Indeed, but we are smarter than they are 

Have you been trying other variants of EU versions of eBay?

It all comes down to politics and governments.  In the vast majority of countries of the world, governments have only two purposes:

And I'm generally seen that the shipping prices on eBay, at least for lamps, are monstrous.

It all comes down to politics and governments.  In the vast majority of countries of the world, governments have only two purposes:

what are those purposes? I suppose one is screw the small man over, but I am not sure what the other one is

BTW: Wait, there are countries where goverments are not like that and actualy work for the people (which countries are theese?)
Also that also means there are still places the enjoy all the light sources and no matter what light source u desire, you can still buy it (nothing is banned, if you want LED you buy LED, if you want T12 Flurescent u buy that or if u want incondecent u buy that)

I do wonder, are there countries where they happily use incondecent lightbulbs and have no plans to change (like Bhutan, where they still have human traffic signals )

My hope is that the shifting political winds means this ban is short lived. There are a few encouraging developments, one of which is the Supreme Court striking down the Chevron doctrine, which effectively strips government agencies of their power to ban things: https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/

Another recent development is the introduction of legislation to repeal the incandescent ban: https://www.energy.senate.gov/2025/5/chairman-lee-introduces-bill-to-end-biden-era-lightbulb-ban

I'm cautiously optimistic about the situation, and if I'm reading the tea leaves right, in about a year incandescents should be back on the scene.

 Doubt it . I can't see any lighting manufacturers replacing all of the now scrapped lamp making equipment to restart production of incandescent . Near the end , all I saw on store shelves were super dusty boxes of incandescent . The only real sales of them came from people like us . The bans my go away but the banned items won't come back .

Manufacturers are still producing exempt 15-25W general purpose incandescent lamps, as well as 250W plus other specialty lamps.  I'd have to imagine some plants are still capable of producing the wattages in the middle, though of course they are not located in the U.S.  I expect they will return, but given the lack of domestic producers plus the pressure to compete with LED lamps which have become considerably less expensive, most of what will become available will be dollar-store quality.

Another factor working against the return of domestic manufacturing is the fact that the market for all lamps, including LED, is likely to decline the the coming years or at least its growth will be limited.  I'd be curious if anybody has sales data, but with the rise of integrated LED fixtures including those for the residential market, I'd expect customers to purchase fewer replaceable lamps over time.

Of course for anything to happen with incandescent, the legislation would have to pass.  Less than 10% of bills introduced ultimately become law, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too much yet.  There's also the possibility of the ban being reenacted by a future congress, though if incandescent sales remain low which is likely, even a congress more disposed to regulate might not be inclined to restrict them.

A real reason may be a lack of demand. Seriously, why do one need a regular incandescent in 2025? Outside of nostalgia and collector reasons? This not to start a flame war, sure. 12V halogens, may be... But still energy demand is unjustified, even for them.

There is no real blanket incandescent (or HID or fluorescent) bans where I live. But I honestly have not used a general incandescent for lighting application may be for the last 15 years or so at my own will. Incandescents are still easily available to buy if anyone wants.

Valid points, and none of them are taken (at least by me) as inciting a flame war! I'm convinced that advancements in technology would have eventually displaced incandescents, regardless of whether they were banned or not.

My personal take is that it boils down to consumers wanting a choice. Many people are fine with LEDs and other technologies, and it's undeniable that in they are superior in many areas, especially when it comes to energy use.

However, there are also quite a few who prefer the light quality and characteristics of an incandescent. This is something that cannot be fully replicated by LEDs or fluorescents, due to the fact that incandescents are black body radiators. For that reason there will always be a demand for them, albeit significantly less than in the past, but enough to justify their manufacture and sale.

Assuming the ban does get reversed, the damage has pretty much been done and I doubt we'll ever see incandescents produced on the scale they once were again. That being said, though, things like vinyl records, Polaroid camera film, and vacuum tubes have all seen a revival in the US in recent years. What I think will happen is someone will gather together whatever lampmaking equipment is left and start domestic production again. There's certainly money to be made doing this, especially for specialty/niche applications, as well as offering the traditional bulbs to the public. Given that most people are fine with LEDs for the majority of their lighting needs, I don't foresee the higher cost per bulb being an issue if they are mostly going to be used in things like table lamps or vanities.

Anyway, just my own thoughts on this - only time will tell how it'll actually unfold.

Even when the government policies change and incandescents will be free to make and sell, the problem is the market willing to pay their real price is way too small. Even with all the reliability problems the LEDs sold at most suffer, people in general just got used to them.
Yes, the light quality is not fully matching incandescents, they became the mainstream and their low power demand makes them just plain cheaper light.

