How are you not understanding that they didn’t “cut filter expense by 80%”, but simply they get 1/5th as dirty?
If not less. My educated guess is they used to get changed more often than required due to clogging, and now they’re just changed based on some minimum required.
Have you ever lived with a smoker? My grandmother’s house used to have to be repainted every other year before her death. Do you think we just “greedily cut painting costs by 80%” because we repainted it once in ten years since, or might it have to do with walls yellowing due to particulate?
They get less visually dirty, but the same amount of human breath passes through them. It's not just that; the airlines cut the fresh air intake as a portion of circulated air. By not being as visually noticeable, they didn't need to change the filters as often; yet that meant that the filters would have 5x the viral load when they were finally changed out. They used the elimination of smoking as an excuse to save money on basic hygiene. Does this make sense?
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Where did you even hear about this specific number in how often they used to change their filters vs now? Do you have any idea what the reasons are for them changing filters, how they decide? What the minimum is? How they measure it?
You seem to not really even understand how air filtration works.
I'm guessing you've been smoking so long, you don't know what it's like to not live in polluted air. When you change an air filter, repaint a house, wash the inside of a car, you can immediately tell whether somebody is a smoker. It's fucking gross, and I suspect that it's not 1/5th, but probably 1/20th as often. "What makes me think that" is plain simple experience.
I don't have the full paper handy (and can't be bothered to look this up just for you) but the highlights should be enough for you on this one:
If not less. My educated guess is they used to get changed more often than required due to clogging, and now they’re just changed based on some minimum required.
Have you ever lived with a smoker? My grandmother’s house used to have to be repainted every other year before her death. Do you think we just “greedily cut painting costs by 80%” because we repainted it once in ten years since, or might it have to do with walls yellowing due to particulate?