“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate” Victor Lebow, economist, 1955
The simplest most twisted way I’d explain Planned Obsolescence is, imagine Apple was responsible for designing a girlfriend for you in exchange for money. Now with entity sustainability coming into the picture, Apple being the smart guy would not design a girlfriend for you that has all the features, because after 6 months or a year they want you to come back and purchase what they say is a better girlfriend. So what they do is the first girlfriend they design for you has amazing eyes that serve as a stand-out feature, but that’s all they place in the package! just pretty eyes and you go ahead and buy. 6 months down the line they design another girlfriend for you that now comes with pretty eyes and dimples; say by now Apple’s marketing initiatives has managed to convince poor gullible South Africans that dimples are the way to go and since you made to believe that you deserve better and you dump the girl you with now for the assumed upgrade….
So as it goes Apple keep on adding another feature to the girlfriend package and you keep dropping the girl you have for the upgrade they design. Result? you are never happy! you never get to explore the current girlfriend you have because others will look at you funny, now Apple’s got your ego by the balls, you are constantly fishing out for other girls coming into the market and you always gawd DAMN BROKE!! so a Ninjaneer would define planned obsolescence as the art of tricking niggaz into buying below par products so as to keep adding improvements to them and as a result niggaz are always coming back to buy.
Investopedia defines Planned Obsolescence as:
“A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry’s products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again”
If you aren’t mad at this point then I guess you a chronic consumer, because what this says is they intentionally design and put to market below par products so as to keep you coming back for more.
Look at how they ninjaneered us as consumers, first was the 5s they popped up, then they released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which you went and bought, then a couple of month down the line they release iPhone 6s which is marketed as better so you as the owner of an iPhone 6 get caught up in all the marketing and decide to upgrade while your initial phone is still working perfectly.
What’s even more funny is how they trick everyone into conducting free marketing for them, I fell for it but I’ve decided to move onto better things. Planned Obsolescence is not only limited to cellphone manufactures, Car manufactures and other electronic manufactures do the same thing so as to prolong their companies and industries; Pharmaceuticals do with by spending little on research to find a cure for diseases, say for example Cancer, they make way too much money on Cancer treatment than they would make on it’s cure, this makes price-fixing look like a junior graduate, some complex bullshit packaged with dreams of high quality.
With my rants placed on a side, planned obsolescence doesn’t always have such a negative connotation. Companies can engage in this activity solely as a means of controlling and keeping costs at a low. For example, a cell phone manufacturer may decide to use parts in its phones that have a maximum lifespan of five years, instead of parts that could last 20 years. It’s unlikely most consumers will use the same cell phone five years after purchase, and so the company can lower input costs by using cheaper parts without fearing a customer’s backlash.
So next time you plan to buy something or upgrade, do your research on the durability and planned lifespan of the product in mind lest you end up with a bad decision 6 months down the line. Below please see a video titled “Story Of Stuff”, you will be shocked!! so middle finger to save the Rhino and hell yeh to #SaveTheConsumer and another hell yeh to #SaveTheEnvironment.
#MONEYMONDAY
Article By Kagiso Maloma
