15 ms·

The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy

207 points by mr_golyadkin 12y ago

angersock 12y ago
Sometimes, there really are people twirling their mustaches and cognac as they conspire against the consumer. See also the great American streetcar fiasco.
vichu 12y ago
The first thing I thought of after reading this article was the Centennial Light which has reportedly been continuously burning since 1901. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light
- Pyrodogg 12y ago
  Was just discussed here recently too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200
cygx 12y ago
See also http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy as well as https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-general-electric-co/ https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-gener... (in particular section VII)
jolan 12y ago
This was covered recently in the BBC series "The Men Who Made Us Spend" http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-made-us-spend-ep1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-ma...
anigbrowl 12y ago
A great example of why the public delegates regulatory powers to government, flawed though that regulation can be. The interests of consumers and producers are often not aligned, and it is easier for producers to organize than for consumers. Incumbency creates high barriers to market entry in many fields. Adam Smith recognized this when writing The Wealth of Nations, commenting 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'
- andrewla 12y ago
  Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by low-cost Japanese producers and the outbreak of war between the countries hosting the cartel members. As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. The reduction in the lifespan seems like a side effect of this rather than the goal, even though I feel like the tone of the article is tending towards pushing that as the goal. They were undercut on cost and quality, though, not on lifetime, which seems like if it were achievable, would be a wonderful way to build a business.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. Despite the existence of fines for factories producing longer-life bulbs, quotas, and remarks such as 'This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life' from people like Anton Philips?
  - cygx 12y ago
    The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. But the cartel didn't fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it. For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany came with twice the lifetime of western models. In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for cutting into their own profits...
not_that_noob 12y ago
New lighting technologies like CFL and LED are sold by comparing to incandescent - e.g. "Burns 10x longer than a regular lightbulb!" I wonder how many of those analyses would look if its life wasn't artificially limited in this manner.
- andrewla 12y ago
  It sounds like the "artificial limitations" described in the article were just a tradeoff -- better quality of light, and more efficiency, at the cost of lifetime of the bulbs and a higher production cost. I'm not sure that this article really gives any evidence to support the so-called "lightbulb conspiracy" even though the tone of the article seems to imply that planned obsolescence was involved.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    The article claims production costs dropped. Also, the article claims the limitations were explicitly on number of hours. If they cared about better quality of light, they could have had a similar effect by demanding brightness and efficiency, and let manufacturers produce longer lasting bulbs if they managed to achieve that as well. In terms of evidence, it does not present much, though it references a number of other material, but the article author certainly claims to have seen it. It does however provide this quote from Anton Phillips: “This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life.”
- IshKebab 12y ago
  This was in the 1920s. Modern incandescent bulbs aren't sabotaged.
  - bdamm 12y ago
    Citation needed.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
The retina macbook screen being glued to the battery comes to mind.
- mannkind 12y ago
  Um... what? The display is fused to the glass. The battery is glued to the case.
  - cmdrfred 12y ago
    Still, why is it glued at all?
    - cbr 12y ago
      Lighter, thinner.
      - bigbugbag 12y ago
        and serviceable only by apple, hopefully investing the servicing cost into buying a brand new gizmo instead which comes with a brand new battery.
      - cmdrfred 12y ago
        Because everyone complains about those heavy screws!
    - mannkind 12y ago
      Jesus Christ, it's glue not a impenetrable force-field. I don't know why, but I can think of many plausible examples that don't include ridiculous conspiracy theories about a company wanting to take all your money.
      - cmdrfred 12y ago
        Please provide an example why a screw or removable panel would provide less value to the consumer than gluing the thing and making it impossible to replace the battery on your own. I eagerly await your response.
incision 12y ago
