This is why we can't have nice things 

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I've had to change plenty of LED bulbs. Planned obsolescence is as strong as ever.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

(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.

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.

This is why I sew my own clothes in Classic styles. Skirts, shorts and shirts can be "updated" with the addition of a couple of inexpensive accessories. Even a nice scarf can be made from a bit of silk and some dye & a few beads. It's not hard to keep a nice wardrobe like this. And it looks better, especially if you don't have an "off-the-rack" body. It can be expensive to buy fabric, so it's a good idea to start small. Make 1 item per season, and build on a basic 3 skirt, 3 pants, 6 shirt, 2 jacket wardrobe base. Even if you never get past the "easy" stage, it's a fun hobby. Here's to Planned Forever clothes!

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.

Planned obsolescence - the perfect way to create BS jobs & damage the environment.

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.

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

Great video. Thank you for bringing attention to this.

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....

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

After watching the recent video from Technology Connections I remembered this video, and I can now see how poorly researched and explained things are. Turns out there was no actual conspiracy if you take long enough to learn how lightbulbs actually work and the tradeoff between duration, light emitted and efficiency. Not saying planned obsolescence isn't a thing (my washing machine I fixed with 5€ by replacing a connection caused by purposely faulty design instead of the 200€ or straight up replacement of the whole thing was a good lesson about it), but the Phoebus Cartel is an awful example of it because the lightbulbs weren't made bad on purpose, they simply had to pick a tradeoff between filament life and power.

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

The fact that this is legal is tragic but what is even more tragic is that a company like apple is so influential nowadays. People really don't learn.

For me, the reality is that I have never had an LED bulb last twice as long as my nice warm incandescent bulb. They usually last about 5 months longer. Forget 10 times longer; that has never even come close to happening.

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.

There’s another interesting case of industry collusion around planned obsolescence. I believe story goes, around the late 90’s/ early 2000’s the auto industry wanted to get older cars off the road in favor of newer ones that we’re more difficult to repair (basically targeting old carbureted vehicles), so in order to make it more difficult to live with them they got together with the fuel industry, with help from US lawmakers, to change fuel standards to add in ethanol. Fun thing about ethanol additive gasoline, after a while the ethanol will begin to separate out. So if you store a carbureted engine with modern gasoline in it for more than a few weeks it will clog the carb and you need to re-jet it. A lot of people didn’t want the maintenance hassle and bought newer models, the additives made the gasoline cheaper to produce, the agriculture lobby loved it because it was a new source of corn consumption, and Congress got a great round of funding from all three industries. Everyone won, except the public who got worse quality gas, more expensive to buy and maintain cars, and taxes taken out to subsidize the additional corn demand

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.

This says a lot about the society we live in

I've seen plenty of LED lightbulbs blow out in a year or two of use. I think a lot of manufacturers are using poor quality heat management in the bulb's base to make sure their bulbs don't last.

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.

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

My dad would say--and mind you, he agrees that planned obsolescence is wrong because of the waste it produces--that it's both rational/profitable for companies to use planned obsolescence, and fair (they decide how their stuff is made, not to mention that in and of itself planned obsolescence isn't bad, though it's certainly problematic, but systemic planned obsolescence is the problem). I'm seriously NOT defending any form of planned obsolescence.

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.

My grandfather called it "built in obsolescence." It is a disgusting result of our money hungry civilization. It will ultimately lead to society's downfall.

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

There truly is no such thing as business ethics.

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.

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!

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

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.

This video is THE best video on TRvid 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!

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'. 🤷🏾‍♂️

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...

I knew it. I bloody knew it. I felt the difference from when I was younger when everything was more reliable in general and lasted longer, much longer. for example, I still have the same old tools I used back when I was a kid, but any new composite tools I buy often just wear out much quicker or break outright. Or another example, ACs, my grandfather's house was the first house we had ACs installed in, and that was about 24 years ago, they lasted the entire 24 years with no major problems with literally over 18 hours a day of use, due to the desert's high heat here and freezing cold winters where we need AC heaters. After 24 years they actually replaced them with new "efficient designs" about early this year, 2 broke down. months of use, 2 broke down (out of 5 used daily). They broke down quite badly too, electrical failure in one and mechanical in the other, replaced electronics and repaired mechanical parts. while the old ACs lasted atleast 10 years or so before their first "break down" (of course maintenance was carried out yearly due to the AC running out of cooling fluid) and despite their break down it was very minor, most just got their motor jammed (can't be surprised from the dust here) and a couple others broke some parts which were replaced for cheap compared to the expensive electric parts of the new ones. Don't even get me started on cars. Anyone who drives today knows anyway, but despite this toyota and a couple of other asian companies still don't rip us off which makes them easily leaders in reliability and durability. Other problems were with bulbs like mentioned in the video, we had replaced our old lights with LEDs recently, let's see how that goes..

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.

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

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!

Calling intentional failure as “ planned obsolescence” is like a calling a fat person “ plus sized model”. It only makes a scam sound like a strategy.

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

Thank you for educating people on this!!!

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 recently got a new microwave and gave me their old one they got for their wedding - I'm 25 and warming up my leftovers in the same microwave my baby food was warmed in... pretty amazing. I would love if everything lasted forever. Planned obsolescence feels like such a waste of resources.

