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Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
131–140 of 202 posts
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#132I was with the article until this point:
> If long lived light bulbs are worse products, why would they need a cartel to enforce a the thousand hour limit? Well, it's because people think long lasting bulbs are a good product:
Lifespan is something everyone can understand, and has a direct effect on when you will have to go back to the store: if you saw two 60 W bulbs in a store, one claiming to last 400 hours and the other 2,000 hours, you'd probably get the longer lasting one without thinking about it.
This makes no sense to me. The article's whole point was that longer-lived bulbs produce worse lighting: Less brightness, more "orange glow" instead of "daylight", etc.
But light quality is the one thing that a buyer would immediately notice once they actually tried out the bulb. If they bought the amazing 100.000 hours bulb but found out it's a nightlight, they'll probably not buy that bulb again even despite the lifetime. If fact, they'd probably go back to the store really quickly to get a "real" light.
So I don't see why we'd need some industry cartel here to decide what's good for the customers if the customers would perfectly well decide themselves.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#133> "Therefore, this was done so that people would always need to buy more light bulbs."
This is wrong, but it's the type of wrong that cites its sources and hides in the part you'd never think to fact check
Just as a general point: I haven't seen a product decision that wasn't sold with some official explanation why it's "really for the good of everyone". Google's Manifest v3 was about reducing performance bottlenecks, FIFA's hydration breaks were about player health and relentless tracking is about "being able to provide better experiences".
The question is if those explanations hold up to scrutiny or turn out to be bullshit, not whether or not they exist in the first place.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#134> "Therefore, this was done so that people would always need to buy more light bulbs." This is wrong, but it's the type of wrong that cites its sources and hides in the part you'd never think to fact check Just as a general point: I haven't seen a product decision that wasn't sold with some official explanation why it's "really for the good of everyone". Google's Manifest v3 was about reducing performance bottlenecks…
The macro point is that complex systems are complex and have competing priorities, so it’s facile to say “I don’t agree with the decision, therefore any reasoning that supported the decision must be 100% intentional malicious bullshit.”
I’m old, I’ve had a varied career, I’ve been in small group meetings in startups and VCs and megacorps. I have never once heard the kind of “obviously this is an evil decision, but here’s how we’ll spin it” conspiracy that people so enjoy imagining. It just doesn’t work that way.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#135I've never had LED lights last anywhere near the purported 5-7 year timeframe. The worst ones are the small decorative ones with the tinier screw part that my house seems to have an inordinate number of. Those last maybe 6 months and then they start getting dimmer and then all the lights in the circuit get worse at once. I like LED lights immensely but the idea they last even 2 years is a lie in my opinion.
I bought all new Philip hue bulbs going on 7 or 8 years ago now and not a single one has gone bad. Maybe you're just buying cheap poor quality bulbs? A 100 out of 100 success rate after 8 years.
I think a lot has to do with both luck and power quality as well.
When I got a new apartment ~10 years ago I filled it with LED bulbs. Mostly Philips hue, but also some generic stuff on Lutron controls. Had 0 failures for 7-8 years.
One summer we had weeks of power issues on my block. Transformer blew out 2-3 times and we had no power/low voltage/no power/restoration state multiple times. At this point 5-10% of my hue bulbs were fried. Pretty randomly since a bunch were in the same fixture and only a few of them died.
Its possible the hues died more than the generics since they are constantly "on" rather than behind a switch, so they experienced all of those voltage states directly.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#136> "Therefore, this was done so that people would always need to buy more light bulbs." This is wrong, but it's the type of wrong that cites its sources and hides in the part you'd never think to fact check Just as a general point: I haven't seen a product decision that wasn't sold with some official explanation why it's "really for the good of everyone". Google's Manifest v3 was about reducing performance bottlenecks…
The macro point is that complex systems are complex and have competing priorities, so it’s facile to say “I don’t agree with the decision, therefore any reasoning that supported the decision must be 100% intentional malicious bullshit.” I’m old, I’ve had a varied career, I’ve been in small group meetings in startups and VCs and megacorps. I have never once heard the kind of “obviously this is an evil decision, but he…
I mean, we have evidence of things that have been said e.g. in Facebook's board meetings. So those things do exist.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a typical example being the $20 coffee makers which you'll end up paying way more for than a decent one due to the fact they just constantly break. I chuckled a bit realizing that you probably meant a decent coffee maker to cost far less than what I think a “decent” one does. Took me a moment to shake “you could buy a $20 machine every couple years for decades before you break even.”
Yeah a genuinely nice machine is going to set you back plenty, but is built to last forever and can be easily repaired to achieve that. On the other hand a French Press costs like $10, lasts forever, and makes an amazing cup of coffee. But the $20 coffee machines are basically just a scam, but one that works because people just don't appropriately weight longevity.
There are a lot of people for whom the choice is not “spend $20 every two years, or spend $200 today and never again” but instead “spend $20 today or just not have a working coffee maker”
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have become cheaper and cut costs over time. LED bulbs bought around the l-prize time when the technology was new are heavy, you can feel their metal heatsink. New LEDs from the same reputable brand are comparatively cheap.
Yep, I have a 15 year old LED lightbulb that's a "60 watt equivalent" and it works great. It was one of the first LED bulbs I bought, and I only bought one because I remember it costing individually about $25, maybe more. It's got a very heavy metal heatsink where nowadays you have just a plastic "neck" of the bulb. It chugs along wonderfully (though the color is noticable a little bit greener than later cheaper bulb…
me too. Those things were built to last - and they do.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#139While the author mentions that they are not trying to defend the Phoebus cartel, I think they may inadvertently be somewhat misleading in their explanation. What they are saying is, from an engineering standpoint, true. But my understanding of the argument against the Phoebus cartel is that it was using legitimate engineering points as the official justification for profiteering business collusion: that the points we…
Yeah, moreover, the argument is a particular kind of apologism for one or another kind of profiteering. Basically, "the people criticizing this (profiteering) don't understand the full details of how business (give some business details)". But then, actually, even with all the details, the alleged profiteering is actually happening and naturally people running these business know lots of details but they like money t…
I really dislike the rhetorical trick of framing any opposing argument as “apologist”. It’s the new “shill”; an attempt to attack motives rather than argument.
Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah a genuinely nice machine is going to set you back plenty, but is built to last forever and can be easily repaired to achieve that. On the other hand a French Press costs like $10, lasts forever, and makes an amazing cup of coffee. But the $20 coffee machines are basically just a scam, but one that works because people just don't appropriately weight longevity.
There are a lot of people for whom the choice is not “spend $20 every two years, or spend $200 today and never again” but instead “spend $20 today or just not have a working coffee maker”
There needs to be a term for this argument, because I think it's frequently used but generally fallacious and primarily used to defend the indefensible. It's a sort of strawman, in that you're concocting some demographic as something being reasonable for even though that demographic either doesn't exist, or exists in negligible quantities. The pitifulman?
And on top of all of this - again, French press. Cheaper than coffee maker and makes better coffee than a coffee maker. Are we to now invoke the same pitifulman again and claim that there's this same demographic that can't afford anything, yet works so much that even the extra 2 minutes you'd spend with a French press in impossible for them and their 7 part time jobs?
I mean FFS we live in a world where you can earn $20/hour frying frozen precut fries at McDonalds.