>'There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes were reached.' To go off on a tangent... I have a couple of CFLs that have been going since 1997 in my first apartment while most of the CFLs I purchased after my last move in 2009 have burned out. None of my LEDs have gone. Not the ridiculously expensive ones from a few years ago or the current "almost, but not quite cheap enough for the whole house" ones I've been testing out. My impression is that there's a sweet spot in relatively early adoption for many technologies when you can get nearly all the eventual performance with much higher reliability. A point where manufacturers are perhaps over-engineering or at least have not yet dialed in their cost-cutting trade-offs. Of course, whether this is worth anything depends on the context - my 2004 Linksys AP, 1997 bulbs and 1999 DVD player are fine for my purposes, but my tank-like 2009 Motorola Droid - not so much.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Usage patterns are important with CFL's. They are sensitive to many on/off cycles, and last longest when they burn continually. So, it might be interesting to take a moment and consider whether your usage patterns have shifted markedly.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Oddly, the ones I abuse the most -- leaving them outdoors in enclosures, frequent on/off -- have lastest the longest, and those I've simply put in normal sockets have failed the quickest.
    - whitten 12y ago
      I seem to recall there is an issue with CFL bulbs that has to do with ambient temperature. Recessed sockets get hotter, and shorten CFL life considerably.
      - virtue3 12y ago
        The circuitry of CFLs (like the circuitry on LEDs) is where the heat is generated (basically the base of the bulb) and can _really_ kill the lifetime of the bulb if they're up in recessed indoor lighting environments.
sehugg 12y ago
GE was involved? You don't say. Every single CFL at my local grocery store is a GE product.
nostromo 12y ago
Note that this cartel would have been impossible without patent protection. In fact, this seems to be a purported feature of the patent system, not a bug -- to give inventors monopolistic control of a market for several decades.
- javert 12y ago
  Note that without patent protection, there would be little incentive for these companies' research labs to continue to improve their bulbs, because doing so would not give any competitive advantage, while it would cost money in research and development. e.g. > It was rendered superfluous when in 1906 two European companies introduced a superior lightbulb whose filament was made from tungsten paste. That bulb was itself eclipsed in 1911 by General Electric’s metal-filament bulb, which used pure drawn tungsten wire, and in 1913 by GE’s gas-filled tungsten bulb. It's better to have a technology available and have a choice to pay slightly more or to stay with the prior technology, as opposed to not having a technology available at all. That's why we have patents.
  - cromwellian 12y ago
    People invent and invest in the absence of patents. That justification is getting rather tired.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      > People invent and invest in the absence of patents I don't think that this is established. Patents have existed since the 1400's and areas that have patent systems have general out-innovated areas without them. This could be the result of many other factors, but patents do clearly provide an incentive to innovate. I think a better argument is that the added costs of dealing with patent trolls outweighs the incentive of a temporary monopoly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
      - derekp7 12y ago
        Logically, it can also have the opposite effect. If you have all the rights for a product, you have no incentive to improve it, until the patents are about to expire.
th0ma5 12y ago
The oldest (mostly) continuously running light bulb was made in my home town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light ... It is featured also in a documentary about "planned obsolescence" quite prominently. I think it is well known that things that are made well and do cost a little more are available. This reminds me of a guy who shows how to counterfeit his own product - http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag Some things however we've all seem to accept, like light bulbs, razor blades, etc, and its a shame. On one hand, having a newer product that may be better more often is good, and having a lower price for a product that lasts even temporary is also good, but it would be nice if there were more choice, and more awareness, of these kinds of issues in our markets.
- mark-r 12y ago
  I once owned a Remington electric razor that just died for no reason one day. I decided to take it apart and see if there was anything obviously wrong with it. There was - the electrical contact with the motor was made by a piece of graphite, and it had worn down to nothing. At that moment I decided to switch to another brand on the hope that it did not practice planned obsolescence, and I've been happy ever since.
  - lttlrck 12y ago
    I wouldn't consider the practice of using graphite brushes in DC motors as planned obsolescence. It's more like best tool for the job, with a limited lifetime by its very nature.
  - Johnythree 12y ago
    You've just discovered that Electric motors use brushes on their commutators? Welcome to the 20th century. Brushes are intended to be replaced, and many manufacturers supply spare brushes in the original packaging. In the 21st century however the traditional brushes have been replaced by electronic switching. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor
- 12y ago
guelo 12y ago
Incandescent light bulbs are cheap. The cost of the electricity over the lifespan of the bulb is much greater than the cost of the bulb. If the cartel was reducing bulb lifespan by making it run hotter thus producing more lumens per watt, then it was actually saving the consumers money by allowing the consumer to select a lower watt bulb. In fact, even today most standard incandescent light bulbs are rated for 1,000 hours or less.
- Lagged2Death 12y ago
