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Planned Obsolescence: Engine of the Consumer Economy · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, We're coming to see you soon. Yeah, especially
0:06
Speaker 1: first of all Toronto and Chicago. And Toronto, hats off
0:11
Speaker 1: to you guys. Tickets are selling like gangbusters. Chicago. I
0:15
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on with you. I know, Chicago,
0:18
Speaker 1: what became of you? Chicago? I thought you loved us. Yeah,
0:21
Speaker 1: really with your cool hot dogs in your thick pizzas. Yeah,
0:24
Speaker 1: and and I mean that's really all you needed to
0:27
Speaker 1: mention about Chicago. So we're gonna be at the Harris
0:31
Speaker 1: Theater on July. That is very soon. We were going
0:36
Speaker 1: to be the next day in Toronto at the Lovely
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Speaker 1: Dan fourth Music Hall in July. And then that's not all,
0:43
Speaker 1: is it. No, that's not all, Chuck. We're also going
0:46
Speaker 1: to be going to Boston in August, followed by Portland, Maine,
0:51
Speaker 1: which is on purpose, by the way, that's right, Wilbert
0:55
Speaker 1: Theater in Boston, the State Theater in Portland, Maine. We're
0:57
Speaker 1: headed to Florida for the first time everyone since or
1:00
Speaker 1: Florida at the Plaza Live in Orlando in October nine,
1:04
Speaker 1: and then the next night October at the Civic Theater
1:06
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. And then we're gonna wrap it all
1:08
Speaker 1: up and spanking on the bottom with our annual trio
1:11
Speaker 1: of shows at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York, October
1:16
Speaker 1: and is almost sold out. Yeah, So you can get
1:21
Speaker 1: tickets to all of these shows, um by going to
1:25
Speaker 1: s Y s K live dot com, our home on
1:28
Speaker 1: the web for touring, and that will send you out
1:31
Speaker 1: to all the great little sites that have links to
1:34
Speaker 1: the tickets and info and everything you need. So we
1:37
Speaker 1: will see you very soon starting this July. Welcome to
1:42
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios
1:45
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
1:53
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
1:56
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry over there. So this is stuff you
1:59
Speaker 1: should know. Built a break condition? Okay, I didn't. I
2:05
Speaker 1: was not paying attention when he said which one we
2:07
Speaker 1: were doing? And I thought, you know what, I'm just
2:09
Speaker 1: gonna pick up on the clues. Wow, right right out
2:13
Speaker 1: of the gate. When did you have it when I said, um,
2:16
Speaker 1: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and planned a break Okay,
2:19
Speaker 1: got that was pretty sharp, Chuck, Hey man, after the
2:22
Speaker 1: eleven as years, it's as easy as that. You can
2:26
Speaker 1: read my mind so let's talk about the civil Air Patrol.
2:30
Speaker 1: He just threw me off. Luckily it wasn't enough for
2:34
Speaker 1: me to stop and correct you. Though. I'm excited about
2:37
Speaker 1: this one because planned obsolescence is one of those things
2:40
Speaker 1: that's uh. I think it just annoying to people like us.
2:45
Speaker 1: Were you were you raised with the idea of plan
2:48
Speaker 1: planned obsolescence? Like, were you aware of it when you
2:50
Speaker 1: were younger? No? Because when I was a kid, things
2:54
Speaker 1: seemed to last longer. I had the same refrigerator my
2:58
Speaker 1: entire lie as a child, same metallic p refrigerator. We
3:04
Speaker 1: even got it like refaced, Like that's how long you
3:07
Speaker 1: could have an appliance like that. It's like the styles
3:10
Speaker 1: have changed, so just get a new front for it.
3:14
Speaker 1: That's astounding. Man, I didn't even know that you could
3:17
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah. I mean I doubt if you still
3:19
Speaker 1: can know, but I definitely can't. Yeah. Back then they
3:21
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, this is a fifty year fridge, so
3:24
Speaker 1: every years, get a new thing on the front. Yeah. Well,
3:28
Speaker 1: if you're sitting there going when Chuck said fifty year fridge,
3:34
Speaker 1: that's okay. That's the world we live in now. The
3:36
Speaker 1: point is it didn't used to be that way. UM.
3:40
Speaker 1: Things used to last forever and ever, right, So what changed?
3:45
Speaker 1: That's a big question that's on people's mind. And what
3:48
Speaker 1: a lot of people point to is something called planned
3:51
Speaker 1: obsolescence UM, which is pretty straightforward if you think about
3:55
Speaker 1: It's basically UM companies deliberately making their products UM so
4:02
Speaker 1: that they last a shorter amount of time in order
4:06
Speaker 1: to make you, the consumer, have to go back and
4:09
Speaker 1: buy another one much more UM, much sooner than you
4:13
Speaker 1: normally would have if the things were built to last longer. Yeah,
4:17
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of ways that this can
4:19
Speaker 1: go down. It's not always just like hey, build it
4:21
Speaker 1: cheap or build it out of crudity materials, but that
4:24
Speaker 1: is certainly one way to do it. UM. Obviously, the
4:28
Speaker 1: you know, with smartphones and the technology uh sector of
4:33
Speaker 1: the world, that's where you really hear a lot about
4:35
Speaker 1: this because, um, I know a lot of people have
4:38
Speaker 1: been frustrated with smartphones and the fact that like, hey,
4:42
Speaker 1: maybe I want to go five years with a smartphone
4:45
Speaker 1: and not have a new update, make it slow, or
4:49
Speaker 1: not have my battery not work after three years and
4:53
Speaker 1: stuff like that, right, And I mean, like it shouldn't
4:56
Speaker 1: have to be like an identity statement to have to
4:59
Speaker 1: keep a phone for five years, like you're swimming against
5:02
Speaker 1: the current or sticking it to the man. Like you
5:05
Speaker 1: should just be able to keep your phone for as
5:07
Speaker 1: as long as you like and it's still not only
5:10
Speaker 1: continue to work, but also to be like compatible with
5:14
Speaker 1: the rest of the world going on around it. That's
5:17
Speaker 1: just that's just not the way, that's not the case.
5:19
Speaker 1: That's just not how things are made, especially in the
5:21
Speaker 1: technology sector. Like you were saying, right, and here's the
5:25
Speaker 1: thing is, it's like this is something that a company
5:29
Speaker 1: is not going to admit to. Um, it's not against
5:32
Speaker 1: the law. Uh. Some people say it's a myth and
5:35
Speaker 1: it's just like tinfoil hat territory. Um. Other people say, no,
5:40
Speaker 1: it clearly totally happens. And then other people even say, yeah,
5:44
Speaker 1: it happens. But this is great for the economy to
5:47
Speaker 1: keep people making stuff all the time. Right. So there's
5:50
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, is planned obsolescence a real thing?
5:54
Speaker 1: And if it is real, because I think you kind
5:57
Speaker 1: of touched on it with that third group, some people
5:59
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, it is real, but it's not like
6:03
Speaker 1: deliberate and out of like a sense of avarice or exploitation.
6:07
Speaker 1: It's just kind of part of the world we live
6:09
Speaker 1: in these days. Um. I think a lot of people
6:12
Speaker 1: that are like, no, it is real, and it is deliberate,
6:14
Speaker 1: and it is out of avarice, and it stinks. It
6:18
Speaker 1: does stink. We'll find that there's a lot, there's a
6:20
Speaker 1: lot wrong with it, right. Yeah. So, uh, this this
6:24
Speaker 1: early light bulb story is pretty interesting. Um, way back
6:27
Speaker 1: when Thomas Edison invented a light bulb in the late
6:31
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds that people could use in their homes, he
6:34
Speaker 1: used carbon filaments which were eight times thicker than the
6:39
Speaker 1: tungsten filaments that came like later, like three decades later.
6:44
Speaker 1: So these things lasted a long time. And uh, they
6:47
Speaker 1: were built to last. And I can't believe I'm forty
6:51
Speaker 1: eight years old and I never had heard of the
6:54
Speaker 1: Centennial light, which is a lightbulb from nineteen o one
6:58
Speaker 1: that is still working in gallop Orna. Yeah, and a
7:01
Speaker 1: fire station in California, and it's on almost all the time.
7:03
Speaker 1: It's not like they turn it off for thirty five
7:06
Speaker 1: years at a stretch. Now, you probably wouldn't want to
7:08
Speaker 1: turn it off at this point. I would say probably not.
