RE: The Old Dog Discusses: Planned Obsolescence Exposes The Dark Side of Product Design!
@kus-knee, planned obsolescence has been one of my pet peeves for most of my adult life! My dad was a bit of an inventor as well as a "quality freak" and he originally taught me some about products that were created more to be "sold" than actually to be used.
"Cheap" printers are a particularly nasty piece of trickery... designed mostly to make you spend lots of money on expensive toner and parts that supposedly "wear out," as per your experience. I have a laser printer that I have been using "remanufactured" toner cartridges in for years... even though the printer manual insists that using such "3rd party"cartridges can permanently damage the printer.
Not only do I save money on the locally re-made printer cartridges, they actually last longer than the OEM cartridges they'd have me buy! A scam, indeed!
I much admire the example of your dad. Remember : "The misery of poor quality remains much longer than the joy of a cheap price."
Poor quality is one thing but designing a product to fail at a pre-determined time, while understandable from a business point of view, is criminal!
Thanks so much @denmarkguy for taking the time to make an insightful comment!
The cynic in me says it's just part of our inevitable cycle that revolves around consuming and spending. I'm sure apologists for capitalism will argue that's how things are meant to work... but I take issue with that. I am a willing buyer for a better product that will last me a lifetime, but nobody seems to make one for me to buy!