Early lightbulbs could last thousands of hours — one hung in a firehouse has glowed for over a century. So in 1924 the biggest manufacturers on Earth formed a secret cartel, divided up the planet, and deliberately engineered their bulbs to burn out faster, fining each other if they didn't. It is the clearest documented case of planned obsolescence ever found, and the blueprint for the throwaway economy we still live in.
In a California firehouse hangs a hand-blown bulb that has glowed almost continuously for over 120 years. It is living proof that a lightbulb could last a very long time — which raises an uncomfortable question about why yours doesn't.
The facts on the world's longest-burning bulb: the carbon filament, the 120-plus years, the webcam trained on it, and why its stubborn survival became a symbol for a conspiracy.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know lays out the setup: in December 1924, the world's biggest bulb makers met in Geneva and secretly agreed to make their own products worse.
IEEE Spectrum's definitive history by Markus Krajewski, drawn from the cartel's own archives — including the fines levied on any factory whose bulbs dared to last longer than 1,000 hours.
The full ledger: Osram, Philips, General Electric and the rest, the Swiss shell company that ran it, the worldwide quota zones, and how engineers were tasked with deliberately shortening a bulb's life.
A tight recap of how the cartel engineered failure on purpose — and why making a bulb reliably die at 1,000 hours was actually harder than making one that lasted.
99% Invisible follows the thread into the present: from stockings to printers to phone batteries, how a secret meeting about lightbulbs became the template for the disposable world we live in now.