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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin (www.mercurynews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year 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.