Planned Obsolescence: Engine of the Consumer Economy

If you’ve ever heard an old timer gripe that things aren’t built like they used to be, that old timer was right! Learn about the nefarious, possibly mythical, mechanism that’s responsible for the cruddy products and waste our consumer society is based on.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, We're coming to see you soon. Yeah, especially
first of all Toronto and Chicago. And Toronto, hats off
to you guys. Tickets are selling like gangbusters. Chicago. I
don't know what's going on with you. I know, Chicago,
what became of you? Chicago? I thought you loved us. Yeah,

(00:21):
really with your cool hot dogs in your thick pizzas. Yeah,
and and I mean that's really all you needed to
mention about Chicago. So we're gonna be at the Harris
Theater on July. That is very soon. We were going
to be the next day in Toronto at the Lovely
Dan fourth Music Hall in July. And then that's not all,

(00:43):
is it. No, that's not all, Chuck. We're also going
to be going to Boston in August, followed by Portland, Maine,
which is on purpose, by the way, that's right, Wilbert
Theater in Boston, the State Theater in Portland, Maine. We're
headed to Florida for the first time everyone since or
Florida at the Plaza Live in Orlando in October nine,

(01:04):
and then the next night October at the Civic Theater
in New Orleans. And then we're gonna wrap it all
up and spanking on the bottom with our annual trio
of shows at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York, October
and is almost sold out. Yeah, So you can get
tickets to all of these shows, um by going to

(01:25):
s Y s K live dot com, our home on
the web for touring, and that will send you out
to all the great little sites that have links to
the tickets and info and everything you need. So we
will see you very soon starting this July. Welcome to
Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios
How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

(01:53):
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and there's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you
should know. Built a break condition? Okay, I didn't. I
was not paying attention when he said which one we
were doing? And I thought, you know what, I'm just
gonna pick up on the clues. Wow, right right out

(02:13):
of the gate. When did you have it when I said, um,
there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and planned a break Okay,
got that was pretty sharp, Chuck, Hey man, after the
eleven as years, it's as easy as that. You can
read my mind so let's talk about the civil Air Patrol.
He just threw me off. Luckily it wasn't enough for

(02:34):
me to stop and correct you. Though. I'm excited about
this one because planned obsolescence is one of those things
that's uh. I think it just annoying to people like us.
Were you were you raised with the idea of plan
planned obsolescence? Like, were you aware of it when you
were younger? No? Because when I was a kid, things

(02:54):
seemed to last longer. I had the same refrigerator my
entire lie as a child, same metallic p refrigerator. We
even got it like refaced, Like that's how long you
could have an appliance like that. It's like the styles
have changed, so just get a new front for it.
That's astounding. Man, I didn't even know that you could

(03:17):
do that. Yeah. I mean I doubt if you still
can know, but I definitely can't. Yeah. Back then they
were like, yeah, this is a fifty year fridge, so
every years, get a new thing on the front. Yeah. Well,
if you're sitting there going when Chuck said fifty year fridge,
that's okay. That's the world we live in now. The
point is it didn't used to be that way. UM.

(03:40):
Things used to last forever and ever, right, So what changed?
That's a big question that's on people's mind. And what
a lot of people point to is something called planned
obsolescence UM, which is pretty straightforward if you think about
It's basically UM companies deliberately making their products UM so

(04:02):
that they last a shorter amount of time in order
to make you, the consumer, have to go back and
buy another one much more UM, much sooner than you
normally would have if the things were built to last longer. Yeah,
and there are a lot of ways that this can
go down. It's not always just like hey, build it
cheap or build it out of crudity materials, but that

(04:24):
is certainly one way to do it. UM. Obviously, the
you know, with smartphones and the technology uh sector of
the world, that's where you really hear a lot about
this because, um, I know a lot of people have
been frustrated with smartphones and the fact that like, hey,
maybe I want to go five years with a smartphone

(04:45):
and not have a new update, make it slow, or
not have my battery not work after three years and
stuff like that, right, And I mean, like it shouldn't
have to be like an identity statement to have to
keep a phone for five years, like you're swimming against
the current or sticking it to the man. Like you
should just be able to keep your phone for as

(05:07):
as long as you like and it's still not only
continue to work, but also to be like compatible with
the rest of the world going on around it. That's
just that's just not the way, that's not the case.
That's just not how things are made, especially in the
technology sector. Like you were saying, right, and here's the
thing is, it's like this is something that a company

(05:29):
is not going to admit to. Um, it's not against
the law. Uh. Some people say it's a myth and
it's just like tinfoil hat territory. Um. Other people say, no,
it clearly totally happens. And then other people even say, yeah,
it happens. But this is great for the economy to
keep people making stuff all the time. Right. So there's

(05:50):
this idea of you know, is planned obsolescence a real thing?
And if it is real, because I think you kind
of touched on it with that third group, some people
are like, yeah, it is real, but it's not like
deliberate and out of like a sense of avarice or exploitation.
It's just kind of part of the world we live
in these days. Um. I think a lot of people

(06:12):
that are like, no, it is real, and it is deliberate,
and it is out of avarice, and it stinks. It
does stink. We'll find that there's a lot, there's a
lot wrong with it, right. Yeah. So, uh, this this
early light bulb story is pretty interesting. Um, way back
when Thomas Edison invented a light bulb in the late
eighteen hundreds that people could use in their homes, he

(06:34):
used carbon filaments which were eight times thicker than the
tungsten filaments that came like later, like three decades later.
So these things lasted a long time. And uh, they
were built to last. And I can't believe I'm forty
eight years old and I never had heard of the
Centennial light, which is a lightbulb from nineteen o one

