Mumbai: For decades, the global marketplace was defined by an unyielding drive towards perfection. Manufacturers poured resources into designing ever-better products, each new release striving for greater reliability, longer lifespans, and seamless user experience. It was an era where premium brands boasted near-flawless craftsmanship and durability as hallmarks of their leadership. But beneath the sheen, the relentless pursuit of perfection eventually collided with an inconvenient truth: impeccably made products, while satisfying, often failed to generate the recurring profits that modern corporate realities demanded. The consumer’s purchase, once an end point in the transaction, became a barrier to future sales – a phenomenon keenly observed in the boardrooms of industry giants, from Detroit to Shenzhen.
As the 20th century drew to a close, a quiet revolution in business thinking began to take hold. Companies realised that a perfect product, paradoxically, might undermine economic sustainability. Once an appliance lasted a lifetime, its manufacturer was left to chase ever-diminishing returns, unable to attract repeat customers or sustain the manufacturing machinery that powered their expansion. It was this dilemma that opened the door to a concept now etched in modern business lore: planned obsolescence. By intentionally limiting the useful life of a product – whether through wear-prone parts, proprietary components, or software updates that render older models sluggish – manufacturers found a way to tip the equation back in their favour. As Investopedia explains, planned obsolescence describes ‘a deliberate strategy of shortening the lifecycle of products to force customers into repeat purchases and upgrades’.
This underlying shift was neither accidental nor surreptitious. For example, the light bulb industry’s infamous Phoebus cartel of the 1920s colluded to reduce the lifespan of bulbs, ensuring customers returned to the shops every few years rather than once or twice in their lives. In more recent decades, the smartphone has emerged as the emblem of calculated imperfection. Brands like Apple have periodically introduced design changes that make previous accessories obsolete, and operating system updates that favour new hardware. Similarly Apple’s notorious removal of the headphone jack spurred an entirely new market for wireless earbuds, prompting both direct profits and peripheral sales. As Professor Giles Slade, author of ‘Made to Break’, observed, most manufacturers in the modern economy do not want their products to last forever – their profits depend on replacement cycles, upgrades, and the sale of related accessories.
The business rationale is clear. By selling imperfect products – or products engineered with natural limitations – companies keep their vast manufacturing plants humming year-round. Just as automotive designers in the mid-century realised that subtle changes to vehicle aesthetics would drive every new season’s model, consumer electronics firms now perfect the art of imperfection, enticing repeat visits with ever-shinier alternatives. Planned obsolescence becomes an operating philosophy: the ideal product is one that satisfies, but only briefly. By the time a device falters, its owner is psychologically predisposed to seek the next iteration, sparking demand not just for the core item but a web of cables, chargers, batteries, and software solutions surrounding it.
This approach is especially visible in household items. Older appliances like fridges or washing machines used to last for decades. Today’s versions, made with lighter materials and modular parts, often need repairs or replacements within a few years. This keeps customers coming back – either for spare parts or new purchases – and ensures steady income for manufacturers.
From a macroeconomic perspective, the outcome is twofold. On one hand, manufacturers enjoy greater financial predictability, smoothing the cyclical swings that once threatened factory closures and mass layoffs. On the other, this artificial reduction in product lifespans imposes considerable costs on consumers and society at large.
Not only are households spending more, but growing volumes of waste – from electronics to household goods – present environmental and ethical problems policymakers now grapple with. The ‘Right to Repair’ movement, which has gained traction in Europe and beyond, aims to challenge these business practices, pressing companies to favour sustainability and give consumers more control over their purchases.
Still, for most brands, the strategy of perfecting imperfection remains lucrative. According to reports businesses employing planned obsolescence typically enjoy higher margins and repeat engagements. And by embracing imperfection – not as a flaw, but as a strategic tool – manufacturers can optimise plant operation, workforce deployment, and product pipeline management. Consumer psychology, too, plays a role.
Studies also suggest that customers respond favourably to product cycles, associating short-lived versions with innovation and progress rather than failure or exploitation. This logic is supported by the regular queues outside electronics stores with every new gadget release and by the enduring popularity of annual model upgrades across industries.
Of course, not all product flaws are intentional; sometimes, technical limits or cost pressures lead to shorter lifespans. However, there is a fine line between engineering limitations and purposeful design choices, and this space is exploited by imperfect competition—a market scenario wherein companies are free to manipulate quality, life expectancy, and accessory compatibility to shape consumer experience and, by extension, consumer loyalty.
This strategy, which may have begun as a response to technological bottlenecks, has thus evolved into a calculated method for retaining relevance, maximising revenue, and defending market share.Looking ahead, some businesses are exploring more sustainable designs – products that can be repaired or upgraded easily. But the basic idea of planned obsolescence still dominates. The challenge now is to balance profits with responsibility. Companies that manage imperfections wisely – without losing customer trust – are likely to succeed in the long run.
In the end, the most successful businesses will move beyond creating artificial scarcity – instead perfecting imperfection in a way that fosters trust, durability, and true lasting value. In this new era, the challenge is not to eliminate flaws, but to manage them wisely, so that business sustains itself without sacrificing the goodwill of its market.
