The lightbulb conspiracy - Planned Obsolescence

The lightbulb conspiracy Planned Obsolescence At the beginning manufacturers will produce products that were long lasting, where overtime to support economic growth and wealth for business owners, engineers and manufacturer would decrease the lifespan of products. Light bulbs were one of the first products that were affected by planned obsolescence. It is pretty contradicting of light bulb is one of our most intelligent invention even if there are light bulb that come last up to 100 000 hrs but it was never produced to the market. This whole planned obsolescence started taking it’s affect due to industrial evolution where machine made a lot of goods available. Consumers were not just buying what they needed but also what they wanted. Where in 1929 when Wall Street crashed and people stop buying goods but everybody became to look for a job. Bernard London started the idea by law they introduced compulsory planned obsolescence, where all products has an expiry date (legally dead) and destroy, but it never took place. On the other hand without planned obsolescence there wouldn’t be industries and designers, where it stated that designers should know how to design for business and how often the business wants consumers to repurchase their products. Nylon stockings were pleased by consumers and the strength but to the point that engineers were forced to create fragile stockings. This causes frustration to old and new generation engineers and consumers. Ipod were also a product that was affected a planned obsolescence but like when the battery died the company was not willing to change the battery. Apple would advise it’s consumers to change their ipods, where in the video people are fighting against planned obsolescence, due to the law case they now do longer warranties and battery replacement. End of life of technology are dumped into developing countries and companies would say that they are second hand goods but they create environmental hazard. Where there are no more space to dump this waste on this planet and to adjust how companies are behaving when they are dealing with this waste. As a designer planned obsolescence can be a bad thing that isn’t it upsetting that a product you design is not efficient and not life lasting, and my design was for a short period to satisfy people’s wants. Planned obsolescence do create jobs and keeping this world running but as a design I would need to think about where thing I design would be recycle and would not end up into third world countries. This video really have me inspired and showed me an inside of planned obsolescence.