(06:58):
that is still working in gallop Orna. Yeah, and a
fire station in California, and it's on almost all the time.
It's not like they turn it off for thirty five
years at a stretch. Now, you probably wouldn't want to
turn it off at this point. I would say probably not.
That's probably the only reason it's working is because it
doesn't know. It doesn't have to. They've got like the
scotch tape over the light switch with like do not

(07:20):
turn off it's dim now though. Uh I saw that
it's down to about a night light for watts or so. Well,
it's been burning for a hundred and eighteen years, give
it a break. Hey man, I'm not I'm not knocking
the centennial light. He's my favorite little old light buddy.
Not my presence at least, but yeah, I mean that

(07:40):
thing point is they were built to last. And uh.
Initially this is because electric companies installed and maintained all
these systems, including like hey, you needed a new bulb, Like,
we'll come and take care of it for you. Uh.
And then that got shifted to the consumer and they
were like hey, and they literally were like ky because

(08:01):
there was a concerted effort that wasn't just like some
abstract thought. There was something called the Phoebus Cartel in
the nineteen twenties when all these electric companies from around
the world and bulb manufacturers got together and literally colluded
and said, hey, let's make lightbulbs not last as long
because we can sell more. Yeah, collusion. Can't you believe that?

(08:23):
I can't actually believe it. Not only it is not
like they got together, like they sent some letters or
smoked some cigars or happen to have like a conversation
at a club or something like that, Like they met
in Geneva, Switzerland to hold a secret meeting to form
a lightbulb cartel to make lightbulbs last a shorter amount

(08:45):
of time so they could sell more. It's just it happened.
I mean, that's that's very much proof if you're like
planned obsi lescence and really a thing, like, there's proof
that at one point it was definitely a thing. It
was a thing, one of the earliest industries around in
the post industrial age, so um so the light bulb

(09:08):
cartel kind of it. Definitely. It's not like that just
kicked off everything where everybody's like, oh, yeah, that's what
we're gonna do from now on. It's almost like the
impression I got is that this is an independent idea
that was just kind of cropped up throughout the course
of the twentieth century. But the next people that hit
upon it, I think, I don't it's entirely possible that

(09:30):
these guys were all sharing info, you know, the the
lightbulb guys were like, hey, you you car makers are
being idiots. Here's what you need to do the same
places in the cat skills every summer. That's what I
would guess, seeing that young upcoming comedian Henny young men
do bit so. So the the automakers were the first

(09:51):
to hit on it next and UM specifically a guy
named alphred P. Sloan who was a groundbreaking early president
of General Motors UM, who said, I've got an idea.
We could sell way more cars if we just make
little updates here there every year to the same car,
but just change it out enough so that you want

(10:12):
the newer car. It's newer, it's flash year, it's better
than the car you own. So maybe after a couple
of years somebody will take their car that still works
just fine and trade it in for a new one.
And he's the guy who came up with that. Yeah,
that's called dynamic obsolescence. And I mean, now we take
it for granted because that's all you hear about is
the new model year. But previous to that, I mean,

(10:37):
I'd love to do a show on the early auto industry.
I guess they've just made cars and they were called
the whatever. And I mean when did they make new
ones every five or six seven years when they had
a real animation. Well he had this idea in like
the twenties or thirties, so they there weren't They wouldn't
have been cars for that many very long yeah, before them,

(10:57):
but I think it was just like the Model T
or the Model A or the the box with wheels,
you know which all of those were, right. Yeah. The
actual term though, planned obsolescence UM, was in a pamphlet
for the first time in nineteen thirty two, written by
a real estate broker named Bernard London. Uh And this
pamphlet was called you know it's two. If it's like

(11:21):
the big pamphlet writing days, you don't get enough of
those anymore. You really don't see too many pamphlets outside
of like a government office or something, right, or if
you're in Vegas and it's just got you know, you
know what those kind of pamphlets, right, But this was
a two and it was called ending the Depression through

(11:41):
Planned Obsolescence. Uh So right there, it's in the title,
first time it had ever been used. And this was
a plan for for products to include an artificial expiration date.
So the idea was, if you're a consumer and you
continue to use that product beyond that date, sort of
like you know, taking an old pill or drinking old milk,

(12:04):
except you would be charged attacks like, hey, you're still
using that fridge. Uh, it's two years past its date,
so you gotta pay attacks on that now, right, And
it did not take hold, surprisingly or not surprisingly right,
But there's supposedly, from what I saw, there's fifteen copies
of that pamphlet known to exist still and they're all
in libraries, and there were twenty originally, right exactly. But

(12:28):
that Bernard London he had, you know, he had kind
of an idea, but it was misplaced. It was in
the wrong place. It was like, nobody wants to tax
the consumer for using an item they paid for fair
and square. That's just that's not going to be a
very popular idea. So he had he was kind of
on the right path, but he found a tree and

(12:48):
he started barking up it and it was the wrong one,
you know what I mean. Yeah, but that was Uh.
In fact, that same year, there were two other guys,
Roy Sheldon and uh, this is a great name, eggma
onto Errands and they wrote a book that wasn't too
far off. That pamphlet called consumer Engineering Colon or Lease
of a Colon in the title a new Technique for Prosperity,

(13:12):
and they called it creative waste and just basically flat
out said we should make things that are less durable
because uh, you know, people are going to buy more stuff,
right and yeah, which I mean lays the foundation for
the consumer economy that we live in today. Like that's
it right there. These guys came up with the basis
of it. Yeah, And it got me thinking about like

(13:35):
when you when you there are places that make really
awesome things that are like they're selling point is this
is really built to last, whether it's a wallet or
you know, a piece of clothing or something. No, there
are these you know, they're these high end wallet makers
now that are saying like this is the wallet that
you can have for sixty years like your father. Um.

