8.5 million people watch you, and you planted a seed today in their mind about right to repair. Thank you.

🖖🏽

Yooo the og

I expected you here

LOUIS!

I knew you’d like this

My physics teacher said, "Planned obsolescence isn't a problem, we have recycling now." I hope college is less idiotic than high school.

Spoiler alert, it is not.

@@robZzdaboss depends on your teachers and school.

The idiocy gets worse if anything as you move along. Everyone just gets more and more dug into their opinions and sides and parties. Less and less tolerant of new ideas and more convinced of their own views

You are about to the sorely disappointed. I'm 29 and my real education didn't start until after college and I had to teach myself. As a matter of fact I didn't actually get my life together until I realized that virtually everything I learned in college was bs, not designed to educate me, but instead designed to turn me into a tool for international mega-corporations. So many of my old friends never figured out how many lies they were told, their entire lives were ruined, half are no longer with us, the other half live in poverty & misery. College is not what it is advertised to be, it's not what it was 20 years ago, today it is an illusion and a WEAPON...

as per my experience, professors are much less idiotic than high school teachers, because they actually know what they're doing. (Obviously this is just my experience, so it won't apply to all professors.

This is one of the most important videos you've made Derek. The physical and chemical waste of disposable or intentionally short-lived items is one of the greatest ecological and economic challenges of our time

this video is daft. long lasting bulbs were a dreadful idea. short lasting bulbs were an advantage to everyone. they cost less to run and made more light. bulbs cost pennies and are a disposable good, making them last longer at the cost of using far more power is asinine.

You obvoisly didnt finish the video, modern bulbs last 10k+ hrs, are qay brighter and use a fraction of the energy to power, what is cheaper, 10 bulbs that last 1k hrs or 1 bulb that lasts 10k? The 1k hr bulbs will take more man hours to make and cost more to ship for the same lifespan

China has reinvented the short lasting bulb. Instead of using 10 diodes at 1w, they drive the same diodes at 2w and use only 5. So they save a few pennies, and the overdriven diodes only last a fraction of the time they could have.

This gets even more nefarious when you think about how a handful of large companies have monopolized their influence across the majority of companies.

yup, just apply this video's concept to farming, food, clothing, and housing: we (specifically mostly just US companies) throw away perfectly edible food, of which could be given away for free and feed literally the entire world population. companies actually hire police to guard their dumpsters overflowing with food, and pour bleach all over the dumpsters so that anyone desperate enough to dig through trash would get poisoned. companies throw away and destroy excess/buy up second hand brand clothes so that their brand's clothing supply stays artificially low to drive inflated prices. there are enough empty housing and space to house every single human on earth, yet companies would rather a paying customer buy houses than save the lives of human beings trying to survive against the outside elements. capitalism with it's infinite growth model is illogical and evil. this video should be proof enough that the myth "capitalism breeds innovation" is just a myth.

@@ippanpedrozo1162 apply it to pharma too. 5 boosters later and annual boosters on the horizon. Nothing will be cured while subscription services are more profitable

We need small little companies to spring up and start threatening them.

​​@@ippanpedrozo1162You had a good point, until you went into the housing issue. The food and clothing issues are deplorable, but complaining that builders don't give away the houses they built, spending their money on building materials, construction workers, permitting and inspections is just idiotic. That's not remotely comparable to poisoning waste food you can no longer sell or destroying second hand clothing. Building a home is a massive investment, and if you require builders to operate as a charity, giving away their hard work, guess what happens?HARDLY ANYONE ONE WOULD EVER BUILD A HOUSE! Do you expect Habitat for Humanity to pick up the slack if you drive every single for-profit builder out of business? Oh wait, they can't. You've also driven the lumberyards and quarries out of business by destroying their main customers.

​@@jamesdinius7769I think more in reference of how much land is owned by how few, or the real estate groups that buy most of the houses in an area and jack the prices up through false inflation and then immediately resell said houses to people that were trying to buy them at the original price.

Even LED bulbs have planned obsolescence. To achieve a certain luminosity, nearly all bulbs use a single diode wired with a higher voltage than what it is rated for. This significantly reduces the lifespan and the energy efficiency of the bulb because the diode gives off lots of heat. Manufacturers could easily use several diodes under a lower voltage to achieve the same luminosity while consuming a fraction of the energy and allowing the bulb to last several times longer. Dubai is the only place in the world that regulates the efficiency of LED bulbs, and hence is the only country in the world that sells energy efficient LED bulbs.

@Reed Lheureaux Said, "...nearly all [LED] bulbs use a single [LED] diode wired with a higher voltage than what it is rated for." That's nonsense. Anyone can look into a LED light bulb and see there are more than a single [LED] diode. They typically have 24 or more LEDs. And if you knew anything about diodes and LEDs you would know that the voltage changes very little; it's the higher current and consequently higher power that shortens the LEDs' lives. But what really shortens their life is higher temperatures caused by being in enclosures that have poor ventilation.

I replaced all my bulbs at home with LED's and have had to replace a bunch already and it has been about 4 years. Some of the bulbs are in low use areas that are barely used

@@MrJimbaflonix Be wary of LED lights that are on sale. Some stores find that they're getting a lot of returns of defective lights, so they get rid of them by selling them heavily discounted. I've bought LED lights back when they were $20 each, and they're all working just fine. They were mostly Philips brand.

@@acmefixer1 I've noticed that. It seems that with LED products, you get what you pay for.

@@zachsamay2026 For a period of a few years, the Southern California Edison company was giving an automatic rebate for LED lights, cutting their prices substantially. This cut electricity use substantially, too. I believe they stopped that years ago. Now the LED lights are made much cheaper, and one corner that is cut is the metal to dissipate heat. So if the light is kept cool it should last. But most light fixtures were made for hot incandescent lights and the fixtures had no ventilation. If there were a few vent holes to allow heat to escape, the LED lights would last longer.

