They Literally Don't Make Things Like They Used To – SOME MORE NEWS

Everyone shush up, shh, shh. We're doing the news now. Yes, you in the back shush as well, thank you. Okay, breaking news, breaking news. Here's some more of it. Planned obsolescence is a thing, that's the news. Look, I'm sorry I was so short with you earlier, but have you noticed that more of your clothes are getting worn out and getting holes in them more quickly? Or do you ever run out of ink in your printer and see the price of a fresh ink cartridge is around the same cost of a new printer? Do you ever wonder why your refrigerator died after 10 years of freezing Halo Top ice cream, but your hot grandma's 1930s ass fridge still keeps Doc Fudgem's Coco Whippledick iced milk cold? That's planned obsolescence. And I know that sounds very low stakes, but please rest assured that the episode won't just be me griping about how they don't make stuff like they used to. That said, they don't make stuff like they used to. And there's a larger implication to that, and a reason, and that is planned obsolescence. It's P.O., baby, pure P.O., which is like B.O., in that it stinks for everybody except the person responsible for it. Also, like farts, the problem of planned obsolescence. Heck yes, the title means that we're doing an episode now about a thing that we're all aware of, perhaps consider annoying, but don't really think about enough. Or maybe you do think about it, but I don't know what's in your heart, not until my saw gets here in the mail. So planned obsolescence is a business strategy that deliberately ensures that a product will break, become useless, or obsolete within a specific time period so it can guarantee that consumers will need replacements. This keeps demand steady so people will become repeat customers. If you've ever bought a smartphone, this probably sounds terribly familiar to you. More on that later. But that's the short definition. For the longer definition, keep watching, I guess. I mean, look at the time bar at the bottom of the video. We've got a few notes. So while the business aspect of creating demand has been around since the invention of commerce, the earliest modern aspect of planned obsolescence can be traced back to 1925. It also happens to be the most insidious conspiracy brain version ever because prior to that year, incandescent light bulbs had a lifespan of up to 2,500 hours, or like 104 days of continuous use. And that's the average. There's currently a light bulb that's still working after being turned on in 1901. The invention was incredibly efficient. So efficient, in fact, that the light bulb companies weren't making enough money. After all, with that system, customers just needed a new light bulb around four times per year. And that's assuming they had it on all the time, perhaps to ward off ghost owls, which I'm told is a big problem in New England and some parts of Canada. Anyway, light bulbs, too good, need money. So an international cartel of industry leaders was formed to, big quotes, fix that great product into a less great and more lucrative one. The Phoebus Cartel was made up of incandescent light bulb companies throughout the world, including subsidiaries of General Electric that plotted together to shorten the lifespan of the light bulb. And they succeeded. Hooray, success! They all agreed to unimprove their products to the point that any light bulb they sold, regardless of company or country of origin, lasted only 1,000 hours. The cartel would even regularly send samples to a neutral lab to ensure that their products didn't exceed the agreed and artificial limit and would pay fines if they dared to make a better bulb. Those restrictions were okay by them, of course, since sales from the cartel increased from 335 million to 420 million units between 1926 and 1930. Of course, the cartel would loosen its grip when the members' host countries got into a bit of a spat around 1939 to 1945. Look it up, it's an event. Ask Ken Burns about it. He'll point you in the right direction. But the point, which I really can't stress enough and I'm struggling to get to, is that incandescent light bulbs were purposefully manufactured to be less good so that people would have to spend more money on them. And for at least 75 years, we just accepted that until LED bulbs became popularized. We were just grifted by an entire industry for decades. Dare I say, gasp. Hey everyone, it's Cody from the future. Just wanted to pop in here to note that the light bulb cartel story, while widely reported, has also been disputed. And a 1951 report from the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission claimed that the 1,000-hour limit was to balance lifespan versus wattage, at least according to representatives of these companies who still issued fines for going over this limit, so why do that? If it's just for being more efficient, why issue the fines? Also, in that same report, they refer to the guidelines as seemingly arbitrary and they state, when asked whether it would not be possible to market a type of lamp with a longer life in order to test whether the public in fact like it, their reply was to the effect that this was a matter on which the public could not judge and which ought to be left entirely to the manufacturer. So anyway, according to the bulb companies, they're totally innocent, debunked. Point is, still seems a little sus, which is a phrase that came back in style in the future. Also, tomorrow's lotto numbers are 69, 69, 69, 69. That sounds fake. Okay, back to the show. Speaking of lighting bulbs, just prior