
The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy - mr_golyadkin
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/history/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy/
======
incision
_> 'There are already reports of CFLs and LED lamps burning out long before
their rated lifetimes were reached.'_

To go off on a tangent...

I have a couple of CFLs that have been going since 1997 in my first apartment
while most of the CFLs I purchased after my last move in 2009 have burned out.

None of my LEDs have gone. Not the ridiculously expensive ones from a few
years ago or the current "almost, but not quite cheap enough for the whole
house" ones I've been testing out.

My impression is that there's a sweet spot in relatively early adoption for
many technologies when you can get nearly all the eventual performance with
much higher reliability. A point where manufacturers are perhaps over-
engineering or at least have not yet dialed in their cost-cutting trade-offs.

Of course, whether this is worth anything depends on the context - my 2004
Linksys AP, 1997 bulbs and 1999 DVD player are fine for my purposes, but my
tank-like 2009 Motorola Droid - not so much.

~~~
sliverstorm
Usage patterns are important with CFL's. They are sensitive to many on/off
cycles, and last longest when they burn continually. So, it might be
interesting to take a moment and consider whether your usage patterns have
shifted markedly.

~~~
danielweber
Oddly, the ones I abuse the most -- leaving them outdoors in enclosures,
frequent on/off -- have lastest the longest, and those I've simply put in
normal sockets have failed the quickest.

~~~
whitten
I seem to recall there is an issue with CFL bulbs that has to do with ambient
temperature. Recessed sockets get hotter, and shorten CFL life considerably.

~~~
virtue3
The circuitry of CFLs (like the circuitry on LEDs) is where the heat is
generated (basically the base of the bulb) and can _really_ kill the lifetime
of the bulb if they're up in recessed indoor lighting environments.

------
guelo
Incandescent light bulbs are cheap. The cost of the electricity over the
lifespan of the bulb is much greater than the cost of the bulb. If the cartel
was reducing bulb lifespan by making it run hotter thus producing more lumens
per watt, then it was actually saving the consumers money by allowing the
consumer to select a lower watt bulb. In fact, even today most standard
incandescent light bulbs are rated for 1,000 hours or less.

~~~
Lagged2Death
This (that lifespan and efficiency are inevitably a tradeoff in incandescent
bulbs) is my understanding as well.

You can get "rough service" or "extended life" incandescent bulbs that claim
5,000 hour lifetimes, but they are very obviously dim and orange compared with
the standard bulbs.

You can also get newfangled "high efficiency" incandescent bulbs (a 60W bulb's
worth of light for ~40W) that package little halogen lamps inside the
traditional bulb shape. (I'm a fan, I think they provide the highest quality
light you can get right now.) But residential halogen lamps used to mostly
claim 2,000 hour lifespans, and these new high efficiency ones only claim 900.

None of that means the cartel had good intentions, though. Sometimes the right
thing happens for the wrong reasons.

------
mikeytown2
The reason I believe that there is a conspiracy is that the technology to get
a 10,000 hour incandescent bulb is fairly cheap & easy; you need a temperature
compensating thermistor, AKA the Bulb-Miser [1]. I've used one before and they
really work. I'm now 100% LED.

[1]
[http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/2007001...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070018922.pdf)

~~~
DigitalJack
That's interesting, thanks for the link.

One thing I have noticed in my house is that incandescent bulbs last longer if
their power is ramped up to turn them on. We have this kind of switch in our
main room and the bulbs have lasted longer than 8 years of more than 8 hours a
day.

They are rarely on full bright so that could be it too.

~~~
sliverstorm
Supposedly hot/cold cycles are bad for incandescent, so if you have dimmers
and rarely actually switch the bulb off, that might be the source of
improvement.

~~~
tempestn
There is also a current surge when the bulb is first turned on, which shortens
the lifespan and is also often the final straw that eventually blows the
filament.

------
th0ma5
The oldest (mostly) continuously running light bulb was made in my home town.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light)
... It is featured also in a documentary about "planned obsolescence" quite
prominently.

I think it is well known that things that are made well and do cost a little
more are available. This reminds me of a guy who shows how to counterfeit his
own product - [http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-
bag](http://kottke.org/14/01/how-to-make-a-fake-bag)

Some things however we've all seem to accept, like light bulbs, razor blades,
etc, and its a shame. On one hand, having a newer product that may be better
more often is good, and having a lower price for a product that lasts even
temporary is also good, but it would be nice if there were more choice, and
more awareness, of these kinds of issues in our markets.

~~~
mark-r
I once owned a Remington electric razor that just died for no reason one day.
I decided to take it apart and see if there was anything obviously wrong with
it. There was - the electrical contact with the motor was made by a piece of
graphite, and it had worn down to nothing. At that moment I decided to switch
to another brand on the hope that it did _not_ practice planned obsolescence,
and I've been happy ever since.

~~~
Johnythree
You've just discovered that Electric motors use brushes on their commutators?
Welcome to the 20th century.

Brushes are intended to be replaced, and many manufacturers supply spare
brushes in the original packaging.

In the 21st century however the traditional brushes have been replaced by
electronic switching.

see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor)

------
spiritplumber
Undervolt your light bulbs just a little bit (add a piece of iron or steel
cable to the copper wire) and they last a lot longer. The plural of anecdote
is not data, but I do this with light bulbs in my home, which are mostly CFLs
except for the LED in my little lab (haven't bought any in two years) and
projector bulbs (lasted four years).

[http://robots-
everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.Projec...](http://robots-
everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.ProjectorLampLifeExtension) Obviously,
don't use the capacitor for light bulbs connected to AC!

------
transfire
This is really the fundamental problem of Capitalism which we are now
regularly butting are heads against. If it were possible, say, to create a
light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for a dollar. Who could afford to make such
a thing? After the initial flurry of sales, demand would drop off
precipitously. And as the world approaches peek population, there would be
fewer and fewer sales. And that's just the logistical problem. This story
speaks to the further moral dimension in which it is always more profitable to
corner a market and force on consumers ever increasing reoccurring cost.

~~~
bunderbunder
_If it were possible, say, to create a light bulb that lasted 1,000 years for
a dollar. Who could afford to make such a thing?_

Anybody who wants to get rich.

Let's say that you can sell such a light bulb, and that it's so great that
everyone in the world buys one, on average. And say you can sell it for a
dollar, but you only make a cent of profit on each one. Why, that'd only leave
you with. . . $70,000,000 dollars.

Well that's not too bad, but really not great either. It'd certainly let you
retire to a tropical island for the rest of your life. But you could do
better. If the light bulb is so great, wouldn't everyone be willing to spend
more than a dollar on one? After all, those inferior light bulbs cost about
twice as much, so if your bulbs are better than others should be willing to
pay at least that much. Let's knock the price up to $2, then. That puts the
profit per bulb at $1.01. So then you can simultaneously destroy the light
bulb industry (fun!) _and_ put a cool 7 billion dollars in your pocket
(profit!).

Who would choose not do do such a thing? Certainly most anybody who's
motivated by profit (like, say, a capitalist) would jump at the opportunity.

~~~
Decade
If it took 1 person to make, sell, and distribute those things, then $70
million are enough to retire comfortably. If it takes 100 people, then you
could still retire, if you lived somewhere cheap.

More realistically, you might sell a few hundred thousand to the developed
world, and then sales fall off a cliff, because it takes a lot of work to
distribute outside your home market. Total payoff: Less than 2 months' salary.

That's the concern with the new lights. The industry is built on 1,000-hour
bulbs and regular replacements. We currently have a boom as incandescents get
replaced by fluorescents and fluorescents get replaced by LEDs (my father
hates fluorescent light). Once that is done, who is going to buy bulbs at the
rate that the factories can produce them?

~~~
theworst
This thread has gotten way out of hand with the thought experiments that
reveal more about the author than the subject... but I can't resist!

If it took 100 people to make/sell/distribute, and you are the owner of the
company, you're probably going to still be rich. Figure 99 employees at $150k
fully loaded annually would cost you 15 million dollars, leaving 55 million to
retire on.

Of course, if you are an employee, you would only have a job for 1 year.

------
robomartin
A number of years ago I engineered a light engine consisting of 1,500 1W LED's
very tightly packed. Excellent thermal design was crucial in making such a
device work and remain reliable for years. We ran hundreds of FEA thermal
simulations spanning months before arriving at a set of good thermal
management solutions. This also extended to the electronics. It was very
important to ensure that the tightly packed electronics did not suffer
premature failure due to exposure to high temperatures or thermal cycling. The
design had over 40 microprocessors driving the array using an innovative and
highly efficient (98% if I remember correctly) technology. This was a very
interesting project.

I learned that thermal issues can be real killers when it comes to high power
LED designs. While I have not analyzed any consumer lighting designs I would
not be surprised if thermal issues, either steady-state or cyclic, are at the
core of some of the failures over time.

------
nostromo
Note that this cartel would have been impossible without patent protection.

In fact, this seems to be a purported feature of the patent system, not a bug
-- to give inventors monopolistic control of a market for several decades.

~~~
jcfrei
Such a cartel would still be possible even without patent protection (the
article doesn't go into enough detail on whether patents where still only
available through GE after WWI). Cartels are always possible when you have
massive economies of scale. The (mass) production of light bulbs in this case
is sufficiently difficult and expensive, so that any cartel could easily
thwart new competitors - even without patent protection. The expertise in the
production of light bulbs doesn't lie within the schematics of the light bulbs
themselves - it lies within the exact production process, the selection of the
suppliers, refinement of materials, etc. Those are enough hurdles to make an
entry into this market very difficult and the establishment of a cartel so
easy.

In my eyes this article is a very good argument against a pure laissez-faire
economy.

~~~
dublinben
Corporate cartels are incredibly unstable though, because it is always in a
single company's best interests to defect. They tend to last much less time
than a patent, and are obviously not legally enforceable.

------
not_that_noob
New lighting technologies like CFL and LED are sold by comparing to
incandescent - e.g. "Burns 10x longer than a regular lightbulb!" I wonder how
many of those analyses would look if its life wasn't artificially limited in
this manner.

~~~
IshKebab
This was in the 1920s. Modern incandescent bulbs aren't sabotaged.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Most incandescent bulbs are literally banned in the United States. So it is
kinda pointless talking about a product that is no longer on the market.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Been watching fox news again? There is no ban on incandescent light bulbs in
the USA and never has there been one nor one proposed. What we do have is a
standard of minimum light output per watt, enacted in 2007. This has caused
the disappearance of dirt-cheap 60W bulbs which were replaced with 43W bulbs
producing the same light.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Nope, never been watched Fox News in my life. Just an annoyed customer that
when I go to the store I can't find what I would like. And yeah, the proper
way to ban something is to set minimum standards of performance that the thing
could never meet. That's like Republicans saying "we aren't banning abortion"
while creating a series of legislation that makes it extremely hard to
impossible to be able to perform abortion.

Either way I said "most."

------
anigbrowl
A great example of why the public delegates regulatory powers to government,
flawed though that regulation can be. The interests of consumers and producers
are often not aligned, and it is easier for producers to organize than for
consumers. Incumbency creates high barriers to market entry in many fields.

Adam Smith recognized this when writing _The Wealth of Nations_ , commenting
'People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in
some contrivance to raise prices.'

~~~
andrewla
Isn't the article saying the opposite? The cartel fell apart pretty much on
its own without government intervention. A combination of being undercut by
low-cost Japanese producers and the outbreak of war between the countries
hosting the cartel members.

As described, the cartel sounds more like a "conspiracy" to help customers by
providing a better standard of lightbulb (in terms of brightness and
efficiency) rather than to hurt them.

The reduction in the lifespan seems like a side effect of this rather than the
goal, even though I feel like the tone of the article is tending towards
pushing that as the goal. They were undercut on cost and quality, though, not
on lifetime, which seems like if it were achievable, would be a wonderful way
to build a business.

~~~
cygx
_The cartel fell apart pretty much on its own without government
intervention._

But the cartel _didn 't_ fall apart 'on its own' due to magic self-regulating
properties of the free market. It took WW2 to do it.

For some anecdotal post-war evidence, note that light bulbs in eastern Germany
came with twice the lifetime of western models.

In Germany, there also circulates a story about representatives from Osram and
Narva (an eastern manufacturer) meeting at Hannover fair, the latter
presenting a light bulb with a lifetime of 5000h. The stories goes that the
Osram representatives accused the Narva representatives of being imbeciles for
cutting into their own profits...

~~~
mxfh
An then there is Dieter Binninger[1] who not only build the weirdest clock of
Berlin[2] (still working) but also developed a _Langlebensdauerglühlampe_ with
a guaranteed life time of 150.000 hours.

[1]
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Binninger)
[german]

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengenlehreuhr)

------
rogerbinns
I highly recommend NLee the Engineer's reviews on Amazon
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=re...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AOEAD7DPLZE53?filter=review)
(you can also get it as RSS)

Heavily covered are various light bulbs and rechargeable batteries. That
includes checking power against manufacturer claims, noise, dimmability, power
factor etc.

------
cygx
See also
[http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy](http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Light_bulb_conspiracy)
as well as [https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-
gener...](https://www.courtlistener.com/njd/b68r/united-states-v-general-
electric-co/) (in particular section VII)

------
Spooky23
The ridiculous lightbulb practices of today are even more offensive.

You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so.
You can buy a 250 watt outdoor bulb, or a variety of CFL and LED bulbs with a
bunch of additional things to worry about (light color, directionality of the
light, warranties, shape, etc)

Consumers manage to make rational decisions about car purchases (15mpg SUVs
aren't as popular in the era of $4/gallon gasoline), but we must be protected
about the incandescent bulb.

~~~
nemo
"You cannot purchase a 100 watt bulb anymore, because the government says so."

You can purchase them here: [http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-
bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7P...](http://www.amazon.com/GE-41036-100A-Light-
bulbs/dp/B000U7Q7PK)

~~~
Spooky23
They are no longer manufactured and cannot be imported. You can only purchase
them from jobbers -- retailers don't carry them.

Also, the per-bulb price is like 300-400% higher than it was two years ago.

~~~
nemo
Interesting, today I learned they did ban manufacturing of them. Can't say I
mourn the loss of them, given their costs to society and the environment. If
an irrational consumer choice harms everyone then regulation seems
appropriate.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Hardly an irrational consumer choice. I miss them so much. At first I though
CFLs were a really good idea (less energy used, yaaaay) but after using them i
realize they can't compare to incandescent bulbs. The brightness and light
quality just suck compared to incandescent bulbs. And yes, I've tried every
light bulb under the sun. My bedroom is so dark. I even added an extra lamp to
my living room and it is still darker than when I was using incandescent.

I tried using CFLs, I really did. I really wanted to like them.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-
out_of_incandescent_light...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-
out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs)

~~~
nemo
You can still buy incandescents. 100 watt bulbs are phased out currently
(though still available), but only those. 100 watt bulbs are incredibly
wasteful, I never used them due to the fact that they convert most of their
energy to heat and I live in a warm area, so they not only wasted power in
irradiated heat, but power from climate control. They also are a fire risk (we
had a fire in my house when I was a kid from a lamp with a 100 watt bulb
falling over).

I have 60 watt incandescents in my local stores (they're not phased out until
2020), though I don't buy them since CFLs work for me. If you just need
illumination, you can buy a 35 watt CFL bulb with as much lumen output as a
120 watt incandescent, though I usually get lower wattage ones and spend a
little more to get ones with a color temp I like. If you guy them at a
hardware store they have a lot more selection and you can choose your color
temperature. Assuming you like warm color temps like incandescents, LED bulbs
are still a little pricey, but you can get LEDs in the 3000-4000k range that
can output more lumens than a 100 watt incandescent at a 10th the power draw.
They last long enough to eventually make up their up front cost in energy
savings.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Last time I went to the store they weren't there.

And once again "as much lumen output as a 120 watt incandescent" just isn't
the case in reality. I've tried every lightbulb at every color temp and
nothing works for me. Say that as much as you want but the light output sucks.
I spent probably $60 on lightbulbs trying to find one to light my bedroom and
the only thing that would help is buying about 2 more lamps. The same lamp
worked fine to light my bedroom with an incandescent bulb year ago.

I had done (what I thought at the time was) the good thing and switched over.
Now that I am sick of it and I want to go back it is very difficult to find
them in the stores and if I bought online I'd pay an arm and a leg.

