8.5 million people watch you, and you planted a seed today in their mind about right to repair. Thank you.

A GM engineer once told me, "it's easy to make a car last forever, getting one to break down in 7 years is the trick"

I work for an unnamed software company X. When a new extremely fast solution was found to one of the algorithms, sold to customers, management decided to put sleep() function in some places to throttle the perofmance, so it matches the old algorithm. They said: "we will remove some throttles each quarter release and charge for the speedup we're doing".

A JD tractor my grandfather owned back in the 40’s is to this day running strong. It’s a beast that has outlasted three tractors I have bought since the late 90’s.

When I was a young boy and my Grandfather complained "They keep making this junk cheaper so you have to keep buying it"... he must have said that a hundred times to me over the years... turns out Grandpa knew what the hell he was talking about.

As an electrical engineer, I can assure you... We are literally educated in school about how to design for the desired failure timeframe. It seems criminal

We bought our house in 1999, and it came with an old brown electric stove, built by American Motors Corporation sometime in the 1970's or so. It has outlasted all the other appliances we bought when we moved in.

My parents bought a house in 1963 that was built in 1928 from the original owners. The front entrance had an unusually shaped light bulb. It must have been the original bulb from when the home was built. It was only turned on occasionally. When my Mom sold the house, we unscrewed that bulb and it’s installed in a closet at my sister’s home. It still works. It’s not continuously on of course. But that makes it even more special because turning it on and off weakens the tungsten more than keeping it on! I think the tungsten filament must be quite strong and thick. Yep, they don’t make things like they used to sure applies to this light bulb. 💡

The thing I hate most about planned obsolescence is that it assumes we have endless resources. It's terrible for our planet.

>makes a bulb that lasts forever >sell it to everyone in the world >no one needs any bulb anymore >leaves

I went full LED early about 10 years ago, and as you said, didn't expect to ever have to change them. But I have had to change some bulbs out twice already. And some of these were name brands (Philips, CREE), and other cheap brands performed about equally well. I suspect there's some planned obsolescence in LED bulbs, too. Regardless, their low power consumption and cooler temps make them great, but I wish they lasted longer.

My grandparents have a lightbulb in a sealed housing in their shower. They bought the house in 1965 and it was bult in 1946. They have never changed the bulb and it still works. Use it every time they use the shower.

My aunt moved into her family home in 1919 at age 14 and had a 1913 Edison light bulb on her second story stair well. She lived in the house untill her death in 2002. She replaced that bulb a year before her death and she gave it to me and I have kept it right up to writing this comment and the other day plugged it in to see if it's still works. Bright as ever! Going on 108 years old.

My 93yr old great Aunt just told me that her first refrigerator from late 1960's finally stopped working.

When i was a young boy my grandfather said to me " Son you'll grow up, grow old and die"...he was a very wise man. Miss you gramps.

As a service technician I can agree with planned obsolescence. Late 1990s and early 2000s vehicles were built with durability in mind where as vehicles from 2005 on up seem to have lesser quality components in them. Iirc I believe I read somewhere that dealerships would expect the average consumer to trade in around 100k miles for a new vehicle.

The saddest example is that of school textbooks, each new edition has the most negligible changes in content.

My mum had an oven that lasted 30 years, fully functioning right till the end. Then when she got a replacement, the technician told her that the company who manufactured them went broke because their ovens very rarely broke down. It's sad that we've gone from one extreme of excellent durability and reliability to planned obsolescence.

it's called Capitalism

Planned obsolescence is quite depressing, but always good to keep in mind. Thanks a lot for this video ! 🙏

I studied Latin in high school, and there is a passage, in the Satyricon, in which Caesar is presented by a material that seems glass, as it is transparent, but when the artisan that presented it throws it on the ground and it does not break, instead he picks it up and works it back in the original shape, like it was plastic. In the story, Caesar asks the guy if someone else knows that secret, when he says no one does, Caesar has the man killed and the object destroyed in fear that gold would lose value. Guess the Man in the White Suit wasn’t the first story like this!

