• Question: What's your view on planned obsolescence?

    Asked by on 17 Jun 2020. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Oliver Gordon

      Oliver Gordon answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      I’m not a fan at all. We produce incredible amounts of electronic waste every single year. I feel it is very misleading for companies to claim they care about the environment, yet ignore the waste they create from planned obsolescence chasing after profit.

    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      That is a huge discussion! In general it is a habit we are going to have to break if we want to live sustainably 😉

    • Photo: Ricardo Ramirez

      Ricardo Ramirez answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      I think it is not good to the environment, and for most of the tasks we really don’t need that much computing power. A lot of my day to day work could be done on a 10 years old computer. On the other hand, without the market incentive the innovation may slow down, making even more expensive the access to the high-performance computing needed for some research that was plain impossible with the hardware from 10 years ago.

    • Photo: Andy Smith

      Andy Smith answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      I think planned obsolescence is a terrible idea. Every time we make a product we have a negative impact on the environment, so we should be trying to make things last longer, not shorter. This problem is made worse by the need for manufacturers to provide updates (particularly security updates) for their products. These updates cost the manufacturer money to produce, but they are provided to customers for free. So most manufacturers are only willing to provide updates for a few years. That means you can end up with lots of hardware which works fine, but the software running inside it might leave you at risk of being hacked, or missing some important product features. I would love to see manufacturers being more open and honest about how long they will promise to support each product for, so that consumers can make an informed choice about which one to buy. E.g., how much more would you be willing to pay for your next mobile phone if you knew it would keep getting updates for 5 years, instead of 2 years?

    • Photo: Emma Wilson

      Emma Wilson answered on 17 Jun 2020:

      I’m completely against it. In addition to the harm it causes the environment, I think it puts unnecessary and unfair pressure on people to buy new products. Take mobile phones for example – they are essential for staying connected. Whilst many people like having the latest new phone, a lot of people can’t afford to buy a new phone every few years, and not having one can make them very isolated.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2020: last edited 18 Jun 2020 7:31 am

      It outrages me; in terms of its impact on the planet I think it is irresponsible. I have only ever had two mobile phones, and I had to get a second only when the first was stolen. I liked that better than the one I have now! Just because there’s something new, doesn’t mean the older thing doesn’t still do its job perfectly well. Peer pressure to get the latest and greatest is something I resist; I despise fashion in clothes, for example. If I find something functional, comfortable and long-lasting, I am going to keep using it. But then again, I don’t have many friends 🙂

    • Photo: Will Furnell

      Will Furnell answered on 18 Jun 2020: last edited 19 Jun 2020 2:29 pm

      I also think it is a terrible idea. It encourages a large amount of E-Waste. It really isn’t nessasary as most of the devices that are said to be obsolete by the manufacturers, either directly or by silently stopping software updated for them, still have useful life left in them! I’ve used the same phone and computer for years without issue – only upgrading my computer after about five, and phone sligtly less, because there really is no need to upgrade every year. Devices that are only used to browse the web can get by with even less frequent updates.

      It also seems very common with Internet-of-Things type devices, which cause even more of a problem when support is dropped because they become paperweights – they are no longer able to contact the providers servers, often not because of technical but planned obsolescence reasons.

    • Photo: Anar Yusifov

      Anar Yusifov answered on 20 Jun 2020:

      If this is something in physical world and not easily recyclable – then I strongly against that.
      But in digital world it’s very popular form of existence and giving how rapidly OS, HW, SW and etc. changing – there is no need to fight with it. Just document what is going on – so that you could track and reproduce behavior in the future.

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