  This (that lifespan and efficiency are inevitably a tradeoff in incandescent bulbs) is my understanding as well. You can get "rough service" or "extended life" incandescent bulbs that claim 5,000 hour lifetimes, but they are very obviously dim and orange compared with the standard bulbs. You can also get newfangled "high efficiency" incandescent bulbs (a 60W bulb's worth of light for ~40W) that package little halogen lamps inside the traditional bulb shape. (I'm a fan, I think they provide the highest quality light you can get right now.) But residential halogen lamps used to mostly claim 2,000 hour lifespans, and these new high efficiency ones only claim 900. None of that means the cartel had good intentions, though. Sometimes the right thing happens for the wrong reasons.
spiritplumber 12y ago
Undervolt your light bulbs just a little bit (add a piece of iron or steel cable to the copper wire) and they last a lot longer. The plural of anecdote is not data, but I do this with light bulbs in my home, which are mostly CFLs except for the LED in my little lab (haven't bought any in two years) and projector bulbs (lasted four years). http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.ProjectorLampLifeExtension http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.Projec... Obviously, don't use the capacitor for light bulbs connected to AC!
dirktheman 12y ago
The European Union has a ban on the production of incandescent lightbulbs as of 9/1/2012. You can still buy them, but they are getting rarer. I'm still not sure if this is a scheme from the energy-saving-bulbs-cartel or just eco-lobbyists at work...
gesman 12y ago
I used to buy bulbs from 1 month full refunds store. I kept receipts for bulbs and regularly returned the bad ones that lived shorter than advertised lifespan. At least didn't cost me extra to pay for crap.
- npinguy 12y ago
  I always wonder about people like you. How do you manage your receipts for all these things? And what about the additional time to go back and return lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb?
  - ryandrake 12y ago
    Not the original commenter, but: Not difficult. File folder full of receipts, sorted by "action" date. Cost of gasoline is trivial (~$0.20/mile). Time doesn't cost anything (if you wouldn't otherwise be working).
  - ANTSANTS 12y ago
    >And what about the additional time to go back and return lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb? Err, you just bring them with you the next time you go to the supermarket...
mikeytown2 12y ago
The reason I believe that there is a conspiracy is that the technology to get a 10,000 hour incandescent bulb is fairly cheap & easy; you need a temperature compensating thermistor, AKA the Bulb-Miser [1]. I've used one before and they really work. I'm now 100% LED. [1] http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070018922.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2007001...
- DigitalJack 12y ago
  That's interesting, thanks for the link. One thing I have noticed in my house is that incandescent bulbs last longer if their power is ramped up to turn them on. We have this kind of switch in our main room and the bulbs have lasted longer than 8 years of more than 8 hours a day. They are rarely on full bright so that could be it too.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Supposedly hot/cold cycles are bad for incandescent, so if you have dimmers and rarely actually switch the bulb off, that might be the source of improvement.
    - tempestn 12y ago
      There is also a current surge when the bulb is first turned on, which shortens the lifespan and is also often the final straw that eventually blows the filament.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    best way to blow out a lightbulb used to be to flick the switches on and off many times really quickly . Used to accidentally do this as a kid while horsing around.
- JeremyMorgan 12y ago
  Oh, the bulb miser. I discovered this one time when I had bathroom lights that "warmed up". They were really dim for the first minute or two. It drove me crazy at times but one day I decided I would replace them, and pulled out the bulb and found this bulb miser thing. I had no idea what it was, but my buddy did and explained it to me, and I laughed my ass off about it. But then I thought about it, and decided to replace one bulb without the miser inserted, so I would at least be able to see in my bathroom. Left the other 3 (it was a light bulb panel above the mirror) with misers inserted. Sure as the sun comes up that one bulb would go out every year or so, but the ones with misers never did, in 9 years I was there.
rogerbinns 12y ago
I highly recommend NLee the Engineer's reviews on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=review http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=re... (you can also get it as RSS) Heavily covered are various light bulbs and rechargeable batteries. That includes checking power against manufacturer claims, noise, dimmability, power factor etc.
Spooky23 12y ago
The ridiculous lightbulb practices of today are even more offensive. You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so. You can buy a 250 watt outdoor bulb, or a variety of CFL and LED bulbs with a bunch of additional things to worry about (light color, directionality of the light, warranties, shape, etc) Consumers manage to make rational decisions about car purchases (15mpg SUVs aren't as popular in the era of $4/gallon gasoline), but we must be protected about the incandescent bulb.
- nemo 12y ago
  "You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so." You can purchase them here: http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7PK http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7P...
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    They are no longer manufactured and cannot be imported. You can only purchase them from jobbers -- retailers don't carry them. Also, the per-bulb price is like 300-400% higher than it was two years ago.
