Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?

[Rod Speed]

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

We'll see...

Before I stasrted innthe computer business I had 25
years under my belt in the automotive service industry.
Ten of those years as a service manager.

Irrelevant to whats involved with repeat car purchases.

I was in the industry when the Vega
was produced and sold. I saw them fail.

Failure UNDER WARRANTY is an entirely different issue to
failure just outside the warranty, with a product designed to
do that so the failure rate just outside warranty is very high.

That didnt happen with the vegas.

AND car buyers came to expect problems covered by
warranty with the steaming turd the US car industry became.

I saw the owners buying new vegas.

But NOT when the car was DESIGNED TO FAIL JUST OUTSIDE WARRANTY.

I saw them buying no Chevies after the vega was no longer made.
They bought Chevy Cavaliers ten and 15 years later. They bought
new ones when the head gaskets blew and the heads cracked.
Man, it takes a lot of bad Ju-Ju to get a died in
the wool Chevy man to switch brand loyalty!!!!!!

The car industry has always been different with
some chosing to turnover their cars are a high rate.

Now there ARE lots of people who will buy anything - don't
mater who made it - but in North America there are Ford
people who will never own anything BUT a Ford. There are
Chevy people who would never buy a Pontiac or a Buick.

That happens everywhere.

Make any sense? Nope. Even people who quit buying Chrysler
products when they could no longer buy a Plymouth. Buy a Dodge?
Not on your life.Old habits die hard - particularly with old guys and cars.

Doesnt happen much with other domestic appliances.

 

[dpb]

I am surprised that others have not responded to Ig's idea...it is an
excellent one.

Like an archaeologist, one can study the decline and fall of
manufacturing by studying discarded goods.

It is very apparent when one does this as to how many goods have turned
from good implementations to crap.

The end result forces the consumer to spend more money on goods that
would not need to be purchased.

And it is intentional.

....

Well, it's an idea -- how good of one is certainly open to question...

How, precisely, is it possible for Iggy (or you, for that matter) to
assign this intent of the unknown designer based on your observation of
a part at some later time after some period of time and (maybe unknown)
use/abuse? And that presumes the forensic ability to accurately
diagnose the underlying cause of the failure which is probably a large
stretch to begin with.

As said multiple times elsewhere in the thread, there are essentially
an unlimited number of cases where it can be shown that modern design,
technology and manufacturing produce products of far _greater_
reliability and function at far less cost than their counterparts of
earlier times. In many other areas, of course, there are products now
that weren't even possible even a few years ago, what more 10 or 20.

OTOH, there are examples where cost constraints and changing consumer
demands have reduced the ability to produce items in some areas that
have the "heft" and bulk of items of a number of years ago, that is
true. The problem in this thread is one of assigning motivations other
than simply being the response of producers to competition and changing
global economics and in some instances, response to increasingly
onerous regulation from both operational constraints and economic
policies.

It's no longer a case of individual manufacturers having the ability to
produce in isolation being insulated from outside pressures to sell
virtually any product. If it isn't as cost-effective as possible, if
there is any market size at all for any product, you can be sure
somebody else is looking to see how they can encroach upon that. How
to do that is basically one of two ways -- find a way to produce the
same product cheaper or make some innovation that introduces a
desirable feature for a small enough incremental price differential so
as to create perceived value or a desire for the "new and improved"
product over the old.

Nothing profound or diabolical at all...uncomfortable sometimes, yes...

I'm an old fogey, too, and I'd like a new '57 Chevy 2DR HT 'cause they
were really cool, but if it were built today identically as it was
then, it wouldn't handle anything nearly as well as most of today's and
an expected lifetime and operating cost would be much lower and higher,
respectively, than today's as well. Be hard to guess what it would
cost in today's dollars, as well, again assuming it were built in the
same manner as then.

 

[Everett M. Greene]

Its harder to design something as compact as that
with standard replaceable batterys.

What's smaller and more compact than present-day cell phones?

