Do you agree with the practice of planned obsolescence?

[SvennoJ]

Everything has to be made as cheap as possible, thank competition playing on instant gratification for that. My parents took over the refrigerator from my grand parents, the thing work for over 60 years. It would still work if the chemicals inside had not been banned.

TVs are not made to last anymore. LCD/LED panels, plasma, oled, it degrades or fades over time. Sure it still works, yet how many people use the same tv for 30 years nowadays. My grandparents did. Of course tech changes much faster nowadays. My 20 year old amplifier is build like a tank, however no hdmi makes it unusable nowadays. And now hdmi 1.4 receivers can't even pass through 2.0 signals. My parents used the same stereo tower for as long as I can remember, just added a CD player later.

It's a different mindset nowadays when I hear 5 years is a good product cycle time... Meanwhile I'm on the 4th instant coffee maker in 6 years, 3rd water cooler in 10, 5th oscillating sprinkler, 3rd lawnmower, 3rd vacuum cleaner, 7th electric razor. (I'm now buying a cheap new one every year, same price as replacement blades and the only option with a cord, rechargeable batteries don't last either)

And then there's more complicated tech, not so much build to break, already build from broken parts. It's so fragile to increase yields GPU yields are increased by disabling the bad parts and selling them in different tiers. Same with mechanical hdds in the past that had bad sectors from the start.

In the past it was also normal to get things fixed or fix it yourself. Nowadays you can hardly open stuff up let alone find spare parts. Cheaper to replace.