in the ways the fashion industry has appropriated this phenomenon (see Mistry, 2015; Welch,
2014; Wieczner, 2012). Notably, even Stuff magazine released a few guides in 2016 on how to make phones ‘sexier’ and customise their visual appearance, including tips like getting the phone painted, using different skins and cases, and even spraying it oneself.
Importantly, this was not just about styling but a matter of spicing up one’s relationship with the phone: “Familiarity breeds w’evs… so rekindle your love affair with your phone by pimping it until it’s sexy, shiny and practically unrecognisable” (Stuff, 2016; Aug, p.
108, emphasis added). Considering that Stuff magazine usually focused on new phones, this is an interesting twist, creating a link between novelty and longevity. With smartphone manufacturers struggling to deliver exciting new hardware, it seems that novelty and excitement had to be produced elsewhere, harnessing the consumers’ and accessory manufacturers’ creativity instead.
Other participants, however, strongly rejected protective cases. According to survey data, more than half of smartphone users without a protective case are against them for stylistic reasons (SquareTrade, 2014). This certainly applied to Fiona. Having remained adamant that phones had to be small and fit into her trouser pocket without producing a huge bulge, she found cases unacceptable because they would increase the size of the phone.
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Only for the most recent phone, her first smartphone, she gave in. Also Joanna had a strong opinion about this and rejected protective cases outright:
“What’s the point of making quite an elegant piece of design if you’re kinda cover it in this great, big, toughened rubber case. [...] Well, whoever sat and made them pretty and silver and I went ‘oh yeah, I love the silver one’. What they’ve done with it? Stuck it in a nasty bit of plastic just to stop it from breaking.”
Fiona and Joanna did not accept the compromise of using protective cases as fashion accessories. But beyond style, an additional conflict emerged related to a phone’s feel.
Ronnie was decidedly against protective cases, even though, as he admits, this resistance has likely caused his previous phone to shatter.
“I’m without phone covers because somebody sat there and developed – I like tactility, I’m quite tactile – so they developed a way and the engineering of the phone to make it pleasant to hold and as soon as I put a cover on there it’s like well, not the same thing. So no, I’ve never used a cover. I’ve only lost one phone because I haven’t used a cover.”
To Ronnie, the broken phone, as expensive as it was, was a price he was willing to pay for keeping the feel of phones intact. Moreover, as Joanna’s and Ronnie’s statement make clear, there is an interesting crossover in so far as both see protective cases as an assault on the work of designers.
8.2.4 Careful use
Beyond equipping phones with protective covers and cases, a few participants noted that they also started taking additional measures to make sure that their handsets do not drop on the floor in the first place. Amelie described how cautiously she carries smartphones nowadays:
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“If that’s in a pocket and I’m going out, I’ve got my hand on it so it doesn’t fall out of my pocket. If it’s in my back pocket and I’m doing something, I’m very conscious that if I’m bending or anything, that it’s not sliding upper now. I keep pushing it down. Where, I never used to do that with other phones.”
Notably, this is in radical contrast to the way Amelie used to treat phones in the past, when she used to throw phones regularly on the wall to release her anger, knowing that they would withstand such shocks. Shera too notes that she has started to be more aware of her movements and be more careful when using the phone. The link between taking care and trouser pockets mentioned by Amelie is particularly noteworthy. The bigger size of modern smartphones seems to require additional care taking, especially for women.
Victoria was equally concerned about putting phones in pockets, thinking that they would get lost more easily due to their size. But unlike Amelie, Victoria returned to smaller phones again as a reaction. Susanna reacted in yet another way, saying that since phones got bigger has to handle them more carefully because she cannot get them into her pockets anymore.
Such acts of care taking were not always tolerated. An interesting case is Thomas, who used protective cases and tried to repair phones whenever possible but refused to take more care of phones as long as they were in working condition. He stated:
“I kind of assume that they are quite functional things and, in some ways, I had to accept that they’re gonna get scratched and damaged and bashed around a bit. I don’t necessarily treat them with the sort of care as much as I should.”
The case illustrates how taking care of phones can be accepted for retaining functionality of phones and keep them invisible but rejected at the point where such acts intrude everyday usage of the phone. To Thomas, looking after phones can thus be incompatible with the idea of invisible tools. One could say that he expects them to look after him rather than the other way round, at least as long as they are functioning.
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8.2.5 Slowing down the slowing down of software
Instead of achieving endurance through hardware durability, the endurance of smartphones was predicated on improvements through software updates, being sold on the “implicit assumption of futureproofing” as one commentator remarked (The
Economist, 2011). Some significant additions like the App Store were delivered through such updates. Especially in later years, however, diminishing battery lives and deteriorating responsiveness of handsets were a common experience among my participants. None of them, including the most tech-savvy, felt that there was something that they could do about it. The slowing down of phones often marked the beginning of a process of struggle for participants. While signalling the inevitable death of their devices, the timing depended on how long users could put up with the increasing problems.
Barbara was at this stage in the relationship with her phone at the time of the interview, telling me about her considerations:
“I’m probably getting to the stage where I’m thinking about my next mobile phone. Cause I’ve had this one two and a half years and it’s fine, but it’s getting slow. So accessing my e-mails, I have to wait for the e-mails to come up on the screen. If I want to find directions to somewhere I have to sit and wait for a 30 seconds for Google Maps to kick in. So it’s starting to niggle me, like having to wait for stuff cause it’s slowing down. I don’t know why it’s like that anyway, why it happens.”
Barbara’s phone increasingly tested her tolerance, starting to affect the applications most important to her. Jeremy found himself in a similar situation many times but unsuccessfully tried everything to improve the phones’ performance through wiping data and re-installing software, “always chasing my tail”. Some participants, having gone through several cycles of smartphones, formed expectations about the time such slowdowns would start to occur. Jeremy and Ronnie in particular, were certain that software providers would deliberately make it slow down as a form of built-in obsolescence. In Ronnie’s words:
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“To be honest, there’s a type of built-in obsolescence because the problem is that Google would never stop developing Android. But what they’ve developed Android for is the current phone, the next generation, and the last generation. And as that timeline moves on your phone gets left behind. So what generally happens is that you find that your software gets claggy. And even if you reinstall stuff it doesn’t generally work as well as it used to.”
Linked to this, they both said that these expectations entered their considerations when thinking about getting a new phone. Both also referred to the recent accusations that software providers, Apple in particular, would not just provide limited support for software but even use software updates to weaken battery lives and the performance of existing phones (see Masters, 2017). The general increase in controversy around software updates, involving multiple lawsuits around the globe, came despite more efforts from the two leading operating system providers at providing support for longer periods – in the case of Apple (Benton, Coats, & Hazell, 2015; Keegan, 2016) – and making the process more efficient in the case of Google (Pon, Seppälä, & Kenney, 2014). While recent iPhones received support for around five years, the support periods and actual update availability for Android phones could barely keep up with improvements in phone endurance.
8.2.6 Distancing from new mobile phones
Besides explicit concerns and practices related to mobile phone endurance and reliability, it is equally important to take into account how various agents distanced themselves from new mobile phones on the market. This includes even manufacturers, particularly those occupying a dual role as manufacturers and OS providers. Indeed, a notable and relatively recent shift concerns the heightened attention among some manufacturers on developing an ‘ecosystem’ around their own smartphone offerings to increase the customers’ attachment to their brands. Since Apple entered the market, it always stood out in terms
213 of its insistence on maintaining a relatively closed ecosystem which it markets as a more secure and convenient solution to competitive offerings but also created lock-in effects for customers who become attached to its specific applications (see also Waters, 2017). In recent years, it appears that the two dominant OS providers, Apple and Google, intensified efforts in this direction. Google, for one, entered the handset business with its own devices, seeking tighter integration of hardware and software. At the same time, both companies increasingly moved away from hardware innovation to competing for dominance in delivering internet-based services (Pon et al., 2015). Moreover, and this is a strategy also pursued by other handset manufacturers, there is a move towards complementary products like virtual reality headsets and increasing connectedness with other devices like watches. Besides producing customer lock-ins, Vazquez Sampere
(2016) argues that this has an interesting side effect in so far as innovation in smartphones may need to be slowed down on purpose so that it can be aligned with developments in complementary products.
Mobile phones themselves were also increasingly pushed to the background in favour of software applications. While premium handsets were very prominent in mass media, for example, it was apps, rather than phones, that were represented as the fashion phenomenon in the world of mobile phones, with games – in particular the hugely popular Pokémon GO – and health-related apps making up the two most popular categories. By allowing users to personalise their handsets and turn them into all-purpose weapons, such apps played a similar role as text messaging services and screensavers back in early 2000s. Without seeking to downplay the huge significance of apps in the consumption of mobile phones, I want to use the remaining space in this chapter to highlight another, less obvious way in which consumers distanced themselves from new mobile phones and how this affected their endurance. Specifically, this relates to the
214 increasing importance of mobile phones in people’s lives and simultaneous rise of concerns over smartphone dependency and addiction.
As discussed in section 8.1.3, such concerns have been significantly elevated with the shift to smartphones. Beyond motivating more radical steps of resisting smartphones or switching back to feature phones, it needs to be taken into consideration how such concerns have taken over in public debates about smartphones and reduced interest in following trends of technology and fashion in mobiles. Joanna, who generally embraces new technologies, made an interesting comment in this context:
“You know, I think back here, when all those changes [happened], you know ‘look at this, look at that!’, it was all quite exciting. But I think we are all a bit more like ‘okay’, and I think there is quite a moment to just turning them off and leaving them somewhere else. And you know that’s a cultural, societal thing, isn’t it. People are looking at digital detoxing and all of that.”
In talking about the current situation, Joanna knitted together the lack of innovation and increasing distancing from phones, seeing both as connected to the decline in excitement.
A telling example for the role of concerns over addiction and societal dependency on phones can be found in Amelie’s career. In the beginning, she was positively amazed and loved the technology of mobile calls and texting, finding it a “funky idea to be in the middle of Manchester and get a phone call”. Amelie did a lot of texting and looked for phones with novel designs. Also now, she still enjoys some of their functions, in particular mobile internet for reading news and social media. But her overall opinion changed dramatically:
“The difference it made to me, which I thought was quite cool, was the fact that I could be contacted outside the house. With no bollocks, no interference, no nothing, you know, lov’em. That was it. I just thought that was quite good. But I think they’ve ruined everything, mobile phones, now. I just think people are too into their phones and you know, I see my friends do it, they go into the bed ‘where’s my phone, where’s
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my phone’, absolutely panicking like their arm just chopped off. It’s ridiculous, it’s a phone.”
In stark contrast to earlier days, Amelie now “absolutely hate[s] messaging”, remarking that it has turned into meaningless communication and has become too “intrusive”. To enjoy moments of tranquillity and togetherness, she does not respond to text messages anymore, sometimes leaves the house without the phone, and strictly rejects use when socialising with people. Compared to Fiona, who resisted smartphones for a long time due to similar concerns, Amelie still appreciated good smartphones. She would still get a decent phone but turned quite cynical with respect to changes in smartphone technology, downplaying them as toys: “They’re all singing, all dancing, aren’t they?”. While her friends are “all like whiz-kids” and introduce her to novelties, Amelie is not interested in such things anymore and dissociated herself from the apparatus of communication of new trends.
In other cases, it is more difficult to find such a straightforward link between such concerns and a disinterest in new mobile phones, as multiple concerns often developed side by side. Nonetheless, I think that such a link can plausibly be made in many cases.
Although other interviewees were not quite as deprecatory about phones as Amelie, a recurrent theme across interviewees’ accounts and mass media reports was that mobile phones have become truly paradoxical devices. Barbara, as several other interviews, described it in terms of a “love-hate relationship”:
“I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, it’s incredibly useful and I think they are amazing pieces of technology and on the other hand, I don’t want to be staring at a little screen. I want to be looking at the world outside me and be aware of the world outside me, and not staring at the phone. But they are incredibly useful.”
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Like Amelie, Barbara and other interviewees often found great satisfaction in disconnecting from the phone, turning them off or silent, deactivating app and vibration alerts, leaving them at home, or putting them at the bottom of the rucksack, but it took some time to realise that the phone “was taking over” as Kyle remarked. For the most time, however, many participants noted that this was easier said than done, frequently finding themselves using the phone without wanting it. Nevertheless, the rise of concerns related to overuse and dependency still had an important implication in so far as they have arguably led to an emotional detachment from phones as a general category. Barbara expressed this very clearly when reflecting about her feelings about phones, stating: “On a practical level it’s really useful, but on a sort of emotional level, I don’t like it”. While not necessarily leading to any new practices, such distancing from mobile phones may have been just as consequential in improving the endurance of phones in use as any other of the practices described above.
8.3 Conclusions
The market entry of Apple and large-scale turn to touchscreen smartphones are widely, and justifiably so, regarded as pivotal moments and turning points in the biography of mobile phones. In this chapter, however, I cast the net more widely, suggesting that it was part of a more general shift to a premium platform market. A historically sensitive interpretation of these events also shows that, in many ways, the events marked a return to an approach to market innovation that had been pursued around the turn of the millennium.
Like the platform market described earlier, the premium platform market was defined by a temporal separation of modes of valuation. As platforms, mobile phones laid the basis for an immense number of complementary goods and services. In contrast to the singularities market, such complementary assets became massively popular again and contributed to
217 the commoditisation of mobile phones. How does this premium platform market differ from the platform market described earlier?
I suggest that the main difference can be summarised with notion of a ‘fewer, but better’ approach to the consumption of mobile phones. As argued in chapter 6, the platform market was characterised by a highly unbalanced relationship between toolification and commoditisation. Whereas complementary goods and services experienced a major hype, this had been achieved with marginal improvements in mobile phone technology. The new models released at the time were considered rather disappointing and thus unable to attract much interest. Their prices remained at a comparatively low level. Premium platforms, meanwhile, have become significantly more expensive over the years, a trend that continued even as the perceived pace of technological innovation has been going down. Indeed, processes of toolification and commoditisation were both much more expansive. Whereas the commoditisation used to be centred on the use of complementary goods and services, for example, the marketisation of premium platforms also involved more focused investments in the endurance of phones. Furthermore, it is notable that many modes of valuation more participated in the marketisation of premium platforms.