~~~
nemo
Since I illuminate an aquarium with plants in it I kind of obsess on various
types of lamps, their lumen output, and color temp. I checked my notes - I had
a 40 watt CFL as an experiment in lighting a tank (I don't think they make 35
watt ones). The output was not that impressive, and it had a very warm almost
pink color to it. After looking into it, it had a hardware problem, so I
returned it and got a replacement. The output was mind bogglingly bright, and
had the expected color temp. (still too warm for my liking). So perhaps you
just got a bad one?

If you want the equivalent lumens, just find a build that outputs 1600 lumens.
The lumens from a properly functioning 32 watt CFL are 2112, so they put out
more light than a 100 watt incandescent, but if somehow that wasn't bright
enough, they make 40, 42 and other higher wattage ones that are even brighter.
My local Lowes has a huge range, as does WalMart in their lighting area. Think
about lighting in terms of desired lumens and desired color temperature (good
bulbs list both on their box - crap ones don't) and you'll be able to find
something that works for what you want that's more efficient than
incandescents.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
Dunno why you don't believe me but I spent plenty of money on CFLs already and
plenty of time researching them and i am still not happy. I have a whole
cabinet full of lightbulbs as a result. More than I'll probably ever be able
to use. I do and did understand lumens and color temp but the actual results
suck in practice. Yes I currently have three 32 watt CFLs in three different
rooms.

------
bikamonki
As always, it is a matter of choice:
[http://www.ownitforlife.com/](http://www.ownitforlife.com/)

------
ultimape
We have tons of lightbulbs in our house that are in shitty fixtures with
dimmer switches... none of the bulbs are rated for dimmers. Roommates keep
buying more bad light-bulbs.

The ones they keep putting on teh porch during the winter die at least twice
as often.

TL:DR; People don't understand how these things work.

------
jolan
This was covered recently in the BBC series "The Men Who Made Us Spend"

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-
ma...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/26/men-who-made-us-
spend-ep1)

------
vichu
The first thing I thought of after reading this article was the Centennial
Light which has reportedly been continuously burning since 1901.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light)

~~~
Pyrodogg
Was just discussed here recently too
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8353200)

------
gesman
I used to buy bulbs from 1 month full refunds store. I kept receipts for bulbs
and regularly returned the bad ones that lived shorter than advertised
lifespan.

At least didn't cost me extra to pay for crap.

~~~
npinguy
I always wonder about people like you. How do you manage your receipts for all
these things? And what about the additional time to go back and return
lightbulbs. Does that not more than cover the money you save from the bulb?

~~~
ryandrake
Not the original commenter, but:

Not difficult. File folder full of receipts, sorted by "action" date. Cost of
gasoline is trivial (~$0.20/mile). Time doesn't cost anything (if you wouldn't
otherwise be working).

------
rplst8
Banning incandescent bulbs is The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy.

------
angersock
Sometimes, there really _are_ people twirling their mustaches and cognac as
they conspire against the consumer. See also the great American streetcar
fiasco.

------
sehugg
GE was involved? You don't say. Every single CFL at my local grocery store is
a GE product.

------
lotsofmangos
The retina macbook screen being glued to the battery comes to mind.

~~~
mannkind
Um... what?

The display is fused to the glass. The battery is glued to the case.

~~~
cmdrfred
Still, why is it glued at all?

~~~
cbr
Lighter, thinner.

~~~
bigbugbag
and serviceable only by apple, hopefully investing the servicing cost into
buying a brand new gizmo instead which comes with a brand new battery.

------
dirktheman
The European Union has a ban on the production of incandescent lightbulbs as
of 9/1/2012\. You can still buy them, but they are getting rarer. I'm still
not sure if this is a scheme from the energy-saving-bulbs-cartel or just eco-
lobbyists at work...

------
otakucode
I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper to
manufacture, but the lightbulb companies think they have the right to charge
exorbitant prices for them just to maintain their profit margin. If a new
product comes around that lasts 10x as long and is 10x cheaper to make, the
market is supposed to make sure that you shrink radically in terms of revenue
and profit. The belief that they have some divine right to continued levels of
high profit is inane.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
> I think the bigger problem with LED bulbs is that they are so much cheaper
> to manufacture

Huh? Cheaper compared to what?

Look at this video. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-
gtk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I0YiXE-gtk) It's amazing to me that LED
bulbs are priced so inexpensively, considering how complex they are.

