The
end of planned obsolescence, a dream or a trend ?
When did you last change your phone? Three years is the average
duration of ownership of an iPhone according to Apple. It is even
shorter for other phones at only two years. Full memory or dead
battery, our devices are no longer future-proofed. Despite their high
cost, they don’t last all that long. You may think it’s just wear
and tear but these failures are too
premature and yet, most of the time, people are far from thinking
that it was premeditated. For instance Apple
would regularly innovates in order to maintain control over their
products’ life span: uploading the latest operating system for
older devices became impossible and replacing the battery or the
screen yourself is becoming harder and harder. They also make the
accessories obsolete so that the customers are being forced to
replace them between each generation. Today, customers are
increasingly being targeted through planned obsolescence, and this is
becoming obvious to them. Planned Obsolescence has become a real
scourge of modern times.
In fact there’s nothing new about this. Many theories about
consumption emerged in the 30’s including Bernard London’s which
stipulates that keeping products until the end of their natural life
cycle was slowing down the economy. Two decades later, former
American President Eisenhower followed in London’s footsteps
declaring “to save the economy, we must buy, buy anything”. In
the 60’s, Vance Packard set the cat among the pigeons revealing
that some firms were secretly limiting the durability of devices in
order to shorten their lifespan and so boost profits.
Customers became better informed and many disgruntled buyers dared to
sue companies. For instance battery life in three generations of
iPods was limited to 18 months, which infuriated many customers.
Quickly enough, Apple reimbursed them. Indeed, they prefered slamming
down the Pandora box rather than losing the case and so setting a
precedent. In France in 2015 a bill was passed to fight against
planned obsolescence and the risk run is 2 years’ imprisonment as
well as a fine of 300 000€. Not only is planned obsolescence hard
to prove, fines and penal servitude haven’t been enough to scare
firms. What is really at the core of their concerns is their image.
Today, being eco-friendly is trendy.
Firms now have to make their strategy evolve to attract customers and
to change their economic model. Some companies have opted to develop
customers’ loyalty with replaceable and repairable parts. In fact,
even if consumers don’t buy new products, this economic model is
viable because companies earn money from the spare parts and retain
their customers. For instance SEB, a world leader in small electrical
appliances, promotes its products by promising to stock parts for
them for ten years. Fairphone is also a precursor of this new trend
and a proof that the demand is real for such an economic model.
Indeed in this case, consumers themselves believed in the modular
telephone and financed it thanks to crowdfunding. For the Earth's
sake, it would be a great economic step forward if it gains ground.
Claire Peters & Jeanne Schied