As an engineer this is why its frustrating when people talk about how dumb the engineers are for designing this the way they did etc.... my response is always to the effect of the engineers can design just about anything to work well and last forever but corporate/ management wouldn't want it

True, but you sure seem GOOD at designing these built-in defects.

Engineers can’t win or lose. The customers and corporations want it one way while the other want it’s another… Now I understand not to blame the engineers for doing their job… but to become an engineer myself and make improvements so i the customer is happy and the corporation can think for themselves for once… I’ve improved many things. They were actually better then the originals there’s always room for improvement.

​@@matthewsalvador9783 If you did the then Megacorps would make you be arrested The video above said it Those that make Lightbulb more durable then get fine in proportion as how durable they are

My issue isn't with engineers, it's when poor design makes the usable product fail prematurely (within warranty periods, for instance), when a very inexpensive modification would prevent the warranty costs for the manufacturer and frustration from the consumer. Like a $.25 piece of plastic to prevent water from dripping on a $500 controller.

​@matthewsalvador9783 my problem is when things that need to be worked on are designed to be difficult to work on.

Great video! As a carbon filament lightbulb enthusiast I'm glad you didn't hold out the centennial bulb as an example of long life in and of itself, as the limited power supply is certainly the main factor. The only flaw in this video (in my opinion) is the led bulb being held out as finally being everlasting. If anything, planned obsolescence is more at work in led bulbs than ever. Sure, the leds themselves last, but the components in the base of the bulb which supply the leds with dc power are absolutely not made to last (edit: Actually I should qualify that statement, because I don't know about all manufacturers. There could be some good ones.). You could make your own led bulb that would last far longer than those sold off the shelf.

Using the cheapest parts that fulfill the requirements saves a lot of money when mass producing. So a no-brainer for maximizing profit. Shorter lifespan is a welcome side effect.

@@sleepy_Dragon That's the trouble. You can rarely prove planned obsolescence because an equal excuse could be that the manufacturer just cheaps out on quality. In this case using quality parts would equate to only a few cents more per bulb, so the scale seems to lean one direction rather strongly, though there's some weight on both sides.

@@sleepy_Dragon If efficiency is what we are after, running more LEDs at lower voltage is where it is at. But of course manufacturers will never go for that.

@@kjyost Cost efficiency for the producer means cheapest parts while advertising "maximum output". More light for the Watt sells.

Check out the special bulbs the Saudi's ordered from Philips/Osram if you want to know what a real long life led bulb looks like. Cant buy 'em here.. surprise!

Fun fact: The Centennial Bulb isn't even the only Shelby Electric Co lightbulb still in existence. It's just the oldest (and therefore most famous) one. There are actually 26 lightbulbs that were made by Shelby Electric prior to 1914 that still function even to this day.

@@KarldorisLambley I agree. Would love to know how efficient that bulb is for that pitiful 0.1 candela amount of light

I went full LED early about 10 years ago, and as you said, didn't expect to ever have to change them. But I have had to change some bulbs out twice already. And some of these were name brands (Philips, CREE), and other cheap brands performed about equally well. I suspect there's some planned obsolescence in LED bulbs, too. Regardless, their low power consumption and cooler temps make them great, but I wish they lasted longer.

From taking a few apart that died on us, I've noticed that it's almost always the power supply that died. (The part that converts 120 volts AC to 12 volts DC.) Usually a capacitor was bulging. A couple of cent part, that probably could be replaced if I didn't have to destroy the bulb housing to get to it.

None of my LED lights last more than a year. Some of them die out in around 6 months.

LED lights don't work for the 30'000 hrs as advertised - me found out, too.

exactly my finding

Never go full led Sean Penn went full led

I always had this conspiracy in my head for a long time, at least relating to phones. Thinking they made the software efficiency degrade on purpose. Only just learned the term for it today

I've been following the right to repair movement for a few years now and the attention it's been getting has been great, there's been some decent wins for the fight recently. I hope that this video encourages you to do research and avoid products where the manufacturer put R&D money into making sure you get screwed 2 years after purchase

Technology Connections recently made a great video about this topic (specifically about lightbulbs and the phoebus kartell). There were very good and economical reasons to make a bulb last for only 1000h, evan as a customer. Shorter lived bulbs are way brighter or use less power(depending on the wattage). And with how cheap a lightbulb were compared to the increased power a long lived bulbs used it was just cheaper for customers to change them more often. Planned obsolescence sadly still exist, but the whole lightbulb conspiracy is kinda bs.

@@beaver_warrior He does make mistakes sometimes unfotunately yeah. I remember he made a video where he talked with a scientist and that guy said that people should restrain the protein intake in order to be healthier, and Derek basically took it as a fact. He completely glossed over the scientific method, and didn't try to question if this is true, because if he actually went down that rabbit hole, he would've found out that while this guy definitely has some evidence on his research there is much bigger evidence by the scientific comunity that the opposite is true. You can read ton of articles that actually talk about how people should eat more protein because today's society has less of it than it needs. If you think about it, it actually makes more sense since humans started as hunters which were indeed more protein eaters. And I guess that's my problem with Derek in general, while he does have PhD, it is actually not in physics despite what people seem to think. It's in physics education, and I'm not saying that he doesn't learn physics there but you can kind of infere that he didn't actually had to do some regular research (like I do on spintronics for instance). I myself study engineering physics and so I actually see which people think like a scientists and which people do not, cause you can clearly see who actually understands physics because he asks these kinds of questions and who just understands stuff surface level. I would like to know which one is Derek, cause he has these moments where I think he is really smart, but at times he simply lacks the scientific mindset.

Yeah I don't understand why he picked the one conspiracy that had a good reason for it.

The thing I hate most about planned obsolescence is that it assumes we have endless resources. It's terrible for our planet.

Sidemen AFTV Clips & More ehh, 3d printing still uses "resources."

