Talk:Planned obsolescence/Archives/2012

There are some serious inaccuracies in this article

That is why I added that notice at the top of this article.

That whole section about "expiry dates" is highly dubious. For starters, the examples it refers to (food and drink) are not explicit expiry dates, but are "best before" dates. And they are usually quite accurate predictions as to when the quality of the product becomes unacceptable for consumption. I have been in the unfortunate position of eating out-of-date crisps, peanuts and chocolate on several occasions (usually a few months off) - with the crisps and salted peanuts they had more or less totally lost their flavour, and generally tasted quite awful. When chocolate goes off it starts to discolour, harden, and also doesn't taste too great either.

And as these dates are predicted, 100% accuracy can not be expected for obvious reasons, and they probably want to stay on the safe side with things like food, drink and medicine so the dates would be put shorter than predicted. Health & Safety boards and whatnot would not be particularly happy if things were expiring before the labelled dates!

Also: "Would DVD players have been adopted as quickly, or even at all, if VCRs didn't break irreparably after three years?" This is complete drivel! It is not typical for consumer VHS VCRs to just "break" after 3 years at all. In comparison to DVD players, VCRs do require occasional maintenance due to the much more complicated mechanical parts needed to operate - many people seem to not understand that VCRs are by no means "maintenance-free" products because of the mechanics involved. But still, that does mean they have to be serviced annually, or even every 3 years. Depending on usage, head and tape transport cleaning is required every year or so to keep picture and sound quality optimal, rubber components will degrade over many years, and video heads will eventually wear out after thousands of hours of usage. I have had a VCR since 1998 and it is still perfectly functional after only occasionally cleaning the heads, and I know people who have had ones for longer without issues.

Unfortunately more modern VHS VCRs tend to be of cheaper quality as most production of units has moved from places like Western Europe and Japan to places of cheaper labour, but as they say, you get what you pay for. A poor quality VCR is going to break just as easily as a poor quality DVD player - which there are also many of these days. --Zilog Jones 10:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed Zilog. I removed the expiry date section entirely. As a biologist who has done work on food spoilage, I can attest that the expiration dates on food are there for good reason. They are minimum dates for the beginning of significant bacteriological growth in many cases, wherein there could be enough bacterial contamination to present a danger for immunocompromised or other sensitive individuals. In addition to that, many nutrients have a limited shelf life and the dates reflect the time to which the Nutritional Facts panel is accurate. The razor/toothbrush comment is very apocryphal; I checked several packages at the drug store today and none of them listed expiration dates.

• While I whole-heartedly agree that the expiry date issue is a null one, it is naive to believe that the concept of planned obsolescence (or, as I refer to it as, engineered obsolescence) does not exist. This is a difficult topic to cite, as not many companies advertise the fact that they utilize this technique. However, I am confident that with a little research, one could find significant reference and study of this topic. While it is rather unethical, the practice actually makes good business sence. Unfortunately for this discussion, the examples that commentators have used are very poor. VCRs are not devices that became obsolete by design, they were simply displaced by superior emerging technolgy. A better example may be one used in the article regarding cars, most specifically car parts. The replacement part/repair industry is a booming one for manufacturers that could easily build more durable, long lasting parts, albeit at more expense. Rather than translate this expense to their customers, these companys use planned obsolescence by design. Any engineer worth their salt knows that aluminum is not a good metal to use in high heat environments, e.g. heads on an engine. Yet they do. It saves money, it introduces an eventual need for replacement parts, and it introduces the potential to sell a new car to a former customer when their previous automoble blows a head gasket. Even this example is shakey at best, we could debate till we die on the motives of a corporation. Evil Corporate America? Not quite. Smart business? You bet. This topic is NOT invalid. The article is fairly well written, and with some revision, I think it can treat this topic without bias, and that is important. Whether you feel that this concept is wide-spread or not, it's a concept none-the-less, and ought to be covered by wikipedia. -TooLazyToLogIn

This article is fairly accurate. I have had Playstation 2 systems that have fallen apart for no reason and have to be replaced. Clearly, Sony intended to sell 5 or 6 per household so they would make a greater profit then cancel production and move everything to the more expensive Playstation 3. 205.166.61.142 19:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

• Clearly accurate based on what research? What documentation from Sony? I've had one of the original PS2s for five years, now, and it still works perfectly. I had a Playstation for a decade and it worked fine, never had to have any maintenance done. I'd like to see some sort of factual backing other than anecdotal evidence before accepting such a claim (or supporting removal of the tag). Nathanpatterson 21:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed. Also, Sony makes a loss on each PS2 unit sold, which they make back by selling games. Thus it is Sony's interest to make consoles durable, so that people don't buy more than one.

