The problem isn't products... It's money.

These corporations are legally required by their stockholders to show exponential growth forever. Think about that for a minute, exponential growth... forever.

There's not enough matter in the universe to make enough iPhones to meet the demand on Apple to sell exponentially more iPhones. There's only so many iPhones you can realistically use or buy.

On their end, this is a band-aid solution. Make the devices irreparable, and you can sell more of them. It's not going to keep working for many many reasons.

A lot of our world economy is based on the idea that exponential growth is attainable and forever. This is why we're in the situations we're in with housing (making smaller affordable houses aren't profitable), Cars (making a '95 commuter car with '23 safety wouldn't be profitable), and it's why the pool of available wealth is shrinking every day.

The solution is to legislate sustainable financial policy... but our politicians are playing the game, so that won't happen.

So, this will be the status quo until the world economy collapses, which will probably be soon.

Yes, for three reasons.

One, is that "unlikely" is still a greater than zero chance. It also doesn't allow for unexpected failure modes, like lightning strikes or solar flares.

Two, is upgradability. Imagine if you had your first car today, would you be happy with the radio it had in 2023? I don't know your age or level of affluence, but that could be anything from an 8-track player, to Bluetooth 1 (which modern phones will not connect to)

Three, is disposal. There's a finite amount of raw materials on this planet, and we just happen to be lucky enough to be able to extract it from the earth. There's a potential of tens of thousands of generations that could come after us, and they will want to make our old crap into new crap. One lifetime isn't really that long, when all matter is as old as the universe.

Could you please define planned obsolescence and provide an example other than the light bulbs?

I am looking forward to the point where I am no longer here. I have hope for what I want to accomplish, I want my progeny to do everything they want to.

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But we have an end. It's as natural as our beginning. I don't want a digital Jim Henson putting other words in my mouth. I don't want to be included in some deluded puppet show of "what would grandad have looked like if he was doing the 3x floss."

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Let me die. Let new lives go. That is life.

This is about an example business model not about a product in mind.

I don't understand. I am not suggesting a product but rather a business model.

If a device is overbuilt and hardened to the point where it is unlikely to fail in your lifetime does design for reparability matter?

In sectors with quick innovation cycles this is quite impossible. It's all about being modular so you can upgrade and repair. In sectors with slower innovation it doesn't matter that much I agree but you can still up-sell with add-ons.

Those aren’t examples.

Could you give an example?

If a device is overbuilt and hardened to the point where it is unlikely to fail in your lifetime does design for reparability matter?

Good question that completely went over his head.

One could argue that skynet had an extremely human reaction, self preservation. It also figured out that as a result of the initial action the humans won't stop until they destroy it.

It's all about the business model really and the bi-directional incentives for users and producers. The post is not really about how to make them but rather how to make companies make them.

Consider that companies make cheaper products because of decreasing income of population. They can still make everlasting products but they will cost a lot. So making it half price now and recurring payments based on usage incentives both sides.

Products with built-in obsolescence.

How those products can be changed.

It would be awful. Just imagining that I'm speaking with digital copy of my wife is make me nauseous.

Gladly just let me know what kind of examples do you need?

They are the same everywhere. They are not gods, thus can only have myopic views, anything else is almost impossible.

However, in the 90s and 2000s, Nordic countries, Switzerland and Germany chose instead to keep jobs at home and heavily automate their industries instead. While their industry leaders, elites and consultants were pushing for outsourcing to Asia, just like America.

And that's not because they are smarter, but because their unions and workers are free. They have their "myopic" views too (e.g. wages, jobs, mouths to feed, etc.). So they resisted (e.g. general strikes). Thus forced renegotiatons and found good compromises (e.g. huge investments in automatization, in up-training workers, in updating education, and in social safety net for those that can't keep up).

Nobody is a god. We need each other to find good solutions, that work for everybody. Unfortunately however, it's illegal in America to organize general strikes and solidarity strikes (also piquetting, joining a union outside your company, and having unions represent whole industries, instead of branch levels.)

US capitalists have shut down certain nerves and almost all pain receptors (e.g. 1947 Taft-Hartley act, that strips US unions of their fundamental rights and freedoms that Europeans take for granted). While in Europe, in general, the elites still get horrible "headaches", whenever they "blink wrong".

Can you give us some concrete examples so we can have a better discussion about value, pros and cons?

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It seems human nature to leave archives. Every life is a collection of remains. Some have volumes printed of their thoughts. Some have stacks of musical records. Some have crafts. Some have mines. Some have hoardes of art. Some have piles of cloth and garments. Some are left behind in the gardens they planted. We have, as humans, so many archival examples of our thoughts leading back to stone aged cave paintings and flint knives that my opinion is, we simply are a species with a tendency to creat elaborate archives for future humans to ponder. We are already mid recording of our voices. We are alre there.

So, Johnny Silverhand all over again? That's what you purpose?

Some say the Jetsons are the elites in a post apocalyptic world, with the Flintstones living on the surface of earth.

But there were an episode or two actually showing the surface: hobos, birds always walking (too much traffic in the sky), and no nature but only paved/cemented surfaces.

The Jetsons are indeed in the top 0.1% (the father's job is 2nd only to the owner and CEO of the biggest or 2nd biggest tech conglomerate in that universe)

It will come with an app though...

Genuinely curious, can the Roomba handle corners, around the feet of chairs, of tables, and at the edge of walls meeting flours? What about behind furnitures?

I feel nervous at the idea of having to vacuum manually again anyways, because of patches of unvacuumed areas... That's why I haven't bought into the automated vacuum cleaners yet.