100 years of training make most people think of light bulbs as a trivial purchase. And now a product that cost $0.50 20 years ago is $10, and often performs worse for its purpose.
So the economics just drive cost down no matter what. And even a picky consumer is hard pressed to get what he wants when you go to the bulb aisle at Lowe’s. They literally went from 10 SKUs to 250, with no meaningful standards.
This is my biggest barrier to finding decent bulbs. The search engines on sites like homedepot.com offer very little help, especially since they always show promoted items higher in the results, even if they don't match any keywords I put in my search. Then, if I do find what looks like the right thing, they're invariably out of stock everywhere.
So the economics just drive cost down no matter what. And even a picky consumer is hard pressed to get what he wants when you go to the bulb aisle at Lowe’s. They literally went from 10 SKUs to 250, with no meaningful standards.