Selects: 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! In this classic episode, 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 everyone, it's Josh and for this week's select, I
picked our episode on Planned Obsolescence. It's the one where
Chuck and I turned into old fogies and start griping
about how things today aren't as good as they used
to be, but it turns out that we're right. It's
one of the more eye opening and maddening episodes, and
hopefully it'll shine a bit of light on one of

(00:21):
the more wasteful aspects of our global mechanism. I just
made that turn up, So sit back and check it out.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

(00:44):
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 edition? Okay, I didn't. I was not
paying attention when you said which one we were doing,
and I thought, you know what, just gonna pick up
on the clues. Wow, right right out of the gate.
When did you have it? When I said, um, there's

(01:06):
Charles W. Chuck Bryant planned to 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 me to
stop and correct you. Though. I'm excited about this one

(01:27):
because planned obsolescence is one of those things that's, uh,
I think just annoying to people like us. Were you
were you raised with the idea of planning planned obsolescence? Like,
were you aware of it when you were younger? No?
Because when I was a kid, things seemed to last longer.
I had the same refrigerator my entire life as a child,

(01:51):
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 do that. Yeah, I mean, I
doubt if you still can know, but I definitely can't. Ye.
Back then, they were like, yeah, this is a fifty

(02:13):
year fridge, so every years, get a new thing on
the front. Yeah. Well, if you're sitting there going a
good 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. Things used to
last forever and ever, right, So what changed? That's a

(02:36):
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 that they
last a shorter amount of time in order to make

(02:57):
you the consumer, have to go back and buy an
other 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 creuddy materials, but that
is certainly one way to do it. UM. Obviously, the

(03:18):
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
and not have a new update, make it slow, or

(03:39):
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
long as you like and it's still not only continue

(04:01):
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 is not
going to admit to. Um, it's not against the law. Uh.

(04:24):
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 this idea
of you know, is planned obsolescence a real thing? And

(04:45):
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 stays. Um.
I think a lot of people that are like, no,
it is real, and it is deliberate, and it is

(05:05):
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 used carbon filaments which were eight times thicker than

(05:29):
the tungsten filaments that came like later, like three decades later.
So these things lasted a long time and 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 that is
still working in California. Yeah, and a fire station in California,

(05:52):
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,
would pay 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 turn off. It's dim now though,

(06:14):
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 abilities, but yeah,
I mean that thing point is they were built to last.
And initially this is because electric companies installed and maintained

(06:38):
all these systems, including like hey, you needed a new bulb, Like,
we'll come and take care of it for you. And
then that got shifted to the consumer and they were
like hey, and they literally were like hey, because there
was a concerted effort that wasn't just like some abstract thought.
There was something called the Phoebus Cartel in the nineteen

(07:00):
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 you believe that? I can't
actually believe it. Not only it's not like they got together,
like they sent some letters or smokes and cigars or

(07:21):
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 of time so they
could sell more. It's just happened. I mean, that's that's
very much proof if you're like planned obsolescence and really

(07:44):
a thing, Like, there's proof that at one point it
was definitely a thing. It was a thing in one
of the earliest industries around in the post industrial age,
so um so the light bulb 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

(08:06):
like the impression I got is that this is an
independent idea that was just kind of cropped up throughout
the course of the twenty century. But the next people
that hit upon it, I think, I don't it's entirely
possible that these guys were all sharing info, you know,
But the lightbulb guys were like, hey, you you car

(08:26):
makers are being idiots. Here's what you need to do
the same places in the Catskills 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 to hit on it next and UM specifically a
guy named Alfred P. Sloan who was a groundbreaking early

(08:48):
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
the newer car. It's newer, it's flash year, it's better
than the car you own. So maybe after a couple

(09:09):
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 a granted, because that's all you hear about
is the new model year. But previous to that, I mean,
I'd love to do a show on the early auto industry.
I guess they've just made cars and they were called

(09:32):
the whatever. And I mean when did they make new
ones every five or six seven years when they had
a real innimation? 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 then,
but I think it was just like the Model T
or the Model A or the the box with wheels,

(09:53):
you know which all of those were right. Uh. Yeah.
The actual term, though, planned obsolescence UM, was in a
pamphlet for the first time in nineteen thirty two, written
by real estate broker named Bernard London. Uh and this
pamphlet was called you know it's thirty two. If it's like, uh,
the big pamphlet writing days, you don't get enough of

(10:15):
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,
you know what those kind of pamphlets, right, But this
was a two and it was called Ending the Depression
through Planned Obsolescence. Uh so right there, it's in the title.

