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0 pointsvkou1y ago0 comments

> They'll never do it because it means decreased profits.

This is a lazy dismissal of any process or efficiency improvements.

If buyers care to pay for efficiency improvements, products with them will be more attractive to them. If they don't, they won't.

If your theory were true, we wouldn't have things like rechargeable batteries, low-energy appliances, or light bulbs that would last more than two months.

There's always some performance point when most people largely stop differentiating products based on efficiency or longevity improvements, and I'm not sure if consumer Li-I batteries are at that point yet.

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userbinator1y ago

or light bulbs that would last more than two months.

Read up on the Phoebus Cartel, and more recently how LED lamps which were supposed to last "almost forever" when the technology was first introduced have not lived up to expectations at all. Also, unlike incandescents, LED lamps can last much longer and be more efficient, but they are deliberately made not to --- with some very narrow exceptions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27093793

gamblor9561y ago

Expensive LED bulbs do live up to the expectations. They also cost about $50/each because those kinds of LED bulbs are expensive to make; it's the other electronics and parts that drive the price tags up.

stephen_g1y ago

Also fittings - none of my (relatively expensive) installed downlights have failed since I put them in seven years ago, partially because they’re well engineered but also since they’re installed how they’re designed to be. But I have a fitting designed for an incandescent bulb and LED replacement bulbs (even decent ones) tend to fail within six to nine months in it, because they were never designed for the heat to escape properly since the incandescent bulbs didn’t really need it. But I have other of the same bulbs in more open fittings and they last fine.

phil211y ago

Yeah, I still have a few of the OG Philips x-prize bulbs going strong well over a decade of use. Plus a half dozen of the follow-ons that look very similar.

I suspect they outlive me at this point.

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