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Comment by olalonde | Hacker News Reader

> He then attacks planned obsolescence as the dumbest outcrop of this process,

Planned obsolescence is an economic myth. There is very little evidence that it actually exists in the real world, unless you are really willing to stretch the definition. It's just not possible to successfully pull it off in a competitive market.

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I guess "selling things that will wear out soon even though it wouldn't be hard to make better ones that last way longer" is stretching the definition? Because that's everywhere.

Yes, it's stretching the definition. The fact that consumers are buying plenty of things that will wear out soon is not evidence of planned obsolescence. It is evidence that consumers prefer those products over those that last longer (probably because they are cheaper).

I'm just taking issue with the word "prefer".

Do people really prefer cheaper things? Often people can only afford cheaper things, and don't prefer them over well-built things. I buy cheap things and often would prefer a more expensive thing.

I can further unravel the logic of my two statements if you prefer, but it's probably annoying.

You are right, I was not using the colloquial sense of the word. I was using it to mean what people choose to purchase under price/budget constraints[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

You're assuming that the intelligence of a consumer of well designed products is at parity with that of a consumer of cheap products.

You're also assuming that the critical mass of people have enough money to choose.

No, I'm not making those assumptions. Can you elaborate?

There is no strong incentive for companies to make products that last longer than a certain period of time, so they put no effort into it. I think that's really what people are calling "planned obsolescence." I think "unplanned obsolescence" would be a more accurate term. I really doubt any companies have teams of engineers tasked specifically with reducing product longevity.

Companies evolve whatever strategies work best to extract the highest amount of consumer dollars at the lowest cost. I also doubt most of them have specific goals to make their products worse, but brand power, walled gardens, monopolies and cartels let them get away with quite a few tricks that _end up_ making them worse.

People aren't willing to pay more for things that last longer.

Individuals are. I buy more expensive boots knowing they'll last longer. Communities like the BuyItForLife or the Frugral subreddits discuss products and durability.

A large enough cohort of consumers to influence manufacturers aren't doing so, unfortunately.

The assumption that markets are mostly competitive is deeply flawed. Markets are controlled, managed and monopolized more often than not, via strategies like control of chokepoints (computer chip production is a case example), interlocking boards of directors of major corporations, government subsidies for specific industries (and import tariffs as well), etc.

Case example: acceptable cell phones could be produced today that would last for 20 years using the same internal structure, with decent audio/video capabilities and memory storage, if they were designed to be easily repairable, i.e. if the components that are likely to wear out could be easily replaced (battery, touchscreen, etc.). The operating systems could be locked-in to a standard format, or OS upgrades could be made backwards-compatible.

Major phone manufacturers really are not interested in making such devices, because new sales would fall:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmd9a5/tim-cook-to-investors...

Where is the competitive market providing the long-lived alternatives?

The smartphone manufacturing industry is super competitive. Many of the largest phone manufacturers didn't exist a decade ago. I guess you got a billion dollar startup idea in your hands, go ahead and create that phone company. Personally, my hunch is that you're not the first to have this idea and a phone like the one you described is either not commercially viable and/or there isn't real demand for a phone that lasts 20 years.

Are you sure smartphones are even relevant anymore? They seemed to have devolved into doing everything mediocre and are much like a dildo/toothbrush hybrid without clear instructions. Dialtone 2.0 sounds like a winner already. The seperation of data and dialtone.

And with influencer marketing, its like celebs decades ago harping about the health benefits of eating a placenta... Are you eating placentas to maintain health? All those vitamins and minerals... Yummy :/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-deliv...

Just because they invented it/said it, doesn't make it a good idea/product.

Product evolution is already well documented. The 1767 invention of carbonated water/soda water did not make large strides until 1886 and did not get HFCS until 1981-1984.

https://www.thoughtco.com/18th-century-timeline-1992474

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/07/the-secret-history-...

The point of a free market participant is to escape it.

Very little evidence, you say? Well, here you go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

PS "not possible to pull it off in a competitive market" is not a meaningful statement. The fact that it is possible to pull off implies it's not a competitive market already.

That's probably the most successful cartel in history and was largely assisted by government through basic lightbulb patents granted to GE. It lasted about half a decade before it started falling apart due to external competition. I'm not saying no one will attempt to form cartels or engineer planned obsolescence, just that it isn't sustainable from an economic standpoint.

I see you're ready for the advanced course. Here's the continuation of that history: https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-planned-obsolescence/ Planned obsolescence through advertising is still planned obsolescence.

TL;DR: It happened. They did it on purpose, that purpose being to make more money.

> Planned obsolescence through advertising is still planned obsolescence.

No, it's not. It's also a pretty elitist/condescending view of the American people, as if they are passive victims incapable of discerning what's good for them. Might as well do away with democracy while we're at it.

I can tell you've read nothing of the history of advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and other methods of mass persuasion. My guess is you also think you're one of those "independent thinkers" who's "immune" to propaganda. Guess what: you're not.

This seems like a pretty strong claim given that 4 billion Android phones are made each year with <2 years of kernel support. Where are you even getting this from?

Again, this is a misunderstanding of what planned obsolescence means. Supporting software costs money. The longer the support offered, the higher the cost of the phone. A line has to be drawn: a reasonable duration that doesn't increase the cost of the phone by too much. That line is ultimately driven by consumer preferences.

Planned obsolescence would be setting a timer on the phone that disables it after two years.

> Where are you even getting this from?

From basic economics 101 theory and empirical observation.

I’m not sure how you’re trying to define planned obsolescence in order to say it doesn’t happen. Maintenance has costs and it has benefits and a corporation tries the weigh those according to its best guess. But the biggest cost for maintenance as far the decision makers are concerned is not the extra 10 engineers required to support a product with 100M unit volumes for another year. It is the opportunity cost of not selling a new device next year. The fact that the device is not working as long as its usable lifecycle as a conscious matter of corporate planning is pretty much the definition of planned obsolescence. And I can personally vouch that when execs are pressed about why they don’t commit the to longer support terms the answer that comes back is “we want to sell more units next year”.

Those execs are not very clever. Why not drop the support after just 2 months?

Writing software costs even more money. And software is more profitable if you break your old software and ruin the attached hardware after 2 years.

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