"planned obsolescence" is an awfully bad term for what it's talking about.
it makes it seem like there is a shadow conspiration bent on making consumer goods worse and not last as long, but there isn't. consumer goods are worse and don't last as long, but it's not because of an evil plot by companies, it's a systemic problem where things have to be cheaper to produce both because the parts and the labor have gotten more expensive so you have to compensate for that somehow, and also because consumers want cheaper Things because salaries have not gone up at the same rate as prices, and so to make things cheaper you cut costs and quality. things are made faster by people who are less qualified and have less time to work on them, from worse materials, and thus breaks more quickly and gives you a worse experience. or it's much more expensive. or both!
anyway yeah. systemic obsolescence sounds like a better name
I've been struggling to find words to describe these patterns of behavior in capitalist industry that don't sound like I'm describing corporate executives getting together in a room to cackle about how they're deliberately making bad products and robbing people blind, like villains from an '80s cartoon—our current culture is the way it is partly because of heedless reaction to such flimsy media portrayal of corporate criminality.
how do you concisely explain that corporate management has the sort of value system that leads inevitable towards optimizing for the wrong things?
~Chara
