I've been thinking a bunch lately about technological increases in productive efficiency, and about some of the different ways that the capitalist pigs scheme to retain control over newfound profits through their manipulation of the means of production.
For example, I remember reading years ago that because of the increase in productivity associated with the modernization of washing machines, modern laundry detergent products are actually way more effective than they need to be (and that their marketing implies). When the bottle tells you to fill up the cap to the marked line, that's actually way more detergent than you need to use for a regular ass load of laundry. Like you literally need somewhere like a third or half of the "recommended" amount of detergent that it says on the bottle lol.
This is because the detergent producers’ profits are tailored to the status quo of their production; if consumption was suddenly halved, the company would have a crisis of overproduction that would eat into their profit margin. obviously this didn't simply happen all at once - but the small increases in efficiency created by the technological boom was not met with an appropriate rise in wages.
I want to start trying to investigate more examples of these situations and products that have been bent to the bourgeoisies' benefit rather than the proles'. I think that trying to become aware of these things is the first step to agitating around concrete ways that people can reclaim value created by these ‘hidden efficiencies,’ as I’ve currently taken to calling them. I'm also very open to suggestions for names that are more clear lol.
What are some hidden efficiencies you’ve noticed in your area of study, profession, or interest?
"High Resolution audio", is practically useless for the end consumer and a marketing gimmick. There is no music out there that is going to make use of the 144db of dynamic range that 24 bit audio has, and higher sample rates are pointless as humans can't hear above 20kHz. Hell, most people over 30 can't even hear above 16kHz.
This stuff is very useful for producers, but not so much for the end users.
In fact most people will be unable to tell a 192kbps Opus or AAC file from an CD quality FLAC file, even while using high quality headphones or speakers. While FLAC is a great archival format as it's lossless, there's no need to waste space or bandwidth by streaming everything in 24 bit 192kHz FLAC quality from Apple music or Spotify HI-FI. The chances are, you can't tell the difference.
In short, post MP3 modern audio compression formats and algorithms have become so good, that music streaming services and audio companies are capitalising on audiofool stuff to sell "high res audio" versions of their service for more money. By taking advantage of people's bad experiences with MP3 in the early days (MP3 was, and is garbage though). Even though 99.9% of people won't be able to tell the difference between "high res audio", and a decent bitrate compressed AAC or OPUS stream.