1. The birth of the Planned Obsolescence
Upon realizing the perpetual printing of money by the Federal Reserve after the Great Depression, all manufacturers of goods conspire to make them disposable. Have you ever wondered why older stuff lasted forever? Everything lasted more: houses, buildings, tools, clothes…So with all the advanced in technology why do we have the perception that things are built worse than 80 years ago? It all comes to Planned Obsolescence.In 1932, Bernard London wrote, “Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence”, in which he say that the Great Depression was caused because of those who “use their old cars, their old radios and their old clothing much longer than statisticians had expected”. But it was not until 1954 when this term was popularized by Brooks Stevens. This American industrial designer use it in a conference but he didn’t gave the term much importance, he just defined it as: “Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary.Then, by the 1950s the term was spread worldwide for products designed to break easily. To counteract the effect this was having on consumers Volkswagen reacted with a legendary advertising “We do not believe in planned obsolescence”. In 1960 Vance Packard divided planned obsolescence into two subcategories: obsolescence of desirability and obsolescence of function.
In all the story of the planned obsolescence we have a relevant event call the Phoebus cartel that makes us realize that all these movement was not just something accidental, but already plan but some business people.
Phoebus Cartel
The 23th of December of 1954 a group of business men were meeting to take a big decision. The people there represented the biggest producer of lamps in the world: Osram, Philips, General Electrics and others with a big power in this market. They created a Swiss corporation named "Phoebus S.A in which the sales were divided depending on the power of each of the companies.At that time, a normal bulb was able to run for 2500 hours. The purpose of the Phoebus cartel was really simple; reduce the life of a bulb to 1000 hours, so that the consumers need to buy them more often, when Thomas Alva Edison when he did the first bulb told that they were ready to run for at least 1500 hours.The Phoebus Cartel divided the world’s lamp markets into three categories: -home territories, the home country of individual manufacturers -British overseas territories, under control of Associated Electrical Industries, Osram, Philips, and Tungsram -common territory, the rest of the world In the late twenties a Swedish-Danish-Norwegian union of companies began planning an independent manufacturing center. Economic and legal threats by Phoebus did not achieve the desired effect, and in 1931 the Scandinavians produced and sold lamps at a considerably lower price than Phoebus.
2. What do we know about Planned Obsolescence
Planned obsolescence seems a new concept for us, something we have just discover with the help of a documentary call “Comprar, tirar, comprar” signed by Cosima Dannoritzer, but it all started after the Great Depression.We talk about Planned Obsolescence when the lifetime of every product is attached to one specific plan designed by the company which is producing that good. This type of production will obviously produce a benefit for the enterprise because the consumer is required to buy a new one in the moment the product fails.
Inside the concept of planned obsolescence we can develop the different obsolescence we find nowadays:Technical obsolescenceWhen we talk about technical obsolescence we say that a product is obsolete because we are able to find another one with a newer or better technology. We can find lots of examples of that: CD, telephone, videocassette recorder... Another complementary reason for obsolescence can be that supporting technologies may no longer be available to produce or even repair a product. For example many integrated circuits, including CPUs, memory and even some relatively simple logic chips may no longer be produced because the technology has been superseded, their original developer has gone out of business or a competitor has bought them out and effectively killed off their products to remove competition.
Functional obsolescenceParticular items may become functionally obsolete when they do not function in the manner that they did when they were created. This may be due to natural wear, or due to some intervening act. For example, if a new mobile phone technology is adopted, and there is no longer a provider who provides service based on the old technology, any mobile phone using that technology would be rendered obsolete due to the inability to access service.
Products which naturally wear out or break down may become obsolete if replacement parts are no longer available, or when the cost of repairs or replacement parts is higher than the cost of a new item. A product may intentionally be designed to use a faster wearing component - for example, use of soft rubber soles on shoes rather than for example rubber used in tires...
Style obsolescenceWhen a product is no longer desirable because it has gone out of the popular fashion, its style is obsolete. Because of the "fashion cycle", stylistically obsolete products may eventually regain popularity and cease to be obsolete.
Perceived obsolescenceThese terms refers to companies producing a good with and specific aspect and later selling it in the same way but with a different design. This is very clear in the fashion world but also with technology. People is usually guide by opinion leaders who tell them which are the most fashionable product even if they have the already a product with the same functional characteristics.
3. “Comprar, tirar, comprar” , the first step
4. Planned Obsolescence in the 21st century how does the future look like?
On the one hand, planned obsolescence is not being punished by governments nowadays. We can’t avoid that this practices bring a direct negative effect for customers and consumers, and that their rights are being trampled at any price. On the other hand the consequences for the environment are enormous and it seems that anyone is taking that into account. It is paradoxical that while technological advances multiply and improve each time, find that every certain period of time (even months) consumers "must" adapt and renew their "old" products.The continuous replacement of these products generates a huge volume of waste (often toxic) with a harmful effect on the environment and conservation of the Earth. The same manufacturers that produce these wastes are responsible for the absence of a secondary market in which the consumers can re-use these parts, so at the end the consumers are in a dead end. Fight against this practice is really complicate because the power of the enterprises is really big in the 21st century. Some no governmental organizations try to recycle all the stuff that is not use in the first world to help people in the third world. Anyway, the only solution that would stop this abuse would be reconsidering the neoliberal economic model that prevails the economic benefits of large corporations over the right of consumers. Governments should be in these cases, responsible for monitoring these companies and preserve the rights of citizenship.If we take notice of how governments decided to (try to) overcome the financial crisis, it seems that we are still way far from a possible improvement in these abusive practices."Nuestra economía enormemente productiva... pide que hagamos del consumo nuestra forma de vida, que convirtamos la compra y uso de los bienes en un ritual, que busquemos nuestra satisfacción espiritual, nuestra satisfacción del ego, en consumo... nosotros necesitamos cosas consumidas, quemadas, reemplazadas y descartadas a paso acelerado”. (Victor Lebow, 1955).
