The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality(english.elpais.com)
english.elpais.com
The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality
https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-07-20/the-bewildering-phenomenon-of-declining-quality.html
808 comments
Here's how I see it: in the absence of growth in market share or cost-reducing innovation, the only remaining strategy for profit maximization is the delivering of progressively lower quality products for progressively higher prices. This obviously destroys the brand over time, but brands can be recycled/reinvented.
A purely rational and self-interested (i.e. unencumbered by moral sentiment or empathy) economic agent would, in this case, calculate the longest time period a brand could be sustained at the highest price and the lowest production cost, before the brand is lost. If the ROI during that period justifies the investment, such an agent would execute the strategy.
A purely rational and self-interested (i.e. unencumbered by moral sentiment or empathy) economic agent would, in this case, calculate the longest time period a brand could be sustained at the highest price and the lowest production cost, before the brand is lost. If the ROI during that period justifies the investment, such an agent would execute the strategy.
That's pretty much the game plan for every private equity acquisition: exchange brand goodwill (and all other sources of value) for profits, pocket the profits, leave the empty husk behind.
This is mostly how I see it too.
I've wondered recently if it was possible to plot that curve and use it to show which companies are still on the quality portion of the arc and which are on the downturn.
Also almost everyone who works at that company gets laid off and the few remaining have the worst job ever now. LINE GO UP THO!!
That’s not the only one it’s just the easier one.
When people tear down new models of gaming systems they find fewer chips on the boards because they’ve found some chip that does two things for less than the price of both - below a certain point it’s financially infeasible to make simple parts because the capacity they consume makes a chip that does half as much only 15% cheaper. See also when people started putting Linux rescue disks into the EEPROM, because appropriately sized ROMs no longer existed.
You can find better equipment and processes that get you more product per hour out the door without necessarily making the product shittier.
When people tear down new models of gaming systems they find fewer chips on the boards because they’ve found some chip that does two things for less than the price of both - below a certain point it’s financially infeasible to make simple parts because the capacity they consume makes a chip that does half as much only 15% cheaper. See also when people started putting Linux rescue disks into the EEPROM, because appropriately sized ROMs no longer existed.
You can find better equipment and processes that get you more product per hour out the door without necessarily making the product shittier.
Parent comment explicitly says this happens when a sector runs out of things to innovate on. Chips are still innovating like crazy which is why we're seeing some amazing processing/CPU/GPU/DSP chips/etc. If we ever hit on the limits of moores law, watch those CPUs become shittier and shittier over a 10 year period.
I think this point is the key and kind of subtle point - "growth at any cost" does actually rise the tide and bring up all boats when there is a lot of room for innovation. It just starts harming when a sector has diminishing returns on innovation. So you'll be able to come up with plenty of counter examples where growth mindset is really beneficial because it's very context sensitive.
I think this point is the key and kind of subtle point - "growth at any cost" does actually rise the tide and bring up all boats when there is a lot of room for innovation. It just starts harming when a sector has diminishing returns on innovation. So you'll be able to come up with plenty of counter examples where growth mindset is really beneficial because it's very context sensitive.
> runs out of things to innovate on.
I suspect you know better than this. Failure of imagination does not mean lack of options. People in our industry reach for next steps that cut off other options in the process, all the time. To assume manufacturing doesn’t have the same problem is questionable.
I suspect you know better than this. Failure of imagination does not mean lack of options. People in our industry reach for next steps that cut off other options in the process, all the time. To assume manufacturing doesn’t have the same problem is questionable.
Sure, but it's a hacker news comment, not a book. To be more clear I mean functionally run out of things. To be even more clear, when ROI on innovation becomes less than ROI on simply making product cheaper. There's always innovations, and some may even be missed, but when the perception of the industry is that future innovations cost more than the loss of good will of making worse product then it's obvious what will be picked.
I think the solution is to make "loss of good will" valued higher, right now it's valued very low by investors since people want to hold investments a short time and exit quickly. CEOs elected by boards controlled by shareholders are the same way. Short term growth is incentivized and that undervalues long term retention of customers, which makes it more likely "manufacture a worse product" a better option than "innovate and make a better product that more people will want".
I think the solution is to make "loss of good will" valued higher, right now it's valued very low by investors since people want to hold investments a short time and exit quickly. CEOs elected by boards controlled by shareholders are the same way. Short term growth is incentivized and that undervalues long term retention of customers, which makes it more likely "manufacture a worse product" a better option than "innovate and make a better product that more people will want".
