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That is why I added that notice at the top of this article.
That whole section about "expiry dates" is highly dubious. For starters, the examples it refers to (food and drink) are not explicit expiry dates, but are "best before" dates. And they are usually quite accurate predictions as to when the quality of the product becomes unacceptable for consumption. I have been in the unfortunate position of eating out-of-date crisps, peanuts and chocolate on several occasions (usually a few months off) - with the crisps and salted peanuts they had more or less totally lost their flavour, and generally tasted quite awful. When chocolate goes off it starts to discolour, harden, and also doesn't taste too great either.
And as these dates are predicted, 100% accuracy can not be expected for obvious reasons, and they probably want to stay on the safe side with things like food, drink and medicine so the dates would be put shorter than predicted. Health & Safety boards and whatnot would not be particularly happy if things were expiring before the labelled dates!
Also: "Would DVD players have been adopted as quickly, or even at all, if VCRs didn't break irreparably after three years?" This is complete drivel! It is not typical for consumer VHS VCRs to just "break" after 3 years at all. In comparison to DVD players, VCRs do require occasional maintenance due to the much more complicated mechanical parts needed to operate - many people seem to not understand that VCRs are by no means "maintenance-free" products because of the mechanics involved. But still, that does mean they have to be serviced annually, or even every 3 years. Depending on usage, head and tape transport cleaning is required every year or so to keep picture and sound quality optimal, rubber components will degrade over many years, and video heads will eventually wear out after thousands of hours of usage. I have had a VCR since 1998 and it is still perfectly functional after only occasionally cleaning the heads, and I know people who have had ones for longer without issues.
Unfortunately more modern VHS VCRs tend to be of cheaper quality as most production of units has moved from places like Western Europe and Japan to places of cheaper labour, but as they say, you get what you pay for. A poor quality VCR is going to break just as easily as a poor quality DVD player - which there are also many of these days. -- Zilog Jones 10:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This article is fairly accurate. I have had Playstation 2 systems that have fallen apart for no reason and have to be replaced. Clearly, Sony intended to sell 5 or 6 per household so they would make a greater profit then cancel production and move everything to the more expensive Playstation 3. 205.166.61.142 19:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
This is probably off-topic, but I know that certain old Sony CD players had planned obsolescence. I'm not mechanically inclined enough to remember the exact workings, but a friend of mine once showed me how a certain gear would slowly drop or wear down until it would be purposefully useless in a number of years. He was able to fix the thing somehow. Not encyclopedia-quality material, I'm aware, but I bet more digging might reveal some more concrete evidence, perhaps. This is a tricky thing to cite. 71.221.10.197 02:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing this:
This is an urban legend. The linked article explains that there is a relation between lifetime and efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb. It is easy to make a lightbulb that lasts much longer, but at the price of getting far less light for the same energy consumption.
Han-Kwang 20:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Most CFLs seem to be engineered to fail these days, regardless of brand. Failure of the seal at the metal conductor-glass joint. Failure of the electronics powering them. Overheating causing the tube to burn out prematurely at one end. Rare that the tube runs its full lifetime, dimming itself out to a flicker like a real fluorescent with a simple ballast. Zaphraud ( talk) 23:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed the section with this title on the main page is blank. Is it supposed to be? → Twentydragon 07:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The article could use some notable examples to show how this sort of thing operates in real life. I would suggest starting with the Apple iPod. New features are never back-ported to older models (unless it's new DRM) and each model often has a very short life span before being replaced. For example, the 4G colour was a current model for just *3 months* before being replaced by the 5G. Mojo-chan ( talk) 13:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Also think about the Lead-Free Solder. This shows how real stuff breaks after ~3 years of usage. -- 213.84.249.129 ( talk) 12:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this is fair considering that Apple has employed this strategy and has admitted publicly to doing so. I cannot think of another real-world example with more merit aside from the whole ATI thing. Traxxasred ( talk) 03:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree that this needs some examples (with evidence to back it up, of course). FriendlyRobotOverlord ( talk) 05:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
That is why I added that notice at the top of this article.