Its the same with fashion, cloths used to last much longer, now its more profitable to sell seasonal wear that has to be replaced every 3 months

Completely agree and the exact same applies to capitalism

Sidemen AFTV Clips & More I didn't know you could 3d print all the elements in electronics like gold colbalt and phosphorous lmao.

True and how often do we can upgrade our electronics? So much, e-waste is created..

Wow. I had this in my playlist forever. The IPhone 14 came out yesterday. The video is soooo well Made, informative and entertaining. I am a lawyer specialising in competition, yet i have never heard about the lightbulb-cartell before. What an inspiring story on competition law.

This video oversimplifies the Phoebus Cartel's actions. Incandescent bulb longevity inversely affects efficiency. Longer-lasting bulbs are dimmer and need higher wattage for the same brightness, which costs more in energy. Back then, it was cheaper to replace shorter lifespan bulbs than to bear the energy cost of long-life ones. The Cartel also standardized bulbs, making any brand's product similar, and removing manufacturer advantages. Granted, it did reduce competitive advantage to innovate and make more efficient bulbs, but that’s not the argument here. Technology connections just released a great video on this, I recommend checking it out.

I just watched it, I knew something was off and there had to be some kind of energy savings aspect of it, beefing up the inside of the bulb would just take more energy to get it to a certain temperature and im sure they cared about saving energy since i think thats the whole reason they started day light savings like a hundred years ago

I was looking for this comment, watched Tech Connections video on it as well as I thought Alec would say the exact same thing as the veritassium video. Pleasantly surprised.

Well, what is more reasonable: Phoebus wanted to save energy, or Phoebus wanted to make a bit more money. Don't underestimates the droping sales and the preasure to grow & shareholder value. It sound like propaganda. BTW: we do have another cartel with the toner / printer ink and also the pharma industry. Guess what? It needs to be so expensive, because else we can afford more research. Well, that why you make so much profit? Why don't you reinvest that ... oh, never mind.

​@@CivilianApplicationsthay argument doesnt work here, because those bulb companies were also the power companies. It was in their best interest to push bulbs that lasted forever and took a ton to power, so they could sell that power. The opposite happened for the sake of efficiency. This vid is probably the worst work veritassium ever put out.

Thank you so much for this. When I watched Technology Connections video, I thought about this one. Planned obsolescence is absolutely an issue in countless products today, just Technology Connections says, but this just isn't a very good example.

Planned obsolescence is quite depressing, but always good to keep in mind. Thanks a lot for this video ! 🙏

Yes, I definitely remember this from economic class back in high school...planned obsolescence. Thus, I take apart all my electronics if something was wrong and my engineering background helps.

When I was a kid and went for shopping with my parents, I often heard the shopkeeper/seller convince us to buy a product by telling us in Hindi language "dada le pota barte" (written in Hindi as "दादा ले पोता बरते"). It translates to "grandfather buys , grandson uses" and means that product is of such a good quality that it would last three human generations: grandfather, father, and grandson. High quality used to be a competitive advantage to drive sales back then. Now high quality cannibalizes the sales of a product. Capitalism, consumerism, and greed rock*! :) *sarcasm

अब तो दादा भी ठीक से बरतने नहीं पा रहा 😅

That is the difference between a local mom and pop business and a multinational corporation. The mom and pop business doesn't have to worry about creating a product that lasts forever because they are such a small fraction of the overall market. There will always be new customers for their product. When they are a producer and have a large share of the market, if they create a product that lasts generations they will cannibalize their business.. The answer is strong anti-trust laws (anti-cartel laws) and protections against monopolies..

@@justinjames3028 Yeah, anti-captialist laws tend to fix capitalism. Crazy

@@justinjames3028 I'm a libertarian so I think any regulations should be in the name of making it equally free for everyone. One thing I was thinking a few years back was that it should be that you're only allowed to own land you live or work on. So rather than having CEOs who make most of the companies money and haven't even set foot in half the locations the one guy who owns each location will have to keep it successful because there is no CEO to throw them a lifeline

On the other hand, YouTube is filled with lots of unplanned obsolescence

Haha yep

​@@DyslexicMitochondria OMG Hi! I watch your channeI. Absolutely love your videos bro. U made me fall in love with science haha

Lol

Yeah! I love your videos too

Literally everything now is filled with lots of unplanned obsolescence

Seen thousands of videos here but none with this impact. I've created subtitles first time in my life only to show this movie to family. Love you! I'm not going into details, but you changed my life with this video.

Later on when you have time, please do share how it changed your life.

How come little bro?

Incidentally, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT is a terrific film, one of the very best of 1951. Apart from the conceit about the indestructible textile, it's a great film about labor and class relations. The director was Alexander Mackendrick, whom many reading this will know from going on to direct THE LADYKILLERS and SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS. The "I kid you not" remark about its Best Screenplay nomination, not sure who that was intended for....

The issue of planned obsolescence is compound. You addressed the obvious technological side and some of the cultural one, but didn't touch the social implications of it today. I think a lot of people wouldn't be so driven to update their electronics and cars and clothes if it weren't for the culture of consumerism and judgment of their social peer group if they fail to do so. Sure, you can be reductive and try to say that people only want the new shiny thing because "it's a new color" and it appeals to their surface vanity, but I think it's a lot more than that. It's the fact that there is a stigma around being the one in the office with the oldest phone, or going out for drinks with your friends in the least trendy clothing. Even if YOU like the older thing, or at the very least don't have a personal desire to update it in a vacuum, you'll find that the outside pressure of wanting to 'keep up' can change that fairly quickly. I think that's also starting to change a little. An interest in vintage clothing and vintage machines, a renewed excitement about "homesteading" and "cottagecore" ideals (even surface level as they can be), along with a growing frustration in modern technology not delivering on promises made is converging into a population that's rejecting the idea that there's something wrong with having an older phone, dressing in an older style, or choosing to do things a simpler way. Eventually, that will not be a preference but rather a necessity. Between climate change, resource scarcity, stagnating incomes, and disasters like Covid 19, we're going to see less and less "keeping up with the Jones'" type of behavior simply because it can't be accomplished anymore. The rising cost of food and other basic goods necessarily means that spending on non-basic goods will have to go down, if wages don't rise. We're already seeing a huge squeeze on things like canning equipment, goods for growing your own food, sewing equipment and supplies, etc. Things that normal people can do to "go back to the old ways". At least in some respects.