(10:36):
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,
except you would be charged attacks like, hey, you're still

(10:58):
using that fridge. It's two years past his date, so
you gotta pay a tax 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
that Bernard London he had, you know, he had kind

(11:21):
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
he started barking up it and it was the wrong one,
you know what I mean. Yeah, But that was in fact,

(11:44):
that same year there were two other guys Roy Sheldon
and uh, this is a great name, egmont Errands, and
they wrote a book that wasn't too far off that
pamphlet called consumer Engineering colon or lease of colon in
the title, and technique for Prosperity, and they called it
creative waste and just basically flat outsaid we should make

(12:07):
things that are less durable because uh, you know, people
are going to buy more stuff, right and that 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 when you when
you there are places that make really awesome things that

(12:29):
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,
there are these high end wallet makers now that are
saying like this is the wallet that you can have
for sixty years like your father that um. But they
often say things like, you know, use military grade fabrics

(12:51):
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
the 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, I
think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's what That's what
Bernard London and Roy Sheldon and eggma errands that the

(13:15):
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 can 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.
But Roy Sheldon and Egmont Aaron said, well, we could

(13:35):
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 of these were written
during the depression, and they their idea was to stimulate
the economy by artificially creating repeat customers that otherwise wouldn't
exist because the stuff that that you would go by

(13:59):
is too durable. If you go buy 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. You're not
in the business, you're a hosemaker. Well, I'm actually referring
specifically to a hose that my dad bought from Sears
in the sixties. He still had it until the nineties,

(14:21):
and it sprung the 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 it when it breaks like
that was that was the problem. Stuff was just made

(14:44):
too well. And you can actually go on to like
Etsy and eBay and sights like that today, Chuck, And
there's like a whole um, a whole like subculture I
guess of people who buy vintage appliances that's still work
they were they they worked like they did the day
you bought them. Like I saw a Sunbeam mixer from

(15:05):
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,
I mean it's crazy because that was this early planned
obsolescence was in the thirties and forties. When we think

(15:30):
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, right, 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 times over their life, rather than making something
that lasts in generation so that they only have to

(15:50):
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 back and talk about a man named
Brooks Stevens right after this large ska doble sk as.

(16:32):
All right, so this idea is out there. Planned obsolescence. Um,
it's been written down. It's a term. It 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 enters.
He was a Milwaukee industrial designer, and he did a

(16:54):
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 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

(17:15):
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 crettier, and you'll sell more of them over a

(17:36):
long period of time. I can you 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 normal and
rational and a kind of a good idea. But when
you put it into practice, we've found, Um, there's a

(17:58):
lot of problems that start to emerge pretty quickly. Uh,
And emerged 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,

(18:21):
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

(18:43):
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 Vance Packard, he wrote a bunch of cool books
and essays, one called The Hidden Persuaders that tackled the

(19:04):
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. Yeah, technol ahead of his time. Yeah.

(19:25):
And then the last thing he wrote in nine was
called the Ultra Rich colin how much is too Much?
How much is too much? Yea. 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

(19:47):
building here in the United States. Yeah. It was an
interesting dude, definitely the kind of author that you know,
guys like um, Gladwell and Friedman and all of them started,
you know, followed in the footstep stuff, but he he
kind of laid the groundwork for that, that kind of
reporting on you know, kind of the ugliness of this
society that sold to us. I think we should definitely

(20:10):
do uum a short stuff on him. Yeah. Okay, some
pinky swear. Pinky swear, Okay, Um, your pinky's cold. I
don't know if that's soothing to me or frightening. It
should be a little frightening. I'm frightened by because it
feels sweaty. Guys, I think Josh is dead. My nose
just falls off on to the table. God, let me

(20:33):
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 the US. That's another thing I really really want

(20:54):
to say this chuck, because I'm sure too, especially some
of our younger listeners. We sound like a couple 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
of um, increasing cruddiness among the stuff you buy, and

(21:17):
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, over this or that, and like,
what about the lemon law. I'm always just like, oh,
that's cute. I'm sure you're gonna get real far with
the lemon law. Although we should look into that for