7:11
Speaker 1: That's probably the only reason it's working is because it
7:13
Speaker 1: doesn't know. It doesn't have to. They've got like the
7:17
Speaker 1: scotch tape over the light switch with like do not
7:20
Speaker 1: turn off it's dim now though. Uh I saw that
7:25
Speaker 1: it's down to about a night light for watts or so. Well,
7:29
Speaker 1: it's been burning for a hundred and eighteen years, give
7:32
Speaker 1: it a break. Hey man, I'm not I'm not knocking
7:34
Speaker 1: the centennial light. He's my favorite little old light buddy.
7:37
Speaker 1: Not my presence at least, but yeah, I mean that
7:40
Speaker 1: thing point is they were built to last. And uh.
7:44
Speaker 1: Initially this is because electric companies installed and maintained all
7:48
Speaker 1: these systems, including like hey, you needed a new bulb, Like,
7:52
Speaker 1: we'll come and take care of it for you. Uh.
7:55
Speaker 1: And then that got shifted to the consumer and they
7:58
Speaker 1: were like hey, and they literally were like ky because
8:01
Speaker 1: there was a concerted effort that wasn't just like some
8:04
Speaker 1: abstract thought. There was something called the Phoebus Cartel in
8:09
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties when all these electric companies from around
8:12
Speaker 1: the world and bulb manufacturers got together and literally colluded
8:16
Speaker 1: and said, hey, let's make lightbulbs not last as long
8:19
Speaker 1: because we can sell more. Yeah, collusion. Can't you believe that?
8:23
Speaker 1: I can't actually believe it. Not only it is not
8:26
Speaker 1: like they got together, like they sent some letters or
8:29
Speaker 1: smoked some cigars or happen to have like a conversation
8:33
Speaker 1: at a club or something like that, Like they met
8:37
Speaker 1: in Geneva, Switzerland to hold a secret meeting to form
8:41
Speaker 1: a lightbulb cartel to make lightbulbs last a shorter amount
8:45
Speaker 1: of time so they could sell more. It's just it happened.
8:49
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's very much proof if you're like
8:53
Speaker 1: planned obsi lescence and really a thing, like, there's proof
8:56
Speaker 1: that at one point it was definitely a thing. It
8:58
Speaker 1: was a thing, one of the earliest industries around in
9:03
Speaker 1: the post industrial age, so um so the light bulb
9:08
Speaker 1: cartel kind of it. Definitely. It's not like that just
9:11
Speaker 1: kicked off everything where everybody's like, oh, yeah, that's what
9:14
Speaker 1: we're gonna do from now on. It's almost like the
9:16
Speaker 1: impression I got is that this is an independent idea
9:20
Speaker 1: that was just kind of cropped up throughout the course
9:24
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. But the next people that hit
9:28
Speaker 1: upon it, I think, I don't it's entirely possible that
9:30
Speaker 1: these guys were all sharing info, you know, the the
9:34
Speaker 1: lightbulb guys were like, hey, you you car makers are
9:37
Speaker 1: being idiots. Here's what you need to do the same
9:40
Speaker 1: places in the cat skills every summer. That's what I
9:42
Speaker 1: would guess, seeing that young upcoming comedian Henny young men
9:46
Speaker 1: do bit so. So the the automakers were the first
9:51
Speaker 1: to hit on it next and UM specifically a guy
9:54
Speaker 1: named alphred P. Sloan who was a groundbreaking early president
9:58
Speaker 1: of General Motors UM, who said, I've got an idea.
10:02
Speaker 1: We could sell way more cars if we just make
10:05
Speaker 1: little updates here there every year to the same car,
10:09
Speaker 1: but just change it out enough so that you want
10:12
Speaker 1: the newer car. It's newer, it's flash year, it's better
10:16
Speaker 1: than the car you own. So maybe after a couple
10:19
Speaker 1: of years somebody will take their car that still works
10:22
Speaker 1: just fine and trade it in for a new one.
10:24
Speaker 1: And he's the guy who came up with that. Yeah,
10:27
Speaker 1: that's called dynamic obsolescence. And I mean, now we take
10:30
Speaker 1: it for granted because that's all you hear about is
10:32
Speaker 1: the new model year. But previous to that, I mean,
10:37
Speaker 1: I'd love to do a show on the early auto industry.
10:39
Speaker 1: I guess they've just made cars and they were called
10:42
Speaker 1: the whatever. And I mean when did they make new
10:46
Speaker 1: ones every five or six seven years when they had
10:48
Speaker 1: a real animation. Well he had this idea in like
10:51
Speaker 1: the twenties or thirties, so they there weren't They wouldn't
10:54
Speaker 1: have been cars for that many very long yeah, before them,
10:57
Speaker 1: but I think it was just like the Model T
10:59
Speaker 1: or the Model A or the the box with wheels,
11:03
Speaker 1: you know which all of those were, right. Yeah. The
11:06
Speaker 1: actual term though, planned obsolescence UM, was in a pamphlet
11:11
Speaker 1: for the first time in nineteen thirty two, written by
11:13
Speaker 1: a real estate broker named Bernard London. Uh And this
11:16
Speaker 1: pamphlet was called you know it's two. If it's like
11:21
Speaker 1: the big pamphlet writing days, you don't get enough of
11:25
Speaker 1: those anymore. You really don't see too many pamphlets outside
11:28
Speaker 1: of like a government office or something, right, or if
11:31
Speaker 1: you're in Vegas and it's just got you know, you
11:34
Speaker 1: know what those kind of pamphlets, right, But this was
11:38
Speaker 1: a two and it was called ending the Depression through
11:41
Speaker 1: Planned Obsolescence. Uh So right there, it's in the title,
11:46
Speaker 1: first time it had ever been used. And this was
11:48
Speaker 1: a plan for for products to include an artificial expiration date.
11:55
Speaker 1: So the idea was, if you're a consumer and you
11:58
Speaker 1: continue to use that product beyond that date, sort of
12:01
Speaker 1: like you know, taking an old pill or drinking old milk,
12:04
Speaker 1: except you would be charged attacks like, hey, you're still
12:08
Speaker 1: using that fridge. Uh, it's two years past its date,
12:11
Speaker 1: so you gotta pay attacks on that now, right, And
12:14
Speaker 1: it did not take hold, surprisingly or not surprisingly right,
12:17
Speaker 1: But there's supposedly, from what I saw, there's fifteen copies
12:21
Speaker 1: of that pamphlet known to exist still and they're all
12:23
Speaker 1: in libraries, and there were twenty originally, right exactly. But
12:28
Speaker 1: that Bernard London he had, you know, he had kind
12:30
Speaker 1: of an idea, but it was misplaced. It was in
12:34
Speaker 1: the wrong place. It was like, nobody wants to tax
12:37
Speaker 1: the consumer for using an item they paid for fair
12:39
Speaker 1: and square. That's just that's not going to be a
12:42
Speaker 1: very popular idea. So he had he was kind of
12:45
Speaker 1: on the right path, but he found a tree and
12:48
Speaker 1: he started barking up it and it was the wrong one,
12:50
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, but that was Uh.
12:54
Speaker 1: In fact, that same year, there were two other guys,
12:56
Speaker 1: Roy Sheldon and uh, this is a great name, eggma
13:00
Speaker 1: onto Errands and they wrote a book that wasn't too
13:03
Speaker 1: far off. That pamphlet called consumer Engineering Colon or Lease
13:07
Speaker 1: of a Colon in the title a new Technique for Prosperity,
13:12
Speaker 1: and they called it creative waste and just basically flat
13:15
Speaker 1: out said we should make things that are less durable
13:18
Speaker 1: because uh, you know, people are going to buy more stuff,
13:22
Speaker 1: right and yeah, which I mean lays the foundation for
13:26
Speaker 1: the consumer economy that we live in today. Like that's
13:29
Speaker 1: it right there. These guys came up with the basis
13:31
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, And it got me thinking about like
13:35
Speaker 1: when you when you there are places that make really
13:38
Speaker 1: awesome things that are like they're selling point is this
13:42
Speaker 1: is really built to last, whether it's a wallet or
13:46
Speaker 1: you know, a piece of clothing or something. No, there
13:49
Speaker 1: are these you know, they're these high end wallet makers
13:51
Speaker 1: now that are saying like this is the wallet that
13:53
Speaker 1: you can have for sixty years like your father. Um.
13:56
Speaker 1: But they often say things like, you know, use military
14:00
Speaker 1: aid fabrics or this or that, and I think that's
14:03
Speaker 1: just like back then they used to use the highest
14:06
Speaker 1: grade and calling a military grade it sounds all fancy.
14:09
Speaker 1: But what that really means is we use stuff like
14:12
Speaker 1: they used to because it just lasts, and now only
14:14
Speaker 1: the military does that kind of thing. You know, Yeah, No,
14:18
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's what That's
14:20
Speaker 1: what Bernard London and Roy Sheldon and eggma errands that
14:24
Speaker 1: the foundation of their ideas, even though they were separate ideas,
14:28
Speaker 1: was that things were made too well back then, and
14:32
Speaker 1: Bernard London's idea was, well, you could just keep making
14:35
Speaker 1: them really well, but you have to say that you
14:38
Speaker 1: can't use it beyond this this date, which wouldn't work.
14:43
Speaker 1: But Roy Sheldon and Egmont Aaron said, well, we could
14:45
Speaker 1: go the opposite way and just make stuff less durable
14:50
Speaker 1: and sell more of it. That's the whole point to
14:53
Speaker 1: stimulate the economy. Because remember both these were written during
14:56
Speaker 1: the depression, and they their idea was to stimulate the
14:59
Speaker 1: economy me by artificially creating repeat customers that otherwise wouldn't
15:04
Speaker 1: exist because the stuff that that you would go by
15:08
Speaker 1: is too durable. Like if you go by a hose
15:11
Speaker 1: and that hose is going to last you for the
15:14
Speaker 1: rest of your life, and you're not in a business
15:16
Speaker 1: where you need multiple hoses. You're just a homeowner business,
15:20
Speaker 1: you're a hosemaker. Well, I'm actually referring specifically to a
15:23
Speaker 1: hose that my dad bought from Sears in the sixties.
15:29
Speaker 1: He still had it until the nineties, and it sprung
15:33
Speaker 1: a leak, and Sears used to guarantee everything that they
15:36
Speaker 1: sold for a lifetime. My dad took it back to
15:39
Speaker 1: his Sears and they gave him another hose in the nineties. Right. So,
15:43
Speaker 1: But the idea of a hose lasting thirtysomething years, let
15:46
Speaker 1: alone being replaced when it, you know, for free when
15:49
Speaker 1: it when it breaks like that was that was the problem.
15:52
Speaker 1: Stuff was just made too well. And you can actually
15:55
Speaker 1: go on to like Etsy and eBay and sights like
15:58
Speaker 1: that today, Chuck, And there's a whole um, a whole
16:03
Speaker 1: like subculture I guess of people who buy vintage appliances
16:08
Speaker 1: that's still work they were they they work like they
16:12
Speaker 1: did the day you bought them. Like I saw a
16:13
Speaker 1: Sunbeam mixer from nineteen thirty and it says like, works
16:17
Speaker 1: perfectly well, has a few scuffs on it. That's it
16:20
Speaker 1: from nineteen thirty. That's coming up on a hundred years ago. Yeah,
16:24
Speaker 1: it also weighs two hundred and seventy five pounds and
16:27
Speaker 1: it catches your house on fire, so you'll have to
16:29
Speaker 1: pay a lot of money to have it shipped. But um, yeah,
16:32
Speaker 1: I mean it's crazy because that was this early planned
16:35
Speaker 1: obsolescence was in the thirties and forties. When we think
16:40
Speaker 1: of that's when they were making great stuff, and like
16:42
Speaker 1: now it's progressed to the point where it's just like,
16:45
Speaker 1: let's just make pure garbage, but it won't last a year.
16:49
Speaker 1: The point originally was that that it would stimulate the
16:52
Speaker 1: economy if you could sell the same person stuff multiple
16:56
Speaker 1: times over their life, rather than making something that lasts
16:59
Speaker 1: a generation so that they only have to buy the
17:01
Speaker 1: one hose for their lifetime. Right, well, your dad has
17:04
Speaker 1: two nicknames now, the herbal Elvis and uh one host Clark. Um,
17:12
Speaker 1: all right, shall we take a break? I think so,
17:15
Speaker 1: all right, let's take a break, and we're gonna come
17:16
Speaker 1: back and talk about a man named Brooks Stevens. Right
17:19
Speaker 1: after this shouldn't large, I was ski as sks should know.
17:42
Speaker 1: All right, So this idea is out there. Planned obsolescence, Um,
17:48
Speaker 1: it's been written down. It's a term really kind of
17:51
Speaker 1: became more common in the nineteen fifties, even though it
17:53
Speaker 1: was first written about in the early nineteen thirties. And
17:57
Speaker 1: this is where a man named Brooks Stevens and ers.
18:00
Speaker 1: He was a Milwaukee industrial designer, and he did a
18:04
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. He worked in the automobile industry, he
18:07
Speaker 1: worked in the appliance industry. UM, and basically his whole
18:11
Speaker 1: jam was no, no, no, we we need to make
18:15
Speaker 1: things obsolete and not last very long because this is
18:19
Speaker 1: good for industry. Right, Let's go get that bread. Yeah,
18:22
Speaker 1: go get that bread and keep people working, keep people
18:25
Speaker 1: making stuff. Uh. At a nineteen fifty four advertising conference,
18:29
Speaker 1: he gave a speech where he said, quote instilling in
18:33
Speaker 1: the buyer the desire to own something a little newer,
18:36
Speaker 1: a little better, a little sooner than is necessary. End quote. Yeah,
18:40
Speaker 1: it's right there. Just make it a little crappier, a
18:43
Speaker 1: little crudier, and you'll sell more of them over a
18:46
Speaker 1: long period of time. I can take the long view
18:48
Speaker 1: of it, and like, if you are looking at it
18:51
Speaker 1: strictly from like an economic sense, like an academic sense,
18:55
Speaker 1: this just makes like total sense. It's perfectly norm moll
19:00
Speaker 1: and rational and a kind of a good idea. But
19:03
Speaker 1: it when you put it into practice. We've found. Um,
19:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of problems that start to emerge pretty quickly. Uh,
19:11
Speaker 1: and emerge so quickly that Um Brooks Stevens, you know,
19:14
Speaker 1: gave that very famous speech, well famous among industrial designers,
19:19
Speaker 1: but he gave he made that speech in nineteen fifty four.
19:22
Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty six years later, there was a popular
19:26
Speaker 1: book by a guy named Vance Packard called The Waste Bakers,
19:30
Speaker 1: and it was basically about all the problems that come
19:35
Speaker 1: from that kind of mentality that planned obsolescence creates, all
19:39
Speaker 1: the waste associated with all the unnecessary consumerism, all the
19:43
Speaker 1: keeping up with the joneses that emerges. Like just six
19:46
Speaker 1: years after that speech, so really quickly people started to
19:50
Speaker 1: see the problems with planned obsolescence, like right out of
19:52
Speaker 1: the gate. Yeah, this Vance Packard, I think maybe we
19:56
Speaker 1: could try and do a short stuff on yeah, easily,
19:59
Speaker 1: just kind of reading up on him. He was a
20:02
Speaker 1: sort of a pre Ralph Nader social critic um, and
20:05
Speaker 1: I guess Nader was a little more toward like public safety.
20:08
Speaker 1: But Fance Packard, he wrote a bunch of cool books
20:10
Speaker 1: and essays, one called The Hidden Persuaders that tackled the
20:14
Speaker 1: advertising industry and subliminal advertising and stuff like that. He
20:19
Speaker 1: was like the arch enemy of Edward Burnet's I imagine. Yeah. Uh,
20:23
Speaker 1: Thato was one called an essay called the Naked Society,
20:26
Speaker 1: which had to do in the nineteen sixties, I think
20:29
Speaker 1: about consumer privacy technol ahead of his time. Yeah. And
20:35
Speaker 1: then the last thing he wrote in nine was called
20:38
Speaker 1: the Ultra Rich colin how much is too Much? How
20:43
Speaker 1: much is too much? Yeah? So he died a few
20:46
Speaker 1: years later. Like up until the very end, was kind
20:48
Speaker 1: of fighting the good fight for saying, what a you know,
20:52
Speaker 1: what a wasteful, invasive, gross society that we're building here
20:58
Speaker 1: in the United States. Yeah. It was an interesting dude.
21:00
Speaker 1: Definitely the kind of author that you know, guys like
21:05
Speaker 1: um glad Well and Freedman and all of them started,
21:08
Speaker 1: you know, followed in the footsteps of but he he
21:10
Speaker 1: kind of laid the groundwork for that, that kind of
21:12
Speaker 1: reporting on, you know, kind of the ugliness of the
21:16
Speaker 1: society that sold to us. I think we should definitely
21:19
Speaker 1: do uum a short stuff on him. Yeah. Okay, so
21:23
Speaker 1: pinky swear swear Okay, Um, your pinky's cold. I don't
21:27
Speaker 1: know that's soothing to me. Or frightening. It should be
21:31
Speaker 1: a little frightening. I'm frightened by it because it feels sweaty. Guys,
21:35
Speaker 1: I think Josh is dead. My nose just falls off
21:40
Speaker 1: on to the table. God, let me put that back. Problem. Um.
21:46
Speaker 1: The funny thing is, as long as you could keep
21:48
Speaker 1: podcasting out probably like that's fine. Fine. Yeah, I like
21:51
Speaker 1: corpse Josh. You buy me like a steel rod to
21:54
Speaker 1: go in my spine for Christmas? Yeah, but I'd have
21:57
Speaker 1: to buy one every couple of years because they don't
21:58
Speaker 1: last like they It's true, they don't last like they
22:01
Speaker 1: used to. That's another thing I really really want to
22:04
Speaker 1: say this, chuck, because I'm sure too, especially some of
22:07
Speaker 1: our younger listeners, we sound like a couple of like
22:11
Speaker 1: they don't make it like they used to. Know, it's
22:13
Speaker 1: proven they don't make things like they used to. It's
22:16
Speaker 1: not just people like pining for the good old days
22:20
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Like there is a definite progression
22:23
Speaker 1: of um, increasing cruddiness among the stuff you buy, and
22:27
Speaker 1: the shortening in the lifespan and durability of the things
22:31
Speaker 1: we buy. It's just happening. Yeah, it's funny when I
22:34
Speaker 1: see stuff on social media about people complaining about their
22:39
Speaker 1: fridge that doesn't work this or that, and like, what
22:41
Speaker 1: about the lemon law. I'm always just like, oh, that's cute.
22:44
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna get real far with the lemon law.
22:47
Speaker 1: Although we should look into that for a short stuff too,
22:49
Speaker 1: because there is such a thing. I just don't know how,
22:54
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure we about it. We talked about
22:57
Speaker 1: it before. Maybe where we How do we even did
23:01
Speaker 1: a show years ago? Oh? Man, I harkened back to
23:06
Speaker 1: that show pretty frequently, Like whenever I'm offered an extended warranty,
23:09
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, that sounds like a really good deal.
23:12
Speaker 1: What did we say in the extended warranty episode? Oh? Yes,
23:16
Speaker 1: never think don't extended warranty. It's never worth it if
23:19
Speaker 1: I remember correctly. Alright, so shall we chat a little
23:23
Speaker 1: bit about some of some of the worst offenders these days. Yeah?
23:27
Speaker 1: First up on the t ball t is Apple. Yeah.
23:30
Speaker 1: Apple is in the news a lot um and it's
23:33
Speaker 1: very much at the center of the um, the talk
23:36
Speaker 1: among the skeptics and on the skeptics websites about their
23:40
Speaker 1: evil plan to keep you on their machines every couple
23:43
Speaker 1: of years through you know, updates that slowed down your phone,
23:48
Speaker 1: which was proven true. Yeah, well there's a class action
23:51
Speaker 1: lawsuit against them for it. Yeah, so here's what happened.
23:53
Speaker 1: If you live under a rock, Apple got um. They
23:56
Speaker 1: sent out an update this a few years ago, and
23:58
Speaker 1: the update was shown and that they admitted that it
24:02
Speaker 1: did slow the phones down, but their whole response was, Hey,
24:06
Speaker 1: this is because the battery stinks. They're like, we're trying
24:11
Speaker 1: to make your battery last longer, so we're slowing some
24:13
Speaker 1: things down in order to give you a better battery life.
24:17
Speaker 1: And then here's what we'll do everyone, We're so sorry.
24:19
Speaker 1: We're gonna you can buy a new battery for fifty
24:22
Speaker 1: dollars cheaper, uh for tars instead of seventy nine. So
24:27
Speaker 1: they replaced eleven million batteries in did they really? I
24:31
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yeah, up from about you know, replaced
24:35
Speaker 1: for twenty dollars apiece, up from one to two million
24:39
Speaker 1: in an average year. Because I don't know if you've
24:42
Speaker 1: ever seen an iPhone, buddy, but it doesn't have a
24:45
Speaker 1: little switch on the back that you just pop a
24:47
Speaker 1: little thing and put a new battery in. No. No,
24:50
Speaker 1: that's another big part of planning opsis and said we'll
24:52
Speaker 1: talk about is there is a strict control over the
24:55
Speaker 1: product even after it's purchased. Yeah, they want to control
24:59
Speaker 1: it through repair, through everything. Um So, I was looking
25:03
Speaker 1: up on this lawsuit because I didn't know where it landed,
25:05
Speaker 1: and I think it's still going on. And the latest
25:08
Speaker 1: article I read was from February that said, basically Apple
25:11
Speaker 1: is squirreling away money because they're gonna lose this thing
25:16
Speaker 1: and literally setting aside money to pay for this lawsuit.
25:20
Speaker 1: That's so cute for a rainy day. Yeah, they like
25:23
Speaker 1: opened up a new account. They went down to the
25:25
Speaker 1: bank said just call it lawsuit account, right. Um But
25:30
Speaker 1: here's the thing with Apple. It's not just the update thing.
25:34
Speaker 1: Like anyone who has bought a laptop from them, like
25:37
Speaker 1: me lately, or one of the newer phones, and you're like,
25:40
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, I can't plug like I've done
25:43
Speaker 1: since I had my Walkman, I can't plug my headphones
25:46
Speaker 1: into this thing anymore without buying a little dongle, Or
25:49
Speaker 1: I can't plug in a USB port because there is
25:51
Speaker 1: none unless I get some little adapter that they also sell.
25:55
Speaker 1: Um So, that's a classic hallmark of UM planned obsolescence
26:01
Speaker 1: is creating a newer model that is incompatible with older models.
26:06
Speaker 1: So if you want to keep using the older model,
26:08
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to shell out some money one way
26:11
Speaker 1: or another. Um Or even if you buy you the
26:14
Speaker 1: newer model, which is kind of even bigger slap in
26:17
Speaker 1: the face, you have to shell out even more money
26:19
Speaker 1: for additional peripherals like chargers or headphones or something like
26:23
Speaker 1: that to make them compatible. Just making stuff incompatible with
26:27
Speaker 1: older versions, it's it's a it's a big part of
26:30
Speaker 1: planned obsolescence. Do you know, I wonder how much money
26:34
Speaker 1: they made on the little headphone adapter? Oh man, it's
26:37
Speaker 1: ten bucks. Like I've got one, and I'm like, you know,
26:41
Speaker 1: I could really use another one of those, because the
26:44
Speaker 1: worst thing that can possibly happen to a human being
26:48
Speaker 1: is they have two sets of headphones, one for like,
26:51
Speaker 1: you know, the flight on delta and then one for
26:54
Speaker 1: your phone because they have two different ends on them.
26:57
Speaker 1: So I mean, to have to keep up with two
26:59
Speaker 1: sets of headphone is basically as horrible as it gets.
27:02
Speaker 1: So I'm probably just gonna a cave and get another adapter, yeah,
27:06
Speaker 1: or just quit ingesting culture. Yeah, we'll get a flip
27:12
Speaker 1: phone and stop watching movies and TV altogether. Yep, sticking
27:16
Speaker 1: it to the man. Uh the other one other big
27:20
Speaker 1: offender that really gets my goat. And I know we
27:23
Speaker 1: are old guys complaining here, that's fine, But the old
27:26
Speaker 1: and young alike, I think can all agree that, uh,
27:30
Speaker 1: printer cartridges are one of the biggest, most frustrating, wasteful,
27:35
Speaker 1: and environmentally damaging scams on the planet. Yeah, but which
27:39
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this. I've gotta I'm just gonna
27:41
Speaker 1: go ahead and buz them because I'm pretty proud of
27:43
Speaker 1: what they What we got at an absent printer at home,
27:48
Speaker 1: and it has like reservoirs that you fill with ink
27:52
Speaker 1: then hold a ton of ink from like a refill bottle.
27:56
Speaker 1: And um, there's no cartridges involved or anything like that.
28:00
Speaker 1: The bottles that you refill it from are fully recyclable.
