WEBVTT - Planned Obsolescence and the Right to Repair 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.480 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.759 and a love of all things tech and I recently 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.360 did a series of episodes about General Motors, and one 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.200 of the many things I talked about in those episodes 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.680 was how Alfred Sloan, who was an absolutely critical leader 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:38.480 of GM early on, established a practice of planned obsolescence. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:43.400 That is part of Sloan's market strategy was creating a 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.440 company that every year would release cars that had updated 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.080 styling and features in order to entice not just first 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.040 time car buyers, but people who had already, you know, 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.280 purchased a car in the past. And that got me 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.480 to thinking that I should really talk about planned obsolescence 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:05.120 in general and examine the facts and consider the myths, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.000 and also chat a bit about the right to repair 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.720 movement and recycling, because all of this is kind of 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:18.640 connected together. We're talking about casual consumption of electronic goods, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:24.360 almost a disposable approach to them, and electronic goods are 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.080 not necessarily the best thing in the world to treat 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.240 as disposable, so let's just start off by defining what 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.800 planned obsolescence is really all about. Now. Generally, people talk 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.679 about planned obsolescence as a strategy in which the maker 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.959 of a thing, whether it's a physical good or an 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:49.000 app or whatever, builds into that thing a predetermined end 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.520 of life. In other words, you've already determined how long 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.920 this thing is supposed to last. And the purpose of 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.480 planned obsolescence is to not just sell one thing to 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.840 each cut stomer one time, but to sell many of 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.639 that same thing to every customer over time. It's the 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.959 same reason why a lot of software companies will migrate 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.200 toward a subscription based revenue model, because it's more profitable 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.600 to get customers to regularly give you money than to 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.799 bank on selling them a lot of the same thing 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.520 to a huge customer base. Like if I'm selling a 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.840 software package for two hundred dollars, I'm going to get 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.919 you know, X number of customers, and chances are they're 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.320 not going to buy another product for me for a while. 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.440 If I offer a subscription fee for a much lower 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.560 monthly plan, I might get people locked into that system 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.840 for years and thus make way more money off of 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:48.880 them in the long run than I would if I 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.080 had gone with the big ticket item up front. This 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.880 can actually manifest in lots of different ways. Now, typically 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.840 I get the sense that the popular perception of you know, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.240 planned ups lessons is that companies make stuff that's just 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.280 designed to stop working after a certain number of hours 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:11.000 of operation. So, in other words, the manufacturer isn't making 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.960 products that are meant to stand the test of time. Rather, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.239 these are products that will at some point break down 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:22.079 and either require repairs or a replacement. Now, repairs were 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.200 great if you happen to be the not only the 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:29.440 company that's selling the thing, but you're also the company 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:34.399 that provides maintenance and repair services. Car dealerships often fall 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.560 into this category. You can purchase a car at a dealership, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.920 and then most dealerships have service centers as well, or 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.920 they have you know, an agreement with a service center, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.200 so the dealership can continue to make money off of 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.520 a sale if the salesperson can convince the customer to 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.920 bring the car back to the dealership's service center for 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.400 regular maintenance or repair work. But not all technology has 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.560 the value you of a car. Obviously, there's a lot 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.600 of tech out there that's fairly inexpensive to make, and 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.560 companies might price that technology. It's such a relatively low 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:13.440 cost that a repair might set you back the same 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.880 amount or more than buying just a new version of 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.560 whatever that tech is. For a lot of us, I 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.440 figure the reaction to that as well, I might as 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.240 well buy a new one if I'm going to be 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.279 spending that kind of money. Heck, the new thing of 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.680 a jig might have more features than the old one, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.880 or it might look a little different, you know, more stylish, 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.040 and so we toss aside whatever old thing of a 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:38.719 jig we have and then we go out and buy 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.080 a new one. Or maybe you would actually like to 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.039 do repairs yourself. That's something we're going to chat about 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.880 more towards the end of this episode. But some companies 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.359 have been known to make it challenging or maybe even impossible, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.880 for the end customer to really repair the technology they purchase, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.360 whether it's through using proprietary screws that need up specific 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:05.240 tool to remove them, or actually sealing components into compartments 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.440 with glue and rivets and solder or other fasteners, making 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.680 it impossible to open without risk of causing further damage. 