"Working on the lathe, call up some plans on Google Glass, get served an ad for some nonsense, lose fingers."

"This is pretty sad. Syd Mead was doing far better versions of these kinds of vehicles 40+ years ago. These designs would look outdated in any contemporary sci-fi movie."

"Scott -- You're right, the argument doesn't make sense, but only if you take the product half of it on its own. I disagree that most manufacturers are interested in making good products -- the evidence of sloppily designed and cheap products is all around us, but maybe we have different definitions of good. Of course a cheap camera is rubbish because it's cheap, but that doesn't answer the question of why it should be on the market in the first place. Most manufacturers are primarily interested in making money and a large proportion of products are designed to a pricepoint that marketing has decided the market will accept. The result is that most companies do the least they can get away with, not the best that they or their designers can do. I would wager, however, that most designers would like to be designing products that are the best they can create and that people actually need and enjoy using because of their quality. Androo really answered the rest of your points for me and I agree with what her/his points. Walter J - Yes, you're right. It's the old "you don't need a drill, you need holes in the wall" way of seeing things. Service thinking is really about thinking about outcomes, not products, but it's clear that services still need products. I don't see how your second point necessarily follows on though. It's a question of cultural norms, not a class divide between rich and poor. In Germany, as in many European countries, it's common to rent your house/apartment, for example. Not just for a couple of years, but for 10, 20, even 30 years. It has the opposite effect to your fourth point, which is that the housing market doesn't suffer the same rapid turnover and bubbles as in the UK, Australia and, I presume (my experience is from those other countries), the USA. With regards your fifth point, it's not unethical to charge people for a service you provide. Would those people pay more money over time compared to constantly buying a new version of a product? Not necessarily, but like a owning anything that you can rent or lease, it's a choice that people can make. If we are to use less resources and consume less in terms of products and try and have a functioning economic reason for doing so, services and access are the way to go. Steve - Good point. It's with the intangibles, or "perennially replenishable digital artefacts", people have less of a sense of ownership, especially because they essentially lend or share a perfect copy and don't lose out themselves. My students discovered a whole batch of cultural issues about people's motivations for lending or sharing -- it's really interesting and very, very culturally specific. I'll have to write something up about it!"

"Great piece and good to hear some well-argued criticism of this area. I agree with Jerry in the comment above, though I think we should be looking to train designers not to be a particular letter shape, but simply to be people who can understand how to work with a team of other equally talented people from different backgrounds. Designers often excel at seeing design problems from different perspectives, but are sometimes terrible at understanding other types of social and work cultures. Our distaste for, say corporate hierarchies and suits, for example, often close our minds to those very people we need to access in order to create change."

"Hi Siddhartha and Chris - thanks for the comments. I think the purpose of doing a PhD in design really needs to be personally driven first and foremost. You have to want to do it otherwise any other reasons (such as having to do it to keep/get a job) are going to be less motivating."

"Dan - I get the irony, but actually there is a lot in there about designers thinking together about how to present a coherent voice in the public arena. Also about how we think about structuring design education and research. The readers of Core77 are the main targets for that, but I'd would of course like to see this conversation happening outside the walls of the design world."

"Check out the Mixa USB 'mixtape' stick too: http://www.makeamixa.com/"

"You forgot Live|Work."

"I always find it hard to get all that excited about these kinds of concepts. Roll-up, fold-up, bendy displays and devices have featured for years in concept designs and there's still little sign of any of them making it to market."

"I shot an interview with Nike for our COFA Online series of interviews of designers and artists. He talks quite a bit about what makes things tick for him. There are also a few other interviews on there with Brendan Dawes, Troika, Nik's brother Tom, and others: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/cofa-talks-online/cofa-talks-online?view=video&video=19"

"Glad you enjoyed the piece. It's one of the very few gadgets not made by Apple that I haven't regretted buying and doesn't annoy me in some way."

"Ryan - but that's why the services or product-service option works well. Less consumption, but still jobs."