re: Should planned obselence be illegal?

No, most markets are free enough and the cost of enforcement high enough that the current structure is better than something in which planned obsolescence is verboten.

If you think it’s a problem in tech and specifically mobile devices, then the action to pursue is anti-trust, not anti-obsolescence. Well functioning markets (off the top of my head, industrials, retail, O&G equipment, on and on and on) tend to kill companies that play that game.

Also, some planned obsolescence tends to quicken innovation cycles.

ETA: Even given all that, the government would have a tough time proving Apple, as an example, “planned” obsolescence. They’d probably have a pretty convincing argument that innovation (OS updates and other software) making a previous product slower or obsolete isn’t illegal even under anti-obsolescence guidance. Autonomous vehicles and their OS’s are going to run into the same issues here in a few years.

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Should planned obselence (sic) be illegal?

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Why do you crave having the government involved? Is the government your only solution to every problem?

Why can't consumers decide for themselves if they want to buy the products of a company if that company purposely makes products with a limited life?

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An example would be Apple pushing software updates to your iPhone to slow it down

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Do you know the background why Apple did that?

It was because some older model iPhone batteries were beginning to not hold a charge as long simply due to the properties of re-chargeable batteries.

Rather than making its customers with those phones buy new expensive batteries, iPhone issued a free update which would conserve battery life. But the trade off was some of those older iPhones' functions were slowed down slightly.

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Keep in mind we do not live in a true free market where these forces could be naturally regulated by competion in many sectors of the economy. 

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You could stop buying apple products

Everyone is free to turn off updates and ride with the phone as it came from the factory. Do we expect years old hardware to run the newest software and apps as though they were released with the iPhone?

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Everyone is free to turn off updates and ride with the phone as it came from the factory.

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Lol see how that works out for your identity protection

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Interestingly enough, it is already illegal in France. They used the law, which I think is relatively new, to investigate Apple after they were found to be throttling phones with old batteries.

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Good. Frick apple for doing that. A company should not be allowed to destroy something I own.

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Good. Frick apple for doing that. A company should not be allowed to destroy something I own

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but do you really own it?

Or are you paying for the privilege of using it?

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There is an illusion of choice.

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here is an illusion of choice. Lots of Coke and Pepsi but little else situations where the 2 or 3 dominant forces collude to supress wages, benefits, and product quality

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I don’t think you understand how to define markets very well.

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realize this board pretty much always takes the side of the business and eschews almost all forms of consumer or worker protections 

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obsolescence

With many products, the engineers know the breaking point can only be exceeded at great expense in weight or materials or construction.
Obsolescence is not possible to avoid in cases of fine crafted objects. They wear out too.