to Global SPAT II, American businessmen got a light bulb over their head, imagery I just invented to mean an idea, and added a new tool of planned obsolescence called creative waste. Creative waste would implant the idea in consumers that buying and replacing old and broken goods was better than fixing or upgrading them. This idea was already enticing to consumers as WW2 provided a stronger middle class that would have no problem just using their extra disposable income to replace their current retail goods with newer models. As a result, this would bolster a stronger economy and create larger, sexier landfills. Mm, so bulgy. Later on, creative waste would go on to become the name of a grind core band, I assume. Ah, there they are. Anyway, this idea was used in conjunction with a method dubbed consumer engineering by early 20th century advertiser, Ernest Elmo Kalkins. Consumer engineering is essentially creating artificial demand for products in a near endless cycle of buying replacements just because they're new, rather than using what they already bought for as long as possible. Essentially, it's enticing consumers into buying newer versions of products that they originally purchased because of their small and often arbitrary changes. Stuff like a slimmer PlayStation, a different trim on a Honda Accord, two extra Zoom Air units on a Nike Pegasus shoe, extra sour corn-scented lures on your boar trap, or, of course, a new hat. She's just a regular. But she's got a new hat. The Simpsons, of course, definitely knows a thing or two about consumer engineering. So creative waste and consumer engineering synergy bone with enough greed splooge to conceive and give a sloppy, gooey plot birth to the current planned obsolescence concept that we know of today. Yes, that sounded gross, but it should because the idea itself is gross too. One deep V-necked version of this strategy comes in the form of fast fashion. Fast fashion is common practice by the majority of clothing brands to make their clothes out of cheaper material so they wear out more quickly, while simultaneously coming up with new trends and clothing lines to get consumers to ditch their unsightly worn-down genital coverings to get the latest off-the-shoulder dress for the fall season, or wide-legged jeans to prevent your calves from choking, or whatever the hell, fuck you flip-flops are. What are they? I don't know, fuck you. For centuries, how we dressed was associated with social status. So the affordability and marketing of these fast fashion clothing items made us want to get the latest looks to appear cooler, more attractive, and in the now at a too-good-to-be-true price because, in fact, it is. In the past, if you needed a new jacket, you used to go to a tailor, get measured, choose a material, and have it made. Then, for decades, instead of going to a tailor for a jacket, we went to department stores and bought things that were mass-produced. By the 80s and 90s, we had tons of options in stores to choose from. And now, many of us just kinda go online, click add to cart, and buy a product without ever seeing it in person. In order to speed up manufacturing, companies have to either hire more people, alter how the product is made, or both. But they also have to keep prices low enough for consumers to keep buying. So they may start swapping materials, like cotton or silk, for a cheaper synthetic material, or rely on a more basic stitching pattern that maybe just doesn't hold as well. Fast fashion is sometimes literally new hat. Speaking of buying items for social status, since the 1920s, the auto industry has been a huge fan of planned obsolescence. And that's kinda wild when you think about it. A $30,000 car should be one of those things you hold onto for a while, you know? But back in the day, the then-CEO of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, noticed that children's bicycles came in different colors and shapes, causing children to beg their parents for a new bike. Sloan decided to take that mentality and apply it to cars, allegedly saying, the changes in the new model should be so novel and attractive as to create demand and a certain amount of dissatisfaction with past models compared with the new one. He also allegedly said afterward, now give me that kid's bike! Then immediately ate it, tires and all, which is impressive and horrifying, and, true, ate the bike. I mean, look at him! He's got bike eater face! Anyway, the auto industry cranked up this strategy in the 1940s and 50s as the middle class rose, creating different trim levels at different prices while also changing the design and style of the same model each year. Due to this strategy, the length of car ownership dropped from five years in 1934 to just two years by 1955. That's according to the General Motors head of design at the time, Harley J. Earl, who then said, when it is one year, we will have a perfect score. That was the ultimate goal, to sell you the same car over and over every year. Maybe with a new spoiler, additional airbags, and or navigation system, but it's overall still the same goddamn car. Again, new hat meme. So, cars, fashion, light bulbs, this is all Farm League shit. After all, long after the invention of these industries, we got an exciting new way to thoroughly fleece consumers. On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. Oh yeah, so revolutionary. You smash that screen, but then buy a smaller one, put it in your pocket, carry it around, stare at it for hours every single day. But no, smash the screen, go nuts. After all, it's probably pretty