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Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby dolanbaker » Sat 18 May 2019, 13:59:18

Saw this cartoon and it got me thinking..
Image

The biggest cause of global pollution is excessive production for consumerism.
Put simply this is because they produce far in excess of what is actually needed the global needs can be sustained with production levels of at lease half of their current rates.

Why?

Because of the use of “planned obsolescence” a mechanism that artificially reduces the functional life of a product such that you are forced to replace it frequently , for example a washing machine can easily be designed to run for 25-30 years, but in fact fails in as tittle as sis years, just after the five year warranty runs out! This is deliberate design function to ensure future sales of replacement product.
It is also exasperated by the fact that spares are often difficult to obtain and with many products are impossible to repair due to the design of the product that prevent basic repairs from being carried out.

LED lamps are another example, after 40 years of electronics experience, I know that LEDs have an extremely long life if the electronics are properly designed 30,000 hours plus should be expected, but manufacturers are now bringing that down to less that 10,000 by designing the power supply to fail earlier with underrated components that will fail in about 10,000 hours.
These are just two examples of domestic devices that are designed to fail before their time to increase the profit margins for businesses and their shareholders.
In other areas, millions of plastic products are made with plastics that are designed to deteriorate far quicker than necessary to produce repeat purchases,
Shoes have soles made of materials that wear much faster than they should.
Cars used to be really bad before there was a consumer backlash in the 1970-80s after many deaths caused by cars that were designed to rust quickly getting involved in crashes and causing deaths by completely crushing as they were weakened by corrosion, or in some cases causing crashes by breaking up while being driven.
Then there is “perceived obsolescence” where consumers are being pressurised into replacing stuff that is perfectly functional with the latest and greatest model, which is usually the same as the previous one except for some more go-faster stripes or similar. The fashion industry is the worst offender here.
Then there is all the “single use” plastics to reduce costs in a fast food restaurant for example, to avoid paying for someone to wash dishes afterwards.
Finally to add insult to injury, there is a whole “recycling & waste management” industry created to get rid of all this rubbish.

So the third pane of the cartoon makes a lot of sense.
People just need to know what is happening in the world, whinging about climate change is a cop out, they need to be looking at their own consumerism and the corporate greed that is feeding it.

We should be lobbying our MPs, TDs or MEPs to try and outlaw the deliberate life shortening of products and ban manufacturers from making their products unrepairable or by preventing third party repairers getting parts.
One thing would be to mandate that products display a label with their design life and their ease or repair, similar to the energy ratings they currently carry.

“A” rated devices for example would have a design life in excess of 25 years and all parts are replaceable, it can be done.
Doing this will give the consumers a chance to demand longer life expectancy and repairable products by shunning those with a short design life or not serviceable.

Please share if you agree
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.:Anonymous
Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 18 May 2019, 14:27:21

I am in favor of laws requiring goods to last as long as practical like the 30,000 hour LED bulbs you mention. However that is a far cry from the 'kill those who oppose us' philosophy you are advocating here. You don't have to kill the corporate accountants, just properly regulate them so they behave in a better manner.

For example look at AT&T. Before the monopoly was broken up in the 1980's their subsidiary built phones that were like a tank, you could literally use the same phone for 50 years after clubbing a burglar into unconsciousness with it. The reason for this was simple, the phone company was responsible for the equipment working properly so they made sure it worked for as long as possible without needing finicky maintenance.

While on the one hand government regulations can go too far and stifle innovation and improvement, but a total lack of government regulations is not the solution for that situation either. We need to get the 'happy medium'. I was recently railing about this because when I was young the PUCO (Public Utilities Commission) would require all utility corporations to maintain their equipment in a high quality condition. The commission also negotiated rates between the consumers and the corporations to permit the maintenance to be properly done, the corporation to make a reasonable profit to draw companies into the business, but also protect customers from gouging or poor maintenance leading to unnecessary service interruptions. When the wave of deregulation swept through the PUCO stopped doing its core job and became very lax in regulating corporate behavior. Naturally corporations took advantage of that lackness and sought max profit with least effort.