    - nemo 12y ago
      Interesting, today I learned they did ban manufacturing of them. Can't say I mourn the loss of them, given their costs to society and the environment. If an irrational consumer choice harms everyone then regulation seems appropriate.
      - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
        Hardly an irrational consumer choice. I miss them so much. At first I though CFLs were a really good idea (less energy used, yaaaay) but after using them i realize they can't compare to incandescent bulbs. The brightness and light quality just suck compared to incandescent bulbs. And yes, I've tried every light bulb under the sun. My bedroom is so dark. I even added an extra lamp to my living room and it is still darker than when I was using incandescent. I tried using CFLs, I really did. I really wanted to like them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light...
otakucode 12y ago
I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to manufacture, but the lightbulb companies think they have the right to charge exorbitant prices for them just to maintain their profit margin. If a new product comes around that lasts 10x as long and is 10x cheaper to make, the market is supposed to make sure that you shrink radically in terms of revenue and profit. The belief that they have some divine right to continued levels of high profit is inane.
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  > I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to manufacture Huh? Cheaper compared to what? Look at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk It's amazing to me that LED bulbs are priced so inexpensively, considering how complex they are.
ultimape 12y ago
We have tons of lightbulbs in our house that are in shitty fixtures with dimmer switches... none of the bulbs are rated for dimmers. Roommates keep buying more bad light-bulbs. The ones they keep putting on teh porch during the winter die at least twice as often. TL:DR; People don't understand how these things work.
transfire 12y ago
This is really the fundamental problem of Capitalism which we are now regularly butting are heads against. If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing? After the initial flurry of sales, demand would drop off precipitously. And as the world approaches peek population, there would be fewer and fewer sales. And that's just the logistical problem. This story speaks to the further moral dimension in which it is always more profitable to corner a market and force on consumers ever increasing reoccurring cost.
- fpgaminer 12y ago
  It's unlikely that 1000 year bulbs would actually be useful for 1000 years. Just as incandescents are being replaced for sake of energy efficiency. And I find it hard to imagine any economic system that could efficiently build 1000 year bulbs. It requires spinning up factories for a short period of high volume, mass production, followed by a long, low volume trailoff. That's a costly and wasteful process under any economic system. Our limited time and money is better spent solving more immediate problems, methinks.
  - Roboprog 12y ago
    I think the original argument would have stood if the numbers were 20 to 50 years, and anything less than $1/yr or so.
  - ams6110 12y ago
    Icandescents are being replaced because they were made illegal. If people really wanted the CFLs that would not have been necessary.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
  If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing? Anybody who wants to get rich. Let's say that you can sell such a light bulb, and that it's so great that everyone in the world buys one, on average. And say you can sell it for a dollar, but you only make a cent of profit on each one. Why, that'd only leave you with. . . $70,000,000 dollars. Well that's not too bad, but really not great either. It'd certainly let you retire to a tropical island for the rest of your life. But you could do better. If the light bulb is so great, wouldn't everyone be willing to spend more than a dollar on one? After all, those inferior light bulbs cost about twice as much, so if your bulbs are better than others should be willing to pay at least that much. Let's knock the price up to $2, then. That puts the profit per bulb at $1.01. So then you can simultaneously destroy the light bulb industry (fun!) and put a cool 7 billion dollars in your pocket (profit!). Who would choose not do do such a thing? Certainly most anybody who's motivated by profit (like, say, a capitalist) would jump at the opportunity.
bikamonki 12y ago
As always, it is a matter of choice: http://www.ownitforlife.com/ http://www.ownitforlife.com/
rplst8 12y ago
Banning incandescent bulbs is The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy.
robomartin 12y ago
A number of years ago I engineered a light engine consisting of 1,500 1W LED's very tightly packed. Excellent thermal design was crucial in making such a device work and remain reliable for years. We ran hundreds of FEA thermal simulations spanning months before arriving at a set of good thermal management solutions. This also extended to the electronics. It was very important to ensure that the tightly packed electronics did not suffer premature failure due to exposure to high temperatures or thermal cycling. The design had over 40 microprocessors driving the array using an innovative and highly efficient (98% if I remember correctly) technology. This was a very interesting project. I learned that thermal issues can be real killers when it comes to high power LED designs. While I have not analyzed any consumer lighting designs I would not be surprised if thermal issues, either steady-state or cyclic, are at the core of some of the failures over time.

