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Oh boy.

So, one of you lovely lot suggested this video topic by way of asking a question - apparently I touched on this once in a video (can't remember which one, honestly!) and I called the conspiracy partly a myth. Well, here's a long explanation on why that's the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY

As I say in the beginning, I feel a little weird covering this. But, on the other hand, this story gets told sans context far too often. Is this a debunking video? Eh... maybe? If anything it's closer to the format war videos - dispelling a widely-held notion with historical context. It just feels more than a little weird being like "the cartel was right, actually"

Oh, and to anyone who might be headed to Open Sauce this weekend - I hope to see you there!

Files

Longer-lasting light bulbs: it was complicated

Titling adventure to come, for sure.

Comments

AArexx AAron Ruscetta

Brilliant points in every aspect of your coverage (pun intended, of course).

Anonymous

"Everlasting light bulb-stopper" cracked me up

Anonymous

Open Sauce looks so cool! wish I could join. would love some bts stuff :D

Anonymous

Alec was paid off by "big lightbulb" and "big energy generator". It's all coming together now. He encourages wasteful electric cars, discourages home energy generation in the form of Rooftop Solar Panels, and now, is trying to tell us that long life lightbulbs are bad for us!!!! (s) (EDIT: ---Patreon won't let me use the standard symbol for sarcasm---)

MrHammond

Good points, as usual, all well-researched! Funny that you mention washing machines: I don't know how the market there in the US is looking, but here in Europe, you can choose in a range of at least a factor 20 of different prices washing machines. When I bought a washing machine about 15 years ago, they told me that I could buy a €200 Indesit, a €500 Zanussi or a €3000 Miele. Expecting that the Indesit would last only a couple of years at most, the Zanussi 5-10 years, or the Miele which would last at least 20-30 years. Here you just pay for what you get.

Michael Steeves

Did you just spend half an hour confirming what I've always assumed, working from "first principles" engineering? Thank you!

Erik Granlund

BigClive has a bunch of videos on LED bulbs he buys and ‘hacks’ to run at a lower current to make the LEDs last long. Feels weirdly similar :)

Anonymous

Am I the only one who thinks the outro music is a little sharp in pitch?

Johnathan Reale

Wonderful aesopian moral. Consider that it may yet be somewhat true even in other “planned obsolescence” scenarios where the tradeoffs are less obvious.

Anonymous

Worth noting some pretty direct paralells to the way Auto manufacturers are trending toward increasingly lower weight engine oils. I recently bought a car which uses 0w20 weight, which is harder to find and more expensive than more traditional weights like 5w30, 10w40 etc. Some new cars, especially brands like Honda\Toyota, come with even more exotic oil weights like 0w16 and even as low as 0w8. Besides the mechanical differences, one of the named reasons is a small (few percentage) increase of engine efficenicy, and despite burning off more readily during the normal combustion cycle compared to standard weights, and being more expensive to purchase, that few percentage gain in efficency makes a MASSIVE overall reduction in fuel consumption when scaled up to world-wide scopes, and ultimately is less costly over all. It's interesting to consider who is taking on those new costs, who decides which direction the world should trend, etc..

Anonymous

“Eek!” is a cat, “eke” is how you spell the word meaning “to scrape by” or “economize.”

Anonymous

You need to swing over to Dearborn MI to see a certain rebuilt lab that's all that was left of a certain lab in New Jersey in 1928. Amtrak's Wolverine line would get you to a station next to Greenfield Village. This video addresses half of the conspiracies I hear when I get to work in the lab.

Anonymous

Umm actually Kelvin-radians are the better unit to use than Kelvin-degrees.

Mark Lefler

great video. Some pushback on conspiracies and explains past limits of technology

Raul Ramos

Fantastic Video!