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The new iPhone is out. That means, as I wrote in a column for the coming issue of The New York Times Magazine, that conspiracy theories again abound about ways that older models start to become more unattractive and dysfunctional around the time that a shiny new upgrade is available.

Among the evidence that Apple is supposedly engaging in the great capitalist sin of “planned obsolescence” — that is, deliberately limiting the useful life of a product so that consumers will be forced to replace it – is the slowing of older models. The iPhone 5S and 5C models coincided with a release of a new iPhone operating system, which happens to make the iPhone 4 and 4S very sluggish. When my iPhone 4 notified me that the operating system was available for download, there was no warning that the software might affect the speed of my model.

There’s also the matter of the battery, which, like all rechargeable batteries, has a finite number of charges and generally runs down much faster by the time service providers offer a subsidized upgrade. Apple makes it difficult for customers to remove and replace iPhone batteries at home, since the batteries are sealed into the phone body with special five-point screws. Having your battery replaced by Apple instead costs $79, just $20 less than the typical subsidized price for a new iPhone 5C.

These are ways in which your old phone looks unattractive not only compared with the new models, but compared with itself just a year or two earlier.

Of course, lots of these signs of “planned obsolescence” have alternative and more benign explanations, related to design, efficiency and innovation. Sure, software upgrades may make older phones run more slowly, but that could be a side effect rather than the primary intention; newer software does more sophisticated stuff (3-D maps! Photo filters! AirDrop!) intended to take advantage of the hardware capabilities of the newest phones, and these more sophisticated features happen to be quite taxing on previous-generation hardware.

Likewise that batteries are hard to replace could be justified by Apple’s commitment to design aesthetics. IPhones are sleeker and lighter with batteries screwed in, rather than manufactured with clunky, detachable phone tumors. And if Apple expects users to want to upgrade in two years as hardware innovations become available, it doesn’t make sense for the company to include batteries that last much longer than that. Consumers may not be willing to pay higher prices for that additional longevity if it’s not useful to them. Just as a clothing retailer probably doesn’t want to sell an infinitely durable pair of skinny jeans if its customers are likely to switch to bell bottoms next year anyway, Apple probably doesn’t want to equip its phones with a much longer-lasting — and potentially much costlier — battery.

Point being, it’s actually very hard to infer a company’s motives for designing a feature a certain way, and whether that decision was intended to hasten degradation of older products, as some insist that the famously secretive Apple is doing. (Apple declined to comment when I called about accusations of planned obsolescence.)

I spoke with a lot of technology experts for the Magazine column, and their interpretations of Apple’s design decisions were all over the map. Some suggested that yes, Apple is deliberately limiting its technology’s lifespan to harvest more sales from its existing user base. Others said no — the brand hit that Apple would take for doing this would be too damaging, and Apple knows it. Since the column was published, I have likewise seen plenty of reader emails and technology blog posts insisting that Apple is either obviously engaging in planned obsolescence or obviously not.

But the answer is not particularly obvious. The best one can do is look at whether Apple would even have the incentive to cause its products to deteriorate more quickly over time. Economic theory is somewhat ambiguous on this point; it really depends on your assumptions about the competitiveness of the high-end smartphone market.

In a notable paper from 1986, Jeremy Bulow asserted that a monopolist not threatened by entry would have an incentive to produce goods with “inefficiently short useful lives.” But if consumers have the option to switch to good substitutes — as arguably they do now in the smartphone market — the incentives could run in the opposite direction. Your company might capture a larger share of the market if consumers believe your products are more durable.

“If people are rational and forward-looking and are able to anticipate the shenanigans that company might pull, they will take that into account when buying the thing originally,” said Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

On the other hand, if consumers faced substantial “switching costs” if they wanted to flee to your competitor, that could also increase your incentives to limit durability. For example, iPhone users would lose iOS-compatible apps they’ve bought if they switch to Android phones. These network effects could increase Apple’s incentives to force its existing customers to upgrade by making older models gradually become more dysfunctional – but again, that’s assuming Apple believes it can practice such Machiavellian scheming without damaging its brand too much.

Already Apple is accused of planned obsolescence (and even sued for it, in Brazil) more than most. That’s partly a function of just how big a player it is, and how suspicious consumers become when a luxury product so closely associated with excellence doesn’t meet their expectations. But these sorts of market pressures, trade-offs and concerns about public perceptions exist in other industries too — particularly for any company whose market power makes people suspect it is capable of arm-twisting customers into upgrades. Successful video game companies have received blowback every time they release new consoles that are not backward-compatible with old games, for example; such design decisions could be explained by planned obsolescence, or they could be explained by other considerations related to quality and price trade-offs.

These companies know, after all, that not offering backward-compatibility might drive loyal customers to switch to a competitor in a fit of pique. As I said, economic theory is somewhat ambiguous on when planned obsolescence is actually in a company’s best interest. (As with other economic questions, there are too many other-other-other-other hands!)

The best way to render an older model effectively obsolete is not to make it self-destruct, of course, but to introduce a new product that people really want. The phrase “planned obsolescence” was popularized in the 1950s by the industrial designer Brooks Stevens, who intended it to refer not to building things that deteriorate easily, but “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary.” Today the term has come to be associated with conspiracies to degrade older products, but in the past it was more closely associated with innovation in new ones. Of course, innovation is expensive, and not easy to come by.