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Planned obsolescence

This learning resource is about an engineering approach or industrial design, that reduces the life-time of a product artificially. Mathematically the approach of planned obsolescence increases the probability that a product breaks. Therefore the customer must buy a new product to replace the unusable product. Planned obsolescence is often used in conjunction with an increased difficulty for users to repair a product (e.g. battery of an smartphone, that cannot be replaced by the customer anymore, or lamps with 5 LEDs that cannot be replaced and the complete lamp has to be replaced). This learning resource addresses the planned obsolescence for three angles

  • (Sustainable Development Goals) the Sustainable Development Goals so that customers are able to identify planned obsolescence and understand the impact on the consumption of the limited resources on earth (see Earth Overshoot Day)
  • (Probability Theory) how is a the planned average life time of products measured and what are constraints of the planned obsolescence (e.g. warrenty for 2 years in which the seller of the product will replace or repair the product for the customer if the product was used under allowed conditions and does not operate anymore (i.e. not misuse of the product). The planned obsolescence is addressed from the angle of probability theory.
  • (Economic Benefits) What are the economic benefits for a company that incorporates planned obsolescence in their industrial design?
SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production - Learning Resource supports the SDGs - UN-Guidelines[1]

Definition

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Planned obsolescence, or built-in obsolescence, in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.[2] The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle").[3]

Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development, and offsets the opportunity costs of repurposing an existing product line. In a competitive industry, this is a risky policy, because consumers may decide to buy from competitors instead if they notice the strategy.

Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly.[4] Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them. In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer, who knows how long the product was designed to last, and the consumer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase.[5][6] For example, when Japanese vehicles with longer lifespans entered the American market in the 1960s and 1970s, American carmakers were forced to respond by building more durable products.[7]

Learning Task

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Multi Light Bulb Lamps - reduced life expectancy combined with prevention of repair
  • (Planned Obsolescence for Light Bulbs) Explore the history of planned obsolescence! When did the first ideas of planned obsolescence did appear (see also design of lightbulbs with 1000h mean life expectancy)? The Phoebus cartel worked to standardize the life expectancy of light bulbs from 2,500 hoursat down to 1,000 hours[8]. The Phoebus cartel tested their bulbs by checking a number of light bulbs from the production of manufacturers and determined the average life expectancy. The cartel fined manufacturers for bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.
  • (Single Light Bulb - Multi Light Bulb - Failure) Look at the old street light on the right. It contains 3 light bulbs. In general you would replace the light bulb that is broken and the street lamp has again the full light emission. If we glue one light bulb into the lamp and prevent the repair, the owner has to replace the whole lamp instead of just the one light bulb. If you extend this principle of prevention to repair from one light bulb to 3 light bulbs it reduces the life expectancy of the lamb. Assume the light bulbs survives the next week by a probability of 0.95. The whole lamp survives the next week with all 3 light bulbs with a probabilty of  . Assume you have a lamp in your living room that has 3 light bulbs that cannot be replaced, then might want to exchange the whole lamp because it does not look good or the light does not cover the whole table for reading. Extend the concept of smart phones in which the customer cannot replace the battery.
  • (Sustainable Development Goals) Explain the link between planned obsolescence and SDG 12 in the context of sustainable consumption!
  • (Circular Economy) Look at the concept of circular economy and explain the dilemma of increased consumption of limited resources and benefit of an increased number of sold products. Customers tend to buy the cheaper product because the can compare the price but they do not see the mean life expectancy of a product. Assume you have a product that you use for 2 years (average life expectancy) and the product costs 100$. Another product costs 150$ but has a average life expectancy of 4 years. Compare the average costs for the customer in both cases. Compare the concepts of longer life expectancy and recycling with a circular economy.
  • (Software Updates as Planned Obsolescence) Software updates include new feature and could add boot time to the launch of an operating system of a mobile device or slow down the performance of a system in general. Delay and response time of a device is relevant item of the user experience if the user experience is bad the customer will more replace the device by a new one.

Types

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Contrived durability

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Light Bulb - Phoebus cartel

Contrived durability is a strategy of shortening the product lifetime before it is released onto the market, by designing it to deteriorate quickly.[4] The design of all consumer products includes an expected average lifetime permeating all stages of development. Thus, it must be decided early in the design of a complex product how long it is designed to last so that each component can be made to those specifications. Since all matter is subject to entropy, it is impossible for any designed object to retain its full function forever; all products will ultimately break down, no matter what steps are taken. Limited lifespan is only a sign of planned obsolescence if the lifespan of the product is made artificially short by design.

