
Phoebus cartel - prawn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
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legitster
Reading up on it, it seems like the justification for creating Phoebus was to
standardize the industry (it's the reason all of our lightbulbs today follow
the same rating system and screw in the same way). But clearly they ran amok
to serve their own interests.

Cartels are very interesting: historically few are successful long term -
there is too much incentive for newcomers to undercut prices. They need
something to keep new entrants at bay. It seems like in this case they pooled
their patents together.

IEEE has a more detailed write-up: [https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
history/dawn-of-electronics/t...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-
of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy)

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minikites
>Cartels are very interesting: historically few are successful long term

OPEC has been around for 57 years and seems to be holding together. My
uneducated hunch is that the success of a cartel has to do with how fungible
the product is and oil is very near the top of the list.

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Kalium
You're correct, OPEC has been around for almost six decades and still wields
significant power.

Yet, is it perhaps possible that it has less than it used to? The days when
OPEC could single-handedly crash the economies of much of the Western world
are mostly gone. There's too much oil production outside of OPEC nations.
American frackers have shown an extraordinary ability to respond quickly to
price rises, checking them and OPEC's power both.

OPEC is holding together as a group and cartel! But, outside pressure and
internal political differences have severely weakened it...

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duxup
OPEC has taken to fighting among themselves as well. Saudi Arabia has noped
out of agreements at will (granted other OPEC members may have been cheating
and doing the same without saying it), notably once during the crazy sub $1 a
gallon period in 1998.

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nateburke
Great link in the wikipedia article to Gravity's Rainbow. Love this quote from
the Byron the Bulb episode:

"His youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible
now—the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are more
than enough traitors out on the line. Prophets traditionally don't last
long—they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to
make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back. But on Byron has
been visited an even better fate. He is condemned to go on forever, knowing
the truth and powerless to change anything. No longer will he seek to get off
the wheel. His anger and frustration will grow without limit, and he will find
himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it."

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jrumbut
I was wondering what had caused me to know about this before!

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epx
Bulb efficiency and bulb life are at odds. In railroad signals, the practice
was to use low-power bulbs that barely glowed, and lasted basically
forever(nowadays it is all LEDs, Iguess). I am sure no one wants 5W bulbs
glowing deep orange at home. Targeting a rather low life is the same as
targeting a minimum efficiency.

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caf
If this was the case they could simply have left it up to the market to decide
the balance of efficiency and life. If your supposition was correct then the
hypothetical "5W deep orange" bulb would not have sold.

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epx
Assuming that the collusion actually took place, which I don't put my bets in.
I remember seeing 'long life lamps' on supermarket when bulbs were a thing,
BTW.

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caf
The Phoebus cartel was defunct by 1940.

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axiyods
Emerged here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light)
from the Wikipedia rabbit hole, could be considered related.

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martin1b
" worked to standardize the life expectancy of light bulbs at 1,000 hours
(down from 2,500 hours), and raised prices without fear of competition. The
cartel tested their bulbs and fined manufacturers for bulbs that lasted more
than 1,000 hours.".. Wow. How is this legal?

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chillydawg
It isn't, they were a cartel.

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xigma
It was legal at the time.

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ferongr
In the days of incandescents I'd pay more for a bulb that burned hotter for a
higher CCT (3500k or above), even at the expense of lifetime.

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Something1234
I just wanted to share this very relevant video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW17rr20tGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW17rr20tGY)

I miss fox ADHD.

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vectorEQ
philips mentioned here, fun fact about their current tactics... bought some
lamp from them which is alarm, it lights instead of makes sounds. simple
thing, helps me wake up. the light bulb whent, so i though hey, replace it.
easy. unfortunatley, they had superglued the bulb into the socket with a thick
layer of hard glue, making it impossible to replace. had to buy an entire new
unit (40 euros) instead of light bulb for 1 euro.... ofcourse i didnt/ i just
binned it.

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asafira
Someone linked to this in a recent thread on philips colluding over something
else.

=(. Sad.

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minikites
This is what results from truly free markets.

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chisleu
The article is incredibly biased. Although Phoebus was a price fixing cartel,
the "planned obsolescence" is bullshit. Walmart replaces all of their lights
and ballasts (power converters for the lights) on a regular schedule. That is
why you rarely see lights not working at Walmart anymore.

They don't do it because they want all the lights to work. They do it because
if they don't, it costs more in energy and the brightness goes down.

Long life incandescents also put out less light per watt and end up using more
energy as the bulb ages as well as the light decreasing. Often times I would
replace the bulbs before they died because the light was too low.

We do not have "truly free markets" and never have. This is not an example of
that because there are no examples of that.

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mirimir
Maybe there is no "free market". But without Phoebus, customers could have
chosen between shorter-life bulbs that were more efficient, and longer-life
bulbs with lower replacement costs. How is that bad?

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ptdel
I don't see how this is relevant in today's world.

\- sent from my iPhone

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peterwwillis
Nothing the god of capitalism wouldn't let you into heaven for.

