Appliances, electronics, lawnmowers... and planned obsolescence

Back in the eighties, my jerk-off brother-in-law gifted me a used lawnmower. It was a cheapo he'd bought at Canadian Tire sometime in the early seventies. I used it for another ten years before the deck rusted through to the point of making it unusable.

I'm recalling this because the Farm Manager was just on a rant about appliances. 

"Why can't they make anything that lasts even five years?"

And as we all know, if you're on five year old technology, well.... what's wrong with you?

On the one hand, you'd think that if fifty years ago we could build a lawnmower that could actually cut grass for twenty-five years, we'd be building life-time mowers by now.

But no. In fact, things have gone drastically in the other direction. In the barn I've got a Sears mower, top of the line with the exception of the self-driving feature, that didn't quite make it five years. There's also another $400+ mower with a Honda engine that died after three years (and half the price of that mower was for the Honda name!), and a couple of low-budget made-in-China pieces of shit, because if even the supposedly "quality" brands can't give you five years, what's the point?

Same goes with any household appliance. I remember my mother getting a new kitchen range about '62. It was working great well into the 80s, and was only forsaken for remodelling reasons. It still worked great after 25 years.

Tech has an even more insidious agenda, because the tech gods have the advantage of the semi-legit argument of "new technology" which the lawnmower and appliance builders don't. Their game is to get everybody on the planet addicted to smart phones and, in a perfect world (at least for the tech gods), replace them every two years or even sooner. The very idea of building a phone or tablet that can be upgraded instead of replaced is anathema to the industry.

Sure thing, and billions of "obsolete" devices are discarded every year, with scarcely a thought for the environmental impact of either the electronic garbage or the scale of rare-earth mining required to keep this tsunami of toxic waste growing.

"Planned obsolescence" has corrupted the economy to its core. The best and brightest minds no longer work to engineer products that offer long-term performance and sound value for the dollar. Instead, the best and brightest minds are hard at work to ensure the shitty shit they sell us gets even shittier going forward.

After all, what kind of capitalist with a brain in his head would build a lawnmower that lasts 25 years, when the suckers will be grateful if they find one that lasts five years?