Products today break faster, glitch more often and feel much cheaper than what previous generations have used. Household appliances like staplers, phones and washing machines used to last for decades. Sturdier, more expensive ticket items like cars have also seen a major shift from quality to shoddy, starting from the manufacturing line. Is it consumer culture, planned obsolescence or companies cutting corners to keep prices low?
Consumer Culture
Consumer culture itself has taken a great shift since the 1920s, when ordinary people gained access to factory mass produced goods. Back then, people started moving beyond buying only what they needed for survival and began purchasing items for convenience and comfort. According to The MIT Press Reader, the shift between buying for subsistence versus unnecessary buying happened as new technologies, affordable household appliances and targeted marketing made “retail therapy” feel culturally expected.
With this shift, mass consumption also came into play. Products became cheaper, more widely available and easier to replace. Advertising, credit systems and the allure of the shiny new model encouraged people to upgrade before their current items lost their functionality.
In the modern era, this pattern is especially visible in technology, particularly smartphones. While phones today are more powerful than ever, they are designed in ways that require them to be replaced more quickly. Batteries degrade quickly, screens crack easily and many devices are too expensive to repair.
Bocconi University’s research identifies many forms of obsolescence in smartphones, such as the use of fragile materials, software updates that are incompatible to older phone types and marketing that targets the consumers’ need for the latest, greatest technology.
Because of these facts, most people replace their phones every two to three years. Even if a phone isn’t fully broken, as in it can’t call or connect to the internet, consumers feel pressured to buy the next model.
“I feel like I need to buy a new phone every couple years because, after a while, my phones just start being slow and glitchy,” shared senior Jade Gallardo.
Our desire for the flashiest, fastest tech combined with the aggressive marketing strategies of companies has created a culture where phones are disposable. Consumer attitudes have, in turn, fueled the poor quality of goods, known as planned obsolescence.
Planned Obsolescence
Planned Obsolescence is a business strategy of producing lower quality goods, intentionally limiting a product’s lifespan in order to maximize profits.
Consumer demand for the fastest new gadgets has pushed companies to respond by designing things that look good but don’t last. Take cars, for example. Automotive teacher Victor Moyano, a well-seasoned automotive technician, says that car parts haven’t fully bounced back in quality since the COVID-era production slowdowns.
“All manufacturing across the board was shut down, along with shipping from other countries,” Moyano explained. Because of the lack of money to be made in manufacturing, many people switched professions to make ends meet during the COVID-19 shut downs. When factories reopened, they were filled with inexperienced replacements.
“It’s not uncommon at all to get a brand named part, that’s brand-new, that doesn’t work,” Moyano said. In his opinion, cars are just not built the same. The issue not only lies with the manufacturer, but with the consumers themselves.
“This is all, really, from the demand of the consumer. That’s what manufacturers do, they try to figure out what the consumer wants and give them that. We want planned obsolescence,” Moyano stated.
From what he sees in the shop, oftentimes the consumer doesn’t just want a working car. They want an aesthetically pleasing, modern, high tech car, as much as they want one that can make it from point A to point B. When given repair estimates, customers often decide it’s not worth fixing an older vehicle simply because it lacks modern comforts.
As Moyano put it, most people turn down repairs not because the car can’t be fixed, but because it “doesn’t have Apple CarPlay,” or has “windows that don’t work,” or “makes noise when they drive.” To an extent, car manufacturers are catering to the needs of the customer.
“Before, they were trying to build cars that give you twenty years,” he said. “They’re building cars nowadays, that after about ten, they’re supposed to just kind of go away.”
But this downward trend in quality isn’t across the board. Because of consumer demand, some products have actually gotten better. According to David Bourbois, an audio visual production teacher, cameras have drastically improved over the thirty years he’s been involved with photography.
“Most of the major manufacturers have moved to mirrorless cameras. They actually last a very long time,” Bourbois shared.
He says cameras last longer because there are fewer moving parts, smaller more efficient pieces and better quality parts. But it seems like cameras are the exception, not the rule.
Cutting Corners
If there is one place where the decline in product quality is most outstandingly visible, it’s in household appliances. The results of poor machinery and the corner cutting of companies is seen by ordinary people in the laundry room.
Larry Bailey, Judson High School’s theater director, remembers a very different standard of quality when it came to household appliances. Growing up in the 1970s, his family owned a lime-green Maytag washer and dryer set that was bought brand new. According to Bailey, the pair ran for nearly thirty years with only minor repairs. For him, the longevity was an expectation, so when it came time to buy his own washer and dryer set, the stark difference in quality was evidently clear.
“I bought a brand new, right off the assembly line, washer and dryer. The washer went out in less than five years. Then the dryer went out,” Bailey shared.
Bourbois even relates, “I had a Maytag washing machine and that thing lasted for years. One time I had a technician come to repair it and he said, ‘Oh, hold on to this one. They don’t make them like this anymore.’”
While Moyano is not a household appliance mechanic, he understands the technical side of parts and the parallels in appliances. He says that because the automotive industry is suffering from bad parts, the appliance industry is too.
“So when the components fail, you blame the brand you know. But the truth is, if you pull apart a Whirlpool, or a Maytag, or an LG, what’s inside tracks down to like one company,” he explains.
If manufacturers took responsibility for quality, they could improve the longevity by using better materials, more durable parts and designs that prioritized repairability over planned obsolescence. In summary, companies should stop cutting corners and address the quality and longevity issues of their products.
From cars to smartphones and household appliances, today’s consumer goods prioritize novelty and profit over durability. Products that used to last a decade now fail in a fraction of the time.
This issue affects more than just consumers’ wallets. The replaceability of all products contributes to the reinforcement of overconsumption culture. By having these attitudes, we enable companies to deliver lower-quality products, for a larger profit, worsening the already serious issue.
The next time you buy a necessity or a “want,” ask yourself whether you’re buying into convenience or something that will last you as long as it should. The choices we make as consumers determine whether true quality goods can make a comeback, or remain stories of the past.