Took me a while to find a source that doesn't have such a blatant axe to grind, since they're evidently spamming this article everywhere. Turns out the spillage they're referring to isn't what we think of as spillage, but the fumes from the vents, which is why they're gone.
I rather suspect the real reason gas cans suck now is that this is the cheapest design that satisfies the requirements and nobody cares enough about gas cans to bother ordering one that works better.
For the record, I was watching Wranglerstar review videos on youtube and saw a gas can comparison which led me down a rabbit hole that I found interesting enough to share. The video itself is a few years old. It's funny seeing the conspiratorial comments on here about downvote brigades and spamming articles, because I tend to think that way about things too.
I went back to riding a horse because a horse’s lifetime is 30 years and I was only getting about 10 from my last car.
Sarcasm aside, plasma TVs had horrible burn in, weighed a bunch, and suffered from reflection issues due to the glass screens. Not to mention LCDs quickly became much cheaper. The issues with OLEDs are either already solved or much better than when they first came out, such as burn in.
It wasn't government that destroyed plasma TVs; it was LCDs being significantly cheaper to produce and sell, and now OLEDs having eliminated most of the drawbacks of every other format.
California is a single state, and plasmas failed to keep traction anywhere, despite still being sold everywhere else. It was price that killed plasmas.
That said, I don't recommend throwing out your plasmas. They're a neat technical artifact, like CRTs (which many people would argue are better than both plasma TVs and LEDs). Hold onto them!
If you are Samsung or Panasonic, and the largest state economy in the wealthiest market on earth is talking about banning your products, you might start considering alternative strategies too, even if the other 49 economies don't care.
California banning something is effectively a national ban for a lot of products. There isnt a manufacturer that makes TVs just for the US plains market. This is economically infeasible from a manufacturing standpoint.
I found it weird that a generic foundation with a generic website would post such an unexpectedly opinionated article. Sure enough, it's politically motivated.
> The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is a libertarian economic think-tank in the United States dedicated to the "economic, ethical and legal principles of a free society." FEE publishes books, daily articles, and hosts seminars and lectures. [1]
If you need further proof that the article is wildly biased, just look at the downvoted comments. At time of writing, all comments disagreeing with it are in the negative.
If an article said 2+2 is 4, and people commented "no, it's 3", "no, it's 5", and "no, it's 6", they'd all get downvoted. Would you say that article is biased and astroturfed too?
For the record, I was watching Wranglerstar review videos on youtube in the background and saw a gas can comparison which led me down a rabbit hole that I found interesting enough to share. No astroturfing boogeyman here.
It's not conspiracy leaning. It's fact. Gas cans don't work because the government doesn't let you have a vent on them anymore.
I used to have gas cans that work. Now I can't get one that works.
Fact.
Edit: And most of the attempts to work around the problems of auto-closing end up causing the user to get gas on themself in the process of attempting to make the stupid broken government-can to work.
It's an incredibly disingenuous article. I have a few of these gas cans and don't have any trouble with them. There absolutely is a vent in these cans. The article even mentions that they're still there, but aren't opened until you activate the top. My cans have a trigger that you pull to pour gas. As soon as you pull it, the gas flows freely. No more trying to invert the nozzle to reassemble the lid to close it anymore.
> Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice.
This sounds like conspiracy if I've ever heard one. The reason for all of these problems is the market, not government. The gas can is a trojan horse in this article.
You can get perfectly fine light bulbs. Can get perfectly great refrigerators. Lawnmowers still work just fine, with no need to be hacked. It's like complaining that the reason printers are so bad is because of "the damn government!" and citing HP's behavior when ignoring that there are brands that don't screw over the consumer for profit reasons.
I find this one especially funny as it's pretty much the lack of regulation that made the 'old' bulbs burn out much too quickly [1].
And before someone says "but my LED bulbs keep burning out", also the free-market/lack of regulation. To see how they should be built watch Clive on how bulbs are made for Dubai[2].
Yes, those Dubai bulbs are better than the ones we're all stuck with. But isn't that because of a regulation rather than because of the market? In particular, when Dubai accepted those kind of bulbs, didn't it prevent the manufacturer from selling them anywhere else?
> But isn't that because of a regulation rather than because of the market?
Yes. Sorry, that was what I was trying to convey. The 'market' brought us incandescent bulbs that were purpose built to fail much earlier . The market brought us LED bulbs that overdrive fewer LEDs resulting in them burning out and running less efficiently.
Dubai, in essence, went the regulation road and has longer-lasting more-efficient bulbs because of it.
That's not what I meant. My point was that Dubai has a regulation that prohibits their efficient LEDs from being sold anywhere else. If not for that regulation, then the efficient Dubai bulbs could be bought worldwide.
I assume it was by saying something to the effect of "if you want to do business here, then you have to follow our rules globally" to the manufacturer, and that one of the rules was that they not sell those bulbs elsewhere. And I don't know why they did, but doesn't Clive's video say that they are only allowed to be sold in Dubai?