 

[Rod Speed]

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote

BS. They have NEVER gone over 40 degrees C. They live year round
between 65 and 72 degrees F (talking about my own systems)

Then there is some other problem with the system
they are used in, most likely the power supply.

They start losing sectors after about a year, and
reach the undependable stage after 2 or three.

Have fun explaining how come others dont get that effect with those drives.

Some last 2 years, and some are still going after 7.
I've even got a Fujitsu MPG still running, and doing just
fine (that's one out of well over 100 I put into service)

Give it up.

No thanks. That isnt done with mass market commodity drives.

Other than bearing failure (which CAN cause S.M.A.R.T.
to find anomolies) and drive electronics failures,(which
generally do not, as they fail "hard") they can and DO
predict failure before any "prior indication of failure"

Pity about the drive electronics failure which doesnt and
which is now the most significant drive failure mode as
long as the drive isnt abused temperature wise or power.

My time to restore the sytem is worth more than the replacement
drive, so I replace when it says there is a problem. Tried stretching
a laptop drive that said there was a problem developing and had to
replace it and do a complete restore less than 2 weeks later.

Plenty have found that steaming turd got the prediction completely wrong
and it was obvious why it was getting it wrong from the raw smart data too.

AND the smart data isnt necessarily an indication of an imminent
drive failure anyway, it can be due to factors outside the drive itself.

Yup - have backups of all the data.

So your

is completely silly.

Still have to re-install all the OS and programs,
along with the myriad updates and patches.

No you dont if you do backups properly.

Also, when is the last time you actually TESTED your backup?

I do it all the time, essentially because I use image backups quite
a bit when deciding if there's a hardware problem of just an OS
level problem, image the system, do a clean install, see if the
problem goes away, if it doesnt, restore the image and look more
closely at the hardware to work out where the problem is.

I also routinely image a system before upgrading and do occassionally
need to image the new install, restore the original image, to check some
config detail etc that I want to reapply to the new clean install etc.

I test mine, but the majority have "blind faith" untill the time
comes that they NEED to restore. Restoration of the drive
can also take the better part of a day of downtime,

Only if your backup scheme is completely fucked.

while preventative replacement can
take as little as a couple hours in off-time.

You'd be better or working out why you get such lousy drive reliability.

 

[Ignoramus16071]

I am surprised that others have not responded to Ig's idea...it is an
excellent one.

It is also pretty cheap entertainment, since you take that stuff from
trash and later throw away just the same (and sometimes keep some
parts like screws, though usually screws are worthless on consumer
items)

Like an archaeologist, one can study the decline and fall of
manufacturing by studying discarded goods.
yep.

It is very apparent when one does this as to how many goods have turned
from good implementations to crap.

The end result forces the consumer to spend more money on goods that
would not need to be purchased.

The economic accolades about virtues of competition do not impress me
too much. I have economic education myself that is actually half
decent (MBA degree from University of Chicago), and hopefully
understand a thing or two about competition. Despite that background,
I generally share TMT's senstiment about "MBA"s, broadly understood as
people interested in making a quick buck and a quick career.

Competition is about satisfying what consumers value and care
about. Since consumers' preferences are not always in line with their
long term interests -- a situation intentionally created by poor
education and sophisticated advertising -- their satisfaction centers
around styling and cheap initial cost.

This is less so with commercial and especially industrial items,
though, again, not always.

If you do not believe me, take a few things apart and see how they are
made.

An objection is made that quality comes at a cost. That is, obviously,
true, but only to some extent. Some design decisions save very little
to the manufacturer (pennies) and result in a large loss to consumers
(unusable goods). Example, we had a cheap electric kettle. Because the
manufacturer saved perhaps a penny on thickness of plastic, the lid
broke at the hinge. Just a mm or two of extra plastic would make it
more usable. If it cost a dollar more, if would be a long term usable
kettle.

This is a result of two things, big chains putting extreme pressure on
manufacturers to make cheap substandard stuff (google "Wal-Mart
buyers"), and manufacturers' willingness to go along.

