Planned Obsolescence is your fault

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(12-31-2018 06:24 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  … Norwegian state TV sent a documentary "The light bulb conspiracy", a french documentary… It's English narrated but hardcoded with Norwegian subs. There's English subs over the parts that's in French…

read all about it at BBC - Future - Here's the truth about the 'planned obsolescence' of tech

The Centennial Light is often pointed to as evidence for the supposedly sinister business strategy known as planned obsolescence. Lightbulbs and various other technologies could easily last for decades, many believe, but it’s more profitable to introduce artificial lifespans so that companies get repeat sales. “That’s sort of the conspiracy theory of planned obsolescence,” says Mohanbir Sawhney, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University.
So is this conspiracy theory true? Does planned obsolescence really exist?
Sticking with light bulbs as a product, they provide amongst the most emblematic case studies of planned obsolescence.
Initially, companies installed and maintained whole electrical systems to support bulb-based lighting in the dwellings of the new technology’s rich, early adopters. Seeing as consumers were not on the hook to pay for replacement units, lighting companies therefore sought to produce light bulbs which lasted as long as possible, according to Collector’s Weekly.
The business model changed, however, as the light bulb customer base grew more mass-market. Greater sums of money could be reaped, companies figured, by making bulbs disposable and putting replacement costs onto customers. Thus was born the infamous “Phoebus cartel” in the 1920s, wherein representatives from top light bulb manufacturers worldwide, such as Germany’s Osram, the United Kingdom’s Associated Electrical Industries, and General Electric (GE) in the United States (via a British subsidiary), colluded to artificially reduce bulbs’ lifetimes to 1,000 hours. The details of the scam emerged decades later in governmental and journalistic investigations.
“This cartel is the most obvious example” of planned obsolescence’s origins “because those papers have been found,” says Giles Slade, author of the book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, a history of the strategy and its consequences.

Made to break : technology and obsolescence in America
Giles Slade.
ISBN-13 978-0-674-02572-1 (pbk.)
Copyright © 2006 by Giles Slade
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2007

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