Good read, and pretty much inevitable too, since companies want to cut costs and gouge prices so much.

Zaydan Alfariz Yes! Almost all historical dress is coming back into fashion, with people wanting to make or have clothes made for them in historical styles. It's a good thing, if we can support it and make good quality things.

Zaydan Alfariz Yes! I also like Bernadette Banner, Angela Walters, and Abby Wilcox.

This video is a fascinating exposé on a widely suspected but until now difficult to prove phenomenon -- planned obsolescence. A very sneaky tactic And a very well produced documentary. Thank you.

Thirty years ago, I was selling bulbs that burned from 5-7 yrs. Farmers especially loved them. It was the postage that they objected to, and I couldn't blame them. It was a ridiculous amount and the company closed after thirty very successful years.

Great video. Thank you for bringing attention to this.

I love your voice

wow, what a crossover

woah

sudah malam

Here before this comment blows up

I believe that making something as best as we can so that way it lasts forever and we don't have to continuously replace it would be the more ideal approach because then you wouldn't be wasting all the material and all the hard work and time and effort put into obtaining these materials from wherever they're source by just throwing them away or discarding them to have them wind up in oceans or landfills or the ditch on the side of the road. make things to last so we don't have to waste and want, cuz eventually we won't have it in order to make the things that we waste and want ,but the reason we don't is more than likely in my opinion anyway the reason why we "don't" for a lot of things, because money beats all

Ofc with your statement, but I feel that as technology evolves, we will just have to throw away a perfectly fine product, as it is outdated and newer and better products are in line. What I do understand is that people (Mostly these big production companies) don't want to replace their already placed and working industrial sites, factories and machines, however reusing it for some other product also works, Just that big heads want to make easy money without having to replace their Industries. However, with more upgrades to products, and their hardware, comes upgrades to machines making them, Storages storing them, and More Industrial sites being made. So I don't understand why these big headmasters of their companies don't just try to make a lasting product already, and have a option to recycle old products. It will be cheaper (In a way, cheaper than making new industrial sites for same product) and work towards a equilibrium. (Just my Opinions, I don't have most knowledge about these sectors of Industries, feel free to correct me.) I will make a comment with this reply to @jobrown3008

Pretty knowledgeable and significant video it is! Thank you Veritasium 💜❤️

Hands down one of the most informative videos ever! Thank you

This is interesting because it seems like the planned obsolescence is applicable in mostly newly created things. Like when lightbulbs were first being used it was a concern that they would go out of business because too good of one was made. The same with cars, now people want to make their car last longer. And iPhones as you said have not changed much and the old ones would work perfectly fine except for the software updates forcing them out. It's been ~140 years since the first lightbulb and now we have an "everlasting one". Maybe in 40 years we will have cars that last quite some time.

I know that car tires have had the ability to last as long as the car for a long time now. But they try to keep them around 100,000 miles. As a maximum. Otherwise it gets expensive and then you could still damage the tire. But, lifetime tires have been possible but mostly intentionally avoided by manufacturing companies

As an electrical engineer, I can assure you... We are literally educated in school about how to design for the desired failure timeframe. It seems criminal

Any more info on this? So you remember the textbook or course code? I'd love to do some more reading on this

@@ToroMoto I would like to read more on this too.

Guess I'm lucky my teachers were vividly against this.

@@ToroMoto @miguelonas Start with the phrase 'Mean Time to Failure' or MTTF and go from there. IMO, the concept itself isn't nefarious but it can be used that way.

It is unmoral and seed of corrupt. Humans don't deserve anything less than an a asteroid wipe.

I've often wondered if the main reason filament light bulbs tend to fail is partially due to the thermal displacement on the filament. When the bulb is cycled on and off, this causes displacement back to the original length. This certainly causes the filament to endure tensile stresses as a result. So, if a bulb is never turned off, would it's usable hours be greater than if it is cycled on and off regularly?

I’ve heard it said that an engineer needs to choose between serviceability and reliability. Something can be made more serviceable but will likely be less reliable, increasing the probability of needing service. I’m sure it isn’t that straightforward, but would be an interesting exploration.

A friend of my parents once invented a device that screws into the lightbulb socket before the bulb that acted like a surge protector for incandescent bulbs. This dramatically increased the lifespan of the bulbs in his house to the point where he never had to replace the bulbs. GE learned about it when he tried to patent it and got the device patented before he could. This device has since been buried

Interesting. Surge protectors do exist and they do work but yeah not the convenient kind that screws in with the light bulb.

If that's true then please try to find conclusive evidence of plans etc and challenge the patent or basis of prior art. It doesn't matter who patented it first, if it existed before the patent application, it is null.

@@leothecrafter4808 The difficulty with that is that even if you have all of the evidence in the world it costs 5-10 million dollars to break a patent.

@@joshuahigginbotham6745 yeah that's true for these high profile high stakes cases. Maybe you can find a lawyer that demands payment only afterwards if the case is won. In that case you would have to persuade the lawyer that it's a clearly won case

I swear Amazon practiced planned obsolescence this past prime day 2022. I never heard the phrase until this video. But I thought it too coincidental that the Firestick I had for 4yrs never had any problems until a month before Prime day '22. It started 'glitching', and by the time Prime day came it didn't work at all. In my stubbornness I refused to buy a new one, feeling like I was being taken. Out of spite I bought a Roku instead. I hope they both don't eventually form a 'cartel'. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Remember, the people in charge who approve and encourage the planned failure of things, and the waste that goes with it; are the very ones saying us, the people, need to do more for the environment.

