A Short History of Planned Obsolescence

🌱 Why are products designed to break?

“Through planned obsolescence, the life span of products is purposely limited to foster consumerism.”[i] Obsolescence is driven by “[i]nterfirm competition, the need to maintain and increase one's market share and profits, [and] the necessity to offload or 'externalise' costs”.[ii]

🌱 Where does the concept originate from?

“In 1928, Printer’s Ink magazine stated that “An article that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business.”[iii] “The original idea of implementing planned obsolescence was coined by the New York based real-estate broker, Bernard London in his book titled “The New Prosperity: Permanent Employment, Wise Taxation and Equitable Distribution of Wealth” in 1932.”[iv] “Yet, London’s idea to boost the American economy, in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, by legally implementing planned obsolescence was largely ignored. London’s idea was to balance the value of capital and the need for labor, in a manner that would assure the continued demand for new goods, by proposing that goods should be considered “legally dead” and handed into the government to be destroyed after a given time period.”[v]

🌱 What was the Phoebus cartel?

“The Phoebus cartel (Phoebus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l’Éclairage) was a “global lightbulb alliance” – commonly referred to as the ‘Lightbulb Conspiracy’ today – that limited the life span of lightbulbs. The Phoebus cartel was established on December 23rd, 1924 in Geneva and contained numerous international lightbulb producers – including Osram from Germany, Philips from the Netherlands, Compagnie des Lampes from France, and indirectly General Electric from the United States.”[vi] “The cartel limited the life span of household lightbulbs to a standard 1000 hours, which was a significant reduction from 1500 to 2500 hours that the lightbulbs of the time typically burned for. Members of the cartel engineered shorter-lived lightbulbs and the samples were assessed for conformity to cartel standards on a regular basis. Each factory of the cartel members was required to send samples to the central laboratory of the cartel, located in Switzerland. By defining a product’s life span and assessing compliance, the Phoebus cartel created the industrial strategy of planned obsolescence.”[vii]

🌱 How have printers employed obsolescence?

“The HP printer that entailed a chip to limit the printable page count is a good example of contemporary planned obsolescence.”[viii] Beyond HP, several “manufacturers of printer ink cartridges attempted to force customers to be loyal to one company, by assuring that the only cartridges compatible with a given printer were those produced by the printer’s manufacturer. When the cartridges were still thirty to forty percent full, many became nonfunctional. The manufactures hence not only held a monopoly of the market of spare parts, but they also employed part obsolescence.”[ix]

This post is based on Christine Nikander’s research on e-waste and planned obsolescence at Leiden University College The Hague in 2015-2016. It entails extracts from her thesis titled “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”. This content is protected by Dutch copyright law (©2016 by Christine Nikander) and all rights are reserved.

[i] Cosima Dannoritzer, The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010); Naresh K. Malhotra, “Planned Obsolescence” in “e-Study Guide for Basic Marketing Research” (2016); Joseph Guiltinan, “Creative Destruction and Destructive Creations: Environmental Ethics and Planned Obsolescence”, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9907-9, 20; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 33.

[ii] Neil Maycroft, “Consumption, planned obsolescence and waste”, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56229.pdf, 16; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 33.

[iii] Cosima Dannoritzer, The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010); Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 43.

[iv] Bernard London, “Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence” (1932), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72003; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 43.

[v] Cosima Dannoritzer, The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010); Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 43-44.

[vi] Robert Friedel, “Obsolescence: Origins and Outrages”, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24468146, 168; Markus Krajewski, “The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy: The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence”, https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy; Leonard S. Reich, "Lighting the Path to Profit: GE's Control of the Electric Lamp Industry, 1892–1941", https://doi.org/10.2307/3116940, 327; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 44.

[vii] Markus Krajewski, “The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy: The Phoebus cartel engineered a shorter-lived lightbulb and gave birth to planned obsolescence”, https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 44.

[viii] Cosima Dannoritzer, The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010); Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 45.

[ix] Neil Maycroft, “Consumption, planned obsolescence and waste”, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/56229.pdf, 23-24; Christine Nikander, “E-Waste Trafficking as an Environmental Crime: Countering the Transboundary Movement of E-waste by Legally Limiting Planned Obsolescence”, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/60627, 45.