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> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price” No. Of course, a part of potential lifetime l
by Sebb767 5y ago
> “Engineered to fail” and “planned obsolescence” are both pejorative rephrasings of “consumers prioritize price”
No. Of course, a part of potential lifetime loss is due to price. Manufacturing a case in plastic instead of carbon fiber is simply far cheaper and most consumer will go for that. However, we see cheaped out components even in high-priced or prosumer gear, while the existence of this market already pretty much proves that price is not everything to every consumer. Additionally, there are many examples of behaviors that save no money or are actually more expensive, but help the bottom line by forcing people to buy new (see the Phoebus cartell [0] or the slowing down of older iPhones by Apple).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
- kube-system 5y agoYes, true planned obsolescence has happened. But it’s a lot less common than people think, and often prohibited by law. Even the “slowing down of old iPhones” is an example of that. This was a bug fix for crashing due to current demand that exceeded the battery’s capability.
- neonological 5y agoMost people aren't even aware of planned obsolescence. There's also very little data on how much of this actually happening as no company will admit to this practice. So really no one can make a statement on whether it's common or uncommon without a big data gathering effort. The statement we can make that is very realistic is that companies are incentivised to do do "planned obsolescence" and because of this "planned obsolescence" has happened, is happening and will continue to happen in the future.