28:03
Speaker 1: It's just is this good. Um Before we had cartridges,
28:06
Speaker 1: but it didn't have this particular UM component, which is
28:10
Speaker 1: a smart ship I had. So what I'm trying to
28:13
Speaker 1: say is, I had no idea this existed until I
28:15
Speaker 1: researched this. But some printers, ink jet laser printers, home printers,
28:20
Speaker 1: the cartridges have a little chip on them, which is
28:24
Speaker 1: I guess what you pull the tape off of when
28:25
Speaker 1: you loaded into the printer like a new cartridge, and
28:29
Speaker 1: it actually talks to the printer and says, here's how
28:32
Speaker 1: much ink. I have laughed, what what are you gonna
28:34
Speaker 1: do this Friday? Oh? Yeah, oh wait, I got another
28:36
Speaker 1: job coming and excuse me. Um. And then eventually the
28:40
Speaker 1: ink level gets down to a certain amount where the
28:43
Speaker 1: smart ship tells the printer, no more printing. They've reached
28:47
Speaker 1: the preset amount, not the amount where they've actually run
28:50
Speaker 1: out of ink, but the amount that the company is
28:53
Speaker 1: determined as enough you can use. You can go buy
28:56
Speaker 1: another cartridge now. And these cartridges also the smart chips
28:59
Speaker 1: prove aren't you from using other companies cheaper knockoff cartridges
29:04
Speaker 1: because the chips won't communicate with the printer, so it's
29:07
Speaker 1: like the printer doesn't know the cartridge is there, and
29:10
Speaker 1: you can't refill them. They're designed not to be refiled,
29:12
Speaker 1: so they have to be thrown away and you have
29:15
Speaker 1: to go buy another cartridge. Yeah, and I've had that
29:17
Speaker 1: happened before in the past, where I get down to, uh,
29:21
Speaker 1: if I'm printing something out just like simple black text
29:25
Speaker 1: and it starts to come out a little brown and
29:26
Speaker 1: then it just stops. I'm like, I'm okay if it's
29:29
Speaker 1: a little brown, right, I decide what's a llegible printer?
29:32
Speaker 1: I know, Uh, so that's there are at the very
29:37
Speaker 1: least I can tell you EPs and makes a printer
29:39
Speaker 1: out there that has reservoirs that you can refill with
29:41
Speaker 1: bottles and no smart chips. Okay, give me some money. Ups.
29:45
Speaker 1: And the auto industry is, you know, still kind of
29:50
Speaker 1: doing the same thing that they started so many years ago,
29:53
Speaker 1: which is uh, discontinuing parts um that could keep cars
29:58
Speaker 1: running for a longer time, making those minor cosmetic changes
30:03
Speaker 1: for that new model year, retiring models of cars that
30:06
Speaker 1: are really really popular, um, just because they want to
30:10
Speaker 1: bring out something new and make it harder to fix
30:12
Speaker 1: your old car, so repairs Chuck, like we kind of
30:15
Speaker 1: teased earlier. That's a huge part of planned obsolescence. Like,
30:20
Speaker 1: if you're the company that controls the market on your
30:24
Speaker 1: parts and who can repair the your products with those parts,
30:30
Speaker 1: you have a you're you're basically saying like, I can
30:33
Speaker 1: see this product through after I sell it to the
30:35
Speaker 1: customer to ensure that it experiences just that artificially short lifetime. Yeah,
30:41
Speaker 1: and that the thing that's so maddening about this is
30:44
Speaker 1: you can just hear it in the meeting rooms. You
30:47
Speaker 1: know that that like, And here's the best thing, guys.
30:52
Speaker 1: We control the parts, we control the repair, like. The
30:55
Speaker 1: only thing we don't control is the shipping. And maybe
30:59
Speaker 1: we can make some deal with FedEx on that right
31:02
Speaker 1: to get a little kick back exactly. I don't know
31:04
Speaker 1: if that really happens. I'm just making it up. Probably
31:06
Speaker 1: does now I've got my tinfoil hat on, right, But
31:10
Speaker 1: it's you can just hear it in the meeting rooms.
31:12
Speaker 1: And that's what's so frustrating is it's it's just this ouze,
31:16
Speaker 1: steady uze of greed with no regard for the consumer
31:20
Speaker 1: at all. Right, And and just to lay it out basically,
31:23
Speaker 1: you know, in explicit terms, Um, if you're a company
31:28
Speaker 1: and you make a product, you can control that product
31:31
Speaker 1: after you sell it by saying, if you take this product,
31:34
Speaker 1: if this product breaks and you take it anywhere but
31:37
Speaker 1: where we say, you can say, like to the Apple
31:40
Speaker 1: store or an authorized repair shop. Um, you avoided the warranty,
31:45
Speaker 1: so there's no warranty after that you just you just
31:48
Speaker 1: avoided it um And by doing that, they can say
31:51
Speaker 1: they control what parts are used, which means that they
31:54
Speaker 1: can be the only people who manufacture the parts that
31:56
Speaker 1: are used. And then you say, can I get the
31:59
Speaker 1: fixed under warranty three you then they're like, oh, we
32:01
Speaker 1: don't cover that underworld They're like, warranty you more on.
32:05
Speaker 1: So the with the repair parts controlled, they can they
32:10
Speaker 1: can raise the price or lower the price. They can
32:13
Speaker 1: um adjust however they want to make it so that
32:16
Speaker 1: it's actually as expensive to repair as it is to
32:19
Speaker 1: just buy another one or close to it, to just
32:22
Speaker 1: basically nudge you towards well, I just throw this one
32:24
Speaker 1: away and get get the newer model. Or they can
32:28
Speaker 1: also this is a really big one, especially also in
32:31
Speaker 1: the auto industry, they can they can stop making those
32:35
Speaker 1: parts which are the only parts that you can use
32:38
Speaker 1: to repair. So it ultimately eventually becomes impossible to repair
32:43
Speaker 1: that thing because all the parts, the finite amount of
32:46
Speaker 1: parts that were ever produced to repair them are all
32:49
Speaker 1: used up. There's no more parts available. Go buy the
32:52
Speaker 1: newer model. Did you see that used UGO? The the
32:55
Speaker 1: new used you? Go? No, someone put a you go
32:59
Speaker 1: on eBay that had four and eighty miles on it
33:03
Speaker 1: and had been garaged since it was you know, since
33:07
Speaker 1: or whatever. How much do they want for nine grand
33:10
Speaker 1: is what it sold for, which you know it's nine
33:14
Speaker 1: grand plus. You gotta get that thing going again, just
33:17
Speaker 1: it's been sitting there for that many years. It's clearly
33:20
Speaker 1: not road ready, but it was Jerry, and I think
33:23
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny that some no doubt tech bro
33:28
Speaker 1: with a little too much money wanted to the most
33:31
Speaker 1: ironic car in San Francisco. That is as ironic as
33:34
Speaker 1: a kiss, for sure. Um. Every time I hear about
33:37
Speaker 1: Hugos Chuck, I'm reminded of remember that Saturday Night Live
33:40
Speaker 1: commercial for the Adobe. No, it was like the first
33:44
Speaker 1: car under a thousand dollars made of clay, So when
33:48
Speaker 1: you got an Defender better you just pour water on
33:50
Speaker 1: it and mold it back into the show. If only
33:53
Speaker 1: that was something like the Phil Hartman era. That's the
33:55
Speaker 1: opposite of planned obsolescence. It is UM clothing sort of
34:00
Speaker 1: the same deal they make UM And again there are
34:04
Speaker 1: some clothing companies, and I think more than ever now
34:07
Speaker 1: in recent years, well not more than ever, but more
34:09
Speaker 1: in than in the last twenty years. There are companies
34:12
Speaker 1: that are making really well made clothes, but they're you know,
34:16
Speaker 1: they're not cheap. There are many many more companies, huge,
34:20
Speaker 1: huge stores and big brands that are just pumping out
34:24
Speaker 1: cheap clothes because you're like, first of all, the styles change,
34:29
Speaker 1: So why do you want something You don't want anything
34:30
Speaker 1: that's gonna last more than a year or two anyway. Um,
34:34
Speaker 1: but my beef, and we're calling out a lot of brands,
34:36
Speaker 1: might as well just keep it going. But when I
34:39
Speaker 1: was younger, you could buy a pair of Levi's and
34:41
Speaker 1: have those for a long, long long time. Yeah, no,
34:45
Speaker 1: Russian would trade you a you go for him? Yeah, exactly. Uh.
34:49
Speaker 1: And now like I had a pair of Levi's for
34:52
Speaker 1: probably five months before I got a big really in them.
34:56
Speaker 1: And that's sad. It's sad. Levi Strauss rolled over in
35:02
Speaker 1: his grave on that day, I know, man, because that
35:04
Speaker 1: that was the thing. It's just like these things are
35:06
Speaker 1: tough as leather that last you so long, Like there's
35:09
Speaker 1: nothing better than inheriting dad's old Levi's And it's just like,
35:14
Speaker 1: you know, or five months. Yeah, that's that's pretty sad,
35:18
Speaker 1: is here? A middle ground. Can I get five years? Yeah,
35:20
Speaker 1: five years would be pretty good for some jeans. Take it.
35:23
Speaker 1: I always put um, although I do less than I
35:26
Speaker 1: did before, But my jeans would always wear out, or
35:28
Speaker 1: my two thighs, my big fat thighs rubbed together. Sure,
35:31
Speaker 1: that's what would go first. But then you can hide
35:34
Speaker 1: that for a little while until one day you can't.