I try to not buy anything from Wal-mart and other ...marts anymore
besides soap and toilet paper etc, because of all this.

i

 

[Rod Speed]

Alan [email protected] wrote

[email protected] (Michael Black) wrote

He's right.

Well, you may think that. But the term "planned obsolescence"
has been used for decades in exactly the way I described

Only by those who dont know what it means.

Packard who popularised the term didnt use it like that.

-- a way to make people feel their "old" thing is no
longer desirable and must be replaced with a "new" thing.

That isnt PLANNED obsolescence,
because there is no PLANNING involved.

You're applying the term to something that isn't
repairable, or to something that won't last a long time.

Yep, one that has been PLANNED to fail before it needs to.

 

[Rod Speed]

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote

I sure can.

Nope, you couldnt.

I milwright designs a feed mill. Back in 1966. He rebuilds that mill in 1981.
He builds 5 more mills between those dates, and onother 12 since.
His office burns down and he loses all his engineering drawings.

You cant use a single design over all that time.

or the drawings get soaked when a pipe breaks. How much
were those engineering drawings from 1965 worth today?
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Fantasy. You cant use a single fixed design over all that time.

Another firm with current engineering drawings
will eat him alive when a new mill is up for tender.
That's why he invests in a large format scanner and enters ALL the old
drawings into cad, at very high cost, and keeps 2 offsite backups.

Or take a land surveyor's office.
ALL the surveys done in the past 35+ years are kept onsite, and many are
referred to daily to tie in new surveys etc. What would it cost to regenerate
even a small fraction of those survey plans? What is their current value???
Significantly higher than the original cost to produce the survey.

Adequately covered by his original MOST.

 

[Rod Speed]

The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the true
cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

Fantasy. And the cost is ALWAYS borne by the public, regardless of how
the company may be slugged by hare brained penalty schemes anyway.

We keep hearing how the economy of electronics lowers the
cost of a product but one of the greatest costs to society is the
cost of production, distribution and disposal of electronic items.

They are a tiny part of the total production
distribution and disposal costs of everything else.

Even just food alone leaves it for dead.

It occurs because it is allowed to occur.

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.

 

[Rod Speed]

TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and
"designed to fail" theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart.
Look for signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will
find plenty. Such as parts that are obviously designed to fail.

How odd that I have never found a single example of that.

And I repair most things when its feasible.

 

[Rod Speed]

What's smaller and more compact than present-day cell phones?

ipods, USB keys, ear buds, etc etc etc.

 

[Rod Speed]

I am surprised that others have not responded
to Ig's idea...it is an excellent one.

Nope, a complete dud.

All I have ever found is examples of bad design.

Like an archaeologist, one can study the decline and
fall of manufacturing by studying discarded goods.

There is no 'decline and fall' there has in fact been
a tremendous SURGE in manufacturing instead.

It is very apparent when one does this as to how many
goods have turned from good implementations to crap.

Mindlessly silly if you actually analyse the reliability of even
the most trivial stuff like moulded power cords and plug packs.

The end result forces the consumer to spend more
money on goods that would not need to be purchased.

You can keep repeating that mindless line till you
are blue in the face if you like, changes nothing.

And it is intentional.

The only intention is to produce cheap product in very high
volume and that inevitably sees some crap product aimed at
those who concentrate on JUST the price when buying stuff.

Even you cant seriously believe that the lousy reliability
of US cars compared with the best of the Jap imports
is due to deliberately designing the cars to fail early.

Or maybe you actually are that silly.

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

It occurs because there is no practical alternative
with an industry as fast moving as electronics.

LOL...you mean an industry that has so far been able to dump long term
costs on the public.

When you see electronics being dumped in Africa to avoid the cost of
disposal, I think we are seeing the responsibility coming home to roost
soon.

And when the cost of disposal is finally taken into account, the true
cost of electronics will be adjusted for that disposal.

It can't come soon enough....

TMT

 

[Rod Speed]

LOL...you mean an industry that has so far been
able to dump long term costs on the public.

There is no practical alternative, like I said.

