Art & Creativity Quote by Norman Ralph Augustine

A joke with a blade: Augustine is not predicting a charming renaissance of DIY tinkering, he is diagnosing a system where failure is priced in and repair becomes a luxury workaround. The line’s first clause sketches a near-future of sticker shock - “most products” quietly implies not just gadgets but the basics of middle-class life. The second clause flips the despair into a grim punchline: even as goods become unattainable, the market will still “thrive,” because capitalism doesn’t collapse so much as reroute. If you can’t afford the thing, you’ll be sold the instructions, the tutorials, the confidence.

The subtext is about substitution. Consumers get downgraded from owners to maintainers, from participants in an economy of abundance to students in an economy of scarcity. “Books” is doing extra work here: it evokes an older, almost quaint medium, which makes the scenario feel both plausible and pathetic - we’ll be surrounded by advanced products, yet relying on manuals like it’s 1978. It’s also a sly jab at the knowledge economy: when material access tightens, information becomes the product. The fix is monetized, packaged, and upsold.

Contextually, Augustine’s career in engineering and industry makes the cynicism sting. He’s speaking from inside the machine, where planned obsolescence, supply-chain fragility, and repair-hostile design aren’t conspiracies; they’re business models. The wit lands because it’s not apocalyptic. It’s administrative. The future isn’t ruin; it’s a receipt.