35:37
Speaker 1: You just hope that that day comes and you're not
35:39
Speaker 1: in public. I'm gonna patch these because they're still comfortable.
35:41
Speaker 1: But um, you shouldn't have to chuck. You shouldn't have to.
35:45
Speaker 1: That's COMI talk. I'm gonna patch these. Uh you want
35:48
Speaker 1: to know another racket? Yeah? Yes? Or should we take
35:52
Speaker 1: a break and talk about it. We could take a
35:55
Speaker 1: break if you want, or we can wait. Do you
35:58
Speaker 1: want to wait? Yeah, we'll go. We'll finish the rackets.
36:00
Speaker 1: This is fun, by the way, I'm having fun, like
36:02
Speaker 1: complaining about how stuff doesn't last like it used to.
36:05
Speaker 1: How about the college textbook racket? Hey, this is a
36:10
Speaker 1: new edition from the previous year. Oh what's different? The
36:13
Speaker 1: page numbers right, so by the new one yep, not
36:17
Speaker 1: the used one. Yeah? Which is I mean? Like, if
36:20
Speaker 1: you're trying to follow along in class. That's kind of
36:22
Speaker 1: maddening because the information is usually not that much, but
36:25
Speaker 1: it's enough to just throw everything off, right, Whereas they
36:29
Speaker 1: if they just put these things as like a supplement
36:31
Speaker 1: or an appendix or something and back then you could
36:34
Speaker 1: just or even to sell the additional stuff separately, you
36:38
Speaker 1: could be a lot better. Yeah, this is so the
36:41
Speaker 1: little pamphlet for and probably make money fifteen copies. How
36:46
Speaker 1: about the toy industry? So the toy industry is frequently guilty. Um,
36:51
Speaker 1: and this isn't the case across the board, but it
36:53
Speaker 1: kinda is of a specific subcategory of planned obsolescence called
36:58
Speaker 1: contrived durability. And they're not the garbage product. But basically
37:02
Speaker 1: the toy industry isn't the only one that that does it,
37:04
Speaker 1: but they're the ones that come to mind when you
37:06
Speaker 1: talk about this. And this is purposefully using inferior parts
37:11
Speaker 1: that just aren't going to last for very long at all,
37:14
Speaker 1: especially the functioning parts of stuff that moves or where
37:17
Speaker 1: the most stress is. Anybody who's ever gotten a switch
37:21
Speaker 1: blade comb and spent half an hour just opening it
37:24
Speaker 1: and closing it, opening it and closing it, and then
37:26
Speaker 1: it breaks on the fiftieth time that comb was most
37:30
Speaker 1: likely made through a process of contrived or ability. Um,
37:34
Speaker 1: and it's a big problem. Part of the problem. Part
37:36
Speaker 1: of the problem is that's another really good example of
37:40
Speaker 1: a type of item that is just are you going
37:45
Speaker 1: to take a switch blade comb into the switch blade
37:47
Speaker 1: comb repair shop? And if you if you did, how
37:50
Speaker 1: much would they charge you? Would it be any more
37:53
Speaker 1: than you paid, you know for like the three ping
37:56
Speaker 1: pong balls that you managed to get into like a
37:59
Speaker 1: goldfish bowl where you won the switchblade come from? I
38:02
Speaker 1: don't think so, right, And actually we'll talk a little
38:06
Speaker 1: bit about some of the problems after this break here
38:08
Speaker 1: in a second. But just an early early shout to
38:13
Speaker 1: the death of the repair person. Yeah, and yeah, there
38:18
Speaker 1: are still some of those things, but like try and
38:20
Speaker 1: find a TV repair shop near you there, well, yeah,
38:24
Speaker 1: try to find one that's open too, is the other thing.
38:27
Speaker 1: And you can still find them in any given large city,
38:31
Speaker 1: but it's it's not like it used to be where
38:33
Speaker 1: it was just like, oh, in any downtown there's a locksmith,
38:37
Speaker 1: there's a tailor, there's a TV repaired person, uh, and
38:43
Speaker 1: or any kind of repair shop. Um. Yeah, they are
38:47
Speaker 1: very very few and far between, but that maybe changing,
38:52
Speaker 1: as we'll see. All right, let's take that break, Okay,
38:55
Speaker 1: Thank goodness. I had a lot of anxiety building up
38:58
Speaker 1: because I knew that break was looming definite ski as
39:12
Speaker 1: watch sks should know. All right, Chuck. So, I feel
39:25
Speaker 1: like we've kind of hit upon the idea that planned
39:28
Speaker 1: obsolescence can be problematic. But let's talk specifically about the
39:32
Speaker 1: problems it does produce, right, Yeah, I mean one of
39:37
Speaker 1: the big Well, first of all, let's saw out some
39:38
Speaker 1: stats just so people know we're not just being angry. Uh.
39:42
Speaker 1: There was a study about four years ago in two
39:44
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen by company in Germany, the Uko Institute um
39:49
Speaker 1: no e on the end of institute which is so
39:52
Speaker 1: German looking really because it's institute otherwise um they found
39:57
Speaker 1: obsolescence was on the rise. Percentage of a electrical and
40:00
Speaker 1: electronic products sold that were replaced because they broke within
40:05
Speaker 1: five years rose from three and a half percent in
40:08
Speaker 1: two thousand four to eight point three percent and two
40:12
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. And then household appliances, which is one of
40:16
Speaker 1: the big gripes for people because those are high dollar
40:18
Speaker 1: items that you want to last, you know, fifteen years. Um,
40:22
Speaker 1: large household appliances had to be replaced within five years,
40:26
Speaker 1: grew from seven percent totent like doubled between two thousand
40:31
Speaker 1: four and two and like it's you, I've this is
40:36
Speaker 1: a really rare study. Most of the evidence about this
40:39
Speaker 1: stuff is anecdotal. Like if you ever get your hands
40:42
Speaker 1: on an appliance repair guy um who comes out, they
40:45
Speaker 1: will talk ad nauseum about how they literally don't make
40:50
Speaker 1: things like they used to, and that the the lifespan
40:53
Speaker 1: is like two to three years, five years if you're lucky, um,
40:57
Speaker 1: But prices are still really high like it used to be, Like, Okay,
41:00
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shell out some money for um a really
41:04
Speaker 1: good fridge and you could tell basically by the price
41:07
Speaker 1: of the fridge how long it was gonna last. That
41:09
Speaker 1: that ended a decade or two ago. You can still
41:12
Speaker 1: pay a significant amount of money for a fridge that
41:15
Speaker 1: has like a one year warranty and it's gonna last
41:19
Speaker 1: three to five years, even though you spent a significant
41:22
Speaker 1: amount of money. It's crazy. Um. Sometimes there's the plans
41:25
Speaker 1: repair people get specific to I don't know if you've
41:27
Speaker 1: ever had this happen where they say they don't just
41:30
Speaker 1: say it like, oh, these things are junk. Now they'll say, like, oh,
41:33
Speaker 1: you know what they started doing. It is four years ago.
41:35
Speaker 1: They started making this part out of plastic, and I'd
41:39
Speaker 1: see the same repair over and over and over now, right,
41:42
Speaker 1: And and it costs X amount for them to even
41:45
Speaker 1: come out and diagnose the problem X amount to put
41:49
Speaker 1: in the new part, and then you also have to
41:51
Speaker 1: pay for the part. And depending on the appliance, I mean,
41:53
Speaker 1: like if it's a fifteen hundred or two thousand dollar refrigerator,
41:58
Speaker 1: you know, five hundred bucks might be worth it rather
42:00
Speaker 1: than replacing it. But your refrigerator just became a two
42:04
Speaker 1: thousand dollar refrigerator like eighteen months later, right, Um, So
42:09
Speaker 1: that's part of the problem is the cost of repair
42:11
Speaker 1: when it is available can be a problem. But if
42:13
Speaker 1: your refrigerator does manage the last five years and they
42:16
Speaker 1: stopped making replacement parts for it four years after four years,
42:20
Speaker 1: you're um, you're out of luck after five years because
42:23
Speaker 1: you can't repair it anymore. Like we talked about, Yeah,
42:26
Speaker 1: I had a we had a dishwasher that um broke
42:30
Speaker 1: a lot from the first year that we had it,
42:34
Speaker 1: and it got to that point where I kept paying
42:36
Speaker 1: to repair it and getting angrier, and you know, Emily
42:40
Speaker 1: was eventually like, neither one of us are like, oh,
42:42
Speaker 1: just get the new one. She was like, dude, we're
42:44
Speaker 1: spending more like we could have bought the new one
42:47
Speaker 1: for what we're spending on repairs because you're being stubborn
42:51
Speaker 1: about saying this thing should last longer. But you get
42:54
Speaker 1: in that sort of conundrum where you're like, you don't
42:56
Speaker 1: know what the right thing to do is. Yeah. Yeah,
42:59
Speaker 1: And I actually like, just about anybody's gonna be like, fine,
43:02
Speaker 1: I'm I've spent more money than it would have cost
43:05
Speaker 1: or a place. Yeah, somebody's everybody's gonna cry uncle eventually,
43:09
Speaker 1: you know. I think it's just some some people do
43:11
Speaker 1: it faster than others. You know. Yeah. One of the
43:15
Speaker 1: other things with plan obsolescence is a company. Can you know,
43:18
Speaker 1: it's very rare that a company is just that company.
