Planned Obsolescence and Your Website

There's a great documentary called The Light Bulb Conspiracy which basically explains how planned obsolescence is built into the capitalist system and without it, capitalism would be in trouble. The light bulb is designed to last no more than 1000 hours, printers are designed to fail after a certain number of pages, computers, cars, washing machines and even bras are designed to last a limited amount of time.

What about your website?

There are actually three kinds of planned obsolescence:
1) Products designed to fail after a certain amount of time (printers, cars, iPods).
2) Products that will just seem obsolete because newer and better versions are out there (fashion items, TV's, iPods).
3) Products that have been made obsolete because of technological breakthroughs (film cameras, 1990's cell phones, iPods).
In each of these cases, you are advised to go out and by a new [whatever].
Websites belong to the third group (sometimes the second, as designs change). That means that your website's days are numbered, not necessarily because it will fail (although if it is not built correctly, that can happen as well), but because the technology that surrounds the site -- browsers, servers, screen resolution -- change and your site won't work or at least won't look good on the new systems.

The lifespan of a company or organization website is similar to that of a computer -- 2-4 years -- that's not to say that there aren't sites out there from 1998, but have you seen them? Most sites will survive longer if they're well maintained, but those sites tend to get upgrades more often. If you are using a major content management system (CMS) like Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, you have a better shot at maintaining updates to keep the site safe, relevant and clean, therefore increasing its lifespan. These systems are also easy to redesign and easier to find new developers when you've had it with the service you received from the previous maintainers.

When you build your site, upgrade your site or transfer it to a CMS, ask yourself how you plan on keeping it relevant in the future. Websites are not cheap, and knowing that you will have to put out another chunk of funds a few years down the road doesn't make the decision process any easier. Every time you buy an electronic or mechanical product you're doing the same thing, but websites always seem to people to be one-time items. They're not. Don't settle for a cheap solution just to get online if you have the option for something sturdy and robust. A popular CMS, with a strong community to back it can help you with upgrades and redesigns in the future.

When you build your organization's website, don't expect it to last forever. It will become obsolete, so plan for it.