Planned obsolescence is an economic phenomenon that costs households thousands of crowns every year. What it is, how to recognise it, and why regulators are only now starting to address it.
What is planned obsolescence
Planned obsolescence is the practice by which a manufacturer deliberately designs a product to stop functioning — or to be perceived as outdated — after a certain period, regardless of whether it could keep working longer.
There are three main types:
Technical obsolescence — the product is physically designed to break down after a certain number of cycles. Classic examples include smartphone batteries designed for 500 charge cycles, or printers fitted with a chip that blocks further printing once a counter limit is reached.
Functional obsolescence — a new software version stops supporting older hardware, even though the hardware could physically keep working. iOS updates that slowed down older iPhones were the subject of lawsuits in both the United States and Europe.
Aesthetic (psychological) obsolescence — the product works fine, but marketing presents it as "outdated" because of a new design, colour or fashion trend. This is the dominant form in the fashion industry.
Economic impact
The average household discards several kilograms of electronics every year. Some of this waste results from genuine failure; some is a direct consequence of planned obsolescence.
This section will be updated with research data from IKOR's first study.
The EU's regulatory response
The European Union has moved to regulate planned obsolescence on several fronts:
- The Right to Repair Directive (2024) requires manufacturers to ensure repairability and the availability of spare parts for a defined period
- The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR, 2024) sets minimum durability requirements for products across categories
- The Green Claims Directive (2024) bans claims such as "eco-friendly" without substantiated evidence
These regulations are the first of their kind globally. Implementation is gradual — and this is precisely the moment when businesses and consumers need independent data to understand what these standards mean in practice.
What consumers can do
- Check repairability before buying — the IKOR Repairability Index (available now) or an iFixit score
- Compare total cost of ownership — a cheap product with a short lifespan may cost more in the long run than a more expensive one that lasts twice as long
- Consider secondhand — a used product with a proven track record is sometimes a better choice than a new one with an unknown lifespan
- Report problems — consumer protection authorities accept complaints about planned obsolescence
Pavel Kopczyk is the founder of the Institute of Quality, Repairability and Reuse (IKOR) and a doctoral researcher at Silesian University in Opava, where he studies the mechanisms of planned obsolescence.
Further reading
A tenth of France's reliability score measures nothing
We rebuilt the French durability index from the complete register — 2,764 models instead of the 274 we had in July — and separated every sub-criterion. The warranty and quality-process criterion carries a nominal 10% of the reliability score and explains −0.1% of its variance. Delete it entirely and the ranking barely moves.
What the Secondhand Appliance Market Reveals — and What It Doesn't
We analysed 15,221 secondhand appliance listings from seven marketplaces in three countries. The most-resold brand in Czechia is not Bosch or Samsung — it is Mora. Appliances lose half their value within three years, and expensive brands lose a larger share. And the one thing we wanted most from this data, it refused to give us.