I spotted this post on Instagram yesterday and was surprised that upgrading from an iPhone 11 to an 18 (17 in my case) was considered such a feat. My husband bought me my iPhone 17 two months ago, and if he hadn’t I probably would have used my 11 until 2027 when Apple no longer supported it. The battery life was reduced and the back of it was cracked, but it was fully functional. My husband will be using it when we travel to South Africa later this year.
I used to upgrade my phones more often, because each new iteration was leaps and bounds ahead of the previous one. That is no longer the case if you are an average user. For the features I use, a more basic phone with a longer lifespan would be ideal. I use the camera a lot but just about all phones have great cameras these days.
Built-in obsolescence is a curse of our modern society. My mother’s kettle, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner and all her saucepans and baking equipment were 18 years old when I inherited them. I used them for about twenty years after that, and some of them are still going within my family. Her toaster from the 1950s still makes the best toast I have ever tasted. My bonus mother’s milkshake maker is also from the 1950s. Her washing machine is also ancient but is way more reliable and robust than my washer/dryer that has blue tooth/Wifi connectivity and can be controlled remotely via an app. I want to stand on a scale and weigh myself, not have to download an app to see what I weigh.
Nowadays things are much cheaper but are not expected to last more than a couple of years. It is more expensive to repair them than to replace them. Our Dyson vacuum cleaner was considered too old to fit the new attachments after two years. They stopped making the filters for our Electrolux air purifier after 5 years, in expectation I guess that we would replace it even though it works perfectly. If our IKEA dishwasher stops working we will probably have to replace our entire IKEA kitchen (installed 2017) because they are no longer in production.
The fashion cycle has gone from new drops twice a year (spring/summer and autumn/winter) and a smaller cruise/resort collection (November-ish) to daily drops and micro-trends which burn out in weeks (thank you TikTok). The new EU Regulation – Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) – bans companies with over 250 employees from destroying unsold clothes, shoes, and textiles. Hopefully this will put a stop to overproduction. I hope a similar measure is formulated for companies forcing consumers to replace white goods or technology due to built-in obsolescence.
It’s true that in days gone by space was cheap and things were expensive but now space is expensive and things are cheap. I wish though, for the sake of our environment that we had a longer lifespan for the things we use. If they cost more to buy but last five times longer then it works out cheaper for everyone. It could also create a more robust second-hand market for appliances.