I wasn’t sure whether not to set a smiley icon for this topic but I’m rather serious. Today, there are incandescent/fluorescent/HID bans being discussed here. But times might come when LEDs will be banned. Why? I’ve tried to invent a short story, a predictive fiction how things could develop.
Any additions, modifications or alternative versions are welcome! Enjoy!


Paris, 2024. Meeting of once renowned lamp manufacturers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, now our LIDs (lighting intelligent devices) have been successfully produced for more than a year. Their efficiency can be compared to that of the best LEDs. The lamps can have any shape you imagine as we can freely set the density of the material. There is no problem with overheating. The rated lamp life is more than 100,000 hours.
All of this is for our customers. But our LIDs are also very beneficial to us, to their manufacturers. The technologies used are very difficult to copy so the Chinese aren’t going to succeed so easily.
Planned obsolescence is no longer needed as every single lamp now has an Internet connection. We’ve learned a lot from software companies how things should be done. Every customer can decide if they want 1, 2, 3 or 5-year subscription. This sets the initial price of the lamp. When the subscription ends, they must pay for the next period. If they don’t, the lamp power is limited to 50% for 50 days and then it is turned off.”
“The only problem is”, someone added, “that nobody wants them. In spite of heavy advertising only several thousands of pieces have been sold worldwide”.
“Yeah. The problem is those cheap LEDs. There are literally thousands of Chinese manufacturers who make them ridiculously cheap. They don’t even bother with correct setting of the planned obsolescence so nobody needs anything. This is our curse. But what can we do?”
“Haven’t you tried to ask Burson-Marsteller?”

“Hello. We need to stop people from buying LEDs. And not only that. It could be great if they throw away the lamps that are still working and started to buy our newly developed LIDs. Do you think it is possible?
“Of course, it is. Through the Teflon/aluminium story.”
“Sorry?”
“In 1960s when Teflon was introduced, people already had had their pots and pans and were used to buy ones made from the aluminium. So the Teflon manufacturers spread the rumour that the aluminium is very harmful for your kidney and this way the Teflon dishes started being sold. And we’d be very glad to help you to do the same with LEDs. It’d also help if you involved some Chinese manufacturers and made them produce LEDs that explode after some time of being used, for example. Nothing very serious.”
“Sounds good!”

Later in 2024. Testimonials in media.
A farmer from Ohio: “I turned on the light in my garage and pop!!! Those damned LEDs. I almost had a heart attack.”
A teacher from Berlin: “We were having our German lesson when it occurred. Children panicked as they were afraid of terrorists. One girl broke her arm.”
And a different kind...
A 75-yearold pensioner from Madrid: “My eyes were just perfect until the last year when my grandson gave me those damned LEDs. In few months, the cataract has developed in both my eyes.”
A 48-yearold shop assistant from Sydney: “When they replaced the bulbs in our shop I thought that it is just not such pleasant light. But when my skin cancer appeared I can’t but blame those stupid LEDs.”

2025. Well paid scientists.
“We aren’t sure what’s the issue but it’s almost clear that LED lamps may cause severe health problems. We suggest that people should not use them, if possible.”

Later in 2025. Lobbyists.
“We can grant you that various economical problems occur if you don’t vote for the LED ban.”

2026.
LEDs are banned for general lighting purposes. Only low power special applications are allowed. LIDs are suggested as the best alternative. Manufacturers offer discounts for 5-year subscriptions.

Oh god...! I hope I never see the day when you have to subscribe to a hardware device for it to work!

Oh god...! I hope I never see the day when you have to subscribe to a hardware device for it to work!

Too late:
- (not exactly needing a subscribe, but paying extra, so not that far) VW Golf V (and many other cars): The difference in wheelspeed between left and right side and it's response to acceleration and breaking is evaluated by the ABS unit, so the unit is able to differentiate between complete wheel slip needing an action and just "flat tire" slight slipping, needing a bit different response. That functionality is working in all cars, as it is part of the mandatory ABS.
But when you have paid about 500Euro extra, the detected flat tire will light up a warning light on an instrument cluster. Note the LED behind that symbol is populated on all cars as well, you may notice it lighting with the "Christmass tree" lamp check after switching ON the ignition.

