OPINION:
I bought a brand new iPhone13 last month, and it's bloody fantastic. So powerful. So beautiful. The best phone I've ever owned. I can not wait to throw it away and get the new one. The iPhone 14 isn't available yet, but I already want it. It's not the advanced features that attract me. I don't even know what they are.
The reason I and millions worldwide want this new phone is much more pathetic than that. We are excited because it has a higher number in its name — a 14 when mine is only a 13. The announcement of an iPhone 14 makes the 13 feel less special. Soon it won't be the latest one, creating powerful desire in the weak. The 13 does more than anyone could rightly expect from a phone. That's good enough for now. It won't be in September when there's a 14.
Planned obsolescence has been working on idiots like me for at least 100 years. In the 1920s, the American automotive market hit saturation point. Cars lasted a long time back then. Once you had one, you didn't need a new one for another 10 or 15 years. Alfred P Sloan Jr, an executive at General Motors, decided the best way to get people to buy cars they didn't need was to release annual model changes with the following year in their name.
In 1922 Chevrolet restyled the body covering of a nine-year-old vehicle and called it the 1923. They experienced a massive spike in sales. Henry Ford hated the idea of model year changes. He focused on design integrity, engineering simplicity and quality production scaling. Huge mistake. In 1923 Ford was by far the biggest seller of automobiles in the US. GM quickly surpassed them because people want the new thing, with the new number, not the thing they need.