A bulb lighting up since 1901, How?
We live in a world where few organisations control what we buy leading to making us their loyalists. We literally become angry to protect the respect of our respected organisations. But, are these organisations loyal or even truthful to us?
The oldest lighting bulb
Livermore Fire Station No. 6 is the place where they have a bulb lighting for 120 years since 1901. It is not even connected to a switch but it does have a backup generator. It literally means that this light bulb has been working for a million hours which is way more than any light bulb of today. But how is that even possible?
As we are told/programmed in a way that we never question these big conglomerates, we are taught from a very young age to never question these things, it’s like we are trained to never think out of the box. So, we have a real example of a light bulb that has been working for 120 years but why don’t we have such light bulbs available in markets? The answer is very clear: a product that has an everlasting life is an amazing product for consumers but not for businesses.
What happened in 1924?
In the beginning, light bulbs were long-lasting but that brought the sales down for the major light bulb companies and this became a major concern for them. So, on the Christmas of 1924, the executives of Light Bulb giants OSRAM, Philips, General Electric, Tokyo Electric, and Associated Electric met secretly in Geneva, Switzerland and they formed a cartel together called the Phoebus Cartel. The meeting was all about helping each other and controlling the world's supply of light bulbs.
Before this cartel was built there used to be individual makers of light bulbs but after this cartel was formed it killed all the individual light bulb makers. After killing the individual businesses this cartel noticed that their light bulbs are lasting longer and that is killing their sales. So, to solve the sales problem they came out with a couple of ideas, for example, all the member businesses will produce light bulbs that will not last more than 1000 hours and the cartel also imposed fines on the members if any of the members produced a light bulb which lasts more than 1000 hours.
Imagine the level of hard work these organisations go through to keep us in the buying loop. The people who produced long-lasting light bulbs were given the task by the Phoebus Cartel to now decrease them by using cheaper materials. We as consumers lost but the cartel was successful after 1926 the member businesses saw a 25% rise in the sales of light bulbs in just 4 years. Now, they were using cheaper materials and keeping their prices unchanged which led to higher profit margins.
Does the Phoebus Cartel agree with the claims and do they still exist today?
Of course not, they justify it by saying that they were working towards efficiency and standardisation of light bulbs but all the evidence goes against them and has proved that the cartel was only motivated by huge profits not what was best for consumers.
The Phoebus Cartel didn’t last long and ended in 1930 especially because of the global tensions and the happening of World War 2. The cartel did end but their ways are still being practiced. It is a well know business tactic called ‘’planned obsolescence’’.
The protégé Apple
In 2003, audio went viral of an Apple customer service agent asking the customer to buy a new iPod as refurbishing the old one will cost more than buying a new iPod. There was a lawsuit filed against Apple and they settled out of court. Then 2017 onwards consumers started noticing that updating their Apple products is making their products slower or shutting down altogether. Of course like the master Phoebus Cartel also the protégé Apple justified by saying that they throttled performance to save the battery of their devices and increase their longevity. Don’t you think it will be better if there will be a battery replacement option in Apple like it used to be in Nokia?
But, apple paid millions of dollars in lawsuits but never fixed this problem as those lawsuits were nothing compared to the repeated sales Apple makes worldwide, and increasing the longevity of their products will kill those amazing sales.
Is Obsolescence only bad?
During the Great Depression, almost a quarter of the American population lost their jobs. An American real estate broker Bernard London proposed mandatory planned obsolescence to get people back to work and lift America out of the Depression. He proposed to give planned life to products by law and after the expiry date, government officials will destroy those products.
It sounds pretty cruel but there were also movies made in those times like the Oscar nominee The man in the white suit. In a nutshell, the movie is about a scientist who develops the perfect fiber which doesn’t stain or tear. The problem arises when the factory owners realise that they will not be able to sell it as much because it is so durable. People start going against the scientist as his product is taking away factory workers, washing company workers, and many other businesses’ jobs including of course the profit of those business owners so they plan to kill him and destroy his invention.
The movie does have links to real-life events in the 1940s synthetic fiber nylon replaced silk in stockings and it was so durable that it became an overnight sensation there were literal riots of women to have their hands on them. The manufacturers started to realise that they have made a product too durable and that will not bring sales so they reverted back to the methods of the one father of all the Phoebus Cartel and they asked their engineers to weaken the product on purpose so the product life span will decrease which will increase sales through repeated purchase.
Can we finish Obsolescence and who is the real culprit?
Henry Ford released the first mass-marketed car the Model T in 1908 and he envisioned it as a workhorse something which is affordable and very much similar to the everlasting light bulb. In the 1920s Henry Ford said that we have built a car that a man once buys will not have to buy another one ever in his lifetime. But, what was the result? In a couple of years, 55% of American households had a car, and everyone who can afford one had one. This started having issues, sales started dropping and people in the car manufacturing company started losing jobs.
Colour company DuPont emerged as the car companies’ saving grace. They took over General Motors controlling shares and started experimenting with giving cars different colours. It took them a couple of years but it worked out for them. Their goal was to make Model T look outdated but they realised the jackpot which is still used by major organisations of today to make your own product outdated as soon as a new version of the same thing is available. General Motors’ head of design Harley Earl even said candidly that their mission is to reduce the age of their products purchased which he named “planned obsolescence’’. In 1934 the ownership span of a car was 5 years, in 1955 it was 2 years and Harley Earl wanted to bring it down to 1 year calling it his perfect score. During his leadership, General Motors was the most valuable company in the world and it sold 50% of all the vehicles sold in the US every year.
Apple is the most valuable company today and it has copied its predecessors the Phoebus Cartel and General Motors perfectly like a good protégé. Let’s go through the checklist together shorter product lifespan, new styles every year, and new colour every year. All of it results in the golden words “increased sales’’. The inspiration for these organisations comes from Fashion where real innovation all the time is very much impossible. Like Fashion businesses, they want to create hype about their new product launch which should only last one season. Apple again like a very great student always follow things properly, like in fashion when fashion businesses go out of fashion ideas they start bringing the old fashion back into fashion. If you don’t believe me look at Apple products over the years (round edges, flat edges, and then repeat).
Now to the conclusion, with design and styling, there is no best but only different for that very time which is enough to remind us that we are not having the hyped product. It forces us to rush out and buy the latest product for that moment of dopamine release and to show people around us that we are no less than anyone else. So, now you have reached the point where the culprit should be very much unmasked for you all.