Blog 20; The Story of Stuff and Labor

Planned obsolescence is a policy of planning or designing a product that won’t last a large period of life. After certain period it won’t work or become obsolete. It benefits the producer because it keeps the consumer buying the same product or its replacements. The responsible of this business strategy is our economic model. Producers decided shortening the efficiency and products life to cheap the prices and improve their sale. Nowadays, designers purposefully limit the quality of products while companies employ our best minds to create a product that fills the criteria that they demand and not what the consumer demands.

The potential beneficiaries from Planned obsolescence are the producers, because it keeps the consumer buying and demanding the product or its replacements. Even though, in some cases the product still works but the consumer is socially pressured to buy a new one that just came out to the market. Fashion pressure stimulates demand. 

Our planet is the one who suffers the consequences of planned obsolescence. The resulting waste is of course deadly for the environment. Our planet is not unlimited; we should start pressing the producers to recycle their own waste. We cannot afford this policy just to encourage growth, as it results in over proportional damage to both the planet and the consumer.

In my personal experience Planned Obsolescence is a new word, but the fact was around my head since a long time ago. It is notable how manufactures are able to put a ship in a printer to record the quantity of copies that have to be made and then stop and send an error message. My cellular is only a year and is not working properly already as well I have been pressured by my friends to change it.

To be continued.....