Yup, the thing is the price difference between the humongous flash (do they even do EEPROM anymore?) and the "appropriate" one is less than the overhead of designing/making/handling different sizes. And the bigger the chip the more sectors for wear leveling and you can tolerate lower total write counts on the chip.
Thus we end up with circuits designed to feed the reinforced concrete outhouse in the center. And they're unrepairable because the troubleshooting cost is more than the replacement cost.
Thus we end up with circuits designed to feed the reinforced concrete outhouse in the center. And they're unrepairable because the troubleshooting cost is more than the replacement cost.
What's really annoying is when you do find a company that produces quality product and then it get's bought by one of the big brands and then the process you outline starts to happen - the brand is exploited through a combination of marketing and cost cutting.
What makes these quality brands sell out? I suspect when they become a target of the bigger company, there is a combination of carrot and stick - with the stick having a significant component of the larger company using it's channel dominance to exert pressure.
What makes these quality brands sell out? I suspect when they become a target of the bigger company, there is a combination of carrot and stick - with the stick having a significant component of the larger company using it's channel dominance to exert pressure.
This is exactly what I came to say - growth as the primary goal DOES create innovation, until innovation in that field yields diminishing returns or bottoms out completely, then it creates shittier and shittier product.
The entire American version of capitalism is built around growth as the primary goal, which did great things, but now (unequally, some sectors are still innovating) is creating more and more shitty things.
It's so hard for anyone to acknowledge this because everyone wants to take a "side", pro- or anti-capitalism, without being realistic that there are different implementations of capitalism and there is no system that universally works, it really depends on the situation. Right now we need to make "lifestyle company" not a bad word in investment circles, focus on dividends/revenue sharing over stock growth, create incentives around steady, well run companies, and not companies that outspend and destroy competition and then make their product shittier and/or more expensive.
The entire American version of capitalism is built around growth as the primary goal, which did great things, but now (unequally, some sectors are still innovating) is creating more and more shitty things.
It's so hard for anyone to acknowledge this because everyone wants to take a "side", pro- or anti-capitalism, without being realistic that there are different implementations of capitalism and there is no system that universally works, it really depends on the situation. Right now we need to make "lifestyle company" not a bad word in investment circles, focus on dividends/revenue sharing over stock growth, create incentives around steady, well run companies, and not companies that outspend and destroy competition and then make their product shittier and/or more expensive.
I agree with a lot of what you are bringing up, but I don’t think of these things as synonymous with American capitalism as a whole. I think of them more as a failure mode.
I think it’s very human to keep doing what once helped us when even when it starts harming us. Like an alcoholic who started to help get over social anxiety and saw positive results early on but then starts seeing drink as what makes them happy rather than the social connection it helped facilitate. Yes I’m saying America is addicted to growth.
(I agree it’s more nuanced than that and it’s both succeeded and failed in other ways, and US isn’t the only one - but this a major feature of American capitalism)
(I agree it’s more nuanced than that and it’s both succeeded and failed in other ways, and US isn’t the only one - but this a major feature of American capitalism)
Do socialist economies produce superior products?
It’s hard to compare. Almost everything at a mass market price point is made in China. From luxury iPhones to cheap commodity crap. With the exception of maybe cars, made in USA, Europe or Japan tends to be niche or specialty.
Yes, but that's creating products primarily for capitalist markets. So the same demand drivers exist, even if it's being produced in a semi-socialist country.
China is not a socialist economy.
literally proving his point with this question
No, and that’s not what I said. In fact I said being blindly pro or anti capitalism blinds people to things that could be fixed. Growth helps innovate and create great products up to point of innovation creating diminishing returns.
There’s a huge difference between capitalism and a specific implementation of capitalism.
There’s a huge difference between capitalism and a specific implementation of capitalism.
If by "socialism" you mean the majority of economic activity being state-run, then probably not.
If by "socialism" you mean things like worker-owned corporations, strong anti-competition laws, high levels of consumer regulation, then absolutely.
If by "socialism" you mean things like worker-owned corporations, strong anti-competition laws, high levels of consumer regulation, then absolutely.
If worker-owned collectives produce superior products, why aren't they everywhere? It's not illegal to form one.
Because our economic structure doesn't reward superior products, it rewards cheaper products. So such organisations get outcompeted.
