“And they pushed the lie that CFLs last ten times as long.”
In certain circumstances, CFLs do last many, many times the life of an incandescent. But, homeowners rarely use their lights in a way to take advantage of this. Lighting left on 24/7 will see CFLs last and last, while incandescents will burn out every 4 to 6 weeks.
But, short cycling will kill CFLs very quickly (such as a closet light or bathroom light).
If you have a light you turn on once a day, max, and leave on for at least 6 hours, you will see great savings in CFLs, otherwise incandescents work better.
LEDs should be even better, but my experience with many 100s of installed bulbs is only with CFLs vs incandescents, though I have gone to LEDs in my own home, hoping they are a mature product.
My understanding is that the failure mechanism isn’t the bulb/gas part. It is the electronic driver that contains the ballast (or equivalent of the NRD function of a ballast).
These electronic parts generate some heat and they are packed tightly in the base of most CFLs and you can see discoloration of the surrounding material (usually some kind of plastic) which eventually leads them to fail.
“In certain circumstances, CFLs do last many, many times the life of an incandescent. But, homeowners rarely use their lights in a way to take advantage of this. Lighting left on 24/7 will see CFLs last and last, while incandescents will burn out every 4 to 6 weeks.”
I have a CFL in my garage that basically acts as a night light, smallest one I could find (7 or 9 Watts, but still plenty of light to move around). I don’t even have a switch for it. I think my original bulb is now closing in on 10 years. I LOVE IT!
But that’s the only CFL in my house, the other 200 or so bulbs are incandescent. Many/most of my bulbs are on dimmers, which are much better with incandescents.