(13:56):
But they often say things like, you know, use military
aid fabrics or this or that, and I think that's
just like back then they used to use the highest
grade and calling a military grade it sounds all fancy.
But what that really means is we use stuff like
they used to because it just lasts, and now only
the military does that kind of thing. You know, Yeah, No,

(14:18):
I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's what That's
what Bernard London and Roy Sheldon and eggma errands that
the foundation of their ideas, even though they were separate ideas,
was that things were made too well back then, and
Bernard London's idea was, well, you could just keep making
them really well, but you have to say that you
can't use it beyond this this date, which wouldn't work.

(14:43):
But Roy Sheldon and Egmont Aaron said, well, we could
go the opposite way and just make stuff less durable
and sell more of it. That's the whole point to
stimulate the economy. Because remember both these were written during
the depression, and they their idea was to stimulate the
economy me by artificially creating repeat customers that otherwise wouldn't

(15:04):
exist because the stuff that that you would go by
is too durable. Like if you go by a hose
and that hose is going to last you for the
rest of your life, and you're not in a business
where you need multiple hoses. You're just a homeowner business,
you're a hosemaker. Well, I'm actually referring specifically to a
hose that my dad bought from Sears in the sixties.

(15:29):
He still had it until the nineties, and it sprung
a leak, and Sears used to guarantee everything that they
sold for a lifetime. My dad took it back to
his Sears and they gave him another hose in the nineties. Right. So,
But the idea of a hose lasting thirtysomething years, let
alone being replaced when it, you know, for free when

(15:49):
it when it breaks like that was that was the problem.
Stuff was just made too well. And you can actually
go on to like Etsy and eBay and sights like
that today, Chuck, And there's a whole um, a whole
like subculture I guess of people who buy vintage appliances
that's still work they were they they work like they

(16:12):
did the day you bought them. Like I saw a
Sunbeam mixer from nineteen thirty and it says like, works
perfectly well, has a few scuffs on it. That's it
from nineteen thirty. That's coming up on a hundred years ago. Yeah,
it also weighs two hundred and seventy five pounds and
it catches your house on fire, so you'll have to
pay a lot of money to have it shipped. But um, yeah,

(16:32):
I mean it's crazy because that was this early planned
obsolescence was in the thirties and forties. When we think
of that's when they were making great stuff, and like
now it's progressed to the point where it's just like,
let's just make pure garbage, but it won't last a year.
The point originally was that that it would stimulate the
economy if you could sell the same person stuff multiple

(16:56):
times over their life, rather than making something that lasts
a generation so that they only have to buy the
one hose for their lifetime. Right, well, your dad has
two nicknames now, the herbal Elvis and uh one host Clark. Um,
all right, shall we take a break? I think so,
all right, let's take a break, and we're gonna come

(17:16):
back and talk about a man named Brooks Stevens. Right
after this shouldn't large, I was ski as sks should know.

(17:42):
All right, So this idea is out there. Planned obsolescence, Um,
it's been written down. It's a term really kind of
became more common in the nineteen fifties, even though it
was first written about in the early nineteen thirties. And
this is where a man named Brooks Stevens and ers.
He was a Milwaukee industrial designer, and he did a

(18:04):
lot of stuff. He worked in the automobile industry, he
worked in the appliance industry. UM, and basically his whole
jam was no, no, no, we we need to make
things obsolete and not last very long because this is
good for industry. Right, Let's go get that bread. Yeah,
go get that bread and keep people working, keep people

(18:25):
making stuff. Uh. At a nineteen fifty four advertising conference,
he gave a speech where he said, quote instilling in
the buyer the desire to own something a little newer,
a little better, a little sooner than is necessary. End quote. Yeah,
it's right there. Just make it a little crappier, a
little crudier, and you'll sell more of them over a

(18:46):
long period of time. I can take the long view
of it, and like, if you are looking at it
strictly from like an economic sense, like an academic sense,
this just makes like total sense. It's perfectly norm moll
and rational and a kind of a good idea. But
it when you put it into practice. We've found. Um,

(19:07):
there's a lot of problems that start to emerge pretty quickly. Uh,
and emerge so quickly that Um Brooks Stevens, you know,
gave that very famous speech, well famous among industrial designers,
but he gave he made that speech in nineteen fifty four.
By nineteen sixty six years later, there was a popular
book by a guy named Vance Packard called The Waste Bakers,

(19:30):
and it was basically about all the problems that come
from that kind of mentality that planned obsolescence creates, all
the waste associated with all the unnecessary consumerism, all the
keeping up with the joneses that emerges. Like just six
years after that speech, so really quickly people started to
see the problems with planned obsolescence, like right out of

(19:52):
the gate. Yeah, this Vance Packard, I think maybe we
could try and do a short stuff on yeah, easily,
just kind of reading up on him. He was a
sort of a pre Ralph Nader social critic um, and
I guess Nader was a little more toward like public safety.
But Fance Packard, he wrote a bunch of cool books
and essays, one called The Hidden Persuaders that tackled the

(20:14):
advertising industry and subliminal advertising and stuff like that. He
was like the arch enemy of Edward Burnet's I imagine. Yeah. Uh,
Thato was one called an essay called the Naked Society,
which had to do in the nineteen sixties, I think
about consumer privacy technol ahead of his time. Yeah. And

(20:35):
then the last thing he wrote in nine was called
the Ultra Rich colin how much is too Much? How
much is too much? Yeah? So he died a few
years later. Like up until the very end, was kind
of fighting the good fight for saying, what a you know,
what a wasteful, invasive, gross society that we're building here

(20:58):
in the United States. Yeah. It was an interesting dude.
Definitely the kind of author that you know, guys like
um glad Well and Freedman and all of them started,
you know, followed in the footsteps of but he he
kind of laid the groundwork for that, that kind of
reporting on, you know, kind of the ugliness of the
society that sold to us. I think we should definitely

