How often do you throw away a product to upgrade to a newer model, even when the older one worked just fine? How often do you have to buy a new appliance because of minor damage to the current one? Probably more often than you'd like.

This is not a coincidence. Brands design their products to have a limited lifespan to try and trick you into buying newer products you may not necessarily need. They do so by using a strategy called planned obsolescence.

What Is Planned Obsolescence?

Planned obsolescence is a tactic whereby businesses sell products or services with an artificial expiry date. They do this by deliberately making products easily perishable or using clever marketing to make them feel outdated quicker than they naturally would. This helps them boost sales and create regular customers for recurring income.

The Origin of Planned Obsolescence

The planned obsolescence as a business tactic was first implemented by General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan in the 1920s to compete with his rival Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.

Sloan's strategy worked, and customers began upgrading to new models to follow current trends. Eventually, General Motors made massive sales, outgrowing Ford.

In another example, in 1925, the world's biggest light bulb companies gathered for a classified meeting in Geneva and formed the Phoebus cartel. The goal was to cut and standardize the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to create a shared monopoly.

The same engineers who were first tasked to extend the lifespan of bulbs were later instructed to reduce it. To their success, the plan worked, and sales rose. Even though the Phoebus cartel ceased its operations before World War II, its practices still linger to this day and are adopted by many businesses.

How Companies Use Planned Obsolescence

Today, planned obsolescence has evolved much further and is embedded in core business strategies to ensure recurring sales and business scalability.

Here are some of the tactics brands use to keep you swiping your cards:

1. Designing Products to Sell Complementary Goods

Brands cut the prices of products that need high maintenance or complementary goods to function. The low price of an item motivates you to make an impulse purchase. You are then sold complementary goods repeatedly for recurring sales. Let's take printers, for example.

Printers are designed to stop working when the ink cartridges reach a certain threshold, even if it's not empty. They are engineered with a chip that commands the device to alert you even if only one of the colors is below the set limit. Hence, urging you to get a new cartridge.

2. Dropping Support for Old Software

Tech giants consistently drop new operating system updates incompatible with older devices—forcing developers to roll out new updates and drop support for older versions. Ultimately, this forces you to upgrade to a new device with the latest specs to keep using their services.

Apple is notorious for this. People have often reported that iOS updates on the iPhone tend to slow down older models, sometimes causing an abrupt shutdown. In 2016, Apple was sued and ordered to pay a $27 million fine—a negligible fraction of its annual sales.

3. Pushing Perceived Obsolescence

Perceived obsolescence is the practice of making customers feel that the products they own are no longer in touch with their current needs and pushing them to buy newer models. In other words, it's deceiving the customers about their own needs through inventive marketing techniques that focus on style rather than functionality.

Brands release new cars, phones, gear, and outfits consistently, marketing them as remarkably superior and making the previous models seem obsolete in comparison. Often, they are instead just restyled versions with minor improvements. These products are marketed as status symbols, and not owning the latest model hurts reputation.

4. Making Irreplaceable and Non-Repairable Parts

Manufacturers deliberately make products overly expensive and unnecessarily hard to repair, even for minor defects. This strategy aims to convince you to "just get a new one" instead of spending on repairing your old product. It forces you to consider skipping the repair cost since it's almost as much as the cost of a new product.

For instance, when your smartphone battery gets degraded, the practical solution would be to replace it. Today, it is the norm for a smartphone to have an irreplaceable battery.

Obsolescence of just one part renders the entire device useless. Although it is possible to replace the battery, the process is not convenient enough for most people to care about. Apple even went a step ahead and incorporated pentalobe screws in the iPhone that can't be removed using standard tools.

How to Tackle Planned Obsolescence

It's bad enough that, according to a Statista report, we produce more than 50 million metric tons of e-waste each year. What's worse is that most of this waste can easily be reused.

But marketing efforts from brands promote a subliminal culture of impulse buying that accelerates waste production. As a result, it's now the norm to replace a product instead of repairing it.

Here are some things you can do to combat planned obsolescence and reduce e-waste:

• Resist the urge to impulse buy new products.
• Buy refurbished gadgets instead of brand-new ones.
• Opt for products that have replaceable parts.
• Buy products out of necessity instead of a perceived reputation.
• Buy from companies that advocate and follow sustainability.
• Choose brands that are transparent about their repair policies.
• Trade in or sell your old phone instead of throwing it away.
• Donate old household appliances you no longer use.

The best way to advance your right to repair is by voting with your wallet. In other words, avoid easily depreciable products and instead buy repairable products from brands that follow strong ethical practices and prioritize sustainability. This also pushes governments to impose new laws and restrictions that protect customers.

Inspire Transparency in Tech, Push the Right to Repair

Business decisions made without considering the customer's financial well-being only benefit the company and disregard ethical principles. The solution to this is to make business operations more transparent.

Technological progress without prioritizing sustainability fuels climate change. As a customer, it is your right to be able to repair what you own.