We live in a world where things are not only allowed to break.
They are expected to. And needed to.
Phones slow down. Printers stop accepting perfectly good ink. Washing machines fail because one cheap plastic part gives up. Clothes are made to last a season. Software updates make older devices feel obsolete. Cars become increasingly difficult to repair without specialized tools, subscriptions, diagnostics, and permission.
New phones, new cars, new clothes, new devices. More sales… More more more…
And then we call this progress.
But is it?
Or have we built an entire civilization around the quiet assumption that everything must eventually become waste so that something new can be produced, sold, bought and consumed?
Most people want things that last.
The planet certainly benefits when things last.
Yet our economic system mostly benefits when they do not.
And there we find one of the great contradictions of our age.
The Contradiction
People want things that last.
The planet needs things that last.
The monetary system needs things to be replaced.
That is the contradiction at the heart of modern civilization.
If a washing machine lasts fifty years instead of ten, fewer washing machines need to be produced. If a phone can be upgraded indefinitely instead of replaced every few years, fewer phones need to be manufactured. If products are easy to repair, fewer new products need to be sold.
From the perspective of resource conservation, this is excellent.
From the perspective of a growth-dependent economy, it is not.
The economy depends on production, consumption, and replacement. New products must constantly enter the market. Factories must keep producing. Retailers must keep selling. Investors expect growth. Governments measure success mostly through economic expansion.
The result is a permanent tension between what is best for people and the planet and what is best for a system that depends on continuous consumption.
The Push and Pull
This does not mean that manufacturers sit in secret meetings plotting how to make your washing machine fail next week. Maybe some do.
But the reality is more subtle.
Engineers often want to build the best products possible. Consumers want reliability. Governments impose regulations and warranties. Consumer organizations fight for durability and repairability.
Yet all these forces operate inside a system where revenue ultimately depends on future sales.
That creates backwards incentives.
How durable should a product be?
How easy should it be to repair?
How available should spare parts be?
How long should software support continue?
The answers are usually influenced not only by engineering but by economics.
If left entirely to the logic of profit and growth, many products might have had even shorter lifespans than they do today.
Fortunately, society pushes back.
Consumer protection laws, warranties, right-to-repair movements, environmental regulations, and public expectations all act as counterweights.
Society is essentially saying:
“No, you cannot simply sell us products that almost immediately fail.”
The fact that such laws are necessary tells us something important about the underlying incentives.
The Replacement Economy
Our modern economy depend on movement.
Money must circulate.
Businesses must grow.
Sales must continue.
If products last too long, replacement slows down.
So fashion changes.
Models are updated.
Software becomes incompatible.
Batteries are glued in.
Parts become difficult to obtain.
Repairs become expensive.
New versions appear long before the old ones are truly worn out.
Not because humanity needs it.
Because the economy benefits from it.
The planet, meanwhile, pays the bill.
The Cost of Waste
Every replacement product requires resources.
More mining.
More manufacturing.
More transportation.
More packaging.
More waste.
More energy.
More pollution.
A civilization genuinely focused on sustainability would naturally ask:
“How do we make this last as long as possible?”
A civilization focused on economic growth must ask:
“How soon can we sell another one?”
The difference between those two questions is enormous.
One seeks stewardship.
The other seeks turnover.
The Hidden Abundance
There is another side to planned obsolescence that is rarely discussed.
Every product replaced before it is truly worn out represents resources that never needed to be used again in the first place. Every phone, appliance, vehicle, or gadget that could have lasted longer reveals something important:
Humanity is already producing far more than it actually needs.
If products were designed for maximum durability and repairability, we could enjoy the same quality of life while consuming far fewer resources.
In that sense, planned obsolescence is not only wasteful. It is evidence of abundance being squandered. The very fact that we can afford to replace so many products proves how much productive capacity we already possess.
The tragedy is that so much of this capacity is spent replacing things that could have continued serving us for many years to come.
More People or More Waste?
This discussion also raises an uncomfortable question.
Many people argue that humanity’s greatest problem is overpopulation. If there were simply fewer people, they say, the planet would be healthier and resources would stretch further.
Population certainly matters. No ecosystem can grow indefinitely.
But population alone does not explain the world we see around us.
If it did, environmental impact would be distributed relatively evenly across humanity.
Instead, we find enormous differences in consumption between countries, regions, and individuals. We find products designed to be discarded. We find food wasted while others go hungry. We find houses standing empty while people lack housing. We find mountains of perfectly usable products thrown away every day.
In such a world, it becomes difficult to argue that population alone is the central problem.
Perhaps the more important question is this:
How many people could the Earth support if we designed our systems for durability, efficiency, sharing, repairability, stewardship, and long-term thinking instead of perpetual consumption?
The answer may be far larger than many assume.
When we look at planned obsolescence, waste, overproduction, and resource mismanagement, it becomes clear that the challenge is not simply the number of people.
It is the way we have organized our civilization.
Designed to Last
But could we actually have an abundant world that works for all with products designed to last? We could, but not within the monetary system of today.
But imagine a different set of incentives within a completely different system.
Imagine a world where the goal is not maximizing sales but maximizing usefulness.
A phone would be designed to last.
A washing machine would be easy to repair.
Buildings would be constructed for generations.
Products would be modular, upgradeable, and recyclable.
The question would no longer be:
“How do we sell another one?”
The question would become:
“How do we make the best one?”
That single shift changes everything.
Because when resources are viewed as the common inheritance of humanity, waste becomes irrational.
Planned obsolescence becomes absurd.
Deliberately designing products to fail begins to look less like good business and more like collective self-sabotage.
The Deeper Question
The issue is not really about phones, washing machines, or printers.
It is about civilization itself.
Do we want a world where products must eventually fail because the economy depends on replacement?
Or do we want a world where products are designed to serve people, conserve resources, and help create the best possible world for all beings on Earth?
That is the deeper question.
And perhaps the answer is obvious.
A sane world would not be designed to break.
A sane world would be designed to last.
This is one of the themes explored in the novel Waking Up – A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity, where humanity has moved beyond money, ownership, trade, and artificial scarcity into a world focused on stewardship, collaboration, and the intelligent use of Earth’s resources.
The former billionaire Benjamin Michaels wakes up in this world after 100 years in cryonic preservation. What he discovers is shocking at first and it takes him a while to understand the new world…
If this vision resonates with you, please share this article and help spread the conversation. As the only way we can create a better world for our children is if we first can visualize it ourselves…