easy to repair. Unlike Apple's phones, tech is, of course, one of the biggest offenders of planned obsolescence. In 2017, iPhone users discovered that their older phones ran slower after the latest Apple iOS update. Apple acknowledged that this was intentional, but claimed they did it so the battery on those older phones wouldn't be too taxed and shut down. Apple had to shell out $113 million for a class action lawsuit that accused the company of intentionally throttling the batteries of older phones. In 2020, Apple also settled in another multi-state class action battery gate lawsuit for $500 million and didn't have to admit fault. As of August 2023, Apple just started to pay out that money, giving millions of people up to $90 to pay for one ninth of a new iPhone, I guess? Now, to be fair and balanced and corporate and a little exhausted about Apple, as tech systems and the internet grow and get more advanced, then of course, older tech shouldn't be expected to keep up. For example, older 3G phones just plain won't work as well as more and more 5G towers are being built. Plus, batteries do indeed wear out over time, sure. But blindsiding your previous customers with an operating system that they knew would hinder performance or even shut down a device that was only on the market for two years is, in my opinion, bad. And Apple, of course, isn't the only tech company normalizing the constant upgrading to newer products and finding fun ways to squeeze their customers. But I would argue they've kind of become the worst. Remember when you could just open up one of those Power Macs and swap out whatever you please? Not so much anymore. It's all proprietary parts for a purposefully unique design. Also, you're gonna have to pay $7,000 for it. Plus, 400 bucks if you want wheels that don't lock in place. I'm sure for locking wheels, it's a meager $300 extra. Oh yeah, look, so now available locking wheels for just $700. Or, you know, just buy a tower PC for the same 700 bucks and get more or less the same thing. To be clear, the $700 you would be spending on the non-spaceship-looking tower PC was originally only for the other computer's wheels. I would argue that 80% of Apple products are now just grifts aimed at very rich and unfulfilled people. After all, you don't have to get Apple computers. While these industries are intentionally making their products lower in quality or more disposable, we as consumers still have a choice, right? We can mend our clothing. We could buy a replacement battery for our weak, sluggish electronics and install it ourselves or have a tech-savvy friend do it. We could take our car to an independent mechanic or a body shop to tune it up or add some amenities, whether Exhibit pimps it up or not. Is that enough setup? You know I'm building towards something for after the ad break, right? Not the Exhibit part. That was just a fun 2004 reference for me, even though I preferred the episodes when Chameleon Air hosted. So no, you can't fix your own stuff. Spoilers for after the break, which we are now going to do for yummy ads. For yummy, yummy stuff. Yummy ads for yummy stuff. Not at all weird to do ads in this video about consumerism. It's not weird to do ads at any time. You love it and eat it. Eat the ads. Open wide, fleshy! What's up, my hot salads? It is me. People are always asking me, hey, Cody, how did you get such a beautiful throat? It's true. The inside of my neck is like a silken chute, a true velveteen hole. The answer is that I take care of my throat. For starters, when I need to take vitamins, I drink AG-1 instead of throat damaging pills. AG-1 is a nutritional supplement packed with 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and other whole food sourced ingredients. It's perfect for when you're on the go and don't have time for full meals, or maybe you just want to give your throat a fun prize. Cheers to my throat. Ooh! Hi-yah! Ah, kapow! Ah, right down the lustrous hatch it goes. Everyone says this about my hatch, that it's lustrous. I gave AG-1 a try first for these ads, and now I drink AG-1 during every shoot because it ensures I'm getting nutrition during busy work days without damaging my money maker, my throat money maker, that is. If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG-1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG-1 travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash more news. That's drinkag1.com slash more news. Check it out. After all, you're hearing this from my throat, and you love my throat. You all love my throat. Oh, God! I don't know what I'm doing. Hey, hope you liked those ads and they filled your consumer tum-tums. Are you good? Everything okay at home? Well, nothing I can do about that. We are back, and we were talking about planned obsolescence and how it's a strategy to keep consumers consuming through marketing of superficial features and using lower quality materials so consumers purchase replacements regularly. But surely, if something you buy is broken, if you're hard-pressed and don't want to buy a new one, you can just get it fixed, right? Especially if you know a guy who knows a guy who knows a gal who can do it cheaper than the manufacturer or free if you have cocaine. Well, that is becoming less and less of a thing. The repairing part, I mean. Cocaine is doing fine. Let's go back to our fruit-named tech overlords. You know the ones. Good enough. So in the last segment, we discussed how in 2016, the battery on older iPhones couldn't handle an operating system update, even though some of those older phones came out