(21:39):
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 we Uh, how do
we even did a show years ago? Work? Oh? Man?
I hearkened back to that show pretty frequently, like whenever
I'm offered an extended warranty and wow, that sounds like

(22:01):
a really good deal. What did we say in the
extended warranty episode? Oh? Yes, never 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 defenders these days. Yeah. First up on the
t ball T is Apple. Yeah. Apple is in the

(22:21):
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, which was proven true. Yeah,
well there's a class action lawsuit against them for it. Yeah,

(22:42):
so here's what happened. If you live under a rock,
Apple got um. They sent out an update. There's 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 to make your battery last longer,
so we're slowing some things down in order to give

(23:05):
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 ars
instead of seventy nine. So they replaced eleven million batteries
in did they really? I didn't know that. Yeah, up
from about you know, replaced for ars a piece up

(23:27):
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 ops as that said, we'll talk about is there
is a strict control over the product even after it's purchased. Yeah,

(23:48):
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.
And I'm literally setting aside money to pay for this lawsuit.

(24:10):
That's so cute for a rainy day. Yeah, they've like
opened up a new account. They went down to the bank.
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 me lately,
or one of the newer phones, and you're like, oh
wait a minute, I can't plug like have done since

(24:33):
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, right.
Um So that's a classic hallmark of um planned obsolescence
is creating a newer model that is incompatible with older models.

(24:56):
So if you want to keep using the older model,
you're gonna have to shell some money one way or another.
Um or even if you buy 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 that to make
them compatible. Just making stuff incompatible with older versions, it's

(25:19):
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. Is
like I've got one, and I'm like, you know, I
could really use another one of those, because the worst
thing that can possibly happen to a human being because
they had two sets of headphones, one for like, you know,

(25:42):
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 headphones
is basically as horrible as it gets. So I'm probably
just gonna a cave and get another adapter, yeah, or
just quit ingesting uh culture, Yeah, we'll get a flip phone. Yeah,

(26:03):
stop watching movies and TV altogether. Yeah, 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 and young alike,
I think can all agree that, uh, printer cartridges are
one of the biggest, most frustrating, wasteful, and environmentally damaging

(26:27):
scams on the planet. Yeah, which I didn't know about this,
so I've gotta I'm just gonna go ahead and buzz
them because I'm pretty proud of what they What we
got at an Epson printer at home, 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

(26:51):
that you refill it from are fully recyclable. It's just
is this good. Um. Before we had cartridges, but they
didn't have this particular UM component, which is 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

(27:14):
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 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

(27:35):
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 determined as enough you can use.
You can go buy another cartridge now. And these cartridges also,
the smart chips prevent you from using other companies cheaper
knockoff cartridges because the chips won't communicate with the printer.

(27:57):
So it's like the printers and 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
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

(28:19):
a little brown, right, I decide what's a llegible printer?
I know, Uh so that's there are at the very
least I can tell you EPs and makes a printer
out there that has reservoirs that you can refill with
bottles and no smartships. Okay, give me some money. Ups.
And the auto industry is, you know, still kind of

(28:40):
doing the same thing that they started so many years ago,
which is, uh, discontinuing parts um that could keep cars
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

(29:02):
your old car, so repairs Chuck, Like we kind of
teased earlier. That's a huge part of planned obsolescence. Like,
if you're the company that controls the market on your
parts and who can repair your products with those parts,
you have a You've you're basically saying like, I can

(29:23):
see this product through after I sell it to the
customer to ensure that it experiences just that artificially short lifetime. Yeah,
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

(29:46):
only thing we don't control is the shipping. And maybe
we can make some deal with FedEx on that right
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,

(30:06):
steady ooze of greed with no regard for the consumer
at all. Right, And and just to lay it out basically,
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

(30:27):
where we say you can say, like to the Apple
store or an authorized repair shop. Um, you avoided the warranty,
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

(30:49):
six under warranty through you? Then they're like, oh, we
don't cover that underworld. They're like warranty more on. 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

(31:09):
buy another one or close to it, to just basically
nudge you to as well just throw this one away
and get get the newer model. Or they can 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

(31:33):
because all the parts, the finite amount of parts that
were ever produced to repair them are all 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 eight miles on it and had been garaged