- one of the Agilent "Mid range" "Infiniium" oscilloscope has two BNC's extra, labeled "GEN1" and "GEN2". At the same time there are two keys, again with labels "GEN1" and "GEN2". When new, by pressing one of those keys you activate a "generator" menu, so the unit works as a functional generator as well. But only for few months. Then after pressing any of the "GEN" key, just a window appear on the screen reading "To allow generator functionality, please obtain a license..."

- Credence MicroFlex family of automated testers for integrated circuits is in fact a kit, where you may assemble different cards according to your needs, of course there are software functions allowing your test program to use them. But with many instruments you sooner or later hit a performance limit. But how to go further? Not by replacing the card for some more advanced one, you just have to buy a "license" allowing you to set the card parameters further (e.g. sampling speed of a digitizer, memory size for the digital card, even things like range of available output levels of the digital outputs: Basic is from -1 to +6, with extra license it can suddenly drive -2..+10 or so). So most of the HW works with the most advanced properties they offer, but are artificially restricted...

But to be honest, with both cases above it does make quite a sense, as the manufacturing cost of the hardware is small fraction of the total expenses the makers had to pay, because these are quite technically challenging low volume products. The majority is the development and support cost (mainly with the tester; there are no more than few 100's of similar devices in use around the complete globe), which is linked to the top performance, so using 3x more expensive components for even the cheapest options to allow quick upgrade later is worth to spend.

LEDs are pretty new. I doubt that they will be banned right away. I rather buy those than incandescent. LEDs will get better in time. I am sure they are much better than long flourescents and the incandescents. LEDs will likely be the last bulbs to be banned.

LEDs have their uses, but when they are driven at high power for general illumination, they cannot last as long as fluorescent tubes. Good quality LEDs for general lighting can last 10,000 to 30,000 hours, while fluorescent tubes can last 20,000 to 65,000 hours (and even longer in certain applications).
The LEDs from the 1970s and '80s that lasted over 100,000 hours were operated at low power for indicator lights. When the diodes are operated at higher power, they produce more light but their life is greatly reduced.

Interesting scenario depicted above!

Just to make make sure, this is NOT against LEDs. I just wanted to show that LEDs might become unwanted one day and how to get rid of them...

@TheMaritimeMan, Medved:
Even things as ordinary as inkjet printer cartridges have an internal chip preventing you from refilling them. If you Google a bit, you can find reset toolkits allowing you to refill the ink and use the cartridge repeatedly many times. And manufacturers do hate that. Haven't you seen those HP "warnings" that your printouts are going to be low-quality and that you can destroy your printer this way? A load of BS.

It could be the same with lamps. Once online (a new protocol transferred via mains), the manufacturers could offer something like periodical "health checks" (e.g. temperatures, resistances etc.) of the lamps. And warnings may occur - if you bypass their connection (in order to avoid the next payment), you may risk setting your house on fire etc. And people will prefer paying.

Haven't you seen those HP "warnings" that your printouts are going to be low-quality and that you can destroy your printer this way?

Nope, because my only printers are a 1993 HP LaserJet 4P and a 2000 HP DeskJet 932C.  

But yes, I do know about HP's cartridge expiration, and I think it's ridiculous. At least they don't do it on all their printers.

Truth is, if you completely empty the reservoir, the ink may dry out in the head and so destroy it. And some poor quality ink may do that as well. So from that perspective the warning is on it's place, once only just the ink cartridge (and not the printing head) are to be replaced.
Originally the motivation was to prevent from such damage by ensuring there is sufficient amount of ink even for the worst case printing (versus the ink consumption metering method), so it will never get empty happen without warning. But that mean there should be build in margin, so normally the warning will appear way before the ink get completely consumed, that's normal.

So if the only thing what it does is the warning message, I won't consider it as bad, you may ignore it if you wish to do so. Of course, it is at your own risk of damaging the head, ignoring the message and/or refilling with not original ink will void the warranty for the printer head, that's OK as well.

But when the printer really actively block the printing, it becomes nasty practice, there is no safety reason or so, the worst what may happen is not working print head...


And by the way similar warnings are with many projection or lighting equipment using those compact HID's. There the operation is monitored by the electronic and when it reaches certain level, it recommends the user to replace the lamp. Now I have many times heard the "Replacing the lamp each year is ridiculous, they want to just boost sale of their lamps, I just ignore it". Well, some month after that, the same guy was crying, how "s****y these lamps are, they just exploded and ruined my projector". Well, I just asked, if he replaced the lamp when he warning light appeared, he was really looking like an idiot :-)...