IOW this is a government leadership problem IMO, not a corporation greed problem.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby dolanbaker » Sun 19 May 2019, 09:22:26

BTW, the cartoon was a joke, but it gets people thinking.
I do agree that it requires governments to "put manners on the corpoations", but it does show that corporate greed wil flourish when not kept in check.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.:Anonymous
Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 19 May 2019, 13:45:24

dolanbaker wrote:BTW, the cartoon was a joke, but it gets people thinking.
I do agree that it requires governments to "put manners on the corpoations", but it does show that corporate greed wil flourish when not kept in check.


The biggest fear of lobbyists in DC is that the injustice that results in the influence of corporate lobbyists will unite the electorate across party lines. Everything is being done to fabricate and incite the divisions to prevent this from ever happening.

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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby jedrider » Mon 20 May 2019, 12:00:24

All those fancy wine cork-pullers are made with some plastic parts that eventually fail.

The Rabbit cork-puller is guaranteed for ten-years. It typically fails at seven years. At five years I usually discard the receipts.

I open a bottle every other day, so you can do the math.

I bought a simple hand-held wine-opener from Williams-Sonama on sale, still way over-priced, and they can't even do metal properly, as I had to get my hammer and punch to fix it.

Got a simple hand-held wine-opener from Amazon for an incredible price, like $13. It puts to shame the $50 wine opener from Williams-Sonama. Yet, this is what people tolerate. The one on Amazon looks too good to be true, so you really don't believe it is a nice wine-opener, but it IS! I would have paid $50 for it and no more than $13 from the one from Williams-Sonama.

Still the same price, though:

https://www.amazon.com/Szol-Corkscrew-Attachments-Stainless-Steel-Spring-Loaded/dp/B07L4XB8L2/ref=sr_1_40?keywords=wine+cork+puller&qid=1558367953&s=gateway&sr=8-40
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 20 May 2019, 16:23:04

Completely agree. Probably more than you know. Consumerism has become the base of our economy.

It was not always this way, we were brain washed into this consumer myth. These attitudes can be changed but it will take a lot of talking to do so. Pops made fun of me for criticizing pre-ripped jeans, but I think they are the epitome of the problem.

Every time we buy something some amount of that transaction migrated to the elite. It’s as if there was a built in sales tax with the proceeds going to the rich. Want to screw the rich? Buy quality stuff.

Now I’ve got to go out and try to buy a 30 pin charger for my iPad. Getting damn hard to find.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 21 May 2019, 04:25:00

Newfie wrote:Completely agree. Probably more than you know. Consumerism has become the base of our economy.

It was not always this way, we were brain washed into this consumer myth. These attitudes can be changed but it will take a lot of talking to do so. Pops made fun of me for criticizing pre-ripped jeans, but I think they are the epitome of the problem.

Every time we buy something some amount of that transaction migrated to the elite. It’s as if there was a built in sales tax with the proceeds going to the rich. Want to screw the rich? Buy quality stuff.

Now I’ve got to go out and try to buy a 30 pin charger for my iPad. Getting damn hard to find.


I strongly urge you to get some of these before they stop manufacturing them, it lets you use current generation chargers with legacy equipment.

https://smile.amazon.com/ME-SUPERB-Fema ... 077TWFGSS/
Charger Adapter
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 21 May 2019, 07:47:55

Thanks Tanada, I’m leaving Friday so out of time to order. I’ll scrounge around today to find some. We seem to go through an inordinate number of charge cords, some last only a week or two.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby dolanbaker » Wed 22 May 2019, 12:16:42

Newfie wrote: I’ll scrounge around today to find some. We seem to go through an inordinate number of charge cords, some last only a week or two.

A perfect example of planned obsolescence if ever there was one, or simple crappy products.

Either way, a real waste of money and resources to make so many cables that are landfill only a few days or weeks later.

I try to buy ones that look like they'll last more than 5 minutes, but it is very difficult to know just by looking as they seem to either have strong looking cable or connectors and still fail quickly.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.:Anonymous
Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence.
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Re: Planned obsolescence and corporate greed

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 22 May 2019, 19:44:05

Just walk into a mall, any mall, and do a 360. Is there ANYTHING there value?
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