Imagine the trillions of tons of unnecessary garbage planned obsolescence has caused our planet, the poisoning of our rivers and air and soil... It's so backward and disgusting. 😞

Sorry I have so recently learned of your channel. This topic will continue to be of interest. Asked Subaru of America to help pay for a repair to a ten year old Crosstrek, I had purchased July,14,2023. Dealership said this oil leak was bad, and that it was leaking on to the catalytic converter, a potential to start a fire. They recommend contacting Subaru of America for help, since I had no resources after the purchase to pay the $2353.00 repair to fix the dangerous leak. Subaru of America basically said, "Cars ware out, sorry you bought a used Subaru." I will have to save up for this repair. Dealership I purchased it from was so kind to refund $500.00 toward this repair.

As my prof used to say "only an engineer can build a bridge that just barely holds up"

My parents recently got a new microwave and gave me their old one they got for their wedding - I'm 25 and warming up my leftovers in the same microwave my baby food was warmed in... pretty amazing. I would love if everything lasted forever. Planned obsolescence feels like such a waste of resources.

Somewhere, Louis Rossmann got an extra 20 minutes of sleep because of the release of this video.

I enjoyed your video. I used to believe a lot of things not the least of which is that products keep progressing both in technology and longevity. As a young man in the late seventies I began to doubt a lot of things not the least of which is that my very respected government told me a tale about Lee Harvey Oswald being a lone assassin. I noticed cars were not as durable in many ways and ever more difficult to actually repair. Same for appliances in the home. About light bulbs...I noticed the first iteration of CFL lightbulbs never lasted as claimed. Later, same with early LED bulbs. As for phones, I never had a replaceable battery model past the Samsung Galaxy 3 and as a result often dealt with battery issues making my mind up to replace before I wanted to actually do so. Now, at 64-years old I see that what you're video is about isn't conspiracy hearsay. It's part of the actual product specs we all buy. In my little corner of an industry, footwear retail, I've seen the continuous cheapening of products to allow higher GPMs because purchasers have to replace footwear quite often due to both decreased durability and fashion pressures. One segment that held on to durability a bit longer within footwear was the work segment of boots. Outside of small companies building niche boots all of the major makers "dumbed down" durability to a point it couldn't be missed. This continues. During the pandemic the longest lasting mass maker of American maker of US made work boots shut down their 2 plants in Carthage Missouri never to re-open those plants. It's probably not the maker you're thinking of and I won't mention names, but those boots lasted an average of five to seven years with one or two heel replacements and no full-sole replacement needed. And this is in the toughest environments. Small dealers around the country expressed horror, but because the latest corporate imagining of how to sell these products no longer wants to depend on independent small dealers it hardly made a ripple. After three years of not being able to get any of these boots to sell I found out they were going to reintroduce them (some with same look and stock numbers) as made in Cambodia models. I've yet to be able to get any of these to sell, but I know it won't be the same. The leather uppers will not be tanned to the same high standards. The heart of the boot, which is the sole. was made by the best US sole maker in NY ,the new ones, while retaining the look, will not be made of the same very tweaked PU raw material and exacting standards of the US made one. I predict these boots will last a third, at best, of the old ones which fits in with what your video reveals. And, the wholesale price is almost as much as the last ones this brand made in the Missouri plants insuring maximum gross profit margins unattainable, so the brand claims, if they continued to make the boots here. Footwear companies do not answer to their consumer and are ran by accountants. They answer to Wall Street and pure greed. I've been around long enough to remember when this wasn't the rule of the day. This makes me glad to be in the twilight of my career. Things are not being made better, smaller retailers are being kicked to the curb, the climate of both product and distribution has changed . I'm being marginalized before I can be wholly cancelled. I've made a decent life for my family as the third generation of a shoe business over one-hundred years old. But, you will see less and less of my kind every year...and, you'll pay more for footwear that lasts less and less. How is this good?

