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You need to factor in planned obsolescence. The fundamentals of the market simply does not make sense when your product is cheap and lifecycle is long. Think o

You need to factor in planned obsolescence. The fundamentals of the market simply does not make sense when your product is cheap and lifecycle is long. Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed and for them to maximize the lifecycle of a lightbulb.

ethbr1 1y ago
A lightbulb is a fascinating example, because there’s an argument to be made that a “minimum government specification” lightbulb would be superior to what the market provides (read: under-spec’d cheap caps that die due to heat https://www.edn.com/ensure-long-lifetimes-from-electrolytic-capacitors-a-case-study-in-led-light-bulbs/ https://www.edn.com/ensure-long-lifetimes-from-electrolytic-... ).
- 0xabe 1y ago
  I’m tired of having to replace whole LED light fixtures instead of being able to replace a bulb. I am currently waiting on a special order to arrive with 2 fluorescent light fixtures. I refuse to put up more LED fixtures that will go bad in another 2 years.
etbebl 1y ago
It seems to me that for products that in general are cheap to buy as well as produce, companies would want to make these products somewhat longer-lasting to gain a better reputation and then make more sales and larger profits on more expensive items. I think the fundamental problem here is that nobody trusts brands anymore because we have been trained by strategies like market segmentation and private equity cost cutting that the vast majority of brands don't consistently indicate quality. That product A could be fine and a very similar-looking product B could be horrible, and any company or even product could become shit at any moment. Breyers in the US is a great example - they sell real (though still watery) ice cream in the cartons that say "naturals," and all the other very similar looking cartons are full of crap artificial frozen dairy dessert. They had a very strong brand, and they decided it was time to cash out that brand goodwill by cheaping out, but deceptively so they could ride it out for a few decades, at which point who cares? This has led to a situation where companies don't make any attempt anymore to gain a reputation for the quality of their products, because it's futile to convince the public that they can trust you. And also, they have to compete much more equally with alphabet soup brands on Amazon making the absolute cheapest version of products at the lowest margins (and labor costs). So why would anyone make a better lightbulb that no one will buy because it's $2 more expensive?
- figassis 1y ago
  I would absolutely buy the $2 bulb. Problem is all the cheap brands also start marketing theirs as best quality and sell for $2.
trod1234 1y ago
Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets. Absent boom-bust, and the related fraud/true-up that happens cyclically, you have sustained growth mirroring population growth, without the chaotic whipsaw, as well as other factors of general wear and tear that make sustain demand. Less cost, and cost that follows real stable value without distortion, leads to more production over time, not less. Boom bust dynamics cause a slight move forward, followed my two steps back; repeatedly, until your out of steps. In such older economies, you don't lose out such monumental opportunity cost and related resources to fraud or people who sit on their hands. Opportunity cost is immeasurable without a reference, so you don't know what you lose, or what could have been. > Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed... Honestly, seeing this rhetoric makes you sound like a shill peddling propaganda towards centralization as a solution, which includes both fascism and communism (statism for both), while ignoring the established failures of such systems. I don't mean to be critical of what you have to say, but you come off as really ignorant, or deliberately misleading. If you can only run on the same path on a circle, do you really think you'll eventually get to where you want to go when that point is not on the circle?
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets. I have no idea why you're claiming that. What should I read? But you're not going to get rid of business cycles by not having 2% inflation or whatever, and those cycles don't seem strong enough to impact product lifetimes all that much. "chaotic whipsaw" is a big exaggeration.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    To start, you need to have a correct grasp of economics. Hazlitt (Economics in 1 lesson), Mises (Human Action/Money and the Theory of Credit), Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Thomas Jefferson's letters to Thomas Cooper, Carl Menger (SVT) to start. Adam Smith provides the requirements for factors and producers to operate in a market, also describing markets pre-fiat in a five volume set. The observations made are invaluable when comparing against the non-reserve modern monetary mechanics where they departed from fractional reserve in 2020 under Basel3. In terms of actual monetary debasement/inflation, going back to the unobscured calculations before manipulations began occuring, its been much higher than 2% YOY, and the interest rates have been manipulated to a point where the delayed dynamics are in full swing and can't be prevented. Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio/Bridgewater Associates provides useful data, but his conclusions are rose-tinted. The objective point of failure to non-market socialism from money-printing is where national outflows exceed inflows in debt growth to gdp, and in the private debt market that's likely already occurred we have a few years yet before another true-up. It gets to that point through concentration of business which concentrates bad decisions, and legitimate entities can't compete with slave labor, eventually leading to hyper-inflation then to deflation, or directly to deflation. Damned on both sides, with the safe shifting path dependent on lagging indicators amid chaos. Each boom bust cycle started small on adoption to fiat, but has increased exponentially every 10 years where the banks are forced to crisis from bad investments, and seeking bailout during a true-up. Penn Station Bailout (1970s), Savings & Loan Crisis (1980s), Dotcom Bust (2000), Lehman CDOs 2008, the next will be the CDO equivalent for business (but that bubble hasn't burst yet) QE 2010-2022? (pure money printing to those banks), etc. There is a third-party in the economic process, the money-lenders friend who receives preferential rates, allowing them to lower prices below cost to drive businesses out of business where leveraged buyouts aren't an option. You are right 2% isn't sufficient by itself to cause whipsaws. Its not just business in isolation, its the entire monetary cycle in aggregate. What about the petrodollar abandonment, and the loss of foreign demand for a pool of money we printed up to meet that demand over 50 years. Where's it go? What about paper warrants of commodities, where the ratio is now greater than 300 non-existent paper: 1 physical, where everyone starts requiring physical delivery (taking it out of the vault). Synthetic shares through options contracts. The deficit spending of the government, or unfunded liabilities (social security), where the debt on that to pass the budget must be almost completely borrowed (and the associated interest rate risk). Lets not forget the swap lines between other central banks and ours, and the carry trades happening, or the preferential swaps of existing already purchased treasuries for existing current rate treasuries 1:1 (no discount); blackrock and others. One thing, would slow it down, but the magnitude of each of these things fuels it moving forward chaotically as it unwinds; and people don't have the capital to draw from anymore because its been systematically debased for decades. Keynes has historically failed to properly account for the business cycle under fiat; a notable recent example being the housing crisis. Real markets require money meeting 3 properties (stable store of value...), adversarial independent decision-making based on a cost constraint, and working visible price discovery to function (aka economic calculation), with little regulation/interference. When these can't happen with money-printing, distortions naturally occur chaotically starting with the first rung of spending from that bank as a small blip, and growing to tsunami heights. Lets not forget what that AI may zero out most white-collar jobs, already having profound disruption in the factor markets, which whipsaw to the producer markets in a spiral. You may want to also read about the economic history of Argentina and how Milei turned everything around with almost 100 years of poverty caused by the same policies we have been doing, and how he made such giant strides to fixing it within 1 year; by firing the parasites, removing the regulations, and letting the market do its thing. State-controlled entities cooperate because they depend on the debt for continued existence, however indirect/laundered it came to them it originated in money-printing, and its not given to them for free; coercion and malign influence is well documented in many areas related to this. (i.e. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which may or may not be fictional; but the details match up, some of which weren't validated until recent releases. I'd say you have quite a bit of reading ahead of you.

