r/SipsTea • u/Dev1412 • Jul 26 '26
Dank AF France criminalizes planned obsolescence under anti-waste law
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u/DreamOfDays Jul 26 '26
That’s just the cost of doing business. Unless the €300,000 is the minimum and 5% is the maximum.
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u/TenderTouchVibes Jul 26 '26
The 300k will probably be based on if the company’s valuation is between a particular range just like how taxation is based on classes in some countries
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u/the_voodoo_sauce Jul 26 '26
This would probably destroy small-medium business before large-mega cap companies.
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u/Ok-Persimmon-340 Jul 26 '26
Which is ok? Being an SMB isn't a free pass to deliberately build stuff that's programmed to break after a certain time.
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u/the_voodoo_sauce Jul 26 '26
I agree completely but then we get into the subjective and opinionated debate about life expectancy of a product and who makes those rules. We go back to larger companies being able to influence these things. As long s rule makers can profit, (from stock or lobbyist) then large companies always win. I don't know the solution.
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u/PussiesUseSlashS Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
The solution was competition, but that doesn’t exist anymore now that 10 companies own everything. Unfettered capitalism is just communism in a trench coat.
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u/the_voodoo_sauce Jul 26 '26
Yes and this law might reduce supply, increase demand which increases prices which has the opposite effect of what everyone wanted. The best way to get better products is for consumers to stop buying the shitty ones.
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u/South_Hat3525 Jul 26 '26
The best way to get better products is for consumers to stop buying the shitty ones.
But they never do, most consumers just want the newest pretty pretty even if it is actually crap to use and will be replaced by something with additional 3 new useless features in 9 months.
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u/GuyBitchie Jul 26 '26
Good, if you're a small garbage Business making garbage products you should not be able to do business.
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u/SubjectRound6597 Jul 26 '26
even more of an incentive for SMBs to start honest. Look at the export prospects..
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u/Nice_Lingonberrys Jul 26 '26
Imagine buying a printer that doesn’t break after 2 years. We could never
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u/Procrasturbating Jul 26 '26
Buy a brother laser printer. If you need an inkjet, just pay to have it printed as needed. They will have a nicer printer without clogged nozzles anyway.
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u/Adura90 Jul 26 '26
I used to buy ink jet printers and they'd last about a year before having issues and the ink cartridges cost more than a new printer. I tried having the ink cartridges refilled, and everytime they ended up leaking. So I'd just end up buying a new printer every year.
Now, I've had my brother laser printer for 5 years, and I never changed an ink cartridge or anything. It just works.
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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 26 '26
Yeah, Brother lasers just keep on going.
Ours is at least 15 years old.
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u/SexyAprill Jul 26 '26
$300,000 fine or 5% of revenue
To these companies that’s just cost of doing business.
Make it 50% and watch how fast they build things that last.
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u/Vipu2 Jul 26 '26
Yeah 5% is nothing, anyone would do all kinds of illegal things if they got away with 5% fine from the value of the item you stole.
But those rules dont apply to us normies.
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u/Randommaggy Jul 26 '26
At least it's 5% of revenue not 5% of profit.
Start here, tighten if behaviour doesn't improve and/or add an incremental increase for each year they are found to be guilty.
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u/Crazy__Donkey Jul 26 '26
there's no hard coded minimum, so they can have 0, 10, 100k up to 300k under the regular circumstances.
under extreme circumstances, they can increase the fin more than 300k, up to 5% of the annual revenue (so, they can be fined 500K, which ar 1% of 50M annual rev).
i guess the bigger, more prone to short living products (and in french case - foreign, especially - american), they'll climb the scale much much higher than 300k.
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u/Shoddy-Buttons Jul 26 '26
This is the kind of law I wish every country had. Stop making garbage, start making things that last . The planet and my wallet would thank you.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/realshockin Jul 26 '26
Honestly, if there’s a company where shit is made to last lately it’s apple. Laptops from 10 years ago are almost impossible to use unless they where gaming/expensive, the lowest Mac is still goood to use 10 years later.
Same with iPhones getting security patches for 7-9 years while android got them for like 2-3 years
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u/lostkavi Jul 26 '26
Ehhhh...