Premium platforms turned out to be extraordinarily multivalent, excelling as tools, toys, and fashion items, while also providing opportunities for their commoditisation, ethicalisation, and even absentification.
The premium platform market continues to dominate in the UK, proving remarkably stable considering its troublesome emergence. But for how long can prices continue to increase and the endurance of mobile phones in use improve? In the final chapter of this biography, I turn to the emergence of an alternative market that has been growing for quite some time and increasingly challenging the dominance of the premium platform market.
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9 The circular platform market
This final chapter of the biography presents an account of how mobile phones, as platforms, were both made to circulate across multiple owners through commercial channels and how they became increasingly evaluated in terms of their up-to-dateness.
The resulting ‘circular platforms’ have rapidly been growing in significance in recent years. What is notable about this emergent market, however, is that mobile phones have been made to circulate across British borders long before a noticeable domestic market for second-hand phones could be established. In what follows, I first document the key events that have brought about a growing interest in the circularisation of mobile phones
(section 9.1). Much of this interest can be linked with concerns about the marketisation processes described in the previous chapters. In a second step, I describe how the circularisation has been organised throughout the years (section 9.2).
Figure 12: Relative prevalence of mobile phones as circular platforms
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9.1 Up-to-dateisation
Right from the beginning, the marketisation of premium platforms produced overflows that could not be internalised and ignited efforts to move in different directions. Soon after network operators had started to increase the standard length of bundled contracts to
18 months (see section 8.2.1), operator O2 introduced a new payment scheme in July
2007 that had been pioneered and proven successful in northern European countries:
SIM-only contracts. An intermediate option combining some of the benefits of pre-pay and bundled contracts, SIM-only contracts came with packages of data and voice at a monthly rate but were sold separately from handsets and typically not longer than one month. The proposition was attractive for operators because it relieved them from paying out subsidies for new handsets and represented an opportunity for them to move customers on pre-pay tariffs to higher-spending and more loyal contract customers. Up to this point, all attempts at moving them over to bundled contracts had been fruitless. On the other side, SIM-only contracts lacked the financial incentive for consumers to buy a high-end smartphone, taking away the possibility of significantly higher data usage in the future.
The timing for this decision to offer SIM-only contracts and the source of this change are interesting, for it was around this time that the same operator was finalising the deal with
Apple that would grant it exclusive rights to sell the first iPhone (Allison, Parker, &
Taylor, 2007). It is likely that O2 introduced SIM-only contracts to build up capital
(through reductions in customer acquisition costs and higher-spending contract customers), while also making sure that customers are not binding themselves to new contracts shortly before the launch of the iPhone. In any case, it was a significant competitive manoeuvre that put pressure on other operators to lower monthly rates of all contracts (see section 8.2.1) and introduce similar offerings. More than this, however, the
220 introduction of SIM-only deals, specifically targeted at people preferring to keep their handsets, meant that it made it less likely for people to trade up to new smartphones.
The immediate success of these new propositions, in parallel with the push to high-end smartphones and lower demand for mid-range offers, led commentators to suggest that the market was about to become increasingly “polarised” (King, 2010; Mobile News,
2009b). Again, network operators were seen to be at the centre of this, with manufacturers being affected the most:
“Handset manufacturers have been caught in a kind of pincer movement by network operators, which have at the high-end extended upgrade cycles with 18-36 month contracts and at the low-end removed them altogether with the SIM-only phenomenon.” (Mobile News, 2009a)
However, while SIM-only contracts quickly gained a market share of a few percent, pre- pay and bundled contracts remained the dominant payment schemes until the mid-2010s.
The declining share of pre-pay until then was predominantly associated with the success of bundled contracts (see Ofcom, 2015b). Rather than a polarisation, this indicates that the development was characterised by a widespread uptake of smartphones and bundled contracts at first (see chapter 8). But there were also significant concerns about the proliferation of ever-longer, bundled contracts, spurring further innovations in payment schemes.
9.1.1 Concerns about longer bundled contracts
Most of all, regulators saw in longer contracts a barrier for consumers to switch providers.
In the UK, national regulator Ofcom did not intervene until the EU issued a Directive requiring member states to ensure that the initial commitment period does not exceed 24 months and that consumers are also offered a 12-month contract (2009/136/EC, Art.
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30(5)). Implemented in the UK in 2011, this regulation brought the lengthening of bundled contracts to a halt. The regulator’s insistence on the availability of 12-months contracts is interesting in so far as it tends to support the view that providers did not give consumers much choice. Indeed, some of my interviewees were not happy about longer contracts at all and did not feel they had a choice. Joanna told me how she experienced the lengthening of contracts:
“Cynically, I think. It’s like, you gonna launch a new model every six months, but you’re not gonna let me have a new one. It’s just the way they’re rinsing money out of people. So, no, not particularly happy about it.”
Print media were surprisingly silent on the matter, but an editor at Stuff remarked in an equally cynical tone that “with phone contracts now extending to two years, it sometimes feels as if smartphones should come bundled with vows and confetti” (2011, Sep, p.138).
Another commentator in The Guardian supported this view, arguing that lengthening contracts are a problem in times of rapid technological change. Enora too liked 12- months contracts for getting new phones and was “really frustrated” when they got longer. Asking her what she liked about upgrading with contracts every 12 months, she said:
“Because you got a new phone with new features and yeah, it looked nice. […] Cause there were lots of things changing about phones over that time, like having a camera and not carrying a camera and that sort of things. And then when you upgrade, you know, you would get that whatever new features. [...] So it was hard. I remember going to the 18-months contracts was hard. I remember being really frustrated and trying to look for contracts that were a bit shorter as well, but I just didn’t find.”
As these remarks illustrate, early criticism came mainly from people that were used to replace their phones frequently. For them, longer contracts came exactly at a time when innovations in mobile phones were considered particularly fast. Consumer representatives emphasised the importance of flexibility in times like these. The ban on 36-months
222 contracts was consequently highly welcomed, as illustrated in the following response from an expert at uSwitch, a leading price comparison website:
“It’s no bad thing that the EU is culling these in their infancy – three years is a lifetime in the world of tech. Consumers could easily find themselves saddled with an obsolete phone, not to mention a contract that no longer suits their needs.” (Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch, Mobile News, 2011)
However, the concerns were not only about missing out on the latest phones. For the consumption model on which the combination of premiumisation and longer contracts was predicated to work, phones had to last at least until the end of the contract period.
Thomas, who considered himself very clumsy with phones and did not trust in the durability of touchscreen smartphones, remembers that he felt highly uncomfortable about longer contracts. Responding to the question of whether this trend made a difference to him, he stated:
“Yes, because you are completely locked in and you know, if you are quite clumsy like me, then the wait until you get a free new phone is longer.”
Eventually, this scenario materialised when one of his phones broke before a renewal was due. At this point, Thomas discovered the possibility of buying a phone second-hand, moving back to PAYG deals. While it is unclear how common this specific experience was, it fits into a more general pattern of consumers increasingly realising that the purchasing of high-end smartphones with bundled contracts was not necessarily the optimal solution for them. In contrast to early concerns about longer contracts, however, people more and more started to question the necessity of buying expensive top-of-the- range phones.
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9.1.2 Leasing
Considering Ofcom’s imposed limitations on extending the initial commitment periods to more than 24 months, signs of saturation in smartphone innovation, and increasing prices for new handsets, the attractiveness of the subsidy model quickly diminished for network operators in the early 2010s. In addition, usage of traditional services like SMS and MMS started to go down significantly from 2013 onwards as over-the-top services gained popularity with the spread of smartphones (Ofcom, 2016). While allowing consumers to save money and spend more on a new phone (see section 8.1.1), this trend negatively affected the profitability of network operators. During this period, several operators thus started to reorient their strategies to move away from subsidies. Besides pushing SIM-only more strongly, their marketing departments increasingly foregrounded network quality over differences in handsets (Perks, 2012; Thomas, 2014). Moreover, some service providers started to experiment with new payment schemes in 2011.
At the end of that year, operator O2 launched the first leasing model for mobile phones.
The main difference to conventional bundled contracts was that customers would not own the handset and have to return it at the end of a 12-month contract, in exchange for a lower monthly fee. With this model, O2 appealed to the group of consumers that were unhappy about long-term commitments and wanted the latest phone, promoting it as the
“first tariff model available to all O2 customers that reflects the lifecycle of the smartphone industry” (O2, 2011). This move represents a significant departure from previous efforts, which aimed at improving phone endurance, building on the benefits of the high resale values that handsets had developed. Nonetheless, the leasing model was given little promotion and discontinued soon, which a company’s spokesperson explained as follows:
“We found customers were locked into Lease too much, and the year-long commitment was too much for them. Customers also wanted to keep their phone for
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sentimental or reselling values, which they couldn’t with Lease because they had to return the devices.“ (Yau, 2016a)
Vodafone too launched a leasing scheme in 2012 seeking to attract consumers looking for the latest handsets but terminated the offer soon later. Only in recent years leasing models have started to reappear, but the early experiences have also informed the development of alternative payment schemes.
9.1.3 Split contracts
Following the example of providers in the US, retailer Phones 4U launched the first so- called ‘equipment instalment plan’, henceforth referred to as split contracts, in 2012
(Mobile News, 2012). Different from both bundled contracts and leasing, such contracts come with a separate plan for each the handset and network services. The phone does not come with a subsidy and needs to be paid in full, but because of the separation of handset and services, the customer needs to pay only for airtime and data services once the handset is paid off rather than paying the full monthly fee as in a bundled contract. Because this makes the price of the phone transparent and automatically reduces the costs at the end of contract period, this model was strongly favoured over bundled contracts by consumer organisations (Smith, Strudwick, & Rogers, 2018). However, their campaigning against bundled contracts did not lead to any regulatory interventions by 2018.
Since Phones 4U’s JUMP (‘Just Upgrade My Phone’) tariff, several providers followed in offering comparable payment plans, most notably O2, which was the first network operator to launch such a scheme, introducing it in 2013 as a replacement to its leasing model. Because split contracts offer more transparency and flexibility to consumers, eliminate the risk of being overcharged after the end of the pre-agreed contract period, and do not require credit checks, providers saw them as an opportunity to attract new
225 customers from competitors. However, split contracts also had significant implications for the providers’ sales and distribution models.
To compete with bundled contracts, providers needed to offset the lack of handset subsidies with a discount on the monthly service fee (see Chaudhury & Rooke, 2014).
This acted as an incentive for consumers to continue to use the phone beyond the point at which they had paid it off. However, it also posed a risk for providers, as customers in this stage were not bound to a long-term contract anymore and thus able to switch provider.
Moreover, less frequent replacements would have meant less contact points with the customer. It was therefore in their best economic interest to encourage customers to replace their phones earlier and renew existing contracts. Compared to the subsidy model, this turns economic incentives on its head: Whereas under the subsidy model operators encouraged the trading up to expensive, high-end smartphones through long-term, bundled contracts, thereby increasing future service revenues and reducing customer churn, providers of split contracts favoured more affordable smartphones and their replacement at a high frequency. With split contracts, low levels of product endurance and customer lock-in became co-dependent rather than conflicting goals. The following excerpt from a case report prepared by O2 expresses this situation most clearly and reveals the ingenious methods through which early replacements were encouraged in one particular case:
“It is in O2’s interest to lock customers into a new phone as soon as possible. So the team ran quantitative research to identify the moment that, on average, customers started to want a new phone; and at that very moment O2 stepped in to help them get it. Of course, not every customer is hungry for the latest piece of tech; others are happy to leave it a while. But once they are out of the contract they are in the danger zone. So O2 aimed to get them locked into a new contract as soon as they reached the end of their 24 months. […] A live countdown timer and fireworks told them precisely when their contract ended, creating a sense of urgency and anticipation that drove immediate renewal. […] Current contract details informed their upgrade cost and generated
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relevant incentives, such as a 25% discount or the recycle value of their current handset back. Everything was designed to drive immediate response, get the customer locked into a new contract and get them to feel good about it.“ (O2, 2015)
In persuading consumers to replace early, the marketing of offerings that separate handset from airtime payments frequently followed a fashion logic, putting emphasis on ‘the latest’ above any other criteria. But also a more playful approach to new handsets was encouraged. For example, in an advertising campaign running several years that accompanied O2’s ‘Refresh’ tariff, called ‘Be more dog’, a disenchanted cat turned into a curious dog that chases and tries out all that is new. A company representative explained that “[b]e more dog is all about encouraging Britain to embrace the new, have a go with the unknown and dabble in innovation” (Whiters, 2013).
For network operators, a potential risk of this shift in strategy was that, without offering subsidies, consumers would stop to see the benefits of buying phones from them and turn to manufacturers and (non-)specialist retailers instead. Indeed, both Apple and Samsung responded by starting to offer their own instalment plans in 2016, promoting annual
‘upgrades’ and enhanced warranties which can be combined with SIM-only deals. Besides bypassing intermediaries, these programmes put pressure on operators to offer equally short contract periods (Mohammad, 2015; Sacconaghi, Chen, & Menon, 2015). A vital ingredient of any scheme splitting handsets from airtime payments, however, was a lively market for second-hand and refurbished phones (Chaudhury & Rooke, 2014; Wade &
White, 2018). In part, this is because trade-in programmes, in combination with advertising of the latest handsets, were important instruments for encouraging customers to replace their phones early, allowing them to reduce the total costs of replacing frequently and lending environmental legitimacy to this practice. Crucially, though, also the other side of second-hand markets became increasingly attractive to network operators and even to some manufacturers as hardware innovation plateaued.
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9.2 Successive ownership
Although the largest share of phones traditionally ended up in drawers after being used by the first owner (Lee & Calugar-Pop, 2015; Ongondo & Williams, 2011; Wilson et al.,
2017), the circulation of mobile phones across multiple owners was not a new phenomenon. At first, reuse through hand-me-downs and the selling on of used devices to friends or family were the only possibilities. Reliable quantitative estimates are hard to come by, but existing survey evidence on the gift and resale economy of mobile phones indicates that neither had changed very much over time (see Ballaben, 2017; Caines,
2007; Laryea, 2001; Lee & Calugar-Pop, 2015). What had changed over the years, however, were the routes through which handsets circulated and the overall share of devices experiencing multiple ‘lives’. Two trends stand out: First, an increasing share of used phones entered commercial streams of reuse and recycling, for the most part being exported to other countries. Second, and with a considerable time lag, phones were increasingly purchased second-hand rather than new from manufacturers, retailers, recycling companies, or network operators. Whereas only 1% of mobile phones in use had a previous owner in 1998 (Mayers & Cooper, 2001), the share of second-hand phones rose from 10 to 15% between 2015 and 2018 only (Lee, 2018; Lee & Calugar-
Pop, 2015).
