One of the more popular posts that I wrote in July was “Designed Deterioration,” in which I observed that digital hardware is rarely intended to get more beautiful as it gets older.

Governed mostly by the modern business principle of planned obsolescence, today’s hardware products are meant to get scrapped and replaced when they age beyond the near future. By contrast, older hardware goods — like the cast iron skillet I mentioned in my original post — often seem to have been designed with their eventual deterioration in mind. As they get older and become more heavily used, they get better.

That post might have led many to believe that what I’m advocating is that digital products should all be developed with designed deterioration in mind. While I wouldn’t object to that, I wouldn’t expect it to happen any time soon. By now, planned obsolescence is too strongly rooted a concept to allow for that.

I also happen to think there’s a lot to be said for designing for the current moment, designing something that addresses today’s values without feeling the pressure to create something that will last for all time. Which is to say that I have a bias towards what I consider to be ‘timeless’ design, for sure, but I also believe that our craft and our culture don’t progress when everything tries to appear timeless.

There’s one more part of this discussion I want to bring to light. So far, I’ve been harping on hardware and industrial design. But my original thought, when I sat down to write that post, was that designed deterioration seems like an idea that software could benefit from, too.

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