> Astra Taylor’s iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech companies pressure customers to upgrade.

There's a lot of problems in the tech industry, and I wouldn't be shocked if there was a lot of planned obsolescence in hardware, but breaking a phone screen isn't planned obsolescence. That's you breaking a screen. People like to talk about their mother's grandmother's washing machine and how it never broke, but if you dropped it off a cliff it would break.

Also, a couple things I've read on reddit that made me rethink my thoughts on planned obsolescence:

It used to be that hardware engineers had to plan for errors in manufacturing, etc, and not knowing exactly how much stress this part would place on this part, and as such, had to over-engineer their products to make sure they would work. These days, we have CAD tools, and can almost exactly figure out how thick this particular piece can be to work, and exactly how strong that motor needs to be. Products aren't over-engineered anymore, and as such will fail sooner.

Additionally, when your grandmother bought a washing machine, it might have cost a larger % of your income than now. If you scale the price of older machines, they're significantly more expensive than what we have now.

Final note: You never hear about your grandmother's stuff that broke now, did you. You only saw the stuff that worked forever.

As it stands, I'm actually really concerned about the direction modern technology is going, but at the same time, hopeful. It's easier than ever before for a young inventor to create something wonderful and make sure everyone has access to it. With the same power that allows them to get their ideas to everyone else, more malevolent powers can keep an ever-closer eye on everyone, and much easier.