Built to fail: is planned obsolescence really happening?

Planned obsolescence has hit the headlines again, with a French lawsuit against Apple for slowing down phones and 17 US states pushing for new legislation allowing people to fix their own products.

But what is the impact of this on consumers and what should be done about it?

Firstly, what is planned obsolescence?

Planned obsolescence means manufacturers deliberately designing products to fail prematurely or become out-of-date, often to sell another product or an upgrade – a practice that is barred in some countries. Some manufacturers also restrict consumers’ ability to repair their products – by using digital locks or copyrighted software, using incompatible screws or gluing components together, or by refusing to share their repair manuals. Some add clauses to their user agreements so people (often unknowingly) agree not to fix their own products. Although sometimes this is within the law, as consumers purchase more connected products their expectations of what they can and can’t do with a product they have bought are challenged.

For consumers this means their products don’t last as long as they could, and even small problems have to be dealt with by an approved repairer – sometimes at greater expense, distance and delay, especially if they don’t want to invalidate the warranty. This is an inconvenience for many, and one which arguably hits poorer and geographically isolated consumers harder.

The lifespan of electronic goods is becoming shorter, with the number of defective appliances replaced within five years increasing from 3.5% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2013. At the same time, with increasingly smarter tech, such as that used in phones, e-waste and resource requirements increase with each new model. Not to mention the danger to health associated with the kind of recycling of components that takes place in the informal sector, particularly in developing countries.

What next?

We recently produced a set of recommendations for Securing Trust in the Internet of Things which included calls for:

• connected products to be easily upgradeable
• updates to be made available to consumers regardless of location
• devices, adaptors and other connection points to be made compatible with each other
• Clear, comparable and credible information to be provided concerning expected lifetime and reparability of products
• Products to be designed and built with resource efficiency in mind, from using sustainably produced materials and construction methods; to providing clear guidance to consumers on the most efficient use, re-use/repair and disposal of the product and its components.
  
  

The recommendations echoed those taken up by the G20 on the idea of fair use and clear ownership, which stated that ‘consumers need guarantees of their right to fair use. Controls that producers can exercise over the use of a product and its related data should be legitimate, fair and proportionate’. A commitment from the Argentinean presidency of the 2018 G20 to continue improving trust in the digital world gives consumer organisations and other groups the opportunity to further develop this work and identify practical solutions.

Consumers International member Test-Achats/TestAankoop has set up a reporting tool called Trop-vite-use on its website, aimed at creating a list of products which people feel have stopped working or worn out too quickly. Once enough information is collated, they will be able to target their product testing and advise on which brands to avoid. Although the reporting tool is not only for Internet of Things products, difficulties with fixing or keeping connected devices secure in the long term are key issues for durability in the Internet of Things.