The Men Who Made Us Spend

[Jabba]

I'm surprised this BBC programme hasn't been mentioned here

Swatch, Ikea, CAD - all responsible for our throwaway society. Really ?

[Michael Chare]

The bit about incandescent light bulbs was interesting, but was it totally true? AIUI, bulbs that last longer use more power for a given light output and therefore may so cost effective.

[Johny B Good]

The revelation of the lightbulb cartel was a little misleading in failing to mention that there was, in this case, a sound technical reason for designing to a 1000 hour lifetime rather than a 2000 hour lifetime.

The industry does offer a 'long life' 2000 hour rated lamp for use where the extended lamp replacement costs reduction outweighs the higher electrity costs involved with using lamps of lower luminous efficacy.

Obviously, the cartel preferred the more efficient 1000 hour rating since it effectively doubled demand. You could make a tungsten filament lamp that would last 100,000 hours if you were prepared to pay for the tenfold increase in electrical consumption for the same percieved colour temperature by use of filters incorporated in a lamp of one fifth or so luminous efficacy of the 1000 hour lamp.

I was rather surprised that the cartel had decreed self imposed penalties for departing from the 1000 hour life rating by relatively small deviations from the ideal. It rather begs the question as to how would they find out? Presumably, random purchasing and life testing of each other's product.

Compared to the tricks by the likes of Apple (and Microsoft who, notably, were ignored) and Ikea and Swatch, this Lightbulb Cartel was positively benign. The treatment of the Lightbulb cartel was a little unfair to say the least. True, it was a very early example of a cartel driven form of 'obsolence' but of a product that was (and is) accepted as being a 'throwaway consumable' in the first place.

Apart from that less than accurate treatment of 1920s light bulb manufacturers, the rest of the program seemed to pretty well sum up the the way that big business/retail has taken PT Barnum's truism that "There's one born every minute' to heart. Global marketting(sp?) has always been about manipulating populations into becoming 'dutiful consumers', after all, it's what makes the world go round.

The push for clean and safe nuclear power (LFTR) might actually come from these same companies when they realise that such levels of 'consumerism' will become unsustainable once the fossil fuels run out.

I can imagine them running re-education programs to rectify the false beliefs held by the 'eco-green warrior' class of deluded fools (not all delusional beliefs are good for global business enterprises).

Our salvation as the dominent species on this planet might well come from these 'evil companies' once the penny has finally dropped' as to which industries (eg. Oil Industry) to penalise for their counterproductive activities to the scheme of an everlasting exploitation of the consumer class.

Market forces might indeed prove to be the way forward, especially as such industries seem to be taking more of an interest in 'foreign policy' than our current 'democratic' governments seem to be doing. I'm sure these companies would rather see less conflict and more political stability worldwide to further their ambitions.

I'm not claiming that this will actually happen, just suggesting that a solution to the global problems could, logically speaking, come from the most surprising of sources (assuming that global nirvana is at all possible).

[tim.....]

They did mention that - they implied it was a "ruse".

And in any case coming up with a "system" of fine for exceeding the 1000 hours doesn't allow the manufactures to provide a "commercial" choice.

for which, under the above agreement they would have been "fined" (apparently)

I don't agree

It was an industry wide agreement. Such things are the worst cancer of all. Individual companies "encouraging" you to buy more of "their" product using marketing "tricks", when you have perfectly acceptable alternative choices, is the benign case here.

tim

[Brian Gaff]

Not sure about that. I'd have thought going back a lot longer than that one can trace the throw away thing. It was when they stopped repairing consumer electronics and priced stuff so low you just threw the old one.

Anyone for a transistor radio form the 60s? Brian

[tim.....]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned anything from the new George Clark series.

(perhaps it's hidden under a non obvious title)

tim

[Andy Burns]

Or the one on the construction of Crossrail ...

[tim.....]

No, I don't buy it either.

It was cheap manufacture in China that did that.

I've never heard of anybody throwing away a Swatch on a regular basis. I only know one person who has one and for her it was a "one time" special purchase.

And whilst people might replace IKEA furniture more frequently than others I don't think many people throw it away on an annual basis (or even when they move house). The inconvenience of having to have large stuff delivered (and dumping the old one), stops most people from doing that.