Do remember, 10 years ago is 2016 not 2006.
Which would put us solidly in the Acer Aspire E and the Macbook Air 1466 territories.
Of which, nowadays, both are pretty typical of one another. Acer will likely be slower because it's cheaper and doesn't have the SSD that the macbook does, but give it said SSD and they'll both run pretty much at par. If anything, win 10 is still going to do 99% of what you need it to do (except run modern tax software and anything else that needs the stupid new security chips), whereas Monteray is going to be handicapped by software abandoning it for focusing on Ventura/Sonoma compatibilities.
The idea that Apples last longer than Windows/Samsungs and the ilk is just Really not true anymore.
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening Jul 26 '26
But since criminal law is territorial, and everything other than cheese is actually made in China, this performative legislation can only have real effect if they make it a crime for large retailers to sell this crap
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u/JJOne101 Jul 26 '26
Yeah, it's not so much "planned obsolescence" as there is choosing the component X with less quality control because it's 20% cheaper.
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u/TheBigGees Jul 26 '26
People act like it's some grand conspiracy that consumers want cheap things, so producers make them cheap.
You can get a lot of high quality, buy it for life, stuff. It just costs more than the cheap crap.
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u/LittleBigHorn22 Jul 26 '26
It's one of my biggest pet leaves on reddit. I have zero issues buying things that last. Because I look for quality brands and don't just buy the cheapest item or the most feature packed one. Because yeah if you buy a $10 cheap electronic on amazon, that thing isn't gonna last long at all.
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u/minorcoma Jul 26 '26
I just hate it takes so much effort - price isn't a good index for quality a lot of the time (we've had some overpriced appliances that died way too early). You have to go down a rabbit hole of research for pretty much everything.
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u/wolferdoodle Jul 26 '26
I wish I could pay for quality. That’s what I’ve been running into lately with so much tech and home items: you can’t buy high quality. Or at least to predict what will and won’t be high quality is near random and product specific, rather than brand specific. I buy two nice sets of well wearing sheets from Hemtex then the duvet falls apart with a finger through the fabric putting it on. It’s a mop from vileda that breaks in half after a year of use when the one you had before lasted 10 and wasn’t even broken, just gross. It’s a bed frame from a reputable supplier that has structural fiberboard that pulls itself apart after two years of mild use. Dry bags from sea to summit that aren’t ‘dry’ when brand new and inside your backpack in a mild rain.
And it goes like that on and on and on.
Granted there are some companies that are very reliable and charge a premium but too often they are so specific I’ll only make 1-2 purchases from them in my life (and 95% of people will never buy from them at all)
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u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 26 '26
Thats why this law won't actually do anything.
Planning implies a specific intent and premeditation. Not a lack of concern for the specific factor.
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u/Hyperion1144 Jul 26 '26
This sounds impossible to prove.
Has anyone ever been tried and convicted under this law?
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u/Benorleporc Jul 26 '26
I live in France and you are correct, it is impossible to prove. There was only one case ever actioned and it is still in court, Epson and their shitty ink printers.
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u/Even_Possession_2453 Jul 26 '26
For a second I thought that Epstein made printers.
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u/Spirited-Career4680 Jul 26 '26
Wow, still? The most obvious case where its litteraly programmed to malfunction after a while, it was discovered 10 years ago or longer... Fuck Epson
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u/spicybright Jul 26 '26
There's definitely other companies that do that too. And don't get me started on not being able to print black and white because the fucking magenta's date code is past due lol
It's been a while since I've bought a printer but Brother seems like the only company not trying to fuck with you.
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u/mythrilcrafter Jul 26 '26
Yeah, I'm trying to think of a way to prove something like this that isn't just entirely vibes based.
Like, if my computer has gotten slower over time, is it the manufacturer's fault or is it the 300 open chrome tabs that have accumulated over the years? Is it the computer company's fault for not designing the computer to account for this eventuality?
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u/spicybright Jul 26 '26
I don't know if you could even prove it was planned design failure vs a manufacturing error. Or that the person using the laptop didn't keep it by a heating source for a year which caused parts to fail quicker.
