Planned Obsolescence Is a Prophecy About Us

We treat planned obsolescence as a conspiracy against us, but it's more like a prophecy about us. A product is designed around a guess: how long you'll care. The guess is usually right. The hinge wears out the same month you start browsing replacements; the software stops updating just as the screen acquires a scratch you can't unsee. Whether engineers shortened the life or merely declined to lengthen it, the effect depends on our willingness to be the person the design assumed — someone already halfway out the door.

Which is why repair feels less like thrift than like refusal. The things people keep longest are rarely the sturdiest. They're the ones that broke early, cheaply, and got mended — and a mended thing is no longer quite the thing that was sold.