The strategy of contrived durability is generally not prohibited by law, and manufacturers are free to set the durability level of their products.[4]

A possible method of limiting a product's durability is to use inferior materials in critical areas, or suboptimal component layouts which cause excessive wear. Using soft metal in screws and cheap plastic instead of metal in stress-bearing components will increase the speed at which a product will become inoperable through normal usage and make it prone to breakage from even minor forms of abnormal usage. For example, small, brittle plastic gears in toys are extremely prone to damage if the toy is played with roughly, which can easily destroy key functions of the toy and force the purchase of a replacement. The short life expectancy of smartphones and other handheld electronics is a result of constant usage, fragile batteries, and the ability to easily damage them.[9]

Prevention of repairs

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Pentalobe screws used in an iPhone 6S. Critics have argued that Apple's use of pentalobe screws in their newer devices is an attempt to prevent the consumer from repairing the device themselves.

The ultimate examples of such design are single-use versions of traditionally durable goods, such as disposable cameras, where the customer must purchase an entire new product after using them a single time. Such products are often designed to be impossible to service; for example, a cheap "throwaway" digital watch may have a casing which is simply sealed in the factory, with no designed ability for the user to access the interior without destroying the watch entirely.[citation needed] Manufacturers may make replacement parts either unavailable or so expensive that it makes the product uneconomic to repair, for example inkjet printers made by Canon incorporate a print head which eventually fails, however the high cost of a replacement forces the owner to scrap the entire device.

Other products may also contain design features meant to frustrate repairs, such as Apple's "tamper-resistant" pentalobe screws that cannot easily be removed with common consumer tools.[10] Front loading washing machines often have the drum bearing - a critical and wear-prone mechanical component - permanently molded into the wash tub, or even have a sealed outer tub, making it impossible to renew the bearings without replacing the entire tub. The cost of this repair may exceed the residual value of the appliance, forcing it to be scrapped.[11][12]

According to Kyle Wiens, co-founder of an online repair community, a possible goal for such design is to make the cost of repairs comparable to the replacement cost, or to prevent any form of servicing of the product at all. In 2012, Toshiba was criticized for issuing cease-and-desist letters to the owner of a website that hosted its copyrighted repair manuals, to the detriment of the independent and home repair market.[13]

Some products contain batteries that are not user-replaceable after they have worn down. While such a design can help make the device thinner, it can also make it difficult to replace the battery without sending the entire device away for repairs or purchasing a replacement.[14]

Perceived obsolescence

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Obsolescence of desirability or stylistic obsolescence occurs when designers change the styling of products so customers will purchase products more frequently due to the decrease in the perceived desirability of unfashionable items.

Many products are primarily desirable for aesthetic rather than functional reasons. An obvious example of such a product is clothing. Such products experience a cycle of desirability referred to as a "fashion cycle". By continually introducing new aesthetics, and retargeting or discontinuing older designs, a manufacturer can "ride the fashion cycle", allowing for constant sales despite the original products remaining fully functional. Sneakers are popular fashion industry where this is prevalent - Nike's Air Max line of running shoes is a prime example where a single model of shoe is often produced for years, but the color and material combination ("colorway") is changed every few months, or different colorways are offered in different markets. This has the upshot of ensuring constant demand for the product, even though it remains fundamentally the same.

To a more limited extent this is also true of some consumer electronic products, where manufacturers will release slightly updated products at regular intervals and emphasize their value as status symbols.

Systemic obsolescence

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Planned systemic obsolescence is the deliberate attempt to make a product obsolete by altering the system in which it is used in such a way as to make its continued use difficult. Common examples of planned systemic obsolescence include not accommodating forward compatibility in software, or routinely changing screws or fasteners so that they cannot easily be operated on with existing tools.

