This happened in the case of the Phoebus Cartel. The cartel was a union of the major light bulb producers that forcefully lowered the life expectancy of light bulbs to 1,000 hours. They charged anyone who didn't abide and spent money researching how to worsen a product whilst simultaneously preventing technological advances.

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But there were also quite a few undeniable benefits of such a cartel. The planned obsolescence of a product forces consumers to buy new products. This not only boosts the economy, but it also reduces the compet.i.tion in the given industry. In conclusion, it is great for the government and company, not so much for the consumers as less compet.i.tion leads to more expensive products and less development. Another point of view would be that since the companies earn more, the workers, who are also consumers, would earn more and thus be able to spend more. But that just sounds like a nice way of describing inflation (when there's so much money that it's worth less).