One of our editors wanted to know why their three-year-old laptop battery now lasts forty minutes. The short answer is chemistry. The longer answer is planned obsolescenceThe practice of designing and manufacturing products to fail, degrade, or become functionally unusable after a predetermined period, regardless of their physical durability or the manufacturer's technical capability to extend their lifespan.: a century of engineering decisions, a secret lightbulb cartel, and a global legislative movement that is, for the first time, actually winning.
Planned obsolescence is the practice of designing products to fail, degrade, or become unusable after a predetermined period. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a documented business strategy with a paper trail going back to 1925, exposed by court filings, confirmed by engineering analyses, and now targeted by criminal law in at least one country. This article explains the mechanisms, the evidence, and what is changing.
The Lightbulb That Started Everything
On January 15, 1925, representatives from Osram, General Electric, Philips, and Tungsram met in Geneva to incorporate a company called Phoebus S.A. Its stated purpose was to standardize the international lightbulb market. Its actual purpose was to reduce the lifespan of lightbulbs from roughly 2,500 hours to 1,000 hours.
The cartel enforced compliance through testing and fines. Manufacturers whose bulbs lasted longer than the agreed limit were penalized. Internal documents, later uncovered by US courts, confirmed the motivation was straightforward: shorter bulb life meant more frequent purchases.
In 1949, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey found General Electric guilty of violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, partly because of its role in the Phoebus cartel. The cartel itself had dissolved by 1939, but the business logic it pioneered did not. It became a template.
How Planned Obsolescence Works in Practice
Modern planned obsolescence is subtler than swapping in a worse filament. It operates through several distinct mechanisms, and understanding the differences matters because the legal and engineering responses to each one are different.
Component-level design choices
This is the most direct form. A capacitor rated for 2,000 hours costs less than one rated for 10,000 hours. A plastic gear is cheaper than a metal one. Solder joints can be designed to withstand thermal cycling for five years or fifteen. These are engineering decisions, and they are made with cost targets, not durability targets, as the primary constraint.
The result is a product that works reliably until just past the warranty period, then begins to fail. This is not always malicious (cost engineering is a legitimate discipline), but when the failure timeline is calibrated to a sales cycle rather than a materials constraint, the line between optimization and planned obsolescence disappears.
Battery degradation by design
Lithium-ion batteries degrade naturally. After roughly 500 full charge cycles, most retain about 80% of their original capacity. This is chemistry, not conspiracy. What turns it into planned obsolescence is the decision to glue batteries into devices using adhesives that require specialized solvents to dissolve, or to solder them directly to the motherboard, making replacement impractical for anyone without professional tools.
Apple’s “Batterygate” is the most documented example. In 2017, researchers discovered that iOS updates were quietly throttling processor speed on iPhones with degraded batteries. Apple said the throttling prevented unexpected shutdowns, which was technically true. What Apple did not do was tell anyone. Millions of users assumed their phones were simply too old and bought new ones. A coalition of more than 30 US state attorneys general reached a $113 million settlement with Apple in 2020 over the concealment. A separate class-action settlement cost Apple $500 million.
Software obsolescence
Your hardware works fine. The software stops supporting it. This is the most common form of planned obsolescence in 2026, and the hardest to regulate because it sits in a grey area between genuine technical constraints and artificial cutoffs.
Android devices are particularly affected. Many manufacturers provide only two to three years of operating system updates, after which the hardware (still physically functional) gradually loses access to apps, security patches, and features. The phone does not break. It becomes unusable by degrees.
Printers offer another case study. HP equips its printers with “dynamic security” features that detect and block third-party ink cartridges. Epson cartridges contain chips that report themselves as empty before the ink is actually depleted. In 2017, the French consumer advocacy group HOP (Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmée) filed criminal complaints against Epson, HP, and Canon under France’s planned obsolescence law, alleging that these practices constituted deliberate product degradation.
