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conspir(ule)acy
(lemmy.cafe)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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The weird thing about the Phoebus cartel is that it wasn't actually evil. It was bulb manufacturers agreeing not to trick the public on longer life bulbs (that due to the technology wasted all the potential light as heat) in order to keep electricity cheap for everyone. That is they could sell a longer life bulbs but the electricity use would be much higher making it not an actual savings and making everyone pay more for electricity because you were wasting it with long life bulbs.
It wasn't until halogen, then compact fluorescent and now led that a longer life bulb was possible without being grossly wasteful of electricity.
nope not really
my understanding as a layperson is that the heat thing was simply a cover story—as often happens with these large companies. in the 21st century i’d compare it to oil companies and their “carbon footprint” bs; not false outright but certainly messging designed to pull eyes away from the real issue. i welcome resources that contradict this, tho
A thicker filament lasts longer but radiates more heat into the infra red. There was no compact fluorescents or LED's. By not undercutting each other, the cartel profited more but this also benefitted the consumers. If the cartel hadn't done it, the government should have.
It would be the same if a cartel formed a few years ago to only sell LED bulbs instead of incandescent. Then a bunch of yokels with their "Don't take my incandescent light bulbs and my gas stoves!" got their representatives to investigate. A congressional record of manufactures conspiring to switch to more efficient (but also more expensive) LED lighting would then exist for future generations to think there was an evil conspiracy. When really it was something the government should have regulated.
not disagreeing with you i am just looking for specifics that i wasn’t able to find. again, from an outside perspective, all the excellent information you provided looks like a “plausible enough” cover story for upping profits without actually holding real water.
Wikipedia doesn't have specific numbers but says this:
"The initial cost of an incandescent bulb is small compared to the cost of the energy it uses over its lifetime. "
"Because of this, the lifetime of a filament lamp is a trade-off between efficiency and longevity. The trade-off is typically set to provide a lifetime of 1,000 to 2,000 hours for lamps used for general illumination."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#:~:text=During%20ordinary%20operation%2C%20the%20tungsten,off%20between%20efficiency%20and%20longevity.
I don't have exact numbers but my best evidence is that there is no Phoebus cartel today yet incandescent bulbs are still designed to last the same as they did 100 years ago. This is most likely because of the physical limitations that Wikipedia claims.
!delta since i now more accurately understand the engineering and costs behind the situation. i still think it’s hella suspicious that they kept this a secret and in no way do i think this was all done out of pure good will lol
As I already said, it wasn't out of pure good will. But neither was it pure evil. It was a decision that benefited both them and the consumers. And I can't find any source that it was kept a secret. They were giant organizations with testing procedures to verify. It seems like it was simply delayed justice for governments to declare it illegal. Wiki even says in both the UK and US rulings that there were legitimate reasons to lower lifespan.
re: pure evil—no, of course not. no motive is pure evil, this isn’t disney. but motives can be purely profitable, as is the case with oil. this is my contest, that the cartel was considerably motivated by profit with a less significant regard for consumers. call that evil if you like, but i’m trying to be specific here.
re: secret—details of the cartel were not discovered until 1940 by a U.S. investigation as reported here here. information that is not available to the public counts as a secret, even if there is no original document stating that “we are keeping this a secret.”
re: us and uk rulings—well of course that is what they found. the 77 billion in health damages caused by oil production are legitimate costs of continuing production too. the government is pretty well known to side with capital so in this case third party reporting and calculations are of more weight to me.
i will say that the reporting surrounding this is abominable. i’m upset that what could have been a clear history lesson has become muddied up by npr/youtube pop-culturey gossip.
you’ve already changed my opinion and i don’t think my weak mind can handle too much more of this, just wanted to clear up those points lol
This was in my first reply that agrees with you that you have been arguing against until now:
"By not undercutting each other, the cartel profited more but this also benefitted the consumers"
Businesses are under no obligation to publicly publish everything they do. Secret implies they tried to hide it.
What did Elon Musk have for lunch at the SpaceX cafeteria today? He didn't announce it on Twitter. Does that make it a secret?
Is it bad that the Phoebus companies profited more by reducing carbon emissions?
Edit: sorry for being so aggressive but reducing carbon emissions should be a good thing.
this is the statement i am arguing against. i apologize if i gave any impression to the contrary. i think at this point we both agree that it was a decision made toward multiple ends, not just one.
this is why my sadness about reporting comes in. we don’t know that it reduced net carbon emissions. all we know is it reduced carbon emissions from the electricity used to power bulbs. but what about carbon emissions from the massive increase in production of bulb units? does it offset? more than carbon, what about the material waste of increasing the volume of largely unrecyclable material within the market? these are huge questions that most of the reporting kind of skims over for the sake of ‘planned obselesence bad’ :(
Public Companies are required to disclose almost nothing. Private companies don't have to disclose anything.
This is what Google is required to disclose: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204423000045/goog-20230331.htm
They don't even have to say how much money they make from Google Play Services. They don't disclose partnerships with manufactures. Nothing. Anything reported is dug up by investigative journalists or if Google thinks they can get positive public reaction from something they will issue a press release. They aren't secrets. They just aren't required to publish the information.
Wikipedia says it does. I quoted it earlier. If we assume the entire manufacturing cost of a bulb, ignoring profit and research/development creates carbon emissions, you have $1 worth of carbon emissions for the manufacture of a 100 watt bulb. If you run it until it burns out, it uses $16 in energy. When the Phoebus cartel was operating, there was no solar, wind or nuclear. It was all oil, gas and coal.
Do you think LED bulbs should be banned? They are far more toxic than tin, paper thin glass and a milligram of tungsten (which is non toxic).