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 [Blank page] 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