I have one of those lightbulbs, I've had it since I was about 10 years old...my grandfather gave it to me and told me it would never fail. That was more than 40 years ago. It was old when he acquired it.

"Good products are bad for the economy" is something I never thought I would hear.

engineer: we made it last up to 25.000 hours business person: great now make it last 1.000 hours engineers: ಠ_ಠ

The fact that this video opened up with a Harbor Freight ad is the most beautiful irony available on the planet

I got training on cell phone/laptop/flat tv repair. I have an eye to see parts designed to fail. It's an excellent business to get into. People will literally give you broken items before they go buy new 1's.

On the other hand, UKposts is filled with lots of unplanned obsolescence

Planned obsolence has also a huge environmental impact. It is not sustainable to buy every year a new phone or a new car. Therefore I think that companies have a huge responsibility not to use planned obsolence but to offer more repair and upgrade services to customers.

They did it to LED's too, through the circuitry inside the bulb.

Yes, I definitely remember this from economic class back in high school...planned obsolescence. Thus, I take apart all my electronics if something was wrong and my engineering background helps.

As an industrial designer I can honestly say that’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the industry. One always wants to design a product with the best characteristics.

You completely glossed over the biggest problem with this obsolescence: resources. The planet isn't infinite. If we keep producing cheap produces and replace them every two year we will run out of material at some point. Nevermind the amount of single-use plastic in the oceans.

I believe this video is 100% accurate. In my life I have had the experience to speak to former employees from different manufacturers. They all reported that if the company wanted to make their products last 20 times longer, they could do so with a very small increase in cost relative to the type of product. Another example in my life is computer operating systems. Windows wanted to update to Windows 10 but I passed on it because I loved my current laptop, which ran perfect, and I hated Windows 10. The very first update AFTER the offer expired killed my laptop. Searching online at Windows, Windows chat rooms and talking to computer repair companies, they all reported to me that a massive number of people all had the same thing happen to them. I can't tell you that it was in fact on purpose, but what do you think? Forgive my typos and grammatical errors.

Thank you for bringing this to peoples attention. The poor are a huge victim of this greed.

The worse part is when they apply the same mindset to health care and pharmaceuticals.

it took me a while to realize that this video is LITERALLY EXPLAINING WHY WE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS

We're no longer wild animals where every day is a fight to survive, but we sure have made a great attempt at making it as depressing and sinister a reality as possible

Planned obsolescence is quite depressing, but always good to keep in mind. Thanks a lot for this video !

Planned obsolescence joke A woman wrote to a refrigerator manufacturer, thanking them for a fridge that had lasted twenty years without fail. The company offered to send one of their design engineers to inspect it and the lady agreed. When he got there, she asked, "you want to make sure all your products are made to this higher standard?" He said, "No! They want me to make sure we never make one that lasts this long ever again, or else no one would ever need buy a new one!" That was an old joke when I heard it forty years ago!

The phrase “They don’t make’m like they used to” exists for a reason.

We mostly have bayonet fittings on our light fixtures in the UK, we do use screw bulbs but they're not the standard.

I love history and origins, pretty much the beginning of things and why. I knew nothing about your channel except that the title, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, was clever. Actual Conspiracies didn't sway me, not because I don't believe in conspiracies but I didn't know if it were true or just the rantings of a nutter. I clicked and I'm glad I did. I also subscribed because you backed up all your arguments with real facts. Good video.

Shout out to Louis Rossmann and his efforts towards right to repair.

“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” -Actual quote from Goldman Sachs

Great video! A great follow up would be companies who have grown beyond integrated obsolescence and rent out products as services (like the carpet tile company Interface). The old way of designing products for landfill needs to be over. Can we get some examples of circular economy businesses? Congratulations on your excellent work on this channel!