(21:19):
do uum a short stuff on him. Yeah. Okay, so
pinky swear swear Okay, Um, your pinky's cold. I don't
know that's soothing to me. Or frightening. It should be
a little frightening. I'm frightened by it because it feels sweaty. Guys,
I think Josh is dead. My nose just falls off

(21:40):
on to the table. God, let me put that back. Problem. Um.
The funny thing is, as long as you could keep
podcasting out probably like that's fine. Fine. Yeah, I like
corpse Josh. You buy me like a steel rod to
go in my spine for Christmas? Yeah, but I'd have
to buy one every couple of years because they don't
last like they It's true, they don't last like they

(22:01):
used to. That's another thing I really really want to
say this, chuck, because I'm sure too, especially some of
our younger listeners, we sound like a couple of like
they don't make it like they used to. Know, it's
proven they don't make things like they used to. It's
not just people like pining for the good old days
or anything like that. Like there is a definite progression

(22:23):
of um, increasing cruddiness among the stuff you buy, and
the shortening in the lifespan and durability of the things
we buy. It's just happening. Yeah, it's funny when I
see stuff on social media about people complaining about their
fridge that doesn't work this or that, and like, what
about the lemon law. I'm always just like, oh, that's cute.

(22:44):
I'm sure you're gonna get real far with the lemon law.
Although we should look into that for a short stuff too,
because there is such a thing. I just don't know how,
you know, I'm sure we about it. We talked about
it before. Maybe where we How do we even did
a show years ago? Oh? Man, I harkened back to

(23:06):
that show pretty frequently, Like whenever I'm offered an extended warranty,
I'm like, wow, that sounds like a really good deal.
What did we say in the extended warranty episode? Oh? Yes,
never think don't extended warranty. It's never worth it if
I remember correctly. Alright, so shall we chat a little
bit about some of some of the worst offenders these days. Yeah?

(23:27):
First up on the t ball t is Apple. Yeah.
Apple is in the news a lot um and it's
very much at the center of the um, the talk
among the skeptics and on the skeptics websites about their
evil plan to keep you on their machines every couple
of years through you know, updates that slowed down your phone,

(23:48):
which was proven true. Yeah, well there's a class action
lawsuit against them for it. Yeah, so here's what happened.
If you live under a rock, Apple got um. They
sent out an update this a few years ago, and
the update was shown and that they admitted that it
did slow the phones down, but their whole response was, Hey,
this is because the battery stinks. They're like, we're trying

(24:11):
to make your battery last longer, so we're slowing some
things down in order to give you a better battery life.
And then here's what we'll do everyone, We're so sorry.
We're gonna you can buy a new battery for fifty
dollars cheaper, uh for tars instead of seventy nine. So
they replaced eleven million batteries in did they really? I

(24:31):
didn't know that. Yeah, up from about you know, replaced
for twenty dollars apiece, up from one to two million
in an average year. Because I don't know if you've
ever seen an iPhone, buddy, but it doesn't have a
little switch on the back that you just pop a
little thing and put a new battery in. No. No,
that's another big part of planning opsis and said we'll

(24:52):
talk about is there is a strict control over the
product even after it's purchased. Yeah, they want to control
it through repair, through everything. Um So, I was looking
up on this lawsuit because I didn't know where it landed,
and I think it's still going on. And the latest
article I read was from February that said, basically Apple
is squirreling away money because they're gonna lose this thing

(25:16):
and literally setting aside money to pay for this lawsuit.
That's so cute for a rainy day. Yeah, they like
opened up a new account. They went down to the
bank said just call it lawsuit account, right. Um But
here's the thing with Apple. It's not just the update thing.
Like anyone who has bought a laptop from them, like

(25:37):
me lately, or one of the newer phones, and you're like,
oh wait a minute, I can't plug like I've done
since I had my Walkman, I can't plug my headphones
into this thing anymore without buying a little dongle, Or
I can't plug in a USB port because there is
none unless I get some little adapter that they also sell.
Um So, that's a classic hallmark of UM planned obsolescence

(26:01):
is creating a newer model that is incompatible with older models.
So if you want to keep using the older model,
you're gonna have to shell out some money one way
or another. Um Or even if you buy you the
newer model, which is kind of even bigger slap in
the face, you have to shell out even more money
for additional peripherals like chargers or headphones or something like

(26:23):
that to make them compatible. Just making stuff incompatible with
older versions, it's it's a it's a big part of
planned obsolescence. Do you know, I wonder how much money
they made on the little headphone adapter? Oh man, it's
ten bucks. Like I've got one, and I'm like, you know,
I could really use another one of those, because the

(26:44):
worst thing that can possibly happen to a human being
is they have two sets of headphones, one for like,
you know, the flight on delta and then one for
your phone because they have two different ends on them.
So I mean, to have to keep up with two
sets of headphone is basically as horrible as it gets.
So I'm probably just gonna a cave and get another adapter, yeah,

(27:06):
or just quit ingesting culture. Yeah, we'll get a flip
phone and stop watching movies and TV altogether. Yep, sticking
it to the man. Uh the other one other big
offender that really gets my goat. And I know we
are old guys complaining here, that's fine, But the old

(27:26):
and young alike, I think can all agree that, uh,
printer cartridges are one of the biggest, most frustrating, wasteful,
and environmentally damaging scams on the planet. Yeah, but which
I didn't know about this. I've gotta I'm just gonna
go ahead and buz them because I'm pretty proud of
what they What we got at an absent printer at home,

(27:48):
and it has like reservoirs that you fill with ink
then hold a ton of ink from like a refill bottle.
And um, there's no cartridges involved or anything like that.
The bottles that you refill it from are fully recyclable.
It's just is this good. Um Before we had cartridges,
but it didn't have this particular UM component, which is

