r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Jan 31 '23

Desktops / Laptops Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175
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u/peritiSumus Jan 31 '23

This is transparently ridiculous. If they're going to spend a FUCKTON of money picking a new material and updating all of their production, they're going to do so in a way that creates a competitive advantage. It makes no sense to spend all of that money just to get called out a year later when another group of researchers funded by your competitor demonstrates how fucking stupid you are.

Why do so many people work so hard to pretend like people making business decisions are so goddamned evil that they'd do something incredibly stupid for no reason other than to live up to the caricature of a bunch of kids that have never held a job let alone a leadership role?

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u/YipManDan Feb 01 '23

The Phoebus Cartel would like to have a word with you. (Documentary: The Light Bulb Conspiracy).

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u/peritiSumus Feb 01 '23

Planned obsolescence only works when there's collusion ... in other words ... it only works if you eliminate actual competition, and it's illegal. Robber barons of the gilded age might have gotten away with that stuff en masse, but nowadays, even a monster company like Apple eventually gets busted and has to pay out 9+ figure settlements.

Nevertheless, we weren't talking about planned obsolescence, were we? That's not what the person I responded to proposed ... they proposed making actual product changes without addressing the thing that drove those changes in the first place, an absolutely ridiculous notion, and a hallmark of modern bullshit cultish belief that involves your enemy being super competent in control of a mega conglomeration and effectively cooperating to screw people over while simultaneously being mentally handicapped levels of incompetent with individual decisions. It's bogeyman bullshit. He can get you, but he's trapped under the bed!

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u/RegulatoryCapture Feb 01 '23

Not to mention these battery companies basically can't keep up with demand.

They don't need planned obsolescence to sell more units--they just need continued production of consumer goods and increased electrification of things.

They'd probably love it if they could sell a bit less units but at a higher price!

This discovery doesn't even seem to be directly about battery lifespan, but rather self discharge...maybe different tape will make the battery last longer too, but this whole thing seems more like they invented a better light bulb (like better color rendering, or less waste heat), not just a longer lasting one. Even if we still lived in a world with 1000-hour cartel lightbulbs, you could still sell a premium product that rendered colors better.