[Chaebixi]

> it's easy to understand that they want to make a profit, and if you design a "once in a lifetime" product, you'll find yourself out of business within 10 years or so after everyone owns said product.

I don't think that's really true. There's something like 4 million people born in the US each year, plus immigrants. If your product is so good that it gets 100% market penetration, that's still a lot of sales. Plus, you can still make money selling spare parts and support.

I think the real "drawbacks" to a company of not pursuing planned obsolescence are actually:

1. You can't slack and rely on milking your existing customer base for new sales (without making compelling improvements).

2. You're less likely to get the "world-spanning megacorporation" achievement, because you won't be running waste factories to fuel the obsolescence. Once you hit total market penetration, your operations and company will need to scale back to a smaller, sustainable (but still profitable!) size.

Both those "drawbacks" are probably better for the world and humanity in general, but they conflict with the self-interest of a few minority groups.