Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2013, as a news item from that month. The later course of Benito Muros and OEP Electrics is not covered here.
I imagine every entrepreneur dreams of bringing a good product to market, ideally without deceiving consumers. That’s exactly the idea entrepreneur Benito Muros put into practice as the creator of OEP Electrics: the world’s first light bulbs with a 25-year warranty that can also be repaired (if they break, you don’t need to throw them away; they can be fixed).
These bulbs are built to last 70, 80 or 100 years, because his products aren’t made with the now-controversial planned obsolescence, a manufacturing approach used by most manufacturers so that products stop working and consumers are forced to replace them.
Ironically, his product is so good that he can’t use the usual sales channels: the distribution market has all but closed its doors to his company. Most customers don’t want his product, because they have no interest in selling bulbs that don’t break. In an interview on TVE’s Repor programme, Benito Muros read out some of the threats he had received. This is what they said, word for word:
“Mr. Muros, you cannot put your lighting line without planned obsolescence on the market. If you reconsider and refrain from doing so, your debts with BBVA bank will be cancelled and you will make large profits in whatever country you choose. If, on the other hand, you decide to go ahead with your plans to sell your product, your assets will be seized, and your life and that of your family will be annihilated.”
Considering that during the construction boom more than 20 million light bulbs a year are estimated to have been sold in Spain alone, it’s clear that this entrepreneur is threatening the industry’s interests.
This opens up another debate, because cases like this show clearly how this world works: full of economic interests pursued at whatever price it takes. If someone had said 30 years ago that products were being made to break on purpose, they would have been called crazy or a conspiracy theorist.
Considering that in this case we’re talking about a light bulb, it gives us the answer to what happens with alternative energy, with engines that don’t need petrol, and with the killing-off of medical research that is on the right track toward curing certain diseases.
The world is going mad. What’s next, politicians stealing? That would be all we need 🙂
I’ll leave you with this interesting documentary about planned obsolescence.
Featured image: Gazebo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
