planned obsolescence

English

Etymology

Coined by Bernard London in 1932 and popularized in the 1960 book The Waste Makers by Vance Packard.

Noun

planned obsolescence (uncountable)

  1. 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.
    • 1932, Bernard London, “Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence”, in The New Prosperity, published 1933, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1960, Vance Packard, quoting Brooks Stevens, The Waste Makers, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 46:
      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people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will make those products old-fashioned, out of date, obsolete. […] ”
    • 2010, Tim Cooper, Longer Lasting Products, Gower Publishing, →ISBN, page 77:
      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.

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