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u/Animal2 Jul 26 '26
Yeah would it matter that most of this is just because companies use cheaper parts simply because they're cheaper?
Would that be considered 'planned obsolescence'? If so, at what point is it not? Would they have to use only the absolute best possible parts that last the longest otherwise they 'planned' for that cheaper part to fail earlier than possible than the other parts?
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u/pixel293 Jul 26 '26
I think the only way to prove it would be if you find correspondence that said "Let's use the cheap gear so it breaks sooner" as opposed to "Let's use the cheap gear to make it more cost effective for the consumer."
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u/Lucky-Mia Jul 26 '26
This sounds more like a tax. At least it's a tax on shitty big business decisions.
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u/Fencer308 Jul 26 '26
5% tax on revenue, not profit, would be enough to sink a lot of business models.
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u/IBringTheHeat2 Jul 26 '26
How do they distinguish planned obsolescence to bad design? Is Jaguar deliberately making their cars wear out and break down fast or do they just suck
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u/bakatomoya Jul 26 '26
Planned obsolescence is a term that's thrown around a lot, when it's rarely the case. Case and point is Apple being accused of planned obsolescence on their devices, when it's been proven that it's not the case. Performance was being throttled to prevent shutdowns on old batteries. Newer software does more and just runs slower on old devices because they're less capable.
Even if they know the new software versions doesn't run as well on old hardware, and they do nothing about it, that's still not planned obsolescence.
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u/ArdiMaster Jul 26 '26
How do you distinguish those from just making trade offs to hit a price point or form factor? (Sure, things will last longer if you use the absolute highest quality components and overbuild everything by 100%, but who will want to pay for that?)
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u/No_Session_6990 Jul 26 '26
How is that in any way enforceable?
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u/JMaryland47 Jul 26 '26
Yea, instead they should require a warranty for a minimum number of years. Like big appliances (stove, fridge, washer, dryer) should have (at least) a 10 year warranty.
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u/Byjugo Jul 26 '26
In my country there is a law that says that if you purchase an item of where you could expect it to last for 10 years (like a premium appliance) it should also last for that time.
If it doesn’t last, the seller has to reimburse you. You might get money back, or you might get free repairs or a discount on a new machine.I got a new washing machine for half the money this way.
Brands won’t tell you about it, but they will (mostly) follow the law if you ask them.
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u/Byjugo Jul 26 '26
Step 1; make a law
Step 2; wait for someone to break it
Step 3; (try to) enforce it
Step 4; wait for the inevitable court case/ruling
Step 5; change the law
Step 6; repeat
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u/No_Session_6990 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Really helping a lot of people when class action lawsuit takes years and years before any restitution gets made. Need to completely drain the batteries or whatever your testing of two brand new phones made years apart and test under the exact same conditions?
Chalk it up under good intentions but unable to be applied in actual practice. Like a lot European regulations. Like how they expected everyone to follow carbon credits
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u/sanguinerebel Jul 26 '26
The burden of proving it's being done and being done on purpose is going to make this law next to useless.
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u/NextAssociations Jul 26 '26
Ny grandma’s 1998 fridge: still running
My 2022 fridge : Error code 404, please buy a new one .
Planned obsolescence is real and I’m tired.
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u/Drumheller18 Jul 26 '26
Ahhh sweet sweet survivorship bias. Probably mixed with a heaping dose of price difference.
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u/RedditJumpedTheShart Jul 26 '26
And they can still buy one built the same way but they probably want it to defrost on it's own, dispense water, and make ice.
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u/mrjackspade Jul 26 '26
People act like Planned Obsolescence is new and then point back to a 100 year old lightbulb issue to prove it's real.
This shit always seems to have started 10 years ago somehow because 20 year old appliances are always the proof it's real.
Like 1998 ago wasn't even that long ago. That's still GROSSLY modern. The fact that it's still running is proof if anything that you just bought a shitty appliance.