A GM engineer once told me, "it's easy to make a car last forever, getting one to break down in 7 years is the trick"

I aways thought it was getting one to break down the day after your warranty expires is the trick. 😁

An example of why I will never buy a GM product. Hondas and Toyotas are more durable.

@@robertromero8692 Nissan and Volvo are my preferences

Ohh my gosh. That explains alot

But as Toyota has shown us,a lasting car,equals more sales.

Bloody hell! I can remember when the "everlasting lightbulb" was an urban myth, and you were a tinfoil hat enthusiast if you thought it was true. A while ago i heard that a certain computer processor manufacturer were working on their Mk VII model before they'd even released the Mk V (I.e. the successor's successor) - I gave it no credence then, but I'm starting to wonder now!

Company who realse things every year has had done the major things like designing, tools required, molds etc many years before the product was realsed do you think apple can make a iPhone in just 1 year (yes with what little they change) but a modern day CPU (core prosing unit) has billon of parts in it.

It's not true. Testing has shown that in real-world conditions, modern 'bulbs' such as LEDs don't really last much longer than real bulbs, plus they don't count as real light bulbs anyway since they're so unpleasant, depressing, toxic, cold, etc. They're a horrible, nasty, cheap, tacky substitute for real light bulbs which I would never use. They also burn my skin.

@@Scripture-Man Remind me not to have you write any ad copy for my company ;) Fwiw, I've found that the "warm" or "natural" led coatings are adequate for GP lighting. Then there's bright white for when I need it. Black lights for when I want it. Etc.

I normally don't bother to comment on videos I like, but this was very informative! Keep doing what you're doing.

Unfortunate that this video is straight up wrong

Too bad those LED light bulbs also have planned obsolescence! The first LED bulb I bought was heavy had a heat sink, cost almost $30 and is still going almost 10 years later now. Many others that are recent and lightweight like the one you show at the end didn't make it 1 year!

This video is THE best video on YouTube I have ever seen. It was SO well made and so well done up to the very last moment which gave me goosebumps. Keep up the great work!

Agreed!

This aged like milk, watch technology connections video on the subject.

This is what I absolutely hate about business nowadays. It went from making the best product possible to figuring out how to sell something where the customer will come back

My mum had an oven that lasted 30 years, fully functioning right till the end. Then when she got a replacement, the technician told her that the company who manufactured them went broke because their ovens very rarely broke down. It's sad that we've gone from one extreme of excellent durability and reliability to planned obsolescence.

Because we cant find or change an economic solution to this as a species

Which company?

how long have you had your car? I am driving a 25 y.o. car with 200k miles on it. Impossible 40 years ago (without a complete rebuild at least once)

@@DavidMishchenko It was a company named St. George, here in Australia, which is now defunct. You will see a bank and rugby league team bearing the same name, but they're completely unrelated.

@@gizzyguzzi My original comment relates to an old oven that lasted up to Jan 2020. However, my car is 7 years' old to date so too early to tell how long it'll last.

Thank you for bringing this to peoples attention. The poor are a huge victim of this greed.

LED bulbs in my house break between 2 and 3 years after I start using them. It's exactly the case of planned obsolescence, not the everlasting light bulb you mention. And it's way easier achievable with all this electronics inside, then it was with ordinary bulbs.

I'm afraid that something similar to what happened with the old incandescent bulbs is happening again with the LED bulbs. If in principle they could last practically "forever", in reality I have already had to replace dozens of them in my house, in the few years since they became available. Sure they're a lot more efficient than old incandescent ones and last a little longer than those, but they cost more and don't last anywhere near as long as they could and should...

Your presentation and timing is fantastic. Always look forward your useful videos.

my grandmother's old fridge lasted for like 30+ years and it was still working when we changed it (some functions weren't working but it was mostly in freezer) and when we bought new fridge, it started to malfunction in like a year lmao

I have the same problem with lawn mowers. The oldest mower never has to be replaced. The newer ones I have to replace almost every year. I bought the old one used 20 years ago.

As an industrial designer I can honestly say that’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the industry. One always wants to design a product with the best characteristics.

I'm sure it is. In your occupation you can identify and fix flaws in many designs that lead to reduced lifespan. It's really too bad most companies are no longer interested in selling a product designed with longevity in mind. But, I wonder how much of this is due to so many consumers basing their purchasing decisions mainly on cost? Our grandparent's generations were much different. They were willing to pay much higher prices for products that not only functioned better, but lasted longer.

@@sparkeyjones6261 The disposable income has gone down, it's not a mindset. It's not having the money to make big purchases.

@@sparkeyjones6261 that is also true. New and shiny for most consumers is more important than functional and long lasting. Even if the design is great. Look at the old Mercedes Benz from before the 90's. Great machines that with proper maintenance will outlast you. Can't say the same for newer cars. People used to keep they cars, washing machines, refrigerators for decades. And it's worse than turning your back on identifying flaws, it's actually designing something and then figuring out how to make it go bad. It's basically destroying your design.

People are suckers. They'll eat up marketing and use it as brand loyalty instead of just relying on data and companies know this.

I'm also an industrial designer and I honestly haven't come across any projects that I would consider to have planned obsolescence. All components, especially small components, have a cycle life, nothing lasts forever. You can make things last longer but it usually comes at some other cost like money or size or performance, etc.; and at a certain point, the product no longer meets it's requirements and lasts far longer than it would become technologically obsolete. Generally speaking my clients would prefer the last impression of their product NOT to be it crapping out.

