this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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@burnedoutfordfiesta
[TL;DR: they already are, if you really can't afford them (and your local government isn't ran by shadow-fearing cavemen).]
Legit question, wrapped in incredibly ignorant, destructive, patriotic, inflammatory brainworms.
That is why you are getting downvoted, fyi.
Stop confusing innovation with government tyranny. Stop being a tool and using false dichotomies and other logical fallacies that always results in loss of innovation, enrichment of unethical companies, and biological and ecological damage and destruction.
The role of government is to enforce the will of the people for the good of the people, and finally forcing everybody to adopt superior lighting that is WAY more energy efficient AND way more durable is ABSOLUTELY the right thing to do.
However, to actually answer your ACTUAL question (why don't they subsidize LED bulbs?), that is a question of what you consider a need. The idea of subsidizing is one usually of need, and sometimes also to assist in adoption to push ideas people are hesitant on.
That being said: we aren't talking about cars, bruh. It's like a 2-3x increase in price, but will last 10000x longer and use 0.01x the electricity compared to an incandescent bulb. And basically everybody can afford them. And when they can't, they already have systems in place for that, such as the affordable care act (federally expanded medicaid) and other social net programs like welfare, set up poor people don't get fucked and have to buy stupid incandescent bulbs for all their lives, living incredibly inefficiently.
All the time, responsible governments implement shit like this to get people off of dummfuck ancient technology that people refuse to give up. And whether or not this is "government overreach" or simply forcing the hands of curmudgeons is a matter of purpose and perspective, and ignorance is often that perspective, and hollow-facetiousness and cynical plausible deniability in place of the "purpose".
"Stop eating lead. That is now illegal." - the government, when huge corporations refused to do the right thing.
"Why would I even need that? I've never needed that before" - the dumb monkey, looking at the the monkey using fire.
If they enacted subsidies for LED bulbs he’d have a conniption about government spending on hippie bullshit
Your explanation makes sense, but I disagree that banning a product from sale is a good approach to phasing out the use of inefficient technologies. The curmudgeons are a small minority and probably can't be convinced to change over anyway. The bigger demographic to convert are, as you mentioned, penny-wise, dollar-foolish folks who don't understand that an LED bulb will save far more money over time than the price differential between it and the incandescent bulb. Subsidies to lower the cost of the LED bulbs to match the prices of incandescent ones would be effective, as would education campaigns about cost savings. Neither of these options would restrict citizens' rights the way the proposed ban would, nor would they feed culture war blowback.
Seems to be working fine because nobody’s gonna be able to buy them. Just like I can’t go buy lead paint at the home improvement store.
People will get over it and we’ll reduce a lot of electricity waste. Who gives a shit of red hats don’t like it because they have a chronic issue with anyone ever telling them to do anything. They’ll literally complain no matter what you do.