This has been popping up in my recommended for 2 years and they finally got me. I guess i have to watch it now

Slightly different than obsolescence, but when I was 13 or so, my neighbor (who lived about a mile away since I grew up on a farm) hired me to help him cut and load some old, dead oak trees to sell the wood. For those who don't know, wood is usually sold by the cord when dealing with large sales, which is a measure of volume (around 1,000 gallons, I think). So I started loading this wood into a trailer, and on the second day I was helping him, he stopped me and told me that I was loading it too well. I was being too efficient, packing the wood into the trailer too tightly and thus reducing his profit from the sale of the wood, since there was more wood per cord. He made me stop and instead load it loosely and less efficiently. A few days after that, I came up with a way to use his tractor to load the wood faster than either of us could by hand, and he fired me once he realized how well it worked. Really taught me a lot about the world.

Imagine the waste of resources, human labor and damage to the environment, that the planned obsolescence have costed the world... For all the products that this tactics have been used combined, we're probably talking about many millions of human lives wasted to sustain this system, let alone the resources and the environment...

This is probably tne best video I've seen ever since UKposts was created.

this is one of my favorite videos of all time. not one of my favorite veritasium videos but one of my favorite videos ever.

Not naming their conspiracy the "Illuminati" seems like a missed opportunity.

When I first started learning/working as a mechanic I asked my boss, after getting very frustrated trying to remove rusted brake lines, why the car manufacturers wouldn't just use metals that were stronger and wouldn't rust and corrode so easily. He goes " do you like having a job?" And even knowing he had a point, it still really annoyed me that things are basically designed to fail. especially when you consider how ridiculously expensive cars are nowadays. If I'm spending 30, 40 or 50 grand on something.....it should damn well be built to last me the rest of my life.

Pretty knowledgeable and significant video it is! Thank you Veritasium 💜❤️

Phoebus Cartel has to be like the coolest name

The person who thought the never-ending lightbulb would put them out of business obviously didn’t have children who break things...

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” ― Oscar Wilde

Fantastic video. Thanks. I wish you spent some time on the environmental and sustainability impacts of planned obsolescence.

I have 9 LED bulbs on my kitchen ceiling that I replaced with LED when I moved in few years ago. Roughly every 2-3 years (according to amazon order date), they all die almost simultaniously (or get really dimmed) one after the other and have to replace them all. On the box they're rated for 1500 On-Off cycles.... on-off ~2 times a day, ~700 cycles per year... If there's no counter within the bulb, that's pretty impressive to be that accurate !

It is actually outrageous that planned obsolescence isn't discussed more. It is definitely one of the main issues we need to solve in order to save our planet.

At recording studio where I worked in my 30s, the chief engineer who was in his 60s told me that when he was a kid, his mother told him never throw away a burned out light bulb. When asked why, he said his mother told him they could take it back to Edison and get a replacement one for free. They were never supposed to burn out and a burned out light bulb was considered defective.

I've had the incandescent light bulbs last so much longer than the LED bulbs. I've lived in my current home almost 2 years now, and I'm still using light bulbs I had 2 homes ago in the early 2010s!

Talking about trying to get people to buy newer cars as often as possible: Back in 2012, I bought a used 2005 Honda CR-V and I am still driving it today at about 208,000 miles and 18 years old and I intend to keep on driving it until it becomes uneconomical to repair. I feel absolutely no pressure to have the latest and greatest!

The worst part of planned obsolescence is that it affects the environment negatively ....waste produced by us would be far less if it wasn't for this stupid money making strategy

people thought: "in a hundred years, we'll have flying cars." what really happens in a hundred years is, "we'll focus on making tires break in a safe way."

Hands down one of the most informative videos ever! Thank you

TBH several years after this video I feel like it’s always worth coming back to. We as a society need to figure out a way to design and build things which not only last for as long as possible, but also to make companies who dedicate themselves to making these products sustainable. I think one of the biggest things is stopping the requirement of the pursuit of infinite growth by shareholders.