This approach was employed by Samsung in the case of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. This device was recalled due to battery defects that caused several units to catch fire or explode. There are several holdouts, however, with people refusing to send the device back and these constituted 4 percent of close to 2 million total devices sold in the United States.[15][16] To address this and avoid more cases of overheating devices, the South Korean company began rolling out software updates for the Note 7 that throttled its functionalities. The final update landed on December 19, 2016, with an update that prevented the batteries from charging, effectively bricking the phones.[17]

Programmed obsolescence

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In some cases, notification may be combined with the deliberate disabling of a product to prevent it from working, thus requiring the buyer to purchase a replacement. For example, inkjet printer manufacturers employ smart chips in their ink cartridges to prevent them from being used after a certain threshold (number of pages, time, etc.), even though the cartridge may still contain usable ink or could be refilled (with ink toners, up to 50 percent of the toner cartridge is often still full[18]). This constitutes "programmed obsolescence", in that there is no random component contributing to the decline in function.

In the Jackie Blennis v. HP class action suit, it was claimed that Hewlett Packard designed certain inkjet printers and cartridges to shut down on an undisclosed expiration date, and at this point consumers were prevented from using the ink that remained in the expired cartridge. HP denied these claims, but agreed to discontinue the use of certain messages, and to make certain changes to the disclosures on its website and packaging, as well as compensating affected consumers with a total credit of up to $5,000,000 for future purchases from HP.[19]

There are some workarounds for users, for instance, that will more than double the life of the printer that has stopped with a message to replace the imaging drum.[20]

Advantages and disadvantages

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Further information: Wikipedia:Waste hierarchy

Estimates of planned obsolescence can influence a company's decisions about product engineering. Therefore, the company can use the least expensive components that satisfy product lifetime projections.

Also, for industries, planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers/putting them under pressure to buy sooner if they still want a functioning product. These products can be bought from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model), or from a competitor who might also rely on planned obsolescence. Especially in developed countries (where many industries already face a saturated market), this technique is often necessary for producers to maintain their level of revenue.

While planned obsolescence is appealing to producers, it can also do significant harm to the society in the form of negative externalities. Continuously replacing products, rather than repairing them, creates more waste and pollution, uses more natural resources, and results in more consumer spending. Planned obsolescence can thus have a negative impact on the environment in aggregate. Even when planned obsolescence might help to save scarce resources per unit produced, it tends to increase output in aggregate, since due to laws of supply and demand decreases in cost and price will eventually result in increases in demand and consumption. However, the negative environmental impacts of planned obsolescence are dependent also on the process of production.[21]

There is also the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer invested money to make the product obsolete faster; such consumers might turn to a producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative.

Regulation

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In 2015, as part of a larger movement against planned obsolescence across the European Union, France has passed legislation requiring that appliance manufacturers and vendors declare the intended product lifespans, and to inform consumers how long spare parts for a given product will be produced. From 2016, appliance manufacturers are required to repair or replace, free of charge, any defective product within two years from its original purchase date. This effectively creates a mandatory two-year warranty.[22]

Critics and supporters

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Shortening the replacement cycle has critics and supporters. Philip Kotler argues that: "Much so-called planned obsolescence is the working of the competitive and technological forces in a free society—forces that lead to ever-improving goods and services."[23]

Critics such as Vance Packard claim the process is wasteful and exploits customers. With psychological obsolescence, resources are used up making changes, often cosmetic changes, that are not of great value to the customer. Miles Park advocates new and collaborative approaches between the designer and the consumer to challenge obsolescence in fast-moving sectors such as consumer electronics.[24] Some people, such as Ronny Balcaen, have proposed to create a new label to counter the diminishing quality of products due to the planned obsolescence technique.[18]

In software

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Software companies sometimes deliberately drop support for older technologies as a calculated attempt to force users to purchase new products to replace those made obsolete.[25] Most proprietary software will ultimately reach an end-of-life point - usually because the cost of support exceeds the revenue generated by supporting the old version - at which the supplier will cease updates and support. As free software and open source software can always be updated and maintained by somebody else, the user is not at the sole mercy of a proprietary vendor.[26] Software which is abandoned by the manufacturer with regard to manufacturer support is sometimes called abandonware.

In academia

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Russell Jacoby, writing in the 1970s, observes that intellectual production has succumbed to the same pattern of planned obsolescence used by manufacturing enterprises to generate ever-renewed demand for their products.

Camille Paglia characterizes contemporary academic discourse influenced by French theorists such as Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault as the academic equivalent of name brand consumerism. "Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault," she says, "are the academic equivalents of BMW, Rolex, and Cuisinart."[28] Under the inspiration of the latest academic fashions, academic planned obsolescence is to manufacture content with little merit for the same reason fashion designers come out with new fashions.