Not as far as I know. It wouldn't make sense for them to push for more manufacturers to make more efficient bulbs but then try to prevent them from being sold elsewhere. What would they gain from such an agreement?
And there's not really anything special about these bulbs. I mean they have more redundancy and run the leds at lower current, but there's nothing special you could claim ownership to. There's no new coating or led technology or anything, so even if such an agreement was made it doesn't seem like anything would prevent another manufacturer from making them.
From Clive's video description on youtube:
>> These lamps are currently only available in Dubai. The likelihood of them appearing elsewhere is limited by the fact that they are designed to last a long time, which isn't profitable for the manufacturers.
It's profitable for Philips to make them for Dubai because regulations mean there's no one selling a worse but cheaper version. If Philips sold the bulbs for $1 more in your local shop you'd buy the cheaper version because both say "last's forever", you can't tell the difference, and you've never even heard of tDubai bulbs ('you' being an average shopper).
If other countries created regulations around the efficiency level and how long the bulbs had to last then we'd likely end up with a similar bulb. We'd pay a little more per bulb, but save over the long term. As it is now there's more profit from multiple angles on making worse bulbs.
To copy one I already wrote for a different comment:
To go into one I'm really familiar with: light bulbs are fine after banning incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs (which were still available at time of the regulations) are better than incandescent bulbs in nearly every way, as long as you don't cheap out and go for one that flickers at under the rate of an incandescent.
The problem is poor consumer education, not government regulations. The consumer is stupid, which is a problem even the FEE would agree on.
> light bulbs are fine after banning incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs (which were still available at time of the regulations) are better than incandescent bulbs in nearly every way, as long as you don't cheap out and go for one that flickers at under the rate of an incandescent.
LEDs are superior now, but not when incandescents were de facto banned. They would be superior now without the regulation, and would have supplanted incandescents.
What regulation got us were compact fluorescents - more toxic, more wasteful, and more fragile than incandescents - in the interim.
Sure. As long as you were super rich. They were $10-$15 per 60W equivalent bulb and you couldn't get ones that were 90W equivalent. The only bulbs that were remotely close to affordable were CFLs that were terrible.
And you know what? The LED bulbs I've owned don't last 10k hours, either.
Edit: And now they are selling light fixtures with the LED's integrated and non-replaceable. So when the bulb goes out you have to throw the fixture out and replace the whole stupid thing. Talk about land-fill increase. Not to mention the risk of electrocution and/or fire from consumers trying to do wiring themselves, or the waste of paying an electrician to replace your light bulb...
Which is ludicrous, because none of those actually made the products worse.
To go into one I'm really familiar with: light bulbs are fine after banning incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs (which were still available at time of the regulations) are better than incandescent bulbs in nearly every way, as long as you don't cheap out and go for one that flickers at under the rate of an incandescent.
The problem is poor consumer education, not government regulations.
Instead of cherry picking one which might arguably, after many years of development, have turned out all right, why not explain how great low flush toilets are? In part 2, say why toilet size regulations are a better way of addressing water or energy concerns than a more direct method.
I went to the one I'm most familiar with. Also, it was fine even when the regulations happened.
It's not cherry-picking, it's choosing to speak on the one I'm most qualified to speak on. I live in an area of the country way too low-income to have dealt with most of those problems. But out of the problems listed, I know multiple of them to be outright lies, and since the author was fine about lying about the few I know for sure, it doesn't seem unlikely that the others are also lies.
>LED bulbs (which were still available at time of the regulations)
LED bulbs were readily available at the time? My memory might be fuzzy, but the phase out started in 2012[1], and the lighting section at the hardware store was a sea of CFLs.
[1] In December 2007, the federal government enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), [...] The law was to effectively ban most incandescent light bulbs, starting in January 2012.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_ligh...
Same. I ended up putting a removable plug in one just to make it functional. I just couldn't hold up a 5 gallon jug for long enough to dribble it out. Then was astonished when it turned out to be not just one bad brand but all of them.
i got tired with buying a new plastic gas can every year because of the horrible spouts. HOWEVER there are 2 US based manufacturers who make metal cans with metal spouts that don't fall off. Both are available on Amazon. I bought the Justrite 7250120 AccuFlow 5 Gallon, 11.75" OD x 17.50" H Galvanized Steel Type II Red Safety Can With 5/8" Flexible Spout is what I bought. Very happy with it.
>The government never said “no vents.” It abolished them de facto with new standards that every state had to adopt by 2009. So for the last three years, you have not been able to buy gas cans that work properly. They are not permitted to have a separate vent. The top has to close automatically. There are other silly things now, too, but the biggest problem is that they do not do well what cans are supposed to do.
Indeed, if you drill down into the regulations you linked, you'll see the same requirements listed:
>The closure should not show any visible signs of leaking even if the container is on its side or accidentally tipped over.
Here’s the thing: that’s your opinion. I happen to feel differently.
