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SOCIETY

2025 July 11, 12

Level: High

Planned Obsolescence

by David Morton

This business practice benefits big companies and frustrates consumers

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Imagine this: You bought a shiny new smartphone just a year ago, and while it worked perfectly at the time, now it’s giving you all kinds of trouble. The battery drains too fast, the screen keeps freezing up and your apps take forever to load. What’s going on?

  The answer might be planned obsolescence, a shady business strategy in which products are designed to break, fail or become obsolete earlier than necessary. On the one hand, this strategy can boost sales by encouraging consumers to buy replacements, but on the other hand, it often leaves customers feeling cheated and results in waste when old products are thrown away.

  To understand planned obsolescence, let’s travel back to the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, lightbulbs were becoming a common household item, and business was booming. However, for some manufacturers, there was a serious issue that would affect their sales in the long run: their lightbulbs lasted too long. Enter the Phoebus cartel, a group of major lightbulb manufacturers from around the world. These companies made a secret agreement to limit the lifespan of lightbulbs to 1,000 hours, and if any company’s bulbs lasted longer, they would face penalties. The Phoebus cartel, whose agreement elevated profit over consumer needs, is a key example of planned obsolescence.