The public certainly isnt going to wear 'environmental'
fools proclaiming that they cant have modern electronic
devices because of some purported long term costs.

And what long term costs there are are completely trivial
compared with the long term costs of the food industry
alone, let alone the car industry, etc etc etc anyway.

When you see electronics being dumped in Africa
to avoid the cost of disposal, I think we are seeing
the responsibility coming home to roost soon.

Nope, all you are actually seeing is the inevitable
result of terminally silly 'environmental' legislation.

And when the cost of disposal is finally taken into account,
the true cost of electronics will be adjusted for that disposal.

Just utterly silly pointless paper shuffling.

It can't come soon enough....

Taint gunna happen, you watch.

Its only the europeans that are actually stupid enough to
even attempt something like that. And even they arent
actually stupid enough to do much in that area anyway.
Because even the stupidest politician realises what the
electoral consequences of that would inevitably be.

They'd be out on their arses so fast their feet wouldnt even touch the ground.

 

[Vic Smith]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:16:05 +1100, "Rod Speed"

How about under their ass?

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Before I
stasrted innthe computer business I had 25 years under my belt in the
automotive service industry. Ten of those years as a service manager.
I was in the industry when the Vega was produced and sold. I saw them
fail. I saw the owners buying new vegas. I saw them buying no Chevies
after the vega was no longer made. They bought Chevy Cavaliers ten and
15 years later. They bought new ones when the head gaskets blew and
the heads cracked. Man, it takes a lot of bad Ju-Ju to get a died in
the wool Chevy man to switch brand loyalty!!!!!!

There's Chevy men and then there's Chevy men.
People who were ignorant enough to buy Vegas didn't know squat about
cars. I personally knew one victim.
They are now most likely Toyota and Honda men, which is good for them.
Some Vega "facts:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Vega
Keep in mind that *all* cars of that era were junk compared to most of
today's offerings. Toyotas, Datsuns and Hondas were also junk.
The only solid plus-100k engines were 350's and GM and Chryco straight
sixes, and the 350's heads weren't the best. I'll add the 318 as a
good one but I never had one. Besides, the cars usually rusted out
before the engine could test the 100k range.
You can still find junk in recent American car offerings. Can't point
them out as I'm not in the market now. But I've heard mentions.
Since I'm reading this in the "frugal" group I'll note that as a value
proposition (cost vs use) I recognize Chevy as Champion, but others
may see from a different perspective.
I do know how to buy cars, and have my own discriminations.
BTW, I only buy used cars which have a model/engine record.
I "pay" for that in my own way, which is where " Planned Obsolescence"
or MTBF may be relevant.
For instance, I plan to replace my Delco Chevy alternator long before
a Nippo/Denso would fail. Same with the GM water pump versus Jap.
This can be done very cheaply, whether I turn the wrench or hire it,
but you have know "stuff" about cars, wrenches and hiring.
Understandably, most people find it best for them to just get a
Toyota/Honda and pay a higher cost for less maintenance.
Too bad for the American car companies they kenned to that too late.
But I have confidence that current Chevys will serve me well when it's
time to buy them.
This is all outside of "handling" and "driving the twisties" issues,
which I have no interest in since the roads are easy wherever I drive
and I am a mundane driver with no need for speed or compulsions to
spastically jerk the steering wheel.

Now there ARE lots of people who will buy anything - don't mater who
made it - but in North America there are Ford people who will never
own anything BUT a Ford. There are Chevy people who would never buy a
Pontiac or a Buick. Make any sense? Nope.

You're right if the person is a "brand loyalist." And you're right
there are plenty of them still around,
But it makes perfect sense if they specialize in the marque with open
eyes and the marque provides models that suit their needs.
In terms of cost/reliabilty knowing a brand intimately makes used car
selection pretty easy on those terms.

Even people who quit buying Chrysler products when they could no
longer buy a Plymouth. Buy a Dodge? Not on your life.Old habits die
hard - particularly with old guys and cars.

