1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,732 Planned obsolescence - it’s an insidious thing. 2 00:00:03,732 --> 00:00:07,783 A business that designs the perfect product which lasts forever 3 00:00:07,783 --> 00:00:10,860 will run out of customers once everybody has one. 4 00:00:10,860 --> 00:00:16,272 And running out of customers is a pretty bad strategy for a business which strives to be immortal. 5 00:00:16,272 --> 00:00:20,703 This simple reality, when viewed with a slightly twisted mindset, 6 00:00:20,703 --> 00:00:28,071 can be seen as a reason to never build the perfect product, and it is often argued - quite convincingly,  I should say - 7 00:00:28,071 --> 00:00:35,100 that companies today are actively making their products worse to guarantee you’ll have to buy another one before too long. 8 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:38,670 Now, I’m not here to make any accusations. 9 00:00:38,670 --> 00:00:43,861 Though I do certainly wish to see us endowed with a right to repair the things we own, 10 00:00:43,861 --> 00:00:46,062 and maybe some other things while we’re at it. 11 00:00:46,062 --> 00:00:50,853 Uh, anyway, though I won’t comment on what may or may not be happening today, 12 00:00:50,853 --> 00:00:59,935 between the first and second world wars, an actual, documented conspiracy between light bulb manufacturers across the globe existed. 13 00:00:59,935 --> 00:01:05,399 The Phoebus cartel, an arrangement between Osram,  Philips, General Electric, and several others, 14 00:01:05,399 --> 00:01:10,671 established a maximum light bulb life expectancy of 1,000 hours. 15 00:01:10,671 --> 00:01:20,992 The organization even conducted tests on each other’s products and issued fines to its members when their light bulbs took just a little too long to burn out. 16 00:01:20,992 --> 00:01:31,740 Most insidiously, they defined this 1,000 hour maximum after light bulbs with significantly longer 2,500 hour lifespans already existed. 17 00:01:32,340 --> 00:01:36,389 That would seem to point straight at planned obsolescence - 18 00:01:36,389 --> 00:01:41,880 after all, the lifespan of light bulbs had steadily  been going up before the cartel was formed,   19 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:46,986 so surely we were on our way to some sort of  everlasting lightbulb stopper. 20 00:01:46,986 --> 00:01:53,166 The manufacturers coming together to impose an artificial limit  like they are known to have done 21 00:01:53,166 --> 00:01:57,827 seems on the surface at least nothing but a ploy to sell more light bulbs. 22 00:01:57,827 --> 00:02:03,215 And light bulbs sales just so happened to increase after the lifespan limit was enforced, 23 00:02:03,215 --> 00:02:04,920 which reversed a worrying trend. 24 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,220 Sure smells like planned obsolescence to me! 25 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:13,564 Indeed, the smell is so strong that many people point to the Phoebus cartel 26 00:02:13,564 --> 00:02:18,900 as the genesis of planned obsolescence, or at least a very clear and undeniable example.   27 00:02:19,620 --> 00:02:25,975 And perhaps the most irrefutable piece of evidence  comes from, of all places, a garage in California.   28 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:30,660 Hanging in the firehouse in the town  of Livermore is the Centennial Light,   29 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:37,028 an incandescent light bulb that has been burning  nearly continuously since 1901. 30 00:02:37,028 --> 00:02:44,400 Surely that light bulb with its century-plus longevity proves that light bulbs never truly “need” to burn out.   31 00:02:46,860 --> 00:02:48,579 Well… ok 32 00:02:48,579 --> 00:02:51,720 so have you ever actually seen an image of the Centennial Light? 33 00:02:52,740 --> 00:02:54,638 Here it is. 34 00:02:54,638 --> 00:02:56,940 Yeah, it’s barely glowing, is it? 35 00:02:57,780 --> 00:02:58,596 See… 36 00:02:58,596 --> 00:02:59,795 *sigh* 37 00:02:59,795 --> 00:03:03,890 This topic is actually one that actually feels weird to cover. 38 00:03:03,890 --> 00:03:10,084 I definitely think that planned obsolescence has happened and arguably is still happening today, 39 00:03:10,084 --> 00:03:15,802 and I wasn’t just making wordplay back then - I am genuinely on the side of the right to repair movement, 40 00:03:15,802 --> 00:03:21,479 and giving something an artificial expiration date just to  ensure you can sell more is, 41 00:03:21,479 --> 00:03:22,620 uh, pretty gross! 42 00:03:23,460 --> 00:03:31,200 However… the incandescent light bulb is just  not a good example of planned obsolescence for lots of reasons, 43 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,640 and using it as evidence of planned obsolescence genuinely bothers me. 44 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:41,012 Am I about to “well, actually” the Phoebus cartel story? 45 00:03:41,012 --> 00:03:43,494 [through gritted teeth] Yeah... 46 00:03:43,494 --> 00:03:47,870 Here’s the thing - when the story of the Phoebus Cartel is told, 47 00:03:47,870 --> 00:03:57,097 those telling it have a bad habit of downplaying or even outright  ignoring the fact that there were real, significant, actual advantages 48 00:03:57,097 --> 00:04:01,500 to a light bulb that only promised 1,000 hours of operating time. 49 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:06,540 Such bulbs produced a whiter-looking  light which was easier to see under,   50 00:04:06,540 --> 00:04:10,504 and they could produce more light with the same  amount of power - 51 00:04:10,504 --> 00:04:15,867 which meant they cost you, the person paying that power bill, less to operate. 52 00:04:16,879 --> 00:04:18,780 That’s a pretty important caveat, don’tcha think? 