Week 5 Blog

I do not see many benefits to planned obsolescence because this really does bother me when I’m buying electronics or think about buying a car in the future.  Planned obsolescence which is “artificial shortening of the lifespan of consumer commodities” (Lecture 5), is basically planning to break something one just bought, thus in a way wastes money, especially when this is not worth the price.  I’m mostly against this because I’m a consumer and never a salesman who tries to make a living by having others buy from me. However, salesmen, whether door to door people or corporate companies, depends on a certain degree of planned obsolescence because they need to make a profit. In this way planned obsolescence benefits the companies and when the company does well, it can open more job opportunities for others, thus benefiting common people such as myself. This whole cycle is basically economics and keeping the economy moving. This can relate to how Loos writes “the rapid changes in fashion provide employment for millions” (Loos, “Ornament and Crime,” pp.172). Here is referring to the fashion industry, but it can be applied to all sorts of businesses if “fashion” is replaced with new trends. Thus, when a product breaks in a short amount of time, the owner will probably either want the new and “improved,” as advertisement claims, version, or they would want to try another product completely new. Either way, the owner would buy something again, thus, stimulating the economy.

            Another benefit I see here is that because this concept exists and is applied, this keeps design, creativity, and new ideas moving and developing. If everyone kept all their belongings for such a long time, no one would buy much anymore, thus manufacturing companies would not only lose business, but they would not have to even care about thinking of coming up with a new idea. New ideas is what made humans so advanced. It is because of creativity and wanting to change that there is new technology and cures for diseases, etc. Without throwing things away or making things from the past old, there would be no new ideas and no one would follow them, thus, society would not be moving forward. Change in this case is good because thinking back, I’m sure everyone gets excited at new things or is amazed when he or she sees a new toy in the market when he or she was a child, or when the new IPhone 5 that recently came out.

            The harmful and negative side towards planned obsolescence is that manufacturers are acting like con men because from my experience, no advertisement would ever point out that a product will break in a certain amount of time. In addition, companies are counting on their products to give out on their nice customers who probably over paid for their product with their money that they worked hard for. Well, maybe not everyone has to work so hard to earn their money, but I do. Thus, I get disappointed at times when products are not in great quality and even then, I’m still skeptical about spending my money on something that seems to be in good quality because of this technique of planned obsolescence.