less than two years prior to the update. So here's a question. Why can't we just replace the battery ourselves? Most electronics feature this groundbreaking feature of batteries that go in and out. If this 90s-era discrete vibrating device can take a couple of double As and a few Vs, why are our modern phones so limited? Or what about some other small issue? Couldn't you just do a little DIY and save you a trip to the Genius Bar? It's your phone, after all. Well, no. In fact, French investigators, hopefully including at least one of these guys, found out that Apple made it incredibly hard to fix and replace parts of an iPhone without taking it to an Apple-accredited repair shop. A lot of this is due to the parts pairing or serialization of Apple's phones. This links a phone's serial number with the serial number of an internal part so that the phone notices whether its screen, battery, or a sensor has been replaced. So if you, let's say, wanted to replace a broken screen from your iPhone with a working screen from another iPhone, it won't work. The phone will realize the serial numbers don't match and stay shut off or blast you with notifications telling you that your screen isn't verified. Imagine any other product you bought yelling at you like that. That's like if you bought a steak that was genetically modified to scream if you tried to cook it without A1 sauce. I fucking bought you, phone! You do what I say! Anyway, as part of a French anti-garbage law foreshadowing, any action that limits a consumer's right to repair their own device or that would subsequently discriminate against independent repair shops is illegal. While the country is pressuring Apple to alter their behavior, they're being backed up by the rest of the European Union who not only want Apple to make repairing their devices a more accessible option for consumers, but also require all smartphones to have replaceable batteries by 2027. Good idea! One point to the French! For people following the show, we're now at 14 points for France, 26 points for Oklahoma, three points for Antarctica, and of course, zero points for New Zealand. Obviously, no other countries or landmasses are in the race. So, Apple's response to all of these customer complaints and pressure from government bodies was to start the Apple Self-Service Repair Program, which would provide consumers with the parts and tools to do common repairs themselves. That's not quite what we asked for, but it is something, I guess. Let's take a look at how much it would cost for you to replace your iPhone 14 Pro Max yourself through this service, so you can go back to taking cute pictures of squirrels, pissing on gravestones for your Instagram, or whatever it is you freaks do. Angry birds? I don't know. The regular toolkit costs $49 to rent for seven days. For this unreasonable service, that sounds reasonable, since it would cost up to $99 for Apple themselves to replace the battery for you. However, when you go for the $49 rent and fix option, they'll reportedly put a whopping $1,200 hold on your credit card if you don't return the combined 79 pound toolkit within the seven day period. Bear in mind that the $49 doesn't include the actual Apple parts for the repair, which in this example, would be just under $202 before taxes and shipping, provided you didn't trade anything in. Now you better hope that you don't lose one of those tools or that you damage any of the Apple parts while you try to repair them, as Apple is strongly against you reaching out to get a third party part on the quick and cheap, what with that whole parts pairing thing. But in the kindness of their hearts and gorging money loins, they have technically made it easier to repair their products under their weird terms. This incredibly frustrating process was obviously made by design, so you have no choice but to go to Apple accredited shops or to Apple themselves to get your phone's battery replaced a service which has just recently gone up in price. But it's not just phones, Apple makes all kinds of small pieces of shit. AirPod batteries can't be replaced because they're sealed inside. There's no putting this AirPod back together and that's why they're essentially expensive, disposable electronics. Apple's AirPods are even more disposable with their batteries effectiveness, lasting an average of two years and being absolutely impossible to replace. Again, to be fair and balanced and corporate and excruciatingly more exhausted about Apple, there are very few earbuds that can be easily refurbished. But the overall point is that Apple, that revolutionary company going against the grain, very clearly chose to make a disposable product among all their other impossible to repair products designed so that they can make as much money from you as humanly possible. So this is a MacBook Pro that the Apple store said would cost $1,200 to fix and wasn't worth doing. All right, let's take a look and see if that's true. See the pin that's sticking out? Okay. So that pin is actually most likely the pin for the backlight. And as you can see, it's probably not making contact because it's bent outwards. And I got my set of tweezers over here and I'm just gonna try to push that back into the slot and try to get it back into its groove. As you can see, we've got an Apple and we have a light. So it's fixed. That took you like one and a half minutes? Maybe. So if I walked in off the street with this problem, what would you charge for the repair you just did? If somebody wanted me to just bend the pin back, I wouldn't charge them for that. I would say, I'm