Planned obsolescence What is planned obsolescence and why should you know about your devices?

The term obsolescence began to be used in 1954, through a conference by an industrial engineer named Brooks Stevens, who gave this title to one of his talks. It is a manufacturing technique that calculates the time in which the products will cease to be useful. for the user thanks to the way they were made.

This generates huge profits for the manufacturers, since they are constantly manufacturing “new products”but they generate damage to the environment and also to people.

In this post we will talk about this topic that is so worrying today. Also we will identify the types of obsolescence that exist and we will see what are the mechanisms that you can use to protect yourself against planned obsolescence.

What is the planned obsolescence of your equipment and what is its origin?

Planned obsolescence is a production and also a commercial technique, by which a certain useful life is attributed to a product from its manufacture.. Therefore, the producing companies know in advance when their product will become obsolete, stop working or start to fail. There are different types of obsolescence. There is the one that is done through the insertion of a component within the manufactured elements. This part will make the product work correctly until a certain time or cause the device to start failing due to the malfunction of some other part.

It is not illogical to think that when you can’t find spare parts for your computer or for any other electronic component you are in the presence of this productive technique. Nor when you perceive, without realizing it, that your technological devices are obsolete according to marketing trends what companies do

Within computing, a very frequent obsolescence is the notification made by the printers when the ink level is running out. You may have noticed that in some of these teams it is convenient to buy a new one since its price is similar to the replacement of the cartridges.

This aggressive consumption technique is not from now. Its origin is dates back to 1901 through an invention of Thomas Edison. Which, when he created his famous light bulb, he did it so that his prototype would last approximately 1500 hours. The problem arose due to the resounding success of the invention, some companies saw an opportunity to obtain large profits. It was decided to create a union between Osram, Philips and General Electric. This organization began to control the manufacture of these electrical devices and limited the useful life to a maximum of 1,000 hours.

A little later, in the year 1938This type of manufacturing through a synthetic fiber, which until then was indestructible, also had a great performance. The company that manufactured it, DuPont, was seriously affected in its income due to the low rotation of the demand for its articles. So its engineers find a solution by designing a much less resistant fiber and forcing the user to buy again.

Already at the beginning of the 21st centuryApple had a major controversy with its audio player iPod. This device had a battery that is irreplaceable, but it did not have a useful life of more than 18 months of use.

With what intention is obsolescence established for a product or device?

The intention with which an obsolescence is established in the production of an electronic device or any other product is to constantly renew the demand for them.. That is, always keep users buying the products that companies manufacture. In this way, companies get big money rewards and avoid going out of business.

You should keep in mind that incorporating new products is not an easy task. A previous market research is needed to see the acceptance that the prototype will have among consumers, as well as creating a production line has too many costs in its implementation.

According to this, we can say that it is much easier to modify existing products.or continue to deliver the same with the same characteristics, but with a very limited useful time, rather than creating new elements that sustain the life of the companies.

Obsolescence of Software and Hardware. How to know it?

As we talked about before, planned obsolescence is real in our equipment due to manufacturers’ decisions. But this should not be confused with obsolescence caused by changes in technology or program advances that make our equipment and software really old.

We will explain below what are the points that you should consider so that you realize if you are in the presence of an obsolescence in your hardware or software that you use for a long time. Let’s see what this is about.

When it comes to hardware, you’ll know you have outdated equipment when:

• See that the device runs slow on startupor when you open 2 or more programs and notice that it sticks in some of them until it finishes processing the information.
• Notice that the computer overheats more than usual. This means that the RAM and the processor are working over demand due to the little resource they have available.
• When you install new software and notice that the performance of your team has decreased considerably.
• You have to install a software of an important weight and you must delete files or other data so that you have space in it.
• The operating system needs to install updates and can’t do it that way Or after the installation of OS patches happens, you start noticing that your device is running slow.
• The computer becomes insecureas it starts to generate important access doors due to the fact that it cannot run antivirus and other kinds of security software.
• You have to permanently resort to the cloud or to any other external storage since you do not have enough capacity to store information on your computer.
• Your device does not support a modern operating system so you have to resort to those OS that need few resources. For example, the Lubuntu distribution for Linux.

In the case of software, you will realize that your computer program is obsolete when:

• receive no more developer updates.
• You need the installation of a complementary system and it asks you for minimum requirements of your software that you do not have in order to make it run.
• It gives you partial solutions or not very detailed reports regarding other software that exist today.
• You cannot access the database that is in the cloud because the server has other much more modern versions, which can be accessed with more advanced software. new.
• They become more insecure because they don’t get constant updates.
• Does not support modern browsers.
• The applications that you have installed are gradually disappearing because the operating system or software that supports them is losing presence in the market.

What are the consumer protection mechanisms against planned obsolescence?

So that you remain calm, we will show you the protection mechanisms that you have against programmed obsolescence carried out by manufacturers:

legal regulations

In Spain there is no specific law that protects the regulation on planned obsolescence, as we can find in France or Italy. But there are regulations that should be established as applicable standards for certain industries, such is the case of Royal Decree 110/2015 on February 20 of that year.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment of Spain establishes, in Article 6 of said Royal Decree, that people have the right to receive devices or products that can prolong their useful life and can be used to avoid their elimination.

