Unlike competitor Henry Ford, who saw little reason to change his black Model-T, the forward-thinking Sloan saw change as an economic driver that could benefit his company. Sloan may have lacked the engineering genius to invent the prototype car, but he was a marketing and manufacturing visionary. Cynical types may argue that Sloan was no seer, that he simply walked down a consumer-driven pathway which had already yielded abundant fruit for the fashion industry, that he was no different than any fashion-hawking evangelist might be, curtseying to his intoxicated audience and blowing kisses, only to return to the dressing room, laden with new styles, new colors, and new prices.
With the end of World War II, other automobile industry insiders soon found the notion of planning new products around obsolete ones to be a palpable business model. Among them was Brooks Stevens , the renowned Milwaukee industrial designer specializing in everything from automobiles to appliances, and point-of-sale strategies. Stevens wholeheartedly embraced the concept of products becoming obsolete. This pragmatic man was thinking of the greater industrial good — or revenue — that could be generated through such a practice.
At a advertising conference, Stevens gave the speech heard round the world when he trumpeted the meaning and value of planned obsolescence. Multimedia OpenMind books Authors. Leading Figures. Featured author.
Jonathan Rossiter. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Latest book. Work in the Age of Data. Technology Innovation. Environment Inventions Recycling Sustainability. Ventana al Conocimiento Knowledge Window. Estimated reading time Time 4 to read. Sloan wanted those who already owned a GM car to exchange it for the latest model. Source: Wikimedia The history of planned obsolescence dates back to the s, when General Motors president Alfred P. Credit: Martouf Even Canadian author Giles Slade, whose book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America helped fuel the popular outcry against planned obsolescence, has recognised that the current consumer model has raised the quality of life like never before in history.
The Centennial Light, the bulb from the Livermore-Pleasanton fire station in California, has been shining almost continuously since Credit: LPS. Javier Yanes. In various forms, from subtle to unsubtle, planned obsolescence still very much exists nowadays. Smartphones need replacing every couple of years, as battery life fades and software updates change Credit: iStock. For a fully modern example, consider smartphones. Screens or buttons break, batteries die, or their operating systems, apps, and so on can suddenly no longer be upgraded.
As another example of seemingly blatant planned obsolescence, Slade mentions printer cartridges. Microchips, light sensors or batteries can disable a cartridge well before all its ink is actually used up, forcing owners to go buy entirely new, not-at-all-cheap units.
Taken this way, planned obsolescence looks wasteful. According to Cartridge World, a company that recycles printer cartridges and offers cheaper replacements, in North America alone, million not even empty cartridges end up in landfills annually. Beyond waste, all that extra manufacturing can degrade the environment too. On a macroeconomic scale, the rapid turnover of goods powers growth and creates reams of jobs — just think of the money people earn by manufacturing and selling, for instance, millions of smartphone cases.
As a result of this vicious, yet virtuous cycle, industry has made countless goods cheap and thus available to nearly anyone in wealthy Western countries, the Far East, and increasingly so in the developed world.
Many of us indulge in creature comforts unimaginable a century ago. Cars now have a longer lifespan than they did decades ago Credit: iStock. Depending on their age, children might grow out of their clothes sometimes in mere months. The same argument can apply to consumer electronics. Relentless innovation and competition for market share means that the underlying technologies in smartphones, for instance, keep surging ahead, with faster processors, better cameras, and so on.
Many owners might therefore appreciate paying less for a smartphone upfront whose, say, batteries can no longer hold a useful charge in three years. A revealing counter-perspective to this nexus of customer desire and affordability mediated by planned obsolescence is the luxury goods market.
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