Why would a company purposefully make a piece of crap and sell it to you? You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Thanks for tuning in.
Welcome back. This week we are exploring suppressed technology and planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is just, you know, the $50 word for pretty crooked strategy. Why not instead of making something that works all the time, we make something that is purposely designed to break after a certain amount of time or usage. I know, right?
Sounds a little bit villainous, but if you're an oligopoly, or if you're a company in an oligopoly, it makes sense. In an oligopoly, only a few players, whether they're people or companies or governments, actually make something or control what people can buy. So, for instance, Matt, what's a thing that people make? Customizable drum gloves.
Right, thank you, perfect. Customizable drum gloves. So let's say just me and one other guy, how about you Matt, are the only people who make customized drum gloves. Well, we don't wanna make customized drum gloves that never break because then we'll be putting ourselves out of a job, won't we?
So in a way it makes sense for us to work together to figure out when these drum gloves should actually break. When's the best possible time? To make somebody buy some more. And when companies are in a more competitive space, when you as a consumer have more choices about where you'll buy what, then this planned obsolescence strategy doesn't make as much sense, because why would you buy something, again, that is built to break? It's a villainous strategy, I think that's a fair word to use, and in some circles, it is very popular.
In 1932, this guy named Bernard London wrote a pamphlet called ending the depression through planned obsolescence, which I imagine is how he talked back then. And the idea was this. The U.S. government should legally put an obsolescence period, pretty much an expiration date, on products so that when companies built them, they had to break within that period of time. And then, London argues, it would restart the economy because war people would have to, you know, break their drum gloves and then they would have to buy more. drum gloves.
This idea didn't really pan out, but planned obsolescence survived, and there are a couple of different ways that companies can do this to you, the consumer. For instance, one thing would be using inferior components in a place where they're crucial, like plastic instead of metal or screws that are designed to just after a certain amount of time. And then, of course, if you've ever bought a smartphone, you already know about irreplaceable batteries. They have a finite amount of charges, and at some point it's cheaper to buy a new phone than to replace the battery sometimes.
And then, of course, let's not forget the plethora, and I'm using that word correctly, of disposable items. Razor blades, lighters, those single-use cameras. These create a mountain of waste, but they're pretty popular with companies that sell them.
And for our purposes, one of the most important examples of this would be when a company uses its political or economic clout to purposely sell an inferior product or suppress a superior product from coming out. We've looked at examples of this in several different episodes. You know, the great rail car conspiracy where automakers purchase electric powered public transit systems and then junk them.
And then the current war. I mean, not a war going on today, but the war of the currents between Tesla and Edison, AC and DC. This even goes back to.
the emergence of the refrigerator, when ice truck cartels worked to keep you, or I guess more likely your ancestors, from having a refrigerator in your home. And then ink cartridges. There's also the idea that college textbooks have planned obsolescence. And for anyone who's been to college, you've probably encountered that thing where you have to say, wait, why do I need this $150 edition again?
Spoiler alert for everybody who's planning on going to college soon. Good luck guys. And then we get into gray territory when we talk about consumer electronics. I mean, do you think that Apple has planned obsolescence? Are they purposely building things that will be crappier and crappier so you have to buy the new one?
And those are allegations, by the way, that are pretty popular mainstream at this point. They've been mentioned more than once in the New York Times. And the big question for a lot of us...
I know from Matt and I, would be what about video games and video game consoles and software? We know there's a little bit of obsolescence planned in there because games from previous consoles will often not be backwards compatible. Even when it would be easy from an engineering point to do so.
And then there's the whole thing about what you buy when you buy a video game. Are you buying the physical game? Do you own it?
Or do you just sort of rent a license to play that game? One of the big fights about suppressing technology now in the modern age would be the fight between internet service providers and Google Fiber. And make no mistake, it's a war.
But is it a market war or is it an actively suppressed technology? Which... Which brings us to the big question of the week.
Has there ever been a real life proven case of a company suppressing a widespread superior technology? Ladies and gentlemen, the answer is yes. And we're covering it this week. Stay tuned for our upcoming episode on one of the first proven conspiracies to create an inferior product and make you pay more for it. So can you think of any other modern day conspiracies to suppress technology or to purposely make people buy an inferior good.
We'd like to hear from you in the comments. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter as well. We also have a website which will hopefully pop up here somewhere where you can check out all of the episodes that we've ever done as well as our audio podcast where we're going to be going more in depth on that video game stuff. If you don't care for the social media, as we always say, We totally get it, man.
So send a suggestion for an upcoming episode to our email address. We are conspiracy at howstuffworks.com. Is it weird when I drink coffee while you're doing the sound?
I can't hear it. Honestly, I don't hear much. There's a little bit of throat noise, yeah. Throat noise? Yeah.
Like a... It's hard to describe. I don't know that I could recreate the sound. No, try it.
Let's see what it sounds like. Okay. Jesus. Sorry.