It is not a conspiracy, it was a well known cartel that made light bulbs horrible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
The 1200h are slightly above the 1000h target put in place by the cartel.
The 1200h are slightly above the 1000h target put in place by the cartel.
The story of the Dubai bulbs show that the industry could easily make bulbs that last (even) longer, but there's no money in selling products you'll never need to replace.
So, making up numbers, a 2,500 hour bulb may cost $5 to replace and would incur $20 of electricical charges for a total cost of $25 or 1 Cent/hr. Meanwhile, 1,000 hour bulbs would cost $10 ($4 * 2.5) while incurring $10 of electrical charges for a cost $20 or 0.8 Cent/hr... even factoring in the cost of having to replace the bulbs.