As someone trained in this field, not everything is a bulb or an LED which can take less power.
Where exactly you want this behavior?
Ha! Apple makes your phone completely inoperable if your microphone breaks. Is not just about less power is about keep everything else working as much as possible.
But it comes to a point where the additional cost for parts and engineering aren’t worth it.
$100 for a flashlight with 10% the lumens for being on a single AAA would hardly beat out one that puts out the same max lumens for $5.
Walking a trail at night that functionality would be absolutely worthless and be dangerous even to attempt. Oh it’s okay it works on this extra AAA I have….
It was giving an example of a general principle, not suggesting that everything ought to dim lights specifically.
Other examples of similar principles might be:
- Taking a little extra care when designing a new building so that adaptive reuse is easier later. That doesn’t mean adding up-front cost, but rather things like erring on the side of less specialization when deciding how to lay out the space.
- The way they used to print pretty patterns on the cotton sacks animal feed used to come in a century ago, because they knew farmers’ wives would make feed sack dresses out of them.
- Laying out a new subdivision with its streets on a grid instead of curvy cul-de-sacs, so that it’s easier to rebuild individual parcels to higher density or non-residential use in the future without having to raze the entire thing.
- Designing a piece of furniture with removable cushions instead of attached padding, so that they can be replaced when they wear out instead of having to reupholster the whole thing.
