On the contrary. The life expectancy has never been more important: it has never been more important to time the death of a device in such a manner that it hits some generational sweet spot to make the customer buy the same product over and over :-)

Maybe a little. But I think a big part of it is businesses realizing they can make a lot more money, at least in the short term, if people have to replace their products more often.

I think that's okay, overall. These things should all be considered prototypes and shouldn't be expected to last forever. [I also think a certain about of obsolescence is sensible and even good given the potential upsides to maintaining people or teams capable of designing, manufacturing, and supporting specific products or services.]

Yes, nobody says "we'll make sure this product breaks in 5 years."

Instead, they say, "We're going to have to support this for 5 years. Design it so that almost all of them survive that long, and don't bother trying to make them last longer. It's too expensive."

In the end, it's the same thing, just without the tint of evil.

Manufacturers want you to have reasons to upgrade. Manufactured obsolescence is absolutely a feature to them. Don't want to keep driving your sufficient vehicle after 5 because "it's insecure and doesn't run the latest OS"? That's a guaranteed revenue stream if they can get enough of the other manufacturers go to along.

Indeed. from non-replaceable batteries, to weak headphone and charging port connections, to breaking cables, to mobile phone OSes. Most of consumer-oriented hardware manufacture seems to rely on obsolescent-by-design to get consumers to spend on the same type of device, in short cycles.

Probably similar to the big pharma that may appreciate the economic benefits of a chronic diseases.

I think you have odd perspective here, because you're talking about tech lasting for a decade, but you're also explicitly omitting anything with a computer in it ("run an operating system").

"A 35 year old Commodore 64 is every bit as fun as it was when it first came out, and every bit as capable, but a piece of tech that's only 3.5 years old probably has a blinking jewel in the palm of its hand."

The hypothetical 35-year-old Commodore, however, can't do most of the things I ask my 3 year old laptop to do. Durability wasn't the issue; the rapidly increasing capability of newer and more capable computing platforms was.

We're at a point now where Moore's Law & related phenomena seem to have slowed a bit. Ten or fifteen years ago I always upgraded my laptop every 3 years. Now I can go longer, and typically only upgrade when there's a compelling reason (higher RAM ceiling, e.g., or external factors like the economics of extended service plans). Phones are the same; in the earlier years of the cell phone era, I got a new phone nearly every year because that meant smaller and more powerful and therefore more useful. In the Smartphone era, two years became the norm, and nowadays it's routine to see folks with 3 or even 4 year old phones.

The tl;dr is that there's no conspiracy or malignant intent here; it's just that shit gets better, and so the upgrade makes sense for most people. I mean, maybe you can get a 35-year-old Commodore running as a novelty, but I sure wouldn't want to try to do my job with one.

In a cell phone? Sure, because the replacement process is a somewhat annoying sales appointment at $carrier. In a thermostat? No, because it should last years. Maybe decades if it's a good one. IoT falls apart in this arena because the hardware is designed to be replaced often, and that's exactly what house hardware should not be.

And if the software is too complex, then don't do it. Do it right or don't bother.

On this note, I respectfully beg to differ. It's probably a lot more recognizable by its modern permutation: the manufacturer warranty.

intention is basically impossible to prove. The impact/effect of planned obsolescence isn't.

> On the other hand, you'd have to ask why consumers are not creating this pressure themselves. Has the market converged to a steady state where consumers no longer have a choice?

It often seems that way. Sometimes it will be more profitable to refuse to provide consumers with what they want.

To whom? We now have floating islands of plastic from obsolescent devices. That plastic blender I bought 3 years ago is now in the trash heap. My mother's blender she bought 40 years ago is still going. Obsolescence is terrible for the environment in the entire lifecycle of a product. In my opinion, obsolescence are rarely good for the society, never good for the customer. It is only good for the manufacturer.

> Before Telecommunications deregulation everyone had pretty much the same telephone that was leased from the phone co. It was electromechanical with sizeable transformers and magnets in there. Compare that to the sets that were available after deregulation with miniaturized components.

