Many people now live in societies where consumer goods have become cheap. Do advantages outweigh disadvantages?
The prices of goods have reduced significantly owing to increased productivity, technology and other factors, which allows people to afford various products. Beneficial as this development may seem instantly, there are some drawbacks worth considering.
On the positive side, the life of the population has largely improved in many areas. In terms of daily necessities such as food and clothing, lower costs enable even the impoverished to live on a tiny budget without their serious concern about hunger or the cold. Furthermore, those with average incomes can enjoy products of higher quality more than before. As for higher needs such as entertainment and education, affordable prices provide the majority of the population with access to better and higher education, whereas most common forms of leisure activities have been added to the options of ordinary people for better life quality. For instance, travelling by air for a holiday has become very common because of cheap airline, and more people are now able to attend courses with reasonable fees at centers.
However, price reduction is also accompanied by several disadvantages. One of them is the decline in product quality generally caused by the failure to comply with mass manufacture standards. An obvious example of this is China made goods which are notorious for poor durability as a result of using unqualified materials and unskilled labour in exchange for price competitiveness. Another problem is that people can waste products and resources when the goods are too cheap to mind. For example, households and restaurants throw away a massive amount of leftovers every day worldwide; similarly, water is wasted in many developed countries.
In conclusion, it is obvious to acknowledge the dominant benefits of humans’ effort to make products financially available for everyone, but the adverse effects of this development should not be overlooked