gonna rework your original cable. That may not last long-term, but here, it's free. If they wanted us to replace the cable, depending on the model, anywhere from 75 to 150, depending on the difficulty of opening that model. Think different. Think $700 wheels. If you've ever owned an Apple product, this isn't really a big revelation to you, but it really can't be understated how egregious this one company is about controlling everything about their product for the sole purpose of squeezing their customers out of a ridiculous amount of money. They are the poster children for planned obsolescence. I haven't even mentioned their ridiculous addiction to perpetually changing and removing their ports. One more way they ensure that you have to keep buying dumb little dongles or update your hardware every few years. Of course, some good news about that coming up. And while it's subjective, I would argue that the result of all of this is a serious fall from quality over the last two decades. Apple used to be associated with artists both big and struggling. Indie and big budget films were once edited on their Final Cut Pro software, which has since been downgraded into a cheap consumer app. For that reason, filmmakers who still use that software often use outdated versions of it. Final Cut Pro has of course devolved into a subscription-based model, which is similar for Adobe and scores of other software products. Subscription models are clearly the evolution of planned obsolescence, and actually something we're planning to do an episode about in the future. In general though, the world of tech has been a boon to companies looking for ways to shove planned obsolescence into their products. And look no further, as we briefly discussed earlier, than the auto industry. Older cars can be taken to any mechanic for basic repair, and they could order special parts if necessary. But as more technology is being implemented into a car's design, whether it's computerized systems or materials to provide better gas mileage, it's making car repair more expensive and specialized. Your regular third-party mechanic can't help you anymore, not because they aren't skilled, but because auto manufacturers are gatekeeping vital information and data. This creates a reliance for consumers to take their damaged vehicles to a manufacturer rather than an independent mechanic, making repairs cost more and pushing work away from those independent mechanics. This especially applies to electric vehicles. Granted, they don't need oil changes or tune-ups, and their braking technology is overall better than gas-powered cars. So on paper, they require less maintenance and repair. But EV companies, especially Tesla, are bravely proving that wrong. See, if your Tesla car needs a repair, taking it to an independent mechanic, either A, likely won't work because the mechanic has no idea how to fix your issues, or B, will violate your warranty if your car gets damaged by non-authorized technicians. This means that you have to take your car to Tesla to get it fixed, and there aren't enough technicians to meet that demand. This is a problem that extends for owners of electric vehicles as well as a whole, but especially for Tesla owners, since they score poorly both in quality and reliability in 2022. And that is just, that's certainly a fact. Dare I say, Tesla is quickly becoming the Apple of cars. You know, like in the way where they're designed to look slick and futuristic while failing the most basic functions. You shouldn't have to troubleshoot your door handles, Elon. Go tweet about the juice some more. That'll get the advertisers back. Anyway, self-driving will certainly make this repair issue worse, but that's a whole other episode that we are literally working on right now. And it's not just big city tech idiots feeling this hurt. This type of repair restriction impacts our small town farm idiots too. For decades, farmers had been at odds with John Deere over their tractors. The company has been in the agricultural business since 1836, and currently holds 53% of the market share on all tractors sold in the US. So they've been in the biz ever since modern agriculture grew its first crop of corn to make the first disgusting dollop of corn cream, which yes, is still under this desk. And yes, is starting to grow something that whispers. Sure, I could mop it, but it's hard. And I don't want to offend it or anger it. Farmers have been frustrated because their modern tractors are run by software and technology that only John Deere technicians are able to address and fix. And boy, are they milking non-dairy farmers out of every cent they earn. Farms today use a tremendous amount of technology. Deere makes claims that you only really have the license to use their software. And for someone to say they own the software pretty much takes away the whole viability of the entire tractor or a piece of equipment. Much like those film editors using outdated software, so too do farmers pay top dollar for 40 year old tractors that while inflated in price, would still be cheaper while being sturdy and easier to independently fix. As for John Deere, what incentive is there for them to make their tractors more accessible for farmers to fix? Per Bloomberg, John Deere's company filings in 2020 showed that parts and services made three to six times more profit for them than selling new machines. My goodness. If a company makes more money fixing their product than from the product itself, I feel like that should be considered a bad company, right? And yet this is a viable and common business