Chapter 338 - 337: Brave New World (Finale)

At the mention of a penalty, Liu Meizhu immediately dropped the idea of renovating.

Since Homo Sapiens Company's residential buildings were only for rent, not for sale, the properties belonged to the company. Employees only had usage rights, so they didn't have the authority to make unauthorized alterations.

Even for redecoration, they had to go through the parent company's subsidiary, Coral Decoration Group, and the parts that could be privately modified were very limited.

Zhao Jingcai continued to remind them, "You'll need to take good care of the furniture and appliances. There's a maintenance and replacement fee for them, which is calculated based on their service life."

"How much is the fee?" Chen Yanxiu asked quickly.

"Furniture usually has a 10 to 15-year damage-free period, and appliances have a 5 to 10-year one. The 'damage-free period' means that within this timeframe, the company won't replace them with new ones. After this period, if they show signs of aging or malfunction, you can exchange the old for a new one of the same model."

Chen Yanxiu rubbed his chin. "So, you're saying if something gets damaged during the damage-free period, we have to pay the maintenance and replacement fees?"

Zhao Jingcai nodded. "That's right."

Liu Meizhu, who had turned on the TV, smiled as she clicked the remote. "These appliances can last 5 to 10 years?"

"Don't worry, ma'am. These appliances are all manufactured by the company itself. As long as you don't use them improperly or violently, they'll last for more than 12 years."

Chen Yanxiu was very surprised. "The company doesn't practice planned obsolescence?"

"There's no need for that." Zhao Jingcai smiled and shook his head. "The company isn't chasing profits on products sold to internal employees, so of course, we don't play those kinds of tricks."

Just as Zhao Jingcai said, the "profit" that internal employees could provide to Homo Sapiens Company was, in fact, their labor.

Under these circumstances, it meant that the more sturdy and durable the products sold to internal employees were, the lower the company's operating costs would be.

Otherwise, if a TV started having problems after just three or four years and employees had to buy new ones, wouldn't that mean the company would have to divert resources to produce more new TVs?

In a free market, planned obsolescence is a necessary choice for corporations to maintain production volume and profits.

Although planned obsolescence leads to a massive and repetitive waste of resources, that's just the reality of survival in a free market.

But Homo Sapiens Company had no need for that.

Wouldn't it be better to invest those resources in technological research and development?

Therefore, the products Homo Sapiens Company supplied internally were usually the sturdy, durable versions.

...

Liu Meizhu watched the TV program, unconsciously pressing the remote to change channels.

"Huh? Why are they all Chinese channels? I remember Homo Sapiens Company's official languages include Burmese, English, Thai, Malay, and Javanese, right?"

Zhao Jingcai paused for a moment, then thought for a bit. "The Nanyang Film Company probably set Chinese as your default language automatically."

Chen Yanxiu, who was preparing formula for his young daughter, glanced at the TV. "You don't see old TVs like this much anymore."

The television in the living room did look a bit like an old model, but it was actually a state-of-the-art TV. It used Homo Sapiens Company's exclusive nano-structured light screen, which not only had extremely low energy consumption but also produced a softer image.

The reason for its old-fashioned design was that the TV wasn't designed for young people at all; it was designed for the elderly.

This was the television standard established by Homo Sapiens Company's Office of Social Research after careful deliberation.

Many television manufacturers nowadays blindly pursue so-called innovation without any regard for the user's experience, cramming in a bunch of flashy, useless features.

The elderly can't use them, and young people rarely watch TV, resulting in the television having a very awkward role in the household.

Homo Sapiens Company's Office of Social Research had identified this problem. After entering the 2020s, with the widespread adoption of smartphones, laptops, and tablets, the primary user base for televisions had shrunk to the middle-aged and elderly.

Yet, TV manufacturers were trying to win back the youth market by adding more functions.

There was nothing wrong with this idea in itself, but the problem was their execution was incredibly boneheaded.

While trying to embrace young consumers, they forgot about the television's largest user base—the middle-aged and elderly—and ended up creating flashy, overly complicated features, many of which were extremely difficult to use.

Their attempts to balance the needs of the young and the old were handled so poorly that they ended up pleasing neither group.

But Homo Sapiens Company learned from this lesson and completely re-evaluated the television's features.

When Liu Meizhu turned on the TV, the system automatically entered a "dummy mode," directly displaying the Homo Sapiens Chinese Channel 1. It only allowed for changing channels with the remote, rather than navigating through various function menus.

"This remote is actually the one designed for the elderly. If you want to use the other functions, they're in here..." As Zhao Jingcai spoke, he pulled open a drawer in the TV stand and took out a small box.

After opening the box, he revealed a smart remote, a wireless mechanical keyboard, a wireless mouse, and a voice-controlled remote.

Having finished preparing the milk, Chen Yanxiu handed the bottle to his wife and then started fiddling with the keyboard and smart remote.

"With all these accessories, this TV is basically a computer."

Zhao Jingcai said with a smile, "The production line for this type of TV is shared with our computer production line. And this voice-controlled remote is also for the convenience of the elderly and children."

He picked up the voice-controlled remote, which looked like a karaoke microphone, and pressed the red record button. "I want to watch 'True Happiness.'"