There are probably 30 of these things in the dumpster behind the police station.
It's as though whoever was in charge of furbishing the police force with their technological crime-fighters intentionally made Gadget defective so that he would only last for a while before having to be replaced ...
Today:
Does that sound familiar? It should, because tech companies do it all the time. It's called "planned obsolescence," and it's the reason why you conveniently get an email from Dell offering discounts on a new laptop just as your two-year old one starts malfunctioning.
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"I'll work around it."
Creating products that last forever simply wouldn't be good business. This is why, for example, iPhones come with a built-in battery rather than a removable one: Once the battery becomes useless, as it's designed to do, you're going to want to replace it, but Apple charges $85 to do that (even though a new battery costs only $20). That's because Apple doesn't want you to replace the battery; it wants you to buy a new damn iPhone.
This also goes for the accessories. If you've already sold your soul to Apple and bought a new iPhone, you know about the new proprietary "lightning connector," replacing the old 30-pin connector. This means that you can't plug your new phone into any existing docking stations, and that you'll also need new cords and chargers. Yeah, there's no way you're getting out of going to an Apple store and buying a whole bunch of shit every couple of years if you want to be a Mac user.
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"It's worth the price of feeling superior."
In other words, we have this incredibly advanced technology at the tip of our hands, but it's intentionally made dumber and designed to fail just to make us spend more money, kinda like Inspector Gadget trying to use his technically-impressive head helicopter and flying upside-down into a wall. Actually, it's exactly like that.
For more pop culture psychics, check out 6 Eerily Specific World Events Predicted by Comics and 6 Mind Blowing Ways 'Starship Troopers' Predicted the Future.
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The Smartphone Commercial That Will Ruin Your Christmas
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