Planned Obsolescense

[dadsEH]

Buying a quality product is much like buying oats...
You want nice clean oats , it comes at a higher price than say oats thats been through the horse!
All things are made to a price...the quality is defined by the price.
This is not to say that some companies out there do put a lot of R&D into their products.
Anyone here familiar with the DFMEA processes in Engineering? Its a lot cheaper to design failure out of a product that release a ****** product on the market and try to fix the issues next time round.

 

[Danglerb]

Buying a quality product is much like buying oats...
You want nice clean oats , it comes at a higher price than say oats thats been through the horse!
All things are made to a price...the quality is defined by the price.
This is not to say that some companies out there do put a lot of R&D into their products.
Anyone here familiar with the DFMEA processes in Engineering? Its a lot cheaper to design failure out of a product that release a ****** product on the market and try to fix the issues next time round.

Not the oats thing aaaaaaaaah thump.

The price of oats is almost entirely based on the distribution model and packaging. The premium steel cut oats I buy in bulk are cheaper than the rat turd mix sold in most grocery stores.

 

[dhill001]

Just found this forum and read this entire thread.
Your comments are insightful and intelligent (ie they agreed with mine) So I joined.

I believe the emergent system is at fault, not the individual players.
Here's my timeline for a product perhaps from several companies, much like the scenario put forward by 'honcho' somewhere upthread-
1) Idea is concocted and plans made to market it. There are hopes of profit.
2) Using the best practices of design and production it is built and offered for sale.
3) The market agrees that it is a good idea and buys in making the company money and a good name.
4) Here's where it goes bad. Other, or even the same, people agree that the idea is good, but they would like part of or more of the money. They take part of the market by producing a, possibly improved, definitely cheaper equivalent. To make it cheaper, there will be compromises which result in initially hidden degradation of performance in, for example, repairability or longevity. (There is another path here where the product actually does get cheaper AND better, but we're not taking that one. It is only temporary anyhow.)
5) The consumer cannot tell which is which (the flaws are initially hidden,) and so buys the cheaper one.
6) The product fails and the disgruntled consumer needs another.
7) Unfortunately, the original company, with the good name, has had to go downmarket to compete on price making many of the same compromises as the competitors they spawned. Several possible paths ensue, all bad, including going out of business, selling their name for what it is worth, becoming a me-too in the industry they pioneered.
8) At this point, either the consumer has no quality options or, having been burned, is unwilling to risk greater expense for product which may have the same failings as the cheaper option (eg the new Dysons or Maytags.) They continue to buy the cheaper product and the good product is forced from the market.

The only hope I see is education and an informed consumer.
It'll never happen. But at least I'm happy in my despair.

 

[johnnie5]

Not sure I would call most of the crappy consumer goods breaking a planned event....more a result of "low cost at any cost" mentality.

Major appliances, like Fridge, freezers and dishwashers now last about 8 years instead of 20 or more.
:

all depends on what brand you buy

fortunatley a fridge costs less now than it did 20 years ago , and wages are well above what they were 20 years ago

 

[IndyGarage]

You know I just had an experience for this thread - not exactly planned obsolescence - but how dumb most buyers decisions are.

I've fixed a couple of older Lexus cars over the winter. I have now three nearly identical cars for sale.

#1. is utterly reliable, but has higher mileage and is a couple years older and the seats are very worn. It's priced cheap - less than half the other two.

#2. is very, very good driving, very smooth and I know everything works right, but it has a few dings in the body and the interior shows some wear. It's priced in the middle.

#3.Doesn't drive as good and I know mechanically isn't as good as the others, but the body and interior are nearly perfect. I have it priced the highest.

In terms of value and my guess at reliability they would be ordered 1, 2, 3. In terms of looks, they are 3, 2, 1.

So how do customers see it? When I show them all three, they almost universally go straight to #3 and when they get to it, they won't even look at or drive #1.

If I show them #1 without the other two, they generally like it.

I tell them exactly what I as a knowledgeable person on the cars, think - and I tell them truthfully and I can tell they think I'm pulling one over on them.

People go for slick looks over substance every single time...