How to Money · Friday, July 17, 2026
The hosts discuss the concept of planned obsolescence, where products are intentionally designed to have a limited lifespan. They cite examples like fast fashion, electronics, and textbooks, noting the common sentiment of 'they don't make them like they used to.' This practice forces consumers into repurchasing items and contributes to a wasteful consumer culture.
“Yeah, that's like the preeminent reality in macro and microeconomics is scarcely in trade offs, right, And so a main problem we bump up against, right as we try to become more intentional in our spending is planned obsolescence. And oh yeah, this is summed up with the phrase they don't make them like they used to. If you've heard someone over the age of fifty say that, I don't think anyone over the age of fifty hasn't said that phrase, right, that's just kind of true. It's part of getting older, he starts to say those things.”
“But we've all experienced it right where the newer model is lacking because it's not made with the same standards, the same rigger and oftentimes we don't even have the choice to offer the product that's going to last the longest and bring us the most satisfaction because companies and manufacturers aren't delivering quality goods. It's again, it's baked into the business model of the company for their item to fail after a certain number of years, or to stop updating the software so that you can't actually use it the way you wanted to. After a certain period of time, you'll be back at their doorstep making another purchase. That's the way they like it.”
“But you don't have to go to the yetti route, right because instead you could go to the gas station. You could drop five bucks and get yourself a decent styrofoam cooler. But so first of all, the dichotomy, it doesn't have to be that extreme, right, Like I've got a twenty five dollars backpack cooler from Costco. It does what I needed to do, keeps all the beverages cool in there while we go out to the beach. That's the most important thing the cooler does. Although right it's it's unlikely to the last for decades, like a yetti product claims, But I think that's that's totally fine with me. But the thing is, the variety of options that we have open to us allows for like a like a different strokes for different folks kind of approach, so we can each opt to purchase what we want to suit our specific needs.”