But people here say they want superior products. So why do they buy the cheapest, instead?
The product people really want often isn't on the market at all. I speak of a product that is:
- Mass produced at scale
- High quality and will "last a lifetime" (a long time)
- Repairable when it breaks down
I believe that many people would happily pay a 20%, 50% or even 100% markup for such a product, but often often all of the available mass produced options are shitty quality (and the choice is between a bargain option or a "premium" option that is just as crappy quality but costs more because of the brand name). There might be a "boutique" hand-crafted alternative, but it will cost 5-10x more.
The other problem is imperfect access to information. Even where there is superior alternative on the market, it is often very difficult for consumers to determine which one it is. Which means they can't choose it. Which further means, there is no incentive for manufacturers to produce it.
- Mass produced at scale
- High quality and will "last a lifetime" (a long time)
- Repairable when it breaks down
I believe that many people would happily pay a 20%, 50% or even 100% markup for such a product, but often often all of the available mass produced options are shitty quality (and the choice is between a bargain option or a "premium" option that is just as crappy quality but costs more because of the brand name). There might be a "boutique" hand-crafted alternative, but it will cost 5-10x more.
The other problem is imperfect access to information. Even where there is superior alternative on the market, it is often very difficult for consumers to determine which one it is. Which means they can't choose it. Which further means, there is no incentive for manufacturers to produce it.
> 20%, 50% or even 100% markup for such a product
I don't know that this is realistic. Like you recognize, there ARE usually boutique higher quality products - at significantly higher prices. There are also nearly always product management-based, "higher end" product lines. And the quality of these is only sometimes better. And they are not often repairable probably.
I think there is a significant issue with achieving "Mass produced at scale" together with "lifetime and repairable (ie, parts available and easy to replace)". Without people going out of their way to be evil, see lightbulb lifetime mgt, it's easy to be too expensive to miss the "mass produced" window, and your price might be much higher. Not just 20% higher.
Chinese companies built massive factories to corner the market on specific products. Years ago, see the halogen torchiere market. Suddenly the world was flooded with torchiere halogen lamps for an insanely low price. ... a price so low that nobody could really complain that spare parts were not available. These stunts must have been very expensive. An all or nothing bet on a market.
Nowadays, you get factories that make ALL the models of, say, steam irons for basically ALL the brands. These factories take care of some of the issue of quantity-related low price, by sharing parts and processes between all these brands. But could they be competitive in price on smaller runs of steam irons with replaceable parts? Plus the cost of stocking and distributing these parts? I don't know.
I don't know that this is realistic. Like you recognize, there ARE usually boutique higher quality products - at significantly higher prices. There are also nearly always product management-based, "higher end" product lines. And the quality of these is only sometimes better. And they are not often repairable probably.
I think there is a significant issue with achieving "Mass produced at scale" together with "lifetime and repairable (ie, parts available and easy to replace)". Without people going out of their way to be evil, see lightbulb lifetime mgt, it's easy to be too expensive to miss the "mass produced" window, and your price might be much higher. Not just 20% higher.
Chinese companies built massive factories to corner the market on specific products. Years ago, see the halogen torchiere market. Suddenly the world was flooded with torchiere halogen lamps for an insanely low price. ... a price so low that nobody could really complain that spare parts were not available. These stunts must have been very expensive. An all or nothing bet on a market.
Nowadays, you get factories that make ALL the models of, say, steam irons for basically ALL the brands. These factories take care of some of the issue of quantity-related low price, by sharing parts and processes between all these brands. But could they be competitive in price on smaller runs of steam irons with replaceable parts? Plus the cost of stocking and distributing these parts? I don't know.
You've forgotten your Pratchett. Quoth Men at Arms:
> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
> But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
> This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
> But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
> This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.
1. "People here" are a very small fraction of the economy. They may in fact buy superior products over cheap ones, but their numbers are too small to matter much.
2. People don't always do what they say. They want superior quality, but they also want it at the same price as the inferior alternative. When push comes to shove, which will they choose? Not all will choose quality over cheapness. That doesn't mean they didn't want quality. It just means they didn't want it as much as they say they did.
2. People don't always do what they say. They want superior quality, but they also want it at the same price as the inferior alternative. When push comes to shove, which will they choose? Not all will choose quality over cheapness. That doesn't mean they didn't want quality. It just means they didn't want it as much as they say they did.