I enjoyed the video and the point it made about the part planned obsolescence plays in manufacturing. One point should be cleared up. The bulb is operating at 4 watts instead of 60 watts because the filament is thinner due to evaporation. The resistance is higher and the operating current is less. The operating voltage is still 120 volts.

Essentially everlasting LED bulbs, but then planned obsolescence came into play once again. Electroboom has a good video on that.

I put led lights in my house, and they go out all the time. I have been in this house for 2 years and replaced all the lights when I moved in. I have since replaced a lot of those lights especially in rooms like the kitchen and living where they get used the most. I guess they figured obsolescence out for LEDs as well. I think it is not the bulbs themselves but whatever condenser or whatever it uses in the bulb. Maybe one day I will rip one apart and see what's in it. Also I noticed phones have a useful lifespan of 2 years. I bought an S10 and broke it so bought another S10 instead of getting the newer S21 and after a year it is still working fine even though the phone model is 3 to 4 years old. My theory was that each upgrade made the phones worse after 2 years but that would only make sense if the phone Model was 2 years old and not the individual phone. Like if they were nerfing the phone firmware or OS with each additional update. But obviously that isn't it if my phone is still working well and is a 4 year old model even though it's a 1 year old phone.

The most probable reason why a LED bulb goes out is because of weaker components and the immediate stressing and destressing on them by turning them on off more often. Keep a bulb on for a whole year and it would work perfectly fine, however energy costs will rise incredibly high.

I remember learning about this Cartel 20yrs ago during a Small Business Management Course and at the time I thought it simply too fantastic and put it down to an over zealous Lecturer bending the truth to make for an interesting story to tell us. Pretty stoked to learn all these years later that it was actually true 😂 Hazahhh!

Sadly research for the first part of the video is just poor or presented in a very misleading way. I would recommend new (july 2023) Technology Connection video on the topic of Phoebus Cartel. Turns out light bulbs are a very bad example of planned obsolescence.

The worst part of planned obsolescence is that it affects the environment negatively ....waste produced by us would be far less if it wasn't for this stupid money making strategy

Exactly, this.

Interestingly, newer products are marketed as "more efficient" also.

I really hope more people are gonna see this trough. I think it's really unhealthy to consume so much. Especially with cloths but also with electronics and all kind of other stuff. I never knew but apparently there are people out there who even buy new cutlery and plates every season to "stay in fashion"

Exactly! If it wasn't for capitalism and planned obsolecence we could live sustainably.

I know. That's the first thing that comes to my mind.

Unfortunately, LED light bulbs mentioned at the end of the video are now running into the problem of planned obsolescence as of 2023. I have several home built LED lights from 2005 that have never failed, a few 2008 commercial that also have not failed. But from circa 2015 on most last between 3-5 years now, with only a few that have lasted longer.

I’d love to find a long lasting LED bulb. I swear I change them more often than traditional incandescent bulbs which I’ll continue to use until an actual reliable LED bulb comes along.

I used to take my LED bulb for so much granted untill now. I will respect my bulb because its ancestors have travelled a long way since their invention.

This is why anti trust laws are so important and shouldn’t be neglected

Thanks for breaking the planned obsolescence blackout. I hate having to buy and pollute six or seven times more than required, car, washer, toaster, everything! not to mention the waste of my work, and my life!

When I was a young boy and my Grandfather complained "They keep making this junk cheaper so you have to keep buying it"... he must have said that a hundred times to me over the years... turns out Grandpa knew what the hell he was talking about.

Grandpa doesn't have all those years for no reason. The greatest tragedy is that us young people tend to ignore their wisdom.

All us young people turn up our noses at the 'boomers' for their often seemingly backwards ways of thinking, but they have wisdom on things that we're clueless about.

@@AnotherAvaibleName YOU SAID IT

This is true even in most of our lifetimes. Mobile phones used to be virtually indestructible (with normal use). And the screen was made from plastic, which scratched like a MF, but didn't crack.

It's literally killing -two- -three- four birds with one stone for the manufacturers - while charging the same amount of money, using less material/lower rating components costs them less, and at the same time they last a shorter amount of time. This also allows a smaller enclosure, that is more appealing to customers, and that in turn helps further reduce lifespan by making the product heat up inside more, and making it less mechanically durable. Just look at every device with more than 1 transistor in it made in the last decade and a half - the trend is to make them thin and "pretty" and try to shove that into people's brains as "fashion", and use brittle and easily scratched materials, while cheaping out on everything inside.

There truly is no such thing as business ethics.

This says a lot about the society we live in

It does not surprise me, look to the history.

@@Gentello Yeah, I think the abundance of resources reveals certain aspects of human behavior. An abundance, perhaps, that used to be very limited--to aristocracies and above. And we see some of those stereotypical behaviors writ large.

You could always join an ahmish community

We do indeed live in a society

(Hopefully you aren't inundated with this kind of comment right now) It would probably mean a lot to a lot of people if you issued a partial retraction on this video or something like that; personally, I would be very interested in a breakdown of exactly *how* you got the light bulb part so wrong - what errors in your process could have caused it. Such information would, at the least, be of great value to me. Knowing how smart people still manage to make significant factual errors helps to avoid them in the future.

Sources for him being wrong?

@@xVDRx to put it very briefly longer lasting bulbs have thicker filaments which need more power to reach the same brightness' so if a 60w bulb is about as bright as a 100w that lasts considerably longer, you would likely save money in the long term using a bulb that uses less power since incandescent light bulbs were dirt cheap, the channel technology connections has a video that goes into great detail. edit: i just checked and apparently in 1945, 1 light bulb cost around 10 cents.

@@James64 & @somniad thanks for such a valuable piece of information on why we use these light bulbs, as cheap they are and replacing LEDs (now) would be cheaper than paying thousands in bills for higher energy costs. This piece of info should be brought to light.... (get that inbuilt joke)

Led spot lights lasts alot longer than the powersupply. Half the powersupplies for 30 lights didnt work in an apartment from 2014. Problem was the new drivers didnt make the same light so had to replace them all to get the same light.

As a child in the '50's, my parents use to tell us how “public service” companies in Milwaukee would replace burned out bulbs when customers came in to pay their bill. They said the customer was required to bring the burned out bulb in with them, hand it over and were given a new one. We've reached this “advanced” state of customer service via ownership of government by corporations. How lucky we are, no? ROFLMAO!

I believe this is the same type of theory as face wash products or at least certain cheaper ones. like oxy pads, my friends would always tell me not to use it because it doesn’t really help and will in the end make you have more pimples so you keep buying the product

Slightly different than obsolescence, but when I was 13 or so, my neighbor (who lived about a mile away since I grew up on a farm) hired me to help him cut and load some old, dead oak trees to sell the wood. For those who don't know, wood is usually sold by the cord when dealing with large sales, which is a measure of volume (around 1,000 gallons, I think). So I started loading this wood into a trailer, and on the second day I was helping him, he stopped me and told me that I was loading it too well. I was being too efficient, packing the wood into the trailer too tightly and thus reducing his profit from the sale of the wood, since there was more wood per cord. He made me stop and instead load it loosely and less efficiently. A few days after that, I came up with a way to use his tractor to load the wood faster than either of us could by hand, and he fired me once he realized how well it worked. Really taught me a lot about the world.

I don’t blame him for releasing unneeded laborers. I might blame him for shorting the customer. I don’t blame him, if he had just wanted you manual load times to be faster but used the packing efficiency argument to show his concern, without directly calling you slow.

I mean you kinda did that to yourself if he was paying you to help and you showed him he could just use the tractor without needing you at all.

You optimized yourself out. Welcome to the world. Happens when you automate your job too much, your employer finds that you are not needed any more, sadly that employer is short sighted, cause he can use you to automate more stuff instead.

ha :D

Never seen wood measured in gallons. Thanks for the laugh :D

Check the lifespan of LED lights for your house and compare that to the 100k hour life they were originally touted for. I don't know if it's an issue of higher strain on higher lumen LEDs, building cheaply in bulk, or built-in obsolescence, but they aren't the wonder product I originally remember them being referred to.

This video had me subscribed now. This is now my favorite video from you. Thank you for talking about this subject.

With LED lights I think they put bad chips in because they may not go out for a long time, but they sure as heck flicker like crazy after you’ve had them for a while.

That's the same thing with the things we're buying today, one of these are our phones and other devices. Before,during my dad's and mom's time the time spent ( my mom,especially, takes a long time to be done) shopping was well worth it. Those were the times when manufacturers were competing against each other to produce beautiful, durable and really quality merchandise. Well,those light bulbs cartel came earlier but their business practices weren't that well known that time,unlike today obsolescency practices seem to be normal! I think it's a criminal act that should be addressed by the government and other consumer groups. It's a betrayal of people's trust. Yeah,that's why we can't have nice things. It's like freedom,liberty and such,to have nice things one has to fight for it.

Coming to LED lights, in india I have observed every LED bulb is lasting for just 1.25 year of regular use Some last longer , the ones that are used less ... We have a policy to write installation dates on bulbs and have observed this in our factory

The fact that it's so well known and still being allowed to exist is criminal

Big business rules the world. That's why it will continue to exist, unfortunately.

@@cool386vintagetechnology6 big business are made of people, who the freak will be your Steve Jobs without a hands of smart-enough engineers? huh?

@@nikostalk5730 the people who Steve jobs is paying, who won’t go against him because he controls their entire income.

Devil's Advocate thought ... Without big business how would people get the things they use on a daily basis? I get your point, but really you are asking the wrong question. The question is "how can we find a healthy balance between consumerism, and manufacturing? "

@@brandylou9132 By branching out into new fields. The way I see it, light bulbs should have been made practically unlimited use by now and light bulb companies should have diversified into other electronic industries since light bulb progress was done. But instead they stick to making defective ones forever thus making no progress.

TZM went full on this topic and put together a case on how our economic system requires waste and inneficiency to function, addressing the inner workings of the market economy. They published TZM defined, Culture in decline and recently interreflections all for free, although most of the public would be too ignorant to even rationalise half the concepts discussed or begin to seek to get informed. Truly a man ahead of his time Peter joseph and the way he merged disciplines to put forth an argument against the pain humanity inflicts upon itself

LEDs also have some of these problems. I don't know if it's planned, but the color changes over time, becoming more garish and less comfortable to sit in.

Thank you for educating people on this!!!

I wonder if it’s actually possible for an LED to last longer than that lightbulb has. Considering that it’s now 122 years old. It’ll take a very long time before we can actually know whether or not an LED can last that long or not. Especially because that one from 1901 might not burn out any time soon. Who knows, it could make it to be 200 years old. Or even longer

When I think of this stuff I always have to think of my old triangle lineal of my mother. The print on it was encased in the plastic and it was way thinker than the new ones. Nowadays you have to buy a new one every year because the print gets rubbed off.

Imagine the trillions of tons of unnecessary garbage planned obsolescence has caused our planet, the poisoning of our rivers and air and soil... It's so backward and disgusting. 😞

Welcome to capitalism!

All for the love of money

Imagin the trillions of dollars lanned obsolescence has caused our planet

ah but you can make money moving the garbage around, so it's a trade off. that's why capitalism is so beloved and will def not lead to the death of the planet in one way or another

@@dextrodemon just moving it around... not getting rid of it or recycling it. recycling isnt profitable so thats why they dont actually do it. its a scam, only a few materials or plastics can be recycled to make profit, otherwise it doesnt happen.