That whole section about "expiry dates" is highly dubious. For starters, the examples it refers to (food and drink) are not explicit expiry dates, but are "best before" dates. And they are usually quite accurate predictions as to when the quality of the product becomes unacceptable for consumption. I have been in the unfortunate position of eating out-of-date crisps, peanuts and chocolate on several occasions (usually a few months off) - with the crisps and salted peanuts they had more or less totally lost their flavour, and generally tasted quite awful. When chocolate goes off it starts to discolour, harden, and also doesn't taste too great either.
And as these dates are predicted, 100% accuracy can not be expected for obvious reasons, and they probably want to stay on the safe side with things like food, drink and medicine so the dates would be put shorter than predicted. Health & Safety boards and whatnot would not be particularly happy if things were expiring before the labelled dates!
Also: "Would DVD players have been adopted as quickly, or even at all, if VCRs didn't break irreparably after three years?" This is complete drivel! It is not typical for consumer VHS VCRs to just "break" after 3 years at all. In comparison to DVD players, VCRs do require occasional maintenance due to the much more complicated mechanical parts needed to operate - many people seem to not understand that VCRs are by no means "maintenance-free" products because of the mechanics involved. But still, that does mean they have to be serviced annually, or even every 3 years. Depending on usage, head and tape transport cleaning is required every year or so to keep picture and sound quality optimal, rubber components will degrade over many years, and video heads will eventually wear out after thousands of hours of usage. I have had a VCR since 1998 and it is still perfectly functional after only occasionally cleaning the heads, and I know people who have had ones for longer without issues.
Unfortunately more modern VHS VCRs tend to be of cheaper quality as most production of units has moved from places like Western Europe and Japan to places of cheaper labour, but as they say, you get what you pay for. A poor quality VCR is going to break just as easily as a poor quality DVD player - which there are also many of these days. -- Zilog Jones 10:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This article is fairly accurate. I have had Playstation 2 systems that have fallen apart for no reason and have to be replaced. Clearly, Sony intended to sell 5 or 6 per household so they would make a greater profit then cancel production and move everything to the more expensive Playstation 3. 205.166.61.142 19:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
This is probably off-topic, but I know that certain old Sony CD players had planned obsolescence. I'm not mechanically inclined enough to remember the exact workings, but a friend of mine once showed me how a certain gear would slowly drop or wear down until it would be purposefully useless in a number of years. He was able to fix the thing somehow. Not encyclopedia-quality material, I'm aware, but I bet more digging might reveal some more concrete evidence, perhaps. This is a tricky thing to cite. 71.221.10.197 02:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing this:
This is an urban legend. The linked article explains that there is a relation between lifetime and efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb. It is easy to make a lightbulb that lasts much longer, but at the price of getting far less light for the same energy consumption.
Han-Kwang 20:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Most CFLs seem to be engineered to fail these days, regardless of brand. Failure of the seal at the metal conductor-glass joint. Failure of the electronics powering them. Overheating causing the tube to burn out prematurely at one end. Rare that the tube runs its full lifetime, dimming itself out to a flicker like a real fluorescent with a simple ballast. Zaphraud ( talk) 23:54, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
I've noticed the section with this title on the main page is blank. Is it supposed to be? → Twentydragon 07:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The article could use some notable examples to show how this sort of thing operates in real life. I would suggest starting with the Apple iPod. New features are never back-ported to older models (unless it's new DRM) and each model often has a very short life span before being replaced. For example, the 4G colour was a current model for just *3 months* before being replaced by the 5G. Mojo-chan ( talk) 13:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Also think about the Lead-Free Solder. This shows how real stuff breaks after ~3 years of usage. -- 213.84.249.129 ( talk) 12:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this is fair considering that Apple has employed this strategy and has admitted publicly to doing so. I cannot think of another real-world example with more merit aside from the whole ATI thing. Traxxasred ( talk) 03:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree that this needs some examples (with evidence to back it up, of course). FriendlyRobotOverlord ( talk) 05:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)