How the light bulb became a planned-obsolescence story
The light bulb is often cited as an early example of a product deliberately given a shorter useful life. The idea was simple: a bulb that lasted longer meant fewer replacement sales. In the 1920s, major manufacturers in the Phoebus cartel coordinated around a shorter target lifespan for bulbs, rather than competing to make them last as long as possible.
A tradeoff built into the design
An incandescent bulb makes light by heating a thin wire filament until it glows. The filament gradually wears away as it heats and cools; eventually, it breaks and the bulb goes dark. Making a filament thicker or running it at a lower temperature can extend its life, but those choices also affect brightness, efficiency, and production cost.
Manufacturers could therefore influence how long a bulb lasted through design choices. The cartel’s target was roughly 1,000 hours, down from the longer lifetimes some bulbs had achieved. This was not a hidden switch that made every bulb fail at the same moment: individual bulbs still varied, and ordinary wear remained the immediate cause of failure. The commercial incentive lay in setting a shorter standard across products.
Why the example still matters
A bulb is a particularly clear case because its failure is visible and replacement is routine. It also shows the tension behind planned obsolescence: a product can be made to work better for the seller precisely by making it less durable for the buyer. The story is often called the first such case, though “first” is difficult to establish; what made the light bulb memorable was the organized effort to limit how long a widely used product would serve.
