The light bulb conspiracy. Planned obsolescence.

[bobos15]

This is the story of companies who engineered their products to fail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfbbF3oxf-E

[odolvlobo]

Companies that engineer their products to fail eventually fail themselves. Just take a look at the U.S. auto industry.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with bitcoin.

[zimmah]

I have seen this a while ago, very sad really.

I think bitcoin may solve this problem as well as a deflationary currency hopefully discourages wasting resources. However I am not sure it will work as I think it will. I have not thought it trough.

Companies that engineer their products to fail eventually fail themselves. Just take a look at the U.S. auto industry.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with bitcoin.

Tell that to apple, or the socks industry, battery manufacturers, printer manufacturers, etc.

Did you know printers for businesses are several times more expensive than the exact same model for home use? And the only difference being the model for business either lacks the 'death chip' or has a modified version of it? It's really true, printer manufactures actually design their printers to just lock up after several hundreds of pages printed.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Companies that engineer their products to fail eventually fail themselves. Just take a look at the U.S. auto industry.

Not quite there are several times when a company engineers something to fail but it still gets significant scale
This is due to decreasing product quality and the need of a consumer to go buy a replacement.

Basically its cheaper in appearance but in reality you pay more than the premium product
As Some have said I'm not rich enough to buy cheap
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2009/02/why_i_cant_affo/

Example: Home Heating Systems made 30 to 40 years ago still work but the newer models don't work as long and tend to require replacement much sooner.
Shavers such as disposable razors where the blades don't last nearly as long as they use to.
Printers: I still have a dot-matrix with the side papers and it works but the video shows that new ones break much faster
http://www.niyaazenterprises.com/dot-matrix-printer-paper.htm

The lightbulb is a good example though since the older systems can stay on longer as long as the filament is not exposed to air but the weakest link the Glue fails long before the lightbulb would break.

I guess I have a soft spot for old school lightbulbs
Incandescent light doesn't do any harm to people and even in minute quantities gaseous mercury seems unappealing.
LED's are fine with me though but they are a bit more expensive than the incandescent

The video looks interesting though but the problem is that people don't repair things as often anymore and just buy new stuff.
So combined with Planned obsolescence the second truth is the inflation of repair costs.

Example repairing your glasses in Canada and the US costs more due to a monopoly they hold.
It was on 60 minutes if anyone wants to look it up.
http://wire.kapitall.com/investment-idea/free-press-60-minutes-exposes-eyewear-monopoly-held-by-lux/

[scryptasicminer]

Good documentary.

[peeveepee]

Companies that engineer their products to fail eventually fail themselves. Just take a look at the U.S. auto industry.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with bitcoin.

The strategy works so long as there is no competition from another country.

As soon as people figure out they can buy quality at cheaper price elsewhere, the company selling inferior product will fail and lose market share.

US car companies losing market share worldwide is a good example of selling crap.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Watched the video and it does look like Cartels do control the market
By determining fixed lifespans and getting a consensus the market will be forced to adjust to this behavior and change their purchases.

It does make me wonder though if a lightbulb can go 100 to 200 years by changing it's design then wouldn't that also apply to LED and Mercury bulbs or the more efficient lightbulb design.

[giantdragon]

Planned obsolescence is total reality now!
For example, I have a 40 years old refrigerator still working in my house without a single failure, while modern models break down after 2-5 years of operation.

[Pente]

I was a software engineer at a company about 20 years ago that had a piece of code in the EPROM that would make a multi-million dollar industrial machine fail on a certain date. I often went out on field calls to simply update these EPROMs with a new "fail date". I wasn't allowed to tell the customer what I was really doing. Horrible boss too.

[Erdogan]

It matters only if the companies have privileges backed by the violence of the state. Meaning it is the privileges that matters.

If a private company prefers to make subpar products, it is ok, because you don't have to buy them.

[herzmeister]

The light bulb is from ~1900.

The FED was introduced 1913. Its monetary policies caused the so-called "Golden 20ies" stock market bubble. The Great Depression was just the burst of the bubble. With the New Deal, government tried to fix the symptoms rather than the causes. Since then, all western economies basically follow the same bail-out and socialism for the rich politics.

Central banks aim at constant inflation of a currency. A money losing value encourages the wasteful consumerism of today. Not only directly, but also indirectly: A money losing value also causes capital flight. Thus we get nice things like food speculation, landgrabbing (making everything more expensive that is produced on over-priced land), and stock market bubbles. Corporations have to please shareholders, they lobby the politics and media for all the "economy must grow" talk, they have to make profit with blood on their hands, hence we get ridiculous business models like selling ring tones to kids, products that break easily, i.e. planned obsolescence, and also bullshit jobs. http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

[zimmah]

It matters only if the companies have privileges backed by the violence of the state. Meaning it is the privileges that matters.

If a private company prefers to make subpar products, it is ok, because you don't have to buy them.

wrong, if every company deliberately designs products to be sub-par and they pressure each other to join in on this scheme (which they do), you have no choice, only the illusion of choice.

If Apple sells shit and samsung sells shit, you can choose if you want apple branded shit or samsung branded shit, but in the end you'll still buy shit.


About the bullshit jobs, that's exactly my opinion too. Humanity would be better of with shorter work-weeks (with that i mean people will be free to spend time with family and engage in activities they enjoy, as well as being able to exersize more which is better for their health).

However due to some restrictions (not technological restrictions, but socio-economic restrictions) this is not possible today.

[hloren70]

I was a software engineer at a company about 20 years ago that had a piece of code in the EPROM that would make a multi-million dollar industrial machine fail on a certain date. I often went out on field calls to simply update these EPROMs with a new "fail date". I wasn't allowed to tell the customer what I was really doing. Horrible boss too.

WOW, that is even worse than the printer ink scam that they talk about in the documentary!

[Swordsoffreedom]

I was a software engineer at a company about 20 years ago that had a piece of code in the EPROM that would make a multi-million dollar industrial machine fail on a certain date. I often went out on field calls to simply update these EPROMs with a new "fail date". I wasn't allowed to tell the customer what I was really doing. Horrible boss too.

WOW, that is even worse than the printer ink scam that they talk about in the documentary!

That seems to be worth sharing in my opinion as well and yah if all it takes is resetting a counter to 0 to get a machine working that seems pretty crummy in my opinion.
Well as they say knowledge is power and money if the other person doesn't know

[DrG]

Well all the household appliances my parents bought in the 70s and 80s have gradually been dying.  Each appliance lived a minimum of 25 years.  Some items like our refridgerator we will not replace because even thought the newer ones would use less electricity ultimately buying a new one would harm the environment more since manufacturing a new one uses an insane amount of power and creates a lot of waste byproduct.  If a new fridge used 1/10 of the power it would be a no brainer but for 30% more efficiency I'm not willing to buy something that will break after 3 months.

The Samsung fridge I bought for my house did have a water drain clog and fail at exactly 1 year and 4 days.  This is why I bought the extended warranty.  Which normally I would consider a waste but household appliances at least seemed to be made to self destruct just after the warranty.

It's quite sadly really.  In an age with laser capable of measuring tolerances no human eye could see and capable of catching manufacturing defects that lazy engineering is making such waste.  Th government shouldn't be passing carbon taxes onto the consumer. They should punish companies based on failure rates 

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

I was a software engineer at a company about 20 years ago that had a piece of code in the EPROM that would make a multi-million dollar industrial machine fail on a certain date. I often went out on field calls to simply update these EPROMs with a new "fail date". I wasn't allowed to tell the customer what I was really doing. Horrible boss too.

this is an example of the value of open source technology.

I would think that this would violate the contract with the purchaser of the software/hardware

[deftonikus]

Yes planned obsolence became standard part of technology. It is not coinsidence, that so many products broke up very soon after they warranty is off.

In my country there is financial group made of billionares called PENTA, they sponsor politicians and own huge pharmaceutical network. They are so rich, that they are able to sell under the value for years. By this, they completly destroy all little guys. They ruin them and then buy them. In year all pharmacies in my town turned from privatly owned by little guys to PENTA owned Dr.MAX.

very sad.

[DaveF]

Well all the household appliances my parents bought in the 70s and 80s have gradually been dying.  Each appliance lived a minimum of 25 years.  Some items like our refridgerator we will not replace because even thought the newer ones would use less electricity ultimately buying a new one would harm the environment more since manufacturing a new one uses an insane amount of power and creates a lot of waste byproduct.  If a new fridge used 1/10 of the power it would be a no brainer but for 30% more efficiency I'm not willing to buy something that will break after 3 months.

The Samsung fridge I bought for my house did have a water drain clog and fail at exactly 1 year and 4 days.  This is why I bought the extended warranty.  Which normally I would consider a waste but household appliances at least seemed to be made to self destruct just after the warranty.

It's quite sadly really.  In an age with laser capable of measuring tolerances no human eye could see and capable of catching manufacturing defects that lazy engineering is making such waste.  Th government shouldn't be passing carbon taxes onto the consumer. They should punish companies based on failure rates 

The issue (with a lot of appliances) is that people don't want to pay.
Want a good fridge, very efficient, reliable, built solid and looks good (IMO). Get a SubZerohttp://www.subzero-wolf.com/ and be ready to pay for it.

Same with dish washers. A good Bosch or Miele is wayyy more money then a base GE. And you will get 30+ years out of it. But you can get 5 base GE models and replace them every 7 years for less money.

-Dave

[AliceWonder]

Apple has become the master of this.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Yes planned obsolence became standard part of technology. It is not coinsidence, that so many products broke up very soon after they warranty is off.

In my country there is financial group made of billionares called PENTA, they sponsor politicians and own huge pharmaceutical network. They are so rich, that they are able to sell under the value for years. By this, they completly destroy all little guys. They ruin them and then buy them. In year all pharmacies in my town turned from privatly owned by little guys to PENTA owned Dr.MAX.

very sad.

I never heard of them before but PENTA I assume are this group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penta_Investments

But it is true that there are strong financial groups in every country that aim to well outmarket the market by pushing down prices then killing the competitors readjusting the prices upwards.

But in a world where we can be accurate to the nanograde with lasers it feels like a waste that we build stuff with such low lifespans now kind of reverse engineering and designing for it to fail lol.