53 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,834 Glossing over that little bit of context is bad enough, 54 00:04:22,834 --> 00:04:26,668 but a second rather important fact tends to get skipped, too: 55 00:04:26,668 --> 00:04:33,118 that being that light bulbs were never a durable good, and once we figured out how to automate their production,   56 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:35,771 they weren’t exactly expensive. 57 00:04:36,069 --> 00:04:39,639 I mean, it’s literally just a little bit of glass, 58 00:04:39,639 --> 00:04:41,047 a little bit of wire, 59 00:04:41,047 --> 00:04:44,550 and a little bit of metal and resin to form the screw base. 60 00:04:44,550 --> 00:04:52,995 There is more than 5 times as much glass in this empty jar of maple butter than there is in this 40 watt light bulb. 61 00:04:52,995 --> 00:04:56,913 It took us years and years to figure out how to make these things, sure, 62 00:04:56,913 --> 00:05:02,402 but once we were able to use machines to crank these out in big ol’ light bulb factories… 63 00:05:02,402 --> 00:05:05,340 well this isn’t a very complex object now, is it? 64 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:10,756 No, it’s not, but before we continue we need a little bit of background: 65 00:05:10,756 --> 00:05:16,620 incandescent light bulbs are called that because they rely on the phenomenon of incandescence to produce light   66 00:05:16,620 --> 00:05:17,988 in a bulb. 67 00:05:17,988 --> 00:05:22,658 Incandescence is this weird thing  that happens when stuff gets really hot - 68 00:05:22,658 --> 00:05:31,460 all things emit electromagnetic radiation, and as they get hotter, they start to emit waves with shorter and shorter wavelengths until, eventually, 69 00:05:31,460 --> 00:05:35,837 those wavelengths hit the visible light spectrum that our peepers detect. 70 00:05:35,837 --> 00:05:43,794 That’s why the wires in your toaster glow an orangey-red - they’re just so hot that they’re emitting some visible light. 71 00:05:43,794 --> 00:05:45,756 But, not a lot. 72 00:05:45,756 --> 00:05:53,580 They’re definitely really hot, but you need to get much much hotter to shift from a dull orange glow to something more useful. 73 00:05:54,300 --> 00:05:56,594 And we knew how to do that just fine! 74 00:05:56,594 --> 00:06:05,100 We had been playing about with this electricity business for quite some time and plenty of experiments were  done showing thin wires glowing quite brightly. 75 00:06:06,180 --> 00:06:10,860 The trouble was that when you make things  so hot that they start emitting white light,   76 00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:16,500 those things tend to either melt or react with oxygen in the air and burn.   77 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,460 And that little problem is what the light bulb sought to fix. 78 00:06:21,540 --> 00:06:24,190 After years and years of experimentation, 79 00:06:24,190 --> 00:06:31,800 various people whom I won’t name to avoid comment-section flame wars arrived upon a filament which could get extremely hot without melting.   80 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:39,392 When exposed to the atmosphere with all that  oxygen floating around, it would still burn, though, and quickly go up in smoke. 81 00:06:39,392 --> 00:06:44,847 So, we put it in a clear, glass bulb that we sucked all the air out of with a vacuum pump. 82 00:06:44,847 --> 00:06:48,936 Now there was no oxygen in there for the material of the filament to react with, 83 00:06:48,936 --> 00:06:51,379 so it couldn’t possibly burn. 84 00:06:51,379 --> 00:06:52,474 And there you go. 85 00:06:52,474 --> 00:06:53,991 That’s what a light bulb is. 86 00:06:53,991 --> 00:06:59,100 An impossibly hot bit of wire protected from burning away by its own little envelope of nothing. 87 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:03,240 The first functional light bulbs didn’t last long at all,   88 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:06,255 but we were still learning how best to make them. 89 00:07:06,255 --> 00:07:11,040 We tried all sorts of things - different shapes and materials  for the filament, the bulb itself,   90 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:15,660 the support structures, more-perfect vacuums, and eventually we got pretty good at it!   91 00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:21,000 But we still had an insurmountable barrier: the melting point of the carbon filament. 92 00:07:21,660 --> 00:07:26,041 There was a hard limit to how hot you could run  the filament before it broke, 93 00:07:26,041 --> 00:07:30,444 so early light bulbs produced a rather dull, orangey-yellow light. 94 00:07:30,444 --> 00:07:33,172 Still beat the pants off of gas lamps, though. 95 00:07:33,172 --> 00:07:37,949 But then, we figured out how to form thin wire filaments from tungsten. 96 00:07:37,949 --> 00:07:44,664 That alone was quite the engineering feat - tungsten’s hardness and brittleness make it very difficult to work with. 97 00:07:44,664 --> 00:07:51,083 But figuring it out was the holy grail of  light bulb makers because of tungsten’s extremely high melting point: 98 00:07:51,083 --> 00:07:55,916 the highest of any known element at 3,422 degrees Celsius, 99 00:07:55,916 --> 00:07:59,054 6,192 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 00:07:59,054 --> 00:08:02,314 or 3,695 Kelvin… 101 00:08:02,314 --> 00:08:03,786 degrees. [stares knowing exactly what he did] 102 00:08:03,786 --> 00:08:09,480 If we could just crack that code, we could make the  most brilliant light bulbs anyone had ever seen. 103 00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:13,169 Of course, we did - and with tungsten filaments, 104 00:08:13,169 --> 00:08:17,929 whiter, brighter, longer-lasting light bulbs started to become the norm. 105 00:08:17,929 --> 00:08:20,551 A couple of other innovations were still on the way: 106 00:08:20,551 --> 00:08:25,243 the coiled coil structure of the filament, through its compact and dense shape, 107 00:08:25,243 --> 00:08:28,087 allowed it to run hotter with less input power. 108 00:08:28,087 --> 00:08:36,327 And we found that adding a little inert gas to the bulb like argon or krypton worked better for tungsten filament longevity than a pure vacuum. 109 00:08:37,666 --> 00:08:40,765 But really, aside from those two things… 110 00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:43,488 the light bulb wouldn’t change anymore. 111 00:08:43,488 --> 00:08:50,488 This appliance bulb I just bought in a store the other day is no different from the light bulbs manufactured a century ago - 112 00:08:50,488 --> 00:08:57,720 it’s just a piece of tungsten wire glowing because it gets literally white-hot when we run current through it,   113 00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:01,732 positioned inside of a thin glass bulb filled  with an inert gas at low pressure 114 00:09:01,732 --> 00:09:05,059 to prevent the filament from reacting with oxygen and burning away. 115 00:09:05,059 --> 00:09:07,080 Not exactly the pinnacle of complexity. 116 00:09:07,620 --> 00:09:13,177 However, the filament reacting with oxygen and burning isn’t the only issue we have. 117 00:09:13,177 --> 00:09:18,558 Although tungsten won’t melt until it hits 3,695 Kelvin, 118 00:09:18,558 --> 00:09:23,721 it does have this annoying habit of evaporating when it gets close to there. 119 00:09:23,721 --> 00:09:25,893 Or, I guess technically that would be sublimating. 120 00:09:25,893 --> 00:09:35,026 Anyway, as the lamp is operated, little bits of hot tungsten become liberated from the filament and wind up on the inside surface of the glass, 121 00:09:35,026 --> 00:09:39,000 which both darkens the glass bulb and weakens the filament with time. 122 00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:44,103 Eventually, the filament becomes so weak that it breaks, 123 00:09:44,103 --> 00:09:46,699 and pop goes the light bulb. 124 00:09:46,699 --> 00:09:54,062 And here’s where the heaping spoonful of oft-omitted nuance from the Phoebus cartel story comes back into play: 125 00:09:54,062 --> 00:09:59,400 how quickly a light bulb burns out depends on how hot you run the filament. 126 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,749 The closer you get to tungsten’s melting point,  the faster evaporation happens, 127 00:10:04,749 --> 00:10:10,500 which leads to the filament weakening more quickly and thus  results in a shorter lifespan for the light bulb. 128 00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:15,552 Sounds like we should just not run them too hot, then, but see… 129 00:10:15,552 --> 00:10:22,680 as you get closer to tungsten’s melting point, you also get a brighter,  whiter, more energy-efficient light bulb. 130 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:29,665 There’s a trade-off between quality and efficiency of the light produced by an incandescent light bulb 131 00:10:29,665 --> 00:10:33,060 and how long that light bulb will run before it fails. 132 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:39,418 This is merely a physical reality of all non-halogen tungsten-filament lamps. 133 00:10:39,418 --> 00:10:44,018 It’s a reality we understood in 1925 when the cartel was formed, 134 00:10:44,018 --> 00:10:49,500 and it’s a reality that continues to be real for what few  incandescent light bulbs remain on the market. 135 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:55,561 For example, these are both 40 watt incandescent light bulbs. 136 00:10:55,561 --> 00:11:01,229 One of them is an appliance bulb like you’d put in your oven  rated for 2,500 hours of runtime. 137 00:11:01,229 --> 00:11:07,680 The other is a “ceiling fan bulb” which is really just a  general-purpose bulb with a candelabra base. 138 00:11:08,460 --> 00:11:12,025 This bulb only promises 1,000 hours of runtime, 139 00:11:12,025 --> 00:11:16,067 and boy are these runtimes weirdly similar to how the cartel story started, 140 00:11:16,067 --> 00:11:17,372 that’s strange. 141 00:11:17,372 --> 00:11:20,496 Anyway, when we compare the two side-by-side, 142 00:11:20,496 --> 00:11:24,996 the longer-lasting appliance bulb is noticeably dimmer and yellower 143 00:11:24,996 --> 00:11:28,961 despite using a nearly-identical amount of power. 144 00:11:28,961 --> 00:11:37,800 It is a longer-lasting light bulb, but it is also objectively worse at its single  job of producing light with electrical power. 145 00:11:38,700 --> 00:11:41,707 So which is really the better light bulb? 146 00:11:42,659 --> 00:11:45,180 Sorta depends on what you’re going for, doesn’t it? 147 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,587 But these are two different light bulbs - 148 00:11:48,587 --> 00:11:53,849 maybe there’s some sort of manufacturing issue with the appliance bulb and it shouldn’t be that dim. 149 00:11:53,849 --> 00:11:57,727 Well, to demonstrate slightly more scientifically, 150 00:11:57,727 --> 00:12:01,950 I’ve got a big ol’ box of 555 indicator lamps. 151 00:12:01,950 --> 00:12:09,095 These little light bulbs are designed to run at 6.3 volts and consume about 1.5 watts of power. 152 00:12:09,095 --> 00:12:13,673 When run at their rated voltage, they’re definitely not the brightest things out there - 153 00:12:13,673 --> 00:12:17,847 they barely produce a visible glow when under this lampshade. 154 00:12:17,847 --> 00:12:20,750 But watch what happens when I double the voltage. 