Planned Obsolescence

There is really no point to strike around the bush. Planned obsolescence is the natural consequence of the rules that have been set up for our society. It is the reason why garbage piles heap up in 3rd world continents, at a safe distance from our own view. It is the pump that makes the blood circulate through our economy. Without it, the global society would dry up and wither. With it the global garbage piles up and pollutes. A documentary on the subject can be seen here:

The documentary highlights two different version of planned obsolescence. The cynic would argue that one is much more harmless, perhaps even innocent than the other. I would say that both are as bad. In one case planned obsolescence means that a company would design their product in such a way that it will break within a pretty short timespan, hence forcing the consumer to buy a new product. A good example is a cell phone or an ipad that typically don't have a physical lifespan longer than three to five years (you could compare that with my old Amiga computer at home that still starts). Because the product breaks the consumer will buy a new one, hence upholding the revenue stream for the company. The more innocent kind of planned obsolescence is (once again) typically explained with the cell phone. It is when the producer don't create a physically weak product, but instead they create a product so tied to together with fashion that even though the product is not broke, the consumer will want to buy the newest model instead. Even though the newest model most often don't contribute very much in terms of new functions that the consumer actually needs.
Now, in one case the consumer is tricked, because he is buying something that up front is bad quality, in the other case he is not tricked, he is simply convinced into "upgrading" his product (throw away his old model and buy a new one). In either case, the result for the planet is the same. Huge piles of waste build up.
Why is this a problem related to the modern society? Consumerism is an ideology that grew up out of necessity as the means of production quickly grew more efficient than the need of consumption. The economy, that is built to always grow, needed people to work, but what is the point to work when you are producing something that no one needs to buy? You simply need to create the demand. Advertisement is one way of creating demand (and it is of course tied to the second form of planned obsolescence) but for some commercial products, coolness simply isn't a factor. The main case that is used in the light bulb conspiracy is that of... the light bulb. The producers of this simply product realized at one point in time that if light bulbs didn't break, the demand for new light bulbs would soon diminish. So also the need for the light bulb factories. By tweaking the light bulbs slightly they managed to give them a good trade of lifetime, and this way keep society's demand on their product.
Nothing in modern society is more central than the economy. Every breath taken by politicians is used to enforce the vitality of the "economy". Governing a country is pretty much about making the math add up, and keeping the pump running. If it stops, mass unemployment could be the consequence. This way, most political decisions taken by any government in almost any country in the world is taken to upholding the economy. Everything from arranging child care so that mothers and fathers can work instead of spending time with their children to privatizing the social system so that revenue becomes the chief interest of any factor of society. If a politician would ever speak about the environment, you can feel pretty certain that the positive decisions he might be willing to take for creating a more sustainable society most likely are leveled out or reversed by the many negative ones he is ready to take for the economy. When for example focusing on global warming and emission of green house gases, the global pollution in recent years have only decreased when there has been a global recession.