Products Companies Killed Because They Lasted Too Long

There’s a light bulb in a fire station in Livermore, California that has been burning since 1901. That’s 125 years. It’s been moved twice, survived two world wars, outlasted the companies that made it, and has its own webcam so anyone on the internet can watch it glow right now.

Your LED bulb is rated for 15,000 hours. About 10 years if you leave it on 4 hours a day. The Livermore bulb has logged over a million hours.

The difference isn’t magic or luck. It’s the fact that the Livermore bulb was built before a group of executives decided that products lasting too long was a business problem that needed solving.

The Phoebus Cartel: When “Too Durable” Became a Boardroom Problem

In 1925, the world’s largest lightbulb manufacturers held a meeting in Geneva. Philips, Osram, General Electric, and several others had a shared problem: their bulbs lasted too long. By the early 1920s, manufacturers had figured out how to build bulbs that lasted 2,500 hours. Customers bought them once and didn’t come back.

Their solution was to form the Phoebus Cartel — named after Apollo, the sun god — and agree to engineer failure into every bulb they sold. Members were required to produce bulbs that failed at 1,000 hours. Anyone who made a bulb that lasted longer was fined by the cartel for it. They raised prices at the same time.

They sold it to consumers as “improved efficiency.” The actual innovation was making something worse on purpose and calling it better.

The cartel broke up during World War II, but its logic never died. The Livermore bulb is the proof of what they killed.

DuPont Nylon: The Original Planned Obsolescence Story

DuPont introduced nylon stockings at the 1939 World’s Fair and women immediately understood what they were looking at: hosiery that didn’t run, didn’t tear, and didn’t need replacing. The first production stockings sold 64 million pairs in their first year.

Then the DuPont executives ran the math. If these stockings never wear out, every customer buys one pair and that’s it. The market saturates in a year.

So they went back to the lab — not to make nylons better, but to make them fail. They weakened the fiber, engineered the denier to ladder and run, and then marketed the fragility as a feature. “Delicate” and “sheer” became selling points. The consumable was born.

Every fast-fashion brand you’ve ever bought from learned from this playbook. The goal was never to make you a customer once. It was to make you a customer forever.

Pyrex: Same Brand, Different Glass

Corning Glass Works developed Pyrex in 1915 using borosilicate glass — a material that could go from a 400-degree oven directly to a cold countertop without shattering. It was genuinely indestructible in normal kitchen use. People passed their Pyrex down through generations.

In 1998, Corning sold the Pyrex brand. The new owners switched the US formulation from borosilicate to soda-lime glass. Cheaper to make. Breaks under thermal shock. Thousands of documented injuries from shattering dishes. Lawsuits.

The original Pyrex was too good. It lasted generations, so they killed it by replacing it with something that looks identical, kept the same logo, and breaks when you do the thing you’ve always done with it.

The kicker: in Europe, Pyrex is still borosilicate. Same brand, different product depending on where you live. If you want the original glass, buy European Pyrex or look for vintage American pieces at thrift stores. The old ones are unmistakably heavier.

HP LaserJet 4: The Printer That Printed for 30 Years

The HP LaserJet 4, released in 1992, is the most BIFL printer ever made. Metal chassis. Rebuildable drums. Replaceable fusers. A $50 rebuild kit let you completely overhaul it. Rated for 300,000+ pages before needing major service.

Many are still running today — over 30 years later. Go search eBay. They sell for $50–200 because people who know, know.

HP hated this. A printer that lasts 30 years doesn’t sell toner. Doesn’t sell ink subscriptions. Doesn’t generate recurring revenue. So modern HP printers are engineered with plastic gears that crack under normal use, firmware chips that reject non-HP cartridges, and toner expiration dates that lock out perfectly good ink.

The LaserJet 4 was killed not by being bad, but by being too good. The replacement costs less to buy and infinitely more to own.

Apple’s Batterygate: A $500M Settlement for Engineered Slowdowns

In 2017, Apple admitted it had been deliberately slowing down older iPhones through software updates. The stated reason was “to prevent unexpected shutdowns” due to aging batteries. What users experienced was their perfectly functional two-year-old iPhone suddenly running like it was underwater — right around the time a new model launched.

Apple settled the class action lawsuit for $500 million in 2020. That’s not a rounding error. That’s the cost of getting caught doing what the Phoebus Cartel did a century earlier, just with software instead of tungsten.

The fix, if you have an older iPhone, costs $49–99 for a battery replacement from Apple. A new phone costs $700–1,400. You can guess which option Apple made easier to find.

