There's no doubt that lots of this stuff has planned obsolescence built-in, but then again, maybe we want that. I still use the television I bought in college, 15 years ago. It works just fine, but it's a woefully out-of-date, standard-definition, heavy-tube monster. I paid $270 for it, so whenever I replace it with something current (flat-screen HDTV) for the same price, I'm going to be happy I didn't pay more to get something that would have lasted longer. Especially with tech stuff, you probably want it to be cheap, since you don't want to be overpaying for things that last so long they're still working when they're several generations out of date. Why pay $10,000 for a computer that will last 10 years when it's going to be completely surpassed by something that will cost $2,000 in five years?