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conspir(ule)acy (lemmy.cafe)

submitted 9 months ago by spujb@lemmy.cafe to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

this is my contest, that the cartel was considerably motivated by profit with a less significant regard for consumers.

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"

information that is not available to the public counts as a secret,

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.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 1 points 9 months ago

“[bulb manufacturers participated in the cartel] in order to keep electricity cheap for everyone”

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.

secrets elon’s sandwhich is a secret because what he eats is personal information. that is in no way related to key market information about products, to which consumers have some kind of right, given the concept of the rational actor. does that right cover a cartel? i don’t know, but i feel like, given the evidence, it should.

carbon emissions

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’ :(

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

secrets elon’s sandwhich is a secret because what he eats is personal information.

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.

we don’t know that it reduced net carbon emissions.

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.