But instead, the device turns on (nearly) instantly. Because the wire isn’t actually what causes the device to turn on
That’s not exactly true. In this case, the energy transmission would go like this: (change of electric field in the little bit of wire next to the power source) -> (change of magnetic field in the air between the wires) -> (change of electric field in the wire next to the load). This limits the amount of energy transmitted significantly and incurs a lot of losses, meaning if you had something like a lamp plugged in it would start glowing extremely dimly at first (think about how some cheap LED lights keep glowing even with the switch off - it’s similar, albeit it happens due to inter-wire capacitance and not induction). It would then slowly ramp up to full power over a course of a year.
Edit: after watching the video, I think I was actually wrong in a couple of my assumptions. First of all, it looks like the reason for the initial energy transmission is wire capacitance and not induction, so (electric field in wire) -> (electric field in air) -> (electric field in wire, in the “opposite direction”, but because the wire goes back and forth it’s the same current direction). This means that my LED example is even more potent. And the second one is that because it’s capacitance and not induction, this means that there’s no slow ramp-up, it just makes the light glow very dimly all the way until the electric field makes it through the wire, and then it ramps up very quickly.
That’s not exactly true. In this case, the energy transmission would go like this: (change of electric field in the little bit of wire next to the power source) -> (change of magnetic field in the air between the wires) -> (change of electric field in the wire next to the load). This limits the amount of energy transmitted significantly and incurs a lot of losses, meaning if you had something like a lamp plugged in it would start glowing extremely dimly at first (think about how some cheap LED lights keep glowing even with the switch off - it’s similar, albeit it happens due to inter-wire capacitance and not induction). It would then slowly ramp up to full power over a course of a year.
Here’s a video from the same person about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vrhk5OjBP8 (although I haven’t watched this yet)
Edit: after watching the video, I think I was actually wrong in a couple of my assumptions. First of all, it looks like the reason for the initial energy transmission is wire capacitance and not induction, so (electric field in wire) -> (electric field in air) -> (electric field in wire, in the “opposite direction”, but because the wire goes back and forth it’s the same current direction). This means that my LED example is even more potent. And the second one is that because it’s capacitance and not induction, this means that there’s no slow ramp-up, it just makes the light glow very dimly all the way until the electric field makes it through the wire, and then it ramps up very quickly.