In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that it becomes obsolete (i.e., unfashionable, or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.[1] The rationale behind this strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle").[2] It is the deliberate shortening of a lifespan of a product to force consumers to purchase replacements.[3]