In the 2000s, debates on the necessity of recycling and reuse were centred on the practice of hoarding used phones at home and the environmental problems of discarding devices containing toxic materials at a high rate. Most obsolete handsets were still functional and therefore still of potential, if rarely realised, value (Mayers & Cooper, 2001). Available evidence from more recent years indicates that people stored phones due to their sentimental value, kept as back-ups in case the primary phone breaks down, or because owners simply did not immediately know what else to do with them, keeping them in the hope that they may find use one day (Collins, 2013; Ongondo & Williams, 2011). From
228 an economic point of view, this represented a waste of resources. But it was more than that as a commentator in The Guardian made clear:
“Mobile phones are slave to changes in technology. We replace handsets, on average, every 18 months. 100 million mobiles are discarded in Europe annually, adding thousands of tonnes to the EU’s legacy of waste electronic equipment. Mobile phones contain a variety of highly toxic substances all of which can be released into the environment through landfills and incinerators. An old battery will contain enough cadmium to contaminate 600,000 litres of water.” (The Guardian , 2006f)
Despite such adverse environmental consequences, the issue was barely represented in mass media in 2001 (see also section 8.2.2). Instead, the impetus came from a growing recognition of the importance of recycling electrical and electronic equipment at large, an issue taken up by the EU in the 1990s which started to explore potential avenues for regulatory intervention. To inform this legislative process and prevent the EU from making manufacturers financially and legally responsible for the reuse, recovery, and recycling of their own products, Motorola initiated a collaboration with network operators, other manufacturers, and companies responsible for the collection and recycling of phones to develop a pilot project in Sweden and the UK, which started in
1997 and was soon extended into a larger take-back scheme (Boulton, 1997; Canning,
2006; Wright et al., 1998). Lacking any incentives for consumers to return used phones, however, the scheme failed to make a significant impact in terms of collection rates
(Canning, 2006). Nonetheless, it allowed the recycling company Shields Environmental to build up experiences in the sector. In 2002, the company set up its own scheme, called
‘Fonebak’, in cooperation with all big network operators and retailers but notably without the involvement of manufacturers. In contrast to manufacturers, which feared the financial burdens of stricter regulation (e.g. Bennett, 2002), recycling companies saw an economic opportunity therein and supported regulatory intervention (Canning, 2006).
Following the calculations of Geyer and Blass (2010), recyclers benefitted from the fact
229 that most used phones were still in working condition, making it possible to resell them without requiring much processing. Recycling, in the narrow sense of recovering materials, would not have been profitable at the time. Three out of four phones collected through this scheme were reconditioned and sold on the second-hand market, the vast majority of which were shipped to other countries (Tojo & Manomaivibool, 2011).
In the early 2000s, several additional companies entered the phone collection and recycling industry. In terms of collection, charities in particular discovered the economic opportunities in mobile phone reuse, organising various campaigns asking people to donate their used phones for a good cause. Recycling companies too started to collect phones independently from retailers, setting up their own online trading sites where consumers could trade in their phones for cash and promoting their services more aggressively to consumers. In 2006, print media recommended such routes of divestment as hassle-free ways to make some money and compensate for the environmental implications of a high pace of product obsolescence. The link between recycling and phone endurance was also brought to the fore in Stuff magazine, which started to engage with such matters in 2011 by featuring a debate between an environmentally concerned editor and one arguing from a ‘gadgeteer’s’ standpoint. The latter proposed recycling as a compromise, adding: “As long as early adopters embrace earth-friendly means of gadget disposal, this can be the golden age all tech lovers have been waiting for” (Stuff, 2011;
July, p. 53). In a similar vein, recycling companies encouraged early replacements through a strong emphasis on the attraction of owning the latest device in promoting their services
(cf. Collins, 2013). The high speed of product obsolescence, constituting the foundation for a continuous supply of up-to-date handsets for the second-hand market, and a collection and distribution system promising the environmentally responsible treatment of collected handsets, thus went hand in hand.
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While new divestment channels, more aggressive marketing, and increased media coverage all contributed to growing collection rates in the first half of the 2000s, the second half brought about even more favourable conditions. First, the operationalisation of EU legislation in the UK from 2007 onwards, having seen significant delays due to
“business concerns” (Eaglesham, 2005), made producers responsible for the recovery and recycling of phones, introducing additional financial and now also legal incentives for network operators to engage in the collection of used handsets (Tojo & Manomaivibool,
2011). Second, the recycling industry benefitted heavily from increasing resale values as prices of new phones started to increase (Garwood, 2011; letsrecycle.com, 2010; Yau,
2014). This shifted the focus from diverting phones from landfills to the financial gains of recycling and reuse. Media reports in the 2010s presented collection schemes mainly as a means for receiving cash, making no references to environmental issues anymore.
It is important to point out that, despite strong growth in collection rates, reuse and recycling were mainly matters of managing ‘end-of-life’ products until the early 2010s.
Aside from a series of ‘eco-friendly’ (which appeared to mean barely advertised, outdated, and ugly) mobile phones that were partly made of recyclable materials and added to the manufacturers’ portfolios between 2008 and 2012 (e.g. Mobile News, 2009c), there was little interference in the production and consumption process beyond moments of divestment (for a long time, the recyclability of packaging was far more prominent than that of handsets in CSR reports). To be sure, high subsidies and the attractiveness of bundled contracts for buying new smartphones clearly discouraged the uptake of second- hand devices (letsrecycle.com, 2010). But the situation cannot be reduced to a lack of demand for second-hand devices if that was the case at all. At the time, a burgeoning second-hand market would neither have been compatible with efforts at reducing levels of product endurance nor with the move towards high-end smartphones, at least not until a sufficiently large share of the population has traded up. Recycling companies, which
231 heavily relied on the retail channels of network operators and manufacturers for collecting phones, were acutely aware of this and promoted their services on this basis as the following mission statement of one provider demonstrates (see also Chaudhury & Rooke,
2014):
“At Ventura we strive to process and hold stock and distribute for the global re-use and recycling of mobile phone handsets. Our way is socially responsible and ensures that handsets do not conflict or enter into markets occupied by our manufacturing and network partners” (quoted in Tojo & Manomaivibool, 2011, p. 43, italics added by authors).
Through spatially separating supply and demand for used handsets, the recycling industry could thrive while helping manufacturers to enter new markets. For consumers, meanwhile, this meant that there was limited supply of pre-owned phones from established vendors. This situation, however, changed as the combination of premiumisation and deceleration increasingly came under pressure and network operators started to move away from the subsidy model.
Especially the shift to split contracts among some service providers, which typically integrated offers for trading in one’s phones, was presented as a game-changer for the recycling business. The managing director of a leading recycling company described it as follows:
“The whole recycling arena has changed in the past 12-18 months in terms of why customers use recyclers. Two years ago it was all about people emptying out drawers of old mobile phones. But now it’s evolved into part of the upgrade process, and we are seeing more and more customers trading in their current phone as part of their upgrade. Mentally they are looking at their next upgrade, seeing how much the device will cost and how much they can get for their current device. It’s definitely influencing their upgrades.” (Charlo Carabott, managing director of Mazuma Mobile, Mobile News, 2011)
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As noted above, trade-ins were an attractive means for network operators to lure customers into replacing their handsets sooner. Moreover, through selling used rather than new handsets, network operators could save on subsidies and other discounts, while at the same time offering a way for making mobile internet services accessible to a wider population that was not willing to spend large sums of money for new smartphones (e.g.
Thomas, 2013). For manufacturers of premium handsets like Apple and Samsung, meanwhile, second-hand markets developed into an opportunity for competing against vendors of low-cost alternatives in mature markets. As customers were encouraged to trade in their used devices each time the contract was renewed in exchange for a discounted new handset, a significant amount of used, but high-performance handsets were made available which could be offered as cheaper alternatives to the latest handsets without degrading the brand value. Moreover, for Apple in particular, profits increasingly shifted from handset sales to software and complementary products, making the size of their customer base more important over time (Waters, 2018). Second-hand markets helped Apple to grow its customer base while retaining the premium brand, relying on differentiations of mobile phones based on their up-to-dateness rather than the addition of more premium features.
9.3 Conclusions
In this final chapter of the biography, I have focused on the marketisation of ‘circular platforms’. What remained largely unchallenged in all the changes described in this chapter was the direction of change. If anything, the focus on up-to-dateness entrenched touchscreen smartphones in society even further. Yet, the processes described here have seriously challenged the way competing modes of valuation were organised in the premium platform market. Instead of relying on all consumers to buy premium platforms and use them for extended periods, the circularisation of platforms was predicated on the
233 idea of a much more differentiated market. In particular, it pushed the temporal organisation of competing modes of valuation further by stretching it across multiple successive users. On the one hand, this allowed consumers to buy premium smartphones at a regular rate without having to wait until the end of a pre-agreed contract period. On the other, consumers disinterested in premium smartphones or unable to afford them were able to acquire them more cheaply and environmentally sustainably on the second- hand market.
In other words, the circularisation of mobile phones made it possible for consumers to depart from the established ‘fewer, but better’ logic and decide themselves how much weight they would like to put on the purchasing of new phones vis-à-vis concerns related to costs, environment, and addictive phones. The flexibility and freedom to decide on the timing of product replacement should not be overstated though. Although the relatively rigid device of bundled contracts has been given up in the circular platform market, consumers have now been facing an unprecedented, concerted effort across manufacturers, retailers, and network operators at instilling in buyers the desire to own the latest device. It remains to be seen how successful such efforts are.
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Part III - Discussion
Bringing together observations from a wide range of primary and secondary sources, the previous chapters presented an account of how mobile phones, once almost valueless
‘throwaway objects’, transformed into ‘premium platforms’, and how these, in turn, have been challenged in recent years by the emergence of ‘circular platforms’. The biography took its starting point in the 1990s, a time when concerns about the anticipated saturation of the market were growing and radically different visions of the future mobile phone circulated. To summarise, the market innovation process can be broken down into a series of four distinct, yet temporally overlapping market agencements.
In the first, mobile phones morphed into basic devices for exchanging text messages, accessing mobile messaging services, and changing covers. As platforms, they moved in the background while the various services and possibilities for customisation took centre stage. Although short-lived, I suggest that this platform market clearly dominated in the early 2000s. The market agencement that followed was in many ways diametrically opposed to this. In the mid-2000s, mobile phones became celebrated toys and fashion objects, with an increasing diversity of different models entering the scene. The central idea was that every user is unique and that mobile phones had to be personalised to meet the specific needs and expectations of each individual. I have therefore called it the singularities market. The late 2000s, however, marked a partial return to the platform idea, only that this time the mobile phone became far more than that. From premium platforms, it was (and continues to be) expected that they not just excel in performance but feel and look good. This market agencement remains dominant to this day. Because it
235 did not remain unchallenged, however, I have also described the initially slow but increasingly fast-paced expansion of the circular platform market. In contrast to premium platforms, this new market agencement equips mobile phones with the ability to circulate across multiple owners.
Seen as a whole, this development raises several important questions to which I want to turn in the following chapter. First, why did mobile phones turn into premium platforms and not into any other type of good? As the analysis so far has shown, several other potential futures were envisaged (chapter 6) and there was no agreement on what constitutes a good mobile phone (chapter 5). In so far, the development could have gone in any direction. That this was a real possibility is evidenced by the success of the singularities market, a time when many analysts saw the mobile phone business to have completed its transformation into a fashion industry. It is only retrospectively that one can interpret this phase as a mere setback in the marketisation process towards premium platforms. This directly leads to a second question. Why was the process characterised by such non-linearity and discontinuities? There are potentially important lessons to be drawn from this case relating to how premium platforms can be brought about – and why such an effort may fail. Both the temporary singularisation of mobile phones and the more recent ways in which the premium platform market has been challenged are instructive in this respect. The argument I seek to advance in chapter 11 is that the overall development, both in terms of directionality and non-linearity, can be interpreted as an outcome of three interrelated valuation struggles.
To come full circle, I will also have to return to the core theme of this thesis: the endurance of mobile phones in use. The biography presented above has given a sense of how product endurance was located in the overarching process of market innovation.
The precise relation between the two and the various market devices that performed the endurance of phones in use, however, deserve more attention. Can the dynamics of
236 phone endurance be sufficiently accounted by the manufacturers’ marketing strategies?
Why did this development take place under the radar of environmentalists? Building on analogies with disability and addiction, Chapter 10 explores these issues through the lens of three market devices.
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10 Performing endurance
In the biography presented above, the endurance of mobile phones in use ‘popped up’ at various points. This is, of course, not a coincidence. In contrast to conventional biographies of artefacts, in which this phenomenon tends to be given little to no attention, I went at some length in mobilising various theoretical ideas and methodological strategies to make it visible. At the same time, it has been a central part of my ambition and research strategy to study the endurance of mobile phones in use as a phenomenon ‘embedded’ in wider processes of market innovation. This is based on the idea that not everything that matters for understanding their dynamics is directly related and immediately recognisable. The biography thus also covered many phenomena that are not readily associated with product endurance, such as 9/11 or text messaging services.
Figure 13: Market agencements and mobile phone endurance in use (source: own calculations, see appendix C)
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The aim of this chapter is to explore the linkages between market innovation and the endurance of mobile phones in use in more detail. The process of market innovation, as I have argued above, unfolded through a series of different market agencements, each of which (with the exception of the circular platform market) can be linked with a different pattern of change in the endurance of mobile phones in use (see Figure 13). The sharp improvement in phone endurance in the early 2000s, then, was a result of the marketisation of mobile phones as platforms. The singularities market that followed, by contrast, had the opposite effect on endurance in the mid-2000s and the premium platform market can be held responsible for increasing levels of phone endurance again since the late 2000s.
