This Secret Cartel Is the Reason All Your Lightbulbs Burn Out Faster
Inside Fire Station No. 6 in Livermore, California, there’s a bulb that’s been shining since 1901. It has survived earthquakes, blackouts, and even being moved between stations. More than a century later, it’s still glowing.
Compare that to the bulb in your hallway, which probably fizzled out after a year, and you’ll begin to have questions. Why could a hand-blown bulb from the early 1900s last over a million hours while modern ones barely make it past a thousand?
These bulbs did not get worse on their own. There’s a larger conspiracy at work that we can trace back to a certain point in history.
How Long-Lasting Bulbs Became a Problem
Image via iStockphoto/Mann Clon
By the 1920s, incandescent bulbs were lasting 2,000 to 2,500 hours on average, with some even going longer. For households just getting access to electricity, this was great news. A single purchase could light the home for years before needing a replacement. For manufacturers, though, it spelled trouble.
Sales were slipping, and giants like Germany’s Osram and America’s General Electric knew their booming industry could dry up if people weren’t buying bulbs often enough.
In December 1924, top executives gathered in Geneva under a new organization called the Phoebus Cartel. Members included Osram, Philips, Tungsram, Associated Electrical Industries, and GE subsidiaries.
Together, they made a plan to standardize the lightbulb’s lifespan at 1,000 hours, essentially cutting it in half, ensuring no company undercuts the rest with longer-lasting bulbs, and guaranteeing repeat business.
Planned Obsolescence Gets Its First Big Test
Image via iStockphoto/Welcomia
The Phoebus Cartel enforced this rule. Factories sent sample bulbs to testing stations, where rows of sockets kept them glowing until failure. If a bulb exceeded the 1,000-hour mark by too much, fines were issued in Swiss francs.
Engineers who had spent years trying to extend bulb life were now tasked with shortening it. Records show that by 1934, the average bulb life was down to 1,205 hours, right in line with cartel targets. Sales, as expected, climbed.
On paper, the cartel claimed it was about standardization and efficiency. After all, they did introduce universal screw threads and wattage categories that are still familiar today. However, internal memos and later antitrust cases in the United States made the real motive clear. It was about profit.
The Sherman Act ruling in 1949 even identified GE’s role in manipulating patents and agreements to dominate the industry while keeping competitors locked out.
The Cartel Collapses, But Its Shadow Stays
The Phoebus Cartel planned to operate until 1955, but global events cut things short. By the 1930s, compliance issues were surfacing, and when World War II broke out in 1939, international coordination collapsed.
Still, the standards they left behind didn’t vanish. The familiar A19 bulb, the 40-60-75-100-watt options, and that 1,000-hour life expectancy all became normal for decades afterward. People accepted it as just how bulbs worked, unaware that lifespans had been engineered downward.
The story might have stayed buried if not for scattered clues. In the 1990s, a German researcher uncovered original documents in Osram’s archives and confirmed the cartel’s existence. The tale even showed up in pop culture through Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow, which featured an immortal lightbulb hunted by a cartel bent on protecting its business.
It Didn’t Stop With Lightbulbs
Image via Wikimedia Commons/National Photo Company Collection
The Phoebus Cartel set a blueprint for shortening product lifespans to control markets and keep customers coming back. Similar logic popped up in other industries almost immediately. Automakers in the 1920s began changing designs annually to make older cars look out of style.
Nylon stockings were deliberately weakened in the 1940s to force repeat sales. And in the modern era, Apple faced lawsuits after software updates throttled older iPhones and sparked accusations of built-in obsolescence.
Companies learned that inventing a durable product wasn’t enough. They had to invent a cycle of replacement. Some countries, especially in Europe, have debated or passed laws against planned obsolescence, but it remains hard to prove and even harder to regulate.