790
Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
296 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There are few things quite as emblematic of late stage capitalism than the concept of "planned obsolescence".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

For incandescent lightbulbs, his point was that bulbs can burn fast and bright or low and slow, and standardizing on a lifespan of 1000 hours was a sweet spot between performance and longevity. For example, it makes 60W bulbs from different manufacturers more interchangeable and less prone to tricky marketing gimmicks like a "long life" 60W bulb that's dimmer.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Thank you for explaining this concept. I still don't see how it can be considered planned obsolescence, though. It looks more like a matter of optimizing the output and doing a tradeoff for more performance.

    I see planned obsolescence as artificially limiting the longevity or repairability of a product, without any benefit at all, but with the intention of making it less durable. A good example could be locked smartphones without updates.

    But perhaps, the definition of planned obsolescence is broader than i think.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent