Planned Obsolescence – “A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period.”
The Light Bulb Conspiracy takes us back to the 1920s, where manufacturers have realized the market potential of planned obsolescence and thus started shortening the lives of their products to increase consumer consumption.
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The first victim of planned obsolescence was, indeed, the light bulb. In 1924, a secret reunion in Geneva established the first world cartel, aiming to take over the control of the world’s light bulb production – the Phoebus Cartel. Until then, the goal was to make them last for the longest time possible and bulbs were advertised to last for 2500 hours. However, the cartel determined that the bulb shouldn’t last for more than 1000 hours.
Nearly a century later, planned obsolescence has become the “secret mechanism at the heart of our consumer society,” where the consumer is enticed by marketing strategies and advertisement, ending up wanting to “own something a little newer, a little sooner than is necessary.”
The target of this marketing strategy has extended to not just light bulbs, but pretty much every single device used by us. Our printers, microwaves, and even smartphones are submitted to a technology designed to fail.
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The Light Bulb Conspiracy documentary portraits this reality where long lasting products are considered a disadvantage for the economy, for they keep buyers from spending money in new, more advanced gadgets.
A century has passed, and a planned economy has fallen into oblivion, opening the way for planned obsolescence to rise up and dictate our life styles, filling it up with technology we do not really need. In today’s picture, the profit begins when a product’s life ends.
View the full film here.
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Its good ton know this things. I will keep an eye.