Talk:Phoebus cartel

"some years"
How long is "some years"? 10? 20? 50? 80? Needs to be more specific. Pimlottc 22:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The Last Sentence
It doesn't make sense. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.219.5.158 (User ) 16:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Purpose of conspiracy is wrong
The purpose section of this article is wrong. The Phoebus cartel existed, but it's purpose was price fixing, not planned obsolesce. The english references don't mention 1000 hours, and the german references (via google translate) seem to talk about why developing a light bulb that lasts over 1000 hours is difficult. I couldn't find it in external links, and one of them doesn't seem to exist (Patrick Gaughen. Structural Inefficiency in the Early Twentieth Century: Studies in the Aluminum and Incandescent Lamp Markets).

After chasing down links the original source for the argument appears to be a documentary called "The Light Bulb Conspiracy", which I wouldn't consider a valid source. The review on imbd sums it up perfectly: "All light bulb types have advantages, and energy saving and lifespan mandates compromise other advantages that light bulbs - or indeed other products mentioned in the film - may have."

140.79.15.161 (User ) 23:44, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Counterpoint
One basic argument that the cartel did include limiting life span of light bulbs was that Thomas Edison's 1880 or 1881 bulb was noted as having an average life of 1200 hours, so the idea that 40 years later (1920's) it was difficult to obtain even the same performance is highly unusual.

References: "... it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200 hours" Src: Thomas Edison accessed 13 April 2013, and "Edison and his team later discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1200 hours." Src: History of the light bulb accessed 13 April 2013.

Also given the existence of the 1901 Shelby light bulb (operating for 112 years) at Livermore California's fire station number 4, and 1908 Palace Light Bulb, Fort Worth, Texas operating for 104 years. Under a friction-less free market economy, such products should of been commercial successful by saving consumers money, yet continue to have a market given the (near?) continuous expandson of electric lighting use globally).

Regarding the non-existent external link re: Patrick Gaughen, the original was http://www.andover.edu/aep/papers/610/pgaughen98.pdf and the original document can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20050204082354/http://www.andover.edu/aep/papers/610/pgaughen98.pdf

"Structural Inefficiency in the Early Twentieth Century: Studies in the Aluminum and Incadescent Lamp Markets" December 1998.

I believe that these do present enough trusted references to at least acknowledge the claim of planned obsolesces or limiting performance.

Mctylr (talk) 20:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Recall that incandescent bulbs that last a long time have low efficacy; for example, a 60 watt 120 volt 1000 hour bulb will give off something like 850 lumens, whereas a 60 watt 120 volt 5000 hour bulb will only produce around 600 lumens. Since explaining lumens to consumers was as hard in 1930 as it is today, Phoebus made sure that no-one could promote their bulbs as "long life" compared to other manufacturers by cheating on efficacy. The cost of electricity a bulb consumes is many times the initial cost of the bulb, for incandescent bulbs anyway.It's not hard to find 20,000 hour bulbs today, but you'll need three of them to supply the light given by two 1000 hour lamps; they are really meant for places where labor to replace a bulb is costly. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:30, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * yes, the 'planned obsolesces' bulbs actually saved people money, and because lighting was a very large user of power, these also saved generating capacity, distribution infrastructure and given the reduction in power being pushed about, undoubtedly lives. this all come about in a less capitalistic time when the originators of this were certainly trying to help society, (no longer considered a possible motivation), some reference to this needs to be added to the article, along with its urban meme status. the modern "i suffering because i'm being cheated mindset" is rampant with this one. 79.65.106.15 (talk) 15:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

1. "could last over 1200 hours" does not mean average life 1200 hours.

2. 100 year + filament lamps can be made, but were a big waste of money & energy for the hapless souls that bought them.