The light bulb conspiracy is an excellent documentary that explains this very well. 💡

I think humanity needs a strong reminder of the times like during either world war when resources where so scarce they had to make literally ever single thing they had last from clothes to lightbulbs. Consumers and manufacturers alike somehow seem to have adjusted too well to the idea that we have too many cheap and readily available resources at our disposal. I genuinely have no idea how the world will look by 2050 when the world oil runs out, as currently it is being used not just for cars but also things like tarmac and more importantly plastics as well as many more. Yesterday this may have seemed like an event far of into the future, but it’s coming ever closer and I don’t think we are prepared to deal with it.

If large corporations will conspire to take advantage of consumers over light bulbs, what wouldn't they? A lightbulb cartel was formed...

I do believe Technology Connections just threw down a gauntlet here.

more like a pair of Havel's Gauntlets

​@@v0ldy54with a bit of STONE cold logic

He also said he thinks the incentive was to make profit, other stuff was just happy accidents.

​@@cancan-wq9unmeh, everything was a trade-off between efficiency, lifespan and price and lifespan is inversely proportional to efficiency if you keep your price constant, to increase both the price would have become too prohibitive to make the product viable as a mass consumer good. Everything have trade-offs in real life engineering, you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time.

This is infuriating and there were supposed to be laws preventing this from happening. Corporate greed is what's destroying us. If products were made better then workers could work on creating new things that make life better

It is actually outrageous that planned obsolescence isn't discussed more. It is definitely one of the main issues we need to solve in order to save our planet.

Good luck trying to change the wealthy 1% minds. I bet we will head towards "pay your climatic survival tools" instead of "stop climate change". Unless everyone stops asking their neighbours to do stupid behavipural changes and star demanding the governments and companies

And they also worked out its actually a select few criminal groups even in the world that are responsible for like 90% of the worlds spam emails so if we just got interpol to crack down on them once and for all we could end both a nuisance that has plagued the world since the internet began and also take a chunk out of the global carbon footprint

@@umbium eat the rich ?

In George Carlin's words, "The planet is fine, the _people_ are fucked!"

We are living a capitalistic world

They really do have superb tech to what we use nowadays, especially with EV’s, they just won’t give it to us

A JD tractor my grandfather owned back in the 40’s is to this day running strong. It’s a beast that has outlasted three tractors I have bought since the late 90’s.

Segway comes to mind. So solid of a build that they had to ghost due to no sales. Still support tho. And only LED bulb problems I have had are a cheap Chinese panel going out and having to upgrade the whole fixture.

This is entirely tangental, but they used to sell these plastic lightbulb shells which clipped on in 2 halves, encasing the bulb completely and changing the light colour. They were super cool, but I haven't seen them anywhere in over 10 years.

Do we know for a fact the drop in sales for the single year shown in the video was actually caused by the increased lifespan of bulbs? Seems like any number of things could have caused a fall in sales. Curious if there’s more data actually bearing this out, or whether the bulb cartel simply assumed the cause-effect here.

"Planned obsolescence" is *not* good for everyone. It's extremely unsustainable consumptionism.

Unfortunately our entire economy is based on a constant flow of consumption. Generate your own power, collect your own water, grow your own food, and re pair your old items... and there is very little for you to contribute to economy. If everyone became independent this way, I don't see how the economy as we know it could survive. This kind of economy works for survival, quick growth, but not for long term. Survival is not the same as living. We will need to change the mechanism and philosophy of currency, economy and resources. The side effects though is product tech advancements would be slower, but they would matter less as well. Another side effect will be ecological and environmental as we become more careful and responsible with our resources.

consumerism is the word you're looking for, I think 😅

anyone*

agreed... but how to solve it ?

exactly and the argument that planned obsolescence is good because it provides jobs is stupid because nowadays most jobs are being automated anyway

This is also why I never buy an "Extended Warranty" on any product. The idea behind any type of insurance is the company is betting that you will *not* need the insurance or warranty, so they make money off of the premiums people pay. The consumer is betting that they *will* need the insurance and we want to pay a little premium rather than pay a larger amount to get an item fixed or replaced. So, if the manufacturer actually thought the item had a reasonable chance of breaking down, they would not offer a warranty that would make them repair it for free. A product will usually break down after the warranty has expired. Class dismissed.

My parents still have flawless iphone 4. Their lifetime habit of treating their belongings with care has allowed most everything to last a really long time. The only reason I got them a new phone was because they literally stopped providing service to the phone.

Casio calculators are very good examples of long lasting things. My calculator is more than 10 years old, and I didn't even replace the battery because the battery gets charged by light (I guess). Great job CASIO,🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍

This reminds me of a similar thing going on with video games, they can’t make video games too good or else eventually they would make the perfect game with absolutely everything and there would be no need to play any other game

Think about it this way everything tends to be more up to date instead of a lot of things still working that are obsolete.

The person who thought the never-ending lightbulb would put them out of business obviously didn’t have children who break things...

Yeah, as soon as we moved into our new house my little sister broke a light bulb.

sales were down by almost 50% in 2 years.. in 4 the number may have fallen way more, people would lose their jobs, cuz they need to make less lightbulbs, and if lights didn't got any more expensive, then yeah, they might have to file bankruptcy ; -;)

​@@KStone22 but the problem is, she would always break the light, but the new light would last 1000 hours and had to be replaced, and that is way faster than how many times she would break a bulb

Kevin, watch the light! Kevin! Kevin, watch the light dude! *crash*

@@nmb-u- what if it was during the time after ww2 when the population boomed

Thank you Veritasium to remind us we don't have to replace a monitor's pixel every 1000 hours...

Around the year 2000 my mother won around 12 light bulbs on some competition online, they had an advertised life of around 12 years and most lasted around 10 with one or two dying after 6 or so years... I've tried to find them many times but cannot. These days I pay £5 for one bulb that lasts upto a year, I hate buying them as I know I'm having my trousers pulled down.

One thing left out in the episode is the unsustainability of obsolescence. We have finite resources and we're dumping them for profits for a few