The light bulb conspiracy

The lightbulb conspiracy is a documentary about the conception of Planned Obsolescence and how it shaped manufacturing and consumerism during the Twentieth Century.

Planned Obsolescence is a decision made by the manufacturers or designers of a product, purposely design, manufacture and distribute a product to become obsolete or non-functional, to force a customer to buy a next generation product.  This is decision is often made even before the next generation of products has been conceived.

From a business perspective this is remarkable, at the beginning of the 1920s, a group of businessmen were struck by the following insight: 'A product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business”. A positive of mass manufacturing in the 1920s was that many goods became widely available and were very affordable, this is one of the first cases where people began shopping for fun.

The industrial revolution saw the real rise in planned obsolescence; this is because of the massive growth in mass manufacturing. “The whole issue with products being made to last not as ling is part of a whole pattern that came about in the industrial revolution, when new machines were producing goods so much more cheaply which was a good thing for consumers could not keep up with the machines, there was too much production.

The light bulb a symbol of innovation and new ideas was the first victim of this decision, its lifespan reduced increasing the amount of light bulbs that consumers had to purchase every year. The title of the documentary the light bulb conspiracy is ironic it is often used as a symbol for innovation or a new idea, however in the manufacturing world it has a very high consumption rate, it embodies the practice of planned obsolescence.

I think that this documentary views us consumers as a society that has been trained by marketing, business strategies, and the frivolous nature of consumerism. But I think that this is only relevant to the consumer market, ie lower price brackets of product lines. Buying goods of higher quality with less frequency is much more beneficial than buying less expensive goods more frequently.  

Take home Messages:

Planned obsolescence was concieved in the 1920s

Growth can not always be sustained