207 points by mr_golyadkin 12y ago

Sometimes, there really are people twirling their mustaches and cognac as they conspire against the consumer. See also the great American streetcar fiasco.

vichu 12y ago

The first thing I thought of after reading this article was the Centennial Light which has reportedly been continuously burning since 1901. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light

Pyrodogg 12y ago
Was just discussed here recently too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200

cygx 12y ago

See also http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy as well as https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-general-electric-co/ https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-gener... (in particular section VII)

jolan 12y ago

This was covered recently in the BBC series "The Men Who Made Us Spend" http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-made-us-spend-ep1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-ma...

anigbrowl 12y ago

A great example of why the public delegates regulatory powers to government, flawed though that regulation can be. The interests of consumers and producers are often not aligned, and it is easier for producers to organize than for consumers. Incumbency creates high barriers to market entry in many fields. Adam Smith recognized this when writing The Wealth of Nations, commenting 'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'

andrewla 12y ago
Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by low-cost Japanese producers and the outbreak of war between the countries hosting the cartel members. As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. The reduction in the lifespan seems like a side effect of this rather than the goal, even though I feel like the tone of the article is tending towards pushing that as the goal. They were undercut on cost and quality, though, not on lifetime, which seems like if it were achievable, would be a wonderful way to build a business.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and efficiency) rather than to hurt them. Despite the existence of fines for factories producing longer-life bulbs, quotas, and remarks such as 'This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life' from people like Anton Philips?
- cygx 12y ago
  The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government intervention. But the cartel didn't fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it. For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany came with twice the lifetime of western models. In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for cutting into their own profits...

not_that_noob 12y ago

New lighting technologies like CFL and LED are sold by comparing to incandescent - e.g. "Burns 10x longer than a regular lightbulb!" I wonder how many of those analyses would look if its life wasn't artificially limited in this manner.

andrewla 12y ago
It sounds like the "artificial limitations" described in the article were just a tradeoff -- better quality of light, and more efficiency, at the cost of lifetime of the bulbs and a higher production cost. I'm not sure that this article really gives any evidence to support the so-called "lightbulb conspiracy" even though the tone of the article seems to imply that planned obsolescence was involved.
- vidarh 12y ago
  The article claims production costs dropped. Also, the article claims the limitations were explicitly on number of hours. If they cared about better quality of light, they could have had a similar effect by demanding brightness and efficiency, and let manufacturers produce longer lasting bulbs if they managed to achieve that as well. In terms of evidence, it does not present much, though it references a number of other material, but the article author certainly claims to have seen it. It does however provide this quote from Anton Phillips: “This, you will agree with me, is a very dangerous practice and is having a most detrimental influence on the total turnover of the Phoebus Parties…. After the very strenuous efforts we made to emerge from a period of long life lamps, it is of the greatest importance that we do not sink back into the same mire by paying no attention to voltages and supplying lamps that will have a very prolonged life.”
IshKebab 12y ago
This was in the 1920s. Modern incandescent bulbs aren't sabotaged.
- bdamm 12y ago
  Citation needed.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

The retina macbook screen being glued to the battery comes to mind.

mannkind 12y ago
Um... what? The display is fused to the glass. The battery is glued to the case.
- cmdrfred 12y ago
  Still, why is it glued at all?
  - cbr 12y ago
    Lighter, thinner.
    - bigbugbag 12y ago
      and serviceable only by apple, hopefully investing the servicing cost into buying a brand new gizmo instead which comes with a brand new battery.
    - cmdrfred 12y ago
      Because everyone complains about those heavy screws!
  - mannkind 12y ago
    Jesus Christ, it's glue not a impenetrable force-field. I don't know why, but I can think of many plausible examples that don't include ridiculous conspiracy theories about a company wanting to take all your money.
    - cmdrfred 12y ago
      Please provide an example why a screw or removable panel would provide less value to the consumer than gluing the thing and making it impossible to replace the battery on your own. I eagerly await your response.

incision 12y ago

>'There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before their rated lifetimes were reached.' To go off on a tangent... I have a couple of CFLs that have been going since 1997 in my first apartment while most of the CFLs I purchased after my last move in 2009 have burned out. None of my LEDs have gone. Not the ridiculously expensive ones from a few years ago or the current "almost, but not quite cheap enough for the whole house" ones I've been testing out. My impression is that there's a sweet spot in relatively early adoption for many technologies when you can get nearly all the eventual performance with much higher reliability. A point where manufacturers are perhaps over-engineering or at least have not yet dialed in their cost-cutting trade-offs. Of course, whether this is worth anything depends on the context - my 2004 Linksys AP, 1997 bulbs and 1999 DVD player are fine for my purposes, but my tank-like 2009 Motorola Droid - not so much.

