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