Chances of having watched the Oscar-nominated 1951 film The Man In The White Suit are slim. Alec Guinness plays a scientist who kicks the delicate balance of the market by coming up with a fabric that will stay clean and last forever. But the economy of obsolescence kicks in when people realise that the fabric doesn’t need washing or dying. Hilarious as it may appear but the underlying theme was a serious one that continues to be at the heart of many devices we buy.

To understand planned obsolescence or the idea of limiting the life of a device, we need to take a look at the Centennial Light, the world’s longest-lasting light bulb, which has been on since 1901 at 4550 East Avenue, Livermore, California. That would be 121 years. Something unimaginable unless you know about the Phoebus Cartel named after Phoebus, the Greek God of light. It was manufactured by hand and you could be wondering how to get one such bulb. You can’t.

Thomas Edison began making improvements in the carbon filament lamp immediately after it was first lighted in October 1879, while competitors joined the race. Carbon filaments made of cotton thread was replaced by carbonised paper, bamboo and then tungsten, which posed some difficulty to scientists. The point is lifespan of bulbs increased and by the 1920s it was in the 2,000-plus-hour zone. And then lifetimes started dipping. What happened? Phoebus cartel.

Bulb to smartphone battery

Every few months, smartphone companies are coming up with new shiny colours, labelling them the shade of the season

The first meeting of the cartel took place in Geneva on Christmas Eve in 1924 with attendees calling themselves the “Convention for the Development and Progress of the International Incandescent Electric Lamp Industry.” All the big players were there. Officially, the cartel was working towards improving technology around bulbs, like adopting the now-standard E24 bulb socket. It also worked towards bringing down the lifespan of bulbs with a working group known as the “1,000 Hours Life Committee”, tasked to live up to its name. The story was uncovered by historian Markus Krajewski. And lifespan did decrease to around 1,200 hours.

What brought the cartel down was the Second World War but the idea remained alive in consumer economy. For example, you could be having a tablet or phone that seems to appear nimble for two-three years and then a certain degree of sluggishness takes over. It’s with almost every smartphone and tablet. If you are paying a premium, you may end up clinging on to a device a few extra years. Sooner or later, the battery will give in or the screen will act up. You must be thinking why not change the battery or the screen? Because it’s almost impossible to do so without paying a considerable amount of money. We witnessed the ‘batterygate’ episode between 2017 and 2020 but things haven’t changed much.

Keep the colours rolling

There is another side to the story — dynamic obsolescence, which has been playing out for decades without us even realising it. First, a story. When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, he wanted it to be a sturdy car. In 1922 he said: “We want the man who buys one of our products never to have to buy another. We never make an improvement that renders any previous model obsolete. The parts of a specific model are not only interchangeable with all other cars of that model, but they are interchangeable with similar parts on all the cars that we have turned out. You can take a car of 10 years ago and, buying today’s parts, make it with very little expense into a car of today. Having these objectives the costs always come down under pressure. And since we have the firm policy of steady price reduction, there is always pressure.”

But around this time, 55 per cent of American families had cars. How do you increase sales? Enter DuPont, the chemical and paint company, which by 1921 had quite a lot of say in the matters of General Motors. Why not play around with colours? In 1924, GM released its first cars in different colours and then each year, encouraging customers to upgrade.

Drawing a positive picture is Tesla, the electric automobile manufacturer. It’s always coming up with better ways to repurpose battery

Harley Earl, GM’s head of design and you may even look at him as a precursor to Steve Jobs, spoke about dynamic obsolescence in 1955: “Our big job is to hasten obsolescence. In 1934 the average car ownership span was five years, now it is two years. When it is one year, we will have a perfect score.”

Sounds familiar? Every few months, smartphone companies are coming up with new shiny colours, labelling them the shade of the season. They are also introducing new smartwatch straps, new colours on wireless earbuds. Perhaps the technological increment isn’t a lot but we end up buying a new device anyway.

Also consider the ever-growing credit card economy which has for decades made it easy for people to spend money that isn’t at our disposal. Everyone can buy a product on credit.

But people like Harley Earl also looked at the fashion industry to put marketing ploys to test. The fashion industry creates styles that usually last one season (slightly more if you consider styles off the catwalk coming to clothes in the supermarket). New styles can’t be created every year, so those from decades ago are rehashed and brought back into circulation. Similarly, rounded displays on smartphones give way to flat ones and then back to the older style.

What is all of this leading to? Right to repair, which is a movement around the world. Companies overlook that we don’t have endless resources to spare. To make us buy electronic products, new colours are being brought in, old styles are being circulated and what not. Yet, the right to replace a battery or the display or increase storage… all of that is being ignored. To get a deeper understanding of the topic, visit the YouTube channel Veritasium.

There’s hope. Look at Tesla, the electric automobile manufacturer. It’s always coming up with better ways to repurpose battery or send auto-downloads and upgrades to cars so they don’t miss out on new features. Tesla has some future-proofing and other device manufacturers should also allow the same, at least to some degree.

It’s time to take inspiration from Livermore fire fighters who appreciate lifespan more than others. Nobody is asking a phone manufacturer to make devices last for 10 years but at least five-six years is needed. The same goes for TVs, toys, smart watches, ear buds, printers… we could go on forever....