Yep. Strange. Sometimes these guys seem to value their
"relationship" with the dealer service department. They're
"good guys" and "take care of me." "Excellent coffee."
Go figure.
I think the Chryco fans are the worst, then maybe the Caddy
guys. It could be argued that Chevy never had the same kind of
fanaticism. Since it's the "low-end" marque and sold more
cars, it just exposed more people to its "charms ".
Nobody much brags about Chevy except in terms like "hey, my Chevy
goes where your Lexus goes at 5% of the cost."
A larger amount by far never bought a Chevy again.
I'd guess that most people (Honda-heads and Toyota-Hindus being
notable exceptions) aren't "brand loyalists."
Most of those who brag that what they have is the "best brand"
will turn on a dime, then brag about the new brand.
And many just like the looks of their car and care about little else
unless or until it proves a lemon.

--Vic

 

[James Sweet]

TO the skeptics of the "planned obsolescence" and "designed to fail"
theory, I have a simple suggestion.

Take household machines from trash and take them apart. Look for
signs of above mentioned behaviours -- and you will find plenty. Such
as parts that are obviously designed to fail.


i

Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these "designed
to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be made to last
much better for the same cost?

 

[dpb]

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote


Nope, you couldnt.

I'm sure he could, and I can add a few more, both of own and from other
references as well--

From own experience, it's a regulatory requirement of NRC to keep _all_

safety-related design documentation and calculations for 40 years of
"life of the plant". That's simply one instance of on need for
longterm records-keeping.

There's a whole industry dedicated to preserving data for companies
from finanical to manufacturing and everything in between. It's a
major use of the excavated areas of the salt mines in central KS as
they're fantastically dry, constant temperature, fire and vermin-free
and of humongous size.

For a couple of stories you might check out Jack Ganssle's columns that
he writes for Embedded System magazine -- a mostly unheard of by very
important niche of the microprocessor world. In fact, there are far
more processors used in such applications than in PCs though they don't
have the glamour of the "lastest and fastest" whatever of the day...

http://www.embedded.com/columns/bp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103292

Jack also distributes a monthly newsletter that has had as one of its
subjects recently reconstructing "legacy" systems. I myself have had
requests for modifications of some systems I had previously worked on
that I would have thought long since "dead and buried" having moved on
to other projects and even other companies, but was tracked down as the
only individual they could find that had any recollection of the actual
system.

Another reader of Jack's newsletter sent an interesting tale of his
experience --

....
"I was brought in as a consultant for one of the downstream users of
an early video-on-demand companies, who supplied complete systems and
programming to hotels and hospitals, even providing a broadband network
infrastructure for free to sell their services.

"There was a need to add new educational programming services for a
client market, or be displaced by a competitor.

"The company had not built their code from scratch in more than 10
years. In fact, they had decided to move to cross compilation rather
than self hosting for a while, had bought a commuter and new tools,
never tried the tools, and had subsequently sold the cross host machine
for scrap.

"Our first task was to put together a development environment hosted
on a "dead" OS, including compilers, linkers, and build control files,
gather known source, and attempt to rebuild the shipping object from
known source.

"This took several months, and was a real adventure. A year and a
half down the road, job complete, ..."

He goes on to describe the system and other technical details probably
of little if any interest here, but needless to say, that little
misadventure of not preserving nor updating their ability to rebuild
their product's software undoubtedly cost that company a pretty penny
and without that effort likely could indeed have put them out of at
least that particular business.

Undoubtedly, these few instances given here are far from the only
occurrences of such in industry. And, for every one that did manage to
recover, how many were there who were unable to?

 

[Mark Jerde]

Your thoughts?

I recall the 1960's:
- TVs going out until a repairman with a bunch of tubes showed up.
- Automobiles needing constant maintenance. (Why was there a "Service
Station" on every corner? Hint: Cars needed *constant* service.)
- 20,000 miles on bias-ply tires was more than you could expect.

Lately, having gone over 80k miles on tires, and no service in 150k miles,
it's true:

"They Don't Build Them Like They Used To -- Thank God!" ;-)

-- Mark

 

[Ignoramus16071]

Designed to fail, or designed to be cheap? When you see these "designed
to fail" parts, does it often appear that they could be made to last
much better for the same cost?