sliverstorm 12y ago
Usage patterns are important with CFL's. They are sensitive to many on/off cycles, and last longest when they burn continually. So, it might be interesting to take a moment and consider whether your usage patterns have shifted markedly.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Oddly, the ones I abuse the most -- leaving them outdoors in enclosures, frequent on/off -- have lastest the longest, and those I've simply put in normal sockets have failed the quickest.
  - whitten 12y ago
    I seem to recall there is an issue with CFL bulbs that has to do with ambient temperature. Recessed sockets get hotter, and shorten CFL life considerably.
    - virtue3 12y ago
      The circuitry of CFLs (like the circuitry on LEDs) is where the heat is generated (basically the base of the bulb) and can _really_ kill the lifetime of the bulb if they're up in recessed indoor lighting environments.

sehugg 12y ago

GE was involved? You don't say. Every single CFL at my local grocery store is a GE product.

nostromo 12y ago

Note that this cartel would have been impossible without patent protection. In fact, this seems to be a purported feature of the patent system, not a bug -- to give inventors monopolistic control of a market for several decades.

javert 12y ago
Note that without patent protection, there would be little incentive for these companies' research labs to continue to improve their bulbs, because doing so would not give any competitive advantage, while it would cost money in research and development. e.g. > It was rendered superfluous when in 1906 two European companies introduced a superior lightbulb whose filament was made from tungsten paste. That bulb was itself eclipsed in 1911 by General Electric’s metal-filament bulb, which used pure drawn tungsten wire, and in 1913 by GE’s gas-filled tungsten bulb. It's better to have a technology available and have a choice to pay slightly more or to stay with the prior technology, as opposed to not having a technology available at all. That's why we have patents.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  People invent and invest in the absence of patents. That justification is getting rather tired.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    > People invent and invest in the absence of patents I don't think that this is established. Patents have existed since the 1400's and areas that have patent systems have general out-innovated areas without them. This could be the result of many other factors, but patents do clearly provide an incentive to innovate. I think a better argument is that the added costs of dealing with patent trolls outweighs the incentive of a temporary monopoly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
    - derekp7 12y ago
      Logically, it can also have the opposite effect. If you have all the rights for a product, you have no incentive to improve it, until the patents are about to expire.

th0ma5 12y ago

The oldest (mostly) continuously running light bulb was made in my home town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light ... It is featured also in a documentary about "planned obsolescence" quite prominently. I think it is well known that things that are made well and do cost a little more are available. This reminds me of a guy who shows how to counterfeit his own product - http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag Some things however we've all seem to accept, like light bulbs, razor blades, etc, and its a shame. On one hand, having a newer product that may be better more often is good, and having a lower price for a product that lasts even temporary is also good, but it would be nice if there were more choice, and more awareness, of these kinds of issues in our markets.

mark-r 12y ago
I once owned a Remington electric razor that just died for no reason one day. I decided to take it apart and see if there was anything obviously wrong with it. There was - the electrical contact with the motor was made by a piece of graphite, and it had worn down to nothing. At that moment I decided to switch to another brand on the hope that it did not practice planned obsolescence, and I've been happy ever since.
- lttlrck 12y ago
  I wouldn't consider the practice of using graphite brushes in DC motors as planned obsolescence. It's more like best tool for the job, with a limited lifetime by its very nature.
- Johnythree 12y ago
  You've just discovered that Electric motors use brushes on their commutators? Welcome to the 20th century. Brushes are intended to be replaced, and many manufacturers supply spare brushes in the original packaging. In the 21st century however the traditional brushes have been replaced by electronic switching. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor
12y ago

guelo 12y ago

Incandescent light bulbs are cheap. The cost of the electricity over the lifespan of the bulb is much greater than the cost of the bulb. If the cartel was reducing bulb lifespan by making it run hotter thus producing more lumens per watt, then it was actually saving the consumers money by allowing the consumer to select a lower watt bulb. In fact, even today most standard incandescent light bulbs are rated for 1,000 hours or less.