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ UN-Guidelines for Use of SDG logo and the 17 SDG icons (2016/10) - http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/UN-Guidelines-for-Use-of-SDG-logo-and-17-icons.October-2016.pdf
  2. ↑ Bulow, Jeremy (November 1986). "An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence". The Quarterly Journal of Economics (Oxford University Press) 101 (4): 729–749. doi:10.2307/1884176. 
  3. ↑ Bidgoli, Hossein (2010). The Handbook of Technology Management, Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Advertising, and Global Management. Wiley. pp. 296. ISBN 978-0470249482. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Orbach, Barak (2004). The Durapolist Puzzle: Monopoly Power in Durable-Goods Market. Yale Journal on Regulation, vol. 21, pp. 67–118. 
  5. ↑ Bulow, Jeremy (1 November 1986). "An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence". The Quarterly Journal of Economics 101 (4): 729–750. doi:10.2307/1884176. ISSN 0033-5533. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/101/4/729/1840176. 
  6. ↑ Hadhazy, Adam. "Here's the truth about the 'planned obsolescence' of tech". Retrieved 2018-07-13.
  7. ↑ Dickinson, Torry D.; Schaeffer, Robert K. (2001). Fast Forward: Work, Gender, and Protest in a Changing World. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 55–6. ISBN 978-0-7425-0895-8. 
  8. ↑ Markus Krajewski (24 September 2014). "The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy". IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy. 
  9. ↑ "Life Expectancy of a Smartphone". Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-27.
  10. ↑ Foresman, Chris (January 20, 2011). "Apple "screwing" new iPhones out of simple DIY repair". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 14, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
  11. ↑ Poulter, Sean. "Washing machines 'cheaper to replace than fix': Manufacturers accused of making appliances too costly and complicated to repair". Daily Mail Online. Archived from the original on October 19, 2016. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  12. ↑ Cooper, Daniel R.; Skelton, Alexandra C. H.; Moynihan, Muiris C.; Allwood, Julian M. (2014-03-01). "Component level strategies for exploiting the lifespan of steel in products". Resources, Conservation and Recycling 84: 24–34. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.11.014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344913002619. 
  13. ↑ Wiens, Kyle. "The Shady World of Repair Manuals: Copyrighting for Planned Obsolescence". Archived from the original on March 27, 2014.
  14. ↑ End of the line for stuff that's built to die? Archived October 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. The Guardian. March 2015
  15. ↑ Balakrishnan, Anita (2017-01-27). "Meet the die-hards who refuse to give up their recalled Samsung Note 7 phones". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  16. ↑ "As Samsung kills Note 7s, some users won't let go of phone". CBS News. January 5, 2017. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  17. ↑ "Samsung to obsolete Galaxy Note 7 with software update for safety reasons - Xinhua | English.news.cn". www.xinhuanet.com. December 11, 2016. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 RTBF documentary "L'obsolescence programmée" by Xavier Vanbuggenhout
  19. ↑ "HP Inkjet Printer Settlement".
  20. ↑ "Samsung CLP-365w Laser Printer DIY Imaging Drum Unit reset". Archived from the original on October 13, 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  21. ↑ Guiltinan, Joseph Guiltinan (2009). "Creative Destruction and Destructive Creations: Environmental Ethics and Planned Obsolescence". Journal of Business Ethics 89. 
  22. ↑ Drew Prindle. New French law tells consumers how long new appliances will last http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/france-planned-obsolescence-law/ February 1, 2016 in Web Archive - Digitaltrends. March 3, 2015
  23. ↑ "Planned obsolescence". The Economists. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  24. ↑ Park, M. (2010). "Defying Obsolescence." In Cooper T (ed) Longer Lasting Products: Alternatives to the Throwaway Society. Gower, Farnham, UK.".
  25. ↑ "Idea: Planned obsolescence". The Economist. March 25, 2009. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
  26. ↑ Cassia, Fernando (March 28, 2007). "Open Source, the only weapon against 'planned obsolescence'". The Inquirer. Archived from the original on April 20, 2012. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  27. ↑ Russell Jacoby, Social Amnesia (1975), p. xvii.
  28. ↑ Paglia, Camille (1991). "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics. Third Series 1 (2). ISSN 0095-5809. 

Further reading

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