43:20
Speaker 1: Usually they're owned by some huge uber company that owns
43:24
Speaker 1: many of that company's that brand's rivals. Yeah, so you
43:28
Speaker 1: can just you know, if something gets a bad rep
43:31
Speaker 1: you can just retire that brand and slap a new
43:35
Speaker 1: name on it, and it's the kind of the same thing.
43:37
Speaker 1: So you you don't know, you don't know anymore if
43:39
Speaker 1: it's a good or a bad brand, right, And if
43:41
Speaker 1: you just have a couple of mega brands and they're
43:44
Speaker 1: all doing the same thing with their multiple brands that
43:46
Speaker 1: they all own and that which is they're just all
43:49
Speaker 1: kind of making crud that last maybe three to five years,
43:53
Speaker 1: then that means that there's actually technically no bad brand.
43:57
Speaker 1: They're all bad brands because there's also no good brand either, um,
44:00
Speaker 1: and they just trade on these brand names that you
44:02
Speaker 1: were raised to hear from your parents are from repairman
44:06
Speaker 1: or whatever that uh, that's a good brand, but this
44:08
Speaker 1: brand is not any good And then you have like
44:10
Speaker 1: a bad experience with that brand, so you switch to
44:13
Speaker 1: another brand. But there's a pretty good chance that those
44:17
Speaker 1: same those two brands are still owned by the same
44:19
Speaker 1: company to whom it's all the same. You're still giving
44:23
Speaker 1: them the money. Ultimately, Yeah, I uh, I'm sorry. This
44:27
Speaker 1: is filled with so many anecdotal stories, but I was
44:30
Speaker 1: TV shopping recently, and there was a TV that, uh
44:35
Speaker 1: seemed like a really good deal and it got good
44:36
Speaker 1: ratings on all the places. But then you start reading
44:39
Speaker 1: the customer experience and like a lot of people were
44:43
Speaker 1: saying this has a banding issue where you can see
44:45
Speaker 1: like lines on the screen when the screen is darker
44:49
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Oh yeah, yeah. It was like ubiquitous.
44:53
Speaker 1: It was all over the place, and these reviews and
44:56
Speaker 1: every single one of them, the manufacturer would reply and say, boy,
45:01
Speaker 1: We're so sorry you had this experience. We've never heard
45:03
Speaker 1: of this and it's uh certainly um an outlier, so
45:09
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, and it's just so maddening.
45:12
Speaker 1: It's like, no, man, it's like of these reviews say this,
45:16
Speaker 1: and I say that sometimes when I'm when I have
45:18
Speaker 1: to call about something like that, I'm like, man, I know,
45:21
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm not the only person this is
45:23
Speaker 1: happening to, because all over the internet and there's like, well,
45:27
Speaker 1: you know, we're not allowed to share stuff like that, sir,
45:31
Speaker 1: I have to say in my experience, so, Chuck, one
45:34
Speaker 1: thing that has gotten better over the last couple of
45:36
Speaker 1: decades is customer service. Do you think Yeah, I think
45:40
Speaker 1: for the average person, the the companies want to please
45:44
Speaker 1: customers enough that they make the experience of dealing with
45:49
Speaker 1: them better than it was before. I think, how boy,
45:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to think about that Okay, think about it.
45:55
Speaker 1: Maybe some companies I've had the experience with some that
45:58
Speaker 1: are so big that you get the feeling that like
46:01
Speaker 1: they think it costs more to give a hoot, Right, Yeah,
46:05
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely true out there, But there's so
46:07
Speaker 1: many Like I think smaller companies and tech startups come
46:11
Speaker 1: from this place of like, we treat the customer really well,
46:14
Speaker 1: that's just what we do. It just seems to be
46:17
Speaker 1: more than there was before, Whereas before it seems like
46:20
Speaker 1: it was all big companies that you had to deal with,
46:22
Speaker 1: and they all had terrible customer service. I think the
46:25
Speaker 1: nineties were like the the zenith of bad customer service
46:28
Speaker 1: if if I'm not mistaken, maybe so so. So there's
46:33
Speaker 1: a really important point that we're kind of dancing around here,
46:35
Speaker 1: right Like, you know, thirteen percent of large appliances breaking
46:39
Speaker 1: within five years and having to be replaced, like, um,
46:43
Speaker 1: eight point three percent of of smaller electronics are all electronics. Um,
46:48
Speaker 1: those things being thrown out. It doesn't sound like that much,
46:52
Speaker 1: but when you actually translated into numbers, you're talking about
46:55
Speaker 1: millions of things, of items of products that are being
47:00
Speaker 1: thrown away because they broke and the vast majority of
47:04
Speaker 1: those things are just like I said, thrown away. They're
47:07
Speaker 1: not recycled. I think in the United States six percent
47:11
Speaker 1: of small appliances are recycled, which is a paltry amount um.
47:17
Speaker 1: That means the rest just going to landfill. Yeah, and
47:20
Speaker 1: it's especially egregious because not only is all this stuff
47:23
Speaker 1: getting tossed, but e waste or some of the biggest
47:27
Speaker 1: offenders as far as environmental damage. So you've got three
47:32
Speaker 1: and fifty million in cartridges in the United States tossed
47:36
Speaker 1: and landfills every year, you know, three forty eight million
47:40
Speaker 1: of which aren't even empty, right because those smart chips
47:44
Speaker 1: you've got, you know, uh, refrigerators being thrown out. We
47:48
Speaker 1: did get a new refrigerator a couple of years ago,
47:50
Speaker 1: even though an old one that we bought used was
47:52
Speaker 1: still working. It was kind of a workhorse, but we
47:55
Speaker 1: sold it and I was like, you know, sold it
47:57
Speaker 1: really cheap. It was like, I bought this thing, used,
48:00
Speaker 1: it lasted us ten years without problems. Like, so someone's
48:03
Speaker 1: getting a good old workhorse here for a couple hundred bucks. So,
48:08
Speaker 1: you know, we try and recycle our stuff or sell
48:11
Speaker 1: it or donate it these days or at least set
48:13
Speaker 1: it on fire, so it's not somebody else's problem. The
48:18
Speaker 1: good news is, though I don't want this to all
48:20
Speaker 1: be poopoo, is there are places in the world that
48:22
Speaker 1: are working on this and trying to change things. Um.
48:26
Speaker 1: Not here in the United States, of course, but in
48:28
Speaker 1: Europe they are working on creating some standards. There's a
48:32
Speaker 1: program called Eco Design Directive, which would basically open up
48:37
Speaker 1: regulation of industry based on you know, they're what they're
48:41
Speaker 1: trying to do is set new standards for durability and
48:44
Speaker 1: repair ability and like make it the law, right, yeah,
48:47
Speaker 1: like they're there. Um. The resource efficiency is what they're calling,
48:51
Speaker 1: Like you have energy efficiency, like how much water does
48:53
Speaker 1: it use? Um? This is how long does this thing last?
48:57
Speaker 1: Like put it on the label right exactly, like kind
49:00
Speaker 1: of like that Bernard London's idea, but rather than it
49:03
Speaker 1: being an expiration date to where you start to get
49:06
Speaker 1: charged for using it beyond that date, this is, oh well,
49:08
Speaker 1: this one's gonna last five years. This one says at
49:10
Speaker 1: last seven I'm gonna go with the seven year one.
49:13
Speaker 1: You know, And because of the resources these things use,
49:16
Speaker 1: the seven year one is more efficient by definition than
49:19
Speaker 1: the five year one and at least you can make
49:21
Speaker 1: an informed choice as a consumer. Uh. Here in the States,
49:25
Speaker 1: like I said that, the federal government isn't doing anything,
49:28
Speaker 1: but when it comes to the States, there are some groups.
