Why Things Don’t Last Anymore 📱

Morning holey!

Lemme tell you something… crazy.

This lightbulb, at a fire station in California…

Has been on, NON-STOP, for over120 years!!

You'd be lucky if a modern light bulb were to last 1 year, lol.

For some reason things today just don't seem to last…

Think about it:

Your phone?

Lasts a couple years at best then it gets slow and struggles to hold a charge.

Your laptop? The same.

Your new t-shirt? Got 2 holes in it now.

New lightbulb? Shot after 11 months…

See what I mean?

What is going on here?

Well allow me to explain.

It was the early 1920s.

Thomas Edison had just invented the lightbulb a couple decades prior.

So, by this point, they were starting to get pretty good.

With bulb lifespans approaching 2,500 hours!

That was pretty good.

In fact… a little too good.

So, in 1924 all the world's leading lightbulb company executives got together in Geneva Switzerland and had a “secret” meeting…

Yeah so they all got together and formed what came to be known as the Phoebus Cartel to collectively make all their products worse.

This is why that lightbulb in the fire station still works fine, it was handmade BEFORE the Phoebus cartel came about.

Together the cartel managed to reduce the lifespan of pretty much all the lightbulbs globally from 2500 hours down to just 1000 hours!

Shorter lifespan = More buying = More money for them.

It was called… planned obsolescence!

AKA, planned “this product doesn’t work anymore“.

And over time this idea was replicated ALLLL over, clothing, electronics, automobiles, furniture, home appliances, childrens toys EVERYWHERE!

Screw these guys right?

Stay Cute,
Reece, Henry & Dylan 🌈

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