[HN Gopher] Phoebus Cartel
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Phoebus Cartel
Author : mbroncano
Score : 84 points
Date : 2021-04-26 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Standardizing a 1000 hr bulb life vs standardizing a 30%
| commission to host an app, is it really a coincidence or are
| cartels just better at hiding it now?
| nerdponx wrote:
| Have Microsoft and Google standardized on the 30% commission?
|
| Or is it more that "Apple stuff" is not directly substitutable
| with "Google stuff", and that Apple has a monopoly on "Apple
| stuff"?
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Yes, they have, please see this chart
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/975776/revenue-split-
| lea...
|
| Pretty much everyone has, with the occasional exception.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That is remarkable, and I wonder if there are explanations
| other than a cartel.
| mpartel wrote:
| Steam and GOG too
| NAG3LT wrote:
| Wasn't Steam one of the first to implement such pricing?
| Or have they followed the lead of somebody else before
| them?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Steam has a much better case to argue, given that they're
| a fiscally independent company with no board of directors
| or shareholders to satisfy. Since they don't get monthly
| cash infusions, they need to do two things: shoot for an
| aggressive growth model, and shower the end user in
| features. In my opinion, they've succeeded in both
| regards: their 30% cut is pretty large, but it's
| justified given the scale of the operation they run.
| Plus, their generosity with things like cloud save, video
| streaming, and their assortment of community offerings,
| it's hard to really claim that Steam doesn't deserve
| their cut. If anything, I consider them the premier
| example of what a "premium" CDN pipeline looks like.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Interesting, thanks.
|
| I wonder how much of this is deliberate collusion, as
| opposed to an equilibrium where companies all realize that
| it's more profitable to match each others' fees than to try
| to compete on price.
|
| If other app stores charge 30%, you know that developers
| are willing to pay 30%, and there's not much to be gained
| by reducing your own rate below that.
| WalterGR wrote:
| _I wonder how much of this is deliberate collusion, as
| opposed to an equilibrium_
|
| I saw a theory in the comments on HN once that companies
| can 'collude' without communicating with each other. If
| memory serves, it was different than just achieving an
| equilibrium. Maybe it's enough of a theory to have a
| name? Hopefully someone who knows what I'm thinking of
| can chime in.
|
| Edit: I may be thinking of "tacit collusion".
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion - "Tacit
| collusion is a collusion between competitors, which do
| not explicitly exchange information and achieving an
| agreement about coordination of conduct."
| nerdponx wrote:
| Yes, although typically tacit collusion is introduced
| with the example of price matching at big box retailers.
| The setup in this case is somewhat different, although
| the outcome is still an equilibrium in which all sellers
| "agree" to keep prices high (and above marginal cost)
| without directly communicating.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| They read each-other's press releases, they reasearch
| competitors, employees and mamagers move between
| companies. There is no way for them to not communicate.
|
| Just because bosses didnt sit down a and sign a deal in a
| smokey room doesnt mean no decision was made
| simonh wrote:
| Market forces often push participants towards an equilibrium
| value, so it's hard to say. I don't know enough about economic
| theory to know if there's a way to tell.
|
| The 30% commission has a long history. There are precedents
| going back to the early days of games consoles. Both the iTunes
| music store and Steam opened in 2003 charging 30% or very close
| to it (iTunes tracks were 99c so it doesn't work out exactly).
|
| It's hard to argue the 30% in either of those cases were a
| matter of abuse of market power. Steam was struggling to
| establish itself against the incumbent distribution channels.
| The iTunes rates were negotiated with the major labels who were
| notoriously hard deal makers and very wary of online sales
| channels. They held all the cards is their negotiations with
| Apple and yet they seemed to think 30% was fair. So at that
| point I don't think it's possible to make a credible case that
| the 30% rate was extortionate.
|
| If 30% was abusive, we'd expect to see it act as a brake on
| adoption of the App Store by developers, but is there really
| any evidence for that? On Android have any of the smaller
| stores tried to differentiate on price at lower than 30% to
| attract developers, or has Google tried to woo iOS developers
| with lower rates? If 30% was abusively high we'd expect to see
| something like that happening.