All of this neglects one of the worst parts of planned obsolescence: the overwhelming waste. We don’t have infinite resources, and even when we recycle the old models and items, we still produce emissions and non-recyclable components. Planned obsolescence only further exaggerates resource depletion and pollution

Planned obsolescence is one of the most infuriating things in modern day products.

I love the hints of hopefullness in the video! Reminds us that things can and are getting better.

15:00, my man literally called it!

"There was a secret meeting between the world's top executives from the world's leading lightbulb companies" Never thought I'd hear that sentence is my life.

Lets not talk about how most of these LED bulb are overclocked on purpose to die when they physically should last forever

Same thing with glass. In the GDR a basicly unbreakble glass was invented (with the unfortunate name chemical enforced glass) but production was discontinued in the 90s.

He summoned a fandom with that one 😂

It seems like planned obsolescence also snuffs out innovation. Like, we could be reaching the end of the road on certain technologies and ask "ok, what's next?" But instead we're keeping ourselves in limbo.

I studied chemistry to change the world and make it better, safer, more efficient. Now I realise I can’t change economic dynamics

This change from Ford's original vision was really catastrophic in retrospect. The general idea that we all deserve to have (be ?) unique things is everywhere and dictates how we consume. Good video, as very often. One thing that would have been worth mentioning about LED: while they are indeed a great technological improvement a) they are far more complex than incandescent lights, and did change an electrical device to an electronical one, that requires more material and is harder to recycle and b) yes, we seldom have to change our light bulbs, but we tend to use waaaaay more of them. Smart, modular LED panels, LED strips, small LEDs in toys, on the back of TVs, etc... the rebound effect strikes again.

I’m study accounting and I see these businesses differently now 😭😭😭

"A secret meeting of top executives..." Nothing good ever comes out of secret meetings of top executives of any industry.

this explains the common phrase, "they don't make 'em like they used to."

Formally electronics engineer here, worked on redox probes in pools treatment industry and I tell you we designed those probes to last just as much before replacement (few months). The CEO explicitly told me it was to make profit.

Great video, but it didn't even touch on the planned obsolescence of printers. Microsoft (and Apple) only have to bring out a new OS and because printer manufacturers have no gain in updating their drivers, you end up having to throw out a perfectly good printer. Same goes for other peripherals, but to a lesser extent.

How are we meant to reduce waste and move forward if so many companies models are literally, "let's make this stuff turn into garbage as quick as possible"

"Quality over quantity, just make sure there's not too much quality, else there will be no quantity."

Thank you Veritasium to remind us we don't have to replace a monitor's pixel every 1000 hours...

Du Pont played the same move with refrigerant patents expiring. R-12, then R-22, and now R410a has issues.

V: "Known as planned obsolescence" Me: "Sounds like Apple" V: "Let's talk about Apple now".

In my engineering college, I had some professors who told the story of the old Bridgeport milling machines. They were built so sturdy and reliable that many still work perfectly today almost 80 years later. The machine never broke down or needed to be replaced, so the company started running out of paying customers. The intended takeaway from this story was to emphasize supposed importance of planned obsolescence, but that conclusion always bothered me. I saw a triumph of engineering and yet it was framed as a failure because someone couldn't make more money off of it.

The appeal of paying less but more often, as well as pushing new trends in styles, is how this has been so accepted by most people

happens all the time, always hear about all these things that were ment to last forever but now things barley last 3 days

"Planned obsolescence" is *not* good for everyone. It's extremely unsustainable consumptionism.

I've had many an LED light bulb become a strobe light after 2 to 3 years... so about them lasting forever... I don't think so. Now that said, they are far more energy efficient and currently do tend to last longer than most old incandescent or florescent light bulbs.

Design obsolescence is theft. We have all have suffered from this crime. On a bright note, I still drive a Dodge Ram I bought new in 2008. 200K miles and 16 years.

I'm so glad you included the Right to Repair discussion.