Parts pairingA hardware restriction that prevents a device from functioning normally when a component is replaced with a non-original part, often enforced through software verification that detects third-party components and disables features or displays warnings. and repair locks
This is the newest and most aggressive form. When you replace a component (a screen, a battery, a camera module), the device detects that the part was not installed by the manufacturer and disables features or displays warnings. A genuine Apple battery installed by an independent repair shop can trigger an “unable to verify battery” warning and disable battery health reporting, as documented extensively by iFixit.
Parts pairing transforms a physical product into a service relationship. The device still belongs to you in the legal sense. In the functional sense, the manufacturer retains control over whether it works properly.
The Counterargument, Honestly Stated
Not every short-lived product is evidence of planned obsolescence, and the counterarguments deserve a fair hearing.
Cost engineering is real. A washing machine built to last 30 years would cost significantly more than one built to last 10. For consumers operating under budget constraints, the cheaper option is not irrational, and the manufacturer providing it is not automatically acting in bad faith.
Innovation cycles create genuine obsolescence. A smartphone from 2019 is not useless because of a cartel; it is slower and less capable because the technology advanced. Some degree of replacement is driven by actual improvement, not artificial degradation.
The problem is that these legitimate dynamics provide cover for illegitimate ones. When Apple throttles phones without disclosure, it exploits the assumption that “old phones just get slow.” When HP blocks third-party cartridges, it hides behind “print quality” claims. The difficulty is distinguishing the two, and that is precisely why regulation has become necessary.
France Made It a Crime
In 2015, France became the first country to criminalize planned obsolescence. Under the Loi relative à la transition énergétique, deliberately designing a product with a shortened lifespan is punishable by up to two years in prison and fines of up to €300,000, or 5% of the company’s average annual turnover if that figure better reflects the profits gained.
The law gave teeth to the advocacy group HOP, which has since filed complaints against Apple (for Batterygate), Epson, HP, Canon, and Nintendo (for Joy-Con drift). Proving intent in court remains difficult, because manufacturers can argue that design choices were cost-driven rather than deliberately life-limiting. But the law’s existence has shifted the burden: companies now have to explain their design decisions in ways they previously did not.
The EU Is Building the Broadest Framework
The European Union’s approach is regulatory rather than criminal, but broader in scope. Several overlapping initiatives are reshaping what manufacturers can sell in Europe.
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which applies from July 2026, requires that products sold in the EU must not become prematurely obsolete due to design choices or substandard components. It introduces the Digital Product Passport, which records a product’s materials, repairability, and environmental footprint throughout its life cycle.
Starting in June 2025, smartphones and tablets sold in the EU must display standardized repairability scores on packaging. Manufacturers must supply spare parts within 5 to 10 working days, and for at least seven years after a model is discontinued. Operating system updates must be available for at least five years after discontinuation.
By February 2027, most electronic devices sold in the EU must have removable and replaceable batteries. This single requirement, if enforced, will force a redesign of nearly every flagship smartphone on the market.
The cumulative effect is significant. The EU is not banning planned obsolescence through a single law. It is making planned obsolescence structurally impossible through overlapping design mandates, transparency requirements, and spare-parts obligations.
Right to Repair: The American Patchwork
The United States has no federal right-to-repairA legislative and consumer movement that asserts the legal right to repair and modify equipment and devices that people own, including access to repair documentation, spare parts, and the removal of software-based restrictions that prevent independent repair. law. What it has instead is a growing patchwork of state legislation, with momentum accelerating faster than most observers expected.
As of January 2026, five states have enacted six electronics right-to-repair laws: New York, Minnesota, California, Oregon, and Colorado (which passed two). More than 25% of Americans now live in a state with an enforceable right-to-repair law. Connecticut and Texas laws take effect in mid-2026, which will push coverage past 35% of the population.
The 2025 legislative session was the most productive ever for the movement, with 35 states considering right-to-repair bills. The 2026 template legislation strengthens prohibitions on parts pairing, clarifying that manufacturers cannot use software-based restrictions to limit who performs repairs.