Lagged2Death 12y ago
This (that lifespan and efficiency are inevitably a tradeoff in incandescent bulbs) is my understanding as well. You can get "rough service" or "extended life" incandescent bulbs that claim 5,000 hour lifetimes, but they are very obviously dim and orange compared with the standard bulbs. You can also get newfangled "high efficiency" incandescent bulbs (a 60W bulb's worth of light for ~40W) that package little halogen lamps inside the traditional bulb shape. (I'm a fan, I think they provide the highest quality light you can get right now.) But residential halogen lamps used to mostly claim 2,000 hour lifespans, and these new high efficiency ones only claim 900. None of that means the cartel had good intentions, though. Sometimes the right thing happens for the wrong reasons.

spiritplumber 12y ago

Undervolt your light bulbs just a little bit (add a piece of iron or steel cable to the copper wire) and they last a lot longer. The plural of anecdote is not data, but I do this with light bulbs in my home, which are mostly CFLs except for the LED in my little lab (haven't bought any in two years) and projector bulbs (lasted four years). http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.ProjectorLampLifeExtension http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.Projec... Obviously, don't use the capacitor for light bulbs connected to AC!

dirktheman 12y ago

The European Union has a ban on the production of incandescent lightbulbs as of 9/1/2012. You can still buy them, but they are getting rarer. I'm still not sure if this is a scheme from the energy-saving-bulbs-cartel or just eco-lobbyists at work...

gesman 12y ago

I used to buy bulbs from 1 month full refunds store. I kept receipts for bulbs and regularly returned the bad ones that lived shorter than advertised lifespan. At least didn't cost me extra to pay for crap.

npinguy 12y ago
I always wonder about people like you. How do you manage your receipts for all these things? And what about the additional time to go back and return lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb?
- ryandrake 12y ago
  Not the original commenter, but: Not difficult. File folder full of receipts, sorted by "action" date. Cost of gasoline is trivial (~$0.20/mile). Time doesn't cost anything (if you wouldn't otherwise be working).
- ANTSANTS 12y ago
  >And what about the additional time to go back and return lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb? Err, you just bring them with you the next time you go to the supermarket...

mikeytown2 12y ago

The reason I believe that there is a conspiracy is that the technology to get a 10,000 hour incandescent bulb is fairly cheap & easy; you need a temperature compensating thermistor, AKA the Bulb-Miser [1]. I've used one before and they really work. I'm now 100% LED. [1] http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070018922.pdf http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2007001...

DigitalJack 12y ago
That's interesting, thanks for the link. One thing I have noticed in my house is that incandescent bulbs last longer if their power is ramped up to turn them on. We have this kind of switch in our main room and the bulbs have lasted longer than 8 years of more than 8 hours a day. They are rarely on full bright so that could be it too.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Supposedly hot/cold cycles are bad for incandescent, so if you have dimmers and rarely actually switch the bulb off, that might be the source of improvement.
  - tempestn 12y ago
    There is also a current surge when the bulb is first turned on, which shortens the lifespan and is also often the final straw that eventually blows the filament.
- rtpg 12y ago
  best way to blow out a lightbulb used to be to flick the switches on and off many times really quickly . Used to accidentally do this as a kid while horsing around.
JeremyMorgan 12y ago
Oh, the bulb miser. I discovered this one time when I had bathroom lights that "warmed up". They were really dim for the first minute or two. It drove me crazy at times but one day I decided I would replace them, and pulled out the bulb and found this bulb miser thing. I had no idea what it was, but my buddy did and explained it to me, and I laughed my ass off about it. But then I thought about it, and decided to replace one bulb without the miser inserted, so I would at least be able to see in my bathroom. Left the other 3 (it was a light bulb panel above the mirror) with misers inserted. Sure as the sun comes up that one bulb would go out every year or so, but the ones with misers never did, in 9 years I was there.

rogerbinns 12y ago

I highly recommend NLee the Engineer's reviews on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=review http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=re... (you can also get it as RSS) Heavily covered are various light bulbs and rechargeable batteries. That includes checking power against manufacturer claims, noise, dimmability, power factor etc.

Spooky23 12y ago

The ridiculous lightbulb practices of today are even more offensive. You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so. You can buy a 250 watt outdoor bulb, or a variety of CFL and LED bulbs with a bunch of additional things to worry about (light color, directionality of the light, warranties, shape, etc) Consumers manage to make rational decisions about car purchases (15mpg SUVs aren't as popular in the era of $4/gallon gasoline), but we must be protected about the incandescent bulb.