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.359 Companies have used a few different ways to obscure or 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:23.919 impede repairs. M apple or You could also get to 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.760 a point with stuff like cars where it just becomes 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.880 harder to make repairs because it's hard to even determine 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.159 what is wrong with the thing without a special diagnostic 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.640 device like a computer. This is the case with a 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.320 lot of modern cars. You might be able to lift 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.680 the hood and look around a little bit, but some 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.920 vehicles have various covers or engine configurations that make it 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.000 really challenging for the average person to access specific parts 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.880 of the motor, let alone do any work on it. Again, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.440 this limits what you can do with tech once it 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:01.799 starts to fail, and all tech does fail time, because well, 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.159 entropy is something we just can't avoid. It's it's a 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.000 fundamental law of the universe, particularly when it comes to 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.440 cheap technology. This sort of disposable approach has a lot 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.279 of negative drawbacks, including what to do with old tech 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.000 that no longer works. I mean, a lot of technology 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.920 contains stuff that's pretty toxic, so throwing it out in 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.440 the garbage could lead to it ending up in a 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.359 landfill somewhere, and then harmful stuff like lead or mercury 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.760 could leach into the environment. Because of that, that's not great. 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.800 So we'll touch a tiny bit on electronics recycling in 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.479 this episode two. But I have done full episodes about 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.200 e waste recycling, so I'm not going to spend too 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.200 much time on it. And there are often ways to 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:54.279 make older tech obsolete that are not necessarily obvious on 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.000 the face of it. So let's talk about smartphones, for example. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.839 That's an easy one. One of the big trends we 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.320 see in technology is that as devices or components within 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:09.920 devices get more powerful, the software developers end up making 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.120 software that eats up that extra power. Nicholas Worth wrote 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.760 about this pro problem back in the ninety nineties. He 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.880 wrote a paper titled a Plea for Lean Software, and 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.360 his point has essentially boiled down into what we now 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:30.320 call Worth's law, which is that software is getting slower, 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.800 that is, it's getting more resource hungry at a rate 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.520 that's faster than hardware is getting faster. So while subsequent 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.320 generations of hardware are getting more powerful, the requirements of 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.760 software are outpacing that progress, and the end result is 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.480 that we often feel our shiny new devices just aren't 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.400 keeping up as much as we expected them. To. We're 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.200 basing our perception on what the new device should be 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.280 able to do based on what we have right now, 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:04.000 and that's just not how stuff works. Unfortunately, gamers who 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.760 want to be on the bleeding edge of computing capability 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.960 experience this a lot. A top gaming rig would cost 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.840 thousands of dollars. It requires a powerful central processor or CPU, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:22.239 and quite likely multiple powerful graphics processing units or GPUs. Plus, 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.040 you need a power supply that's capable of providing the 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.160 juice that these components need, and you need a killer 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.200 cooling system to make sure the whole thing doesn't overheat. 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.280 And just as you get all of this stuff set 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.080 up and running, the latest games, developers start making games 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.720 that are so resource hungry that even with your killer rig, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.360 you might have to knock a few of the game's 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.360 settings down a couple of notches just to make it 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.160 run smoothly. Meanwhile, you're already anticipating the next big development 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.079 in hardware that will let you move all those sliders 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.319 all the way to the top. That's going to set 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.839 you back a few more thousand dollars, which is brew 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.959 roll with smartphones. We see this happen a lot as 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:08.600 newer models use better processors, and typically new processors are 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.080 usually more powerful and hopefully more efficient, So in other words, 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.400 you're not seeing battery life just plummet from one generation 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.560 to the next, or phones get way bigger because you 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:22.679 need a bigger battery in order to make them last 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:27.080 long enough. Processor technologies follow pretty close to Moore's law, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.640 and we typically interpret that as meaning that a processor's 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:35.000 capabilities effectively double every two years or so. Not the 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.439 same processor, but rather new processors on the market end 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.600 up being twice as powerful as the processors that came 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.240 out two years earlier. That's generally what we mean. More's 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.040 laws more subtle than that, but we won't go into it. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:55.280 Battery life does not follow this same trajectory. It's again 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.480 a law of physics. We're talking about electro chemical reactions, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.199 and so there's not a magic way to make batteries 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.440 just last longer. It requires more incremental improvement. So if 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.520 we only concentrated on making processors more powerful, they would 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.840 just pull more juice per hour than older processors, and 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.160 soon we would have smartphones. They would only have a 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.520 couple of hours of useful battery life. So there is 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.840 a balance to be made here. Meanwhile, smartphone apps still 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.960 follow Worth's law. The apps drawn more processor power or 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.959 the interact with more components, and smartphones like GPS receivers 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.160 or accelerometers or the camera or microphone or some combination 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.000 of all of these and more, and the smartphone operating 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:44.199 systems themselves evolved to support these apps and provide more functionality. Well, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.240 older smartphones just can't keep up with this all the time, 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.360 and so you will often see companies make a cutoff 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.840 for operating system updates. Older phones might stall out at 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:58.920 a certain OS version and be unable to install more 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.640 recent update of the operating system. So you could have 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.880 an Android smartphone that's maybe a few years old, and 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.440 it's running a version of Android that's several generations old 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.480 at this point because Google has determined that the hardware 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:18.880 you're using simply cannot meet the needs of later operating systems. Meanwhile, 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.719 the app developers are focusing on what they can do 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.560 with the most recent OS version, which means you might 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.679 not be able to run a new app with all 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.319 of its features, or you might not even be able 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.600 to run the app at all if you're using an 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.200 older phone. And since apps are what makes smartphones smart. 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.320 That ends up being a big problem, and so now 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:42.880 the incentive is there for you to upgrade your phone 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.240 even if your old phone still works, so that you can, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.199 you know, just use your smartphone the way you want 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.880 to and you're not stuck on older versions of apps. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.800 And that's particularly important because sometimes these older versions of 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.600 apps end up being tied to servers that could go offline, 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.840 or they might swap over to a new process, and 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.240 then you have an outdated smartphone that has a bunch 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:10.079 of inactive apps stored on it and it becomes practically useless. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.800 On a related note, battery life decreases over time and use, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.480 so older batteries just don't hold as much of a 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.280 charge as newer batteries, and they drain faster, which means 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.479 that your older battery operated devices will need recharging more frequently. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:31.359 Apple famously tried to address this problem by purposefully throttling 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.600 the processing speed of older iPhones. The processors would work 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.319 more slowly so that they would consume less battery power, 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.240 thus extending the usefulness of a battery at the cost 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:47.800 of smartphone performance. But Apple didn't, you know, tell anyone 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.079 about it, and a lot of users figured out that 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.480 their devices were slowing down due to age. That's what 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.080 they assumed. It's just, oh, this is older, that's why 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.120 it's getting slower. And in a way that was kind 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.240 of true, but not in the same way that these 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.720 users thought. They just thought, this thing is getting old. 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.120 I need a new one, So they opted to buy 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:11.640 a new, later generation iPhone. But in iPhone, users figured 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.240 out that their phones were being throttled and they had 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.400 no choice in the matter, and that led to a 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.120 big class action lawsuit. As users said, had they known 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.280 what was going on, they would have opted to replace 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.160 the battery in their old iPhone rather than buy a 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.880 brand new iPhone. And I should add that Apple does 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.320 not make it easy for you to do this. You 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.680 really can't replace a battery in your iPhone, at least 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:41.679 not without violating your warranty. But under certain circumstances, like 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.040 if you enroll in Apple Care Plus, then Apple actually 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.920 will replace an iPhone battery free of charge. I say 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.560 free of charge, really, I should say that price is 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.680 included in your enrollment into Apple Care Plus. So for 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.800 those users, the people who had enrolled an app Care Plus, 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.280 they could have chosen to have a new battery put 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.120 into their older iPhone and it would have extended the 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.719 life of that device, but they weren't told about what 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.240 was going on, so instead they opted to buy a 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.560 brand new phone, which was way more expensive. In Apple 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.120 reached a settlement agreement, actually to settlement agreements for two 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.880 different class action lawsuits brought against the company about this 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.400 very issue. The first settlement was for five hundred million dollars, 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.720 a princely some and the second was for another one 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.560 d thirteen million dollars. In both cases, prosecution argued that 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.200 Apple was deliberately hiding the fact that it was throttling 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.480 processing output and that the battery was degrading over time, 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.920 and they knew that most users would opt to upgrade 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.800 to a newer iPhone as long as they didn't realize 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.240 that there was an alternative path they could have taken. Now, 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.760 