Built to Break: The Ethics of Planned Obsolescence

From smartphones that slow down with each update to appliances that mysteriously die just past their warranty, planned obsolescence has become an unspoken rule of modern business. But at what cost? In this episode, Nova explores whether designing products to fail is smart capitalism, silent exploitation, or something even deeper: a reflection of our disposable mindset as a society. Is it ever ethical to engineer limitation? Or does doing so erode trust, sustainability, and human progress itself?