The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010)
The untold story of planned obsolescence. This is the story of companies who engineered their products to fail. This film criticizes the way manufacturers deliberately make short lasting products that continually have to be re-bought, increasing their profit.
Did you know that the lifetime of light bulbs once used to last for more than 2500 hours and was reduced on purpose to just 1000 hours? Did you know that nylon stockings once used to be that stable that you could even use them as tow rope for cars and its quality was reduced just to make sure that you will soon need a new one? Did you know that you might have a tiny little chip inside your printer that was just placed there so that your device will break after a predefined number of printed pages thereby assuring that you buy a new one? Did you know that Apple originally did not intend to offer any battery exchange service for their iPods/iPhones/iPads just to enable you to continuously contribute to the growth of this corporation?
This strategy was maybe first thought through already in the 19th century and later on for example motivated by Bernhard London in 1932 in his paper Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence. The intentional design and manufacturing of products with a limited lifespan to assure repeated purchases is denoted as planned/programmed obsolescence and we are all or at least most of us upright and thoroughly participating in this doubtful endeavor. Or did you not recently think about buying a new mobile phone / computer / car / clothes / because your old one unexpectedly died or just because of this very cool new feature that you oh so badly need?
Published 2010 (IMDB Rating 8.1)
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It’s a shame most people do not have interest in understanding the ways the
system works and how it forces us to accept ridiculous behavior as normal.
great documentary! I’ll share it :)
Hello
Thanks for sharing mate¡¡
This youtube program is no more aloud and taken away in the “free” Sweden “
Of course, now that everything is churned out by the People’s Lead & Puppy
Grindery, Western Civilization no longer really benefits so much from
planned obsolescence…
@36:47 …what the fukushima!
Start looking to Wall-E if you want to know what the future will be like.
Funkyw4, The oldest light bulb has been burning since 1901, the light bulb
industry will be fine. The point of this documentary is to provide some
evidence and facts that our system is completely and utterly FLAWED and
cannot continue on the path that it is on currently.
I can clearly agree with you on that.
what is the adress of the russian site?
Thank you for this ill be sure to share it
My stove and fridge are more than 20 years old and they work perfectly.I
have new models as well, but they always break.
My stove and fridge are more than 20 years old and they work perfectly.I
have new models as well, but they always break.
It blows my mind how little people wanna take interest in such
things……. Not that I’m sayin’ midgets shouldn’t. It’s just weird.
Just never forget – all talk about sustainability is come from Agenda 21,
facsistoid concept created by the same greedy people to cover their real
goals, total control and absolute power.
I am a future economist and I wish we all could have longer lasting and
fully recyclable products. I see why it is no wonder people do not import
cheap efficient green energy solutions. Because it requires massive
reconstruction, it is a game changer for which big companies are not
willing to risk with. It makes all markets less dynamically inert. But it
gives population stability and reliability to counter for a great
depression and starvation. Even capitalists don’t have real interests in
this
“You see, without planned obsolescence these places wouldn’t exist. There
wouldn’t be any products. There wouldn’t be any industry. There wouldn’t be
any designers. […] All the jobs would go.” Instead of letting go half
your staff. Why not reduce work hours by half? Give everyone two or three
day work weeks. People get less money because they are only working 2-3
days a week. However, would also spend less money on replacements. People
would have more time to enjoy living.
They recited “the pledge of alliance” to a American conspiracy against
consumers
36:43 Ironically enough , the battery of the photo camera is also almost
dead
What, really?!
I think your tinfoil hat is some seizes to small. Don’t wear those which
squeeze your brain.
Cartels – setting a standard of obsolescence
Watch this and think of all the products you have purchased since your
ability to go to the store.
I judge a Company/ Product, by how well it performs its function and how
long it can preform that function.
As for planned “Planned Obsolescence”: I see it more as failure due to low
cost production.
A must watch…
It’s scarier to think of the market that can maintain a “planned
obsolescence”. It would obviously be in the best interest of an upcoming
entrepreneur to make a product “better” but can’t; because somehow the
“free market” is in favor of those making the money and not buying the
product.
