Planned obsolescence: The art of selling you crap
Planned obsolescence, the tidy art of selling people the same product more than once. Why sell someone a product that lasts when you can sell them the same product repeatedly? It started in the 1920s, when a group of German industrialists, presumably while twirling their moustaches, formed the Phoebus cartel and decided light bulbs were too reliable. From then on, bulbs would dutifully expire after 1,000 hours, like clockwork. And thus, the great tradition of engineering things to fail was born. ...