The
Great
Lighting
Conspiracy.
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Why did bulb life drop in the past 100 years?
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In the first decades after Edison’s discovery, lighting manufacturers competed and giant corporations with went head-to-head in a volatile lighting industry. By the 1920’s, Osram experienced a dramatic drop in its German sales, from 63 million lightbulbs in 1922–23 to 28 million the following year. This led Osram’s CEO, William Meinhardt to propose a unique business ‘arrangement’ to a group of leading lighting corporate leaders.
In 1924, representatives from the world’s largest lighting companies, including Philips, Osram, Tungsram and General Electric (which took over Shelby Electric, the manufacturer of the 1,000,000+ Livermore bulb, in 1912), were invited to meet in Switzerland to form the first International Lighting Cartel.
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Germany’s Osram pushed for the formation of the
Phoebus cartel. Shown (left) an Osram lightbulb factory.
Photo:
Siemens Corporate Archives
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The cartel was named Phoebus, from the Greek word for
bright
.
The cartel’s needs were simple: Business stability. To achieve that goal, Phoebus required complete global market control of the lighting industry.
The first item on their Agenda: The cartel’s incandescent bulbs were simply too good, and they lasted too long, and this was not good for the lighting business. The incandescent bulbs’ life spans in 1924 averaged 2500 hours, which was hurting follow-up sales.
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To ‘solve’ this problem, the lighting cartel decided to reduce incandescent bulb life to a lower level of one thousand-hours. This is considered one of the earliest examples of planned corporate obsolescence on an industry-wide global scale.
The Phoebus cartel then expanded their control over the lighting industry global businesses. They set quotas and production limits for all cartel members for the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs, and then assigned market territories.
Moving quickly, by early 1925, the cartel slashed life to 1,000 hours for an Edison household bulb, a marked reduction from the 2,500 hours that had previously been common.
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Samples were tested to ensure they conformed to lower cartel standards.
Photo shows a testing facility owned by cartel member Philips, Netherlands.
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Photo: Philips Company Archives
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How exactly did Phoebus get this done?
To create an under-performing bulb that consistently failed at 1,000 hours took some serious and determined engineering effort, and the cartel reversed decades of lighting development and technological progress.
Phoebus made each factory in the cartel agree to send sample bulbs to a central laboratory in Switzerland. There, the bulbs were thoroughly tested to verify they met the lower cartel standards. Any factory submitting bulbs lasting longer or shorter than 1000 hours was fined. Cartel members were also fined for exceeding their sales quotas, which were set by the cartel.
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Photo: Philips Company Archives
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The graph above, obtained from the Municipal Archive of Berlin, shows how life spans generally declined over time, from an average of 1,800 hours in 1926, to 1,205 hours in fiscal year 1933–34.
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Bottom Line:
So - was this good for the cartel members? In fiscal year 1926–27, the
Phoebus cartel sold 335.7 million lightbulbs worldwide. Four years later the cartel’s lightbulb sales had climbed to 420.8 million. From its forming in 1924 until the start of WW II, Phoebus dominated the global lighting market.
The cartel was created to last for thirty years (1925 to 1955), but ceased operations in 1939 due to the start of World War II.
If you would like to read more on the topic, here are some other links:
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Bill Nagengast, Lighting Engineer
Solas Ray Lighting
Holds over 20 patents in the lighting industry.
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