The assertion that product endurance is an effect of market agencements, however, does not imply that participating entities contribute to the outcome in equal measure. With changing market agencements formerly influential entities may be pushed to the background, alternative devices may emerge, and new synergies may be created. I have described these dynamics above in narrative form. The analysis presented in this chapter provides a complementary perspective that cuts across market agencements. Moving from the overall biography to the specific issue of how mobile phones in use gain or lose their ability to endure, my concern here is with the specific procedures and strategies through which varying patterns were performed. To structure the discussion and make agencements better comparable in terms of their effects on mobile phone endurance, I mobilise three analytically distinct market devices from the literature that have previously been deployed to make sense of disability and addiction.
The first two devices were introduced in the context of social policies for people with disabilities. Analysing how people with handicaps are given the capacity to act as individual autonomous actors, Callon (2008) notes that policies tend to focus either on the environment or on the disabilities of actors themselves. He first introduces the concept of
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‘prosthetic devices’ to describe policy approaches seeking to address the latter issue.
Prostheses such as wheelchairs or guide dogs aim to equip people with the aids necessary to conduct their everyday lives like ‘normal’ people. However, prostheses do not grant people with disabilities full autonomy. This is because prostheses are not just supportive but ‘scripted’ devices that transform people’s actions. In so far it is perhaps little surprising that prostheses can be widely observed in market settings. Cochoy’s (2007) detailed study of how shopping carts shape consumers’ decisions represents a particularly vivid demonstration of the working of prostheses. The identification and description of the workings of the various prostheses that equip consumers and other market agents constitutes a hallmark of market studies (McFall, 2009; Cochoy, 2017). People are not the only agencies with disabilities though. As I will argue below, many mobile phones relied rather heavily on prostheses throughout the past two decades.
The second policy approach, which Callon refers to as ‘habilitation devices’, locates the problem not in the disabilities of individuals but in the environment. Habilitation removes
‘barriers’, protects people from potential hazards, and creates spaces for individuals to articulate and pursue their own projects. The approach thus distributes action more widely and does not discipline individuals, in its extreme forms addressing the whole environment to eliminate differences between healthy people and the disabled. Callon argues that habilitation devices are particularly common in network economies where agency is more distributed and consumers are invited to interact and join the innovation process rather than being expected to conform. Analogously, the concept can bring to view the processes through which mobile phones in use were not just equipped but protected from various, potentially destabilising dynamics.
An approach that is not well captured in the distinction between prosthetic and habilitation devices, however, is to strengthen an agency’s self-efficacy, that is, its ability to act without any form of support. Both prosthetic and habilitation devices leave the
240 disabled vulnerable to some extent in so far as they both distribute action in one way or another. Prostheses, for instance, may form a hybrid unity with individuals in concrete situations but are additions that can be and often must be replaced in the longer term.
Many approaches to empowerment in the context of human artefacts, by contrast, centre on design and product development, which are closer to body part transplantations and genetic engineering than the policies discussed by Callon. The resulting agencies are far more than capable of acting ‘normal’ but able to shape their surroundings. In their strongest form, such ‘addiction devices’ (Callon, 2017) take over control and create relationships of strong dependence, a phenomenon that, as previous chapters have shown, is all too familiar to many smartphone owners.
In the following sections, I discuss how each of those three devices contributed to the endurance of mobile phones in use and how varying patterns of endurance across the first three historically situated market agencements can be explained with reference to the shifting ways these devices operated and interrelated. Because the effects of the circular platform agencement on product endurance are less clear, I will pay less attention to it in this discussion.
10.1 Habilitation devices: organising detachments from new mobile phones
A core dynamic of stabilisation and destabilisation of products in use concerns the organisation of processes of attachment between consumers and new products being released on the market (Callon et al., 2002; Spinney et al., 2012). The simultaneous ‘co- profiling’ of products and consumers necessary for new attachments to come about stretches across the very conception of a product, in which potential consumers need to be built in (McFall et al., 2017), to the seduction of consumers who need to be pulled out from their routine uses of their current phones and prompted to re-evaluate its qualities
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(Cochoy, 2016). The biography presented in previous chapters shows that the precise organisation of this process in the British mobile phone market was highly contested and changed significantly over the years, with important consequences for the endurance of mobile phones in use.
Most conspicuously, manufacturers and retailers mobilised various marketing strategies to promote the pursuit of the new. Prominent campaigns like ‘cool to drool’ and ‘ashamed of your mobile’ sought to solidify the position of mobile phones as status symbols and presentations of new handsets at fashion shows may be seen as early precursors of the staging of new product releases as public events of global significance (Lampel, 2001). As described in chapter 8, the market entry of Apple in particular had a lasting effect on the manufacturers’ marketing of mobile phones, which since then increasingly relied on a more direct contact with customers and regular product presentations in the form of annual mega-events that created a predictable hype-anticipation cycle unseen before in the world of mobile phones. In part, mass media contributed to this shift by engaging in speculations about upcoming releases and reporting extensively about new products well before putting them to test.
In more recent years several network operators and a growing network of waste management companies joined these efforts by urging consumers to ‘be more dog’ and
‘dabble in innovation’. Eventually, the ‘up-to-dateness’ of mobile phones very much moved centre stage in the circular platform market, where trade-ins and a growing, world-spanning reuse network became important devices for valorising purchases of new phones based on economic incentives and environmental legitimacy. An important element of this strategy was to remove returned handsets from the British market to avoid competition between new and second-hand phones (cf. Corvellec & Stål, 2019). The example of O2’s marketing strategy accompanying their ‘Refresh’ tariff presented in chapter 9 further illustrates the ingenious methods through which companies used their
242 increasing knowledge about consumers’ preferences for regular product upgrades to personalise not just the content but also the timing of advertisements.
The historically increasing emphasis on ‘up-to-dateness’ in suppliers’ qualification of new phones might well give the impression that having the latest handset has grown in significance over the years. Sure enough, the aggressive marketing of novelty in the mobile phone market has not gone unnoticed in debates on product endurance and drawn attention from researchers seeing therein a potent force that accelerates the obsolescence of goods (Collins, 2013; Goods, 2017; Valenzuela & Böhm, 2017; Wieser,
2016). Of course, the endurance of phones in use has certainly been tested by such efforts and may well have been higher without them. The fact that mobile phones were able to endure for ever-longer periods in recent years despite aforementioned trends in product marketing, however, suggests that the influence of advertising and staging of new product releases as spectacles is exaggerated in extant debates.
To understand why mobile phones’ endurance was able to develop largely independently of such efforts, it is important to pay closer attention to how mobiles were requalified at various stages of their lives, or more specifically, to the various habilitation devices in place. That consumers and mediators like mass media were not quite as passive as implied in accelerationist accounts or the obedient dog-like market agents some sellers would have liked them to be but actively participated in the qualification of products, comes out very clearly by comparing the receptions of new phone releases in different periods.
While there was wide agreement that the various new features and styles represented genuine and significant advancements over existing phones throughout a substantial period, before (early 2000s) and after (mid-2010) this period receptions were often lukewarm and critical.
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It was common practice among critics to express their disappointment about what was perceived to be a lack of exciting innovations, a view shared by many consumers during these periods. To be sure, the three mass media outlets analysed in this study did not strive to detach readers from the vendors’ communication apparatus quite as consumerist magazines tend to do (Aldridge, 1995; Mallard, 2007). But their role can neither be reduced to the celebration of consumer culture (Slater, 2007). It was not all about reports of new product launches. Even Stuff magazine, the most novelty-oriented among them, went at great length to objectify mobile phone qualities and make the differences between new and old versions of a phone model calculable, with the aim of equipping readers with the means to make an informed decision. The harder it became for laypeople to evaluate the differences, the more detailed and painstaking became the critics’ analyses.
Mass media also played an important role in educating the public about the various problems associated with mobile phones, where the focus throughout was clearly on the phones in use, not the new. This included the problematisation of the rapid pace of obsolescence of handsets on ethical grounds, but the main concerns related to the growing power of mobile phones. Indeed, it was partly the success at turning mobile phones into addictive attachment devices (see below) that laid the basis for an increasing distancing of the public from mobile phones at large. As I have argued in chapter 9, this can plausibly be linked to a loss of interest among consumers in the new models released on the market.
The recent emphasis on the benefits of smartphones in marketing campaigns (e.g. ‘Phones
Are Good’) may be read as indication that manufacturers and network operators see it the same way.
Last but not least, historical variations in the perceived attractiveness of new mobile phones owe much to the various efforts at commoditising them. More than merely a consequence of failures to keep up the pace of new product innovation, I have argued that commoditisation is better seen as a mode of valuation and performative effort.
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Network operators in particular used their purchasing power to get involved in the product development process and make sure that mobile services are taken into account from the start (cf. Suarez & Cusumano, 2009). From the users’ point of view, a degree of technological stabilisation is less an indication of shrinking R&D capacities than a desirable quality of platforms that is necessary to reap the full benefits of network effects and create the planning security for investments.
Against manufacturers’ efforts at accelerating the obsolescence of phones in use through the marketing of novelties, multiple habilitation devices thus interfered in the attachment process and shaped the perceived pace of new product innovation, thereby contributing to opposing trends in the early 2000s and again throughout the 2010s. However, the organisation of the attachment process was not limited to struggles over the pace of new product innovation. Perhaps one of the most remarkable and, at first sight, counterintuitive aspects of the historical development of mobile phones’ endurance is that it improved in the years following the release of the first iPhone, a time of widely acknowledged, radical change in handset technology and design.
An important role here can be attributed to the lengthening of bundled contracts, a key habilitation device in the premium platform market. This development shows that bundled contracts did not necessarily transform hardware into a “disposable by-product of service provision” (Maycroft, 2000: 144). Rather, their effects on product endurance were more ambivalent, having been deployed to tie product endurance to the growth in mobile service revenues that a new handset was expected to bring about, while simultaneously operating as a device for reducing customer churn. In so doing, bundled contracts discouraged the purchasing of new handsets for the newness’ sake. The extension of their lengths had an important educating effect in that it helped people break the rhythm of annual phone purchases and realise that the new touchscreen phones were able to outlast even an 18- or 24-months contract period. However, as the experiences of
245 my interviewees reveal, contracts were neither able to determine a phone’s endurance nor acting on their own. If not for expectations of built-in defects and fears of ending up without a phone, for example, it is likely that many more people would have used their phones beyond a contracts’ end.
10.2 Prosthetic devices: complementary goods and services
For the most part, the habilitation devices discussed so far aimed at the consumer, who, from a specific mobile phone’s perspective, represented a constant threat of being drawn to a potentially more attractive, novel phone. However, infidelity was not the only potential source of destabilisation. Even the latest phone can break down or incur damages. Reversely, people may form emotional bonds and continue to use phones that have long lost their appeal as status symbols, look worn, or are a pain to operate. The wider issue here is that valorisation processes do not end with the exchange of a product
(Heuts & Mol, 2013). While the economic lives of mobile phones, at large, retained a high degree of linearity that saw their value fall in use (in contrast to assets or collectibles that increase in value, see Boltanski & Esquerre, 2016), the importance of different sites of valorisation shifted significantly over time, in ways that dissolved strict lines between production and consumption.
Looking at the various deficiencies of mobile phones it becomes apparent that their ability to endure heavily relied on the existence of various prostheses that supported their use, from software applications to interchangeable and protective covers, careful users, handbags, a repair infrastructure, chargers, and earphones among others. Stripped off such prostheses, modern smartphones in particular would look rather vulnerable and lose much of their flexibility and versatility. Prostheses contributed to the phones’ endurance in at least three ways.
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First, and perhaps most straightforwardly, prostheses have been used to protect mobile phones from any forms of wear and tear. This was hardly necessary at first. The robustness and durability of feature phones has gained legendary status and any signs of wear could easily be removed by replacing the cover. The battery too could be replaced without much effort or expertise. This changed dramatically with the transition to touchscreen smartphones: protective covers became a standard equipment, users have to take more care and carry portable chargers and power banks, and repairs require a much higher level of competence. The infrastructure for repairs and software support has since grown considerably (see chapter 8). More recently, however, reliability and shock-resistance have regained importance and are increasingly expected from high-end smartphones.
Second, complementary goods and services have played a major role in compensating for a lack of the phones’ functionality. This was less the case in the singularisation agencement, where changes in the functionality and design of mobile phones were very much at the centre of attention. The services offered at the time, from MMS to mobile internet, were barely taken up. This was radically different in the platform market, where the role of mobile handsets was largely reduced to the facilitation of interactions between different types of users. Complementary goods and services made it possible to personalise mobile phones in use and keep them up-to-date ‘over the air’, thereby reducing the need for purchases of new phones.
The third way in which prosthetic devices contributed to the endurance of phones in use is by generating interdependencies. Many complementary goods and services, in particular chargers and covers, work only in connection with specific handsets and are often incompatible with later generations. Moreover, the ease of transitioning to other platforms may suffer from a strong reliance on the ‘ecosystem’. With the growing importance of prosthetic devices, the costs – financial and efforts – of replacing a phone
247 have therefore increased, just as the attractiveness of switching to alternative offers has gone down.
10.3 Addiction devices: competing against other consumer goods and services
Addiction carries predominantly negative connotations, relating to powerlessness and a destructive relationship to something that literally consumes oneself. In the past two decades, the language of addiction and unfavourable comparisons of phones with drugs have become increasingly established in describing people’s bad experiences. Without a degree of addictiveness, however, attachments between entities could not come about (cf.
Gomart & Hennion, 1999). A mobile phone that is incapable of attracting and capturing people can neither be sold nor find any use. Addictiveness, seen in this light, is the ability of mobile phones to make themselves indispensable for its owners, to be an object of desire. In other contexts, this more positive connotation is regularly invoked in the use of addictiveness as a synonym for desirability (Rosenthal & Faris, 2019). Given that users have limited resources at their disposal, the success of addiction devices can also be described in terms of their ability to crowd out alternative ones: both other mobile phones and other consumer goods and services.
Notwithstanding to say, mobile phones have been remarkably successful with respect to the latter, having been located at the epicentre of technological convergence processes that affected a wide range of goods, from digital cameras to mp3 players and alarm clocks.
