# Planned Obsolescence Planned obsolescence is the practice — or the accusation — of designing products to become non-functional, unsupportable, or merely unfashionable sooner than necessary, so that consumers are pushed to buy replacements. It comes in several forms: *physical* (components engineered to wear out, like a glued-in [[Lithium-Ion Battery]] that can't be replaced), *software* (ending security updates or slowing older devices so they feel unusable), and *psychological/stylistic* (annual model cycles and marketing that make a working device feel dated). The term dates to the 1920s–30s (the Phoebus light-bulb cartel that capped bulb lifespan is the classic documented case, alongside Alfred Sloan's annual-model strategy at General Motors). ## Why it matters here "Planned obsolescence" is a loaded term — it ascribes deliberate intent — and that rhetorical charge is the point. It is the populist indictment underlying the [[Right to Repair]] movement, and it cuts across left and right: anti-corporate progressives, thrifty conservatives, and degrowth environmentalists can all rally to "they're cheating you into buying a new one every two years." The honest analytical picture is mixed, and a careful entry should say so. Some practices are clearly engineered constraint: irreparable designs, [[Parts Pairing]] that blocks third-party fixes, batteries sealed beyond easy replacement. The clearest near-admission was Apple's 2017 "batterygate," when it confirmed it had quietly slowed iPhones with aging batteries — defensible on engineering grounds (to prevent shutdowns), but done secretly and without offering the obvious fix (a cheap battery swap), which is why it read as obsolescence and drew global fines and settlements. Other cases are genuinely ambiguous: ending software support has real security and cost rationales, and "feeling outdated" is partly consumer-driven fashion, not a conspiracy. The term's power — and its occasional overreach — comes from collapsing this whole spectrum into a single accusation of bad faith. It pairs with [[E-Waste]] as the environmental cost of the cycle. ## See Also - [[Right to Repair]] — the movement responding to it - [[Parts Pairing]] · [[Lithium-Ion Battery]] — the mechanisms most cited as evidence - [[E-Waste]] — the downstream cost - [[Refurbished]] — the secondary market that extends device life