Built in obsolescence and the consumer society conspiracy

If you are anything like me you will struggle to come to terms with a discrepancy that is very easy to overlook in our fast paced modern world. I remember visiting my grandparents and not being in the least bit surprised that Grandpa cut the grass with a thirty year old lawnmower, and Grandma used a spin dryer that was almost as old as she was, and a vacuum cleaner that was even older. Compare that with the mechanical and electrical devices that we buy today. They come with a one year guarantee sure, but how often do the last much more than that? Now, there is an argument that the pace of technological development is faster than production and design can keep pace with but is it the case that modern appliances and machinery are build to such fine tolerances to enhance performance that they simply can not last in the same way that they used to? One of the classic examples is in light bulbs. It is perfectly possible to create a lightbulb that lasts for decades if not a hundred years plus by using the strongest materials, but modern filament lightbulbs typically last for less than ten months rather than ten years. Clearly part of the issue is cost, and in the drive to reduce the cost of goods the cheapest rather than the best materials are used. But is this the full story?

The history of marketing of consumer electronics and domestic machinery is one of pushing a specific product in such a way as to create a tacit understanding that the product will be superseded by the next developmental step within six to twelve months thereby setting up an expectation of replacing the existing model almost as soon as it is purchased. As a marketing strategy this seems to be flawed if presented to an intelligent, rational audience yet it also seems to work. This suggests that the audience may not be rational or necessarily thinking intelligently, so how might this be achieved? It is generally accepted that the research into subliminal messaging in advertising found that whilst it exhibited possible benefits for advertisers and their clients, the complexity of the projects, and the variability of the response was such that it was less valuable from a cost/benefit analysis viewpoint. That having been established, there is still the possibility that although subliminal messaging may not be valid for individual product campaigns, it may be useful for establishing a mindset in consumers to prepare them for accepting lower quality, less resilient products and to replace them more regularly than we might otherwise accept.

Let's consider an group of advertising companies meeting in the 1960's to discuss the recent work by psychologists in embedding hidden messages in films and radio broadcasts and even in print media. Wouldn't they come to the conclusion that competing messages would simple overwhelm the target audience and act against each other in terms of effectiveness adding a level of randomness that would be unacceptable. Wouldn't they rather sit down and thrash out a plan that created a more general demand, say for large, gasoline hungry cars, or larger and larger TV screens and then use standard marketing techniques to steer that demand in a variety of directions? Of course, such collusion would never happen as it would be in breach of competition laws in most developed countries, and no marketing company would countenance such unethical practice, would they? Of course not!