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> Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven? Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought t
by r4indeer 2y ago
> Now an old fashioned light bulb shouldn't be expected to last a decade, but an oven?
Funnily enough, there actually was the Phoebus cartel [1] which sought to reduce the lifespan of incandescent light bulbs to around 1,000 hours and raise prices.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
- mratsim 2y agoReminded me of Bastiat's candlestick maker's petition: http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
- notoverthere 2y agoThere's also the Centennial Light [1], a light bulb made in the late 1890s. It was first lit in 1901 and it's still alight today. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light
- Moldoteck 2y agoi guess a lot of lights will work a lot longer if powered at such low voltage and not switched on/off like most ppl do, but this would reduce a lot nr of cases where such a light can be used
- Modified3019 2y agoI love incandescent twinkly colored christmas mini-lights, so much that I use them for providing walkable light at night around the doors to the backyard for roommates. They have a warm glow that LED’s just don’t replicate yet, and the filament and glass make them more gem-like. And the twinkle bulbs are truly “random” and also create subtle and pleasing variations in brightness in the whole line, due to voltage fluctuations. Not a single one has burned out in something like 4 years of runtime. Honestly the paint inside the bulbs is going to fade away completely before these things go out. The trick is 2 things: 1. Don’t move them 2. Use a dimmer and run them around 75% power
- afiori 2y agoWhich to be honest has the power efficiency of a dim campfire
- hoseja 2y agoIt barely glows. The "lightbulb cartel" was basically a consumer protection because barring major inventions, any deviation from the thousand hour lightbulb would have severe drawbacks in terms of power efficiency or light output.
- b112 2y agoThis, to me, is a red herring. The free market is designed for this. If the bulb lasts 5000 hours, but burns 1/2 as bright, consumers can easily decide what they prefer. And further, the cartel did not have exceptions for product enhancements, or improvements, which might have enabled > 1000 hrs without any drawbacks. Why are people defending this cartel? Market collusion is generally frowned upon.
- tiberious726 2y agoThey absolutely sold long lasting lightbulbs. There were horrible and no one bought them except for specialty scenarios. The standards were set around what could be sold as a standard lightbulb.
- kibwen 2y agoThe centennial bulb is less a lightbulb than it is a toaster oven. Planned obsolescence is real, but the centennial bulb is not evidence of it.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThere was, but also the hotter 1000-hour bulbs are more efficient, and the alternative of 2500 hours still gets you nowhere near a decade of use.
- afiori 2y agoPlanned obsolescence is very real, but the reality of incandescent light bulbs means that lifespan, efficiency, and luminosity are not independent. The 1000 hours limit is in practice a lower bound to a combination of luminosity and efficiency
- jajko 2y agoLiterally in that linked wiki article: > "A longer life bulb of a given wattage puts out less light (and proportionally more heat) than a shorter life bulb of the same wattage" As long as we can recycle (or at least safely get rid of) the burned out ones I'd say its a win from ecology perspective, and at least in some cases also for end users. But this wasnt the main driver of the change, it was the good ol' corporate greed as per the same wiki page.
- afiori 2y agoI believe that the main drive was to stop a race to the bottom where everybody would advertize 1000000 hours lightbulbs but they all sucked and the technology would be considered worthless. I seriously doubt you can recycle the tungsten as it literally evaporates and oxidize on the lightbulb.
- Onavo 2y agoLED diodes can theoretically last decades given the correct drivers (current and heat needs to be significantly limited), unfortunately they are the very definition of planned obsolescence. https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quanda... A stable DC current and temperature limited LED can easily last decades.
- fkyoureadthedoc 2y agoI remember seeing a relevant video about Dubai and some bulb company working together to create a longer life led bulb. Ok here it is -- The lamps you're not allowed to have. Exploring the Dubai lamps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4 > These fascinating lamps are a result of a collaboration between Philips Lighting and Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum - the ruler of Dubai. They are designed to be the most efficient available, matching high lumen output with very long life. Once you see the construction and circuitry you'll realise this isn't just marketing spin. Now I want to actually look into and see if they're available elsewhere, because my LED bulbs really do seem to fail pretty frequently...
