Things Without an Expiration Date

GreenPencil7 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:31:01 +0000

A year ago, my favorite item disappeared. Not because it wore out, but because the brand stopped making it. "We've updated the collection! We've improved the improved design!" I tried to find a replacement within the same brand. Then I searched outlet stores and marketplaces. I blamed myself for not buying a couple of extras when I had the chance. And then I realized that the problem wasn't really about clothes at all.

Manufacturers constantly invalidate choices we've already made. We end up choosing again something we had already found, gotten used to, and settled on. They erase our decisions. I don't like having my choice taken away and being forced to spend cognitive effort searching for a replacement.

What if we applied the engineering approach used for hardware and software standards to physical products? We have 3.5-inch floppy disks, SATA, and PCIe. Once those standards are defined, they don't change. Software has the concept of LTS — long-term support for a stable release. I want to apply the same idea to physical objects. We separate a product's interface (its API) from its implementation. The physical interface — color, fabric weight, design — is fixed and never changes. Factories, machinery, and logistics, however, can all change if that's what it takes to preserve the product itself. That way, one year, five years, or twenty years later, you can still buy the exact same item you originally chose.

I can't solve this problem for everything. So I'm starting with the simplest interface: a T-shirt.

No new collections. No design updates. All testing and modifications happen before release. The moment sales begin, the specification is frozen (spec freeze). From that point on, the company's entire engineering effort is focused on preserving and supporting that specification. So that it remains the same T-shirt one year, five years, or twenty years later. So that every unit, even ten years from now, physically matches the original reference standard.

I'm not building a fashion brand. I want to test a hypothesis: are there other people who don't want endless novelty, but instead want to preserve their choice? People who want products without an expiration date.

For now, this is only a hypothesis. I've created a project page because I want to find out whether this need actually exists.

https://sites.google.com/view/tshirtapi

Thank you.

DEV Community: GreenPencil7

Things Without an Expiration Date