• I think that this article should have an example about Ipods. That is definitely planned obsolescence in business. HaLoGuY007 11:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC) Me

This is probably off-topic, but I know that certain old Sony CD players had planned obsolescence. I'm not mechanically inclined enough to remember the exact workings, but a friend of mine once showed me how a certain gear would slowly drop or wear down until it would be purposefully useless in a number of years. He was able to fix the thing somehow. Not encyclopedia-quality material, I'm aware, but I bet more digging might reveal some more concrete evidence, perhaps. This is a tricky thing to cite. 71.221.10.197 02:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You may be thinking of the Sony timer legend. In practice, almost everything wears out. There was a film about someone who invented an everlasting suit of clothes, which explored the consequences. Shimano released a rear derailleur gear mechanism for bicycles with a ceramic bearing, which has extremely low wear - they didn't make many of them ! The Morris Minor was the first British mass-produced car, so they over-engineered them - many are still going strong. Singer sewing-machines, Raleigh "All-steel" cycles are other examples of domestic engineering built to last. To some extent you can build brand loyalty and increase market share, but eventually the market saturates.

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"eventually the market saturates" - you say that like it's a bad thing. Greedy sociopath! The only other eventuality is that, resources get used up, and there is simply nothing left at all. Zaphraud (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Lightbulbs

I'm removing this:

For instance, lightbulbs that last many years can easily be made for a price that would be considerably lower per hour of lifetime than conventional ones. These bulbs are used by almost all businesses and industries. Homeowners, however, tend to balk at paying two or three times as much even when it might save them money in the end (cf. false economy).

This is an urban legend. The linked article explains that there is a relation between lifetime and efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb. It is easy to make a lightbulb that lasts much longer, but at the price of getting far less light for the same energy consumption.

Han-Kwang 20:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Most CFLs seem to be engineered to fail these days, regardless of brand. Failure of the seal at the metal conductor-glass joint. Failure of the electronics powering them. Overheating causing the tube to burn out prematurely at one end. Rare that the tube runs its full lifetime, dimming itself out to a flicker like a real fluorescent with a simple ballast. Zaphraud (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

seem to be, doesn't mean they are. CFL's went from being made from only a few manufacturers with no real market for parts and components to being made by anyone with mass produced Chinese parts imported at lower cost than making your own. That is a much more likely explanation than "designed to fail." Furthermore talk pages are for discussing article content, and its improvement, not stating your personal opinion, views and bias.--96.29.243.67 (talk) 18:03, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Ethics of planned obsolescence?

I've noticed the section with this title on the main page is blank. Is it supposed to be? →Twentydragon 07:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It was likely blanked by a act of vandlism or as a result of a edit war. It would seem dealing with the myriad problems inherent in an article so many people feel strongly about (even when it doesn't occur) has driven many dedicated editors away. This article is on the fast track to deletion I should think.--96.29.243.67 (talk) 18:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Notable examples

The article could use some notable examples to show how this sort of thing operates in real life. I would suggest starting with the Apple iPod. New features are never back-ported to older models (unless it's new DRM) and each model often has a very short life span before being replaced. For example, the 4G colour was a current model for just *3 months* before being replaced by the 5G. Mojo-chan (talk) 13:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Also think about the Lead-Free Solder. This shows how real stuff breaks after ~3 years of usage. --213.84.249.129 (talk) 12:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is fair considering that Apple has employed this strategy and has admitted publicly to doing so. I cannot think of another real-world example with more merit aside from the whole ATI thing. Traxxasred (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this needs some examples (with evidence to back it up, of course). FriendlyRobotOverlord (talk) 05:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)