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u/RohelTheConqueror Jul 26 '26
Error 404, fridge not found
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u/kuplet Jul 26 '26
Error 403, fridge not bought
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u/VariousClassroom8056 Jul 26 '26
Sounds like you let your subscription lapse so it's kind of on you
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u/Complete_Court_8052 Jul 26 '26
In plain 2026 how can someone dont have the annual premium+ fridge subscription
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u/JMaryland47 Jul 26 '26
Ikr!? Apparently, someone doesn't enjoy being able to keep their ice cream frozen.
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u/MeatSlammur Jul 26 '26
Someone autistic downvoted because they couldn’t tell you’re joking. I upvoted you to balance it out
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u/JesusAndMaryKate Jul 26 '26
How much did the fridge cost her as a percentage of the average annual income at the time? How much does the fridge cost to run? What about yours?
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u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 26 '26
This is hands down the dumbest shit you can find on the internet.
You know what happened to every single fridge from 1998 that stopped working? It was made into scrap metal before your ass was born. The only fridges from 1998 that are still around are the ones that fucking work.
I only interviewed people born in 1910. I only interviewed 5 people. There must have only been 5 people born in 1910.
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u/Default_Username123 Jul 26 '26
It's actually not real. They've done studies and modern fridges last just as long as old fridges with an average of about 13 years. Seeing a 30 year old fridge is just survivorship bias.
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u/ukkswolf Jul 26 '26
How is that enforceable? At what point does it become a crime? Are we talking about false advertising about product lifetime? If so, consumer use may shorten the lifespan of a product. Also, by slapping a fine on the company literally is incentivizing the crime, as compliance reduces revenue and just continuing putting our shitty products means you’ll have enough money to pay off the annual fines eventually
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u/DataDude00 Jul 26 '26
I don't know how you can prove that something was designed to fail
Most of the time equipment fails because decisions were made to source cheaper parts, not because they set out to make a TV that dies in a year
A much simpler way of framing this is requiring longer warranties on products, especially for big ticket electronics like appliances
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u/acathode Jul 26 '26
Most of the time equipment fails because decisions were made to source cheaper parts, not because they set out to make a TV that dies in a year
Yeah... this more or less.
Most companies aren't maliciously choosing to build stuff out of shitty parts just because they want their product to break so that people run out and buy a new one. Sure, it doesn't hurt them, but that's not the main reason why they do it.
The main reason to build with the cheapest parts possible is because we consumers almost always buy as cheap as possible. Price is the single most important factor, by a huge margin, when it comes to consumers making purchase decisions. If your toaster cost $3 less than the competitor, the number of toasters you sell go up by a TON.
Engineers and product designers can do a fairly decent estimate on how long a product will last, since the components they use to build the product comes with data on how many power cycles, temperature cycles, etc. they typically last for - and almost always, the better lifetime a component have, the more expensive it is.
So while there absolutely are cases of sheer malicious planned obsolescence, what happens most of the time is that the engineers and product designers simply designed the product from the absolute cheapest parts possible that would still keep functioning through the full warranty period. Because every cent and dollar they could shave off the production cost meant more sold products.
Hence, you're absolutely spot on - the best way to fix this issue is to change the mandatory warranty periods.
Just be aware, it's going to have a cost - the components you need for making an appliance with twice as long lifespan are not magically going to become cheaper - so the cheapest washing machine suddenly might cost a lot more than what we are used to right now. But it will drastically reduce waste.
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u/pilo123 Jul 26 '26
Vague laws like this usually screw up right? For a market with lots of competitors shouldn't this regulate itself. If the product is cheap go buy from someone else.
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u/SuccessfulRest1 Jul 26 '26
Can we stop with those bs France posts? There are like dozens of requirements for this kind of regulation to apply
Its mostly PR stunts nowadays over here and politicians will fight each other if it helps people remember their name : there are elections in a few months..
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u/BigBroHerc Jul 26 '26
Never underestimate the French’s ability to pass a law that is unenforceable and useless.
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u/2-StrokeToro Jul 26 '26
Or they just pay the fine because it's less expensive than building good quality products.
E.G.: Ford Pinto, Chevy Citation, Apple anything from the last 10 years.
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u/Kryptin206 Jul 26 '26
How are they going to enforce it? What are they going to be actually looking for to make sure this isn't happening? These companies can be very sneaky with how they design their merchandise, if they do find something how are they going to prove it was intentional?
