electric-can-opener question
- electric-can-opener question
n.
The recognition that some older, low-tech products are superior to the newer, high-tech products that are supposed to replace them.
Example Citation:
Ultimately, the question for potential Iridium buyers was what has sometimes been called the electric-can-opener question. Why pay a lot of money to buy something which you know to be inferior to an older, cheaper technology?
— Editorial, "The sky's not the limit," The Globe and Mail, August 23, 1999
Notes:
The model for this phrase is, of course, the electric can opener, which most people consider to be markedly inferior to the cheaper and easier-to-use manual can opener.
Related Words:
Categories:
New words.
2013.
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