If extra durability/lifespan (beyond the ~15 years that things already last) were possible with a small increase in cost, why wouldn’t manufacturers compete on this axis?
Because Moloch. If at least one major manufacturer add extra lifespan, that forces the others to compete. But the real profit-maximizing move for major manufacturers as a whole is to conspire into selling short-lived stoves.
As for examples, one of my favorites is this (Samsung printers programmed to stop working after a fixed number of prints). The Wikipedia page linked in my first comment contains other examples.
Because Moloch. If at least one major manufacturer add extra lifespan, that forces the others to compete. But the real profit-maximizing move for major manufacturers as a whole is to conspire into selling short-lived stoves.
Why would Moloch (the metaphorical God for “coordination problems are hard”) be the appropriate metaphor for conspiracy?
Right, “conspire” was the wrong word (as others have noted, information asymmetry is enough, and I don’t think that manufacturers literally gather in smoke-filled rooms to adjust the lifespan of their products). But I still think Moloch to be a valid metaphor for a situation where:
customers are forced to buy short-lived products
manufacturers could unilaterally prolong the lifespan of their products at a small cost (or even a small gain), but they choose not to because they want to sell more now
long-lived products could be sold at higher prices
I’m not even sure that it’s such a competitive move for a company to make. Sure, you might get to sell more at the start, but then everyone has their long-lasting products and there’s no demand, so you too are stuck. It’s a viable option only if you never supply enough to satisfy demand (say, you’re a small business that constantly gets new customers, just not many), otherwise it’s a bad long term strategy.
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.
Because Moloch. If at least one major manufacturer add extra lifespan, that forces the others to compete. But the real profit-maximizing move for major manufacturers as a whole is to conspire into selling short-lived stoves.
As for examples, one of my favorites is this (Samsung printers programmed to stop working after a fixed number of prints). The Wikipedia page linked in my first comment contains other examples.
Why would Moloch (the metaphorical God for “coordination problems are hard”) be the appropriate metaphor for conspiracy?
Right, “conspire” was the wrong word (as others have noted, information asymmetry is enough, and I don’t think that manufacturers literally gather in smoke-filled rooms to adjust the lifespan of their products). But I still think Moloch to be a valid metaphor for a situation where:
customers are forced to buy short-lived products
manufacturers could unilaterally prolong the lifespan of their products at a small cost (or even a small gain), but they choose not to because they want to sell more now
long-lived products could be sold at higher prices
I’m not even sure that it’s such a competitive move for a company to make. Sure, you might get to sell more at the start, but then everyone has their long-lasting products and there’s no demand, so you too are stuck. It’s a viable option only if you never supply enough to satisfy demand (say, you’re a small business that constantly gets new customers, just not many), otherwise it’s a bad long term strategy.
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.