Are we making too many products that will be obsolete within a short period of time? Yep, we sure do. We have become such a consumer-driven society that things are constantly changing and supplies are being depleted at an extreme pace. Planned obsolescence has been around for decades now.
Our products are being made to last a very short time on purpose. The manufacturers can’t get more money for an individual if they don’t need to purchase a certain product from them for many years to come. This is a sad truth.
Where did the good old days go?
The purpose of this post is to talk about some of the stuff that most don’t like to hear. I think it’s because we feel bad about it and don’t feel we can do anything to better it. Companies used to make great products at reasonable prices that could literally last for years as long as there wasn’t any unusual abuse of the product.
Those times have come and gone. I know firsthand of a certain product that was created back years ago and that product worked so well that people couldn’t even destroy it they were just that good. The company was a video game console company. I will not mention the name.
I was a merchandising rep for that company in the mid-2000s and I heard the complaints from management that the consoles wouldn’t die. They were gaining money but were losing retention due to its lasting design. In 2009 they decided to change the design and make it less reliable. Why and how the heck could a company do that is beyond me?
Their new design was a success, but would surely fail within one to two years versus their previous one that seems to go on and on. Complete madness, right?! We need to start thinking long-term not short-term. It’s digital chaos.
Money, money, money!
It is a shame that money-hungry execs would do such a thing and it just shows you how society has become so wasteful. Landfills are filling up with lots of electronics that won’t get fixed because parts cost more than the device itself.
Well, that’s because those manufacturers are the ones that set the prices of many of those devices. They hold the patents and the designs so most of the time they get to keep the profits in-house. If you have replacement parts then you need repair people which will cost them more.
This is how they created planned obsolescence. It is all by design and our society is just glued to the next latest and greatest. Cell phones are another more popular device that they roll out and less than one year later that model is no longer available. Then the manufacturers start sending the devices updates that eventually lead to the device being overloaded with memory and failing to work reliably.
I only hope that this wasteful society changes its ways sooner rather than later. We need to stop the madness for the sake of our beautiful planet. What can we do though?
Many things we can’t avoid. Especially if they are items we truly need. If all the cell phone manufacturers do the same dirty tricks then it seems we have no other choice. I just try to make mine last as long as possible and not get sucked into thinking I need the next latest and greatest right now. That way it will take longer to replace devices. I hope this makes sense.
This post is about pretty much all products out today. Electronics, clothing, and so on. We have this thing called fast fashion which is just insane. Clothing that is meant to only be worn a couple of times and then people dispose of them in landfills. They are of poor quality and quickly develop holes and other flaws which makes people not want to wear them anymore.
Conclusion
Please do your part and try to make healthy decisions for the Earth. Obviously, we can’t help certain things but wherever we can help is gonna be better than not. Now go have a great freakin day!
Question
How can we each do our part? What are your thoughts?
