Planned obsolescence, and why Apple dumped thousands of working computers in a landfill.

There’s a really interesting documentary up by The Verge that’s a must-watch for anyone with an interest in the circular economy and tech waste.

It tells the story of how, early in its existence, Apple used to resell the working but obsolete computers that it couldn’t sell to a distributor (who would sell them at a lower price).

But one day, that all changed. Apple decided to reclaim thousands of the still working old computers from the distributor, and dumped them in a landfill.

(For people with an interest in retrocomputing and Apple, it also tells the sad story of what ended up happening to the company’s Lisa systems.)

Planned obsolescence is not an accident. It’s a design choice.

https://youtu.be/rZjbNWgsDt8

#tech #Apple #RetroComputing #RetroGames #AppleLisa @technology @green #CircularEconomy #Recycling #Sustainability

  • Bargearse@mastodon.au
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    1 year ago

    @AnEilifintChorcra

    Apple is there to make money exploiting the deliberately gullible. They are just better at it than anyone else.

    A segue, there was an interesting lecture by Sam Harris where he was commenting on workers assembling iPads in India many years ago, the working conditions so atrocious people where hurling themselves off the roof of the building, the solution ? Nets…

    Outside of tiny bespoke organizations like #Fairphone they’re all necessarily repugnant.

    @ajsadauskas