.jpg)
About things that we buy, particularly light bulbs, domestic appliances and electronics like mobile phone, printer, and so on.
I remember not long after I bought something it broke down. Often happened upon expiration of the guarantee term. This has become a very frequent occurence.
Something it's wrong, I thought!
One day I read about planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence.
Have you ever known about it?
In industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.
The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle").
(Source Wikipedia)
At the beginning I thought that it couldn't be true, but I was wrong!
Doing research i found that it's a long story.
It seems that everything started for a long lasting light bulb. So on December 1923 the major world producers of light bulbs made an agreement (cartello Phoebus)... the light bulb had to last no more than 1000 hours instead of the previous 2500 hours. That was just the beginning! The issue is also about cars, clothing, and many other things.
Here on BBC you can find more about this problem.
Anyway there's a good news. Europe continues its fight against planned obsolescence by approving a resolution to make the EU Commission, member states and producers take action toward improving product repairability.
European Parliament
Here are some useful suggestions...
8 Practical Steps to Fight Planned Obsolescence Make Use Of
I hope that something will change for the better but to the present this is the result...