155 00:12:20,750 --> 00:12:24,945 The light has gotten much brighter, and whiter, too. 156 00:12:24,945 --> 00:12:31,841 It’s also now drawing nearly 5 watts of power - and boy is this the brightest 5 watt light bulb I’ve ever seen. 157 00:12:31,841 --> 00:12:35,750 Look how much brighter it is than this 4-watt night-light bulb. 158 00:12:35,750 --> 00:12:36,840 That’s impressive. 159 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:41,713 So… why don’t we run all light bulbs like this? 160 00:12:41,713 --> 00:12:43,795 Well, you probably already know. 161 00:12:43,795 --> 00:12:47,231 It’s because they don’t last long at all when you do this. 162 00:12:47,231 --> 00:12:50,440 While we are getting way more light out of this thing, 163 00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:53,376 the filament is getting weaker by the minute. 164 00:12:53,376 --> 00:13:01,915 This bulb was only run for 10 minutes at double its rated voltage, and already we can see significant darkening of the glass. 165 00:13:01,915 --> 00:13:09,154 That’s from the evaporated tungsten which has deposited on the glass and that happens in all non-halogen incandescent bulbs, 166 00:13:09,154 --> 00:13:13,680 but it’s particularly noticeable with these  little fellas since the bulb itself is so small. 167 00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:17,083 To give a true running-time at this voltage, 168 00:13:17,083 --> 00:13:25,265 I ran a stopwatch on a test of a fresh bulb and found it only survived for 65 minutes at 12.6 volts. 169 00:13:25,265 --> 00:13:27,180 And that’s what it looked like in the end. 170 00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:32,242 And I want to be clear here, the melting point of tungsten isn’t the issue. 171 00:13:32,242 --> 00:13:38,260 I’d estimate that at 12.6 volts we’re running the filament at somewhere near 3,100 Kelvin, 172 00:13:38,260 --> 00:13:41,880 and tungsten won’t melt until 3,695 (plus tax). 173 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:46,479 The problem is the rate of evaporation of the filament. 174 00:13:46,479 --> 00:13:49,853 That happens faster with every increase in temperature, 175 00:13:49,853 --> 00:13:53,166 so the hotter you run it, the shorter the life it will live. 176 00:13:53,166 --> 00:13:59,762 If you just keep on cranking the voltage up, you will hit the melting point and will experience an instant burn-out, 177 00:13:59,762 --> 00:14:08,617 but after sacrificing several bulbs for the good of science, I found that 20 volts would keep us just below the melting point 178 00:14:08,617 --> 00:14:11,966 and we could see just how bright we can get one of these suckers. 179 00:14:11,966 --> 00:14:15,175 And boy is it astonishingly bright - 180 00:14:15,175 --> 00:14:19,916 here’s that table lamp running the 40 watt general-purpose incandescent bulb again. 181 00:14:19,916 --> 00:14:27,149 And now, here’s that same lamp but with our teeny little 555 indicator running at 20 volts. 182 00:14:27,149 --> 00:14:29,532 That’s nothing short of amazing, 183 00:14:29,532 --> 00:14:33,745 and a side-by-side comparison reveals it’s just about as bright. 184 00:14:33,745 --> 00:14:40,398 It might even be a little brighter, but it’s hard to make a direct comparison because of how drastically whiter the light is. 185 00:14:40,398 --> 00:14:48,660 In-person this was weird, as it was an incandescent light bulb burning with the appearance of a bright-white LED or fluorescent lamp. 186 00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:53,751 The brightness is impressive enough on its own, but look at the power draw - 187 00:14:53,751 --> 00:14:59,258 we’re only using half an amp at 20 volts which works out to about 10 watts, 188 00:14:59,258 --> 00:15:03,862 so we’re seemingly getting four times as much light per watt. 189 00:15:03,862 --> 00:15:08,700 That’s amazing and rivals the efficiency of some LED bulbs today. 190 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:11,299 The catch? 191 00:15:11,299 --> 00:15:14,437 Well, let’s let the video actually play. 192 00:15:14,437 --> 00:15:17,656 Immediately the light begins to darken. 193 00:15:17,656 --> 00:15:21,275 Before long it’s much less bright than the bulb on the left. 194 00:15:21,275 --> 00:15:28,319 And it lasts a mere 41 seconds before the filament breaks -  and this was a really good showing. 195 00:15:28,319 --> 00:15:35,040 What’s going on here is that as the filament loses material through evaporation, small weak spots form. 196 00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:37,882 We can actually see multiple breaks in this footage, 197 00:15:37,882 --> 00:15:42,547 but the filament keeps falling in on itself and keeping the circuit intact. 198 00:15:42,547 --> 00:15:45,794 Eventually, though, one of these fractures leaves a gap, 199 00:15:45,794 --> 00:15:49,136 the circuit is broken, and the light goes out. 200 00:15:49,136 --> 00:15:55,210 Depending on how that happens, though, you can sometimes bring the bulb back to life with a little percussive maintenance. 201 00:15:55,210 --> 00:16:00,795 If you manage to complete the circuit, the tungsten will sort of spot-weld itself back together. 202 00:16:00,795 --> 00:16:02,306 For a while, anyway. 203 00:16:02,901 --> 00:16:05,701 Here’s the rub: as I’ve hopefully demonstrated, 204 00:16:05,701 --> 00:16:09,293 the design of the tungsten-filament incandescent light bulb 205 00:16:09,293 --> 00:16:17,638 was always an exercise in balancing lifespan with energy-efficiency and quality of light output. 206 00:16:17,638 --> 00:16:25,531 And this is why using the Phoebus cartel as evidence of planned obsolescence rubs me the wrong way. 207 00:16:25,531 --> 00:16:33,212 By the time it was formed in 1925, scientists and engineers understood the lifespan-efficiency trade-off. 208 00:16:33,212 --> 00:16:35,220 There are even equations for it! 209 00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:41,652 We had essentially perfected the tungsten-filament  lamp by the time the cartel was formed, 210 00:16:41,652 --> 00:16:49,140 and you simply cannot optimize for lifespan without  making the light bulb worse at being a light bulb.   211 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:54,882 The 1,000 hour operational target was simply a decent sweet-spot in the middle 212 00:16:54,882 --> 00:16:59,045 (plus, of course, it was a nice round number figure and those are hard to resist). 213 00:16:59,045 --> 00:17:03,766 Somebody just had to define what the sweet spot was and make it a standard. 214 00:17:04,302 --> 00:17:05,876 And that’s what happened. 215 00:17:06,060 --> 00:17:13,819 To be clear, I’m not forgetting that this was a literal oligopoly with documented collusion efforts that undoubtedly set prices artificially high 216 00:17:13,819 --> 00:17:16,436 and did all sorts of other slimy things, too. 217 00:17:16,436 --> 00:17:20,340 I’m not here saying the cartel was some sort of wonderful organization. 218 00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:27,120 But I feel like ignoring the reality of the efficiency-lifespan tradeoff in tungsten lamps   219 00:17:27,120 --> 00:17:30,052 is... dishonest. 220 00:17:30,052 --> 00:17:35,706 It would definitely be insidious if the 2,500 hour light bulbs the cartel sought to extinguish 221 00:17:35,706 --> 00:17:44,179 were just as good and just as efficient as the agreed upon 1,000 hour light bulb… but that just wasn’t the case. 222 00:17:44,179 --> 00:17:51,660 Longer life light bulbs were always duller, dimmer, and thus required more power  to produce the same amount of light. 223 00:17:52,380 --> 00:17:58,140 What I think really bothers me is that you don’t  have to look that deeply to uncover this context.   224 00:17:58,860 --> 00:18:02,233 Just looking up the cartel on Wikipedia reveals that 225 00:18:02,233 --> 00:18:09,835 “Some engineers deemed 1,000 hours a reasonable figure to balance the various operational aspects of an incandescent bulb, 226 00:18:09,835 --> 00:18:16,616 since longer lifespan means reduced efficacy (lumens per  watt): a longer-life bulb of a given wattage 227 00:18:16,616 --> 00:18:22,751 puts out less light (and therefore proportionally more heat) than a shorter-life bulb of the same wattage. 228 00:18:22,751 --> 00:18:29,270 Nevertheless, long-life incandescent bulbs were and are available with lifespan ratings up to 2,500 hours, 229 00:18:29,270 --> 00:18:33,077 and these do in fact produce less light per watt.” 230 00:18:33,077 --> 00:18:40,136 There is even an excerpt from a report from the Monopolies and Restrictive  Practices Commission of the United Kingdom from 1951 231 00:18:40,136 --> 00:18:45,054 which says quite plainly that while it might look like hanky panky was going on, 232 00:18:45,054 --> 00:18:50,760 conflicting factors make it impossible to view the great  light bulb life shortening as anything nefarious. 233 00:18:51,420 --> 00:18:58,216 But then, I hear you asking, why establish tests  to make sure the bulbs didn’t last too long? 234 00:18:58,216 --> 00:19:04,500 Assessing a fine to your members for making a light bulb  that’s just a little too good seems pretty iffy.   235 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,802 Well, again, would it actually be good? 236 00:19:09,802 --> 00:19:13,717 That’s up for debate, and it’s kind of the whole point I’m making, here. 237 00:19:13,717 --> 00:19:20,079 Also of note, many of the companies in the cartel were also in the business of running power grids - 238 00:19:20,079 --> 00:19:23,820 or at least building much of the machinery that made those power grids work. 239 00:19:24,420 --> 00:19:32,148 They intimately understood that long-life light bulbs would make that part of their business harder and more expensive, 240 00:19:32,148 --> 00:19:38,466 especially as more and more people got electricity in their homes and electricity demand grew. 241 00:19:38,466 --> 00:19:46,129 That’s a pretty solid reason to start favoring energy efficiency over lifespan and enforcing a standard to that end. 242 00:19:46,129 --> 00:19:48,788 Especially when, to repeat myself, 243 00:19:48,788 --> 00:19:51,737 this is just a little bit of glass and a little bit of wire 244 00:19:51,737 --> 00:19:57,299 made not by human hands but by machines which could crank out tens of thousands per day. 245 00:19:57,299 --> 00:20:00,780 They were not by any means precious objects. 246 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:09,825 Now, I foresee some of you viewing that light-bulb makers were also being in the business of power generation as evidence of a conflict of interest, 247 00:20:09,825 --> 00:20:15,175 and maybe it was but they sure didn’t take advantage of that position. 248 00:20:15,175 --> 00:20:19,181 If their only goal was to maximize the money you gave them, 249 00:20:19,181 --> 00:20:26,972 well then they should have been selling nothing but long-life light bulbs that needed much more power for the same amount of light. 250 00:20:26,972 --> 00:20:28,917 But that’s not what happened. 251 00:20:28,917 --> 00:20:37,020 It was better for all parties involved to run cheap light bulbs as hot as you  could in exchange for lower operating costs. 252 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:43,164 I know how some folks feel about higher authorities making decisions on the consumer’s behalf, 253 00:20:43,164 --> 00:20:48,394 though I can assure you that’s happening all the time in the private sector, you just may not be so aware of it, 254 00:20:48,394 --> 00:20:57,420 but honestly establishing a 1,000 hour lifespan was the correct decision - or, at the very least, far less insidious than it seems. 