John Deere: Farmers Can’t Fix Their Own Tractors

A John Deere tractor costs $500,000+. It’s also, in the eyes of John Deere’s lawyers, not entirely yours. The software that runs the engine management system is licensed, not sold. If the tractor breaks and you try to fix it yourself — or take it to an independent mechanic — the onboard computer detects unauthorized repair and can disable the machine.

Farmers found this out during harvest season, with crops in the field and a $500,000 machine sitting dead because the authorized dealer couldn’t show up for three weeks.

The FTC and 17 state attorneys general filed suit against John Deere in 2025 for illegal repair monopoly practices. As of early 2026, the trial is proceeding. The irony: older John Deere tractors from the 1970s and 1980s routinely run for 50+ years with basic mechanical maintenance. The newer the tractor, the more locked down you are.

Modern Appliances Last 40% Less Than They Did in the 1990s

The European Environmental Bureau documented this in 2018: modern appliances fail 40% sooner than equivalent products from the 1990s. Washing machines, refrigerators, dishwashers — across the board, expected lifespan has gotten shorter as the machines got more sophisticated.

This isn’t because engineering got worse. It’s because business models changed. Repair revenue, extended warranties, and replacement cycles are more profitable than 20-year appliances.

The exception that proves the rule: Speed Queen. Their TC5 washer ($1,100–1,300) is rated for 10,400 wash cycles — roughly 25 years at normal use — uses a simple mechanical timer instead of a computerized control panel prone to failure, and is the last major washer still manufactured in the US (Ripon, Wisconsin). It costs twice what a cheap washer costs. It also lasts three times as long.

How to Spot Planned Obsolescence Before You Buy

The patterns repeat. Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

Material substitution: Same brand, cheaper material. Pyrex is the textbook case. Watch for this in cast iron pans (weight reduction = thinner walls = worse heat retention), leather goods (full-grain replaced by bonded leather), and kitchen knives (forged replaced by stamped with cosmetic forge lines).

Software locks: You own the hardware, but the manufacturer controls the software. This applies to tractors, printers, medical equipment, HVAC systems, and increasingly kitchen appliances. The right question before buying: “Can this be repaired without the manufacturer’s software tools?”

Parts discontinuation: The product still works but spare parts disappear 3–5 years after launch. Ask how long the company commits to making replacement parts. Leatherman: 25-year warranty, parts available indefinitely. Most consumer electronics: you’re on your own after year four.

Sealed batteries: A product with a non-replaceable battery has a built-in failure date. Wireless headphones, earbuds, smartphones, power tools, cordless vacuums. The battery dies and the product dies with it. Wired alternatives outlast wireless counterparts by 3–5x. r/BuyItForLife put it bluntly last month: “The headphone market today is a total dumpster fire of planned obsolescence. Between battery degradation in tiny buds and cheap plastic hinges, it feels like buying a subscription service you didn’t sign up for.”

What Still Survives This

The products that have beaten planned obsolescence share something: they either sell to professionals who absolutely cannot have their tools fail, or their brand identity is built so completely around durability that degrading the product would destroy the brand.

Lodge Cast Iron — same pan since 1896. No moving parts, no software, can’t be remotely disabled. Lodge cast iron at Amazon

Darn Tough Socks — unconditional lifetime replacement guarantee, merino wool that actually holds up, made in Vermont. They explicitly built their business around beating the disposable-clothing model. Darn Tough socks at Amazon

Leatherman Wave+ ($100–110) — 25-year warranty, replacement parts sold separately, same fundamental design since 1983. It’s the most BIFL multi-tool on the market. Leatherman Wave+ at Amazon

Victorinox Fibrox Pro 8-inch Knife ($40–50) — lifetime guarantee against defects, NSF certified, used in professional kitchens for 40 years. Victorinox Fibrox Pro at Amazon

Wahl Clippers — the 8110 has been in production since 1919, electromagnetic motor still runs 30-year-old units, used in professional barbershops where tools must keep working. Wahl clippers at Amazon

The EU Is Starting to Fight Back

The EU’s Right to Repair directive took effect in 2024, requiring manufacturers to offer repair services at reasonable prices, provide access to spare parts, and offer repair incentives — effective July 2026 for covered product categories. France has gone further: fines up to €300,000 and up to two years in prison for companies found deliberately shortening product lifespans.

The US is behind. The FTC has issued guidelines but federal legislation remains stalled. The John Deere trial, if it wins, sets precedent that extends well beyond tractors.

Until then, the Centennial Bulb is still burning in Livermore. It doesn’t know it was supposed to fail. That’s the entire point.