Innovation triggers planned obsolescence in tech to accelerate and become a permanent industry-wide shift

How should the law respond to intentionally useless things that are constructed from scarce resources and thrust into an already overcrowded world?39 To contextualize the theses offered here, it is helpful to first get a sense of the contours of the problem. The problem of planned obsolescence (and the e-waste that it causes) is a problem of scale and a problem of exponential growth.40 Consider this passage from Gile Slade’s 2006 work on planned obsolescence:

In 2004 about 315 million working PCs were retired in North America. These still-functioning but obsolete computers represented an enormous increase over the 63 million working PCs dumped into American landfills in 2003…

In 2005 more than 100 million cell phones were discarded in the United States. This 50,000 tons of still-useable equipment joined another 200,00 tons of cell phones already awaiting dismantling and disposal…

The e-waste problem will soon reach such gigantic proportions that it will overwhelm our shipping capacity; the world simply cannot produce enough containers for America to continue at its current level as an exporter of electronic waste.

Nearly twenty years later, the problems associated with planned obsolescence have accelerated. 42 The sheer number of electronic devices in use per capita has increased dramatically in the last twenty years.43 While many electronic devices have gotten smaller, more compact devices are, by design, more difficult to disassemble, repair, and reuse.44 This is a particular problem because elements like cobalt and indium that are used to create smaller devices such as smartphones are scarce in the Earth’s crust. 45 At the same time, constant upgrades coupled with lack of support (or in some cases, intentional sabotage) of older devices means that consumers are replacing their electronic devices more quickly than ever before.

Equally concerning is the fact that the strategy of planned obsolescence has spread to electronic products once prized for their longevity and durability.47 An industry-wide shift towards planned obsolescence in the manufacture of large household appliances, for example, has radically accelerated the pace at which those bulky objects move through the production-to-landfill pipeline.48

In recent decades, manufacturers of large appliances (e.g. refrigerators and clothes washers) have deliberately cut short the lifespan of necessary components like compressors, and restricted access to necessary replacement parts. 49 At the same time, manufacturers have made parallel changes to the terms of manufacturers’ warranties that shorten the warranty period and severely restrict independent repair options. 50 These steps have succeeded in rendering most large appliances virtually unrepairable, forcing consumers to discard them and buy new ones.51 These giant objects which once lasted 30 or 40 years, are now designed to break after only a few years.52 For the most part, large appliances still operate with the same basic technology and features available 50 years ago, but now the products last 1/4th to 1/10th as long.53 Moreover, because the move to planned obsolescence has been lockstep and industry-wide, consumers have become acculturated to ever lower expectations in terms of the longevity of their large appliances.54 Consumers are largely resigned to the fact that their large appliances are designed to break.55

To be clear, planned obsolescence is not a new phenomenon. One of the first documented examples of a global conspiracy to engage in planned obsolescence happened at a meeting of lightbulb manufacturers in Geneva on December 23, 1924.56 At the meeting, representatives of incandescent lightbulb manufacturers from around the world (including representatives from the United States’ General Electric, Germany’s Osram, and the Netherlands’ Philips) agreed to reduce the hours that a standard incandescent bulb lasted from 2500 hours (which was the norm in 1924) to 1000 hours (which is still the norm today).57 This group of global lightbulb manufacturers—calling themselves the “Phoebus Cartel”—agreed to redesign their lightbulbs for the sole purpose of reducing the product’s lifespan.58

But perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the lightbulb conspiracy is how long it has endured.59 For the past 100 years, the technology has existed to manufacture lightbulbs that last 150% longer than the bulbs available for sale, but it has evidently not been in any one manufacture’s economic interest to sell a competing, longer-lasting, bulb that would reduce the need for more frequent re-purchase (and thereby reduce waste). In the mid-1920s lightbulb manufacturers conditioned consumers to expect their lightbulbs to suddenly become obsolete 150% faster than they had in the past, and the strategy was so successful that it is still in place today. 60

In essence, an inverse relationship exists between the durability of a product and its profitability.61 Durability depresses manufacturer sales growth (and thereby profits), while rapid obsolescence produces the opposite effect. 62 Planned obsolescence is such a wildly successful strategy for manufacturers that, unchecked, it causes virtually all incentives to point in the direction of an ever-accelerating production-to-landfill pipeline.63