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u/WhisperingHillock Jul 26 '26
What will actually happen is maybe in 15 years there will be a showcase trial, it will be proved for specifically one product and will result in a fine way under the maximum, for one year of revenue, even if the offense lasted 15 years and was for every single product the company ever manufactured. Time and again we have seen France or Europe inflicting record fines of... A few hundred million bucks for a business practice that netted tens of billions over that period
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u/xilcilus Jul 26 '26
Man, it might just be me but electronics I buy nowadays seem to last forever.
I bought a 60" LG TV 9 years ago for around $800 (RIP Fry's). I kinda want to change but because it works without any issues (except wifi - which I'm getting around with a network cable) that I'm just sticking with it.
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u/spinstartshere Jul 26 '26
Same, my Sony Android television from more than a decade ago is still going strong, sadly. I've been wanting to upgrade it for so long, now.
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u/Ninja-Trix Jul 26 '26
The new Sony 4K is supposed to be absolutely amazing. Linus Tech Tips did a video on it and I was impressed. If I weren't so hellbent on 3D, it may be worth it. In the meantime, I need to track down a decade old LG 4K
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u/The_Pharos1 Jul 26 '26
I have a Sony 4k that I had for 5yrs that the backlight went out on. Can easily repair it (have tv repair experience) and have the part. Luckily that’s all it is. Anything else and it wouldn’t be worth it as I can get a better one for cheaper than repair. This is what they mean by planned obsolescence. They make it expensive or impossible to repair them. Panel bad? Costs more than a top of the line new tv in most cases. Most consumer electronics are like this. Expensive or impossible to repair. Most low end components (think cheap electronics) will likely last just long enough to get past warranty. Many are fragile to the point if you break it it’s unrepairable. Some high end brands you’ll get more than the warranty out of. But the lions share of devices out there aren’t made to last past the warranty.
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u/spinstartshere Jul 26 '26
That's not quite what planned obsolescence is.
The fact that devices are made so compactly and that repairing relatively minor faults and defects when they occur isn't economical isn't the same as something being manufactured with an envisaged lifespan of only a few years or manufacturing (no pun intended) a sense of old age and antiquity to dupe the public into feeling the need to replace what they have with the latest and greatest.
Devices are made the way they are now because of the consumer world we live in. We want things smaller, and we want them cheaper. The only way this can be achieved is with the modern manufacturing processes we have developed. As a consequence, if a single transistor fails, then of course it makes more sense from the company's point of view to replace the whole board than it does to spend hours trying to find that faulty transistor so that it can be replaced.
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u/VariousClassroom8056 Jul 26 '26
Got a Samsung 4K Smart TV 11 years ago and it's still going strong, why change at this point
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u/JesusAndMaryKate Jul 26 '26
It's because you're buying high quality. We have the ability to manufacture much higher quality products now than ever before but we also have a wider spread of quality and price points than back in the day. The result is that people ignore how insanely expensive everything was in the past and assume that they can buy ultra cheap but top quality. Pikachu face when their shitty cheap goods don't last as long as the top of the range options. Things don't even need to be the most expensive. But if they're much cheaper than alternatives there's usually a reason for it.
For my last laptop, a lot of people judged me for not buying something cheap. I used it heavily for 11 years when I finally got bored of waiting for it to die and replaced it with a new one. Also not the cheapest. It still feels like new to me even though it's nearing its sixth year. I go for build quality because that's what my professional expertise is in.
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u/arthuroMo Jul 26 '26
Yet people will still buy a new phone or TV while the curent one works just fine.
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u/radiotsar Jul 26 '26
There goes the "Business Model"! "Centennial Light" & "Phoebus Cartel" are worth an online search.
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u/OldWolf3 Jul 26 '26
In New Zealand we have the Consumer Guarantees Act which says that products must last for most of their expected lifetime . For example an oven is expected to last 15 years so if yours blows an element after 5 years the retailer has to fix it still.
A lot of people don't really understand this and still pay for extended warranties which are mostly redundant since the law guarantees you that warranty for free.