The amount of time people spend using their phones has increased exponentially since the
1990s, with growing numbers of users feeling completely dependent on them. However, addictiveness does not solely stem from improved functionality. Far more than just tools, mobile phones have been taking on multiple identities (see chapter 5). While their respective importance shifted over the years, it is notable that mobile phones have become
248 increasingly multivalent. As ‘premium platforms’, mobiles are simultaneously valued for their technological performance, playfulness, and aesthetic appeal. Just as important, however, is that the same premium platforms also create opportunities for consumers to reduce expenditures (e.g. protective covers), environmental pressures (e.g. reuse and recycling), and even addictiveness (e.g. smartphone addiction apps). This successful balance of creating multiple values and damage limitation may go some way towards explaining why consumers have been willing to pay ever-higher amounts of money for new handsets.
Of course, the network operators’ generous handset subsidies heavily affected the prices consumers had to pay for new mobiles. In 2000 and 2001, subsidies for pre-pay phones experienced drastic cuts that increased prices in this segment considerably in the short term, followed by high subsidies throughout the remaining decade and early 2010s that boosted the addictiveness of mobile phones vis-à-vis alternative consumer goods. In so doing, subsidies intensified the ups and downs in the demand for new handsets that fluctuating improvements in functionality brought about (section 10.1).
Besides such shifts in the importance and affordability of mobile phones relative to other consumer goods and service, there were major changes in the relations among handsets in use themselves. The ideal-typical distinction between horizontal and vertical product differentiation (Cecere et al., 2013; Koski & Kretschmer, 2007) is useful for describing these changes. Horizontally differentiated products are difficult to rank on any scale and evade the possibility of comparisons using quantitative measures. They are an outcome of singularisation processes (see Callon et al., 2002). In the singularities market, mobile phones were qualified in different ways for different consumers, with customer segmentations becoming ever more fine-grained. While more objective comparisons were still possible, this was largely limited to individual product categories. The most fashionable or trendy phone was therefore not necessarily a better or more expensive one.
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With the platformisation of mobile phones, however, singularisation processes were displaced to complementary goods and services. In the premium platform market, a vertical differentiation prevails, from the low-, medium- to high-end. Under these conditions, and without an established second-hand market in place, status competition became a force that contributed to the ‘new luxury’ trend in mobile phones, or what I referred to as their premiumisation.
10.4 Conclusions
Turning from the biography to the specific issue of varying trends in the endurance of mobile phones in use, this chapter sought to deepen our understanding of how market agencements have produced such trends. To this end, I have discussed the significance of various market devices in shaping the dynamics of mobile phone endurance and proposed a basic categorisation through which to approach their analysis. Table 5 summarises the findings. In this concluding section, I wish to highlight two general lessons that can be drawn from this analysis.
The first is that an orientation of change at the scale of the market or product category needs to be careful not to lose sight of the careers of singular products. This is a fallacy committed by both cyclical and accelerationist perspectives. As the analysis presented here demonstrates, the temporalities of singular products may not correspond to the temporalities of market innovation. The shift to a ‘fewer, but better’ approach effectively detached mobile phones in use from the pace of market innovation. The organisation of the relation between the new phones released on the market and the phones in use was both contested and subject to considerable change. This underscores the value a biographical approach that is attentive to the multiple interweaving temporalities of product change (see section 4.1).
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The second overarching lesson can be derived from taking market agencements rather than hypothesised causes of product endurance as a starting point. Such a reversal of perspective can complement the latter in at least three ways: 1) by providing a sense of the significance of various market agencies, 2) drawing attention to neglected market agencies, and 3) offering a holistic understanding that also considers their interrelations. In relation to the first, my analysis shows that some of the key strategies for shaping the development of mobile phone endurance discussed in the literature, have either played a subordinate role (e.g. advertising, product release cycles, reparability) or even had opposite effects than assumed in the literature (e.g. bundled contracts).
In relation to the second, the analysis has exposed the roles played by less obvious and visible agencies (cf. McFall, 2009) and what could be interpreted as ‘accidental’ causes of product obsolescence (Fletcher, 2012; Pellandini-Simányi, 2016; Woodward, 2014). A case in point is the distancing from mobile phones as a response to concerns about the potential health and societal consequences of overuse, or its counterpart, the increasing addictiveness of mobile phones. Perhaps most surprising, however, is that previous research on the endurance of mobile phones has proposed and examined various novel product-service systems (e.g. Hobson et al., 2018; Mashhadi et al., 2019; Rosseau, 2020;
Suckling & Lee, 2015) but so far failed to acknowledge the highly consequential interplay between products and services in existing market agencements.
A third way in which an analysis of existing market agencements can contribute to the study of product endurance is in providing a holistic view on the ‘forms of the probable’
(Zuiderent-Jerak, 2009). The analysis presented in this thesis has drawn attention to how four different market agencements worked. Equally important, however, is to gain a better understanding of the processes that can lead to desirable market agencements and the challenges that this may involve. This is what I turn to in the next chapter.
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Table 5: Habilitation, prosthetic, and addiction devices across the four mobile phone market agencements
Platforms Singularities Premium platforms Circular platforms Mid-1990s - mid-2000s Early 2000s - late 2000s Late 2000s - to date Late 2010s - to date Product endurance Improving Deteriorating Improving ? Habilitation devices • Perceived void in hardware • Much excitement over new phones: • Initially rapid technological change, • Lack of exciting hardware innovations, innovation, failure of WAP-enabled multimedia features, style trends but some reservations about strong emphasis on ‘up-to-dateness’ of phones • Focus on youth and women: ‘ashamed touchscreens and mobile internet mobile phones • High anticipation of multimedia of your mobile’, upgrading is cool • Touchscreen as new style trend • High level of distancing from new phones • Shift from 12- to 24-months bundled phones: concerns about addiction contracts • Split and SIM-only contracts; trade-ins make new phones more attractive • Increasing competition from second- hand phones Prosthetic devices • Hypes over customisable covers, SMS, • Unattractive multimedia and mobile • Hype over software apps, affordable • Continued importance of messaging services, ringtones internet services mobile internet, instant messaging personalisation and maintenance • Increasing attention to after-sales • Stylish handset design instead of • Important complementary hardware: through complementary goods services interchangeable covers increasing focus on the ‘ecosystem’ • Continued growth of professional • Increasing focus on brands of network • Mobile phone model more important • Increasing importance of handset repairs operators than choice of network operator protection and maintenance • Phone covers for personalisation Addiction devices • Standard ‘candybar’ shape • A different phone for everyone: • Convergence towards touchscreen • Dominant touchscreen smartphone • Most phones equipped with ‘all the singularisation through consumer smartphone design design usual suspects’ segmentations, product categorisations • Vertical differentiation based on • Differentiation mainly based on a • Low functionality, predominantly as a • At the centre of technological performance: high-end to low-end phone’s ‘up-to-dateness’: year of cheap tool convergence; multi-functionality • Continued high handset subsidies release and second-hand phones • Sudden cut in handset subsidies making other goods obsolete • High level of technological • Decreasing significance of handset • Not just tools, but great toys and convergence and phone dependency subsidies fashion items too Useful, style icon and playful • Stabilisation of overall significance of • Return to higher handset subsidies • Improved robustness mobile phones in life
252 11 Valuation struggles
Having provided a description of each market agencement and discussed their relations to the endurance of mobile phones in use, this chapter engages in more detail with the overall dynamic. In chapter 2, I have argued that cyclical and accelerationist perspectives take the directionality of change for granted. The disagreement over expected patterns in the pace of change mainly stems from different conceptions of the roles of markets and economic competition: Whereas in cyclical perspectives the direction is set by a predefined path of technology or fashion and therefore independent of economic competition, in accelerationist perspectives the direction is a product of market forces working in alignment with cultural accelerators. Against this background, I have made the case in chapter 3 for an alternative perspective to market innovation processes rooted in the pragmatist study of valuation. The temporalities of valorisation and devaluation, in this view, can never be fully detached from questions relating to how things are evaluated. It highlights that the production of value, in markets and elsewhere, is frequently contested and open to political struggles.
In accordance with this perspective, the biography presented above reveals a great variety of competing concerns associated with mobile phones, from saggy skins over embarrassing trouser bulges to consumer resistance to upgrades. Such concerns can be linked with competing modes of valuation seeking to realise their respective versions of the ‘good mobile phone’ (see chapter 5). From the start, the mobile phone market was thus a space in which conflicting values and interests were articulated and performed. And with new concerns and demands for changes in the mobile phone market continuing to emerge, it is fair to say that it never ceased to be a ‘concerned market’ (Geiger et al., 2014).
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What did change quite dramatically, however, was how markets organised the relations between different modes of valuation. The main argument I want to put forward in this chapter is that the multiplicity of modes of valuation was not just key to the premium platform markets’ success but at the heart of its troublesome, non-linear establishment and uncertain future. In what follows, I discuss three valuation struggles that significantly shaped the marketisation process throughout the years: 1) platforms versus singularised goods, 2) premium versus commoditised platforms, and 3) open versus closed platforms.
The three struggles can be linked with different framings that were necessary for the marketisation of mobile phones as premium platforms. Because the third struggle is well known in the literature and well covered in the biography presented above, I discuss it only briefly and focus on the other two.
11.1 Platform versus singularised goods
The first valuation struggle to be discussed is tightly connected to the ‘squeezing paradox’ described in section 6.1.1, which represented the defining issue for well over a decade.
The paradox encapsulates the core dilemma that market agencies began to face in the mid-90s as concerns about the increasing ‘throwaway’ character of mobile phones and the looming saturation of the market grew. It emerged because of the ontological incompatibility of the miniaturisation of mobile phones that had dominated innovation efforts at the time and the growing desire to turn mobile phones into multi-functional, all-purpose devices. What was at stake was the design or shape of mobile phones to be exchanged. This touched upon multiple issues, as advances in miniaturisation were still widely expected: Large-sized phones were considered too bulky, old-fashioned, and embarrassing to hold and wear. Moreover, there were serious concerns that multi- functional phones would compromise on battery life, a quality considered essential for mobile phones to work as safety and emergency devices. The dominant ‘calculative space’
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(Callon & Muniesa, 2005) regarding mobile phone design at the time thus took many different qualities into account but also defined relatively strict boundaries that were as much social as they were material, made of trouser pockets, hands, and conventions of style and safety, among others.
For many, a much more realistic and desirable scenario than technological convergence was thus to continue along the miniaturisation path and even integrate mobile phones in other consumer goods. With observations of the high status value of mobile phones, how young girls began to paint their phones with nail varnish, and comparable developments of other consumer goods like watches, the idea emerged that mobile phones might become highly differentiated and singularised exchange goods, with each individual even owning multiple phones to reflect their personality and mood (see section 6.1.3). In principle, it would have been a straightforward solution and in alignment with the economic interests of manufacturers and retailers. Why, then, was the singularisation of mobile phones not pursued at first?
As Callon (2016) acknowledges, the singularisation of goods requires a great deal of coordination. At the same time, Callon’s argument in favour of market-agencements (see section 3.3) reveals a great deal of – I would argue too much – optimism in the power of economic competition among producers. This perspective is too optimistic because it ignores the existence of competing and complementary markets (cf. Frankel, 2015;
Kjellberg & Olson, 2017). In the case of mobile phones, the market for mobile services was of particular significance. Network operators played an important role in this regard.
In classic actor-network theory jargon, they constituted the ‘obligatory passage point’
(Callon, 1986) for manufacturers and consumers wanting to sell or buy handsets. Through their direct contacts with end customers, network operators were able to exert considerable influence on the design and purchasing process as well as in negotiations over the setting of future technology standards. From the start, there was therefore a powerful
255 group of economic actors with a vested interest in turning mobile phones into platforms.
Not any platforms, of course, but platforms that supported the uptake of their own services. In subsequent years, network operators have also extended their retail network and released mobile phones under their own brands to solidify their powerful position even further.
To be sure, it was not all about economic power and network operators. WAP-enabled platforms represented a meaningful middle way between the two extreme solutions of all- in-one smartphones on the one hand and miniaturised low-tech phones on the other.
The solution benefitted from significant momentum of the internet and was eventually embraced by manufacturers too, who saw therein an opportunity for boosting sales in an increasingly saturated market (see section 6.1.2). That mobile phones (temporarily) transformed into platforms, however, had only indirectly to do with the efforts of promoting WAP-enabled phones, in so far as this endeavour successfully channelled the industry’s resources and investments in the promotion of platforms instead of singularities.
The actual platformisation and simultaneous commoditisation of mobile phones, as we have seen in chapter 6, had rather little to do with network operators.
Instead of a fast and centrally organised ‘breakthrough’ innovation in the form of an internet-enabled device, the resulting platform market was an outcome of innovation through ‘bricolage’, involving a dispersed network of agents and incremental steps of improvement (see Garud & Karnøe, 2003). Already before network operators began to offer services based on mobile internet, existing phones began to produce unanticipated overflows as users discovered text messaging and the many services that could be delivered through this, a development that caught operators completely off guard. Users and content providers led the commoditisation of mobile phones, creating a highly profitable market on which operators more stumbled upon than actively contributed to.
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The massive failure of WAP, in conjunction with the success of a more distributed, bricolage-style innovation process, contributed in multiple ways to the subsequent emergence of the singularities market. One of them, I would argue, was directly linked to the design of mobile phones in relation to singularisation: It became clear that users were an important source of innovation and that the most innovative ones are hard to identify.
Indeed, it were adolescents rather than the targeted business users who found ways to circumvent the obligatory passage point and establish an alternative source of revenue. In addition, the establishment of the 2.5G standard (see section 7.1) and experimentation with different phone designs (see section 7.1) increased the list of possible options and uncertainty regarding the ideal platform.
The narrow frame of WAP-enabled phones for business users originally put forward by network operators thus made place for a more experimental approach that involved different user groups and let manufacturers try out different designs. It acknowledged that there can be different routes to profitability and that some degree of singularisation may contribute to new meanings and uses (cf. Christiansen et al., 2010). A bricolage approach of laborious, patient, and pragmatic work was thus simultaneously a core characteristic of market innovation (e.g. Geiger & Gross, 2018) and an outcome of failures at achieving innovations through breakthrough innovations.
As I have shown in chapter 7 and discussed in chapter 10, the singularisation of mobile phones went far beyond this. However, in relation to the struggle between platform and singularised goods it is important to emphasise that also the singularities market operated, in part, within a platform framing. Singularisation, especially through fashionisation, thrived for several years and became increasingly aggressive but ultimately failed on several fronts (see section 7.2.3). A multivalent phone, at least one that could combine ‘form and function’, was widely expected at the time. There was still a pressure to integrate different modes of valuation into the same phones. The role of SIM-cards as framing devices can
257 hardly be overestimated in this context. By making the switching between multiple phones unattractive for users, SIM-cards posed a serious hurdle to the singularisation of phones, specifically to the realisation of the vision of multiple phone ownership. The stability of premium/circular platforms relies on this framing device to this day.
