[tiberious726]

The candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long. The converse is just as true of tungsten filaments as it is of candles.

I know this is a common pop-history thing to cite on the Internet, but I would think hackernews would understand the benefits of standardization.

If every brand's lightbulb has different luminousities how on earth would architects decide how to space fixtures?

This "cartel" is how we avoided a dimness war, like the loudness war we had in digital music a decade or so back