49:32
Speaker 1: There's one movement called right to Repair started in the
49:35
Speaker 1: UK and is now catching hold I think in two
49:38
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen or eighteen states that introduced right to repair
49:41
Speaker 1: bills UM, some of which have taken hold, some of
49:45
Speaker 1: which haven't. But UM it basically requires companies to make
49:50
Speaker 1: it possible to repair their devices on their own or
49:52
Speaker 1: take it to a repair mom and pop repair shop
49:55
Speaker 1: and not have like the warranty avoided. Yeah, these these
49:58
Speaker 1: laws all kind of you know, they're di frint, but
50:00
Speaker 1: they have in common the idea that, Okay, if you
50:03
Speaker 1: guys are gonna build junk, at least make it easier
50:06
Speaker 1: for them to be repaired, like design them so a
50:09
Speaker 1: customer can repair them themselves or take them to an
50:12
Speaker 1: unauthorized repair shop. And those repair shops should be able
50:16
Speaker 1: to get their hands on parts that are as universal
50:19
Speaker 1: as possible. And you guys, the manufacturer should be supplying
50:22
Speaker 1: repair shops with UM repair manuals for them to reference,
50:26
Speaker 1: like stop doing the opposite of everything we just said,
50:29
Speaker 1: in order to make it hard to repair your stuff.
50:32
Speaker 1: If put out junk if you want, but let us
50:35
Speaker 1: repair it. That's kind of what the gist of those
50:37
Speaker 1: bills are. Yeah. And you know, like we mentioned before,
50:40
Speaker 1: there is a segment of people that think, um, that
50:43
Speaker 1: firmly believe that this is all great for industry. It's
50:46
Speaker 1: all great for the economy. It keeps an army of
50:50
Speaker 1: employees working at these cell phone companies and smartphone companies
50:54
Speaker 1: and designers and engineers because of that cycle. Uh. You know,
51:00
Speaker 1: that's one way to look at it. If you turn
51:02
Speaker 1: over goods really quickly, then that's a lot more stuff
51:06
Speaker 1: that needs to be manufactured and a lot more trucks
51:09
Speaker 1: driving things. And you know, it might be an environmental nightmare,
51:12
Speaker 1: but those trucks are moving. Yeah. I mean, on the
51:15
Speaker 1: one hand, though, it I do agree with the idea
51:18
Speaker 1: of saying, Okay, we we want to replace. We want
51:21
Speaker 1: people to buy a new phone every three years. We
51:23
Speaker 1: have to give them a reason to buy a new
51:26
Speaker 1: phone every three years. And one of the outcomes of
51:29
Speaker 1: that is that technological innovation that that is happening as
51:34
Speaker 1: a result of that, Like just you know, there's multiple
51:37
Speaker 1: phone companies all scrambling for market share, so they're trying
51:40
Speaker 1: to out innovate one another and justify customers going and
51:43
Speaker 1: replacing their phones, but barely. Well, yeah, because there's other
51:47
Speaker 1: routes they can take. They can take you know, the
51:49
Speaker 1: the fast fashion clothing route and just do cosmetic updates
51:53
Speaker 1: to it, or like the easy bake oven. It all
51:56
Speaker 1: it does the same thing, virtually the same thing from
51:59
Speaker 1: the beginning of its invention until today. It was just
52:02
Speaker 1: mainly cosmetic changes that were made to it over time
52:06
Speaker 1: to keep up with the times, just like fashion. If
52:08
Speaker 1: you do that with a phone or technology, then yeah,
52:11
Speaker 1: you're slub You're you're not doing your job. But ideally,
52:14
Speaker 1: if you release a new version of a phone every
52:17
Speaker 1: few years and it is just way better than the
52:21
Speaker 1: phone before, that's okay. Yes, there's still the manufacturing problem
52:24
Speaker 1: in the waste associated with it that can be dealt with,
52:28
Speaker 1: but at least technology is being pushed forward. At least
52:31
Speaker 1: it's not just a total scam, you know what I mean. Yeah,
52:35
Speaker 1: there's also the idea of value engineering, like kind of
52:37
Speaker 1: walking that line as a manufacturer, uh to not make junk,
52:41
Speaker 1: but also to make something affordable for a consumer, And
52:44
Speaker 1: if we built a card to the last seventy five years,
52:48
Speaker 1: no one would be able to afford it because it
52:50
Speaker 1: would all be military grade materials or the same thing
52:55
Speaker 1: with a phone, Like if this technological progress is happening,
52:58
Speaker 1: so that um, a phone does actually become obsolete, whether
53:02
Speaker 1: planned or otherwise, in a couple of years, Um, it
53:05
Speaker 1: makes more sense to build phones with cheaper parts that
53:08
Speaker 1: aren't gonna last forever, because then you have to replace
53:11
Speaker 1: a five dollar phone every few years rather than a
53:13
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar phone every few years. To right, and
53:17
Speaker 1: the and the you know, the final point kind of
53:19
Speaker 1: is that the consumer does have a little bit of responsibility.
53:22
Speaker 1: It's a little bit all of our faults because uh,
53:26
Speaker 1: you might want the new phone in that color one year,
53:29
Speaker 1: other one works great. Uh. There was a study by
53:32
Speaker 1: the same Uko Institute that said a third of all
53:36
Speaker 1: replacement purchases for things like fridges and washing machines were
53:40
Speaker 1: motivated by, um, just having a newer, better unit even
53:44
Speaker 1: though their old one is still fine. So like, you know,
53:47
Speaker 1: that's kind of on the consumer hit him with that
53:50
Speaker 1: last chuck. Uh, two thousand twelve more than sixty of
53:53
Speaker 1: t vs that were replaced. We're still functioning, Mike drop TVs.
53:59
Speaker 1: That's that's certainly a big one. Yeah, But I mean
54:02
Speaker 1: the question is, did this like ravenous consumer society develop
54:06
Speaker 1: as a result of planned obsolescence, or did planned obsolescence
54:11
Speaker 1: develop to keep up with this ravenous consumer society. That's
54:15
Speaker 1: the question we'll leave you with. That is a big question. Yeah,
54:18
Speaker 1: I'd love to answer that. We don't have the answer. Well,
54:21
Speaker 1: while we try to figure it out, Um, how about
54:23
Speaker 1: instead let's listen to some listener mail from Chuck. Yeah,
54:31
Speaker 1: this is a very very sweet email from a gentleman
54:34
Speaker 1: named Tom about his daughter. Hey, guys, thanks for being
54:37
Speaker 1: a positive influence on my daughter, Grace. She recently graduated
54:40
Speaker 1: from high school will be attending the University of Minnesota
54:43
Speaker 1: Twin Cities College of Biological Sciences, majoring in cellular and
54:48
Speaker 1: uh organismal. I don't even know that word. Tom just
54:53
Speaker 1: made up a new word, physiology Is that word? I
54:57
Speaker 1: guess I've never seen that before. Because of your shows.
55:02
Speaker 1: Oh here, he says, she's even making up new words.
55:04
Speaker 1: There you go, because of your show's unique insight to
55:07
Speaker 1: learning your You fan the flames of desire for knowledge.
55:10
Speaker 1: You routinely reinforce aw awesome and cool knowledge and education
55:13
Speaker 1: can be I started listening later than she did to
55:17
Speaker 1: try and listen to an episode each way, and then
55:18
Speaker 1: tried to listen to an episode each way from work
55:21
Speaker 1: every day. I have heard you read listener mail from
55:24
Speaker 1: other parents that complement how you always give us something
55:26
Speaker 1: to talk about with their kids. That is also true
55:28
Speaker 1: in our home. Recently, on our vacation to go skiing
55:31
Speaker 1: in Colorado, we stopped at a Pony Express station in Nebraska.
55:36
Speaker 1: Your influences beyond academics too. She's involved in her community
55:39
Speaker 1: and articulates educated opinions for her passions. She will turn
55:43
Speaker 1: eighteen this fall and it is looking forward to voting.
55:45
Speaker 1: Many of the examples you've given your podcasts have empowered
55:48
Speaker 1: her to take positions on social issues. I know you know.
55:52
Speaker 1: I hope you know the importance and influence of your show. Guys,
55:55
Speaker 1: we look forward to your show in Chicago. Yeah, so
55:59
Speaker 1: Tom and the family are coming to UH from Rockford,
56:02
Speaker 1: Illinois to Chicago. Thanks Tommy. What was Tom's daughter's name again, Grace, Grace, Grace,
56:07
Speaker 1: thank you very much for making us look so good um,
56:10
Speaker 1: and good luck in school, congrats and yeah, we'll see
56:16
Speaker 1: you guys in Chicago. Um. Oh, I guess that's it.
56:20
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, like
56:22
Speaker 1: Grace and Tom did, you can what Chuck, go on
56:25
Speaker 1: to stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
56:27
Speaker 1: our social links and then you could also just send
56:30
Speaker 1: us an email and if you want to do that,
56:33
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56:40
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56:42
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56:45
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56:48
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