Meaning of planned obsolescence | Babel Free

Definitions

A policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period.

uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“An equally important advantage of a system of planned obsolescence would be its function in providing a new reservoir from which to draw⟳ income for the operation of the Government.”

“And Brooks Stevens, a leading industrial designer, explained obsolescence planning in these terms: “Our whole economy is based on planned obsolescence, and everybody who can read⟳ without moving his lips should know⟳ it by now. We make⟳ good products, we induce people to buy⟳ them, and then next year we deliberately introduce⟳ something that will make⟳ those products old-fashioned, out of date⟳, obsolete.[…]””

“To the general public planned obsolescence first came to notoriety through the highly popular writings of Vance Packard (1963), who slammed Stevens in his bestselling book The Waste⟳ Makers.”

CEFR level