I don’t think any conspiracy is necessary, just information asymmetry. For example, suppose modern stoves are controlled by microchips, and microchips can be programmed to self destruct after X hours of use. The manufacturer can choose any value of X, and the consumer has no way to determine the value of X. Since every broken stove represents a new potential customer, (and especially when the largest “competitor” is stoves that are already installed and the user is happy with rather than new competing products,) each manufacturer has an incentive to choose the smallest value of X that the consumer will tolerate without resorting to extreme measures (e.g. living without a stove, or politically banning self-destructing chips). The consumer cannot “vote with their wallet” since each manufacturer faces the same incentive and will arrive at a similar value of X. Manufacturers also have an incentive to spread memes which encourage people to accept even smaller values of X, such as this very post.
Even if conspiracies are necessary (though I agree with clone of saturn that they probably aren’t) and even if the conspiracy can’t survive, it can usually survive for some amount of time and during this time many people become a victim. Couple this with the fact that there could be many conspiracies across many different products.
So, if you accept that these conspiracies exist, and my points above are true, it doesn’t seem too crazy to think that the average consumers house is full of products with planned obsolescence.
How does the conspiracy survive when each individual member has a motivation to defect? (Not saying it can’t, I just don’t understand the dynamics.)
I don’t think any conspiracy is necessary, just information asymmetry. For example, suppose modern stoves are controlled by microchips, and microchips can be programmed to self destruct after X hours of use. The manufacturer can choose any value of X, and the consumer has no way to determine the value of X. Since every broken stove represents a new potential customer, (and especially when the largest “competitor” is stoves that are already installed and the user is happy with rather than new competing products,) each manufacturer has an incentive to choose the smallest value of X that the consumer will tolerate without resorting to extreme measures (e.g. living without a stove, or politically banning self-destructing chips). The consumer cannot “vote with their wallet” since each manufacturer faces the same incentive and will arrive at a similar value of X. Manufacturers also have an incentive to spread memes which encourage people to accept even smaller values of X, such as this very post.
Even if conspiracies are necessary (though I agree with clone of saturn that they probably aren’t) and even if the conspiracy can’t survive, it can usually survive for some amount of time and during this time many people become a victim. Couple this with the fact that there could be many conspiracies across many different products.
So, if you accept that these conspiracies exist, and my points above are true, it doesn’t seem too crazy to think that the average consumers house is full of products with planned obsolescence.