that pretty much hits the planned obsolescence definition right on 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.920 the nose. So it turns out there are a lot 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.120 of different approaches to planned obsolescence. While the phrase might 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.040 make you think that the company is purposefully making stuff 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.680 that just won't stand the test of time, as in 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.120 the company is choosing to create substandard products, knowing that 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.080 these products will break down and the customer is likely 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.800 to come back and buy another one. Really, that's just 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.480 the tip of the iceberg, and it's usually not even 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.240 the case. If a company's reputation gets tied to the 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.920 idea that the stuff they make breaks easily, that's not 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.720 good for business. And the rest of this episode, we're 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.000 going to take a closer look at some historical examples 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:41.360 of planned obsolescence and what was going on from different perspectives, 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.280 and we'll also get into the right to Repair movement 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.560 and what it might mean to the tech industry moving forward, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.320 assuming the movement actually achieves its goals. But first let's 0:15:52.360 --> 0:16:04.440 take a quick break. We're back and on December twenty three, 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.080 nineteen twenty four, a group of elite entrepreneurs met to 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.200 establish some shady guidelines, which was pretty ironic because they 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.840 were all in the lightbulb business. That's sort of a 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:23.160 pun I guess. Anyway. The leaders represented some of the 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.760 largest light bulb manufacturers in the world. There was General Electric, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.000 the grand daddy of big tech companies in the United States. 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.200 There was the company Phillips from the Netherlands. As Rum, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.480 a company from Germany, had a representative present, and the 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.640 French had their place too, with executives from the company 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:46.680 de Lump, and together they created a powerful idea which 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.280 we can represent as a very large lightbulb turning on 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.840 behind their heads, or at least we could if this 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.320 were a video and not an audio podcast. Their idea 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.720 was to form a new company, an organization that would 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.360 core innate how light bulbs should work, as in how 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.840 bright they should be and how long they should last, 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.040 as well as which company would be allowed to sell 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.399 its products in certain specific regions. It was collusion of 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.200 the highest order, and it violated pretty much every antitrust 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.960 law you can think of. And it became known as 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:24.480 the Phoebus Cartel. Cute huh, because Phoebus is another name 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.360 for Apollo, the god of the sun. Before the cartel, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.160 manufacturers were making light bulbs that could last between fifteen 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.360 hundred and two thousand hours of operation. But the cartel 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.920 collectively decided that their light bulbs should have a life 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:44.600 expectancy of one thousand hours of use. A ha. These 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.440 companies were producing a technology that already had a limited 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.199 lifespan just because of how it works. You know, the 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.520 filaments and light bulbs, the part that actually gives off light. 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.480 They eventually burned through and break, and that's what makes 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:02.240 incandescent lightbulbs die. Clearly, this group of people were all 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.199 agreeing to a worldwide limit on the useful number of 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.359 hours a light bulb would operate in in order to 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.120 sell more light bulbs. Right, they were making a predetermined 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.840 end of life cycle for light bulbs, and by making 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.640 everyone agree to this limitation, no manufacturer would be able 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.640 to defy the others and start selling bulbs that had 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.000 longer lifespans, which would ruin it for everybody else. Now 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.440 you can see the appeal of that narrative, right, rich 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.080 fat cats are cynically limiting a technology just to sell 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:40.120 more light bulbs, while simultaneously creating pressure to prevent any 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.200 other company from offering up a superior product. You could 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.800 just hear the thumbs twiddling, you know, the mustaches waxing, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:54.280 and the chorals chortling. Heck, the cartel would even test 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.359 lightbulbs from each manufacturer, and if any of those lightbulbs 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.080 proved to have a lifespan that as well beyond those 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.560 one thousand hours of operation, the cartel would find the 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:11.359 responsible manufacturer keep those light bulbs lives shorter or else. 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.560 But if we want to be a little more fair, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.960 we should take into consideration another factor. As light bulbs age, 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.120 they would give off less light. Incandescent bulbs, they are 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.720 less luminously efficient in other words, And so the counter 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.240 argument was made that by limiting the lifespan to one 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:36.960 thousand hours, it was more about maximizing luminous efficiency. It 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.360 was to make certain that the light bulbs were providing 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.359 enough light throughout their lifespans and not just turning into 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.320 increasingly dim light sources. So there was an argument being 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.000 made that the restriction of the lifespan was more about 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.280 improving the quality of the performance of light bulbs rather 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.560 than speeding up the need to replace those light bulbs. 