strategy. Companies that not only perpetually and unnecessarily update their products and design them to be less durable, but also secure a monopoly around repairing that product. And besides the obvious fact, which I keep reminding you about, that this is all designed to squeeze us out of obscene amounts of money, there's also a less tangible loss to all of this. Think about a farmer getting up, milking the chickens, plowing the barn, eating his dog, and so on. A life that's fundamentally designed to be self-reliant, salt of the earth, dog fearing, et cetera. And these people have to then bring their tractor into some fancy dealership whenever it breaks, even if it was free of charge. For a lot of people, there's a principle to this. Everyone from hobbyists to doom preppers to non-weirdos have stuff that they simply like to do by themselves for themselves, that they want to be able to do themselves. A good farmer likely prides themselves on their ability to fix anything right there on the job, just like how I can disassemble and repair this desk in under two minutes when there's not corn cream everywhere. Computer geeks love opening up their gaming rigs. Car perverts can't wait to build their own Pontiac Fire Nuts. Commune living cultists and hippies make their own clothing, and so on. We like being able to do stuff in case there's a power outage or emergency, or we get bird boxed or whatever. It's really important to be able to fix stuff or build, to hunt or fish or garden. It's good that we can rely on others in a society. That's good in this case for $700 computer wheels, but we also like being self-reliant. We should be self-reliant, but self-reliance is also antithetical to everything corporations want. It is the opposite of this current model of capitalism. There is, of course, one other problem to this whole planned obsolescence grift, because with all of these consumers buying and buying and buying, it all has to go somewhere. And I'll give you a hint. It's a smelly, ever-growing somewhere. So let's, um, ugh, do some more ads for stuff before coming back and presumably starting a fight club where we all live in a single dilapidated house, maybe? That's where this anti-consumerism stuff is headed, right? With a Pixies concert at the end? That'd be cool. We're certainly gonna form some kind of cult. So stay tuned to find out which kind. Hey there, what are you doing? You watching an ad right now, bro? That's like two minutes that you could be spending with your hamster. You love your hamster, even though your hamster isn't capable of feeling that love back. It's basically a fluffy brick. But listen, why not save some time and check out the Some More News Patreon? That's patreon.com slash some more news. For just $5 a month, you get early access to all of our episodes, plus even more news, completely ad free. Maybe there won't be a vacuum in the background during those episodes, but why stop there? Join our producer tier and get your name in the credits. You can use your hamster's name, even though your hamster would absolutely eat you if they had the chance. There's even a tier where you can hang out with the Some More News crew through the wonders of video communication technology. So check it out. Cut the ads out of your life and support us at patreon.com slash some more news. Your hamster has no soul. Once again, that's patreon.com slash some more news. Maybe it does. I don't know. I'm not God. And we're back. The answer was a doomsday UFO cult. We are forming a doomsday UFO cult. Please purchase the appropriate footwear. It's shoes without bottoms. Don't need to protect the bottoms of your feet in space. That's just cosmic facts. But now it's time to give you the big unpredictable reveal of what happens to all of the products that we buy, throw out, and buy again. Are you ready for the big reveal of what happens to all the stuff we buy and throw away and buy again over and over and over and over and over again? It's trash. It's garbage, junk, litter, rubbish, waste, refuse, scrap, goo, scrappy goo, scrappy doo, and according to the Mothman in my cryptid teaches you the word of the day calendar, oddments. Thank you, Mothman. May you continue to expand our vocabularies and terrorize the people of West Virginia in peace. In fact, let's do a Mothman cult instead. That's a great idea, actually. Sorry. So yeah, we're gonna do a Mothman cult instead. Please return your footwear. Okay, we produce, I'm doing the episode now. We're back, we're back in it. We produce 50 million tons of electronic waste each year and greenhouse gas emissions from e-waste have increased 53% from 2014 to 2020. E-waste isn't just the fastest growing waste contributor globally, but only 17% of it is properly collected. The majority of this waste can contain mercury, lead, and other items that are toxic to humans if it's absorbed into the land and groundwater. But good news, if Americans raise up too much of a fuss, it can always be shipped to poorer countries. Problem poorly solved. The 80,000 people that live near the Agbogblashi dump in Ghana are subjected to conditions that saw a meteoric rise in skin ailments and chronic respiratory diseases due to the particulates in the air from the dump and also having their food compromised due to their cattle grazing on soil that is contaminated with e-waste chemicals. These issues aren't just in Agbogblashi, but in other poorer areas of Africa too. Oh, and Asia. Since there are no legal limits to how much e-waste can be exported to Africa or Asia, these companies just do that. Not the time, monkey! Or