Planned obsolescence as a deliberate business strategy dates back to the mid-1920s, though the term itself wasn’t coined until 1932. The practice emerged in stages: first as a secret agreement among manufacturers to shorten product lifespans, then as an economic theory proposed during the Great Depression, and finally as a full-blown consumer philosophy in the 1950s.
The Light Bulb Cartel of 1924
The earliest documented case of organized planned obsolescence began on December 23, 1924, when executives from the world’s major light bulb manufacturers met in Geneva. Representatives from Germany’s Osram, the Netherlands’ Philips, France’s Compagnie des Lampes, and General Electric in the United States founded what became known as the Phoebus cartel. The group divided up the global incandescent bulb market, assigning production quotas and regional territories to each company.
The cartel’s most consequential decision was capping bulb lifespan. By early 1925, the standard for a pear-shaped household bulb was set at 1,000 hours, a sharp drop from the 1,500 to 2,000 hours that had been common. The engineering wasn’t complicated: manufacturers simply tweaked a bulb’s rated voltage or adjusted the current to ensure it burned out faster. GE applied the same logic to flashlight bulbs. Before the cartel, a GE flashlight bulb lasted longer than three battery changes. That was cut to two, and by 1932, GE’s engineering department proposed reducing it to just one. An internal memo from a GE engineer named Prideaux spelled out the specific amperage increases needed to shorten the bulb’s life.
This wasn’t a side effect of cost-cutting or better brightness. It was a coordinated effort to make products die sooner so consumers would buy replacements more frequently.
The Term Gets a Name: 1932
The phrase “planned obsolescence” first appeared in print in 1932, when a New York real estate broker named Bernard London published a pamphlet titled “Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence.” London’s proposal was radical: he argued that the government should assign legal expiration dates to consumer goods. Once a product was deemed “legally dead,” owners would be required to turn it in, creating demand for new goods and pulling the economy out of the Depression.
London’s idea never became policy, but his pamphlet gave a name to something manufacturers were already doing quietly. The concept shifted from a fringe economic proposal to a recognizable strategy with a label that stuck.
From Engineering Trick to Marketing Philosophy
Planned obsolescence took on a completely different character in the 1950s. At an advertising conference in Minneapolis in 1954, industrial designer Brooks Stevens gave a presentation called “Planned Obsolescence” and defined it as “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary.” The phrase became his personal catchphrase.
Stevens wasn’t talking about making products break. He was talking about making products feel outdated. This was psychological obsolescence rather than mechanical failure. The auto industry had already perfected this approach, introducing annual model changes that made last year’s car look old even if it ran perfectly. Stevens argued this cycle of desire was good for the economy and good for design, pushing companies to innovate aesthetically even when the underlying technology hadn’t changed much.
This split the concept into two branches that still exist today. One is durability-based: engineering products to wear out or fail after a set period. The other is desirability-based: making consumers want to replace things that still work. The car industry, fashion, and later the tech sector all leaned heavily on the second approach, while batteries, printer cartridges, and appliance components often reflect the first.
How It Shows Up in Modern Products
The practice never went away. It evolved alongside technology, becoming harder to detect as products grew more complex. Software updates became a particularly effective tool. In 2016, Apple released a software update that quietly reduced iPhone performance to compensate for aging batteries that were causing unexpected shutdowns. The company didn’t disclose the throttling to customers. A coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general investigated and found that Apple’s concealment led consumers to believe their phones were simply becoming obsolete, pushing many to buy new models rather than replace a battery. Apple settled for $113 million.
The smartphone era accelerated product turnover across the electronics industry. Glued-in batteries, proprietary screws, and software that stops receiving security updates all shorten a device’s practical lifespan. The scale of the resulting waste is staggering: in 2022, the world generated 62 billion kilograms of e-waste, nearly double the 34 billion kilograms produced in 2010. Only about 13.8 billion kilograms of that was formally collected and recycled. The rest ended up in landfills or informal recycling operations, often in lower-income countries.
Legislative Pushback
Governments have started responding. The European Union passed a Right to Repair Directive in 2024 that requires manufacturers to meet specific repairability standards before selling products in the EU market. Companies must make spare parts available, design products that can be disassembled, and continue providing software and firmware updates. Depending on the product and the part, the obligation to offer repairs lasts 5 to 10 years. For products with light electric vehicle batteries, like e-bikes and e-scooters, manufacturers must ensure batteries are removable by an independent repair professional and available as spare parts for at least five years after the last unit of that model is sold. EU member states have until July 31, 2026, to implement the directive into national law.
France went further in 2015, becoming the first country to make planned obsolescence a criminal offense, with penalties of up to two years in prison and fines of 5 percent of annual revenue. Several U.S. states have introduced right-to-repair legislation targeting electronics and agricultural equipment, though federal action has been slower.
The core tension remains the same one Bernard London identified in 1932: economies grow when people buy things, but the environmental and financial cost of engineering that consumption into products has become increasingly difficult to ignore. What started as a secret agreement among light bulb makers a century ago is now a defining feature of how consumer goods are designed, marketed, and eventually discarded.