| amelius wrote:
| A percentage doesn't make sense, because cheap apps and
| expensive apps require exactly the same effort for hosting
| them, and there is no risk involved.
|
| So the fact that these competitors use the same pricing model
| and the same price has a bad smell.
| nrp wrote:
| It's unlikely there was collusion around app store commissions.
| It's more likely a case of "how much can we get away with
| charging?" and existing competitors in market providing a proof
| point of what is palatable to developers. That is a somewhat
| stable state until someone like Epic comes in with a lot of
| money and a desire to quickly capture market share with a lower
| commission.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'd be willing to defend Apple's 30% cut if any of it was
| justified. Instead, my experience working in the walled
| garden has been gruelling. Xcode is a pathetic disaster at
| this point, but Apple seems to be unwilling to extend any
| functionality to the editors I actually use. Getting an app
| through the guidelines is an exercise in arbitrary
| debasement. Their phone support is useless too, with most of
| them directing me to forum posts that basically say "don't do
| whatever you're doing". I think Epic has every right to offer
| their lower commission, because their service downright
| sucks. I still plan to buy games from Steam for the
| foreseeable future, because their work on Proton is worth it
| to me.
| syshum wrote:
| I am pretty sure it is established that there was, Amazon and
| Apple were the first 2 members
| simonh wrote:
| Steam was charging 30% as far back as 2003.
| selectodude wrote:
| Apple and Amazon are far from the first storefronts.
| fsflover wrote:
| Previous discussions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596792
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17606748
| branon wrote:
| Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light
| syshum wrote:
| I often wonder is their is a Phoebus equivalent in the SmartPhone
| market.
|
| I am unsure how we got to a point where the life span of a
| $900-$1,200 device is measured in months not years is acceptable
| but is seems to me it would have to involve some conspiracy
| especially when the technology they replaced or augmented
| (traditional phones and laptops) where all measured in years,
| multiple years.
| [deleted]
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You either had bad luck, are doing something to break them, or
| purchased particularly bad phones.
|
| Phones last years now although first party software updates are
| frequently only available for 1-2 years and apps eventually are
| made that require more recent android versions effectively
| forcing you to update in 5 years to have access to all possible
| apps. Games may be more aggressive in their requirements as
| well.
| syshum wrote:
| >> first party software updates are frequently only available
| for 1-2 year
|
| Bingo, that is the planned obsolesce part. too many people
| here are focusing on physical viability, not software
| viability.
|
| From a security standpoint, if it is out of support it is a
| brick, and the number of vulnerabilities that are discovered
| on these devices NO ONE should be running a mobile computer
| with current updates
|
| So sure the device may physically still turn on, and you can
| still "use" it, it is not something I would recommend.
| walshemj wrote:
| I have only just replaced my Moto 4g 2014 (PS170) with a
| motog9 power - the battery just would not hold a useful
| charge.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It is entirely possible, but in the case of smartphones the
| hardware processes and systems are so new that we're also
| seeing the effects of "crapshoot integration..." The market is
| moving so fast that there isn't time to run enough tests to
| have strong expectations on the ten-year lifespan of the
| product. Batteries, in particular, are such bleeding-edge
| technology (and in a space of chemistry so poorly theoretically
| understood) that every new design is more or less a dice-roll
| on the long-term performance.
|
| The hallmark of a Phoebus-cartel-style situation would be if
| smartphones from N years ago from multiple manufacturers were
| still going strong but newer phones were slower, or had
| crappier battery life, or broke down more often (consistently
| year-over-year). I'm not sure that's an easy comparison to
| make; go too far back in the space and you pass into the pre-
| iPhone, pre-Android era "smartphones" that were robust as hell
| but remarkably featureless relative to what came after.
|
| That having been said, Apple has been sued over the planned
| obsolescence of its smartphones
| (https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/08/apple-chile-planned-
| obs...)
| interestica wrote:
| > that every new design is more or less a dice-roll on the
| long-term performance.
|
| Sometimes things happen to make companies uh take note:
|
| https://www.wired.com/2017/01/why-the-samsung-galaxy-
| note-7-...
