planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence boon or bane?
Could you believe that there is a bulb in Livermore(CALIFORNIA) which has
been glowing for the past 109 years? The bulb has seen the world war 1 ,the
great crash,world war2,Montgomery bus incident ,abolition of jim crow laws,jfk
assassination, Watergate scandal everything…epic isn’t it????While the reason is
simple ,GE or PHILIPS those days produced filaments which is strong enough to
withstand ages!!!
The MOTIVE was common from bulb to nylon ie LONGEVITY. While products
with longevity helped the cause of the consumers but it did hit hard with the
producers and the labour force. Because of the products longevity the consumer
purchasing power decreased to a great Deal .once they purchase a product ,due
to its longevity they don’t purchase it again for some years in future … when u
purchase once rarely ,the production process and all other process will come to a
stand still and will give a great beating to the labour force and the owners… this
puts the company BIG WIGS and labour force in DIRESTRAITS.
This paradox brought the barons to gether and they came up with a new strategy
that is called PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE. Planned obsolecense (as defined)is a
decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they
become out-of-date within a known time period the main goal of this type of
production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product again and
again, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's
products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again. This
also keeps the labour force and industrial biggies moving and satisfying..Planned
obsolecense is higher in the monopolistic and oligopolistic markets where the
competition is very low, when the competition is very low the sellers get an
advantage and produces product of poor quality and longevity . so if the planned
obsolence helps the labour force it also degrades the product quality which in
a way is considered to be a consumer exploitation…they are lot of present day
products which are guilty of planned obsolescence …apples have always been a
pioneer of planned obsolecense. As they always think “Why to give a customer
the full range of options and features by selling one phone ,when you can bring
out features bit by bit through new releases and updates by selling several
phones”????? that’s smart strategy for you…..apples increasing use of tamper-
resistant screws is a form of planned obsolescence….poor ipod battery is also a
form of planned obsolecense….
While the planned obsolescence has lot of banes ,it seem to be very inevitable….it
is very easy to pan it but it is very tough to move on with out it ….planned
obsolecense balances consumption and production…it helps the labours while
it also exploits consumers …BOON OR BANE ,in this modern economy it is highly
inevitable to avoid planned obslocense