(28:10):
a smart ship I had. So what I'm trying to
say is, I had no idea this existed until I
researched this. But some printers, ink jet laser printers, home printers,
the cartridges have a little chip on them, which is
I guess what you pull the tape off of when
you loaded into the printer like a new cartridge, and
it actually talks to the printer and says, here's how

(28:32):
much ink. I have laughed, what what are you gonna
do this Friday? Oh? Yeah, oh wait, I got another
job coming and excuse me. Um. And then eventually the
ink level gets down to a certain amount where the
smart ship tells the printer, no more printing. They've reached
the preset amount, not the amount where they've actually run
out of ink, but the amount that the company is

(28:53):
determined as enough you can use. You can go buy
another cartridge now. And these cartridges also the smart chips
prove aren't you from using other companies cheaper knockoff cartridges
because the chips won't communicate with the printer, so it's
like the printer doesn't know the cartridge is there, and
you can't refill them. They're designed not to be refiled,
so they have to be thrown away and you have

(29:15):
to go buy another cartridge. Yeah, and I've had that
happened before in the past, where I get down to, uh,
if I'm printing something out just like simple black text
and it starts to come out a little brown and
then it just stops. I'm like, I'm okay if it's
a little brown, right, I decide what's a llegible printer?
I know, Uh, so that's there are at the very

(29:37):
least I can tell you EPs and makes a printer
out there that has reservoirs that you can refill with
bottles and no smart chips. Okay, give me some money. Ups.
And the auto industry is, you know, still kind of
doing the same thing that they started so many years ago,
which is uh, discontinuing parts um that could keep cars

(29:58):
running for a longer time, making those minor cosmetic changes
for that new model year, retiring models of cars that
are really really popular, um, just because they want to
bring out something new and make it harder to fix
your old car, so repairs Chuck, like we kind of
teased earlier. That's a huge part of planned obsolescence. Like,

(30:20):
if you're the company that controls the market on your
parts and who can repair the your products with those parts,
you have a you're you're basically saying like, I can
see this product through after I sell it to the
customer to ensure that it experiences just that artificially short lifetime. Yeah,

(30:41):
and that the thing that's so maddening about this is
you can just hear it in the meeting rooms. You
know that that like, And here's the best thing, guys.
We control the parts, we control the repair, like. The
only thing we don't control is the shipping. And maybe
we can make some deal with FedEx on that right

(31:02):
to get a little kick back exactly. I don't know
if that really happens. I'm just making it up. Probably
does now I've got my tinfoil hat on, right, But
it's you can just hear it in the meeting rooms.
And that's what's so frustrating is it's it's just this ouze,
steady uze of greed with no regard for the consumer
at all. Right, And and just to lay it out basically,

(31:23):
you know, in explicit terms, Um, if you're a company
and you make a product, you can control that product
after you sell it by saying, if you take this product,
if this product breaks and you take it anywhere but
where we say, you can say, like to the Apple
store or an authorized repair shop. Um, you avoided the warranty,

(31:45):
so there's no warranty after that you just you just
avoided it um And by doing that, they can say
they control what parts are used, which means that they
can be the only people who manufacture the parts that
are used. And then you say, can I get the
fixed under warranty three you then they're like, oh, we
don't cover that underworld They're like, warranty you more on.

(32:05):
So the with the repair parts controlled, they can they
can raise the price or lower the price. They can
um adjust however they want to make it so that
it's actually as expensive to repair as it is to
just buy another one or close to it, to just
basically nudge you towards well, I just throw this one
away and get get the newer model. Or they can

(32:28):
also this is a really big one, especially also in
the auto industry, they can they can stop making those
parts which are the only parts that you can use
to repair. So it ultimately eventually becomes impossible to repair
that thing because all the parts, the finite amount of
parts that were ever produced to repair them are all

(32:49):
used up. There's no more parts available. Go buy the
newer model. Did you see that used UGO? The the
new used you? Go? No, someone put a you go
on eBay that had four and eighty miles on it
and had been garaged since it was you know, since
or whatever. How much do they want for nine grand

(33:10):
is what it sold for, which you know it's nine
grand plus. You gotta get that thing going again, just
it's been sitting there for that many years. It's clearly
not road ready, but it was Jerry, and I think
it's kind of funny that some no doubt tech bro
with a little too much money wanted to the most

(33:31):
ironic car in San Francisco. That is as ironic as
a kiss, for sure. Um. Every time I hear about
Hugos Chuck, I'm reminded of remember that Saturday Night Live
commercial for the Adobe. No, it was like the first
car under a thousand dollars made of clay, So when
you got an Defender better you just pour water on
it and mold it back into the show. If only

(33:53):
that was something like the Phil Hartman era. That's the
opposite of planned obsolescence. It is UM clothing sort of
the same deal they make UM And again there are
some clothing companies, and I think more than ever now
in recent years, well not more than ever, but more
in than in the last twenty years. There are companies
that are making really well made clothes, but they're you know,

(34:16):
they're not cheap. There are many many more companies, huge,
huge stores and big brands that are just pumping out
cheap clothes because you're like, first of all, the styles change,
So why do you want something You don't want anything
that's gonna last more than a year or two anyway. Um,
but my beef, and we're calling out a lot of brands,
might as well just keep it going. But when I

(34:39):
was younger, you could buy a pair of Levi's and
have those for a long, long long time. Yeah, no,
Russian would trade you a you go for him? Yeah, exactly. Uh.
And now like I had a pair of Levi's for
probably five months before I got a big really in them.
And that's sad. It's sad. Levi Strauss rolled over in

(35:02):
his grave on that day, I know, man, because that
that was the thing. It's just like these things are
tough as leather that last you so long, Like there's
nothing better than inheriting dad's old Levi's And it's just like,
you know, or five months. Yeah, that's that's pretty sad,
is here? A middle ground. Can I get five years? Yeah,
five years would be pretty good for some jeans. Take it.

