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Peak iPhone and peak oil - same but different?

14th Jan 2019
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So now we have a new phrase in our lexicon - peak iPhone. The markets appear to have been surprised that this new phenomenon has been discovered, or perhaps I should say "named" . This term "peak" , is of course more commonly associated with the black sticky stuff that comes out of the ground and powers our daily commute ( not mine as I walk) , and economists have popped up every now and then to declare that "peak oil" has occurred or will occur after lunch on a given day that has long been passed uneventfully.

The giving of monikers across such different categories makes one ask whether the comparisons , even in only nominally, are valid. Peak oil is supposed to describe when we stop finding the stuff whereas peak iPhone is when people stop buying the things. Hardly the same, as the former is a physical fact ( supposedly ) whereas the other is a result of consumer demand. Or is it?

Perhaps the diminshing marginal utility of the extra pixels on the camera or that extra 0.2mm on the screen is also a physical fact, just like there being no more oil left to discover, until of course it actually is discovered. But what if those clever people at Apple managed to create something even more brilliantand indispensible  that we cannot yet imagine, the surely the cycle would start all over again.

So perhaps peak iPhone is a misnomer just like peak oil , so once again there is a similarity between the two, even if in a somewhat negative aspect.

I think I have discovered the basis for a new economic study , perhaps to be entitled "Peak Peaks"

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