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?

Instead of starting with a ban on shopping bags which many people repurpose and replacing plastoc straws with shriveling paper ones, the packaging of items don't have less plastic and our tech can't be recycled in a way that doesn't harm the environment. This is a wonderful topic to discuss. "Planned obsolescence" wouldn't seem as nefarious if consumers did in fact know and prices reflected shortened life spans. I bought the first huge iPad with 64G and it's inability to get updates and lags in performance have made me never buy another Apple product. Consumers can change this by refusing to participate.

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.

In the past few years, a surprising number of items I purchased, failed way too quickly. Sometimes in the first year. Each time this happened, I called the manufacturer. I told them I bought this product and it was fine for a while, but now isn't functioning or not functioning properly, what do you think I can do about it.. .am I doing something wrong? EVERY TIME ... the response was basically "I'm sorry for the trouble you are having. What is your address, we'll get a new one out to you" And they did. My take is that they know that quality is for shyte and they just want to preserve their reputation for customer service.

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.

Imagine just how advanced we would be if it wasn't for business practices like this

This man not only is a genius , he has the courage and savoir faire to teach and share his genius 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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.

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

Hey there, we recently bought a house that had this leaf blower in the attic... It has a few issues that should resolve, after minor repairs as you demonstrated in this video. THANK YOU very much for the detailed video, instructions, and pro tips! It is really helpful for a guy who knows enough to be "dangerous" LOL much obliged, God bless you and yours! Happy Thanksgiving! I am very grateful for this video! Godspeed+++

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

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. 😞

I don't even care if planned obsolescence is necessary/desirable in the current system, the take away is simple: if a system needs planned obsolescence to survive, in a planet with finite resources and where production has an huge impact on our natural environment, so that system sucks and we should all seek viable alternatives.

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.

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.

Anyone who even thinks planned obsolescence is the correct way to get repeat customers is wrong on so many levels. The correct way would be not only by providing parts to end users and repair or maintenance services but branching out to make goods that must be replaced regularly such as food, beauty products, cleaning products and office supplies and reduce positions in manufacturing in favour of other positions in the company when something isn't selling as much as it use to. They could also make the chassis of something modular so panels can be changed when the style changes without wasting everything for a different colour or style. They would also have no choice but to bring back hand making and make things slower instead of pushing out unfinished products in time for jesus simps to celebrate genocide. If planned obsolescence never became a thing, we would have an amazing used market where we would be going to for most of our things and the companies who made the products would be getting our money for goods that have to be replaced often and not seen as evil entities that hate the earth. 15:52 We have not reached the point of an everlasting light bulb, they standardise the life span of those to by over volting the LEDs, you can significantly prolong the lifespan by replacing a resistor with a different value that lowers the voltage while barely effecting brightness.

Pretty good coverage of the topic. I think you forgot a couple of points. First of all, the world could build a car that lasts 40 years, but it would take a lot of resources. The automotive industry has gotten much better at not putting resources into the cars they make, so that thy last longer than people are going to own them anyway (though it means when you buy a used car with a lot of features, nearly everything is breaking down at the same time. Secondly, there was a time when Microsoft embraced the idea of backward compatibility. They advertised that if you owned software that was written to run on DOS 1.0, you could still run it after you upgraded to DOS 3.2. But who would want to? They realized that this was not appropriate for the computer industry, a position that Apple had adopted; they set a limit of 5 years, after which they would not support peripherals, not maintain drivers for them. So backward-compatibility, and longevity, though they seem like good ideas are not necessarily best. And I have a good example regarding light bulbs: my sister was an early-adopter of LED bulb technology, and replaced all the lights in her condo with 13-year bulbs. They cast a sickly, green glow. The technology wasn't quite there yet. Better LED bulbs have subsequently been developed, but she had a home full of bulbs that didn't perform as well, but would last 13 years. She sold the condo, bulbs and all, and the new owners probably threw out all the green bulbs and bought some current technology.

My aunt moved into her family home in 1919 at age 14 and had a 1913 Edison light bulb on her second story stair well. She lived in the house untill her death in 2002. She replaced that bulb a year before her death and she gave it to me and I have kept it right up to writing this comment and the other day plugged it in to see if it's still works. Bright as ever! Going on 108 years old.

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.

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.

This conversation would actually come up on the show Shark Tank quite often. I watch that show all the time and there have been many cases where somebody would bring in a product that's made so well that it would never need to be replaced. And the Sharks would immediately criticize and opt out of investing. They would even be blunt by saying exactly what the video is saying. I can see the pros and cons to this in my own profession. I'm a professional magician. Every now and then a magician will come out with a product to sell the other magicians that is so durable and made so well that it never needs to be replaced. Because of this, that magician would go out of business and the product would disappear from the market. So if you ever lost it or if a new generation wants to get their hands on it, they can't. It becomes lost to time.

Those of us old enough to remember Kirby vacuum cleaners can tell you-they do it on purpose. Billionaires are evil

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.

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.

Right to repair does not solve the problem of planned obsolescence. I had high hopes of this channel.

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

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