A Brand New Bag

According to Wikipedia the concept of ‘planned obsolescence’ is described as:

…a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that it becomes obsolete after a certain pre-determined period of time upon which it decrementally functions or suddenly ceases to function, or might be perceived as unfashionable.

Basically, it’s a way to guarantee that your iPhone doesn’t just keep on working forever with only minor inconveniences here and there. Instead, there will arise some issue that even the staunchest upgrade-o-phobic user can’t overlook.

It’s annoying, isn’t it? Because it’s so transparent: the only reason it exists is to get you to buy more iPhones. Right?

Absolutely!

And yet, there exist certain obsoletion-proof products that can reframe the idea of planned obsolescence to seem almost like a mercy killing.

Take the backpack, for example. Unless you tear a huge hole in one, it will keep functioning ad infinitum. And yes, some will grow, over time, to be “unfashionable,” but a lot of them look simple and ageless, and their universal acceptance as an everyday bag means nobody will judge one that has a few bumps and bruises.

Thus, people keep using them. And using them. And using them. The zipper starts to catch a little bit, and there are some scuffs, and it just feels old, and maybe there’s a little bit of a smell inside, and a few stains, and some sand in the bottom that’s from a beach vacation in 2011. But it’s still a usable backpack, so it still gets used. And used. And used until long after its owner has gotten a very good return on investment.

Well, with our sale today, we’re giving you an opportunity to send that functional yet worn and slightly gross backpack of yours out to pasture. All you have to do is buy one of these–either a 20L or 25L Incase Facet, or the cool Icon Slim–and wait for it to arrive. When you finally receive it and see its strong design, clean interior, and variety of convenient compartments, you’ll realize: hey, it’s actually okay to upgrade your day-to-day bag more than once every two decades.

So go ahead, get a backpack. Even if you have a backpack that “works just fine.”