whatever, it's fine. So why aren't we recycling it? Same reason we don't recycle anything. Tech companies make it really hard for their products to be dismantled for parts to be sorted and recycled. I mean, it apparently takes a 79-pound toolkit to just remove an iPhone battery, so taking these items apart in general requires some time and effort. Electronic recycling company Total Reclaim is the largest electronics recycler in the Northwestern United States, and they still struggle with the task. Between 2010 and 2015, Total Reclaim had 170 employees go through 40 million pounds of e-waste to get at lithium-ion batteries and reusable materials, but just dumped the rest of it in Hong Kong in spite of promising vendors that they wouldn't export their mercury-loaded trash overseas. Also, why didn't they make their logo look like the Total Recall logo? That's an easy win. What the f**k? Even when e-waste is recycled, there are still the issues of finding safe ways to dispose of unusable materials containing cadmium, which has been linked to skeletal deformities in animals, lead, which can poison soil and groundwater, and mercury, which can damage a person's organs when they're exposed. Combined, they make a single toxic avenger, but separate, just a bunch of sick people. Also combined, just a bunch of sick people. So, while there is an opportunity to create a circular economy with the metals found in e-waste to be used in future products, it still can't keep up with how often we dispose of our products due to this whole planned obsolescence dilly. Whether it's the companies kneecapping their products so you need to throw them out more frequently, or the e-waste companies receiving these broken products and looking for space to hold them, it's actively poisoning people for profit. And it's not just from e-waste. Let's not forget the other stuff we throw out, especially fast fashion. All in all, pollution is, of course, an entirely different beast with a lot of different causes to look at. But when climate change is such a growing threat, and one of the most obvious things we can do is look for sustainable practices, it's pretty fucking breathtaking how these companies are actively working against sustainability in order to make some extra money. And the thing of it all is, when you really explore the root of this problem, you inevitably have to conclude that these companies aren't necessarily doing it because they want to be doing it. In fact, you could argue that in the current system we have, they don't have another option. And this is where we travel into the dark heart of the matter, the insidious underworkings implanted into the very fabric of our society. Whatever your food preference or tastes, Instant Pot can make family meals happen with the simple push of a button. Absolutely chilling stuff. Also, we should probably explain, that was an ad for the Instant Pot, or Instapot if you're nasty. If you own one, you probably love it. It appeared on the market in 2010 with great reviews and decent sales, but really exploded in popularity during the pandemic in 2020, when people were stuck at home and had the time and energy to actually cook and exist like a human. Hey, we did a video about that. Media websites were riddled with articles and recipes specifically centered around Instapot. You could even make dog food in it, or according to this article, decontaminate your N95 COVID mask. It garnered a consumer positive reputation as a sturdy, reliable, quality made product. And now its parent company is filing for bankruptcy. Record scratch, spit take, reverse jizz. What? Why would such a good and reliable product go broke? Because it was too well-made. Seriously, according to market research, sales for Instapot and multi-cookers as a whole have gone down since Instapot's peak of popularity in 2020, with the latest numbers showing multi-cooker sales going down 20% from April, 2022 to April, 2023. Not because people lost interest, they just already owned one. They made a good thing, people bought that thing, and now they don't need to buy it anymore. And so this company was effectively punished for not designing a product that would fall apart in a few years. I'm not sure if you noticed this, but all the other companies we mentioned, Apple, John Deere, Tesla, fast fashion clothing companies, they're all still in business, and in fact, very successful, because that's how the system was designed. Our capitalist system demands constant growth over and over again to keep business going and appease shareholders. So it's better for companies to make inferior products so that they have somewhere to grow from later, but not too much, too soon. Endless growth, baby, yeah! And you can see it everywhere. It's why we see endless movie sequels, reboots, remakes, and franchise tie-in TV shows that are lower in quality and rush through production year after year. It's why fast food chains keep introducing new food items, then taking them away and then bringing them back. It's why video games put out DLC and pre-order additions. It's why there's a new Call of Duty every damn year. It's why companies lay off giant swaths of workers, either due to new growth initiatives or because they fear losing growth in an upcoming recession. There comes a point where everything has a consumer limit, but our current capitalist system won't allow that. And because of that, consumers end up paying for it over and over and over again, and our garbage grows and grows. Yeah, sorry, it's late stage capitalism again. Ah, we'll get you one of these days. These