(35:23):
I always put um, although I do less than I
did before, But my jeans would always wear out, or
my two thighs, my big fat thighs rubbed together. Sure,
that's what would go first. But then you can hide
that for a little while until one day you can't.
You just hope that that day comes and you're not
in public. I'm gonna patch these because they're still comfortable.
But um, you shouldn't have to chuck. You shouldn't have to.

(35:45):
That's COMI talk. I'm gonna patch these. Uh you want
to know another racket? Yeah? Yes? Or should we take
a break and talk about it. We could take a
break if you want, or we can wait. Do you
want to wait? Yeah, we'll go. We'll finish the rackets.
This is fun, by the way, I'm having fun, like
complaining about how stuff doesn't last like it used to.

(36:05):
How about the college textbook racket? Hey, this is a
new edition from the previous year. Oh what's different? The
page numbers right, so by the new one yep, not
the used one. Yeah? Which is I mean? Like, if
you're trying to follow along in class. That's kind of
maddening because the information is usually not that much, but
it's enough to just throw everything off, right, Whereas they

(36:29):
if they just put these things as like a supplement
or an appendix or something and back then you could
just or even to sell the additional stuff separately, you
could be a lot better. Yeah, this is so the
little pamphlet for and probably make money fifteen copies. How
about the toy industry? So the toy industry is frequently guilty. Um,

(36:51):
and this isn't the case across the board, but it
kinda is of a specific subcategory of planned obsolescence called
contrived durability. And they're not the garbage product. But basically
the toy industry isn't the only one that that does it,
but they're the ones that come to mind when you
talk about this. And this is purposefully using inferior parts
that just aren't going to last for very long at all,

(37:14):
especially the functioning parts of stuff that moves or where
the most stress is. Anybody who's ever gotten a switch
blade comb and spent half an hour just opening it
and closing it, opening it and closing it, and then
it breaks on the fiftieth time that comb was most
likely made through a process of contrived or ability. Um,
and it's a big problem. Part of the problem. Part

(37:36):
of the problem is that's another really good example of
a type of item that is just are you going
to take a switch blade comb into the switch blade
comb repair shop? And if you if you did, how
much would they charge you? Would it be any more
than you paid, you know for like the three ping
pong balls that you managed to get into like a

(37:59):
goldfish bowl where you won the switchblade come from? I
don't think so, right, And actually we'll talk a little
bit about some of the problems after this break here
in a second. But just an early early shout to
the death of the repair person. Yeah, and yeah, there
are still some of those things, but like try and

(38:20):
find a TV repair shop near you there, well, yeah,
try to find one that's open too, is the other thing.
And you can still find them in any given large city,
but it's it's not like it used to be where
it was just like, oh, in any downtown there's a locksmith,
there's a tailor, there's a TV repaired person, uh, and

(38:43):
or any kind of repair shop. Um. Yeah, they are
very very few and far between, but that maybe changing,
as we'll see. All right, let's take that break, Okay,
Thank goodness. I had a lot of anxiety building up
because I knew that break was looming definite ski as

(39:12):
watch sks should know. All right, Chuck. So, I feel
like we've kind of hit upon the idea that planned
obsolescence can be problematic. But let's talk specifically about the
problems it does produce, right, Yeah, I mean one of

(39:37):
the big Well, first of all, let's saw out some
stats just so people know we're not just being angry. Uh.
There was a study about four years ago in two
thousand fifteen by company in Germany, the Uko Institute um
no e on the end of institute which is so
German looking really because it's institute otherwise um they found

(39:57):
obsolescence was on the rise. Percentage of a electrical and
electronic products sold that were replaced because they broke within
five years rose from three and a half percent in
two thousand four to eight point three percent and two
thousand twelve. And then household appliances, which is one of
the big gripes for people because those are high dollar

(40:18):
items that you want to last, you know, fifteen years. Um,
large household appliances had to be replaced within five years,
grew from seven percent totent like doubled between two thousand
four and two and like it's you, I've this is
a really rare study. Most of the evidence about this

(40:39):
stuff is anecdotal. Like if you ever get your hands
on an appliance repair guy um who comes out, they
will talk ad nauseum about how they literally don't make
things like they used to, and that the the lifespan
is like two to three years, five years if you're lucky, um,
But prices are still really high like it used to be, Like, Okay,

(41:00):
I'm gonna shell out some money for um a really
good fridge and you could tell basically by the price
of the fridge how long it was gonna last. That
that ended a decade or two ago. You can still
pay a significant amount of money for a fridge that
has like a one year warranty and it's gonna last
three to five years, even though you spent a significant

(41:22):
amount of money. It's crazy. Um. Sometimes there's the plans
repair people get specific to I don't know if you've
ever had this happen where they say they don't just
say it like, oh, these things are junk. Now they'll say, like, oh,
you know what they started doing. It is four years ago.
They started making this part out of plastic, and I'd
see the same repair over and over and over now, right,

(41:42):
And and it costs X amount for them to even
come out and diagnose the problem X amount to put
in the new part, and then you also have to
pay for the part. And depending on the appliance, I mean,
like if it's a fifteen hundred or two thousand dollar refrigerator,
you know, five hundred bucks might be worth it rather
than replacing it. But your refrigerator just became a two

(42:04):
thousand dollar refrigerator like eighteen months later, right, Um, So
that's part of the problem is the cost of repair
when it is available can be a problem. But if
your refrigerator does manage the last five years and they
stopped making replacement parts for it four years after four years,
you're um, you're out of luck after five years because
you can't repair it anymore. Like we talked about, Yeah,

(42:26):
I had a we had a dishwasher that um broke
a lot from the first year that we had it,
and it got to that point where I kept paying
to repair it and getting angrier, and you know, Emily
was eventually like, neither one of us are like, oh,
just get the new one. She was like, dude, we're
spending more like we could have bought the new one