One can only speculate whether this situation of increasing tensions between technological convergence and fashionisation would have led to a slowdown of innovation in mobile phone designs. The entry of Apple and its release of the iPhone came at a time when smartphones had only just begun to gain some traction, indicating a growing ability among manufacturers to find acceptable compromises between competing modes of valuation. The iPhone was far more than a novel or better solution, however, but effectively redefined the rules of the game. From early on, smartphones were based on the idea of outsourcing some operations through digitalisation and complementary software to deal with the squeezing paradox. But Apple distributed much more of their agency and made some significant trade-offs: battery life and durability, for example, were given less attention in design and relied more heavily on users to take care of and equip smartphones with complementary devices like screen protectors and portable chargers (see chapter 10). This made it possible to explore alternative designs outside established parameters. As I have argued in section 8.1.1, the multivalence of the touchscreen smartphone design introduced by Apple is underrated. The iPhone in particular scored very highly in terms of its ease-of-use but also as a style icon and playful toy. All these qualities remained central throughout the years.
The process of establishing a multivalent, platform design that works thus required some significant reframing over the years. I have focused here on two discontinuous moments of reframing. The first significant step was to widen the calculative frame to take into account the ‘orphan groups’ (Callon, 2007) previously left out: users and the youth in particular. A too narrow frame clearly inhibited the innovation process. The second major
258 step came from an agent that was less ignored than ‘affected’ (ibid.) by the overflows caused by technological convergence. Apple’s business, heavily reliant on iPods at the time, was seriously under threat by the growing popularity of music phones. This time, the calculative frame was narrowed down, literally to make space for alternative designs.
Such re-framings were pivotal in performing a stable platform design.
11.2 Premium versus commoditised platforms
The platforms into which mobile phones were turned in the late 1990s and early 2000s had some clear limitations. The messaging services that gained some popularity, for example, worked reasonably well to download ringtones and the likes but were less suited for more sophisticated operations. Besides such technical restrictions, mobile phones at the time were considered boring accessories for the ‘text-obsessed youth’ and had lost much of their value as status symbols. Furthermore, declining prices, fuelled by network operators’ subsidies, were not just a concern for manufacturers and retailers, but increasingly for operators themselves, who wanted consumers to ‘upgrade’ to phones with higher platform capabilities instead of buying subsidised phones at a high frequency. Low- priced, commoditised platforms were great to increase subscription numbers but became increasingly a problem in increasingly saturated markets – both for mobiles and for services (see chapter 6).
After years of consumers craving for new, status-laden phones, network operators and manufacturers alike took it largely for granted that this trend would continue, and consumers would be willing to pay higher sums of money for new phones. As with the realisation of the importance of users discussed above, the failure of WAP-phones constituted a wake-up call in this regard. This second valuation struggle thus concerns less the relation between platform vis-à-vis other types of goods than the varied efforts at
259 organising the relation between the new and the old (cf. Dubuisson-Quellier, 2013;
Weber, 2016). Specifically, the issue was about establishing a ‘fewer, but better’ logic to the consumption of mobile phone platforms, that is, to simultaneously increase their value and ability to endure. For network operators, these two issues were closely linked to their aims of increasing the average revenue per user and reducing customer churn. Their central framing device to realise the ‘fewer, but better’ logic was the bundled contract and the various auxiliary devices that came with it. Following high levels of penetration and the failure of WAP-phones, network operators cut subsidies on pre-pay phones and shifted these expenditures to the promotion of phones on bundled contracts, with the immediate effect of stopping the growth of pre-pay (see section 6.1.4). To strengthen the offer, they also made many phones exclusively available through such contracts.
At this point, I want to highlight a central tension in the platform markets studied here, a tension that comes out most clearly in relation to the once common practice of subsidising new phones. Network operators paid out subsidies, after all, in the expectation that the subsidised phones would act in their interest and make customers use more of their services. The size of subsidies varied across phones accordingly. Moreover, SIM-cards and contracts were put in place to ensure that customers would not switch provider and use the original providers’ services for a pre-agreed period. Even if all these framings would have worked as expected, however, an element remained that could not be controlled and made the business of subsidies quite risky. Also in their simplest form, the performance of platforms was based on two modes of valuation. I referred to them as the toolification of mobile phones to be exchanged and their commoditisation in use (see chapter 6). Once we recognise this multiplicity and its temporal sequence in the organisation of platform goods, it becomes clear that the paying out of subsidies effectively means to support another mode of valuation, as a form of ‘calculated overflows’, in the hope that it would return the favour, what we may call ‘calculated backflows’. The risk
260 that such calculated backflows do not occur is the higher, the more ambiguous the subsidised goods are.
Considering this tension, I would argue that multiplicity, alongside the closed walled garden approach discussed in the next section, played a major role in the failure at securing such calculated overflows, thereby providing an impetus and sustaining the singularities market. The network operators’ expectation at the time was that the promotion of high-end platform phones would generate higher service revenues and lead to higher levels of customisation and consumer attachment to mobile phone. According to market commentators, they increased subsidies significantly for the new series of 2.5G phones with multimedia capabilities. But as discussed in the previous section, there was also a recognisable shift of approach towards a more bricolage-type innovation process that embraced some degree of singularisation.
Under these conditions, it was extremely difficult to generate calculate backflows. In fact, even calculated overflows failed to a significant extent. As described in chapter 7, many of the subsidised technical features introduced at the time contributed more to the playfulness of mobile phones than their usefulness. Moreover, many phones intended as improved tools, such as flip phones with built-in cameras, ended up as fashion phones.
The ambiguity of mobile phones’ identity and value thus constantly produced unintended overflows (cf. Finch & Geiger, 2010; Slater, 2002). This happened to such an extent that bundled contracts and subsidies even fostered the singularisation of mobile phones instead of supporting their simultaneous toolification and commoditisation.
By the mid-2000s, service usage and prices for new phones were still low and the endurance of mobile phones in use had even declined. Against this background, network operators began to adjust not just the size of subsidies and selection of mobile phones but lengthen the standard period of bundled contracts (see section 8.2.1). Although a decisive
261 step, it was only one of many that contributed to a major reorganisation of the relation between the new and the old and finally enacted a ‘fewer, but better’ logic. Longer contracts can be located in the commoditisation of mobile phones in use that began to expand already before the proliferation of touchscreen smartphones but received a major impetus by this development (e.g. apps, protective covers). With a less ambiguous mobile phone design (see previous section) and an open platform (see following section) in place, calculated backflows began to increase dramatically.
However, while the establishment of the premium platform market was extraordinarily fast, its stabilisation proved difficult. Two framings in particular have been seriously challenged. The first concerns the lengthening of bundled contracts discussed so far. My analysis shows that this rather strict framing ignited significant movements of counter- performativity. The observations are interesting in the context of debates on the benefits of sustainable product-service systems and the circular economy more generally. The related literature widely assumes that it is more desirable and even necessary for providers to get a higher level of control over the product, making it possible to improve customer loyalty, return the product once broken or faulty, and learn more about how products are used (see Reim, Parida, & Örtqvist, 2015). That this may be in conflict with aims to establish a healthy level of market competition is rarely considered. In the case studied here, however, concerns about the anti-competitiveness of ever-longer bundled contracts even led to regulatory interventions. But there were also other important concerns about longer contracts (see section 9.1.1). For example, longer contracts posed a significant risk for consumers in so far as mobile phones had to endure at least until the end of a contract.
Others grew increasingly frustrated to have to wait this long to be able to get a new phone.
While resistance to this trend grew, the premiumisation of mobile phones also produced overflows that supported the growth of alternative ways to organise the relations between
262 modes of valuation and simultaneously challenged another important framing underpinning the premium platform market: that consumers had to purchase new rather than second-hand phones. As previous commentators have argued, the setting of spatial boundaries to circulation is an important element of marketisation (Corvellec & Stål,
2019; Gregson et al., 2013; Kama, 2015; Lepawsky & Connolly, 2016). In the premium platform market, new phone models were well protected from potential competition with second-hand goods in so far as used goods, to the small extent that they were collected at all, were shipped abroad (see chapter 9). This framing, however, was increasingly challenged as prices for premium platforms grew and the perceived pace of change went down. The increasing competition from second-hand phones certainly undermines further progression along a path of premiumisation. At the same time, network operators themselves have become somewhat less invested in this effort, partly shifting the focus to up-to-dateness.
11.3 Open versus closed platforms
The valuation struggles over the ‘opening’ of platforms relates to the question of how freely different groups of users of a platform can interact. The more open a platform, the more it can benefit from network effects. Even though network operators sought to establish a closed platform in the form of a ‘walled garden’, it is notable that mobile phones still excelled as platforms due to the ingeniousness of users. In other words, a confrontation over the openness of mobile phones platforms could largely be avoided at first. This changed when the various multimedia services became available. The high price and lack of freedom for users to create their own content were major sources of frustration in the mid-2000s and can be made partly responsible for the low levels of commoditisation during this period. Network operators slowly began to open their platforms only as WiFi and VoiP became more realistic alternatives and threatened to
263 make operators redundant. The eventual abandonment of the ‘walled garden’ approach upon Apple’s market entry, to which hackers significantly contributed to, was a key event from this perspective that finally paved the way for a more open internet platform on which users could interact more freely and benefit from network effects, thereby contributing to the success of mobile phones as platforms in no small way.
11.4 Conclusions
Complementing the analysis of each market agencement in the preceding chapters, this chapter focused on the framings and overflows underpinning the marketisation of mobile phones as premium platforms: the processes that contributed to its establishment and undermined it. In so doing, I have specifically highlighted the challenges posed by the multiplicity of competing modes of valuation. In particular, the analysis went beyond the struggles over the realisation of open platforms by paying specific attention to two further struggles that were no less important in the marketisation of premium platforms, relating to their platformisation and their premiumisation.
First, I have argued that markets for complementary goods and services played a major role in supporting the platformisation rather than singularisation of mobile phones.
However, instead of following merely the path of platformisation, as attempted at first, the continued marketisation process involved a delicate balancing act of turning mobile phones into unambiguous platforms while also seeking to benefit from the innovatory potential of processes of singularisation. A second valuation struggle related to the realisation of a ‘fewer, but better’ approach to the consumption of mobile phone platforms. In this context, I have specifically emphasised the tensions arising from the temporal ordering of modes of valuation. As illustrated with the case of handset subsidies, platform markets relied on a specific type of interaction between modes of valuation,
264 involving both calculated overflows and calculated backflows. The multiplicity of modes of valuation represented a major challenge to the realisation of such mutual flows and central source of discontinuity in the marketisation of premium platforms. Furthermore, I have considered two additional framings that have been increasingly undermined in recent years: bundled contracts and the spatial separation of markets for new and second- hand phones.
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12 Conclusions
In this thesis, I have focused on the dynamics of an important quality of consumer durables: their ability to endure in use. Taking my starting point in extant debates concerning the malleability of markets and their roles in these dynamics, I set out to explore the possibility and practical challenges of transforming markets into performative devices for the improvement of product endurance. Instead of studying emerging alternatives and the various ‘barriers to diffusion’, however, I opted for an historical approach, based on the empirical insight that levels of product endurance did not necessarily decline or just move up and down in cycles as existing theories of accelerating or cyclical change would predict. Entering new empirical and methodological territory in the study of product endurance, this thesis then presented a biography of a specific historical case: the eventful transformations of the British mobile phone market between the turn of the millennium and 2018. While the development was far from linear, the endurance of mobile phones in use increased considerably, almost doubling within the period under study.
Multiple research streams informed the analysis of this case. The central source of inspiration was the field of (constructivist) market studies, which advances an understanding of markets as ongoing sociotechnical enactments (Araujo et al., 2008;
Geiger et al., 2012). From this diverse collective of theoretical approaches, I specifically drew from the ‘marketisation programme’ (Çalışkan & Callon, 2010). A critical engagement with this literature in relation to the issue of product endurance then led me to enrich its repertoire with theoretical ideas from the pragmatist study of valuation and waste.
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What can be learned from this biography and analysis? In this concluding chapter, I offer some reflections on what I believe are the core contributions of this thesis in relation to the field of market studies and debates on product endurance (sections 12.1 and 12.2), methodological choices (12.3), and potential avenues for future research (12.4).
12.1 Product endurance as an effect of market agencements
The marketisation programme played a pivotal role in opening up the study of economic market phenomena to sociological analysis. Pushing this agenda further, this thesis positioned and explored product endurance as a central element of markets. Durable goods and mass markets, while ubiquitous in everyday life, are still strangely under- represented in the sociology of markets (Dobeson & Kohl, 2020; Dubuisson-Quellier,
2013), a lack mirrored by a paucity of research exploring the temporalities of markets outside the much studied high-frequency markets for financial products (cf. D’Antone &
Spencer, 2015; Geiger & Gross, 2018). In relatively saturated markets for consumer durables, however, the relation between the new and the old moves centre stage. As my analysis shows, the endurance of products in use is not of mere intellectual interest but a critical matter of concern to a wide range of market agencies, having been linked with diverse matters such as costs, environmental degradation, customer loyalty, revenues, and social status. The increasing saturation of the market around the turn of the millennium ignited a marked shift of orientation to the relation between the new and the old. Since then, the endurance of mobile phones in use was a constant target of various performative efforts at shaping this quality.
The findings from this research project underscore demands from studies of repair, maintenance, and waste to attend to neglected moments in the careers of singular goods
(see section 3.3). The ability of phones in use to endure critically depended on
267 performances that were located much later than moments of acquisition, such as decisions to keep or replace a phone upon the end of a service contract. Furthermore, how detachments between people and mobile phones occurred had important repercussions for the timing of attachments to new phones (cf. Gregson et al., 2013; Spinney et al.,
2012). Crucially, though, my analysis shows that it is insufficient to pay attention to moments other than acquisition or exchange.