255 00:20:58,020 --> 00:21:01,963 The ultimate evidence of this is that it never changed! 256 00:21:01,963 --> 00:21:12,375 The cartel dissolved in 1939 and yet, decades later, 1,000 hours remained the operational target for general-purpose light-bulbs. 257 00:21:12,375 --> 00:21:16,337 Later on you could get so-called “long-life” bulbs if you wanted to, 258 00:21:16,337 --> 00:21:18,527 much like this appliance bulb here, 259 00:21:18,527 --> 00:21:23,820 but to produce the same amount of light, they needed more power and thus consumed more energy. 260 00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:27,337 This Washington Post article from 1981 261 00:21:27,337 --> 00:21:37,015 points out that to produce the same amount of light as a 75 watt standard-life bulb, you need to move up to a 100 watt long-life bulb. 262 00:21:37,015 --> 00:21:45,000 Is it really worth a 33 percent increase in energy consumption just to avoid buying a $0.90 light bulb every six months? 263 00:21:45,540 --> 00:21:48,248 As a matter of fact, objectively 264 00:21:48,248 --> 00:21:49,528 no! 265 00:21:49,528 --> 00:21:56,562 In 1981 the average cost for electricity in the US was 6.9 cents per kilowatt hour, 266 00:21:56,562 --> 00:21:57,597 nice. 267 00:21:57,597 --> 00:22:08,889 Over the 2,500 hours of lifetime, those extra 25 watts would amount to 62.5 kilowatt-hours of energy expenditure which would cost you $4.31. 268 00:22:08,889 --> 00:22:17,204 So, by choosing the equally-bright but longer-lasting light bulb, you will spend $4.31 more on energy 269 00:22:17,204 --> 00:22:20,803 but you won’t even save $2.00 on light bulbs. 270 00:22:20,803 --> 00:22:27,270 That means, objectively, you were spending more money running one of those long-life bulbs 271 00:22:27,270 --> 00:22:32,351 than you would if you were just buying standard-life bulbs and changing them more frequently. 272 00:22:32,351 --> 00:22:41,640 And that’s why the article suggests to use long-life bulbs only in hard-to-reach places where the extra running costs are worth avoiding a bulb change-out. 273 00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:45,308 And that’s with retail prices for light bulbs. 274 00:22:45,308 --> 00:22:48,290 Remember how I said they were really cheap to make? 275 00:22:48,290 --> 00:22:53,697 Well, I was talking with my mom and dad about this video project and they told me something interesting - 276 00:22:53,697 --> 00:22:58,030 back in the day, ComEd (that’s the power utility here in the Chicago area) 277 00:22:58,030 --> 00:23:02,706 would just give you free light bulbs when you paid your power bill! 278 00:23:02,706 --> 00:23:08,159 And it turns out they still had some ComEd-branded  light bulbs in their bag o’ bulbs. 279 00:23:08,159 --> 00:23:13,680 My grandfather used to say that he never paid for light bulbs  thanks to ComEd’s free light bulb program. 280 00:23:14,340 --> 00:23:19,481 Oh, by the way, this is a three-way bulb which means it has two filaments inside. 281 00:23:19,481 --> 00:23:22,689 One of them is 30 watts, and the other is 70 watts. 282 00:23:22,689 --> 00:23:29,689 Using a second ring-shaped contact on the screw base, a three-way lamp socket can select between one, the other, or both filaments, 283 00:23:29,689 --> 00:23:36,254 allowing you to operate this as a 30, 70, or 100 watt light bulb. 284 00:23:36,254 --> 00:23:43,691 The middle contact powers the larger filament, and the cycle of zero, 30, 70, and 70+30 285 00:23:43,691 --> 00:23:48,872 is the reason some lamps require two clicks to switch between on and off - 286 00:23:48,872 --> 00:23:54,662 those lamps are meant to use bulbs like this, and then they let you select between bright, brighter, brightest… 287 00:23:54,662 --> 00:23:56,074 and off. 288 00:23:56,074 --> 00:23:58,697 You can get LED versions of bulbs like this, 289 00:23:58,697 --> 00:24:03,240 but they’re usually tucked away with the specialty bulbs in the store and are weirdly expensive. 290 00:24:04,020 --> 00:24:09,821 Anyway, ComEd, because they had to deal with the operational challenges of running a growing power grid, 291 00:24:09,821 --> 00:24:13,866 had an incentive to hand out efficient light bulbs like candy 292 00:24:13,866 --> 00:24:23,453 to keep people from focusing on the wrong metric and buying longer-lasting but less-efficient light bulbs which would strain the power grid more. 293 00:24:23,453 --> 00:24:26,611 In fact they sort-of still do this today. 294 00:24:26,611 --> 00:24:30,403 They’re no longer handing out free light bulbs except in special programs, 295 00:24:30,403 --> 00:24:39,406 but they heavily subsidize energy-efficient light bulbs in stores with instant rebates, and many utilities across the country run similar programs. 296 00:24:39,406 --> 00:24:43,681 Now, was keeping power demand in-check their only goal? 297 00:24:43,681 --> 00:24:45,871 Well, that’s hard to say. 298 00:24:45,871 --> 00:24:54,399 Among all the light bulbs in the bag is a 100 watt ComEd bulb labeled “long-life” so that pokes a hole in the argument. 299 00:24:54,399 --> 00:25:01,509 Though, to be honest, when powered up that thing is awful bright so I’m not sure how long-lived it actually would be. 300 00:25:01,717 --> 00:25:06,578 Perhaps the more cynical among you will choose to believe their free light bulb program 301 00:25:06,578 --> 00:25:12,307 was actually done to pad the power bills of their rate-payers and they were terrible light bulbs, 302 00:25:12,307 --> 00:25:19,604 though I think the kind of bulb they subsidize today compared to those they don’t points to the exact opposite conclusion. 