Planned obsolescence using wrongly placed capacitors is one of the few conspiracy theories I tend to believe in (I guess it is conspiracy). I also successfully

Planned obsolescence using wrongly placed capacitors is one of the few conspiracy theories I tend to believe in (I guess it is conspiracy). I also successfully repaired an old telefone system, a washing machine and an old TV 15 years ago because the same capacitors failed so frequently that even without any knowledge one would be able to Google what needed to be exchanged together with order links. However, I think manufacturers really found better strategies for planned obsolescence eg. by introducing new communication standards or turning off server and not providing software updates. So during the last 10 years I mostly threw away fully functional hardware...