ethbr1 1y ago

A lightbulb is a fascinating example, because there’s an argument to be made that a “minimum government specification” lightbulb would be superior to what the market provides (read: under-spec’d cheap caps that die due to heat https://www.edn.com/ensure-long-lifetimes-from-electrolytic-capacitors-a-case-study-in-led-light-bulbs/ https://www.edn.com/ensure-long-lifetimes-from-electrolytic-... ).

0xabe 1y ago
I’m tired of having to replace whole LED light fixtures instead of being able to replace a bulb. I am currently waiting on a special order to arrive with 2 fluorescent light fixtures. I refuse to put up more LED fixtures that will go bad in another 2 years.

etbebl 1y ago

It seems to me that for products that in general are cheap to buy as well as produce, companies would want to make these products somewhat longer-lasting to gain a better reputation and then make more sales and larger profits on more expensive items. I think the fundamental problem here is that nobody trusts brands anymore because we have been trained by strategies like market segmentation and private equity cost cutting that the vast majority of brands don't consistently indicate quality. That product A could be fine and a very similar-looking product B could be horrible, and any company or even product could become shit at any moment. Breyers in the US is a great example - they sell real (though still watery) ice cream in the cartons that say "naturals," and all the other very similar looking cartons are full of crap artificial frozen dairy dessert. They had a very strong brand, and they decided it was time to cash out that brand goodwill by cheaping out, but deceptively so they could ride it out for a few decades, at which point who cares? This has led to a situation where companies don't make any attempt anymore to gain a reputation for the quality of their products, because it's futile to convince the public that they can trust you. And also, they have to compete much more equally with alphabet soup brands on Amazon making the absolute cheapest version of products at the lowest margins (and labor costs). So why would anyone make a better lightbulb that no one will buy because it's $2 more expensive?

figassis 1y ago
I would absolutely buy the $2 bulb. Problem is all the cheap brands also start marketing theirs as best quality and sell for $2.

trod1234 1y ago

Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets. Absent boom-bust, and the related fraud/true-up that happens cyclically, you have sustained growth mirroring population growth, without the chaotic whipsaw, as well as other factors of general wear and tear that make sustain demand. Less cost, and cost that follows real stable value without distortion, leads to more production over time, not less. Boom bust dynamics cause a slight move forward, followed my two steps back; repeatedly, until your out of steps. In such older economies, you don't lose out such monumental opportunity cost and related resources to fraud or people who sit on their hands. Opportunity cost is immeasurable without a reference, so you don't know what you lose, or what could have been. > Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed... Honestly, seeing this rhetoric makes you sound like a shill peddling propaganda towards centralization as a solution, which includes both fascism and communism (statism for both), while ignoring the established failures of such systems. I don't mean to be critical of what you have to say, but you come off as really ignorant, or deliberately misleading. If you can only run on the same path on a circle, do you really think you'll eventually get to where you want to go when that point is not on the circle?

