Work for people or work for money

Source: Planned Obsolescence

What is going on here?
It is a documentary video posted at youtube about how company deliberately limit the lifespan of a product,so that it will timely fail and make consumer to go and buy a new product of theirs.


My opinion:

Planned obsolescence is conceived solely for one thing, making  sale/revenue, so that the industry and the company can continuously to grow. It is understandable from company point of view is that the only way they can survive is sale and this concept does ensure their sale.It does seem to be a justifiable act thinking from creation of job and growth of industry point of view.
However, from the receiving end of this concept is a deeply ethically wrong act. From consumer point of view, we buy the product because we trust and we like the product,and naturally we expect the company to do their best in delivering the best product they can ever produce.

This is an legalized fraud.

From the video, it is evidential that the consequence of such concept are cascading down to more  dreadful problem. Firstly, the use and discard attitude is being cultivated into people mind instead of trying to attempt any of reuse,reduce and recycle. This leads to growing wastage being dumped somewhere in the world where the people has less empowerment to make the voice of resistance. The dump would inevitably create environment problem such as pollution of river,water,soil,spread of pest and diseases,reduced food source, reduced biodiversity.

It is an irony that the reduced sale from "ever lasting" product is the cause of lack of growth of industry yet the very act of deliberately making inferior product is not a lack of growth itself.

A solution is required for such tragic dilemma between job and moral. Personally, i support one of the idea presented in the idea, cradle to cradle, by shifting the production model to a biodegradable,environment friendly product, they can naturally decompose itself and integrate itself with the cycle of nature. In addition, by being biodegradable it would naturally means it has a tangible lifespan to sustain demand for the product. The ideology of business is questionable to my inexperienced mind, it seems as though,from the video, the whole business is working for the sake of keeping their job and for earning money.

A change is needed, but who is daring enough to take the step?