This is a term I heard in a recent commercial on the radio. Planned obsolescence. Interesting term. It applies to almost anything. It certainly applies to Microsoft’s software. Quickbooks and Quicken. TVs. DVD players. CD players. There’s lots of other things as well. The plan to make a product…and the plan to discontinue supporting it, or manufacturing parts to repair it.
I say it’s not earth friendly. You fill the garbage dumps with the products that do not work. And then you fill the garbage dumps with the excessive packaging around the new product, that once again will fail or not be supported anymore in about 4 years.
I miss the old days when you could buy a product and rely on it to last for years. Or you can take it to a repair shop and the repair wouldn’t cost more than a new product. It seems so very wasteful. We have come into a society where we have disposable appliances. You don’t repair your washer, dryer or refrigerator – you replace it. It makes no sense financially to repair the old appliance.
Just another one of those terms that I heard and made my brain think in circles…
September 17, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Capitalism thrives on planned obsolescence. Think about vaccines. Whether you are for them or against them for children, think about the fact that when the profit motive is there, you can’t find companies trying to find new ones. Why? A vaccine doesn’t become obsolete. Our drug-riddled culture thrives on needing a new drug to be taken every 4-8-12-24 hours, with the remainder flowing through us into the water. If that’s not planned obsolescence, I don’t know what is!
October 16, 2008 at 9:44 am
I hear ya. We forget about all the new packaging that comes with purchasing a new appliance. Some appliance repairs are simple and I spend a good deal of my time blogging about them on my site. repairing your old appliance saves money and landfill space (for a while anyway.)