| intergalplan wrote:
| > I am unsure how we got to a point where the life span of a
| $900-$1,200 device is measured in months not years
|
| Because we didn't get to that point? My Apple phones last 3+
| years unless I break them, and only the ones I hold on to for
| closer to 5 years aren't still working entirely fine when I
| upgrade; usually all they'd need to keep working for another
| couple years is a battery replacement.
| bserge wrote:
| If there is, it's a pretty bad cartel seeing as the older
| devices do not actually break after a year or so :)
| benjaminjosephw wrote:
| If new devices are more likely to break than old ones doesn't
| that suggest that planned obsolescence has been introduced?
| Probably not because of a cartel but almost certainly due to
| plain old greed and a lack of moral integrity.
| gsich wrote:
| With Android certainly. I wouldn't expect any Android phone
| today to still receive updates in 5 years.
| klondike_ wrote:
| The planned obsolescence of incandescent light bulbs is largely a
| myth. While there are plenty of real examples of planned
| obsolescence, with incandescent light bulbs there are engineering
| tradeoffs between longevity and efficiency. Basically, the longer
| lasting a bulb is, the dimmer and less efficient it is. If you've
| ever seen any of the supposed 100 year old bulbs, you'll notice
| that they're extremely dim. Before, during, and after the Phoebus
| cartel incandescent light bulbs were (and still are!)
| standardized to 1000 hours. Why? Because that happens to be a
| good trade off between longevity and efficiency. It just doesn't
| make sense to waste an extra $5 on electricity to make a $1 light
| bulb last longer.
|
| You have always been able to buy long life incandescent light
| bulbs, and still can to this day. They're called rough service
| bulbs, made for ovens and closets and areas used infrequently.
| People just never used them for general purpose lighting because
| they're dim and power hungry.
|
| If you read the report by the British monopolies commission
| quoted in this article, you'll notice that they came to the same
| conclusion [1]. Pop science articles and Reddit love to bring out
| the Phoebus cartel over and over as an example of planned
| obsolescence, but always completely ignore the factors that go
| into making a good incandescent light bulb.
|
| [1]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/..
| .
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| OTOH, if I could discover a way to make a lightbulb that lasts
| 1100 hours, for the same electricity and brightness, then
| consumers would buy that, and I would make money!
|
| But the cartel colluded to prevent such innovation. The British
| monopolies commission effectively colluded with them by _first_
| decided that there should be a single lifetime as a standard:
| with that decision already made, then of course they could
| easily claim to have reached a decision based on the facts
| provided by the companies they were investigating.
|
| And I would happily pay an extra $5 in electricity for a bulb
| that reduced my need to change them. Should we ban the iPhone
| because you could easily use a cheap Android instead?
| klondike_ wrote:
| >OTOH, if I could discover a way to make a lightbulb that
| lasts 1100 hours, for the same electricity and brightness,
| then consumers would buy that, and I would make money!
|
| This will never happen with incandescent bulbs because the
| lifespan vs efficiency trade off is fundamental to how they
| work. More power means more heat which causes it to fail
| faster. However, this did end up happening eventually with
| the invention of LED bulbs and now many big companies
| formerly in the cartel (including Phillips) are in the
| process of shutting down or selling off their lighting
| division because it's no longer profitable to sell light
| bulbs when LEDs last so long.
|
| >The British monopolies commission effectively colluded with
| them by first decided that there should be a single lifetime
| as a standard
|
| Just as companies today agree on standards like USB or WiFi,
| back then they also agreed to a standard bulb life and
| efficiency. This means that one company's bulbs are
| interoperable with another's and you don't end up with a
| house full of mismatched bulbs.
|
| >And I would happily pay an extra $5 in electricity for a
| bulb that reduced my need to change them.
|
| This doesn't account for the extra greenhouse emissions and
| environmental effects of running inefficient bulbs. Also,
| long life bulbs were never banned, even when the cartel was
| active. You've always been able to buy them if you wish, most
| people didn't because they had a poor lumens/watt
| Diggsey wrote:
| As mentioned there's an inverse trade-off between life and
| brightness, so if you found a way to make an 1100 hours
| lightbulb, you could equally make a _brighter_ lightbulb than
| the competition.