303 00:25:19,604 --> 00:25:25,024 Regardless, the broader point here is that incandescent light bulbs were cheap as chips - 304 00:25:25,024 --> 00:25:34,140 so cheap utilities were willing to just give them away or run exchange programs, and even at retail prices they were less than a dollar apiece. 305 00:25:34,740 --> 00:25:39,807 The simple fact is the incandescent light bulb was a consumable good, 306 00:25:39,807 --> 00:25:46,054 and thus to me they simply cannot be used as evidence of planned obsolescence. 307 00:25:46,054 --> 00:25:54,540 Yes, in a very literal sense their demise is planned - after all, they are engineered to fail after a specific number of hours.   308 00:25:55,620 --> 00:26:00,303 But you can’t just say that without acknowledging the reasoning behind it - 309 00:26:00,303 --> 00:26:03,706 they deliberately traded lifespan for efficiency, 310 00:26:03,706 --> 00:26:07,974 and since incandescent light bulbs aren’t very efficient at all to begin with, 311 00:26:07,974 --> 00:26:17,820 their operating costs almost always exceeded the purchase cost anyway and it was absolutely worth reducing their lifespan to eek more light out of ‘em.   312 00:26:18,540 --> 00:26:21,664 If you wanted a bulb with a longer lifespan, 313 00:26:21,664 --> 00:26:28,664 you either needed to sacrifice efficiency and quality of light which almost always cost you more in the end on your power bill, 314 00:26:28,664 --> 00:26:35,340 or move to an entirely different lighting technology like fluorescent lights or high-intensity discharge lights,   315 00:26:35,340 --> 00:26:38,753 and those different technologies had their own trade-offs, too. 316 00:26:38,753 --> 00:26:45,240 Mainly higher upfront purchase cost and, uh, rather ugly light quality, at least in the beginning. 317 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,262 But that’s the other thing - those other technologies existed! 318 00:26:49,262 --> 00:26:57,140 They existed and were on the market and anybody who valued  efficiency and/or longevity could decide to install such light fixtures. 319 00:26:57,140 --> 00:27:04,420 There was a sea of options by the 1950’s but the good ol’ tungsten filament lamp remained the default 320 00:27:04,420 --> 00:27:06,963 because it had excellent light quality, 321 00:27:06,963 --> 00:27:08,422 was good enough, 322 00:27:08,422 --> 00:27:11,137 and most importantly was cheap. 323 00:27:11,137 --> 00:27:13,740 And despite the cartel no longer being a thing, 324 00:27:13,740 --> 00:27:19,260 1,000 hours remained the efficiency-longevity  sweetspot target for most applications. 325 00:27:19,980 --> 00:27:24,687 The Centennial light in Livermore, California has burned for so long 326 00:27:24,687 --> 00:27:27,233 because it’s barely been burning. 327 00:27:27,233 --> 00:27:29,512 Why, exactly, is unclear. 328 00:27:29,512 --> 00:27:37,712 Supposedly, it should burn as a 30 or 60 watt bulb but has decreased in power over the years for reasons unknown. 329 00:27:37,712 --> 00:27:40,494 Or perhaps, and here’s where my money is, 330 00:27:40,494 --> 00:27:45,916 it was simply manufactured incorrectly (after all bulbs were still hand-made back then) 331 00:27:45,916 --> 00:27:49,020 and it never burned at the wattages it was supposed to. 332 00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,586 Perhaps that’s why Dennis Bernal donated it to the fire department - 333 00:27:53,586 --> 00:27:57,566 it was only bright enough to serve as a night light so that’s what it went on to do. 334 00:27:57,566 --> 00:27:59,561 Anyway, the reason isn't important, 335 00:27:59,561 --> 00:28:07,102 what is important is that the Centennial Light has spent at least the majority of its existence as a very bad light bulb - 336 00:28:07,102 --> 00:28:09,540 albeit one with notable longevity. 337 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,140 But now, I need to come up with some sort of conclusion.   338 00:28:13,860 --> 00:28:17,128 What exactly is the point I’m making here? 339 00:28:17,128 --> 00:28:24,128 Well… if we wanna get deep I suppose that would be that the world is complex, and you should be skeptical of simple narratives. 340 00:28:24,128 --> 00:28:30,590 Nobody’s saying that the Phoebus cartel was a wholesome organization,  I’m certainly not anyway, 341 00:28:30,590 --> 00:28:37,045 but simply saying that “they made sure light bulbs didn’t last too long” leaves out too much of the story.   342 00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:46,611 If there were a way to make 2,500 hour light bulbs perform like 1,000 hour light bulbs then sure, by all means get out the pitchforks. 343 00:28:46,611 --> 00:28:48,420 But that just wasn’t possible. 344 00:28:49,020 --> 00:28:57,349 I also think that, frankly, the incandescent light bulb just doesn’t speak to the spirit of planned obsolescence at all - 345 00:28:57,349 --> 00:29:01,920 they were simply one of many products that got used up over time. 346 00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:04,790 When I think of planned obsolescence, 347 00:29:04,790 --> 00:29:12,480 I think of something like a dishwasher, car, or washing machine; a complex, expensive machine that’s a major purchase.   348 00:29:13,260 --> 00:29:18,232 Light bulbs weren’t expensive, complex, or meant to be durable. 349 00:29:18,232 --> 00:29:25,232 At least to my eyes, a light bulb has more in common with, say, laundry detergent than it does a washing machine. 350 00:29:25,232 --> 00:29:29,918 Just as that box of detergent gets used up and runs out, 351 00:29:29,918 --> 00:29:33,240 eventually the light bulb gets used up and burns out. 352 00:29:33,900 --> 00:29:35,975 And to really drive the point home, 353 00:29:35,975 --> 00:29:43,592 remember that the cartel dissolved in 1939 yet in the years that followed, that reality didn’t change. 