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.359 It was a compelling enough argument to lead the u 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.720 K's Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission to give the companies 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.480 some slack with that regard, though there were many other 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.479 things the Phoebus Cartel did that did not get a 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.720 free pass, but those are more market focused than tech focused, 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.359 so I'm not going to go into them. The cartel itself, 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.639 by the way, dissolved in the late nineteen thirties, not 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.679 because of government pressure, or at least not the kind 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.240 of regulation pressure, but because of a little thing called 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.760 World War two. Now, I suspect that the decision to 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.880 arrive at one thousand hours of useful life was guided 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:42.520 both by practical considerations and good old fashioned greed. So 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.399 I suspect there is some truth to both of the 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:51.440 scenarios I mentioned, or if you listen to ridiculous history scenarios, 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.439 and considering that some of the other moves that the 0:20:55.480 --> 0:21:00.520 cartel made, like namely price fixing, you definitely cannot count 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.520 greed out because that was the primary motivator for those decisions. 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:06.720 But there are at least some people who are a 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:10.520 little more charitable toward the idea of limiting bulb lifespan 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.320 in an effort to favor better luminous efficiency. So we'll 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.560 move on. The next big example is the one that 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:20.840 I mentioned earlier and talked about a little bit in 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.600 my episodes about General Motors. This was the GM under 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.800 Alfred B. Sloan, the man who took a big mess 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.840 of companies that were acquired by GM founder William C. Durant, 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.480 and then he organized all of this mishmash into individual 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.960 business units looking over specific makes of car, and each 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.000 of those units had a great deal of autonomy between them. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:48.000 He was also a consummate capitalist, and I don't necessarily 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.199 mean that in a flattering way. He had a habit 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.800 of focusing on profits and ignoring people. But you can 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.119 learn more about that in the GM episodes. One of 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.520 Sloan's many contributions to the automotive industry was the introduction 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:08.480 of stylistic changes to various car models year over year. 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.800 In the early days of automobiles, the dominating manufacturer was 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:17.320 the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford's company produced the famous 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.960 Model T. Ford and first introduced that Model T in 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:25.160 nineteen o eight, and it remained in production until nineteen 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:30.359 twenty seven. By n this was a mass produced cars, 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:34.879 so on a huge scale. Ford dominated car sales in 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:40.000 the United States for like decades now. Allegedly, Ford himself 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.919 once said that there was no use in overtaking and 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.520 passing a Model T on the road, because you would 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.359 just find yourself behind a different Model T. That's how 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:55.080 commonplace they were. He also reportedly said that a customer 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.560 could get a Model T and whatever color they wanted 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.600 as long as it was black. While the company would 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.080 offer Model T s and other colors up to nineteen fourteen, 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:09.960 between nineteen fourteen and nineteen Ford only churned out black 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:14.600 Model T cars. This meant that Ford's factories could build 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.880 nearly identical cars, one right after the other, using mass 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:23.119 production techniques, thus increasing efficiency and keeping costs down. And 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.919 it also meant that Ford could sell these cars at 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:31.000 affordable prices. They were meant to be practical, durable, and reliable. 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.240 That's how he made so many early sales. Now there 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:38.040 was a big emphasis on uniformity and consistency, in other words, 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:40.960 because those are things that make it easier to mass 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.520 produce something. And Alfred Sloan saw an opportunity to appeal 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.920 to people on a different level over at General Motors. 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:51.679 He thought it would be a good idea to change 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.280 up the style of a model of car on a 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.960 regular basis. At a glance, you would be able to 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:01.600 give a ballpark estimate of the year when a certain 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.399 model came out due to distinguishing features that were on 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.000 that car. You know, maybe the headlights are in a 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.159 slightly different spot, or maybe the car has a different 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:13.280 kind of grill on the front of it, or maybe 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.159 you put a pair of big old tail fins on 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.760 the back of the thing. That's the sort of thing 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:22.399 that Sloan was thinking about. Harley Earl, a man whom 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.280 many historians credit as the first professional designer to work 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:29.600 in the automotive industry, worked was Sloan to make this 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:32.920 vision a reality, and Earl would sculpt models out of 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.720 clay and then mold them in different ways to create 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:40.480 new features, and as tastes changed, he could reflect that 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:44.520 in different car body designs, and now cars could appeal 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:49.280 to people by embodying certain design trends. This approach meant 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:53.360 that cars now had a sort of planned obsolescence. As 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:58.440 time passes, fashions change and older cars will pass out 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:02.520 of fashion. Out of style, they'll become unfashionable, and that 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:06.520