- Why our tech fails us: Learning from century-old light bulb that never goes out - https://interestingengineering.com/culture/planned-obsolesce...

> ... but there is also a market for $150 Best Buy laptops for broke college students.

Sure. Why do you think such a market exists? Compare it with the Automobile industry, where really cheap cars (comparable to the $150 laptop market segment) don't really exist. Instead we have a flourishing second-hand market - a whole new industry around selling used cars. Even if a cheaper, lower quality car were to exist, people would still buy a good-quality, used car over a cheaper, lower quality one. Why? Repairability. Why would I buy a cheaper low quality car, if I can buy a good quality car that I can repair as needed, for the same price or even lower. A market for cheaper, new laptops exist because today you fear buying an older computer that is no longer repairable or upgradeable. (And note that it isn't as if the old products wouldn't make money - people will still need to buy the parts for it. The profits would be lesser than selling whole devices though). It is because electronics have somehow escaped the purview of consumer rights and repairability that even the Automobile industry (and others) have started including more and more electronics in them to make their products less repairable.