Planned obsolescence

Planned Obsolescence

I - What is it ?

Planned obsolescence is the decision by a manufacturer to produce some IT tools/equipment like computers or electronics, and who will voluntarily limit the life of the product in order to favor the renewal market. Those planned obsolescence force us to buy more, because of the failure, in particular with ink cartridges, that we always have to renewal.

II – Who is concerned?

Companies like Epson, Konica Minolta and other printers manufacturers are the main producer who use de planned obsolescence. We know that a printer is not really expensive, but the investment is actually buying ink cartridges to use printing.

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Other exemple is the smartphone. There are many marks and models, but if the technology is developping, producers are trying to making sure the planned obsolescence of their products. We can see that with the screen fragility and the component failure, like the duration battery, who will be low really quick, so that we have to charge him everytime.

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III – Companies Targeted

Actually, all the companies using a prestation for their printers, computers or other IT equipment will be victim by the planned obsolescence. They are always needing to renew their IT infrastructure to be up to date. In my opinion, the biggest trouble is the compatibility between OS and software, so they can't work.

I mean that town hall are touched by the obsolescence, because software, printers, computers are managed by a recipient, so when there is a problem, IT Technician must contact the recipient to repair or change a technology equipment.

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IV – Who fights against it

There are companies who fights against the planned obsolescence, like some famous marks : Patagonia, who incites the consumer to prolong the life of his clothes ; or Fairphone, whitch creates a smartphone with a facilty of disassembling it, that a good way to repair smartphones with our own way.

There is also a french association, named HOP, whitch contains three missions :

• Inform : They want to sensitize and denounce planned obsolescence by all the way,

• Federate : With citizens, manufacturers, experts, associations... They want to be all united to act aginst that,

• Influence : They support change laws, public policies and business models for sustainability and reparability.

This organization tries to help consumers and they want to stop this planned obsolescence.

V – Conclusion

To conclude, the planned obsolescence is a way for the manufacturers

to earn more money, because of inciting people to buy and always renew IT equipment.

In my opinion, there are just disadvantages for customers, because when we are buying an electronical equipment, we know that we will quickly been obsolete, and that's bad for customers who are already buying prducts with an expensive price.

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