39:04 – those CRTs last for ever, but we been brain washed to buy flat
panels, that are designed to fail promptly.
This is an informative, thought provoking program. Don’t mind the Norwegian
sub-titles.
A nice bit of propaganda mostly, this is on a par with ‘Ralph Nader unsafe
at any speed’ Who are this so called ‘cartel’ surely another business man
would come in and offer a better product if they could. Most of this has to
do with politicians and bureaucrats defining standards, rather than
allowing the market to operate. All these so called environmental energy
bulbs have arisen from government mandates not the market. For instance
look at low level regulated markets such as the mobile phone- original cost
in 1950’s $5000 size of a brick with no battery life, today you can run
your life off one for a fraction of the cost, similarly a Bluetooth dongle
original costs $300 in the 1990s today less than $4 ( and that’s not
including inflation !!!!). Heavily regulated markets such as cars always
increase in value, since bureaucrats and politicians interfere determining
how much safety should be in there and how things should be tested. It is
politicians and bureaucrats messing up the market, with which standards
things should be held to.
I think the real truth that some may have overlooked goes like this. Things
are made to break, thats what keeps the money flowing, sad but true, and no
I dont agree with that plan,,but that is how its all made and planned. For
example any electronic device could be made to last way longer. Usually
when lets say for example your TV croaks. Its one component that has gone
bad or failed in it. But a circuit board can be made with several back ups.
Meaning if one transistor failed, there could be three others wired into
the board, with a microchip that would just switch it all over to use the
second transistor if the first failed. And any number of backups could be
added. But its not made that way, its made so when that one component fails
in your TV or other device, you simply throw it away and buy another, and
of course litter the world more. And it is rumored that if not already so,
some day a program may be placed in a microchip to force your electronic
device to fail after a certain time, like a timer. And you would either
throw it away, or have the repair man reset the circuit to restart the
timer all over again.
Marcos’ should have just bought a laser printer. Inkjets suck down one of
the most expensive liquids in the world even if it’s just sitting there not
printing anything. Laser toner cartridges can last years and it’s a
fraction of the price per page.
I have been in the motorsports industry all my life and Ran a smog
shop!Even in California with its clean air laws.Logic and reasoning would
dictate that a car that consumes a volume of air 5 times more than the next
would be undesirable! they only ask us to check the emissions of the gases
based on parts per millon not volume So a small car with a motor
of 1 liter produces and imits 1/5 the volume of a car with a 5 liter! the 5
liter gar burns 5 times the oxygen out of the atmosphere While today all
the car are clean burning,we still do not get it ,that Oxygen levels fall
as we go up in the atmosphere and we are consuming the very elements that
produce it! Knowledge does not equal power unless we use it with logic
,reasoning,and wisdom
haha most parts in my computer are reused
Are there any asshole professional skeptics and wannabe asshole skeptics
who would like to debate me over the fact that rich people conspire to get
richer? Some of you assholes even believe that the auto makers do not make
cars that consume fuel at the rate that the oil companies want. Some of you
are even stupid enough to think that the government has nothing to do with
aiding these corporate thieves. So please step right up and challenge me
with your bullshit skeptic crap, I’m waiting….
How many people use electric every day? How many companies and signs and
headlights? How much light and images?
If everything uses many times the electricity needed, where does the
electricity come from?
Most of it comes from burning carbon. And the number of users and uses is
billions even as the rate of use outstrips the ability to find and get more
carbon since over 40 years ago and we have a very real problem with burning
too much carbon.
Sometimes you have to make a choice for efficiency when the alternative is
lights OUT decades sooner if you don’t. We can’t go back by simply wishing
or voting so.
Read Consumer Reports before you buy an item or at least see what things
you can buy refurbished since those items are repairable! The originals
cost MORE and there is the rub, people buy cheap and quality is made less
and less often because it is squeezed out, what sells shapes what gets made.
Buy cheap crap, get cheap crap. Eat fast food while you’re at it then
complain about that.
So Londons’ idea was to fix an economic problem that was created by
government tinkering by having the government tinker with it. :-/
No WONDER he whispered about it.
