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The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

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Re: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

#2

Post by josho »

Not altogether different from tech. today. Ie. Year 1 nobody owns a light bulb, so sell an incredibly efficient bulb. Year 10 everybody owns bulbs so cheapen the product to increase sales. While today we have incredible free service to grow market, then when the market had matured and growth falls and lock-in is complete reduce service to monetize.

Somethings never change.

Re: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

#4

Post by userbinator »

josho wrote: post #2

Not altogether different from tech. today. Ie. Year 1 nobody owns a light bulb, so sell an incredibly efficient bulb. Year 10 everybody owns bulbs so cheapen the product to increase sales. While today we have incredible free service to grow market, then when the market had matured and growth falls and lock-in is complete reduce service to monetize. Somethings never change.

The article mentions CFLs and LED lamps, which are definitely subject to the same engineering pressures:

This would result in increases of candlepower of 11 and 16 percent respectively.” That boost in illumination, he suggested, “would be acceptable to all flashlight users” despite the fact that the higher current would shorten not just the bulb’s life but also the battery’s.

The cartel’s justification for these changes was that at the higher current levels, the bulbs produced more lumens per watt. Alas, more current means not only more brightness but also higher filament temperature and therefore shorter life.

I have no doubt that LED lamps could be engineered to last essentially indefinitely --- well past the 100+ year record of early incandescents[1] --- but most consumers are lead by the advertising to seek higher brightnesses, which are achieved by running the LEDs at life-shortening higher currents and temperatures.

Newer ICs with small feature-sizes are subject to far more current density and electromigration stress, to the point that CPUs are not expected to last more than a few years, whereas older ICs may remain functional for many decades.

Memory and storage densities are also subject to the same effect, where it seems "capacity and speed is everything" and data retention and endurance have been sacrificed. NAND flash started out at 100K+ cycles per bit and 10+ years retention; now it's more like 1K and 1 year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest-lasting_light_bulbs

Re: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

#6

Post by TeMPOraL »

userbinator wrote: post #4
josho wrote: post #2

Not altogether different from tech. today. Ie. Year 1 nobody owns a light bulb, so sell an incredibly efficient bulb. Year 10 everybody owns bulbs so cheapen the product to increase sales. While today we have incredible free service to grow market, then when the market had matured and growth falls and lock-in is complete reduce service to monetize. Somethings never change.

The article mentions CFLs and LED lamps, which are definitely subject to the same engineering pressures: This would result in increases of candlepower of 11 and 16 percent respectively.” That boost in illumination, he suggested, “would be acceptable to all flashlight users” despite the fact that the higher current would shorten not just the bulb’s life but also the battery’s. The cartel’s justification for these chan…

Honestly, I'd be fine with optimizing products like that if two things were true:

- close-to-perfect recycling infrastructure; i.e. all the stuff that breaks down and is thrown away actually gets reused to create a new generation of stuff, with minimum additional input of energy and material

- civilization was a stable thing; making things throwaway depends on ensuring there's always a replacement to buy - which will be sort-of the case only until the world goes to war again (and/or western economy goes seriously belly-up), at which point we (those of us who survive, that is) will be cursing previous generations for making all advanced technology break down after a year of use, often on purpose

Alas, those things are not true, and so I despair over the wastefulness of what "the market decided".

Re: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

#7

Post by kevenwang0531 »

The counter-argument to our fear of planned obsolescence here is the ridiculous speed of technological improvement in LEDs relative to incandescent lighting. LED's cost per lumen falls by a factor of 10 every decade (see Haitz's Law), while a user's actual lighting needs may never exceed 800 lumens for an standard A19 bulb. Any attempt to form a cartel in this market would be swiftly defeated by ever-falling unit economics. Far from a cartel, we should let the government create a standardized LED lifespan rating based on the actual needs of consumers. For example, if we know the average renovation cycle for single family houses in the US is ten years, then we should make LED bulbs that are rated for 10 years. This way, manufacturers can deliver these products at at the most affordable price point, and consumers for the most part won't have to worry about replacing their lights ever again.

Re: The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy (2014)

#9

Post by Spooky23 »

kevenwang0531 wrote: post #7

The counter-argument to our fear of planned obsolescence here is the ridiculous speed of technological improvement in LEDs relative to incandescent lighting. LED's cost per lumen falls by a factor of 10 every decade (see Haitz's Law), while a user's actual lighting needs may never exceed 800 lumens for an standard A19 bulb. Any attempt to form a cartel in this market would be swiftly defeated by ever-falling unit eco…

LEDs suck less, and are much better than garbage CFL, but are still more expensive and less versatile than the old bulbs, particularly when you need a bright bulb.
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