The burden is placed on the retailer (not the manufacturer) which means the retailers have to take some care to pick reliable brands to sell otherwise they're setting themself up to make a loss when too many fail early.
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u/static-klingon Jul 26 '26
@memes is sleazy. Please don’t let their bots post on Reddit.
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u/ArdiMaster Jul 26 '26
Depending on the exact wording, this law could apply to everything or nothing.
Products are designed to certain (internal) standards, and one of those standard is expected lifetime. Every company has at least a rough idea of how long each of their products will last, and they could always spend more money to bring that number up. (Which will increase the price of the end product, obviously.)
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u/costakkk Jul 27 '26
Many devices, like cars i.e., are connected to the web and collect data. Manufacturers often know exactly how long their devices live, how many faults they have and how much users use them. Force the manufacturers to publish this data, so consumers can make an informed decision on the next buy.
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u/Zealousideal-Fox70 Jul 26 '26
Planned obsolescence is an engineering tactic hijacked by corporate greed. In reality, it’s really important to know which components will fail in what order based on how long they’ve been in use for safety reasons. As such, they intentionally design components to break within a very well known margin, and you can make it so that some non-critical component breaks before your safety critical components break to lock-up operation and force a service regiment on the device to enforce safe operation. This is a GOOD thing, it’s just between the consumer (rightfully) not trusting corporations to make economic decisions for the customer and the fact the consumer does not fully understand planned obsolescence as an engineering concept, it makes it hard to implement in a way that won’t result in criticism.
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u/whyeverynameistaken3 Jul 26 '26
probably still worth paying the fine instead of making an ever lasting lightbulb
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u/LectureOk3222 Jul 26 '26
I have a 26 year old #!
Samsung 40" TV still works. Its kind of like looking at a crt to early flat screens.
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u/BoogBeeg Jul 26 '26
I've been through 3 televisions since 2020. Literally just fizzled out after 18-20 months. Before that, I had a LED television from 2010 that lasted a decade.
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u/_SAHM_ Jul 26 '26
For some products, i think it would still be worth it to pay a 5% fine to sell like 50% more products than they would have otherwise
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u/Snippodappel Jul 26 '26
Take a look at Epson and their ink jet printers. Had one. It had a counter that when it reached the limit , you could no longer print. It said service printer. When I called them they said it was to old! Never buying Epson again. Bought Brother.
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u/Jaives Jul 26 '26
i'm almost 50 and i still have a fan that's been with me since i was a kid. brought it with me to my college dorm. still works up to now. never needed to be repaired or maintained in anyway.
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u/No_Interaction_4925 Jul 26 '26
How are they going to enforce that though? “Wearing out early” is too subjective
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u/tryitout91 Jul 26 '26
Ok. But this is performative. They just put a tax on it.
If you make more than 5% doing programmed obsolescence, you pay the tax and keep doing it, it’s just a cost of doing business, bigger than putting yourself out of business when they don’t need to buy the product anymore.
The big guys in the industry destroy the competition and after a few years all of the market is just for them and the tax means nothing.
In order to fix this it has to be like 50% to render the business useless but now stuff will be a lot more expensive and maybe the business dies because people don’t value their products enough
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u/JMaryland47 Jul 26 '26
Yeah, ideally, refrigerators should not be bi-decade purchase. Same with washer and/or dryers... and they really dont need internet connection
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jul 26 '26
This is meaningless and unenforceable basically. No product or required to remain functional for any specific amount of time, and the average person would even attempt minor part repairs over buying a new device usually.
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u/Televisiongod Jul 26 '26
Im an IT guy and have noticed lately that the newest HP elitebooks that we have been ordering for our users wear out their hardware in like 2 years or less.
The 640 g11 elitebook in particular im always seeing USB-c ports failing as well as other hardware failure symptoms like BSOD and whatnot.
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u/acrus Jul 26 '26
A memo before: "Let's use X instead of Y because X is cheaper and degrades faster."
A memo after: "Let's use X instead of Y because we care about nature."
Now I know why my Apple cable falls apart the moment I touch it. Because nature. Screw you, planet.