3. The article talks of planned obsolescence, but I'm not aware of any such reality in filament lamp design/manufacture from that period. 82.30.111.65 (talk) 23:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards this being a myth based on people not understanding light bulb technology and making the cartel to be far more sinister than it is. A UK government report discusses this claim and says it is baseless: "Report on the Supply of Electric Lamps", 1953, The Monopolies and Restrictives Practice Commission, Report 287pt.283 , Chapter 17, p.98:

"'As regards life standards, before the Phoebus Agreement and to this day the general service filament lamp was and is designed to have, on average, a minimum life of 1,000 hours. It has often been alleged—though not in evidence to us—that the Phoebus organisation artificially made the life of a lamp short with the object of increasing the number of lamps sold. As we have explained in Chapter 9. there can be no absolutely right life for the many varying circumstances to be found among the consumers in any given country, so that any standard life must always represent a compromise between conflicting factors. B.S.I, has always adopted a single life standard for general service filament lamps, and the representatives of both B.S.I, and B.E.A., as well as most lamp manufacturers, have told us in evidence that they regard 1,000 hours as the best compromise possible at the present time, nor has an evidence been offered to us to the contrary. Accordingly we must dismiss as misconceived the allegation referred to above.'" Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Absence of mention of planned obsolescence in article
It reads strangely to me that the article doesn't directly mention planned obsolescence, probably the thing the Phoebus cartel is most famous for, but instead buries the accusation of planned obsolescence in the hard-to-parse 1953 report. I suggest it should read something like "[Sources] have called the Phoebus cartel's restrictions on bulb life an example of planned obsolescence. However, a 1953 Monopolies ... report concluded: blockquote." Examples of sources for the accusation include the 2010 film The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy and. I'm not sure why the film doesn't count as a valid source. But there's plenty more:. Camipco (talk) 20:30, 19 April 2021 (UTC)


 * One aspect has been forgotten: What these globes replaced, which was gas lights.

I remember in my grandmother's house there were capped gas outlets in the ceilings where the gas lights had been. The apartment building would have been built in the years after Bismarck's formation of Germany in 1971 and was located in Berlin-Schöneberg.

1000 hours can be seen as a minimum or maximum. People might have needed a guarantee that they did not have to buy new bulbs every 10 days. 2001:8003:A070:7F00:E573:6DDC:4C77:E058 (talk) 23:41, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Purpose in Infobox lacking clarity
Regarding the infobox, the purpose of the cartel is listed as Planned Obsolescence, but there seems to be disagreement on this talk page as well as within the article as to whether or not that is supported by data. For this reason, should the purpose be changed, or a clarification added to the purpose so as to better inform readers of the purpose, or at very least the academic disagreement on the purpose of the Phoebus Cartel? EEEcon5761 (talk) 05:07, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Um, capitalization??
I don't understand the capitalization scheme being used. Is it Phoebus Cartel, Phoebus cartel, or phoebus cartel? It appears as all three at various place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.217.199 (User ) 00:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've standardized it to the most common form used in the article: "Phoebus cartel". Opencooper (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Commercial Decision Making
A company has the right to design a product with specifications they want. That has nothing to do with conspiracy. Technically the limitations are just given by the constraints of physics and the constraints of the material used for the product. Beyond physical constraints decision making in economy is driven by market analysis and an analysis of the product itself (e.g. failure rate and costs for maintenance or replacement of the product). The term planned obsolescence has a negative connotation but it is part of any design process of products, if failure rate is considered. The price for a product is also part a design process. All products will fail after some time (independent of long lasting design or designed for short-term use). Putting the word "conspiracy" in the title of movie "The Light Bulb Conspiracy" or article can also be regarded as marketing decision for a movie or article itself (NPOV).

"See also" links should refer to legal aspects of product design decisions (including lifespan, price, ...) and at the same time to illegal operations of a cartel. If price fixing was legal in a country then "price fixing" will be a legal commercial decision of the product design. It is OK reverting planned obsolescence, but it would guide readers to consider the context of this article from the angle of the design process of products.

