Planned obsolescence

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Overview

Planned obsolescence is a form of malicious product design that intentionally shortens the lifespan of a product, often in such a way that it fails soon after the legally mandated warranty period. In recent years, software and firmware updates have increasingly been used to augment planned obsolescence, for example by requiring replacement components to be validated by a whitelist.

Famous Planned Obsolescence Cases

Cases

Year	Company	Product	Details
2017	Apple	iPhones	Apple admitted it had released software updates that could slow down older iPhone models when their batteries degraded. This was allegedly done to prevent unexpected shutdowns caused by aging batteries. This resulted in 3 settlements totaling over USD $600M
2018	Samsung	Galaxy Note 4	Italy’s antitrust body fined Samsung €5 million regarding software updates that allegedly slowed down certain Galaxy phones.
2016	HP	Printer	HP released firmware updates for "Dynamic Security", causing printers to show error messages or stop working if a non-HP-branded cartridge was installed. Multiple settlements were reached totaling over USD $5M between 2016 and 2020.

See Also

• IPhone planned obsolescence incidences
  

References

1. REDIRECT Self-destructive design