The problem is, the latest years of incandescent production was run without any sustainable profit, the profit they msde was just by milking the old machinery, making some profit only by not doing the overhaul the machines would needed in order to really keep them working for longer than the anticipated end of production.
For sustainable model, the incandescents would need to be sold for 5x or 10x the price they were sold at.
Don't forget all the "legislation enforced" incandescent phase out was in reality big lobbying from the major lamp makers. The business was not sustainable for any of them, but no one wanted to be the first one to pull out and so becoming forgotten by consumers. They assumed they will make profit with CFLs, once the incandescent ban forces customers to switch.
Yes, it backfired spectacularly, but that was way lated when the heavy legislative process was at full speed, so impossible to stop.
 

Certainly a sobering, and probably more realistic, take on the situation. Do you have a source for more information on the motivations of (and lobbying by) the major manufacturers to end incandescent production? I was unaware of that angle and am curious to learn more about it.

I do believe that consumers would pay a premium for incandescents up to a point, though. If someone had one or two lamps they specifically wanted to use incandescents in, for example, they would probably justify paying $5 or more for a high quality bulb. While expensive, it would be roughly an annual expenditure and not enough to impact most people's budgets.

It sounds like you are fairly well versed on this subject, and of course everything I've written is speculation on my part, but I do believe there is a chance there'll be an optimistic outcome for incandescents.

I think at this point let's be honest with ourselves incandescent is a dead technology that will never be revived again.
It's not longer practical to use energy wise and today's generation is no longer interested in outdated technology.
The manufacturers have invested to much in LEDs to the market and they're not about to revitalize old machines for incandescent bulbs which have probably been scrapped anyway.
Also look at the bigger picture the fixtures currently on the market can't handle incandescents so in order to bring the lamps back someone would have to start making fixtures again and that's not going to happen either.

But it's the same for all old technologies. Large commercial buildings have removed all of their fluorescents for massive energy savings and as far as homeowners are concerned fluorescents are the most hated light source there is. My brother who was an electrician for 21 years got so sick and tired of homeowners calling him and freaking out because they have fluorescent lights in their house. They would say eww it's so ugly 70s and filled with mercury. They flicker and give me a headache. He would get a headache listening to their complaints.

Now HID that's another subject altogether and a technology that's never coming back. It's to expensive for the manufacturers.

Not to sound so negative but the bottom line is the old technology hasn't been made for awhile and will never be made again and that's the bottom line.
We'll all have to accept the new lighting technology just like everything else like digital flat screen TVs and EV vehicles.

I do believe that consumers would pay a premium for incandescents up to a point, though. If someone had one or two lamps they specifically wanted to use incandescents in, for example, they would probably justify paying $5 or more for a high quality bulb. While expensive, it would be roughly an annual expenditure and not enough to impact most people's budgets.

Specialty stores here are still coasting on the old stock incandescents. You can literally walk to the specialty stores in Amsterdam or Den Haag and walk out with an entire backpack full of standard incandescents.
But clearly, people aren't really doing that a whole lot becuase the stocks still haven't depleted and we're more than 10 years after the ban of import and production of incandescents in the netherlands.

Alternatively, all thrift shops have bins full of both new and used lamps of all types. I sometimes see people dig up incandescents. Apparently those people really want them, but also they will just keep buying them there for €0,50 to €1 for as long as people keep bringing in NOS incandescents to the thrift shop. As for their motives - i have no clue if they really specifically look for incandescent light, or that they are completely ignorant about the differences and just buy them out of habit, or whether they need them for dim bulb limiters like i do.

It will take another decade or so (hell, maybe even more) to actually deplete existing stock, so only then super expensive new production won't face the competition from cheap, sunk cost/written off old stock.

Any peron caring about light quality today will likely sooner buy a 94 CRI led (the Ledvance thing i have is definitely good) than deal with the fact that modern fixtures are usually not designed for more than 25w of thermal energy, conciously buy older fixtures that still have heat resistant sockets etc.

Maybe in 50 years time, when stocks have properly dropped to the level of individual NOS lamps' prices rising to 50 euro a piece, that it will be possible to restart a small scale production system, like they're currently doing with bright emitter vacuum tubes: https://brimaruk.com/product/ediswan-type-r/ or like Dalimar is doing with brand new Nixie tubes.
But it will be a considerable amount of manual labor, and you'll be looking at cost closer to 50 euro than 5 euro per lamp.

Getting an automated production line up and running will be at least 2 million euro just to fix everything in the production line (just getting 'stiff' mechanisms, iffy limit switches and old computer control systems working again) and re-line the glass furnaces and stuff. Double or triple that if you have to strip out the tons of asbestos from legacy production facilities. Philips' glass furnaces are still around and have not been demolished yet. It wouldn't surprise me if that's becasue the furnaces are absolutely filled with asbestos and they're hoping the company's remains switch owners often enough for the national government to lose track and the cost for cleaning up the mess just goes to the tax payer...

More likely is that this will just happen in China, though even China doesn't seem to be bothered with producing incandescent lamps anymore. India maybe?

indeed it appears that almost all stores and platforms are doing that to their best, but lucklily, there are ways around it still I am still buying lots of tubes here in 2025, even from local companies!