This picture is certainly sinister and illustrates a kind of pathology, a frantic expectation of endless newness and variety. So this is adding to your case here, that the imposition of rapid change, as the order of the day, has all kinds of downsides whose impact will not be fully appreciated. So the model year, touted as an important milestone for introducing change, even though arbitrary, becomes an effective tool for forcing change on society, whether needed or not, and that waste and annoyance you speak of is the point of it, to create a needless burden on society and a kind of cheapening of things because it teaches the citizenry that they must change along with the world so they keep up and are not out of step.
The model year for mechanical devices, like automobiles and appliances, applies throughout the range of consumer goods people have been conditioned to demand. The extremes of the fashion industry, being quick-change artists, capable of manipulating much of the culture to turn on a dime and shun their older clothing because it is now "out of style" and they will look poorly dressed if they are not keeping up with the latest fashions. This has been built as an artistic endeavor that enables people to have variety and always look their best as well as having a way to stand out, so it uses the psychological imperatives of competition as an incentive to impose needless change and its side effects, to make people fearful of looking different and being seen as backward if they cannot afford the latest styles and the newest gadgets that might be an embellishment but heavily promoted to be desirable and the new standard of living, in effect. This becomes an incessant treadmill whose speed is ever increasing, but deceptively so because it is so encased in propaganda with enticements that seemingly reward making changes when the opportunities are far more frequent to do so than is sensible.
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