354 00:29:43,592 --> 00:29:48,820 The arrival of halogen lamps which allowed for much hotter filaments and longer runtimes 355 00:29:48,820 --> 00:29:55,621 thanks to some wild chemical interactions between tungsten and iodine or bromine that I won’t go into other than what I just said 356 00:29:55,621 --> 00:29:59,819 didn’t even disrupt the practicalities of the light bulb all that much. 357 00:29:59,819 --> 00:30:07,924 Incandescent light bulbs were a commodity product that had to balance efficiency, lifespan, and upfront purchase cost. 358 00:30:07,924 --> 00:30:17,220 For general household use, the plain ol’ 1,000 hour tungsten lamp remained right in that sweet spot until, honestly, quite recently. 359 00:30:17,820 --> 00:30:19,565 Speaking of quite recently, 360 00:30:19,565 --> 00:30:27,107 perhaps ironically the light bulbs of today are now, for real, actually becoming plagued with planned obsolescence - 361 00:30:27,107 --> 00:30:31,944 or, at least, lazy engineering with a heaping spoonful of cost-cutting. 362 00:30:31,944 --> 00:30:37,818 The arrival of the white light-emitting-diode was nothing short of a game changer to the lighting industry, 363 00:30:37,818 --> 00:30:42,867 and has unlocked extremely efficient and incredibly long-lived lighting products. 364 00:30:43,730 --> 00:30:46,018 At least… usually. 365 00:30:46,018 --> 00:30:54,158 I personally have been very fortunate and can count on one hand the number of LED bulb failures I’ve experienced since 2018, 366 00:30:54,158 --> 00:30:59,480 but sadly there are lots of products out there, especially on the lower-end of the cost spectrum, 367 00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,860 which have terribly flawed designs. 368 00:31:02,460 --> 00:31:06,720 Overdriven diodes, bad heatsinks, bargain basement capacitors,   369 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:12,120 or even just shoddy manufacturing plague far too many LED lighting products,   370 00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:16,803 as anyone who’s spent any time around Big Clive’s channel would know. 371 00:31:16,803 --> 00:31:22,056 Of course, there’s bound to be bad or defective product designs out there from time to time, 372 00:31:22,056 --> 00:31:24,014 purple streetlights anyone? 373 00:31:24,014 --> 00:31:35,280 But things like shoving more current through the diodes than they’re designed for just to eek out that extra bit of light are inexcusable, yet disturbingly prevalent. 374 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,563 Still, beware the pitfalls of your biases. 375 00:31:39,563 --> 00:31:43,966 When a supposed 50,000 hour LED bulb burns out in a year, 376 00:31:43,966 --> 00:31:46,281 yeah that’s probably gonna annoy you. 377 00:31:46,281 --> 00:31:49,828 But if you’re old enough to remember the days of tungsten lamps, 378 00:31:49,828 --> 00:31:52,650 which I realize many of you watching might not be, 379 00:31:52,650 --> 00:31:56,286 think back to how often you used to have to change them. 380 00:31:56,286 --> 00:32:01,846 I can remember several times from my childhood when I went to turn on my bedroom light and 381 00:32:01,846 --> 00:32:02,810 *plink* 382 00:32:02,810 --> 00:32:09,058 it burnt out in a bright blue flash - and that was just a single light bulb in a ceiling fan. 383 00:32:09,058 --> 00:32:16,767 Now that I have dozens of LED lights all over the house, many of which run automated routines and come on every night, 384 00:32:16,767 --> 00:32:22,410 it’s pretty amazing that in the last five years I’ve changed but a few. 385 00:32:22,410 --> 00:32:25,288 Light bulbs may not not be perfect, no, 386 00:32:25,288 --> 00:32:28,115 but they sure are better. 387 00:32:28,978 --> 00:32:31,498 ♫ optimally smooth jazz ♫ 388 00:32:32,601 --> 00:32:35,580 …to guarantee you’ll have to buy another one before too long. 389 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,057 That might have been a perfect take but I wanna do it again,  390 00:32:39,057 --> 00:32:42,546 Though I won’t comment on what may or may not be happening today 391 00:32:42,546 --> 00:32:43,524 [bong from phone] butj… 392 00:32:43,524 --> 00:32:44,080 sh-! 393 00:32:45,420 --> 00:32:46,791 Well, that was my fault. 394 00:32:46,791 --> 00:32:51,426 It’s literally just a little bit of glass, a little bit of wire, and a little bit of me- 395 00:32:51,426 --> 00:32:53,359 yeah I picked up the wrong one. 396 00:32:53,359 --> 00:32:55,906 All things emit electromagnetic radiation, 397 00:32:55,906 --> 00:32:58,317 and as they get hotter, they start to emit irradia--- 398 00:32:58,317 --> 00:32:59,948 what the heck just happened there? 399 00:32:59,948 --> 00:33:03,251 …with the appliance bulb and it shouldn't be that dim. 400 00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:05,122 Well… 401 00:33:05,122 --> 00:33:06,178 that’s distracting. 402 00:33:06,178 --> 00:33:09,080 Was keeping power demand in-check their only go? 403 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,459 Now, geez. 404 00:33:11,459 --> 00:33:11,959 Now, 405 00:33:11,959 --> 00:33:13,971 Which works out to 10 watts. 406 00:33:13,971 --> 00:33:15,276 So we’re see... 407 00:33:15,276 --> 00:33:16,311 oh crap. 408 00:33:17,918 --> 00:33:20,000 I hope this video was illuminating! 409 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,415 There's more to this story than it seems on the surface, and I was hoping I could shed a little light on it. 410 00:33:24,415 --> 00:33:27,157 There are definitely a lot of burning questions around light bulbs, and it's a hot topic. 411 00:33:27,157 --> 00:33:30,644 I hope I helped extinguish some of your fears, but now you can bask in the warm glow of a nice LED. 412 00:33:30,644 --> 00:33:32,977 Or a cool glow, if that's your thing.