electric-can-opener questionn.
The recognition that some older, low-tech products are superior to the newer, high-tech products that are supposed to replace them.
Example Citation:
Ultimately, the question for potential Iridium buyers was what has sometimes been called the electric-can-opener question. Why pay a lot of money to buy something which you know to be inferior to an older, cheaper technology?
—Editorial, "The sky's not the limit," The Globe and Mail, August 23, 1999
Notes:
The model for this phrase is, of course, the electric can opener, which most people consider to be markedly inferior to the cheaper and easier-to-use manual can opener.