This can help you understand a little more why there is still a lot of obsolescence in our country and what law you can cling to to defend your rights. According to this, we can infer that Until now, there is no legal regulation in the European Union that protects all citizens in a common way with respect to the programmed obsolescence of industries.

Issop-stamp

This seal, created by FENISS (Energy and Sustainable Innovation Foundation without Planned Obsolescence), will help you recognize products that are sustainable without planned obsolescence. Thus forming a respect for the environment and people when they buy one of these products.

In this way, you will be sure thatThe useful life of the element you are buying will be adequate according to current technology and materials used. in its manufacture.

change of habits

When we refer to this point, we are not only talking about users, but also of all those government agencies that have the responsibility to control the companies so that the manufacture of their products are adequate.

In addition, of course, we also refer to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that factories must comply with to take care of the environment and users, seeking to have parts in production that can be replaced.

elongation.org

This social movement was created by a group of people who are against consumerism. Its name is the acronym for lengthening and obsolescence. This organization encourages learning how to use different objects to extend their life and thus avoid the consumption of materials that can pollute the environment. You can find different tips and seminars on its website that will help you fight against planned obsolescence.

Is planned obsolescence good or bad? Advantages and disadvantages

As is always the case in computing, all actions have their advantages and disadvantages. Next, We will talk about the benefits and drawbacks that a programmed obsolescence of equipment presents to users:

Advantage

Among the advantages we can mention:

• When there is a planned obsolescence, companies know the product life cycle, therefore, they can anticipate and reduce costs with respect to the development of new equipment. In this way, the user receives a better product and, in many cases, at a lower price.
• The same goes for technology itself.. Users receive better and more advanced technology for the same price, with better performance than they had with their outdated product.
• The technique of obsolescence can maintain a company’s annual income, since encourages customers to buy under pressurethus generating the maintenance of jobs in the factories that industrialize the products.
• On the other hand, when people have a constant source of work, consumption towards other products is stimulated, thus achieving what in economics is called “heat demand”. In this way, all the macroeconomic indices move positively so that the country does better.

Disadvantages

As for the disadvantages, we have to talk about:

• planned obsolescence has a huge environmental impactsince technological waste is a polluting factor that is among the first risk positions.
• Creates dependency on consumerswhich is why consumerism and other psychological factors such as depression or compulsive shopping disorders often increase in people.
• When there is a marketing strategyusers want to access products quickly, so companiesIn general, they increase their prices until they reach a point of balance between supply and demand. That is, users end up paying a higher price than the product is really worth.
• They can cause damage to health due to the principle of denial in clients. This happens mainly in foods or medicines in which the expiration date is short and customers think that they will not have any problem as it is a marketing strategy of the company.

Differences between planned and perceived obsolescence

As you may have already noticed, within obsolescence there is a lot of persuasion on the part of companies that directly affect the perception that customers have about products.

According to this, we can distinguish that a planned obsolescence is one that actually occurs. That is, the device does not support this or that software or the memory it has is not enough to adapt to a certain program. We can also say that this kind of obsolescence translates into the actual operation of the equipment, since it can stop working correctly or directly break down completely.

Instead, if we talk about a perceived obsolescence we refer to a psychological factor by which the client understands that his device is obsolete and that it cannot fulfill functions that could be achieved with another product. When in reality this is not the case. Your device does have enough resources to be able to access all the features of a new item you want to buy.

Usually, this type of obsolescence occurs more than anything for marketing reasons, since companies act with force to be able to influence the user. The clearest example of this occurs in Smartphones, the change of model from one year to another has small variations that do not make the phone work better.

In what other sectors can the presence of this business strategy be appreciated?

Not only in technology does planned obsolescence occur. There are other economic sectors where they also have this business strategy. We will show you below in what types of companies you can find this marketing technique.

in fashion

Fashion is a sector that is highly influenced by planned obsolescence. This is because there are no breaks in clothing, nor do they stop working according to what they have been manufactured for. Therefore, companies dedicated to this industry create the need for users to change collections according to the seasons of the year. Or set a trend by hiring recognized models.

This is why it is very common to find advertisements with celebrities where define the “new fall collection” or summer, for example.

appliances

It is a very common thing that happens nowadays. If we compare the electrical appliances that exist today with what existed one or two decades ago, we will realize that the useful life of those products was much longer than that of these devices today. It occurs especially in artifacts dedicated to the kitchenin which the replacement is often cheaper than taking it to a specialized technician to fix it.

Biology

obsolescence in biology arises when you can genetically alter plant seeds that will not serve after a certain number of harvests. It is also produced so that vegetables, fruits or any other product of the land does not last long in good condition when they reach our hands.

In medicine

As you may have seen, pills, antibiotics and other medications necessary for health have a date to be consumed. This is nothing more than a planned obsolescence, since they continue to maintain all their medicinal properties after that date. But it is recommended that, before consuming, you have to consult a doctor specialized in these issues..

in feeding

It is directly related to the date suitable for consumption. In which foods, according to manufacturers, lose their nutritional virtues and health safety. But when we open some of these foods, we realize that they still retain all their characteristics in terms of texture, flavor and smell. Therefore, many times this planned obsolescence in food is due to a commercial issue and not a health one. However, we recommend consulting a doctor before consuming a food after the expiration date.