A product differentiation strategy that involves releasing multiple variations of the same product with just notable differences in each successive generation to the point where consumers
feel they must upgrade. If the
gap between the product the consumer owns and the product the company just released is 2 generation apart or larger, the consumer'
s product is outdated to the point that its value has plummeted to levels where resell value is less than half of the original cost and/or the company has cut off support for the product either formally or in a de facto manner (e.
g. releasing updates to iOS that consume increasing amounts of
RAM since it is designed to run on the newer harder with more
RAM, but the older hardware becomes defunct because all of its
RAM is being used to run the operating
system and not any programs, such as music).