- gnicholas 2y agoI recall reading a quasi-debunking of this. I didn't go down the rabbit hole far enough to understand all the details, but it seems the situation was more complicated than just corporate greed. [1] The topic has been discussed here in the past a few times, including [2] and [3] 1: https://readmedium.com/en/the-phoebus-cartel-was-never-really-evil-b16d3121385b https://readmedium.com/en/the-phoebus-cartel-was-never-reall... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596792 3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17606748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17606748
- 0xEF 2y agoI would not call any of that a debunking, even quasi. Just a different dance around the same hard-to-swallow pill. Company X makes a great product that everyone only needs one of and lasts a long time. Over time, the market starts to dwindle and. Company X is going broke. Now, Company X must either invest in innovation or reduce the lifespan of its current offering. There's nothing inherently evil about this concept, but we tend to want to chalk it up to greed when Company X really just wants to survive and make a profit, which I suppose is the point. The problem is the concept is ripe for abuse. If Company X makes their product worse, but starts charging more while laying off employees, posting record profits during recessions, adopts unnecessary subscription models cosplaying as continued service and development, etc...now we get to the greed part. There seems to be a line between designing a product to secure the longevity of Company X and straight up using your customers as micro-transaction ATMs with planned obsolescence. Some companies conspire to cross it.
- duckmysick 2y agoHow do the manufacturers of long-lasting one-off-purchase products survive? Stuff like doors, windows, roof tiles, floor tiles, faucets, staircase railings, fences, etc. Are they filling Chapter 13 or are they in the process in reducing the lifespan so their products are replaced every couple of years? What's their secret?
- cafard 2y ago
- Youden 2y agoIt wasn't as simple as them wanting to make more money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY Key points from an AI summary: - Incandescent bulbs had to balance factors like light output, efficiency, and lifespan - hotter filaments produced brighter, whiter light but reduced bulb lifespan. - Longer-lasting bulbs were less efficient and produced dimmer, yellower light, so they were not simply "better" products being suppressed. - The 1,000 hour target was a reasonable compromise that balanced these competing priorities, not necessarily a sinister plot. - Even after the Phoebus cartel dissolved, the 1,000 hour lifespan remained the industry standard for general-purpose incandescent bulbs.
- jimmydorry 2y agoYou're missing the fact that the Phoebus cartel fined members that sold lightbulbs lasting longer than 1,000 hours. Aftr reaching a stable equilibrium, it's not surprising that 1,000 hours remained the industry standard. It drove sales! [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-04/cheering-for-led-bulbs-read-this-cautionary-tale-about-the-phoebus-cartel https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-04/cheeri...
- hmottestad 2y agoThe reason for this, as I understand it, is that it's super easy to make a lightbulb that lasts 30 years. But there are two main trade-offs that make it bad for consumers: 1. Stronger filaments that last longer will be a lot less efficient, so the consumer ends up using a lot more electricity. 2. The filament doesn't burn per-say, but actually evaporates. This is why it'll eventually break. But where does the evaporated metal go? It condenses on the inner surface of the glass, making the lightbulb dimmer than when it was new. So 1000 hours is a good middle ground. The lightbulb is fairly efficient and 1000 hours isn't long enough for the inside of the glass to get too dark from the condensed filament metal. Price of the bulbs was also reasonably low. It's cheaper to change out a lightbulb every 1000 hours than the electricity costs of a 10 000 hour lightbulb that emits the same amount of visible light. I don't have hard numbers for that, but it's my understanding. Watch the youtube video linked by one of the grandparent comments. It's super informative and also contains some experiments to show the trade-offs.
- stronglikedan 2y agoI'm convinced this happened recently with LED bulbs as well, even though I've found no definitive proof. The LEDs I installed in my house 10-12 years ago are still going strong, but every newer one I've purchased gives up the ghost within a couple of years. And I only purchase brands with a good reputation, like Feit and the like.
- TonyTrapp 2y agoThere's a variety of reasons: - Lower-quality components (especially capacitors) being used to meet the lower price point. This is by far the most common failure mode I have experienced, it's never the LEDs dying but the power supply. - Higher-quality LED light is usually result of driving the LEDs harder, causing them to fail earlier. - Probably some other reasons too.
- Frenchgeek 2y agoThe design may also be completely ignoring heat dissipation, and cook its components.
- tiberious726 2y agoFrom what I've seen, it's usually skimping on the heatsink over the rectifier.
- CapitalistCartr 2y agoThe LEDs themselves are made in a handful of factories around the World and are usually robust. The power supplies are the weakness. Each bulb manufacturer makes their own, and it's a race to the bottom.
- surge 2y agoThe rule of thumb I've found with light bulbs is similar to the Boots Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory), which is you need to spend at least $8-$10 on a bulb to get something that will actually last. Feit is good but its hit or miss on life span, especially when I get them close to the same price and incandescent, often times its the little A/C to DC converter that dies (really need DC light circuits or dedicated converter in the light fixture). I feel its worth spending the extra to not replace them.
- tiberious726 2y agoThe candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long. The converse is just as true of tungsten filaments as it is of candles. I know this is a common pop-history thing to cite on the Internet, but I would think hackernews would understand the benefits of standardization. If every brand's lightbulb has different luminousities how on earth would architects decide how to space fixtures? This "cartel" is how we avoided a dimness war, like the loudness war we had in digital music a decade or so back