Now old products being replaced with new models become the new models for people who can’t afford the newest.
New technology is often too expensive for poorer people, but usually eventually becomes adopted by. Technology is always being developed, requiring manufacture and purchase of new products to get the new features. The old products still exist though, and are worth less because they no longer need to be manufactured and don’t have all features of a new product. These products are then affordable to more people. With each iteration of revisions, the first product of a kind becomes affordable to more and more people, while later revisions bring new features to those who can’t afford new, but can afford better than the oldest. Older products begin making their way into “third world” countries as well, bringing them the ‘higher’ standard of living of the more developed nations. As an example, cell-phones are constantly revised and the new ones are purchased to replace the old, leaving many temporarily unneeded. If they are sent back to the manufacturer to be ‘recycled’, they are sold in poorer countries for a third of the price of the new models, making these countries able to afford them when otherwise they couldn’t.
A good reuse system should contribute to the trickle down affect, bringing a ‘higher’ standard of living to more people.
Examples of items not so long ago used exclusively by the rich only, but now spread everywhere:
-computers
-cars
-clothes washing and drying machines
-dish washing machines
-in-house plumbing
-toilets