The LIghtbulb Conspiracy aka Planned Obsolesence

[petek]

This a a great video to watch about planned obsolence in consumer items starting with the electric lightbulb and the manufacturers cartel limiting their life span down to 1000 hours. It then goes on to other items up unto today, things like womans nylons, computer printers with a chip that shuts them down after so many prints, etc etc.. lots of vintage footage too.

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[twintubdexter]

Thanks for posting this. It's a very interesting clip and reminds me of the time my Epson printer quit. I contacted the manufacturer and was told that it had reached the end of it's "service life" and I was offered a $20 coupon towards the purchase of another Epson "piece of crap". The printer and several unused ink cartridges went into the recycling bin.

 

[Ultramatic]

Really excellent

<span style="font-size: medium;">Thanks for posting!</span>

 

[cfz2882]

death chip

that is beyond belief that certain consumer electronics has a "death chip"to
"kill" those items after a certain usage period!

 

[arbilab]

1999-2001 I was an engineer for Dell. 2005-today I run a website for Dell customer complaints. One frequent complaint is that the laptop batteries stop working within weeks of the warranty expiration. So I looked into it and indeed there is a programmable chip inside the battery which can be told not to charge. Dell laptop batteries are difficult to replace with generics so the idea is to sell every Dell laptop customer an expensive replacement whether the actual device has failed or not.

So yes, manufacturers are conspiring against customers by cheapening/weakening, even programming their products to fail.

 

[qualin]

This is why I try to buy "Professional" products whenever I can. In other words, I buy what the professionals use. It costs more, but I find I get such a longer lifespan out of them. There is no room for planned obsolescence for these products.

Did you know that Bryston Amplifiers have a 20 year warranty? They also cost $6k too. When I did some work in the broadcast industry, it's all anyone ever considered using to drive the studio monitors.

I wouldn't ever purchase an inkjet printer because that's not what IT professionals purchase. They purchase managed laser printers.

Talking about longevity, Back in 1998, I purchased a Samsung Quiklaser 6000. It's still on the same toner cartridge that came with it when I bought it! It still works. (Yes, it set me back nearly $900 when I bought it, but it was worth it.)

I gave it to my father who is still using it. In the meanwhile, I foolishly purchased a multi-function device that bricked itself as soon as we had a power outage. (You don't connect laser printers up to a UPS.)

Professional multifunction devices cost around $10k-$20k, so I can't afford one. Buying one for $300 seems like a steal, but the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for."

What really irks me is when a person spends a LOT on an item but gets performance and longevity which is comparable to a much cheaper unit.

This seems especially true when it comes to washing machines.

Being in the IT field, what I'm seeing in the stores both amazes me and disgusts me. It used to be that purchasing an HP Laserjet 3 would set one back about $1500... I've seen LJ 3's with over a 1.5 million pages on the clock, which is downright remarkable.

Now, you can go out and buy a laser printer for $80.. it costs almost as much to replace the cartridge as what the printer itself costs.

I personally stay away from anything IT which uses the Gillette-Style of marketing whenever I can. (They call that Razor Blade Marketing.. Pay a low price for the razor, spend a fortune on the blades.)

I wish that HP would build those old LJ 3/4 printers again, charge a hair short of $2k for them and build them so tough and durable like they used to.

BTW, I went to a garage door shop and was amazed they were still using HP Laserjet 4's from the early 90's.. Saw the manufacture date on one from 1992.. The receptionist was thoroughly confused as to why I wanted to see the date. You have to think for a second, that printer is 20 years old.. it's outlasted Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME (Ugh), Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista... Back when it was built, the Pentium had just been introduced and 486's were still on the market.. (BTW, The 486 was the first chip to break 1 million transistors, chips today now have roughly 2 billion transistors now.)

I don't know what happened at HP, but there used to be a day when the only brand one would consider in an IT world was HP, because they were so damn reliable. When they did break down, it was a cheap fix to get them back up and running again.

Now I'm on a rant...

 

[sudsmaster]

There's a good reason for laptop/notebook computer batteries to have chips to monitor the condition of the battery pack.

Lithium-ion batteries can catch fire or explode if they are improperly charged. It's much more of an issue than with older ni-cad or even NiMH batteries. So the chargers and/or the Li-ion batteries have special electronics to prevent that from happening.

Early on there were a number of news reports of battery packs in notebooks catching fire. I believe they were the Sony brand. It resulted in a big recall.

 

[mrb627]

Top Loaders

So where are they putting the chip in our Top Load washers?

Malcolm

 

[mistereric]

Google "Tin Whiskers" and RoHS. You don't even need a chip in your new washer, it will croak on its own.

 

[vacuumfreeeke]

Pete thanks for sharing that video... I watched the whole thing in awe and disgust. It makes me sick, but was still fascinating.

I got around the whole razor blade thing by buying a doubled edged safety razor.... works great and the blades are so cheap. You really don't need 15 blades in a row to shave with... 1 works fine!

 

[cadman]

That's also one of the reasons most everything I use is "vintage". It was designed from the start to last, and if it breaks, it can be repaired. The newest laundry equipment around here are '06 series 'tags. The microwave(s) are Radaranges. Our stove is a ’60, the main fridge a '65. Heck, the mower equipped tractor is a ’49. Each morning I brew a pot of coffee in the '64 Presto and dump it into a similar vintage Thermos that journeys to work each day. (impressive when you consider the average life of today's drip makers).

The newest car on the property is a full size Blazer. Chevy 350. Independent EFI and ABS. No body computer or electronic transfer case.

It's a pain in the ass getting this IBM 1401 mainframe on the net..... : )
Actually, Apple equipment here. Whether you love or hate the OS, a laptop machined from a solid block of aluminum with countersunk screws and inset glass matches right up with the build quality of old. Just don't ask me to buy a printer!

If you look hard, you might find some laserdiscs, even some newer projection equipment, but I've learned that keeping the complex simple can save a lot of headaches! -Cory

 

[lordkenmore]

I wonder if the build quality of Apple is like the quality of old. Not that I'm picking on Apple--the quality does appear to be higher than most of what's out there now. But I wonder if the computers can last forever more or less like they once seemed to.

I have one desktop Macintosh that was probably used by a professional for the first few years of its life. It was heavily used by me for several years. It's now about 18 years old, and it still works. Only repair I've done is the power supply. The floppy drive is getting a little cranky ejecting disks. (Yes, I still use floppy disks since it's the easiest way of moving data from that machine to my Internet computer. Or vice versa.)

 

[arbilab]

...good reason for battery chips......lithium....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Safety and optimization is the PRIMARY purpose, but Dell is programming them to refuse to charge when the warranty runs out, when there is nothing wrong with the battery other than Dell wants to sell you another one. And yes the chips can be told to do that. They are not 'standalone intelligence', they can be lied to by the system with 3 lines of code. 'get daycount' 'if daycount = 370 goto' and the goto is the address of the chip and the instruction to turn itself off.

 

[qualin]

To Cadman

At work, I use an HP Elitebook, because they're just built just that well. They're built to entire different stand of quality than normal laptops. Oddly enough, they're not all that much more expensive either.

I personally stopped purchasing Dells because I felt that their planned obsolescence was just too uncanny. I have six laptops which all have broken network jacks, all under normal use, I can't get them fixed, they're basically junk, even though everything else on them works just fine.

Lithium batteries are some of the most dangerous batteries you can buy. LiPo (Lithium Polymer) batteries can be outright dangerous if the necessary precautions are ignored. (Overcharging is a biggie.)

What a lot of people don't know is that Lithium batteries love to combust if they are exposed to air. Since they're sealed units, this usually isn't a problem. However, there was a rash of laptop fires not that long ago because Sony was making batteries which "leaked".

What people don't realize is that all of this junk has to go somewhere... I really admire someone who can keep an appliance working for multiple decades.

My computer is nearly five years old now and my friends are telling me to replace it. I still have Pentium 166 system boards lying around that still work, but I have no practical use for them anymore. It's a kind of a shame.

Computers are very unique because most companies have a 33 percent (Or 25 percent) exchange policy, where they get rid of machines more than 3 or 4 years old. When a machine gets to be too old, it starts becoming a liability.

Imagine for example, a helpdesk in a large company having to cope with 500 hard drive failures in a day because the IT dept wasn't regularly replacing the systems. Or that the manufacturer was automatically withdrawing warranty support on systems older than x number of years and they only found out about it now after nearly 150 motherboards failed all within one week of another.

It's a very sad reality.

 

[lordkenmore]

"My computer is nearly five years old now and my friends are telling me to replace it."

It's always interesting how for so many people computers become worthless just because they are X years old. They never seem to ask the question of "Does it still do the job?" Or "What benefit will I see with upgrading, and is that benefit worth the cost?"

I have been known to use ancient software on obsolete computers to do various jobs. People laugh at me, but the honest truth is that I can see absolutely no benefit to upgrading. My needs, except Internet, can mostly be met by the software of the late 80s.

Even my Internet computer tends to be behind the times, although it's modern enough to run current, supported software.

 

[combo52]

100 year old light bulb

This part of the film was very amusing but there was never any planned obsolescence to make LBs fail more quickly.  It would be very easy to make every incandescent LB last 100 years, but no one would want one as it is almost too dim to be useful. They should figure how much power this bulb has used in its 100 hundred life vs its light output LOL. Yes there was competitive pressure to bring down the cost of LBs, but the real reason for the short life was efficiency and light output [ the real reason we have light bulbs is economical light ].  And you can still buy light bulbs that will outlast yourself if you are foolish enough to pay to use them.

 

[neptunebob]

And you can still buy light bulbs that will outlast yourself if you are foolish enough to pay to use them.

Oh, Combo, was that necessary?  Sooooo critical.  Sounds like you're not getting enough fiber in your diet. 

 

[kenmore71]

But he's right in terms of fact. Just did some quick research in my utility closet where I have a few light bulbs stashed...

A 100 watt bulb with an output of 1750 lumens lasts 750 hours
A 100 watt bulb with an output of 1230 lumens lasts 5000 hours
A 100 watt bulb with an output of 925 lumens lasts 14,000 hours
That is the trade-off with incandescent bulbs.

In the stage/studio lighting world the trade-offs are the same...
In an Leko spotlight I can use a 500 watt lamp with a color temp of 3200 K and an output of 13,000 lumens that lasts 300 hours OR
a 500 watt lamp with a color temp of 2900 K and an output of 10,000 lumens that lasts 2000 hours.
Also....
I could use a 750 watt lamp (EHG) with a color temp of around 3000 K, an output of 15,000 lumens and a life of 2000 hours OR
I could use an EHF (also a 750 watt lamp) with a color temp of 3200 K and an output of 20,000 lumens but with the limited life of 300 hours.
On the stage it's a matter of trade-offs between output and life. In a film of TV studio where color temp is important there are different issues at play.

 

[kenmore71]

Then there are the old-fashioned "photo-flood" lamps that produced PHENOMINAL amounts of light for the the amount of electricity they consumed but had VERY short lives. As I recall from my childhood and the crazy relatives making home movies, some of those lamps only lasted 5 - 8 hours, but DAMN they were bright for the amount of wattage they used!!!