By Lily Bourne
I check my phone at 5 p.m. only to find it has already died. I go to plug it in, but my charging cable bent wrong and will only charge if the phone is upside-down and tilted. I pull my shirt out of the dryer to find the seams have unravelled themselves. I attempt to search for a new shirt and my laptop powers down because having more than five tabs open is enough to overheat. At this point I think to myself, “I feel like this didn’t use to happen.”
Planned obsolescence is the business strategy in which manufacturers build obsolescence into their products at conception. Essentially, they make things that they know will fail eventually. This way, they can ensure customers will return to purchase more products and increase profits. In describing this phenomenon, The Economist cites nylon stockings as a classic example. Because stockings eventually “ladder,” developing long holes down the sides, consumers were forced to purchase new ones relatively frequently. For a long time, manufacturers had no incentive to search for a better material that wouldn’t ladder and shied away from any innovation that would hinder their repetitive sales.
Now, the most prominent example of planned obsolescence is the iPhone. So prominent in fact, that consumers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, earning a payout of $500 million. In the case, Bilic et al. v. Apple Incorporated (2018), the plaintiffs alleged that Apple purposefully released iOS updates to older iPhone, iPad, and iPod models that slowed the performance speeds of the CPUs and decreased their battery performance. They argued that Apple failed to disclose that their devices would be subject to the “Slowdown Function” and instead encouraged the updates by emphasizing its necessity in order to fix bugs and improve security. If they had known, the plaintiffs claimed they would not have purchased or would have paid less for their devices, and would have avoided out-of-pocket costs to repair their devices. While the consumers came out on top in this instance, the plague of planned obsolescence remains.
The issue is, our current consumerist society encourages businesses to pursue profit, rather than quality. Generally, “durable goods” last more than three years for their purpose, while “non-durable goods” are consumed quickly and must be replaced more frequently. Consumers prefer cost-effective durable goods, but manufacturers profit most off of non-durable goods that encourage repeat purchases. Throughout the past century, companies well-known for their durable goods have suffered from success.
Maytag, with their slogan “The Dependability People,’ was known for selling durable washing and drying machines that lasted decades. Their commercials featured a bored repairman, standing around with nothing to do. But in 2006, rival company Whirlpool acquired Maytag after financial struggles continued. Similarly, Pyrex used borosilicate glass, a specific product that could withstand extreme temperatures and was known for being nearly indestructible. Because of this, consumers rarely repurchased Pyrex dishes after their first time. In the 1980s, Pyrex began to phase out borosilicate glass, replacing it with the cheaper soda lime glass. Researchers found that contrary to statements made by Pyrex, the soda lime glass was less resistant to thermal shock breakage than the original borosilicate.
In theory, a capitalistic society would create competition, encouraging manufacturers to create higher quality products rather than banking on repeat purchases. However, the current “throw away” culture has pushed planned obsolescence to the forefront of business strategy, as consumers are less worried about durability than ever before. The combination of social-media influenced trends and companies like Shein and Temu flooding the market with low-cost, low-quality products encourages the consumption of non-durable goods to a heightened extent, while companies like Apple increase their monopolistic hold over more sophisticated products. While our shirts fall apart and phones die before dinner, multinational corporations increase their profits even further. Rather than giving in to the obsolescence culture, we as consumers should be fighting for higher quality products. By purchasing high-quality products once rather than cheap products many times, we can reduce waste and cost while also fighting against the consumer-consumption culture these companies are pushing.