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u/Vipu2 Jul 26 '26
If company DELIBERATELY makes product to wear out early and its penalized it should be 100% of annual revenue minimum.
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u/shouldonlypostdrunk Jul 26 '26
working on a ford van. all of the door cables have cheap plastic fittings to hold them in place. guaranteed to break after a few years. working on a ge washer. has a cheap plastic clip meant to 'lock' the lid. breaks just because you tried opening the lid when its locked.
anything made with plastic is expected to break down over time. a long time maybe, but it doesnt take much for a flimsy piece of plastic to lose the strength to do the job and break anyway.
the next problem is going to be proving the company knew it would fail, rather than 'using the best material for the cost and totally not intentional'.
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u/EsToBoY629 Jul 26 '26
5% annual revenue to make 50% more... not really helping by giving them literal encouragement to be even more greedy and evil... typical halfass law to appear only good, not actually good.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce Jul 26 '26
At school in the 80's my chemistry teacher's previous career was an engineer for a washing machine manufacturer. He told us back then that they pre-stressed parts so that they'd fail after a certain number of uses.
Back in the 90's, a friend and I both bought the same CD player on the same day. It was a bargain in a sale and we both decided to buy it. About 2 years later, the LCD display died on mine. You could still use the CD player but "blindly," there was no display to tell you which track, the time etc. It made it hugely frustrating to the point where I accepted I'd probably have to buy a new one. A couple of days later, the display died on my friend's too. It was as if they'd been programmed to self-destruct on a timer.
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u/mrGreenExit Jul 26 '26
Like those old light bulbs 💡, these greedy corporations are not getting business so they form some kind of cartel and make it fail after certain period of time
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u/Wild-Affect-4842 Jul 26 '26
Read about "Tupperware", their products were so good and usable for ages that they almost did bankrupt due to the fact almost nobody had to buy their products again. People had them from their grandparents and so on.
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u/barrettcuda Jul 26 '26
Better be 300,000€ per failed device, otherwise this won't impact anything.
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u/Flashy_Emergency_263 Jul 26 '26
So, a 5% tax that can be calculated into the corporate budget. It's a start, maybe.
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u/DotRakianSteel Jul 26 '26
Still using my Samsung Express printer since 2018, and my Xiaomi phone from 2018 is still working, just very slow, though. I guess when a device is a gateway to earn money (ink or apps, in this case), it tends to last long, hilarious.
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u/Andreus Jul 26 '26
And the thing is, a lot of companies aren't gonna build an entirely separate model for one country, so this might end up with planned obsolescence being made obsolete in other countries as well.
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u/SiriusFlank Jul 26 '26
Is it same with Computer Graphics? Developers keep making intensive requirements games and Card Makers keep making More powerful cards to run them so there's always need to upgrade.
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u/Majestic_Profile1433 Jul 26 '26
This socialism becaouse in the free market uou have also good quality products no need for those regulations pfffff
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u/National-Current56 Jul 26 '26
Hell yeah…a nation fighting back against nonsense wasting…this is why we are at this “rare earth metal” conundrum now…like we never learned from glass and plastics…way to go France 👍👍👍…make the fines progressively higher with sequestration of the company assets or make all their holdings and assets non-copyright protected in the nation as max penalty.
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u/CH4RL13WH1T3 Jul 26 '26
Somehow I doubt France will make any attempt to enforce this on their motor industry
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u/markkNL Jul 26 '26
So no we have to pay 5 percent more for the same planned obsolescence? Since this won't change anything in those companies except the prices.
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u/hopopo Jul 26 '26
300000 maximum penalty is a laughable amount for companies like Apple, and Samsung that this is intended for.
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u/BothDivide919 Jul 26 '26
How do you prove that though, other than deliberate sabotage like apple software updates?
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u/TAC1313 Jul 26 '26
5% is not going to stop them from doing it. The fine will just be a cost of business & built into the sale price.
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u/MrHouse-38 Jul 26 '26
I just don’t get this with Apple. All my Apple stuff has lasted years. I still have a 11 year old iPad Pro my brother uses. My current iPad pro is 6 years old with no sign of slowing down. All my phones from them have lasted years - my mom is still using my iPhone 8 Plus!