First, this tends to neglect devices that target the periodicity as such rather than just seeking to accelerate or decelerate change. These can be discursive devices like expectations of what constitutes a normal ‘replacement cycle’ (see also Weber, 2016;
Wieser, 2016) but also devices acting ‘on the ground’ like bundled contracts, which come with a pre-agreed contract period. It is, in part, with this issue in mind that I took the decision to interfere in the debate and employ the little established concept of
‘endurance’. The various concepts mobilised in the literature (and in the field) frequently carry a significant normative and theoretical baggage (see section 1.1). Besides highlighting the indeterminacy of a product’s ability to stay alive, I suggest that the notion of endurance is more comprehensive and thus a more productive starting point for pragmatist research.
Second, the focus on specific moments, processes, or market devices, while insightful in its own right, tells us very little about how they work in conjunction and their relative strength (Chakrabarti et al., 2016; Frankel, 2015; Kjellberg, Hagberg, & Cochoy, 2019).
The exclusive empirical grounding of accelerationist perspectives on the dynamics of mobile phone endurance in such evidence – and related disconnect between their predictions and actual developments – should act as a warning. A very different picture emerges when we study the dynamics of product endurance as emergent effects of market agencements. In the case studied here, I have linked each historical trend in mobile phone endurance with a different market agencement: a platform market performing higher
268 levels in the early 2000s, a singularities market performing lower levels in the mid-2000s, and a premium platform market performing higher levels again from the late 2000s onwards. Putting the theoretical idea of market agencements to work, this thesis was able to develop a holistic perspective of the dynamics of product endurance in a concrete empirical case. The case of mobile phones turned out to be particularly rich in that market agencements shifted considerably and performed product endurance in ways that, at times, did not correspond to widely held expectations. I suggest that the three devices presented in chapter 10 – prosthetic devices, habilitation devices, and addiction devices – may help sensitise researchers to the range of potential causes of changing levels of product endurance.
In addition, my analysis of mobile phone market agencements provides further illustration of the malleability of markets. While market studies demonstrated how markets have been re-framed to take emerging matters of concern into account (e.g. Callon, 2009; Reijonen
& Tryggestad, 2012; Geiger & Gross, 2018), the challenges posed by economic competition and concerns of cannibalisation to the improvement of product endurance have not been considered in this literature to date. In the premium platform market, to which I paid particular attention throughout the thesis, this potential problem has been largely circumvented through increasing prices. By establishing a ‘fewer, but better’ approach to consumption, sales revenues for new phones have been partly ‘decoupled’ from the endurance of phones in use and, by implication, resource use (cf. Kjaer et al.,
2018). The success of the premium platform market directs attention to a relatively underexposed way of achieving higher levels of product endurance that is given little attention to. Instead of fostering endurance solely through repair, reuse, care or other anticonsumerist practices, it may be productive to exploit the multiplicity of modes of valuation more fully and create multivalent, indispensable devices.
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12.2 The pace of market innovation and the politics of value
A central element of the research strategy pursued in this thesis has been to ‘embed’ the dynamics of product endurance within a wider biography of market innovation and analyse the latter through a valuation lens. In contrast to cyclical and accelerationist perspectives, which take the direction of change for granted, studies of value(s) in markets highlight how the competition between different and potentially mutually incompatible modes of valuation may affect the pace of market innovation. However, this stream of research neither provides a ready-made toolkit nor represents a unified theoretical approach. Consequently, various perspectives have been put forward on the relationship between the politics of value and the pace of innovation.
This thesis contributes in multiple ways to this debate by drawing on a case that stands out in being positioned somewhere in between the two preferred sites for the study of value(s) in markets in the literature: the highly economised financial markets and the politicised markets for singularities (Aspers & Beckert, 2011; Helgesson & Kjellberg, 2013). As the case studied here illustrates, such a location can bring to light another insightful extreme: sites where different ways of organising for multiple modes of valuation clash or interact.
Stark’s (2009) work on ‘productive frictions’, which challenged the assumption that dissonance necessarily slows down change and leads to a ‘freeze-frame’ (Kjellberg et al.,
2015) situation, has been particularly influential in the sociological study of markets to date. Both scenarios of freeze-frames and productive frictions, however, have been formulated with respect to concrete moments of dissonance. By contrast, I found that a dynamic conception of markets offers a more plausible account of the temporalities of market innovation. In particular, the case studied here provides empirical substance to the idea that market innovation involves permanent change through the ‘channelling’ of interactions between entities (ibid.). In line with previous studies in this stream of
270 research, this thesis finds that the re-organisation of relations between different modes of valuation contributed to discontinuous moments in marketisation processes (Mercier-
Roy & Mailhot, 2019; Trompette, 2013).
At the same time, my analysis contributes to a better understanding of how competing modes of valuation can be organised in platform markets. Rather than mere platforms articulating supply and demand (Callon, 2016), mobile phones were highly multivalent platforms. The biography provides a rich account of how platform goods come about and change their form. In examining how the multiplicity of modes of valuation was organised in a context that is still poorly understood, my analysis responds to calls for
“continued work on how to conceptualise the simultaneous dealing with multiple values as part of market practice” (Helgesson & Kjellberg, 2013: 367). I have done so, first, by highlighting three distinct, albeit interlinked valuation struggles that were involved in performing (premium) platforms, relating to the framing of 1) platforms instead of singularities, 2) premium instead of commoditised platforms, and 3) open instead of closed platforms. A second contribution here lies in drawing attention to the possible existence of ‘calculated overflows’ and ‘calculated backflows’. In the case at hand, the concepts help to make sense of the precariousness of upholding intertemporal relations between different modes of valuation in platform markets. In contrast to processes of singularisation, which allow for the co-existence of different modes of valuation in parallel, platform markets rely, at least in part, on a temporal ordering of modes of valuation, the relations between which need to be organised and calculated. The major repercussions of network operators’ failures at securing such calculated backflows in the mid-2000s – in a context of comparably high levels of product ambiguity –, provides a powerful illustration of their significance.
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12.3 Methodological reflections
To the extent that previous research approached the historical dynamics of product endurance, this was done only quantitatively and based on a very limited set of variables
(e.g. Steffens, 2001; Gordon, 2009; Riikonen, Smura, & Töyli, 2016). More in-depth qualitative research, meanwhile, has focused on specific market agencies and their assumed effects on product endurance rather than approaching the issue the other way round (e.g. Frank, 1997; Slade, 2006). This thesis, by contrast, pursued an alternative, ambitious path to develop a more holistic account of how change in product endurance comes about.
An important issue in thriving for a holistic account concerns the careers of singular products, which speaks to longstanding debates across the social sciences concerning the bridging of production and consumption and more recent efforts in the study of the production of waste to go beyond acquisition and use. In historical research, taking also processes such as detachment and divestment into account, however, often fails because of a lack of evidence (Weber, 2019). In the end, an imbalance towards the earlier moments in the careers of mobile phones, if not to the extent found in most product biographies, is something that I was just as unable to avoid. The selected data sources, especially the trade journal and mass media, yielded less information about later moments than I had hoped for. Perhaps studying trade journals in the areas of waste management and recycling would have been a fruitful addition to counteract this imbalance.
Another significant dimension was the multiplicity of competing efforts. To address this, I selected diverse samples of both mass media and interviewees. Specifically in the case of mass media, however, I found that diversity within the selected sources and the richness of the material were far more important than studying multiple outlets. The Guardian proved particularly rich for the purposes of this thesis, not only providing a platform for
272 different voices but also engaging with mobile phones in many different ways: from debates about the future to many interesting opinion pieces about recent developments.
The Sun, by contrast, neither featured the same level of plurality nor the level of detail and reflexivity characteristic of many articles in The Guardian. The Sun’s political approach worked through bombarding readers with reports of alarming events, not through reasoned critique, leaving the analyst frequently in the dark about the underlying concerns and desired alternatives.
For me, the core methodological challenge of this study, however, did not lie in making smart decisions to enable a more holistic perspective on the biography of mobile phones.
Their histories are relatively well documented and there are several vantage points from which one could have developed a fairly encompassing picture of the various market agencies and perspectives involved. The more pressing issues related to complexity of the case and difficulties in making sense of the developments amidst the vast amount of data available that I had collected.
As I have argued in chapter 3, I am convinced that household interviews are of great analytical and communicative value in the study of phenomena at sites of consumption, such as the issue of product endurance. What I did not expect at first, however, was that the interviews would very much move to the centre of my analytical efforts. Even though
I had collected and done a preliminary analysis of the other sets of data before, it was not until I began to study the interview data that I made a first breakthrough in drawing out the contours of the biography as presented in the previous chapters. While it was still a long way from there, each interview yielded a ‘mini-biography’ of the mobile phone that, being grounded in lived experiences and the people’s narrations, made it easier for me to detach myself from dominant theories of cyclical or accelerating change and gain an understanding of how consumers moved from one mobile phone to another. With an in- depth understanding of local attachment and detachment processes as a foundation, I
273 could progressively develop a more contextualised account and move from the concrete to the abstract. The finding that notions such as ‘fashion items’ or ‘tools’ were widely invoked among my interviewees to give structure and meaning to their accounts, for example, was an important clue that made me explore the merits of mobilising various cultural economy concepts such as valuation. Perhaps other methods would have produced similar benefits. Either way, my experiences corroborate the importance attributed to studying change at multiple scales in the biographies of artefacts and practices approach.
12.4 Résumé and directions for future research
The main motivations underpinning the research presented here, as described in the introduction to this thesis, originate in a previous project on the ‘use-times’ and lifetimes of various consumer durables, where, against the background of a public discourse characterised by mutual accusations, I pointed to the destructive performativity of narratives of planned obsolescence (Wieser et al., 2015) and problems associated with the criminalisation of supposed extreme cases of planned obsolescence at the expense of a more encompassing, cultural economy approach to product endurance (Wieser, 2016).
The purpose of this thesis, then, was to move beyond critique by developing an alternative, forward-looking perspective that can help creating new paths towards a world in which consumer goods remain in use for longer. In so doing, I have turned attention to markets, as the dominant mode of provision in the contemporary economy, asking how they can be transformed to improve product endurance and if so, how such markets would look like. Taking note of how levels of product endurance developed in the past, my contention was that there is much to be gained from taking a historical approach.
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The research presented in this thesis demonstrates the inadequacy of cyclical and accelerationist perspectives when it comes to accounting for the historical developments of product endurance in the case studied here. Markets are neither independent from product innovation nor necessarily act as barriers to higher levels of product endurance but can be and have been shaped to support such a trend. I would argue that this basic finding can be the foundation of a more productive dialogue and ambitious programme that turns markets into allies rather than focusing solely on niche innovations in the quest for improvements in product endurance. Based on the findings of this exploratory case study, I devote the final paragraphs to a discussion of some options for taking this programme forward.
A first point of departure can be located in the specific ‘forms of the probable’ described in this thesis, which deserve further scrutiny. The adoption of a ‘fewer, but better’ approach to consumption in particular has long been a core demand of environmentalists yet remains heavily under-researched. The proposition is attractive for it does not seek a
‘decoupling’ of economic growth and material consumption solely through technological fixes and improvements in efficiency but also by means of sufficiency (cf. Cooper, 2005).
In the case studied here, this has even been achieved twice. Many elements and strategies inherent to the platform or premium platform markets that underpinned these developments could also prove productive in other contexts. For instance, a shift towards more multivalent clothes that can be worn on various occasions, which would likely require both changes in clothing design and social norms, could both reduce the number of clothing pieces per individual and lead to the purchasing of higher-quality garments.
Another inspiration could be drawn from the national support of service providers in the mobile phone market. The power of network operators, through their direct connections with mobile phone buyers, was pivotal in the transition to a platform market. Could governments, instead of changing only the parameters (e.g. taxes on repair), shape also
275 other markets to grant service providers, from independent repair companies to internet providers, a more powerful role?
It is important to point out, however, that in focusing on product endurance, I have side- lined many of the problems associated with the market agencements studied in this thesis.
The issue of smartphone addiction is an obvious one. Bundled contracts too were highly unpopular, for a reason. Such effects, first, raise the question about the longevity of platform or premium platform markets. The biography of mobile phones teaches us that overflows are inevitable and can ignite powerful countertrends. The platform market in the early 2000s was short-lived and, as shown in chapter 9, the premium platform market is seriously being undermined by an emerging ‘circular platform market’ with uncertain consequences for product endurance. Economic pressures to generate higher profits played a significant destabilising role in this regard. Considering this, longer-term case studies are needed to understand how improvements in product endurance can be sustained in a capitalist economy (cf. Feola, 2020).
The negative overflows created by the (premium) platform markets also raise a second set of questions: Are they necessary? Could the same positive effects on product endurance be achieved through other means? In addressing these questions, there is considerable potential in comparative work. More analytically oriented work could begin by examining whether mobile phone markets took the same shape in countries where the same developments in product endurance could be observed, such as, at least for recent years, in the United States. Another strategy would be to compare countries where different developments could be observed. Following previous research, the endurance of mobile phones in use has developed in very different directions, even within Europe
(Euromonitor International, 2018; Tojo & Manomaivibool, 2011).
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There is also considerable scope for further exploratory research. An ambitious project would be to extend the case studied here and consider the dynamics of product endurance at the scale of an ‘ecology’ of competing goods (Pantzar, 1997). Mobile phones, having been at the centre of convergence processes, may be a good starting point for such an endeavour (see Hielscher, Jaeger-Erben, & Poppe, 2020). Furthermore, mobile phones, while constituting a privileged site in terms of the availability of data, are not the only goods where improvements in endurance could be witnessed, providing the opportunity to explore other ‘forms of the probable’ in different contexts. Do singularisation processes, for example, contribute to higher levels of product endurance in other contexts?
Considering the current attention given to the economic lives of consumer durables and perhaps even the introduction of digital product passports in the near future, one may expect that there will be far more data about processes of repair, reuse, and divestment available in the future, which would certainly facilitate longitudinal case study research on product endurance and create opportunities for further exploratory research. Availability of data aside, it is my hope that the present thesis provides some methodological inspirations and useful theoretical sensibilities on how to examine product endurance in other markets, perhaps even on how to study and present biographies of artefacts at large.
