Yeah, our society seems to be taking the notion of built-in obsolescence to absurd lengths. These days a lot of things seem to be designed to self-destruct shortly after you pay them off—if they even last that long.
My girlfriend bought an iPhone from AT&T on an installment plan--$27 a month for 20 months. You do the math. The phone only lasted 16 months and needed to be replaced. The people at the AT&T store very glibly said no problem, you only owe $128 on the phone. Just pay that off and buy an other one, starting over from scratch on the installment plan. I came up with a better idea, which the AT&T people only grudgingly admitted was viable. We submitted an insurance claim, paid a $99 deductible, and still had the phone paid off in a couple of months. If she gets another 16 months out of the replacement phone, that's just gravy, especially for the equivalent of less than four months' worth of payments.
