Is this meant to be a straw man or a steel man of that position?
The idea of preemptively banning something so it can't become better than the status quo seems ludicrous.
The idea of preemptively banning something so it can't become better than the status quo seems ludicrous.
The proof is in the pudding / free market. If the alternatives (paper straws, LED bulbs) were better, people would voluntarily buy them! (cf: mobile phones vs. stationary phones, almost noone has the latter these days, because the former are just - better!) Instead, they're banned because they're better.
edit: I looked into it and incandescent bulbs aren’t normally preferred but there’s a small following. Even the following admits LED bulbs have a lot of benefits. It seems they just don’t like all the colors.
Apparently the market tolerates this garbage even though LEDs are supposed to be a superior technology and last longer (and some I've bought years ago have, I just don't remember the brand and it was in another house). Perhaps Ace is practicing planned obsolescence and taking advantage of their customers' expectations that "light bulbs get replaced"?
I used to find incandescent bulbs 4 for a dollar on sale. An LED bulb is typically at least a couple of bucks, that's why I say 10x the price.
I will grant they use less electricity, but my electric bill hasn't noticably changed. The amount of electricity I use for lights in my home isn't even noise in my monthly budget. But what is annoying is having to get out a stepladder once a month to change a bulb, when the huge selling point on these bulbs is that they were worth the price because they would last 10x as long.
Also it's not hard to work out how much electricity you are saving. If you are worried about a couple of bucks, it won't take much usage of a 80W bulb to blow through that.
Every bit of research I've ever seen shows LEDs DO last substantially longer. 5-50x longer, depending on which kinda light you'd like to compare to [1]. They're also much cheaper over the long run when you factor in the cost of electricity.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211...
When they first came up they were pricy but unless you're talking about fancy smart-bulbs with Wifi and color changing, they are not 10x the price. And they empirically last 5-20+ times longer.
So even before you consider that a huge portion of the energy put into incandescence is lost to heat (thereby making it cost MUCH more in electricity), they are still roughly the same price after accounting for lifespan.
Dumping toxic waste into a river would also lower costs for consumers vs disposing of it correctly, but there are regulations to prevent that. Complete unobstructed free market capitalism is not sustainable, there needs to be a balance.
> "free market" is only temporary, until the "bad" thing simply gets banned
How can the alternatives get better, if regressive municipalities preemptively ban them to prevent "slippery slopes"?
I'm not the one who started banning though. I'd be open to first unbanning plastic straws and incandescent light bulbs, then unbanning artificial meat. Let the market decide!
But I definitely want to ban them before they ban me.