Well, let me give you one example. We had a electric tea kettle. It
broke the hinge on the lid. Postmortem indicated that it broke because
it lacked material around the hinge. At the cost of extra 1-2 cents,
they could have a few mm more plastic around the hinges so that they
hold up better.

The extra cost is minuscule.

Another example, I received a KMart wallet as a gift and it is
unusable -- the credit card pockets are too tight and it is generally
too tight for money also(I like to carry a few hundred $$ in cash etc,
which does not affect credit card pockets). Again, at the cost of
perhaps 10 cents per wallet, it could have been made into a better
wallet.

If anyone has suggestions for a really good three section leather
wallet, I will appreciate.

i

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

I'm sure he could,

Unlikely given that he clearly didnt.

and I can add a few more, both of own and from other references as well--

Adequately covered by the original MOST.

From own experience, it's a regulatory requirement of
NRC to keep _all_ safety-related design documentation and
calculations for 40 years of "life of the plant". That's simply
one instance of on need for longterm records-keeping.

Different matter entirely to the original point.

WORTH isnt the same thing as a legal REQUIREMENT.

There's a whole industry dedicated to preserving data for
companies from finanical to manufacturing and everything
in between. It's a major use of the excavated areas of the
salt mines in central KS as they're fantastically dry, constant
temperature, fire and vermin-free and of humongous size.

Irrelevant to whether that data is engineering data that is WORTH much.

Of course there is plenty of data that needs to be kept long term,
most obviously with birth marraige and death records etc etc etc.

For a couple of stories you might check out Jack Ganssle's columns
that he writes for Embedded System magazine -- a mostly unheard of
by very important niche of the microprocessor world. In fact, there are
far more processors used in such applications than in PCs though they
don't have the glamour of the "lastest and fastest" whatever of the day...

http://www.embedded.com/columns/bp/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103292

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Jack also distributes a monthly newsletter that has had as one of its
subjects recently reconstructing "legacy" systems. I myself have had
requests for modifications of some systems I had previously worked on
that I would have thought long since "dead and buried" having moved on
to other projects and even other companies, but was tracked down as the
only individual they could find that had any recollection of the actual system.

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Another reader of Jack's newsletter sent an interesting tale of his experience --

"I was brought in as a consultant for one of the downstream users of
an early video-on-demand companies, who supplied complete systems
and programming to hotels and hospitals, even providing a broadband
network infrastructure for free to sell their services.

"There was a need to add new educational programming
services for a client market, or be displaced by a competitor.

"The company had not built their code from scratch in more than 10
years. In fact, they had decided to move to cross compilation rather
than self hosting for a while, had bought a commuter and new tools,
never tried the tools, and had subsequently sold the cross host
machine for scrap.

"Our first task was to put together a development environment hosted
on a "dead" OS, including compilers, linkers, and build control files,
gather known source, and attempt to rebuild the shipping object from
known source.

"This took several months, and was a real adventure. A year and a
half down the road, job complete, ..."

He goes on to describe the system and other technical details probably
of little if any interest here, but needless to say, that little
misadventure of not preserving nor updating their ability to rebuild
their product's software undoubtedly cost that company a pretty penny
and without that effort likely could indeed have put them out of at
least that particular business.

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

Undoubtedly, these few instances given here are far from the
only occurrences of such in industry. And, for every one that did
manage to recover, how many were there who were unable to?

Adequately covered by the original MOST qualification.

 

[dpb]

....
The upgrade of electronics would not be a significant cost if the true
cost of a computer was borne by the company and not the public.

You said somewhere else you had an education in economics, but it
certainly doesn't seem to show.

Even if you could somehow come up with this mystical "true cost of a
computer" to tax the manufacturer for, where but from the eventual
customer would "the company" have to generate this revenue? And,
having done so, what else could happen but to raise the cost to "the
public"?

Of course, the employer pays that 6.25% FICA tax, too.