# Is planned obsolescence dead and gone (and did it actually exist in the first place?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2010, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893 "2010-10-03T05:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/21 "2010-10-03T15:41:36Z")
> [@](#): > > ‘Today the appearance of a motorcar is a most important factor in the selling end of the business—perhaps the most important factor— because everyone knows the car will run.’ – Alfred P. Sloan, CEO of Gemeral Motors, 1941 and now people throw hissy-fits if their car needs one non-maintenance repair before 150,000 miles. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/22 "2010-10-03T16:01:59Z")
TVs and similar consumer electronics weren’t really designed with planned obsolescence in mind. Whenever you manufacture something, there are a lot of business decisions that have to go into the design of whatever you are making. You can make your widget last twice as long as the next guy’s, but then it costs twice as much and no one buys it. Or you can make your widget cheaper than the next guy’s but then you get a reputation for making cheap crap and nobody buys your stuff. Exactly how you balance out reliability and cost is not an easy decision to make, and exactly where you draw that line can mean life or death for some companies. In general, consumer electronics these days are designed to be cheap. Manufacturers don’t design things to be reliable long term because customers don’t demand it. Customers instead demand whiz bang features and low cost. Saying that this is “planned obsolescence” is blaming the manufacturers, but really it’s the consumer’s fault. Manufacturers only make what they can sell. It’s also not really designing the thing to fail, it’s designing it to be cheap. There’s a difference. They aren’t intentionally designing flaws into the thing. That said, there are some things that are designed with planned obsolescence. The two that immediately spring into my mind are printer cartridges and light bulbs. Some manufacturers of printer cartridges have been caught making cartridges that falsely indicate that they are out of ink once they get past a certain date, forcing you to buy a new cartridge whether you’ve used it up or not. Incandescent light bulbs have also been manufactured for years to be as cheap and delicate as possible, knowing that you’ll have to buy more when they break. While you can certainly complain about the business practices of printer manufacturers, with light bulbs the fact remains that there have been manufacturers who made truly long lasting light bulbs by using thicker filaments, heavier glass, etc. Consumers haven’t sought out and purchased those bulbs though, and instead have been content to buy light bulbs from the grocery store which are made so cheaply that the “long lasting” label on them is almost a joke. If consumers were demanding quality, GE wouldn’t keep cranking out the cheap crap. Even though consumers are demanding cheaper and cheaper crap, the reliability of many things has surprisingly gone up. This is because modern electronics are miniaturized, and condensing entire circuit boards onto a single efficient chip means that the electronic components are under much less stress and last a lot longer. If you wanted an FM receiver in 1970 you designed a circuit board out of discrete transistors. That board might require 2 or 3 watts of electricity to run. These days you just design your board around a standard available FM receiver chip which is about the size of a postage stamp and uses a hundred times less power than the circuit board of 40 years ago. Those tiny low power transistors inside the chip use less energy and produce less heat, which makes them a lot more reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/23 "2010-10-03T16:27:12Z")
Don’t forget labor, that’s a factor too. In Illinois minimum wage is $8.25 and if you could even find anyone to fix anything for that, the cheaper the gadget the less worthwhile it is to fix. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/24 "2010-10-03T16:36:17Z")
**engineer\_comp\_geek** describes very well why I hate consumers. I try to avoid Wal-Mart, but thanks to all of you losers, I can’t find quality stuff _anywhere_ any more. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/25 "2010-10-03T17:05:22Z")
> [@](#): > > That said, there are some things that are designed with planned obsolescence. The two that immediately spring into my mind are printer cartridges and light bulbs. For that matter, most printers are designed with planned obselescence. If a printer quits working, we don’t try to fix it, other than checking to make sure that it’s plugged in properly, and has ink and paper. We go down to a big box electronics store and buy a new one. Consumer computer printers are pretty much designed to be used for a short while and then tossed. I’m not sure that they CAN be repaired, and it’s certainly not cost effective to have a repairperson try to diagnose and repair the things…the cost of the repair would probably be higher than the cost of a new printer. