Legal Definitions - planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence is a business strategy where a product is intentionally designed and manufactured to have a limited useful life or to become outdated or non-functional within a specific period. This encourages consumers to purchase new, replacement products sooner than might otherwise be necessary, thereby driving repeat sales and consumption.

Here are some examples illustrating planned obsolescence:

• Imagine a popular smartphone manufacturer that releases a new operating system update. While this update offers new features for its latest models, it causes significantly slower performance and reduced battery life on models that are only two or three generations old. This makes the older phones frustrating to use, subtly pushing owners to upgrade to a newer model sooner than they might have planned, even if their current phone is still physically intact.

  This illustrates planned obsolescence because the manufacturer's software update effectively shortens the perceived useful life of older devices, not due to physical wear, but by making them less desirable or functional through a deliberate design choice.

• Consider a company that produces inkjet printers. These printers are designed with a non-replaceable "waste ink pad" that is programmed to trigger an error message and stop the printer from working after a certain number of pages have been printed. Even if all other components of the printer are functioning perfectly, the device becomes unusable, and the cost of professional repair for this specific issue often approaches the price of a brand new printer.

  This demonstrates planned obsolescence through the intentional design of a component with a fixed lifespan and the difficulty or expense of repair, forcing consumers to purchase a new device rather than a simple, cheap fix.

• Think about a fashion clothing brand that introduces entirely new collections every few months, dramatically changing styles, colors, and cuts. They heavily market these "new" designs and often discontinue previous lines, making last season's items appear unfashionable or "out of date" to consumers, even though the garments themselves are still perfectly durable and wearable.

  This exemplifies planned obsolescence by creating a rapid cycle of perceived outdatedness through marketing and design shifts, encouraging consumers to buy new products based on current trends rather than actual wear and tear.