Just to be clear, are you suggesting that deregulation brought in the "not always bad" obsolescence? I know it brought innovation and customer choice, but can you unpack further how it brought obsolescence?

And yet my over 10 year old PC still gets the latest updates. Manufacturers have brought this on themselves, by locking and closing their devices, and insisting on proprietary solutions when open alternatives exist, or could exist.

There's an information asymmetry - if a previously-reputable manufacturer starts cheaping out on quality to save money, consumers have no way of knowing until a few years later. And unfortunately this seems to be a common pattern.

I would disagree with that on so many points. Today, more than ever we have massive differences. "Hey Siri/Google", the camera functionality is just incomparable, the maps, ...

In the case of consumer white goods the business case is that expensive mechanical components and security mechanisms are replaced by electronic ones that are cheaper. And indeed, counting inflation, today's whitegoods are far cheaper than they ever were. This is happening in power adapters, but also in washing machines and kettles. This means that half the components only exist in the virtual sense and you'd need half the design, a plastic molding factory, and a master's degree to have any hope in hell of fixing them. But they're 1/10th to 1/5th of your monthly pay, and last 2-10 years, so why bother ?

But the story is the same at a high level for everything from cell phone radios to motor controllers for washing machines. Virtual components, simulated in microcontrollers are far cheaper (and far less repairable) than a real component ever will be.

Every time I hit "Install later", I wonder if planned obsolescence is actually a business strategy? 'We'll offer an update that will slow down the computer, make certain programs not work, and then blame it on security.'

Actually, I think it's a dirty secret in the industry. If they can't throw in a Capacator that has a relatively short duty cycle, or place that cap next to a hot part of the board--they will eventually get us with a software update? I sometimes wonder? And maybe I'm just wrong.

I don't think anything will change in the future. They will always find a cheaper country to exploit. We will never see a device that's build to last years, and upgradable.

For myself, I'm really gun shy on buying any new electronics.

I think about the money I spent on electronic and cringe. If I saved the money, I could have bought a old corvette convertable. Something I could drive to the beach, and pass on to a loved one. Something that just goes up in value.

And now with the whole dumb devices(smart phones, iPads), and the addictive apps.(I don't want to admit apps I like are addictive, and hold no value. It's weird they provide just enough useful information so you can't say your just wasting precious time? But then again, I'm not going out like I used to? I blame it on myself.

I do know this--I don't know how anyone puts up with any person who is buried into that iPhone? It's more of a turn off, on so many levels, than oral herpes. I've gotten to the point where I subconsciously judge a person by how quick they pull out that phone.

They must be laughing in their mansions?

And my app developement strategy? Yes--it would be geared towards making whatever it is addictive, especially if I was putting my money into it. Meaning I don't have throwaway money to put out purely altruistic apps. And the average Phone Zombie would download it?

So you wouldn't have half the consumer electronics we have because nobody would be able to afford them.

We should be making consumer electronics with reasonable life expectancies. 150 years in the future I don't want to use something from 150 years ago that "still works", I want something that is new with more capabilities, that is cheaper, that does the thing better. Why create undestructible phones that will last 150 years when nobody other than vintage collectors will want them after ~10 years due to other problems with material degradation, fashion etc.

The optimal point is to not create discardable things, but it's also realising that if you're making something forever you're going to use up way more resources and people will still stop using those devices for other reasons, so you just created more waste.

Too short life = too much waste due to replacement needs.

Too long life = too many wasted resources per-device which will be abandoned for other reasons.

I get what you're saying and I agree that that's probably the cause, but how perverse is that!? Used to be that it was the pride of a company and their engineers to create a device that lasted half a lifetime (or at least a reasonable amount longer than just two or three years, which is all you get now, if you're lucky).

Planned obsolescence is illegal in many countries now (and rightly so), although difficult to prove and not punished enough, but I hope as a society we will find a way out out of the perverted incentivization that makes companies behave this way...

how else to add planned obsolescence to such a durable product?