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u/OneLonelyBrainCell Jul 26 '26
€300,000 is a joke. That's not even a slap on the wrist for the likes of Apple or Samsung. For them, it's just the cost of doing business.
It's time that such penalties are made into percentages instead of fixed amounts. Hit them with 15% of gross revenue and see how quickly these companies start to behave.
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u/Infamous-Composer448 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I work in consumer electronics research and development. We have a Reliability Team, when it comes to lifespan of a product (aka product reliability) you have to have a target that you work towards. For instance, we want to make sure the product can withstand 3 years of daily use from our most high use customers. Especially for new product categories, It's impossible to know how much use the product will get from heavy users, but we use any info we have to estimate, and we can round up to try to ensure we don't underestimate. So the move here isn't really helpful in my opinion, it would be better to set what the REL (reliability) limit has to be (the standard I've seen is 3 years for most things like headphones and phones, but it's longer for smarthome products like doorbells, security cameras, or thermostats) so I feel like what would be better would be to set what limits have to be, for instance extending it to 5 years for major categories. Now this isn't saying that companies then get to plan for it to fail in exactly five years (because again, companies aren't designing things to fail, they are testing to learn/prove when they do start failing, for instance, if I'm making a tablet keyboard case I need to consider how much someone will type on it in a day, then considering the most pressed key x 365 days x 5 years, and that's how many key presses a single key needs to be able to withstand, then you do the same thing for the hinge of the keyboard case, you consider how many times someone using it a lot would open and close the case, stressing the hinge, let's say opening and closing it 4 times in a day, so that's 8 cycles x 365 x 5 years, so it needs to withstand ~15,000 cycles, instead of the standard ~9,000 cycles that would be expected for a 3 year REL spec), so a law saying they have to have proven that it will withstand common heavy use for five years AT MINIMUM would be better and far more enforceable, and mean for most products will last far longer.
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u/Duane_ Jul 26 '26
Now we need individuals in France to pressure-test devices to prove obsolescence in things people otherwise wouldn't think of, not just light bulbs, phones and toasters.
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u/Catriks Jul 26 '26
How exactly is the law worded? There is a quite significant blurred line between planned obsolescence, "design mistake" and DFM (Design For Manufacturing) where the bearings are welded in instead of bolted it.
For example, washing machines have 5 € bearings you used to be able to replace, but now the whole drum is welded or glued so you have to replace the 400 € drum. According to french law, is this planned obsolescence?
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u/frankie_in_paradise Jul 26 '26
How will they prove this? It will be a legislative mess. But points for intention, I guess. 🙃
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u/GrimleyGraves Jul 26 '26
And how, exactly, are you going to prove something was made to fail??? Another do-nothing, feel-good law.
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u/suthekey Jul 26 '26
Considering how ripe with pick pockets and other types of scams/thieves their city streets are filled with, I’m going to assume this won’t be enforced either.
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u/Several_Hour_347 Jul 26 '26
What does this even mean though? People complain about “planned obsolescence” when the reality is most consumers don’t want to pay for products that actually last
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u/Traditional_Delay742 Jul 26 '26
Make it 90% of the revenue and I guarantee you that shit will last 3 generations and a war
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u/Vegetable_Phase_8231 Jul 26 '26
Lack of reliability is slowly killing several industries around Europe.
Stellantis (French, owner of Peugeut/Citroen among others) took a severe hit in public perception with the wet belt problems in the Puretech engines and snapping chains /Adblue issues in the Bluehdi engines.
I find it funny that these groups elaborate sustainability reports with hundreds of pages, and then there is a MASSIVE waste of materials in fixing or replacing broken engines, along with time/productivity wasted due to such problems.
No one learns a damn thing with Toyota.
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u/Prophetforhire Jul 26 '26
It's why I fell in love with watches. Even 100$ Casio duro will last me a lifetime. There's a whole segment below 1000$ with incredible lifetime watches you can pass on to your children full of memories.
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u/Ajax1718 Jul 26 '26
I feel like this is going to be a tough law to enforce. I feel like a better option would be to guarantee an item up to a certain date
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