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/26 "2010-10-03T20:44:21Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Are we just lucky, or did the technology move ahead enough to screw the manufacturers and repair businesses? I would love a big HD tv in our living room. But what do I do with the 36 inch we have? There is nothing wrong with it and the picture is fantastic. I have no real justification to replace it. > Which is why I don’t. > > Did the old theory of “planned obsolescence” actually exist? Or was the technology just lagging and things went to shit at that time because manufactures didn’t honestly know how to make them last any longer? Or is the “cheaper to replace than repair” factor that exists today the same as planned obsolescence? But that wouldn’t explain things lasting as long as they do now. Or are we just lucky?😕 You’re confusing reliability with obsolescence. Something may be obsolete, yet still perfectly functional. Think about most military equipment- it may be obsolete, but is usually maintained pretty well, so that when the US forces get rid of it, some other nation is usually willing to buy it. To use your example- they still do planned obsolescence like crazy with televisions. First it was color TVs, then stereo/hi-fi TVs, then plasma, LCD and 3D. All the while with ever-increasing screen sizes. To use a personal example: Growing up I think we had a 25" color TV. My Dad bought a 27" hi-fi stereo TV in about 1995 or thereabouts- it wasn’t the largest, but it did have some cool features for the time. My wife and I were given a 1999-era 36" stereo tube TV in 2007. Sure, it worked, but it was VERY far from what was common at the time. This year we bought a 50" 1080p plasma TV, and it’s not even the top of the line- it’s just a 2D tv. Each increasing size category and display/sound improvement made the previous ones obsolete, even if they still functioned perfectly well. That 36" tube TV is still going strong at my wife’s friend’s house, but it’s not something that makes for a particularly great movie or sports watching experience by comparison with more modern TVs. Another thing- forced obsolescence is something different as well- that’s the situation where the manufacturers engineer things such that you can’t continue using them after a certain point. You see this frequently with software- versions cease being supported, won’t run with new hardware, or don’t support new technologies. Or, like someone mentioned, they change the battery, or just quit supplying the consumables. While there’s usually an aftermarket for these things, most people don’t bother and just upgrade to the newer one. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/27 "2010-10-03T23:30:09Z")
I think planned obsolescence (things designed to break and needing replacing, repairing) has been replaced through technological obsolescence (need to upgrade). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/28 "2010-10-04T00:55:50Z")
My family’s first TV, vintage 1950, was constantly breaking down and we needed a repairman. The picture tube had to be replaced in the first year. My first TV, vintage 1978 and bought used lasted till 1990. The replacement worked without repair until Sept. 9, 2001. The repairman carted it away on Sept. 10 and returned it repaired on Sept. 12. (It was the only TV in the house.) It lasted until about a year ago and I replaced it by a digital HDTV. Cars in those days were pretty much dead in ten years. It just cost too much to keep running. My first new car was sold two years later as I was going to Europe for a year and bought a replacement tax free in 1970. It lasted pretty well for about 12 years, when it got too expensive to repair. Then I bought one old clunker and another that lasted me till 1990 when I bought a new Honda and it lasted till 2007 when I bought another Honda new. Cars not only last much longer but really do a lot more–in numerous ways. On the other hand, me parents got a new fridge when they got married in 1934 and it lasted essentially forever. I guess my mother got rid of it after my father died in 1969. I have owned 4 fridges since 1966. The first lasted 25 years and finally the autodefrost stopped working right. The replacement was a piece of shit and was replaced in five years. The next was even worse. A shelf support made of cheap plastic broke in the first year. They replaced it (it listed for 40¢), but I put something together from a steel screw and a stack of washers that fixed it better. But the compressor made an unholy racket and we finally got rid of it. The current one has been working well for ten years, so who knows. But overall, things last a lot longer than they used to. I don’t think the obsolescence was ever planned. Except for style, but I am not sensistive to that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/29 "2010-10-04T06:10:07Z")