Dylan16807 1y ago
> Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets. I have no idea why you're claiming that. What should I read? But you're not going to get rid of business cycles by not having 2% inflation or whatever, and those cycles don't seem strong enough to impact product lifetimes all that much. "chaotic whipsaw" is a big exaggeration.
- trod1234 1y ago
  To start, you need to have a correct grasp of economics. Hazlitt (Economics in 1 lesson), Mises (Human Action/Money and the Theory of Credit), Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Thomas Jefferson's letters to Thomas Cooper, Carl Menger (SVT) to start. Adam Smith provides the requirements for factors and producers to operate in a market, also describing markets pre-fiat in a five volume set. The observations made are invaluable when comparing against the non-reserve modern monetary mechanics where they departed from fractional reserve in 2020 under Basel3. In terms of actual monetary debasement/inflation, going back to the unobscured calculations before manipulations began occuring, its been much higher than 2% YOY, and the interest rates have been manipulated to a point where the delayed dynamics are in full swing and can't be prevented. Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio/Bridgewater Associates provides useful data, but his conclusions are rose-tinted. The objective point of failure to non-market socialism from money-printing is where national outflows exceed inflows in debt growth to gdp, and in the private debt market that's likely already occurred we have a few years yet before another true-up. It gets to that point through concentration of business which concentrates bad decisions, and legitimate entities can't compete with slave labor, eventually leading to hyper-inflation then to deflation, or directly to deflation. Damned on both sides, with the safe shifting path dependent on lagging indicators amid chaos. Each boom bust cycle started small on adoption to fiat, but has increased exponentially every 10 years where the banks are forced to crisis from bad investments, and seeking bailout during a true-up. Penn Station Bailout (1970s), Savings & Loan Crisis (1980s), Dotcom Bust (2000), Lehman CDOs 2008, the next will be the CDO equivalent for business (but that bubble hasn't burst yet) QE 2010-2022? (pure money printing to those banks), etc. There is a third-party in the economic process, the money-lenders friend who receives preferential rates, allowing them to lower prices below cost to drive businesses out of business where leveraged buyouts aren't an option. You are right 2% isn't sufficient by itself to cause whipsaws. Its not just business in isolation, its the entire monetary cycle in aggregate. What about the petrodollar abandonment, and the loss of foreign demand for a pool of money we printed up to meet that demand over 50 years. Where's it go? What about paper warrants of commodities, where the ratio is now greater than 300 non-existent paper: 1 physical, where everyone starts requiring physical delivery (taking it out of the vault). Synthetic shares through options contracts. The deficit spending of the government, or unfunded liabilities (social security), where the debt on that to pass the budget must be almost completely borrowed (and the associated interest rate risk). Lets not forget the swap lines between other central banks and ours, and the carry trades happening, or the preferential swaps of existing already purchased treasuries for existing current rate treasuries 1:1 (no discount); blackrock and others. One thing, would slow it down, but the magnitude of each of these things fuels it moving forward chaotically as it unwinds; and people don't have the capital to draw from anymore because its been systematically debased for decades. Keynes has historically failed to properly account for the business cycle under fiat; a notable recent example being the housing crisis. Real markets require money meeting 3 properties (stable store of value...), adversarial independent decision-making based on a cost constraint, and working visible price discovery to function (aka economic calculation), with little regulation/interference. When these can't happen with money-printing, distortions naturally occur chaotically starting with the first rung of spending from that bank as a small blip, and growing to tsunami heights. Lets not forget what that AI may zero out most white-collar jobs, already having profound disruption in the factor markets, which whipsaw to the producer markets in a spiral. You may want to also read about the economic history of Argentina and how Milei turned everything around with almost 100 years of poverty caused by the same policies we have been doing, and how he made such giant strides to fixing it within 1 year; by firing the parasites, removing the regulations, and letting the market do its thing. State-controlled entities cooperate because they depend on the debt for continued existence, however indirect/laundered it came to them it originated in money-printing, and its not given to them for free; coercion and malign influence is well documented in many areas related to this. (i.e. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which may or may not be fictional; but the details match up, some of which weren't validated until recent releases. I'd say you have quite a bit of reading ahead of you.