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Appendices
Appendix A: scoping interviews
Table 6: List of scoping interviews
Date Expert Institution / Job Expertise (examples) Topics Interview duration
March Joseph Professor of Publications with Product release 48min 22nd, Lampel Innovation Claudio Giachetti cycles; innovation 2017 Management, on portfolio and sales strategies; University of strategies of phone the roles of critics Manchester manufacturers in UK
March Claudio Associate Professor of Many publications Historical 53min 23rd, Giachetti Strategy, Ca’ Foscari on product portfolio development of 2017 University of Venice management and replacement cycles; sales strategies of price competition phone and consumer manufacturers purchasing power
March Nigel Linge Professor of Author of book “30 Historical 79min 27th, Telecommunications years of mobile development of 2017 , University of phones in the UK” replacement cycles; Salford product release cycles; history of mobile network infrastructure
March Robin Roy Emeritus Professor of Book chapter on Industry life-cycle; 44min 28th, Design and mobile phones and fashion design; 2017 Environment, Open design/environment environmental University transition
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April Carolina Analyst at Creative In charge of regular Power relations 37min 5th, Milanesi Strategies consumer surveys on between 2017 (California); mobile phones at a manufacturers and previously chief of global level, but network operators; research at Kantar based in the UK. development of Worldpanel and Frequent replacement cycles; Gartner Research commentator in the importance of media on changes in subsidies; durability the mobile phone of phones; product industry. release cycles; software updates
April Hamish Director of In the industry since Power relations 43min 12th, MacLeod MobileUK (trade 1994; mainly active between 2017 association on regulations manufacturers and representing UK four operators; operators), before relationship of Chair of MobileUK operators to predecessor Mobile replacement cycles; Broadband Group reasons for longer contract lengths and ban on 36 months; main drivers of replacement cycles
April Leopoldina Professor at Many publications Fashion versus 82min 21st, Fortunati University of Udine on fashion in mobile design; product 2017 telephony release cycles; fashion-orientation among consumers; market research of operators; relationship between operators and manufacturers
May Nick Former employee at Worked on the Trend towards longer 26min 5th, Hutton Consumer Focus and Consumer Focus contracts; positions of 2017 OFCOM position against Consumer Focus and longer contracts operators; ban on 36- months contracts
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Jan 17th Jukinen Design consultant at Long-term industry Design and product 20min + and Tapani Fraunhofer, Berlin experience as a portfolio strategies at 90min 23rd, and chief design leading designer of Nokia; relationship (not 2019 officer at mobile telephones between recorded) Puzzlephone; manufacturers and formerly leading network operators; positions as design challenges in manager in the fashionising mobile mobile phone phones and entry into division at Nokia and luxury segment; key Microsoft (1995- design challenges 2014) over the years
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Appendix B: household interviews
Appendix B1: letter to residents
1 May 2018
Dear resident
I am a PhD student at the University of Manchester exploring people's personal experiences with mobile phones. My research looks at the ways people use mobile phones and how significant phones are to their everyday lives.
For this study I am looking to interview people over the age of 18 who have lived in the UK for at least the past 15 years and regularly used mobile phones. The interview will last about 45 minutes and will take the form of an informal chat about your experiences with mobile phones. I can come to your home to do the interview at a time that is convenient to you or we can conduct the interview in another place (e.g. the University) if you would prefer.
This study is conducted as part of a doctoral research project at Manchester University's Sustainable Consumption Institute (please see the leaflet attached for more details) and has been reviewed by, and received ethics clearance through the Alliance Manchester Business School. If you have any concerns about me contacting you or about the research, please contact the Institute Manager Susan Hogan: [email protected].
For more information about this study, or to volunteer for this study, please contact me via phone or e-mail (contact details on top). I would very much appreciate your participation.
Thank you very much for your time.
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Appendix B2: poster
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Appendix B3: leaflet (two–sided)
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Appendix B4: participant information sheet
You are being invited to take part in a research study as part of a postgraduate degree at the University of Manchester. Before you decide it is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully and discuss it with others if you wish. Please ask if there is anything that is not clear or if you would like more information. Take time to decide whether or not you wish to take part. Thank you for reading this.
Who will conduct the research?
Harald Wieser, doctoral researcher at Alliance Manchester Business School, Booth St E, Manchester M13 9SS, UK
Title of the Research
The changing uses and meanings of mobile phones
What is the aim of the research?
This research aims to develop an understanding of the people's experiences with mobile phones and how these changed over time.
Why have I been chosen?
I am interested in talking to you because, as a long-term user of mobile phones, you made your own unique experiences with these devices. The interview will not involve any other participants.
What would I be asked to do if I took part?
The interview will take the form of an informal chat about your experiences with mobile phones.
What happens to the data collected?
The recorded interview will be transcribed and analysed for the above stated purpose. Anonymised quotes from the interview may be used in publications.
How is confidentiality maintained?
No names or personal data will be stored. Data will be securely stored by the researcher in an encrypted hard drive that will be always kept safe. Anonymised data may be passed as anonymous data to other researchers.
What happens if I do not want to take part or if I change my mind?
It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take part you will be given this information sheet to keep and be asked to sign a consent form. If you decide to take part you are still free to withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without detriment to yourself.
Will I be paid for participating in the research?
This study does not provide financial compensation for participation.
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What is the duration of the research?
This interview may take 45 minutes, depending on your availability and interest.
Where will the research be conducted?
I can come to your home to do the interview at a time that is convenient to you or we can conduct the interview in another place (e.g. University) if you would prefer.
Will the outcomes of the research be published?
The findings will be published in a number of forms, in print and electronically, including reports, articles, books, and presentations. They will be of interest to academics and to others who are interested in the uses and meanings of mobile phones.
Who has reviewed the research project?
This project has been reviewed by the Alliance Manchester Business School.
Contact for further information
E-mail: [email protected]
Postal address: 178 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road M13 9PL, Manchester, UK
What if something goes wrong?
To make a formal complaint about the conduct of the research you should contact the Research Governance and Integrity Manager, Research Office, Christie Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, by emailing: [email protected], or by telephoning 0161 275 7583 or 275 8093.
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Appendix B5: interviewee profiles
Table 7: Interviewee profiles
Fictitious name Age Gender Personal phones since Interview duration (minutes)
Amelie 62 F 1997/98 52
Barbara 43 F 2000 80
Catherine Mid-50s F 1998 69
Enora 31 F 2000 71
Esther 60 F Early 2000s 45
Fiona Mid-40s F 1998 72
Gareth 27 M Around 2000 77
Jeremy Early 40s M 1998/99 60
Joanna mid-40s F Around 1998 70
Kyle mid-50s M 1999/2000 49
Lucía 32 F 2000 63
Michael 34 M 2000 57
Peter 69 M 2002 61
Ramsha 24 F 2010 49
Ronnie Mid-40s M 1999 56
Shera 31 F 2006 43
Susanna 58 F End of 90s 75
Theresa 30 F 1999 71
Thomas 40 M Around 2000 67
Victoria Mid-40s F 1999 56
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Appendix B6: interview guide
Part I: Life history
− How would you describe your life situation of about 20 years ago? − Can you tell me a bit about you and how your life evolved in the past 20 years?
Mobility − Where did you grow up? − For how long have you been living in this house/apartment? − Where did you live before?
Family situation − Are you living here with someone else? − Do you have a partner / children? − Where do your closest relatives live?
Job / Education − What do you do for a living? − Did you do any other jobs before? − What was the last school or university you attended?
Interests, hobbies, friends − What sorts of things do you do in your free time? − What do you do on a typical weekend? − Do you have any hobbies or special interests?
Personality, identity − Did you change as a person in the past 20 years? How? − Thinking about life in general, what do you care about the most? What are the most important things to you? − When did you become concerned about that...?
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Part II: Mobile phone consumption
Have you got your phone here? Do you also have some of your previous phones here?
Appropriation/divestment − Do you remember your first phone? − Can you tell me a bit about the other phones you had since then and when you got them? (timeline) − What did you use the phones for? − Did you ever make any changes to phones or personalise them?
Acquisition/disposal − How did changes from one phone to the next usually come about? − Where did you get your phones from? Were they new or second-hand? − How did you pay for your phones? (contracts, pre-pay) − How much did you pay for your phones? − What happened to your old phones?
Appreciation/devaluation − When choosing a phone, what did you usually look for? − Do you generally follow up on new developments and trends in mobile phones? − Do you talk about mobile phones with others sometimes? − Can you imagine life without a phone? − What do you think about mobile phones in general?
Conclude − Is there something else you would like to tell me that we did not talk about?
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Appendix C: trends in mobile phone endurance in use
The generation of reliable estimates of durable goods endurance is challenging and often fails due to a lack of required data. A common method for estimating product endurance is thus to collect primary data through questionnaire surveys of consumers. Such estimates are available for many durables, including mobile phones, and have been produced in various countries at different points in time. However, along with concerns related to the reliability of such estimates, the data obtained from surveys is usually not representative for the entire population of mobile phone users. This means that there are limitations in comparing estimates of product endurance obtained at different points in time.
For the British mobile phone market, the regulatory agency and market research companies have collected all the necessary data for calculating the average phone endurance for each year since 2002. The estimation of the average level of endurance follows the intuitive method used by Entner (2011), who suggests that the product endurance can be considered as the inverse of the ratio of phones in use that are replaced in a given year. Following this basic formula, changes over time in product endurance result from changes in the number of phones sold on the market or changes in the number of phones in use. While this method relies on only two statistics – annual phone sales and number of phones in use, there are different ways to identify and measure each.
For annual phone sales, market research company Euromonitor International provides statistics for the period between 2002 and 2017. While sales data are also available from other market research companies, it is important to have a consistent measurement method throughout the study period. Euromonitor is the only agency offering such data.
Euromonitor obtains its data from various sources, including national statistics, trade associations, trade press, and company research, and claims to account for the total
322 number of mobile phones sold in each year. The data includes only the phones sold by a company, not the exchanges made by private households.
The number of phones in use is typically measured using statistics on the number of subscribers to mobile services. This is based on the assumption that there is one mobile subscription for each phone in use. While partly violated by the existence of dual-SIM phones, where one single phone can be used with two subscriptions, dual-SIM phones are still rare in the British market. Mobile subscriptions can therefore be regarded as a good proxy for the total number of phones in use. Statistics of mobile subscriptions are available from the World Bank. For the year 2015, the statistics indicate that there were
124 subscriptions per 100 people in the UK, suggesting that many people use two or more phones at the same time. Based on these statistics, it is possible to calculate the total time period phones are used for on average.
Total use period per person = (subscribers – net subscriber additions) / (phone sales – net subscriber additions)
Considering that many devices are used as secondary phones, however, this period does not reflect the frequency at which households acquire a new phone. In other words, what is not measured are the moments when a phone is replaced as a primary phone and turns into a secondary phone. The difference between the total period a household uses a phone and the time period the same household uses the phone as a primary one is crucial, as it is the replacement of primary phones that creates demand for new phones and leads to the discarding or piling up of existing phones. Secondary phones are, for the most part, used only as back-ups and typically replaced at the same time as primary phones, as phones move along a chain from the primary to the secondary phone and beyond (Wilson et al. 2017). In the following, product endurance thus refers only to the frequency at which primary phones are replaced (including multiple owners).
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To estimate the average level of phone endurance, statistics on mobile subscription numbers need to be substituted by the number of phone owners. Such statistics are produced by Ofcom, the British regulatory authority for the telecommunication sector.
Ofcom conducts annual surveys among the adult population to determine the proportion of households owning a range of telecoms technologies, including mobile phones. In most recent years, the proportion of households owning at least one mobile phone has stabilised at 95% (Ofcom, 2016). A small shortcoming of the data provided by Ofcom is that penetration rates are based on the household level. Unfortunately, no source provides penetration rates on the basis of individuals for the whole period since 2002. Evidence from market research agency Mintel suggests that such penetration rates are expectably lower but only by a few percentage points. Moreover, this difference has levelled off over time, with penetration rates among individual adults having converged to the penetration rates among households. While in 2003 the penetration rate among adults was at 76% and the one among households at 80% (Laryea, 2005), the difference shrank to one percentage point in 2009, when the rates were at 91 and 92% respectively (King, 2010, Ofcom,
2016). For the estimation of produce endurance, this means that Ofcom figures slightly overestimate mobile phone penetration in the early years of the study period, resulting in minimally higher levels of product endurance. Yet historical trends remain unaffected by this.
An additional limitation of this type of data is that the surveys asked only people aged 16 and higher, leaving out a key group of mobile phone users. Almost half (48%) of children aged 5-15 personally own a mobile phone (Ofcom, 2016). To reflect the total population of mobile phone owners more accurately, I added the number of children with mobile phones to the population of adult mobile phone owners. The penetration rates among children aged 5-15 come from Ofcom's children's literacy surveys. Since such statistics are not available for the period before 2007, it is assumed that penetration rates among
324 children developed in parallel with penetration rates among adults during this period.
Including children in the analysis does not affect historical trends but increases the average period of phone endurance by about a month. Finally, to calculate the overall population of mobile phone owners, penetration rates are combined with population statistics from
Eurostat. Substituting the numbers of subscribers (phones in use) with the data on owners, the level of product endurance can be calculated as follows:
Phone endurance = (phone owners – net owner additions) / (phone sales – net owner additions)
The resulting development of mobile phone endurance in the period between 2002 and
2017 is depicted in Figure 1 (chapter 1). A comparison with other sources demonstrates the accuracy of estimates presented here, both in terms of temporal patterns and absolute levels. For the most recent years, analysts at Kantar Worldpanel estimated the level of phone endurance to have increased from 20 months in 2013, to 22 months in 2014, and
23.5 months in 2015 (Milanesi and Guenveur, 2016). Similarly, Euromonitor
International estimates for the period between 2012 and 2016 suggest an improving level of phone endurance of both smartphones and feature phones, again in close alignment with the figures obtained in this study (Euromonitor International, 2019). Estimates for the years between 2002 and 2009 are thin on the ground. However, Tojo and
Manomaivibool’s (2011) estimations confirm the trend of deteriorating endurance between 2004 and 2008, indicating a drop from 25 to 17 months until 2006 and a relative stabilisation at 16-17 months until 2008. Finally, the figures are largely consistent with the trends reported in business media at the time. For the years of 2000 and 2001 in particular, precise estimates cannot be obtained. However, industry experts took note of significant increases in phone endurance (Latour, 2001), a trend that is also reflected in evidence of a major decline in sales during these two years (Laryea, 2003) and more general reports of economic crisis for manufacturers (see chapter 6).
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