--Bert Niehaus (talk) 08:19, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

This article is poorly written, and I've done some cleanup on it. I also added a quote from a UK Parliamentary committee that discusses this very issue, and it's very relevant. My personal suspicion is that the theory that Phoebus cartel intentionally conspired to limit the lifespan of bulbs to increase sales is a myth. Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:19, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * To a person far removed from his college electronics course, the issue appears to be one of filament thickness. A thicker filament will last longer, but will require more energy to produce the amount of light from a thinner filament because more of the energy produces heat. The industry standard took into account power efficiency versus lifespan. David notMD (talk) 13:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In other words, there was no sinister motive in that regard. I've done a search for the cartel on google books and read sections discussing the history of the cartel and they make no mention of limiting the lifespan. Instead the cartel seems to be more about price fixing. I'm pretty sure that this is a myth created by people who don't understand engineering. Harizotoh9 (talk) 08:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * There is always a trade off to be made with characteristics of certain items. The incandescent lamp has always had to have a trade off between luminous efficacy and lamp life. The more efficacious the lamp (the more lumens output per watt of power consumed), the shorter the life of the filament. Right up to the point at which incandescent lamps became unfashionable (the beginning of the 21st century), 1000 hours was almost universally regarded as the reasonable trade off between lamp life and efficacy. It could be argued that lamps of US origin could have had a longer life for the same efficacy of European lamps (the lower operating voltage gives a more efficacious lamp for the same life). As stated in the article there is no evidence that the Phoebus cartel set the life for any different reason. The life versus sales issue that decreasing the life of a product by 20% results in 25% more sales is certainly not lost on the light bulb industry. A UK consumer magazine regularly tested light bulbs and regularly found brands on sale that seldom lasted more than 700-800 hours average.


 * In case anyone doesn't know, the IEC standard life test for light bulbs uses a cylinder with 100 light sockets mounted around its circumference. 100 light bulbs are plugged in and the rated voltage applied from a regulated source. The test ends after 50 bulbs have failed and the time taken for this is the average life. In general the bulbs on the top three quarters or so of the cylinder tend to fail first. This is because bulbs burning cap up have better filament cooling due to the extra cooling area afforded by the stem of the bulb and will generally last longer than the average life. 86.132.158.45 (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Notability of Pynchon's story on the Phoebus cartel
This is quite possibly the weirdest edit war I've landed in during my 18 years on WP, but here goes. Some time ago, I added the following sentences to the article:

In Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Thomas Pynchon wrote about "Byron the Bulb", an anthropomorphic eternal lightbulb who fights against the Phoebus Cartel. Pynchon's story has been credited with bringing the Phoebus Cartel to the public eye.

This has now been reverted, first on WP:NOTTRIVIA grounds, and then because "It's brought a false story to the public" (which, IMHO, is quite orthogonal to whether it's notable or not). Obviously I disagree, and I think the sources here are quite solid, but third opinions welcome. Jpatokal (talk) 14:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The article is about the so called (and misnamed) Phoebus cartel. Pynchon's book has no connection to the fact that the 'Phoebus cartel' existed. Had Pynchon not written the book, the 'Phoebus cartel' would still have existed. Pynchon's book did not even change the function of the 'Phoebus cartel' - it would still have fulfilled the same function as it did had the book not been written. Pynchon's book is thus an irrelevance.


 * The name of the organisation does not include the word 'cartel' and indeed there is no evidence that it ever was a cartel. A cartel is a price fixing syndication of related companies, but there is no evidence that the Phœbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage ever fixed the price of anything. The only evidence is: that they set the life of general service light bulbs to a reasonable compromise between life and efficacy. No authority up to the 21st century, when general service light bulbs became obsolescent, has ever fundamentally disagreed with their assessment - which strongly suggests that what they did was right and proper. Yes, one might be able argue over a hundred hours or so, but 2000 hour light bulbs are hard to justify given that they output around half the number of lumens per watt.