> [@naita](#): > > For your example, TVs, I think it’s just a case of the modern technology being longer lasting. If you could make second rate circuit boards that lasted five years at a lower cost, they probably would use those, but I expect you can’t do that without getting lots of duds and circuits that only last 6 months, or a year, so the total cost to the manufacturer would be the same. In addition, lots of such shabby components wouldn’t make it past system test, and would have to be replaced or repaired before the TV went out. That gets expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/30 "2010-10-04T06:24:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > There are almost no examples in which designing products to fail so that people will buy new ones is a successful business strategy. People will avoid that company if at all possible. Car manufacturers knew that. Cars are large collections of failure-prone components that are subject to constant stress and abuse. It took a good while after the invention of the auto before people could have a car without a professional chauffeur who doubled as a mechanic, someone who could spend all day repairing the car after every trip. For the first half of the 20th century, cars broke down all the time in all sorts of ways. The charge of planned obsolescence was because cars had gotten so much better after WWII that manufacturers needed tricks to get people to buy new cars as often as they used to. Cars lasted longer and people were holding on to them instead of replacing them regularly. Even so, they chased customers through new designs, not through worse components. There is a subtle difference between designing in failure and not designing and testing out failures. Sending out products with insufficient reliability may not be the same as sending out products you designed to fail, but consumers see them as equivalent. Detroit, you remember, improved their quality very rapidly when they decided it made business sense. I’ve been part of the dramatic increase in IC quality over the past 30 years. In the early 1980s the Japanese told us that we produced crap, and they were right. The Teletype factory in Little Rock used to record the serial numbers of Intel memories in 1980 or so, because if they didn’t they might get a rejected lot back. They were hardly the worst supplier. This kind of thing does not happen today. Nobody designed faults in, but they get in unless you test for them and modify your design and manufacturing processes to catch defects more effectively. I lecture on the economics of this - it is not as slam dunk a thing as you might think. ---
**Author:** ![Terry\_Kennedy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@Terry\_Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terry_Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/31 "2010-10-04T07:02:42Z")
> [@bump](#): > > [To use your example- they still do planned obsolescence like crazy with televisions. First it was color TVs, then stereo/hi-fi TVs, then plasma, LCD and 3D. All the while with ever-increasing screen sizes. At the high end of the market, there’s surprisingly good support for very old stuff. As an example, in early 1999 I purchased one of the very first Pioneer 50" plasma displays, the PDP-501. It had a serial number lower than 25. The next-lower serial number went to the TV series “Seven Days” as a working prop for the conference room set. This display cost $25,000 when new. I upgraded in early 2001 and swapped the Pioneer for some cash from a friend, and purchased a Sharp 50". She kept that plasma through a number of moves, and it eventually developed a drive fault in 2004. Upon calling Pioneer, they were very interested to hear that the panel was still in service, and they offered to provide replacement boards for free (only cost was the labor to install) if she agreed to send the old ones back to Pioneer so they could study them. That’s what she did, and the panel was repaired. In late 2008 she sold the place where it was installed and included it as part of the deal. As far as I know, it is still working, well over 10 years after being built. And Pioneer still offers replacement parts for it (I just checked their web site). It probably isn’t cost-effective to repair a unit like that, though - a commercial 50" Panasonic plasma is available new for $1899 these days, and you can get a 50" consumer unit for $659. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/32 "2010-10-04T15:24:06Z")
I think there was certaily a realization (by manufacturers) that it was desireable for consumers to keep buying new stuff-if everybodie’s TVs and radios lasted 50 years, the market for new goods would shrink. Plus, as was mentioned, you cannot compare an automobile from the 1960’s, to one today-it is like comparing a PC to a calculator. I like the looks of many old cars (the 1967 Camaro RS is my favorite). But having one as a daily driver? I think not. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/33 "2010-10-04T15:41:04Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > > [@Odesio](#): > > > > Keep in mind that all of your televisions became obsolete once digital took over. > > tv sets are used as video (NTSC and direct input) display devices all over the USA for cable, satellite, dvd, vcr and will for their useful lifetime. with a digital tuner they are still being used for terrestrial broadcast for their lifetime. > > people selling tv sets hoped you would think they were obsolete. I admit it. I overstated their obsolescence. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/34 "2010-10-04T15:59:08Z")
