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Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

maurycyz.com

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Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#161
post #132

I 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 th…

Seeing how many people buy 6000k LEDs for sunset/night lighting (e.g. a bedroom), no, people don’t give a shit about lighting. The most caring of average consumers would notice their bedroom looks like a hospital, but refuse to buy 2700k or 3000k because "they look like piss" when they go to the store at midday. And with the stupid habit of talking about lights in input watts (skimmed over in the article), we’d get w…

> people would buy the bulb that lasts 50% longer and not notice the lower lumen output.

OK, but if they're fine with the lumen output, where is the problem?

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the PS3 specifically, that was the breaking point for subsidizing because it ended up being famously and heavily used for compute clusters. We see the same effects today where any chip useful for high end gaming is also useful for AI.

While true I expect this likely paid for itself many times over in indirect advertising. People using PS3's as supercomputing clusters was phenomenal advertising for the PS3 that was a generally mediocre system for gaming. It seems that Sony was betting everything on dev's bending over backwards to maximize the system's highly unique hardware and leaving ports to other systems working as second rate citizens, but ins…

I dunno. At the end of the gen Sony had lost a billion dollars on the PS3 last I read about it.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#163
post #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…

Well corporations tend to push their worldview on the employees. I remember guy from Google who decided to defend their device attestation, they planned to put into Chrome (likely they still plan). His whole reasoning line was: "obviously advertisers have right to be sure real eyeballs are seeing their ads, so Google doing just that with some regard for the users are actually good guys" (because they could rip us from the privacy entirely, but they didn't)

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#164
post #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…

Well corporations tend to push their worldview on the employees. I remember guy from Google who decided to defend their device attestation, they planned to put into Chrome (likely they still plan). His whole reasoning line was: "obviously advertisers have right to be sure real eyeballs are seeing their ads, so Google doing just that with some regard for the users are actually good guys" (because they could rip us fro…

Amazed they actually argued with the interests of advertisers so openly and not something like "well it could help crack down on insecure or hacked devices" or something like that.

And yeah, there seems to be a baseline assumption in big tech companies that it's no problem if they get unlimited control and surveillance abilities, because they're the good guys and would never abuse their privileges...

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if $20 coffee makers are really a scam. I've been using my $20 Mr. Coffee for like 5 years now without an issue, still makes coffee and more than likely will for a long time. You might debate the quality of the coffee it makes, but I've long since learned I don't have the palate for it to matter.

Yeah I've never had a $20 coffee maker or toaster die, they're too simple to have anything go wrong. It's always been when I splurged on a slightly fancy one it has broken, since they add a bunch of crap that can now go wrong.

Toasters I agree with, though I use my toaster very rarely so I'm unsure if that's the nuance. But the coffee makers, cheap coffee makers would have the heating plate fail constantly. And by contrast I'm a 1-2 pot a day person and tended to leave the pot warming, so it's getting used a lot. They still shouldn't fail though.

It's similar to my experience with cheap electric ovens. In that case I'm skilled enough to repair them but there is overt planned obsolescence with the wiring being designed in a way that corrosion and failure is inevitable. It's quite an easy repair-job since it just requires fixing a corroded wire, but the case itself is built in a way that makes it a complete PITA to do. 15 seconds fixing the wire, 15 minutes disassembling/reassembling the casing.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While true I expect this likely paid for itself many times over in indirect advertising. People using PS3's as supercomputing clusters was phenomenal advertising for the PS3 that was a generally mediocre system for gaming. It seems that Sony was betting everything on dev's bending over backwards to maximize the system's highly unique hardware and leaving ports to other systems working as second rate citizens, but ins…

I dunno. At the end of the gen Sony had lost a billion dollars on the PS3 last I read about it.

They lost money on the console itself, but were already profitable after accounting for software, accessories, and so on by 2008. [1] The console was released in late 2006 and was a beast of subsidization in part because of the heated blu-ray/hd-dvd war which now seems quite quaint. The modern business models are just really taking the consumer for a ride.

If either company maintained the previous business model, they'd have made the competitor look like a clown. It was basically a prisoner's dilemma, but they both chose to collude. It's hard to explain that without assuming that they're colluding, which is basically a tautology.

[1] - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/hirai-claims-ps3-platform-...

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#167

I'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.

Counterpoint: I've never had an LED bulb go bad. Ever. I think it's highly dependent on the brand.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#168

I'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.

You might have poor quality incoming AC. Capacitors in the power supplies will be under more stress if you regularly have over/under voltages or small spikes and surges.

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#169

I'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.

same on phillips hue but maybe 3 out of 10 have died.

they might not have great QA

Re: Increasing the lifespan of a bulb makes it worse in every other way

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put numbers on a package, the consumer will choose the bigger numbers. Taking some statistic out of context like "the typical consumer does not take reasonable account of product longevity" doesn't make sense when the only two things a lightbulb can do better are 'be brighter' and 'last longer', and both are prominently displayed on the package. The typical consumer does not pick coffee makers based on longevi…

The level of subsidization has nothing to do with hardware customization. You can have subsidized retail hardware or customized hardware sold at cost. They both went from high end heavily subsidized hardware to mid-range minimally subsidized hardware at the exact same time. Colluding in this way means they both dramatically increase their profit margins, and obviously does not preclude competition in other aspects. T…

It is not proof of collusion that they abandoned bespoke hardware right as consumer hardware was getting good. That is exactly when you want to abandon bespoke hardware. It is not proof of collusion that neither one lowered prices for the cheaper tech. Both were trying to appease shareholders who were sick of the massive up front capital investment that heavily subsidized hardware caused. Again: both had the same incentives, and so independently came to the same conclusions. If they were colluding, Xbox wouldn't've declaratively lost that generation, and with the department on fire today and in danger of being restructured, Sharma would right now be executing one of these strategies you are saying is a smart idea.

The world is not full of conspiracies. You will understand it much better if you look for the actual reason things happen.

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