(31:54):
since it was you know, since or whatever. How much
do they want for nine end is what it sold for,
which you know it's nine grand plus. You got to
get that thing going again. Just it's been sitting there
for that many years. It's clearly not road ready, but
it was cherry, And I think it's kind of funny
that some no doubt tech bro with a little too

(32:19):
much money wanted to the most ironic car in San Francisco.
That is as ironic as a kiss, for sure. Um.
Every time I hear about Hugos Chuck, I'm 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 clay, So when you got an Defender better you

(32:39):
just pour water on it and mold it back into
show if only. Yeah, that was from like the Phil
Hartman era. That's the opposite of planned obsolescence. It is. Um.
Clothing is 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 then in the last twenty years,

(33:01):
there are companies that are making really well made clothes,
but they're you know, 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

(33:25):
we're calling out a lot of brands, you might as
well just keep it going. But when I 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.

(33:47):
And that's sad. It's sad. Levi Strauss rolled over in
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 levies and it's just like,
you know, or five months. Yeah, that's that's pretty sad,

(34:07):
because here a middle ground. Can I get five years? Yeah?
Five years would be pretty good for some genes. Take it.
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

(34:29):
in public. I can a patch these because they're still comfortable.
But um, you shouldn't have to chuck. You shouldn't have to.
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.

(34:50):
This is fun, by the way, I'm having fun, like
complaining about how stuff doesn't last like I used to.
How about the college textbook racket? Okay, hey, this is
a new edition from the previous year. Oh what's different?
The page numbers right, so by the new one yea,
not the used one? Yeah? Which is I mean, like,
if you're trying to follow along in class, that's kind

(35:12):
of maddening because the information is usually not that much,
but it's enough to just throw everything off right, Whereas
they if they just put these things as like a
supplement or an appendix of something in 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.

(35:36):
How about the toy industry, So the toy industry is
frequently guilty. Um, and this isn't the case across the board,
but it kinda is of a specific subcategory of planned
obsolescence called contrived durability. And there's 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

(35:58):
using in year your parts that just aren't going to
last for very long at all, 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

(36:21):
process of contrived or ability, right, Um, and it's a
big problem. Part of the problem. Part 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

(36:41):
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 goldfish bowl where
you won the switch blade 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
an early early shout to the death of the repair person. Yeah,

(37:07):
and you know, yeah, there are still some of those things,
but like try and 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

(37:29):
a TV repaired person, uh, and or any kind of
repair shop. Um. Yeah, they are very very few and
far between, but that maybe changing is 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. Ski as sks Alright, Chuck. So, I feel

(38:16):
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
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

(38:40):
no e on the end of institute, which is so
German looking really is its institute otherwise um They found
obsolescence was on the rise. Percentage of 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, two eight point three and two thousand twelve.

(39:03):
And then household appliances, which is one of the big
gripes for people because those are high dollar 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 to like doubled between two thousand and
four and two, and like it's you I've this is

(39:26):
a really rare study. Most of the evidence about this
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 lifespan is
like two to three years, five years if you're lucky, um,

(39:47):
But prices are still really high like it used to be. Like, Okay,
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 did 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

(40:09):
three to five years, even though you spend a significant
amount of money. It's crazy. Um. Sometimes are as a
plan to 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's four years ago. They started making this part out
of plastic, and I'd see the same repair over and

(40:31):
over and over now, right, 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.

(40:51):
But you're fifteen hundred dollar refrigerator just became a two
thousand dollar refrigerator like eighteen months later, right, Um, So
that's are to 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

(41:14):
repair it anymore. Like we talked about, Yeah, 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

(41:36):
we could have bought the new one 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 like, you don't know what the
right thing to do is. Yeah, yeah, and eventually, like,
just about anybody's gonna be like, fine, I'm I've spent
more money than it would have cost her a place. Yeah,

(41:56):
somebody's everybody's gonna cry uncle eventually, 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,

(42:19):
if something gets a bad rep 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

(42:40):
crud that last maybe three to five years, 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 that's a good brand, but this brand
is not any good And then you have like a

(43:01):
bad experience with that brand, so you switch to another brand.
But there's a pretty good chance that those 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

(43:23):
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 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,

(43:45):
and these reviews and every single one of them, the
manufacturer would reply and say, boy, we're so sorry you
have this experience. We've never heard of this, and it's uh,
certainly um an outlier so to get into uch 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