 * There is no evidence that anyone prior to the publication of Gravity's Rainbow described the Phœbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage as a cartel. Indeed even the article on Gravity's Rainbow itself makes it clear that its description of the so called 'Phoebus cartel' is a conspiracy theory (along with several other conspiracy theories). Conspiracy theories have no place in Wikipedia and are basically banned per WP:FRINGE as there is no authoritative evidence to support the claim beyond anecdotal evidence and any later published article basically regurgitating Pynchon's nonsense.


 * There is not even any evidence that Pynchon himself actually believed it to be a cartel or that it had any nefarious purpose but that he merely used it as a convenient plot device for a fictional work. Fictional works are not useable as references or support for any article except on the fictional work itself. 86.132.158.45 (talk) 13:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing your thoughts. So to be clear, you believe that Phoebus was not known as a cartel before Gravity's Rainbow, and you think that the novel is ultimately responsible for the popular misconception that it was one? Jpatokal (talk) 13:54, 9 May 2021 (UTC)


 * That is not what I said. What I said was that there is no evidence that it was regarded as a cartel, or described as a cartel before Gravity's Rainbow. And there is still no evidence that it was a cartel in the strict sense of what a cartel is - a price fixing sydicate. What I personally believe is of no relevance any more than your beliefs are. 86.132.158.45 (talk) 15:39, 9 May 2021 (UTC)


 * So, as far as we know, it appears that Pynchon was the first to call it a cartel? Or have you found any other independent sources that make the same assertion? Jpatokal (talk) 00:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)


 * That is exactly what I said. I don't have to produce any independent sources that make the same assertion. If anyone wishes to describe the Phœbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Développement de l'Éclairage as a cartel, then it is up to them to prove that they fixed the price of light bulbs (or any other product). It is unlikely that they did so, because after the ideal life was worked out, market forces would dictate that light bulbs would all be similarly priced just as they, in reality, did so after the supposed 'cartel' was dissolved.


 * In fact Pynchon's book seems to have an obsession with cartels because AFAICT the book describes quite a few syndicated organisations as cartels where there were no prior allegations of such. But this is all irrelevant because, as I said, a fictional work is not an acceptable reference. 86.132.158.45 (talk) 14:26, 10 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Great. So here's my assertion: the facts that Phoebus is 1) widely known and 2) commonly described as a cartel are both because of Pynchon's work. This in itself is enough to make it notable here, and we have two reliable sources to back this up.


 * Note that this is quite distinct from whether Pynchon was "correct" or not, or even whether the work is fictional; for example, Cloning mentions Jurassic Park as a dramatization of the risks of cloning extinct species, even though nobody has ever cloned a dinosaur and the book/movie in question is entirely fictional. Jpatokal (talk) 06:57, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
 * No. The Gravity's Rainbow article makes it clear that the book is full of conspiracy theories which it is. This suggests that Pynchon was probably a conspiracy theorist himself. Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia does not document conspiracy theories (except, perhaps, on articles specifically about conspiracy theories). WP:FRINGE is the applicable policy here. Indeed all Pynchon's works have had one, some or all of the labels "urban myths"; "paranoia" and "conspiracy theories" applied to them. Such material does not belong in this article. It is adequately documented at the article on the book and the author. 86.132.158.45 (talk) 16:31, 11 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Again, the accuracy of what Pynchon said is kind of orthogonal here, what I'm saying is that the claim itself is notable because it has had a clear, measurable impact on popular perception. For a similar example, the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (a factual article) mentions JFK (film) (which presents a conspiracy theory) because it "renewed public interest in the assassination", in much the same way that Pynchon renewed (created?) public interest in the Phoebus cartel.


