On September 29th I wrote:
I remember a few years ago when “corkscrew bulbs” finally met my price point. …I thought to myself; “This is great. I wonder how they’ll screw it up? Probably some tofu eating jackoff will outlaw the regular bulbs.“
And so it has come to pass. 2014 is the cutoff date. Of course we’re shipping jobs overseas too. I’m sure loving those imaginary green jobs that The One promised.
Mostly Cajun added the following tidbit of data:
Today in History – October 1
1880 – First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison. These are rapidly going the way of buggy whip factories.
There you have it. A consumer good was invented and manufactured on American soil (and sold profitably!) for 130 years. It survived such horrible events as a Great Depression, two World Wars, Disco, and the AMC Gremlin . Buggy whips (or rather horses) were supplanted by something better (any car except the AMC Gremlin) but it took environmental regulation to kill light bulbs and ship the jobs overseas.
I’m impressed by that. 130 years of basically the same technology yet it doesn’t seem archaic in the modern world. A good run by any standards. Who knows how long it would have lasted without the helpful bureaucrats? I’ll bet 200 was in the running.