Topic "Designed to Fail - Planned Obsolescence"

Recommended Viewing: Veritasium (27 Mar 2021 - 24,731,523 views ) This is why we can't have nice things" - This video is about stuff: light bulbs, printers, phones and why they aren't better. @

10 minute Presenter this week: Thor [General discussion follows the presentation]

Possible discussion threads:

1. At least since the invention of the electric light bulb, many manufactured objects have been planned to fail after a certain time (planned obsolescence). What are some pluses and minuses of this as a business strategy?

2. An old idiom says "You get what you pay for". How true, if ever, is that?

3. The English word 'fashion/fashionable' implies that a kind of planned obsolescence in what is socially acceptable in clothing, behaviour, ideas etc is desirable. What are some arguments for and against this?

4. Gift giving is socially required in many cultures. Birthdays and Christmas are examples. Actual gifts may be familiar and traditionally expected (giving father socks. Yetch!). They may trade on known dollar value (diamonds, tea in China), or they may depend on novelty. The industries based on novel gifts must constantly deprecated last season's gifts to offer something new. Examples? What kind of gifts do you prefer and seek out. Is novelty a good business model?

5. What are some of the social and environmental costs of planned obsolescence?

6. How long do people want or expect cars to last? What kind of people buy new cars regularly? How is status associated with new cars? How is the car industry driven by a need for planned obsoescent? => Apply these questions to mobile phones.

7. Thr formal education system is designed to graduate you by late teens or early twenties into a lifetime career. Modern life doesn't work that way. Also adult education institutions have added a business model which sells ever changing ädvanced degrees" (e.g. quick MAs, certificates) to career-stranded workers. How is all this connected to planned and unplanned obsolescence in industry?

8. How often are human relationships based on a kind of planned obsolescence? For example, think of the career "friendships" which dissolve as the ambitious climb a career ladder. Or marriages that are based on social or economic benefit rather than mutual attraction.

9. If you are a typical over-50 y.o. in most indistries worldwide now, you are considered obsolescent, and easily discarded. Modern economic and political systems have not really developed to handle this problem. What is a 'big picture' possible solution?

10. Making a product disposable after one or several uses (e.g. single shave razors), or packaging them in immediately disposable materials has created enormous mountains of waste worldwide. You might put stuff in your wheely bins and forget about it, but it doesn't vanish from the earth. How long can this go on? What are some solutions?

Extra Viewing & Reading

Veritasium (27 Mar 2021 - 24,731,523 views ) This is why we can't have nice things" - This video is about stuff: light bulbs, printers, phones and why they aren't better. @

The Daily Wrench (September 2025) "35 NEW Cars That DIE Before 50,000 Miles – Avoid at ALL COSTS! (2025 Edition)" @

DW Shift (May 2024) " Designed to Fail: What Dating Apps Really Want from You - Dating apps promise you love, but can they deliver? Every match comes at a cost - outside of premium subscriptions, your data is the real price you pay". @

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