41 dayz. vs the one from 1901 = over 100 years. lol FUCK YOU
I’m ten minutes in, and things are already not adding up.
1. Light bulbs are supposedly forcibly kept to last no longer than 1000
years. So what happened to compact fluorescent bulbs, and never mind LEDs,
which practically last forever? And yes, LEDs are slowly getting into the
home lighting business.
2. They keep on talking about how things are made to break, and how
supposedly every company is in some cartel to ensure that. However, I’ve
seen quite a few things that pretty much defy that. For example, I’ve seen
phones that are at least 10 years old, and working fine – I even used one
for a half a year recently. I also have a computer that must be about 12
years old sitting in my room – it might be a little slower than it was
originally, but a simple Windows reinstall would fix that. And no, that’s
not planned obsolescence, because you have every right to reinstall an OS
on your computer without paying extra.
3. Marketing something that lasts longer is simple, and it’s been done many
times before. All I can say is look at the compact fluorescent bulb – it is
being purchased more and more than “standard” light bulbs. Sure, there are
often trends to buy things that don’t last as long, the computer industry
comes to mind now, creating super slim laptops where you can’t even replace
the battery of all things – however, that’s specifically because people are
looking for more lighter and especially slimmer computers, which are hard
to make if you have to account for swapping parts. Not to mention, many
computers are still being sold that have exchangeable parts.
dude inkjet printers are just basically stupid anyways, there shouldn’t be
any reason to print anything out really, if so send it to a print shop who
uses things besides inkjet printers and can print out quality. Also, people
would sue the print company if the printer did get ink all over the place
or just basically think it was a crappy printer. Talk about the complete
waste of money the injet cartridges are, they cost more than the entire
printer a lot of times. Also things like computers should be obsoleted
because would you like to be working on a mac or pc from the 80’s? I doubt
it. A lightbulb from 1900 sux compared to a led bulb today. The things
that should be got rid of are cars and airplanes because the fuel they use
and the death they cause.
Can’t understand half of it because it’s in some foreign language.
It was designed to FAIL.=-= STILL GOING ON TODAY. with everything.
its all because of GREED, without it there would be no need for a 1000hr
light bulb…but for a LIFE LONG bulb. This goes for other electronics and
items.
I wonder why didn’t competition rule out the need for planned obsolesce? I
mean, didn’t companies back then always claim their stuff lasted the
longest and worked better than the competitor’s products? Why would a
crisis arise from that problem? Now I realize that companies even if they
don’t really have to. I mean, what kind of dumb company would invest time
and money spending on materials to built a lasting product when they can
hire chinese child laborers and use the cheapest crap available and just
say that new products that they make are simply better, even though they’re
the same shit.
The fire station filament is obviously undervoltaged. Will last far longer
than if brighter at its designed voltage. Is very inefficient when
undervoltaged.
Calculate how much money it co$t to operate.
some months ago I measured a lightbulb power draw, it was 20watts although
the bulb was 40watts. The bulb was brighter than a “power saving” lamp with
11w (claimed equal to 60w bulb). It was about 3times brighter than the
11watt energy saver with only 2times the power.
So WTF? Lightbulbs with equal measured watts actually outperform “energy
saving” crap.
Russian propaganda: They exploit the weakness of capitalism and flatter
communism, but hey, they didn’t mention how people have been living under
communism. It’s OK to learn from others’ experiences, but this documentary
is way too flattery to tyranny. There’s definitely an error with the
economy and it needs to be upgraded, but not by communism.
Fascinating documentary a wake up call to all!
And all the LED bulbs in UK are priced at an almost out of reach sum..for those wanting to cut back on power consumption..and most of the bulbs in IKEA are of screw in fitting and UK are all bayonet types.. so you have to then change all the fittings in the house.so in effect..you have to spend more cash to save…..LESS! outrageous for a so called Green economy? The massive swindle continues.!
Just found out my hp laptop default cooling kicks in when 60C is reach, no
wonder my laptop overheats! Download a modded BIOS, simply adjust the
temperature to 50C solved my overheat issue.
The World is big enough to satisfy everyone’s needs, but will always be too
small to satisfy individual greed. Mahatma Ghandi.