Spray-On Socks: Ethics, Agency, and the Design of Product-Service Systems

Abstract

An article discussing ethical and sustainability problems raised by product-service systems (PSS), using the example of a luxury versus a utilitarian sock provision service. The luxury service provides goods which never wear out, with morphic qualities which allow the user to alter their appearance; the utilitarian service provides throw-away and recyclable products. Both alter the relationship between the consumer and product; the service becomes the product consumed, and planning and implementation of a complex integrated system is a bigger problem than designing an individual product. Systems affect how users live their lives; a product designer whose product is a system therefore affects how society works, and the human actors contract out their agency to the structures they depend on. As provision becomes more integrated, the consumer experience becomes more fragmented, and the individual has less control, and is separated from the need or ability to make choices in the act of consumption.