Planned Obsolescence
pland ob-suh-LES-unsnoun
DiagnosisTerminal by design
What it means
Designing a product to stop working at the point where repairing it becomes expensive, so that replacement looks like a choice.
What it actually means
It was built to die on schedule.
How it is used in a sentence
"The battery is sealed and the update finished it off. Planned obsolescence."
Filed under
Systemic Absurdities — Prices, platforms and institutions that were designed this way and would prefer you assumed otherwise.
Diagnosis — The phrase already names a real problem. We define it properly.
Related entries
Enshittification
Systemic Absurditiesen-SHIT-ih-fih-KAY-shunnounDiagnosis
The predictable arc in which a platform is good to its users until it has enough of them, then good to its advertisers until it has enough of those, then good to nobody.
Real meaningIt was good, you were the product, and now there is nothing left to extract.
Shrinkflation
Systemic Absurditiesshrink-FLAY-shunnounDiagnosis
Reducing what the customer receives while holding the price, on the assumption that nobody reads the weight alongside the cost.
Real meaningIt costs the same and there is less of it.