nemo 12y ago
"You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so." You can purchase them here: http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7PK http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7P...
- Spooky23 12y ago
  They are no longer manufactured and cannot be imported. You can only purchase them from jobbers -- retailers don't carry them. Also, the per-bulb price is like 300-400% higher than it was two years ago.
  - nemo 12y ago
    Interesting, today I learned they did ban manufacturing of them. Can't say I mourn the loss of them, given their costs to society and the environment. If an irrational consumer choice harms everyone then regulation seems appropriate.
    - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
      Hardly an irrational consumer choice. I miss them so much. At first I though CFLs were a really good idea (less energy used, yaaaay) but after using them i realize they can't compare to incandescent bulbs. The brightness and light quality just suck compared to incandescent bulbs. And yes, I've tried every light bulb under the sun. My bedroom is so dark. I even added an extra lamp to my living room and it is still darker than when I was using incandescent. I tried using CFLs, I really did. I really wanted to like them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light...

otakucode 12y ago

I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to manufacture, but the lightbulb companies think they have the right to charge exorbitant prices for them just to maintain their profit margin. If a new product comes around that lasts 10x as long and is 10x cheaper to make, the market is supposed to make sure that you shrink radically in terms of revenue and profit. The belief that they have some divine right to continued levels of high profit is inane.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago
> I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to manufacture Huh? Cheaper compared to what? Look at this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk It's amazing to me that LED bulbs are priced so inexpensively, considering how complex they are.

ultimape 12y ago

We have tons of lightbulbs in our house that are in shitty fixtures with dimmer switches... none of the bulbs are rated for dimmers. Roommates keep buying more bad light-bulbs. The ones they keep putting on teh porch during the winter die at least twice as often. TL:DR; People don't understand how these things work.

transfire 12y ago

This is really the fundamental problem of Capitalism which we are now regularly butting are heads against. If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing? After the initial flurry of sales, demand would drop off precipitously. And as the world approaches peek population, there would be fewer and fewer sales. And that's just the logistical problem. This story speaks to the further moral dimension in which it is always more profitable to corner a market and force on consumers ever increasing reoccurring cost.

fpgaminer 12y ago
It's unlikely that 1000 year bulbs would actually be useful for 1000 years. Just as incandescents are being replaced for sake of energy efficiency. And I find it hard to imagine any economic system that could efficiently build 1000 year bulbs. It requires spinning up factories for a short period of high volume, mass production, followed by a long, low volume trailoff. That's a costly and wasteful process under any economic system. Our limited time and money is better spent solving more immediate problems, methinks.
- Roboprog 12y ago
  I think the original argument would have stood if the numbers were 20 to 50 years, and anything less than $1/yr or so.
- ams6110 12y ago
  Icandescents are being replaced because they were made illegal. If people really wanted the CFLs that would not have been necessary.
bunderbunder 12y ago
If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing? Anybody who wants to get rich. Let's say that you can sell such a light bulb, and that it's so great that everyone in the world buys one, on average. And say you can sell it for a dollar, but you only make a cent of profit on each one. Why, that'd only leave you with. . . $70,000,000 dollars. Well that's not too bad, but really not great either. It'd certainly let you retire to a tropical island for the rest of your life. But you could do better. If the light bulb is so great, wouldn't everyone be willing to spend more than a dollar on one? After all, those inferior light bulbs cost about twice as much, so if your bulbs are better than others should be willing to pay at least that much. Let's knock the price up to $2, then. That puts the profit per bulb at $1.01. So then you can simultaneously destroy the light bulb industry (fun!) and put a cool 7 billion dollars in your pocket (profit!). Who would choose not do do such a thing? Certainly most anybody who's motivated by profit (like, say, a capitalist) would jump at the opportunity.

bikamonki 12y ago

As always, it is a matter of choice: http://www.ownitforlife.com/ http://www.ownitforlife.com/

rplst8 12y ago

Banning incandescent bulbs is The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy.

robomartin 12y ago

A number of years ago I engineered a light engine consisting of 1,500 1W LED's very tightly packed. Excellent thermal design was crucial in making such a device work and remain reliable for years. We ran hundreds of FEA thermal simulations spanning months before arriving at a set of good thermal management solutions. This also extended to the electronics. It was very important to ensure that the tightly packed electronics did not suffer premature failure due to exposure to high temperatures or thermal cycling. The design had over 40 microprocessors driving the array using an innovative and highly efficient (98% if I remember correctly) technology. This was a very interesting project. I learned that thermal issues can be real killers when it comes to high power LED designs. While I have not analyzed any consumer lighting designs I would not be surprised if thermal issues, either steady-state or cyclic, are at the core of some of the failures over time.