Federal efforts have been less successful. In December 2025, right-to-repair provisions were stripped from the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act despite bipartisan support, after industry lobbying. The provision would have allowed service members to repair their own equipment in the field. The fact that the military cannot fix its own gear without manufacturer permission says more about the state of repair restrictions than any consumer complaint.
What Actually Changes When Repair Becomes a Right
Right-to-repair laws do not ban planned obsolescence directly. They attack it indirectly by requiring manufacturers to provide diagnostic tools, spare parts, and repair documentation to independent shops and consumers at fair prices. The theory is simple: if people can fix things, products last longer, and designing them to fail becomes less profitable.
The early evidence suggests this works. Apple, which fought right-to-repair legislation for years, launched its Self Service Repair program in 2022, initially for iPhones and later for Macs. The program is limited (Apple’s own tools are expensive, and parts pairing remains a complaint), but its existence is a direct response to legislative pressure. Companies do not voluntarily give up control over their repair ecosystem. They do it when the alternative is regulation.
The deeper shift is cultural. The right-to-repair movement reframes the question from “how long should a product last?” to “who decides?” When a manufacturer can remotely disable a component you paid for, the concept of ownership becomes negotiable. Right-to-repair legislation is, at its core, an argument that buying a thing should mean you own the thing.
The E-WasteDiscarded electrical and electronic equipment, including devices no longer wanted by their original owners due to technological obsolescence, hardware failure, or replacement with newer models. Dimension
Planned obsolescence has environmental consequences that are measurable and large. The Global E-Waste Monitor estimated that the world generated 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022, a figure projected to reach 82 million tons by 2030. Less than a quarter of e-waste is formally recycled. The rest is landfilled, incinerated, or exported to countries with weaker environmental regulations.
Products designed to be replaced rather than repaired accelerate this cycle. A smartphone with a replaceable battery might last five or six years instead of three. A laptop with a user-serviceable SSD and RAM could remain functional for a decade. These are not hypothetical: the Framework laptop, designed explicitly for modularity and repairability, has demonstrated that consumer electronics can be built to last without sacrificing performance. The market signal, however small, matters.
What Comes Next
The trajectory is clear, even if the pace is uncertain. The EU’s regulatory framework will force global manufacturers to redesign products for the European market, and the economics of maintaining two production lines (one repairable for Europe, one not for everywhere else) will push many companies toward universal compliance. This is the Brussels Effect in action: the EU’s market size allows it to set de facto global standards.
In the United States, the state-by-state approach is slower but durable. Each new law creates precedent and political cover for the next. The question is not whether a federal right-to-repair law will pass, but when, and whether it will preempt stronger state laws or establish a floor.
The manufacturers will adapt. Some will comply genuinely. Others will find creative workarounds: subscription models that shift “ownership” to “access,” software features gated behind service agreements, or ecosystem lock-in that makes repair technically possible but practically pointless. The enshittificationThe gradual degradation of online platforms as they shift loyalty from users to advertisers: first attracting users with a good product, then extracting value from them, then abandoning them entirely in favor of revenue. pattern that characterizes platform economics is already visible in hardware, and repair legislation is one of the few forces pushing back.
The Phoebus cartel’s members are long gone. The logic they pioneered is not. The difference, a century later, is that someone is finally writing it down as law.
Sources
- IEEE Spectrum — The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)
- California Attorney General — $113 Million Settlement with Apple over iPhone Throttling (2020)
- US PIRG — Right to Repair Movement Having Its Most Productive Year Ever (2025)
- Federal News Network — Congress Strips Right-to-Repair Provisions from 2026 NDAA (2025)
- European Commission — New EU Rules for Durable, Repairable Smartphones and Tablets (2025)
- Library of Congress — France: Criminal Complaint Against Planned Obsolescence Practices (2017)
- US PIRG — More Than One-Quarter of Americans Covered by Right to Repair (2025)
- Global E-Waste Monitor
