Lightbulb Idea


Light bulbs are one of those items that we use many times a day, but hardly ever think about. Put them in your ceiling or in a lamp, and you're set for a few years.

Image result for light bulb


However, the innovation behind the products has been guided by how these companies profit from consumers. In the early 1900s, a "cartel" of light bulb companies formed an alliance and assigned to each other zones and production quantities. While this cartel didn't last very long, one key idea that stayed afterwards was shortening the lifespan of light bulbs, and essentially implementing planned obsolescence. This, obviously, ensures future sales in the industry just a few years down the road when your light bulbs start to burn out.

All of the companies in the cartel agreed to 1,000 hours of burn time, which took feats of engineering to reverse the progress made in the decades prior, while still keeping a high quality, bright, efficient light bulb. This decision ensures that sales will never decrease, as long as no company veers far away from the imposed 1,000 hour limit.

This resembles pure competition in many ways, however due to the planned obsolescence, a company could start making longer lasting light bulbs and have a head start from that perspective.

The government started being more proactive about regulating collusion between companies in an industry, companies started breaking further and further away from the shortened life span for their light bulbs.

Now, with the increased government regulation and companies making LEDs and other light bulbs that last well over a decade, it isn't as clear where the industry is heading or how they will continue to keep up their revenue.





Sources:


https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy

http://economicstudents.com/2012/09/planned-obsolescence-the-light-bulb-conspiracy/

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 27, 2019 at 5:49 PM

    Interesting post, Naya! I had no idea that lightbulbs used to have expected lifespans to guarantee continuous sales for lightbulb producers. That actually reminds me of the rumor that Apple's phones are engineered to perform at peak capacity for only two years, then decline afterwards. Thus, consumers are forced to buy a new phone biannually each time they release a new model. For lightbulbs, however, I read that a key reason as to why lightbulbs were planned to last only 1,000 hours was because extending the lifespan of bulbs cut down on efficiency and gave less light per watt, which would be more costly to the consumer in the long run as they would have to choose between dealing with a poorly performing product or buying a brand new one.

    Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 2, 2019 at 8:19 AM

      I also heard this about Apple, and just this past October they were actually sued after an Italian investigation found that software updated slowed down older generation phones. They were fined the equivalent of about $11M, which in the scheme of things is negligible considering how many people buy new phones due to their planned obsolescence.

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/24/apple-samsung-fined-for-slowing-down-phones

      Delete

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