(42:47):
for what we're spending on repairs because you're being stubborn
about saying this thing should last longer. But you get
in that sort of conundrum where you're like, you don't
know what the right thing to do is. Yeah. Yeah,
And I actually like, just about anybody's gonna be like, fine,
I'm I've spent more money than it would have cost
or a place. Yeah, somebody's everybody's gonna cry uncle eventually,

(43:09):
you know. I think it's just some some people do
it faster than others. You know. Yeah. One of the
other things with plan obsolescence is a company. Can you know,
it's very rare that a company is just that company.
Usually they're owned by some huge uber company that owns
many of that company's that brand's rivals. Yeah, so you
can just you know, if something gets a bad rep

(43:31):
you can just retire that brand and slap a new
name on it, and it's the kind of the same thing.
So you you don't know, you don't know anymore if
it's a good or a bad brand, right, And if
you just have a couple of mega brands and they're
all doing the same thing with their multiple brands that
they all own and that which is they're just all
kind of making crud that last maybe three to five years,

(43:53):
then that means that there's actually technically no bad brand.
They're all bad brands because there's also no good brand either, um,
and they just trade on these brand names that you
were raised to hear from your parents are from repairman
or whatever that uh, that's a good brand, but this
brand is not any good And then you have like
a bad experience with that brand, so you switch to
another brand. But there's a pretty good chance that those

(44:17):
same those two brands are still owned by the same
company to whom it's all the same. You're still giving
them the money. Ultimately, Yeah, I uh, I'm sorry. This
is filled with so many anecdotal stories, but I was
TV shopping recently, and there was a TV that, uh
seemed like a really good deal and it got good
ratings on all the places. But then you start reading

(44:39):
the customer experience and like a lot of people were
saying this has a banding issue where you can see
like lines on the screen when the screen is darker
and stuff like that. Oh yeah, yeah. It was like ubiquitous.
It was all over the place, and these reviews and
every single one of them, the manufacturer would reply and say, boy,

(45:01):
We're so sorry you had this experience. We've never heard
of this and it's uh certainly um an outlier, so
to get in touch with us, and it's just so maddening.
It's like, no, man, it's like of these reviews say this,
and I say that sometimes when I'm when I have
to call about something like that, I'm like, man, I know,

(45:21):
it's not like I'm not the only person this is
happening to, because all over the internet and there's like, well,
you know, we're not allowed to share stuff like that, sir,
I have to say in my experience, so, Chuck, one
thing that has gotten better over the last couple of
decades is customer service. Do you think Yeah, I think
for the average person, the the companies want to please

(45:44):
customers enough that they make the experience of dealing with
them better than it was before. I think, how boy,
I'm gonna have to think about that Okay, think about it.
Maybe some companies I've had the experience with some that
are so big that you get the feeling that like
they think it costs more to give a hoot, Right, Yeah,

(46:05):
I think that's definitely true out there, But there's so
many Like I think smaller companies and tech startups come
from this place of like, we treat the customer really well,
that's just what we do. It just seems to be
more than there was before, Whereas before it seems like
it was all big companies that you had to deal with,
and they all had terrible customer service. I think the
nineties were like the the zenith of bad customer service

(46:28):
if if I'm not mistaken, maybe so so. So there's
a really important point that we're kind of dancing around here,
right Like, you know, thirteen percent of large appliances breaking
within five years and having to be replaced, like, um,
eight point three percent of of smaller electronics are all electronics. Um,

(46:48):
those things being thrown out. It doesn't sound like that much,
but when you actually translated into numbers, you're talking about
millions of things, of items of products that are being
thrown away because they broke and the vast majority of
those things are just like I said, thrown away. They're
not recycled. I think in the United States six percent

(47:11):
of small appliances are recycled, which is a paltry amount um.
That means the rest just going to landfill. Yeah, and
it's especially egregious because not only is all this stuff
getting tossed, but e waste or some of the biggest
offenders as far as environmental damage. So you've got three

(47:32):
and fifty million in cartridges in the United States tossed
and landfills every year, you know, three forty eight million
of which aren't even empty, right because those smart chips
you've got, you know, uh, refrigerators being thrown out. We
did get a new refrigerator a couple of years ago,
even though an old one that we bought used was
still working. It was kind of a workhorse, but we

(47:55):
sold it and I was like, you know, sold it
really cheap. It was like, I bought this thing, used,
it lasted us ten years without problems. Like, so someone's
getting a good old workhorse here for a couple hundred bucks. So,
you know, we try and recycle our stuff or sell
it or donate it these days or at least set
it on fire, so it's not somebody else's problem. The

(48:18):
good news is, though I don't want this to all
be poopoo, is there are places in the world that
are working on this and trying to change things. Um.
Not here in the United States, of course, but in
Europe they are working on creating some standards. There's a
program called Eco Design Directive, which would basically open up
regulation of industry based on you know, they're what they're

(48:41):
trying to do is set new standards for durability and
repair ability and like make it the law, right, yeah,
like they're there. Um. The resource efficiency is what they're calling,
Like you have energy efficiency, like how much water does
it use? Um? This is how long does this thing last?
Like put it on the label right exactly, like kind
of like that Bernard London's idea, but rather than it

(49:03):
being an expiration date to where you start to get
charged for using it beyond that date, this is, oh well,
this one's gonna last five years. This one says at
last seven I'm gonna go with the seven year one.
You know, And because of the resources these things use,
the seven year one is more efficient by definition than
the five year one and at least you can make
an informed choice as a consumer. Uh. Here in the States,

(49:25):
like I said that, the federal government isn't doing anything,
but when it comes to the States, there are some groups.
There's one movement called right to Repair started in the
UK and is now catching hold I think in two
thousand eighteen or eighteen states that introduced right to repair
bills UM, some of which have taken hold, some of
which haven't. But UM it basically requires companies to make

(49:50):
it possible to repair their devices on their own or
take it to a repair mom and pop repair shop
and not have like the warranty avoided. Yeah, these these
laws all kind of you know, they're di frint, but
they have in common the idea that, Okay, if you
guys are gonna build junk, at least make it easier
for them to be repaired, like design them so a
customer can repair them themselves or take them to an

(50:12):
unauthorized repair shop. And those repair shops should be able
to get their hands on parts that are as universal
as possible. And you guys, the manufacturer should be supplying
repair shops with UM repair manuals for them to reference,
like stop doing the opposite of everything we just said,
in order to make it hard to repair your stuff.