The confusing part is that older products weren’t so much designed to be fixed – they were designed to be fixed because they were doomed to fail. Vacuum tuibes burned out because they generated so much heat. Sparks plugs fouled after a few thousand miles because of leaded gasoline. A lot of the 1950s era products wouldn’t last a year without some sort of repair. When better technolgies came along, it was possible to design a product that performed perfectly right up until the day it failed completely. Consumers who had gotten used to inexpensive but continuing repairs couldn’t (and still haven’t) adjust to the idea of fewer, very expensive repairs. If you grew up buying spark plugs for a dollar each, you have sticker shock when you see them listed for thirty bucks. You forget that in the good old days, you replaced them three times a year and now you can get 100,000 miles outr of a set. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/35 "2010-10-04T16:01:52Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > It goes on at 5:45am and stays on all day until 11:00pm 5 days a week. Dear god - why?! ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/36 "2010-10-04T16:37:53Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager;] The Teletype factory in Little Rock used to record the serial numbers of Intel memories in 1980 or so, because if they didn’t they might get a rejected lot back. [/QUOTE] Ahh. I have fond memories of my 3B2 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Righteous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Dr.Righteous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Righteous)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/37 "2010-10-04T17:20:58Z")
I can’t be the only one surprised at someone leaving tv’s on when no one is using them. I’m a little OCD about this - during the energy crisis in the 70’s my dad yelled at us for the tiniest waste of electricity… thinking about leaving on televisions like this is making me twitch. ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/38 "2010-10-04T21:08:17Z")
> [@Dr.Righteous](#): > > I can’t be the only one surprised at someone leaving tv’s on when no one is using them. > > I’m a little OCD about this - during the energy crisis in the 70’s my dad yelled at us for the tiniest waste of electricity… thinking about leaving on televisions like this is making me twitch. He has one TV that’s on 8 hours/day, one that’s on 17 hours/day on weekdays only, and one that’s on 24 hours/day. That strikes me as utterly bizarre. Assuming the TV’s consume 150W on average, the electricity cost at $0.06/kWh will be about $145 per year. I guess that’s not outrageous but it’s certainly unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/39 "2010-10-04T21:12:13Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > > [@johnpost](#): > > > > tv sets are used as video (NTSC and direct input) display devices all over the USA for cable, satellite, dvd, vcr and will for their useful lifetime. with a digital tuner they are still being used for terrestrial broadcast for their lifetime. > > > > people selling tv sets hoped you would think they were obsolete. > > I admit it. I overstated their obsolescence. Not really. I got at least 4 channels before the switchover, and now I have none. Even a digital antenna doesn’t pick anything up, and I live on the ground floor of an apartment so even if I were motivated enough to climb up and install an antenna on the roof, I couldn’t (plus, it’s a step backwards anyway when you get fewer channels unless you install something on your roof, and even then I still might not get any and then be out however many hundreds a rooftop antenna costs) ---
**Author:** ![Bad\_Astronaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bad\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bad_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893/40 "2010-10-04T21:29:55Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > > [@Odesio](#): > > > > I admit it. I overstated their obsolescence. > > Not really. I got at least 4 channels before the switchover, and now I have none. Even a digital antenna doesn’t pick anything up, and I live on the ground floor of an apartment so even if I were motivated enough to climb up and install an antenna on the roof, I couldn’t (plus, it’s a step backwards anyway when you get fewer channels unless you install something on your roof, and even then I still might not get any and then be out however many hundreds a rooftop antenna costs) But when you consider the clarity of the channels you aren’t getting, surely that makes it all worthwhile! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-planned-obsolescence-dead-and-gone-and-did-it-actually-exist-in-the-first-place/555893.md?page=3)