Have you ever wondered why your light bulbs don't last longer? A century ago, an incandescent lamp could withstand about 2,500 hours of use, while today, despite the technological advances made in the last century, the humble and doomed-to-disappear electric bulbs barely work for more than a thousand hours. There is a theory that this is due to the influence of the so-called Phoebus cartel, which shaped global economic history by implementing a project of planned obsolescence on a global scale.
Planned Obsolescence
We've all heard of "planned obsolescence", that mechanism—considered perverse by many—that intentionally shortens the useful life of a product to maximize the manufacturer's financial returns. About a hundred years ago, when mass production made it possible to manufacture millions of identical products at very low cost, many began to think that this situation was, instead of a good way for everyone to have what they needed without complications, a real catastrophe.
Imagine buying any product, like a pair of socks or a microwave oven, and it being durable enough that you never need to buy another. This would be extremely beneficial for you, especially if thanks to mass production those products had an affordable price, but it would represent a problem for the manufacturer, who instead of selling you hundreds of pairs of socks over your lifetime would only sell you a handful.
As ridiculous as it sounds, there are many companies that intentionally shorten the "lifecycle" of their products. In some cases, this allows them to reduce costs without noticeably harming their consumers. For example, it is possible that a computer could be built much more solidly and able to last 50 or 60 years, but it makes no sense to make a machine more expensive when it is will be obsolete in just 5 or 6 years anyway. This explains, in part, why an old keyboard from an IBM PC from 1981 weighs about 3 kilograms and still works like the first day, while a modern "Chinese" keyboard with any luck withstands the vicissitudes of intensive use for a couple of years. But there are others who manufacture "deficient" products intentionally, just so you have to replace them again and again.
When Thomas Alva Edison began selling his bulbs, his idea was to achieve a model capable of illuminating for as long as possible. About 130 years ago, he put on sale a model that lasted, on average, about 1,500 hours. Forty years later, in the mid-1920s, there were lamps capable of shining for about 2,500 hours. At that point, some manufacturers of these items began to worry. If the useful life of incandescent lamps kept increasing, what would the industry do when everyone already had the ones they needed?
For them, a product that didn't break down represented a real threat to their business model. And so it was that the most influential companies in the sector, including Osram, Philips, Tungsram, Associated Electrical Industries, Compagnie des Lampes, International General Electric, and the GE Overseas Group signed in 1924 an agreement to intentionally limit the duration of bulbs, through an organization that would be known as the "Phoebus cartel".
The Phoebus Cartel
This organization, officially a Swiss company called "Phoebus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le Developpement de l’Eclairage", remained active under that name until at least 1939, although some claim that its influence spread, under other names, for much longer. The Phoebus cartel aimed to ensure that no one manufactured incandescent bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.
As crazy as it sounds, the cartel imposed heavy fines on those manufacturers whose products lasted longer than that. There was even a "scale of economic penalties" that increased as the lifespan of the lamps did. In the world there were only a handful of manufacturers of this product, and the most important ones were part of the cartel, so their dealings completely dominated the market. Among them they exchanged patents and, most seriously, archived or sabotaged those projects or products that were harmful to their purposes, including bulb models that could last up to 100,000 hours.
It is very difficult today to find a document that proves the existence of such a "plan" in operation. But it is also striking that despite the technologies that were developed between 1880 and now, the useful life of bulbs has not been substantially improved. Today they are in clear retreat, and their sale is even prohibited in some countries (due to their poor performance), but the existence of something like the Phoebus cartel should make us reflect on the possibility that some similar cartel may be reproducing this type of control in other areas. It may be just paranoia, but it never hurts to have a dose of critical thinking Don't you think?
You can read more about the Phoebus cartel on Wikipedia.
