One advantage of being a professor is that you can ramble about your eccentric theories to a captive audience. For example, I often grumble to my graduate students that every time a new iPhone comes out, my existing iPhone seems to slow down. How convenient, I might think: Wouldn’t many business owners love to make their old product less useful whenever they released a newer one? When you sell the device and control the operating system, that’s an option.

This particular conspiracy theory has its adherents. But it is especially eccentric for an economist to entertain because economics argues that this type of strategy may not be as good for the bottom line as it sounds. (Catherine Rampell gave a terrific rundown of the economic arguments around planned-obsolescence and Apple conspiracy theories last October on the Economix blog of The New York Times.)

Apple would not comment on such theories. But there are two simple reasons that planned obsolescence might not maximize profits. First, the legal risk. Second, competition and consumer rationality should combine to thwart this strategy. All a competitor needs to do is to offer a smartphone that doesn’t become a brick as quickly, and more people should buy it.

But these are theoretical arguments. And my experience, though constituting a sample size of one, is empirical.