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| They were still an anti-competitive cartel.
|
| The Pheobus Cartel wasn't just about bulb lifespan, but also
| bulb price. They also used their power to increase the price of
| bulbs. The fact that they converged on a practical trade-off in
| terms of life span & energy costs doesn't change their anti-
| competitive nature.
| klondike_ wrote:
| I agree with you there, but most people bring up the Phoebus
| cartel as an example of planned obsolescence and rarely being
| up the price fixing aspect. Besides, the cartel didn't last
| for very long regardless.
| gwern wrote:
| The IEEE has a good article on how quickly Phoebus failed:
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/t...
| If not for Pynchon, no one would have ever heard of Phoebus -
| it's not even one of the successful cartels.
|
| One amusing tidbit not mentioned in the IEEE article I noticed
| while looking at some congressional testimony: the Scandinavian
| competitors apparently did not just undercut Phoebus, but
| signed up first to get Phoebus to bankroll construction of
| their lightbulb plant and _then_ began undercutting them with
| it!
| Closi wrote:
| > Before, during, and after the Phoebus cartel incandescent
| light bulbs were (and still are!) standardized to 1000 hours.
| Why? Because that happens to be a good trade off between
| longevity and efficiency.
|
| I would believe this if the cartel fined members based on the
| inefficiency of their lightbulbs relative to light produced
| (lumens per watt), and fined according to this.
|
| Or allowed longer life bulbs if they met a lumen per watt
| efficiency target.
|
| Or even if they added a _minimum_ life to ensure that consumers
| got quality, and fined producers if they produced bulbs that
| were too low-life.
|
| They didn't, they fined members who produced lights that lasted
| longer regardless of bulb efficiency.
|
| Because the decision to limit bulb life to 1,000 hours had
| obvious financial benefits for cartel members, I think it's
| pretty generous to think that this policy was _solely_ based on
| wanting what was best for consumers.
| klondike_ wrote:
| I figure this is because at the time there wasn't an accurate
| way to measure light output en masse. This was before
| photoresistors and solar panels were invented. Also, why
| would manufacturers still target that figure even today in
| absence of the cartel?
| valyagolev wrote:
| Pynchon's "Byron the Bulb", the great example of American Sublime
| according to Harold Bloom, is a paranoid story about this very
| affair https://www.tildedave.com/byron.html
| mdu96 wrote:
| There's a fantastic Throughline podcast episode on the Phoebus
| Cartel: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707188193/the-phoebus-
| cartel.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| In a bit of synchronicity, Dubai has sponsored development of
| more efficient and longer lived (via underdriving) LED lamps, and
| exclusivity enforcement means that you are prevented from being
| able to buy these longer-lived lamps:
| https://hackaday.com/2021/01/17/leds-from-dubai-the-royal-li...
| tialaramex wrote:
| This is a very different trade though, the Dubai lamp trades a
| higher upfront price (these lamps are more sophisticated and
| cost more to make, so unsurprisingly they also cost more to
| buy) for a longer lifespan _and_ improved efficiency.
|
| Whereas incandescents were trading lifespan versus efficiency.
| You can make 5000 hour incandescents, but your "60 watt" 5000
| hour lamp will put out far less light, so it costs the same to
| run but it's not bright enough, then you buy the 100 watt
| version, now it's bright enough but you're paying two thirds
| more money to run it!
|
| A hypothetical 5000 hour incandescent only makes economic sense
| if your electricity is basically free (greedily maybe it makes
| sense if _you_ don 't pay for it, e.g. rental inclusive of
| electricity bills) whereas a Dubai lamp makes sense regardless
| of electricity price, because over long enough periods the
| increased lifespan saves you money anyway.
| userbinator wrote:
| _these lamps are more sophisticated and cost more to make_
|
| Actually, they're simpler than a lot of other LED lamps,
| because they're not dimmable and use only a capacitor to
| limit current followed by a small post-regulator.
|
| The driving electronics often fails before the LEDs, but
| they've minimised that with these.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Because they're under-driven, they actually need
| considerably _more_ (typically four times as many) light
| emitters than a cheaper alternative, and those cost money.