episodes are like murder mysteries where one of the characters is Jason Voorhees. Oh, what could it be? And so there's a much larger conversation to be had here where planned obsolescence is just a symptom of a larger problem. But in terms of this specific issue, there is at least steady momentum in developing more and more right-to-repair laws throughout the world. Remember when I mentioned France's anti-waste law earlier? Well, that helped spark a movement toward the entire EU pushing for right-to-repair laws to reduce waste, including initiatives for companies to offer repairs for their products for 10 years, making all smartphone batteries easily replaceable by consumers by 2027, and a single universal charger for all mobile devices by 2024, so you don't have to buy another adapter or cable or dongle to add to your USB cable bird nest that you have in that one drawer. You know the one. I think the ghost owls sleep in that. Anyway, that's who to thank for the new iPhone 15, which is 8% lighter than the previous one. Oh boy, so different. That's who to thank for them reverting back to USB-C. As for here in the States, not so much going on. Regarding John Deere, farmers are celebrating a win after the company agreed to provide access to its diagnostic tools, manuals, product service demos, training, and seminars to farmers. But this gesture isn't legally binding, and John Deere agreed to share these things provided that the American Farm Bureau Federation doesn't support any right-to-repair legislation on a federal or state level. So that's pretty much it for America. Well, even Canada is making progress, not enough people here seem to care enough, which is weird because this isn't a divisive thing. In fact, it's one of the few bipartisan issues we have left. Red or blue, 84% of Americans support right-to-repair. Because again, this affects both roughneck, hardworking types like a Nick Offerman character and left-leaning hippies that wanna save the planet like a Nick Offerman character. On a state and federal level, several initiatives for right-to-repair laws have been introduced by representatives on the right and the left, especially for farm equipment, automobiles, and electronics. Earlier this year, a Republican-led Democrat supported Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair Act, or the Repair Act, was introduced to Congress. Hell, even the unabashedly conservative National Review and the elitist liberal Huffington Post both support this type of legislation. It's a popular movement that any politician can glom onto to get support regardless of party affiliation. However, while there is bipartisan support, that doesn't mean there aren't any bad actors or lazy ones. In 2021, Joe Biden was praised for putting out an executive order for the FTC to crack down on companies imposing restrictions on independent repair shops and DIY repairs. Then in 2023, he said, oh, except cars though, because they could be hacked. But when I say that this is a bipartisan issue that not enough people care about, the truth is that this is something that not enough people on the left care about. It's not because the left or liberals are a bunch of rich elitists who live in a big city, but rather, oh, it's kind of that actually. Right to repair laws are primarily seen as a rural concern, and in fact, are one of the big ways that right-wing farmland types are furious with corporations. And if you're a pinko lefty soy fucker, you might want to see that as an opportunity. After all, as I already mentioned, this show often points to capitalism as a heavily flawed system in need of reform. And for moderate or right-leaning people, this is one of the most visible examples of that flawed system. So we should talk about it more. If only because it's an actual reasonable olive branch, we can extend to right-leaning folks that doesn't involve like throwing trans people under the bus. It's a way to meet in the middle without compromising anything, without betraying or ignoring our marginalized brothers and sisters. And it's a universally accessible entry point to a larger conversation that needs to be had, whether it's for the environment or self-reliance or just the money of it all. Everyone wants this to change. And so maybe we should open it up, dick around inside and fix it, you know? And by opening it up and fixing it, we'll see all the guts and learn what the larger problem is, like a tractor or a human body, which reminds me actually, why can't we perform surgery on ourselves either? All right, that is just, it's one more way this capitalist healthcare doctor system is, I'm sorry, wait, I'm being told that I've gone a step too far. Okay, okay, dialing it back, dialing it back. I'll save it for the cult. So, you know, keep an eye out for when my cult drops. Although full disclosure, there will be problems with it. So I'll have to start another cult a few months later. No refunds. Just buy into the new cult. Shoddyism. It's when you're giving me the money. What's up, fuckos? How you doing, fuckos? Thanks for watching the video. Make sure to like it if you can. And if you're not upset that I called you fuckos, also subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet. We really appreciate it. And if you do, you're not one of the fuckos. You know what? No one's a fucko. Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for watching, friends. Like and subscribe. And check out our podcast. It's called Even More News. And you can listen to this show as a podcast if you want. 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