There was a real illuminati organization (the Phoebus cartel) that conspired to fix the life expectancy of the lightbulb in 1924 because advancements in production and technology were clearly leading to a zero-cost, infinite-life bulb, which was projected to destroy the profits and existence of the bulb making companies. This was one of the first stages in developing the current paradigm of global planned obsolescence that we are now all enslaved to (outside of Bitcoin).

More reading: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy