I had another game-changing, total barn-stormer of an idea tonight. It works like this; most households are either majority bayonet or majority screw-in when it comes to light fittings. Invariably, due to some mystical dark force (literally), most people tend forget which side of the fixture fence they sit on precisely at the same time they are purchasing new lightbulbs. This means most people buy the incorrect kind a little more often than the correct kind. In turn this means that most people have several boxes of perfect but fundamentally useless lightbulbs sitting around in cupboards and garages.
My idea goes roughly like this; every household in the country, nay world, registers their stock of unwanted screw-in or bayonet fitting lightbulbs on a website not unlike a lightbulb inventory equivalent of eBay - but for swapping rather than bidding. Let’s call it eBay-o-net, for now.
Working on the basis that out of the entire manufactured stock of lightbulbs of both kinds, approximately 50% of all produced end up being incorrectly purchased and therefore sit around unused, I reckon that for around eight years and four months, nobody need ever purchase a new lightbulb if they sign up with eBay-o-net where they can locate lightbulbs of the correct fitting and conveniently arrange to swap them with people in their area who also require to swap their bulbs for the correct fitting type.
I can’t begin to fathom the karmic upside of such a venture in terms of allowing people to recover their absent-minded losses and freeing up valuable cupboard storage space, but it will also bring down the global lightbulb business overnight but, let’s face it, those guys have had it easy for too long. How many other industries dine out on the fact that 50% of their total revenues and profits are derived from selling products that are knowingly never destined to be used. After all, who do you think came up with the dual fitting scam in the first place?
The game’s up, this is one lightbulb that just switched on above my head.
My idea goes roughly like this; every household in the country, nay world, registers their stock of unwanted screw-in or bayonet fitting lightbulbs on a website not unlike a lightbulb inventory equivalent of eBay - but for swapping rather than bidding. Let’s call it eBay-o-net, for now.
Working on the basis that out of the entire manufactured stock of lightbulbs of both kinds, approximately 50% of all produced end up being incorrectly purchased and therefore sit around unused, I reckon that for around eight years and four months, nobody need ever purchase a new lightbulb if they sign up with eBay-o-net where they can locate lightbulbs of the correct fitting and conveniently arrange to swap them with people in their area who also require to swap their bulbs for the correct fitting type.
I can’t begin to fathom the karmic upside of such a venture in terms of allowing people to recover their absent-minded losses and freeing up valuable cupboard storage space, but it will also bring down the global lightbulb business overnight but, let’s face it, those guys have had it easy for too long. How many other industries dine out on the fact that 50% of their total revenues and profits are derived from selling products that are knowingly never destined to be used. After all, who do you think came up with the dual fitting scam in the first place?
The game’s up, this is one lightbulb that just switched on above my head.