Planned obsolescence has been a common feature among most products because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making the product break down in a fixed timeline thereby forcing consumers to purchase a replacement. This trend can be seen in the world of smartphones as well, with many smartphone manufacturers ceasing to provide long term support in the form of updates and security patches.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the EU is starting to draft legislation that might change all of this. This legislation will mandate that smartphone companies provide consistent feature updates for a minimum of three years, and security patches for a minimum of five years with all things having been considered and taken into account.
This can help consumers get a lot more usage out of their smartphones than might have been the case otherwise, since they would no longer have to replace their phones every few years just to gain access to updates once again. There is another major advantage of this legislation as well, namely that it will allow e-waste to be reduced considerably once all has been said and is now out of the way.
Most consumers don’t want to buy a phone for the sake of it, and they are usually driven by necessity. This results in an unnecessary increase in the amount of electronic waste that is produced, and this legislation can be an important first step towards fixing the matter once and for all.
This legislation can make it so that consumers can use their smartphones for at least half a decade as long as they take good care of it, and it will be interesting to see if it has the positive impact that so many are saying it will. While it might cut into the profit margins of smartphone manufacturers, in spite of the fact that this is the case they can still keep their sales up by innovating instead of designing their products to become obsolete too quickly.
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