However, you said that vented cans don’t exist. It’s not true. They do exist. I proved it. This can is vented.
What is true is that the vents require some kind of activation at the time of pour. This model relies on a button, which means two hands. I’ve personally found that using two hands is kind of a requirement for this size of gas can. That’s my personal experience, so I like this model for the speed of its pour. There exist other designs where you activate the vent by pushing on the nozzle and a lip or catch hooks the opening and a sleeve pulls back exposing the vent. I personally have found that design to be problematic because the springs are often faulty or too strong. You could use those one handed if you want, I guess, but I don’t prefer to do that, so, all in, I do t prefer those models.
Regardless, they exist, you can buy them. One handers, two handers, fortunately I’m unaware of any three or more handers.
But this nonsense about gurgling and splashing because “vents are illegal” is a lie and is gaslighting, especially when you can order pallets of evidence to the contrary.
"I guess it's unfortunate for you that other people have different priorities" was snarky. The site guidelines ask you not to post like that, and your comment would have been fine without it.
Please don't be dismissive on HN, regardless of progress in gas can safety.
They aren't worse in every respect, they reduce emissions and prevent some types of accidents. Those things are more important to a lot of people than momentary convenience (which is how I've been impacted by newer cans, I'm not trying to say that your experience with them is the same as mine).
I'm not being dishonest or trying to mislead you, so I don't know what you are talking about with the gaslighting.
I did ponder what the implications were for people with hand issues, but your comment above seemed to be about using one of two good hands rather than out of concern for people that may only have full use of a single hand.
This article is unabashed pro-free-market, anti-government propaganda.
From the author bio at the bottom of the page:
>>> Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is the Editorial Director at the American Institute for Economic Research, the founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, economics adviser to FreeSociety.com, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, and author of five books.
FEE - libertarian economic think-tank
AIER - free-market think-tank with publications titled "The Real Reason Nobody Takes Environmental Activists Seriously" and "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest", and recently promoted 'herd immunity' without lockdowns as a COVID strategy. [1]
freesociety.com - libertarian project
Acton Institute - promotes laissez-faire economics in Christian framework
Heartland Institute - conservative/libertarian think-tank known for working with Philip Morris to discredit the risks of "secondhand smoke" and promoting climate change denial. [2]
Propaganda is bad because it is irrational and hurts the conversation, regardless of which side of which topic the specific example is in support of (I don't know if this article qualifies - I'm just addressing your assertion).
Proponents of green energy and electrification of various domestic items are perfectly willing to support externalising various costs onto others, just to give one example.
Edit: Allow a lithium mine, or a rare earth processing plant, or an electrical waste site, in your back yard, and be happy that it provides employment for those around you, and then we can talk.
Thankfully, I think a whole generation (and every one after) won't care about gas cans, or gasoline.
Thanks in part to government policy, research funding, and subsidies, that have enabled market-based innoavtion in solar, batteries, etc, to the point of being practical alternatives.
They might care about mega-corps blaming government for absolutely everything.
And that might be the biggest plot twist - a government-mandated switch from something that works, to something badly thought out with large unintended consequences.
There's no energy scarcity, only a choice of whether, and how, to produce or obtain it.
For example, open-cast coal mines, and coal-fired power stations fed by them, are among the cheapest (and most environmentally damaging) ways to generate electricity from fossil fuel.
it's now actually cheaper, over the lifetime of the installation, to cover that land with solar panels, than to dig it up and burn it.
The only way that it's possible for energy-containing raw materials to be more expensive than complex, manufactured sources of energy generation, is government interference (and the corresponding lack of in the places that the solar panels and the like are actually manufactured, as well as an abundant source of fossil fuels to power that manufacture).
The last I checked, the sun was rather abundant in stored energy, and quite good at releasing some of it.
It's 'simply' a case of capturing it.
Many panels are made in China. Not a place really known for it's uninvolved government, from what I hear.
The whole 'it's all powered by fossil fuels' argument is a bit old now, and was only really valid becuase so much of the energy mix was in fact fossil. As we switch, the argument increasingly no longer holds.
Indeed, which is why a careful examination needs to be made of the energy and resource cycles involved. It'll be interesting if we ever switch to an energy economy fuelled entirely by PV (or similar), and seeing how the energy economics plays out. This is aside from the various minerals needed to continually replenish our new green energy sources, and what we do with the complex and poisonous wastes produced.
As for your comments on China - they certainly don't have any issues allowing widespread pollution and industrial poisoning of their people and land.
>The whole 'it's all powered by fossil fuels' argument is a bit old now
It'll only be "old" when China reduces the amount of coal (and mostly brown coal) that it uses to manufacture all this stuff for us. They have enormous reserves, it won't happen any time soon.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140816134507/http://www.turfma...
I rather suspect the real reason gas cans suck now is that this is the cheapest design that satisfies the requirements and nobody cares enough about gas cans to bother ordering one that works better.