(50:32):
If put out junk if you want, but let us
repair it. That's kind of what the gist of those
bills are. Yeah. And you know, like we mentioned before,
there is a segment of people that think, um, that
firmly believe that this is all great for industry. It's
all great for the economy. It keeps an army of
employees working at these cell phone companies and smartphone companies

(50:54):
and designers and engineers because of that cycle. Uh. You know,
that's one way to look at it. If you turn
over goods really quickly, then that's a lot more stuff
that needs to be manufactured and a lot more trucks
driving things. And you know, it might be an environmental nightmare,
but those trucks are moving. Yeah. I mean, on the

(51:15):
one hand, though, it I do agree with the idea
of saying, Okay, we we want to replace. We want
people to buy a new phone every three years. We
have to give them a reason to buy a new
phone every three years. And one of the outcomes of
that is that technological innovation that that is happening as
a result of that, Like just you know, there's multiple

(51:37):
phone companies all scrambling for market share, so they're trying
to out innovate one another and justify customers going and
replacing their phones, but barely. Well, yeah, because there's other
routes they can take. They can take you know, the
the fast fashion clothing route and just do cosmetic updates
to it, or like the easy bake oven. It all
it does the same thing, virtually the same thing from

(51:59):
the beginning of its invention until today. It was just
mainly cosmetic changes that were made to it over time
to keep up with the times, just like fashion. If
you do that with a phone or technology, then yeah,
you're slub You're you're not doing your job. But ideally,
if you release a new version of a phone every
few years and it is just way better than the

(52:21):
phone before, that's okay. Yes, there's still the manufacturing problem
in the waste associated with it that can be dealt with,
but at least technology is being pushed forward. At least
it's not just a total scam, you know what I mean. Yeah,
there's also the idea of value engineering, like kind of
walking that line as a manufacturer, uh to not make junk,

(52:41):
but also to make something affordable for a consumer, And
if we built a card to the last seventy five years,
no one would be able to afford it because it
would all be military grade materials or the same thing
with a phone, Like if this technological progress is happening,
so that um, a phone does actually become obsolete, whether

(53:02):
planned or otherwise, in a couple of years, Um, it
makes more sense to build phones with cheaper parts that
aren't gonna last forever, because then you have to replace
a five dollar phone every few years rather than a
five thousand dollar phone every few years. To right, and
the and the you know, the final point kind of
is that the consumer does have a little bit of responsibility.

(53:22):
It's a little bit all of our faults because uh,
you might want the new phone in that color one year,
other one works great. Uh. There was a study by
the same Uko Institute that said a third of all
replacement purchases for things like fridges and washing machines were
motivated by, um, just having a newer, better unit even

(53:44):
though their old one is still fine. So like, you know,
that's kind of on the consumer hit him with that
last chuck. Uh, two thousand twelve more than sixty of
t vs that were replaced. We're still functioning, Mike drop TVs.
That's that's certainly a big one. Yeah, But I mean
the question is, did this like ravenous consumer society develop

(54:06):
as a result of planned obsolescence, or did planned obsolescence
develop to keep up with this ravenous consumer society. That's
the question we'll leave you with. That is a big question. Yeah,
I'd love to answer that. We don't have the answer. Well,
while we try to figure it out, Um, how about
instead let's listen to some listener mail from Chuck. Yeah,

(54:31):
this is a very very sweet email from a gentleman
named Tom about his daughter. Hey, guys, thanks for being
a positive influence on my daughter, Grace. She recently graduated
from high school will be attending the University of Minnesota
Twin Cities College of Biological Sciences, majoring in cellular and
uh organismal. I don't even know that word. Tom just

(54:53):
made up a new word, physiology Is that word? I
guess I've never seen that before. Because of your shows.
Oh here, he says, she's even making up new words.
There you go, because of your show's unique insight to
learning your You fan the flames of desire for knowledge.
You routinely reinforce aw awesome and cool knowledge and education

(55:13):
can be I started listening later than she did to
try and listen to an episode each way, and then
tried to listen to an episode each way from work
every day. I have heard you read listener mail from
other parents that complement how you always give us something
to talk about with their kids. That is also true
in our home. Recently, on our vacation to go skiing
in Colorado, we stopped at a Pony Express station in Nebraska.

(55:36):
Your influences beyond academics too. She's involved in her community
and articulates educated opinions for her passions. She will turn
eighteen this fall and it is looking forward to voting.
Many of the examples you've given your podcasts have empowered
her to take positions on social issues. I know you know.
I hope you know the importance and influence of your show. Guys,
we look forward to your show in Chicago. Yeah, so

(55:59):
Tom and the family are coming to UH from Rockford,
Illinois to Chicago. Thanks Tommy. What was Tom's daughter's name again, Grace, Grace, Grace,
thank you very much for making us look so good um,
and good luck in school, congrats and yeah, we'll see
you guys in Chicago. Um. Oh, I guess that's it.

(56:20):
If you want to get in touch with us, like
Grace and Tom did, you can what Chuck, go on
to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
our social links and then you could also just send
us an email and if you want to do that,
send it to stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com.

(56:40):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's
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