(44:06):
sometimes when I'm when I have to call about something
like that, I'm like, man, I know, it's not like
I'm not the only person this is happening to. Is
all over the internet, and there's like, well, um, 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

(44:27):
is customer service. Do you think Yeah, I think for
the average person, the the companies want to please 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

(44:48):
are so big that you get the feeling that like
they think it costs more to give a hoot, Right, Yeah,
I think that's definitely true out there, But there's so
many Like I think smaller company 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

(45:10):
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
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 of large appliances breaking within five years

(45:30):
and having to be replaced, like, um, eight point three
percent of of smaller electronics are all electronics. Um, 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

(45:54):
those things are just like I said, thrown away. They're
not recycled. I think in the United States six percent
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

(46:17):
offenders as far as environmental damage. So you've got three
d 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
ships you've got, you know, uh, refrigerators being thrown out.

(46:37):
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
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.

(46:58):
So you know, we try and recycle or 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 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

(47:19):
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
trying to do is set new standards for durability and
repair ability and like make it the law, right, yeah,
like they're they're Um, the resource efficiency is what they're calling,

(47:41):
Like you have energy efficiency, like how much water does
that do? Sacer use? Um? This is how long does
this thing last? Put it on the label, right exactly,
kind of like that Bernard London's idea, but rather than
it 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 the last seven I'm gonna go with the seven

(48:02):
year one right now. 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. 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

(48:24):
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 it possible to repair their devices
on their own or take it to a repair mom

(48:44):
and pop repair shop and not have like the warranty avoided. Yeah,
these these laws all kind of you know, they're different,
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 unauthorized repair shop. And those repair shops should be

(49:06):
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.
If put out junk if you want, but let us
repair it. That's kind of what the gist of those

(49:27):
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
and designers and engineers because of that cycle. Uh So,

(49:50):
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 riving things. And you know, it might be
an environmental nightmare, but those trucks are moving. Yeah. I mean,
on the one hand, though, it I do agree with
the idea of saying, Okay, we we want to replace,

(50:11):
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 phone companies all scrambling for market share, so they're
trying to out innovate one another and justify customers going

(50:33):
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 the beginning of its invention until today. It was
just mainly cosmetic changes that were made to it over

(50:55):
time to keep up with the times, just like fashion.
If you do that with a phone 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
phone before, that's okay. Yes, there's still the manufacturing problem
in the waste associated with it that can be dealt with,

(51:18):
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,
but also to make something affordable for a consumer. And
if we built a card to the last seventy five years,

(51:38):
no one would be able to afford it because it
would all be military grade, right 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
planned or otherwise, in a couple of years, Um, it
makes more sense to build phones with cheaper parts that

(51:58):
aren't gonna last forever, be 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. It's a little bit all of our faults because, uh,
you might want the new phone in that color one year,

(52:19):
other one works great. 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 though their old
one is still fine. Right, So, like, you know, that's
kind of on the consumer hit him with that last chuck. Uh,

(52:42):
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, you know, But I mean the
question is, did this like ravenous consumer society developed as
a result of planned obsolescence or did plan obsolescence developed

(53:02):
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, how about instead,
let's listen to some listener mail from Chuck. Yeah, this
is a very very sweet email from a gentleman named

(53:24):
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 made up
a new word. Physiology. Is that word I guess I've

(53:48):
never seen because of your shows? Oh here, he says,
she's even making up new words. There you go. Because
of your show's unique inside to learning, your you fan
the flames of desire for knowledge. You routinely reinforce awesome
and cool knowledge and education 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

(54:09):
episode each way from work every day. I've heard you
read listener mail from other parents that complement how you
always give us something to talk about with our 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. Your influences beyond academics too.
She's involved in her community and articulates educated opinions for

(54:32):
her passions. She will turn eighteen this fall, and it's
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 Tom and the family
are coming to UH from Rockford, Illinois to Chicago. Thanks Tommy.

(54:54):
What was Tom's daughter's name again, Grace, Grace, Grace, Thank
you very much for making us look so good. Yeah, um,
and good luck in school. Congrats and yeah, we'll see
you guys in Chicago. Um oh, I guess that's it.
If you want to get in touch with us, like
Grace and Tom did, you can what chuck go onto

(55:15):
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.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

(55:36):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.