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>Planned obsolescence is when you artificially shorten the lifespan of something in order to increase the sales of the product or the next generation of the pro

by tsotha 11y ago

>Planned obsolescence is when you artificially shorten the lifespan of something in order to increase the sales of the product or the next generation of the product in order to generate more revenue. The strategy, as originally articulated, meant companies should use marketing to move customers to new models for status/styling reasons. It worked, too, in the car industry (which was the subject). For years the Mad Men types were able to convince people to buy a new car every two years, long before the old one was worn out. Artificially shortening the lifespan of a product isn't profitable because of the hit the manufacturer takes to its reputation.

gspetr 11y ago
> Artificially shortening the lifespan of a product isn't profitable because of the hit the manufacturer takes to its reputation. Works well for nVidia. Speculations that it's newer drivers destroying older cards' performance seemingly cannot be quelled. You can get away with that if you can still create a superior product than your sole competitor and can even get away with deliberately lying to customers (See 3.5 GB of good memory instead of 4 GB on GTX970)
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
FWIW cars did have far more reliability problems until electronic control systems became common and engineering practices became sophisticated enough to manage long term quality. Much of the marketing to get a new car at frequent intervals played against the legitimate anxiety of having a car that was rusted out and unreliable after five years.
mifreewil 11y ago
> Artificially shortening the lifespan of a product isn't profitable because of the hit the manufacturer takes to its reputation. Isn't this exactly what Apple does with its chargers all the time? They change them in the slightest manner in newer generations, so the older generation charger doesn't work with it. I don't think there is an actual legitimate reason to do this - such as improved design or functionality. It doesn't seem to hurt Apple at all though, their hardware is still top notch and above and beyond its competitors.

by tsotha 11y ago

gspetr 11y ago

> Artificially shortening the lifespan of a product isn't profitable because of the hit the manufacturer takes to its reputation. Works well for nVidia. Speculations that it's newer drivers destroying older cards' performance seemingly cannot be quelled. You can get away with that if you can still create a superior product than your sole competitor and can even get away with deliberately lying to customers (See 3.5 GB of good memory instead of 4 GB on GTX970)

kevin_thibedeau 11y ago

FWIW cars did have far more reliability problems until electronic control systems became common and engineering practices became sophisticated enough to manage long term quality. Much of the marketing to get a new car at frequent intervals played against the legitimate anxiety of having a car that was rusted out and unreliable after five years.

mifreewil 11y ago

> Artificially shortening the lifespan of a product isn't profitable because of the hit the manufacturer takes to its reputation. Isn't this exactly what Apple does with its chargers all the time? They change them in the slightest manner in newer generations, so the older generation charger doesn't work with it. I don't think there is an actual legitimate reason to do this - such as improved design or functionality. It doesn't seem to hurt Apple at all though, their hardware is still top notch and above and beyond its competitors.