And the idea that the miners (and others) when on strike because they "thought that they were being excluded from the consumer society" is just made up nonsense.

They went on strike because they "wanted more money" - end of. They were just as likely to want it to spend on extra beer, than a proliferation of consumer goods.

tim

[Andrew Gabriel]

Lamp efficiency wasn't a big factor back then from the energy cost perspective, indeed some people were still paying for electricity by the number lampholders rather than actual usage.

So whilst what they did actually makes perfect sense today (and lamp life should probably have been reduced to 750 hours here, as it was in the US for many types of lamp), it wasn't done for those reasons back then.

However, that was a different time, and cartels were not frowned upon as much as they are today.

Cartels still exist today, but they work differently. With the number of lamp manufactures significantly reduced, they put pressure on the regulators to ban the types of lamp they can no longer make a good margin on, as a means to keep their high margin products selling. The cartel tends to be between a manufacturer and a regulator now - it's easier than actually competing in the marketplace.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Beer IS a consumer good.

[Tim Streater]

I have an IKEA bed bought in 1980 - in Switzerland. Subsequently it went to California and came back with me to the UK. It has been dis- and re-mantled a number of times as a result of all these moves. I bought a second such bed 20 years ago and that is going strong, too.

These are perfectly good and comfortable beds, which are able to be moved easily from house to house (whether the designers had that in mind at the time, I neither know or care).

[Andrew]

UK 240 volt bulbs used to work in France on 230V, and lasted longer but gave out less light. The reverse also took some people by surprise when they bought cheap bulbs on the shopping cruises that used to be popular

25 years ago. Gave out lots of light (here) and went pop very quickly.

Since about last November, the voltage where I live in west sussex has definately dropped. My plug-in watt-o-meter always showed 242 volts, for years and years. For a brief period in ?2011 it was showing 187 volts (*) and then recovered. Now it shows 230 volts, but I can't remember the exact date when it changed. I believe it was late last year. I thought harmonization just resulted in the upper and lower limits being altered ?.

There is a Woolworths 60 watt bulb in my bathroom, that was there when I moved here in 1991, and it is still going strong. Maybe not on for very long, but it still gets switched on/off regularly.

(*) And about 6 months later the electro-mechanical thermostat in my Liebherr fridge failed - ?connection.

[DerbyBorn]

I think the tale of the cartel was made to sound a bit dodgy. In reality it was probably more about creating a level playing field to simplify things. A bulb could be made with 4 time the life - but with lower light output. I guess the cartel was trying to standardise the situation by making all bulbs fairly equal so that claims for double life (and lower output) would not confuse the punters.

[whisky-dave]

What about the matress, I know peole that don;t own a bed, why would a person need a bed as all it does is hold the matress above the floor.

[DerbyBorn]

I recall that British makers of radios and televisions never offered export models. The UK market alone is not sufficient to keep a production line at its most efficient.

[Scott M]

Possibly they've replaced your local transformer and it's been made to the harmonised spec for nominal voltage?

[charles]

A lot of the blame for the decline of the UK tv manufacturing industry must be laid at the door of Which?. They told their readers that British tvs were unreliable while Japanese ones were reliable. The joint GEC/Hitachi factory in South Wales had to stop putting GEC badges on sets since nobody wanted to buy them.

[Capitol]

British sets were designed as cheaply as possible for the UK market. They were incapable of being operated over wide temperature/humidity and altitude ranges. No UK manufacturer was prepared to invest in redesigning the product for the ultra competitive US market. Japanese products were more reliable as they had defined the problem areas, mains switches/volume controls and flyback transformers and spent money on those area components. The Admiralty would have approved a Japanese on/off switch, it was so well designed. The UK market was rental, a failure rate was necessary to keep the customer paying. The target was one fault per 12 months. Many Japanese sets were poorly assembled, Sanyo comes to mind, but because the customer didn't see the in cabinet bodges, and they stayed working and thus sold.

[Tim Watts]

Our Sanyo (1975 ish) was a piece of junk.

Blew a chroma panel (big and complicated PCB). Always twitchy.

The Hitachi that replaced it however lasted over 15 years and gave excellent service.

[spuorgelgoog]

My father used to say that his Datsun was the first car he'd ever owned that came from the factory with no faults.

Owain