 * I don't think we're going to come to an agreement though, so I've taken the liberty of soliticing a Third opinion on this. Jpatokal (talk) 05:03, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not supposed to be a collection of random trivia. Mentions of incidental appearances of items in works of fiction have little encyclopediac value. Google Books turns up snippets as early as 1953 referring to the Phoebus cartel. We might as well add what the German character liked to eat to the article on German cuisine. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , your opinion about the phoebus cartel appears to not be shared by reliable sources. All reliable sources I can find both describe it as a cartel seeking to maximise the price of its products and as the prototypical example of planned obsolesence, so describing it as a "conspiracy theory" appears to be spurious, see this piece in IEEE Spectrum magazine for an example. If you can find reliable sources to back up your opinion then do so, otherwise it's irrelevant. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:38, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This just demonstrates what happens when you post without bothering to read the thread that you are posting to. Your piece from the IEEE post dates Pynchon’s book as does every other so called reliable source making similar claims.


 * To reiterate: there is no evidence whatsoever that anybody considered that the Phoebus company engaged in any nefarious activity prior to the publication of Pynchon’s book. The only evidence is: that the Phoebus company established a reasonable compromise between life and efficacy for GLS light bulbs - a compromise that has been universally accepted to this day and therefore not nefarious.


 * Gravity’s Rainbow is the first work ever that introduces the idea that the Phoebus company fixed the life and price for nefarious purposes (along with numerous other conspiracy theories that have gained traction since its publication). 148.252.128.108 (talk) 12:31, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Here's your third opinion: the IP editor is a long-term banned editor, and you needn't bother with what they think. Carry on. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:48, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Bump, since this has been repeatedly reverted out again. To recap, my assertion is that a) Pynchon's "Byron the Bulb" is notable because it brought the Phoebus Cartel to the public eye, and b) there are multiple reliable sources (below) saying so. I previously requested a third opinion on this, which was graciously provided by User:Ivanvector.

, would you like to provide the opposing case? You've made it clear that you think this is "trivia", but there are several reliable sources that disagree. Jpatokal (talk) 09:40, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Going to the extraordinary depth of research of skipping the first three pages of Google Books hits, I find snippets such as this dating to 1948 referring to "Phoebus cartel". Pynchon was just mastering the two-wheeler when this was printed. Just because you saw a fictional story about something, doesn't make that fiction relevant to the topic.  --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:25, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

German language article
Most of the recent research on the Phoebus cartel seems to be written in German, as evidenced by the German article which is much better referenced than this one. Could someone more proficient in German than I look into translating sections of that article and putting them here? Swaggernagger (talk) 09:49, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Source does not appear to support claim
Article states "The cartel took over market territories and lowered the useful life of such bulbs, which raised their efficiency and output" and cites a New Yorker article. But there's nothing I can find in there which suggests an increase in efficiency and output as a direct result of the group's activities. In fact the source says "...the only significant technical innovation in the new bulbs was the precipitous drop in operating life. “It was the explicit aim of the cartel to reduce the life span of the lamps in order to increase sales,” [Krajewski] said. “Economics, not physics.”" which would appear to directly contradict the claim. The statement seems to suggest a technical purpose behind the changes, but the source cited mostly talks about market forces that encourage it - this makes the manufacture of products with shorter lifetimes than what is possible a rational decision, certainly. But wouldn't negate any criticism people might have of the practice itself, it just shifts any blame to "the market" as a whole. To be clear, I'm not saying the statement itself is necessarily incorrect, I'm saying that the article cited doesn't support it, from what I can tell. Chris-P-FYI (talk 05:24, 11 September 2023 (UTC)


 * You're correct. I cut the unsourced clause. Loki (talk) 22:03, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Veritasium did a video on that
The name of the video is « this is why we can’t have nice things », on youtube, it’s worth adding 2A01:E0A:A59:70:B1F7:602D:D286:ADC9 (talk) 00:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm aware of the video. Unfortunately Youtube videos aren't usually reliable sources, but maybe we could add an External Links section for it. Loki (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)