Obsolescence, anticipated or built-in, can be highly attractive to manufacturers of electronics. It is a way of ensuring that demand remains viable for the devices they produce. Producers build their products with built-in end-of-life scenarios with expected obsolescence. That is expected obsolescence at work if you happen to buy a cell phone intended to break down or even shut down entirely after two years.
But for the world, this also means bad news. Although planned obsolescence is an excellent way to calculate and protect income, it is a devastating way of contributing to the existing electronic waste problem rather than reducing it.
- Exploring planned obsolescence
The thoughts and ideas behind expected obsolescence are thoroughly capitalist, some claim. Indeed, it might logically inspire the average customer to think so by thinking about designing devices to fail after a specific time or after a certain amount of use.
The impetus behind the …
