The Age of Rig Tech

What is Rig Tech?

The extraction of human time, money, attention, autonomy and enjoyment through technology in ways that undermine the advertised benefits of a product or service, and the reasonable expectations of its users. Technology is supposed to improve life, perform functions and solve problems – Rig Tech is designed around transferring value from a persons life into the pockets of shareholders at every opportunity.

Rig Tech companies can be identified by familiar patterns including enshittification, anti-features and rent seeking, often implemented through subscriptions, microtransactions and paywalls that create artificial restrictions or dependencies. Planned obsolescence is also a common pattern for consumer technology and household appliances. You can really tell when a company doesn’t want you to keep using old products when they fight things like right to repair.

Marketing and logistics are a vital part of the Rig Tech economy. In Western countries, large retail chains will stick to particular brands and types of products which sustain the Rig Tech ecosystem. Audio-visual products like portable speakers without auxilary inputs, proprietary power and data cables, TVs with a Netflix button on the remote, and other physical constraints that limit flexibility and freedom are common in Rig Tech products.

RIP Luxury Brands

There used to be a category within electronics occupied by well regarded companies like Dyson, Bose, Sonos and others. They charged a premium for their products and were considered luxury because they not only offered a higher standard with design and parts used, but their customer service backed that up with longer warranties and generous replacement policies.

The transition to a XAAS economy (Everything As A Service) has completely up-ended the quality of these companies products. Dyson Bladeless fans now die after a few years because of a software issue and become unusable. Many older Sonos speakers are similarly unable to be used because of an app change. This is a completely violation of the expectations that consumers had when they paid a premium to buy products from these companies, and yet they have gotten away with it because of the perceived value the brand still clings onto.

In time, consumers will catch on to the death of Luxury Technology brands. Innovation has already stopped at companies like Apple and Sony, who used to pride themselves not just on innovation but unique aesthetic designs that pushed the envelope. Now they churn out the same products every year like they’re bored of their own existence, and yet due to their market position they just won’t die either.

The alternative to Rig Tech

Challenging the domination of Rig Tech is a number of smaller movements around the world. And that reflects a changing consumer in the west. People outside the polished big retail brands and malls are already familiar with many of these options because they’ve been there all along.

If you go to any tech marketplace in Asia, you won’t just see big brands like Samsung and Microsoft – you’ll see smaller and more local brands that offer unique products designed around the consumer’s needs and preferences.

In Australia you can find these products in hobbyist electronics stores and some computer shops as well, but the exposure in the west is definitely much more limited. You have to go online to find the more advanced stuff like modern MP3 players (yes, they still exist!) and portable gaming devices.

When the smartphone first dropped, it was determined by our Rig Tech overlords that certain products would be obsolete now so that they can use the digital version of it to extract more value from the consumer.

Twenty years ago, you could reasonable go from two motions with your fingers on the device to listening to music. Now you have to open an app, dismiss a system notification, wait for the app’s ad to finish and then wait for your music collection to load. That is a substantial delay, cognitive burden and lack of flexibility for a consumer that paid money for this experience.

Even a smartwatch can’t escape the snowball effect of our interconnected world following you. Can you even say your blood pressure is correctly being measured if it goes up every time you check your device and have a reminder of a bill hanging over you?

There’s a very strong case to be made here that Rig Tech hasn’t just cost consumers money, it is affecting their mental health and that may have downstream effects on their physical health too.

The alternative to Rig Tech is to be conscious when making a purchase, not just of the transaction but the actual process of using a product or service. And to be aware of what the alternatives are by keeping up to day with marketplaces that aren’t controlled by Rig Tech companies and their allies in retail, marketing and even government.

Coining the term

I coined the term Rig Tech because I wanted to give everyone an easy to understand definition of what it is and what it means. It’s a mash up of the phrases “big tech” and “rigged tech”, and hopefully simply coining the term here provides a meaningful way for others to talk about these issues.

Useful links and terms

Terms:

Digital Audio Player (DAP): The modern term for an MP3 player
Single Board Computer (SBC): A computer that fits on a single board
Retro gaming handheld: A portable gaming device designed to play older games, often through emulation.
Network Attached Storage (NAS): A storage device connected to your home network, giving your devices access to your own collection of files, music and videos.