{"content":[{"text":"The Fossil Makers","bbox":{"left":0.121008,"top":0.082963,"width":0.13236899999999996,"height":0.017490999999999993}},{"text":"Schmidt-Bleek","bbox":{"left":0.423484,"top":0.082963,"width":0.10492799999999997,"height":0.017490999999999993}},{"text":"120","bbox":{"left":0.847043,"top":0.082963,"width":0.026079999999999992,"height":0.017490999999999993}},{"text":"Interlude: of electric drills, lawn mowers and service provision","bbox":{"left":0.181513,"top":0.128957,"width":0.6319929999999999,"height":0.023094000000000003}},{"text":"Industrial products are really only needed when they are also used. To use means to \n derive utility or to obtain a service. In this light, we could perhaps argue that people do not \n buy products so much as they acquire service delivery machines. This is true for the shower, \n as it is for the automobile, the washing machine, packaging, the electric drill or the \n refrigerator. \n In order to obtain a service, one needn't own the product outright. Most people do not \n buy an airplane to go on their next vacation. But many people wish for an electric drill for \n Christmas, even though they rarely use it either. If one out of every fifteen people in \n Germany owns such a drill, then more than 10,000 tons of the highest quality material was \n \"locked up,\" not to mention twenty times that amount in consumed environment that was \n transformed, before the product could be bought in the store. If the belief in never-ending \n material growth turns out to be true, then many people probably will own private planes in the \n near future--if enough room remains in the skies, and the biosphere has not already begun to \n eliminate the great inventor by that time. \n Now let us take a look at the lawn mower. This machine costs somewhere between \n $100 and $2,500 new. When purchasing such a tool, one has an immense selection: with a \n gas engine, an electrical engine, with no engine, a push mower, a lawn mower tractor and \n with or without various other frills. The name of the machine goes a long way toward \n helping us understand what it is good for: you can cut off the top part of the grass with it. \n Sophisticated models even collect what was cut off. In most latitudes it is used anywhere \n from five to twenty times a year. After a while, we go out and buy a new mower. This \n happens maybe five to ten times over the course of a lifetime. \n One could approach the situation differently, though. We could begin with the \n question as to what we are trying to achieve, how much of it and why? Which service need \n are we satisfying? In the case of the lawn mower that should be pretty simple, no? Maybe \n not. \n Do we want a lawn as smooth as a rug because we like to practice our golf there? \n Because we don't like weeds; because that is the way our parents did it, or because we think \n the neighbors expect it? Is physical exercise important or is it perhaps because we really \n want to impress the Jones's next door with our new tractor? Which service delivery machine \n would be the most appropriate? \n Or should we perhaps not buy one at all? Perhaps it would be cheaper and better for \n the grass if we paid a contractor to do it for us. A call is all it would take. The repair, \n maintenance, storage and insurance would all be included in the price. But maybe the \"zero- \n option\" is the best after all: letting the grass grow, because wildflowers are pretty too--at least \n into the fall? \n You might think this is not an example from which to generalize. Well, what else \n would we have a hard time parting with? The car? The refrigerator, washing machine, \n computer, VCR, electrical kitchen knife, detergent, having a car telephone or a private fax \n machine? What about the house? \n What about trying it out? Before we buy the next object, let's ask ourselves exactly \n what service we want/need, how much of it, when and for what purpose? Let us compare, for","bbox":{"left":0.121008,"top":0.165278,"width":0.758004,"height":0.708513}},{"text":"120","bbox":{"left":0.487261,"top":0.898946,"width":0.02531,"height":0.015780000000000016}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}