| It 's true that a capacitive dropper is a cheap way to make
| LED lamps work, but that's how the LED lamps you're offered
| in a typical store today already work, so doing that isn't
| saving them money over competitors, and since it's a long-
| life product they didn't skimp on the power supply design,
| check this Big Clive video for example:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM2DMuryw_A
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| ... or if I am personally more interested in the difficulties
| of changing the bulb than the electricity it costs to run it.
| [deleted]
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| Hm. Wondering how planned obsolescence (PO) can be fought.
|
| The first step of solving a problem is defining it.
|
| Maybe if there was a website where enough people self-reported
| device failures out of spite, wonder if that would help pinpoint
| PO cases. Incidentally it may solve the fake review issue.
|
| An open source bug reporting tool but for IRL failures. BBB comes
| to mind.
|
| Just a random and free idea.
| fmajid wrote:
| France has outlawed the practice as part of an environmental
| law.
| simonh wrote:
| They also outlawed managing cpu utilisation in order to
| prolong device lifetimes, so apparently it's illegal to try
| to extend device lifetime and also illegal not to.
| Robespierre and Cardinal Richelieu would be so proud.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yeah, and manufacturers are allowed to assign their own
| repairability indexes to their products. That's how Apple
| ended up scoring the Macbook an 8, and the iPhone a 7.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Easy to outlaw, difficult to prove unless the law also
| mandated minimum usable lifetimes & warranties for products.
|
| A company doesn't have to build in some sort of off switch to
| force obsolescence, all they have to do is use cheap parts to
| cut costs and put the burden of paying for maintenance on the
| buyer. Basically, planned obsolescence can be
| indistinguishable from a product that is cheaply made.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > The first step of solving a problem is defining it.
|
| Yep, and the issue is that most people will run from the
| opportunity to make their relationship with technology more
| complicated. Most people don't care if you can't replace the
| battery on the new iPhone because they intend to replace it in
| 2-3 years. As sorrowing of a statement as it is to say, it's
| hard to get first-class citizens to care about issues that
| don't affect them. In other news, the earth is round and
| gravity pulls downwards.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| If your friendly neighborhood government has a fully empowered
| consumer protection agency, said agency can enforce reasonable
| warranties on products. If companies have to replace any
| appliance (or whatever) that fails within 10 (or whatever)
| years, you can bet they'll make them more reliable.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > you can bet they'll make them more reliable.
|
| Or a lot more expensive. And if you don't care about the 10
| year reliability, you are being hurt by having to pay more.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| how about forcing tech companies to state at the time of sale
| how long they plan on maintaining/ updating their
| product/program. Also, requiring hardware manufacturers to
| provide an estimate of the expected lifespan in cycles of their
| product, and/components. Figures that are too conservative must
| be punished with the same level of strictness as
| overestimations in order to maintain the integrity of the law.
|
| Obviously, these laws will only apply to the tech sector, but
| it's a start.
| infogulch wrote:
| Veritasium made a video that reviews the history and presents the
| topic in an engaging way.
|
| "This is why we can't have nice things" -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE
| tag2103 wrote:
| Strangely Youtube suggested exactly this topic on my feed last
| week and weird enough it isn't the first time I've seen stuff on
| HN after it popping on there. Just an observation.
| dEnigma wrote:
| Possibly a case of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
|
| But then it's also not unlikely that other people got the same
| YouTube recommendations, after which they did some online
| research and posted interesting links to HN. Or maybe the
| causation was the other way around. Who knows?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| not sure how much things have changed. A couple years back i had
| a few brand new, expensive led bulbs. I expect my light bulbs to
| last at least a couple of years. There supposedly long life light
| bulbs began flickering after just a few months.
| rta10 wrote:
| Nothing has changed. In the EU the expensive "eco friendly" LED
| bulbs had a stated lifetime of 2 years.
|
| None has lasted even half a year here, which is shorter than
| incandescent bulbs. It is all a big fraud.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I have philips bulbs going strong for like 7 years
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| LG's rather misleading "10 year warranty (small print: on the
| inverter drive)" on some of their washing machines comes to
| mind. Your LEDs are fine, it's just that everything else fails
| heh.
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(page generated 2021-04-26 23:01 UTC)