What is Planned Obsolescence?

By Pluto Brabaek
 

By definition, planned obsolescence is the practice of making an item (such as a car or phone) disposable. Large manufacturers affirm that a product has a mechanism designed to fail. In some cases, commodities are created to make fixing them difficult or in some outright impossible. If you can’t fix a product, you are forced to replace it with the “newer” seemingly updated and more expensive version of the original.

Companies found that products made for longevity are bad for profits. If a high demand product meets the bare minimum standards of consumers and fails after a short amount of time, the market can be saturated while still meeting the agreed level of performance. 

Take this example: in 1895, lightbulbs had an average life of 1,500 hours. By 1924, the average lightbulb could last upwards of 2,500 hours. This is consistent with trends in technological development during that time. Soon, though, something changed.

Corporations acknowledged that technological advancements made sales drop in frequency. Lightbulbs lasted long enough for profits to no longer reach their predetermined benchmark. 

Unsatisfied and hungry for more, General Electric, Associated Electrical Industries, Tungsram, and many others collaborated in Geneva to create the Phoebus Cartel. From 1925 to 1939, the cartel controlled the lifespan of lightbulbs, decreasing performance to 1000 hours. Their market flourished due to the cartel’s lightbulbs burning brighter, evidently causing a shorter life. This goes hand in hand with the pressure from society to follow the latest trend, the thirst for the newest thing to fit in and be accepted, where the illusion of happiness and worth is directly relying on your ability to consume more.

Another great example of this longing for in-vogue products can be found with Ford’s Model T. Ford thrived in the automotive industry for many reasons, one being the strategy represented by Henry Ford’s famous quote from his 1922 memoir My Life and Work. He wrote, “It does not please us to have a buyer’s car wear out or become obsolete. We want the man who buys one of our products never to have to buy another. We want to construct some kind of a machine that will last forever.” 

Ford even went to the length of providing a toolkit with every car at no additional cost. This provided the user with the means to comprehend the inner workings of the vehicle and perform self-repairs. As Ford himself said, “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” He reaffirmed this by saying, “We never make an improvement that renders any previous model obsolete.” 

He noted that “The parts of a specific model are not only interchangeable with all other cars of that model, but they are interchangeable with similar parts on all the cars that we have turned out.” A sentence that is scarcely uttered, if at all, by today’s leading business people. 

This would soon account for an outstanding fall in earnings. While Ford focused on quality, General Motors placed more value on novelty. The shift in designs such as new trims, wider color selection, different wheelbases, and varying engine placement prompted the Model T to appear old. Only coming in the color black due to cost and efficiency, the Model T fell to the status of being outdated and generic. 

From this shift to appearance over functionality, the average duration of an automobile’s life fell to 5 years in 1934 and just 2 years in 1955. We see this transfer as society moved from automotives being something to engage in and learn, to contemporary design and social status.

In 1932, Bernard London published his book Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, in which he declared the following: “people generally, in a frightened and hysterical mood, are using everything that they own longer than was their custom before the depression. In the earlier period of prosperity, the American people did not wait until the last possible bit of use had been extracted from every commodity. They replaced old articles with new for reasons of fashion and up-to-dateness. They gave up old homes and old automobiles long before they were worn out, merely because they were obsolete. All business, transportation, and labor had adjusted themselves to the prevailing habits of the American people. Perhaps, prior to the panic, people were too extravagant; if so, they have now gone to the other extreme and have become retrenchment-mad.”

London continues on, proclaiming that the solution to the post-war economy is making products disposable, forcing consumers to buy more. Not only does he emphasize relinquishing your old goods to the government, but his system demands a tax on those who retain their old products. “Therefore I propose that when a person continues to possess and use old clothing, automobiles and buildings, after they have passed their obsolescence date, as determined at the time they were created, he should be taxed for such continued use of what is legally ‘dead.’” 

This distinctly unsustainable ideology is quite harmful. We now see the effects of this in today’s world, minus the tax on owning well-used items. These are some of the many early examples, but I need not elaborate since today’s society is dependent on this tactic, as many of you may already have noticed in your daily lives. Your iPhone has no means for disassembly, at least not for the average person due to its lack of removable parts. 

In an effort to appear minimalistic and in the pursuit of convenience, we have lost the ability to access and understand these appliances. The Allstate Protection Plans 2020 Mobile Repair Study conducted a survey of 1,009 American adults. 64% stated they would rather buy a whole new phone than have it serviced. This stems from a capitalist system weighing short term profits over long term sustainability. 

Right behind these businesses shoving products in our faces is a society that only begs for more. The more we ignore the existence of these strategies, the better hold these companies have. The more we link our sense of satisfaction or joy with buying more, the emptier we will be. That’s how these corporations work. You will always be hungry with merchandise designed to keep you starving. 

What can we do? Be conscious of what you buy. Question the intention of the product and its use. When possible, try to see the longevity of your item and opt for something designed to last, not to fit in. 

Now, finally, I’ll leave you with a question you can ask whenever in doubt about a purchase. Do you want it, or do you want people to see you have it?