Planned Obsolescence

What is planned obsolescence? Planned obsolescence is actually a strategy that ensure a product will become useless within a time period. It will let consumers will demand replacements in the future. It can even increase the number of sales of the same consumer. Obsolescence can be achieved through introduction of a superior replacement or a product design meant to cease proper function within a specific window.

Why would someone want to limit something when they were able to achieve a better result? Well, most of the reason behind it are because of money, obviously. When Bernard London started planned obsolescence in 1932, it is due to the depression of the economy back then.

Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence by Bernard London 1932

From my understanding, they were really depressed that time and having a hard time to survive so they were force to come out with this plan. But not all the time they will be facing economy problem, so it was not necessary to work out this plan. Some company may be too focusing on making more profit and thus reduce the quality of a product even though the country's economy is not facing any crisis. So why not make something that is in its best?

Lets face the reality, it is true that company cannot make enough profit if the product can last very long, but why not come out with some other solutions? Maybe we can make some product at its best, but the price might be higher a little than the usual. It was not going to be random charge without though. If a product is good, this is because the people making it had put lots of their thoughts and hard work just to make it better, or even the material they used are special, and thus it will cost more.
Consumers had a choice of what they want to choose, if the product is expensive, not all are able to afford it, or even think that it was unnecessary to purchase it, and so they can purchase the product that the manufacture had already limited its timeline.

This suggestion had actually lots of unsolved holes regarding the marketing wise, but at least we can start from there maybe?  As designers, of course we always want to improve the product until it has no flaws, and so it means long lasting is one of them. But from the marketing point of view, this is not a good idea as they will not make any income if the consumers did not purchase anything again in a short period of time. So, how to make a product in its best quality and not lose profit throughout the upcoming years? Well...let us see then...