Also "market for lemons"- a friend told me she used to go to Macys/Dillards to buy $50 bath towels b/c they were better, nicer, more durable than the $20 ones from Walmart.
Now she goes and still pays $50 for them, but they have been stealthily replaced by the equivalent of the inferior $20 ones.
It becomes a market for lemons: you can't trust that paying more for a product gets you a better product so game theory says you have to pursue price minimization at all costs.
Now she goes and still pays $50 for them, but they have been stealthily replaced by the equivalent of the inferior $20 ones.
It becomes a market for lemons: you can't trust that paying more for a product gets you a better product so game theory says you have to pursue price minimization at all costs.
Because capital doesn't like to fund them. Being worker-owned limits the potential upside for investors so a collective or co-op needs to be able to bootstrap itself to success, at which point capital will just fund a competitor that allows them to extract their desired rents.
They don't do well in the US due to ideological aversion, no policy incentives and lack of funding platforms like community investment trusts.
But they are quite successful in other nations. Amul in India for example.
But they are quite successful in other nations. Amul in India for example.
> due to ideological aversion
Nobody cares if they're buying from a collective or a conventional business.
> no policy incentives
Are you saying they should get special government incentives not available to businesses?
> lack of funding platforms
Nobody is stopping anyone from funding a collective. The reason they don't is they won't get ownership shares in return. That's one of the problems with a collective.
Nobody cares if they're buying from a collective or a conventional business.
> no policy incentives
Are you saying they should get special government incentives not available to businesses?
> lack of funding platforms
Nobody is stopping anyone from funding a collective. The reason they don't is they won't get ownership shares in return. That's one of the problems with a collective.
If they got the same incentives offered to businesses, that would be interesting.
Coops are fairly common in Europe, mostly in agro-food and related areas.
They're actually better at innovation for their market segments, because they can make long-term plans for expansion instead of being hamstrung by the demands of ridiculous short-term marketing-driven hype bubbles.
But if you want to profit from frothy get-rich-quick hype and don't care if this year's unicorn is next year's "Our incredible adventure comes to an end", they're definitely not for you.
Coops are fairly common in Europe, mostly in agro-food and related areas.
They're actually better at innovation for their market segments, because they can make long-term plans for expansion instead of being hamstrung by the demands of ridiculous short-term marketing-driven hype bubbles.
But if you want to profit from frothy get-rich-quick hype and don't care if this year's unicorn is next year's "Our incredible adventure comes to an end", they're definitely not for you.
> Nobody cares if they're buying from a collective or a conventional business.
Before buying, you need to startup and produce.
> Are you saying they should get special government incentives not available to businesses?
Its the other way around. They are not eligible for incentives that are available to traditional corporations. They cannot issue traditional equity. There are also no equivalent cooperative-friendly structure like a Delaware C corporation which allows for friendly taxation and non-liability for the debts and legal obligations of the corporation. Difficult to apply R&D Tax Credit like corporations since it cannot carry forward credits due to legal constraints. Cannot claim Payroll Offset like startups do, etc.
The system in the US simply does not give incentives to cooperatives to the same extent that it facilitates corporations.
Before buying, you need to startup and produce.
> Are you saying they should get special government incentives not available to businesses?
Its the other way around. They are not eligible for incentives that are available to traditional corporations. They cannot issue traditional equity. There are also no equivalent cooperative-friendly structure like a Delaware C corporation which allows for friendly taxation and non-liability for the debts and legal obligations of the corporation. Difficult to apply R&D Tax Credit like corporations since it cannot carry forward credits due to legal constraints. Cannot claim Payroll Offset like startups do, etc.
The system in the US simply does not give incentives to cooperatives to the same extent that it facilitates corporations.
Because they were violently suppressed by the interests of the capital class over multiple generations.
Well, certainly a “hybrid” form of worker owned collectives are doing well: my company pays over 24 billion in stock to employees annually.
Publix has a model similar to this and it seems to work well for them both as a former employee and a customer. Their stores and products are always nice and they pay above average for their sector. They are on the expensive side but also they have good deals when you look for them especially the BOGOs. I definitely had a better time working for them than I did when I worked for Sprouts which is publicly traded and aiming at a similar market segment. I think if we are going to stick with some capitalism we need to switch to models like Publix and away from models like Sprouts and Walmart.
People on both sides of the capitalism/socialism divide also always conflate "Current Way Stock Markets Work" with capitalism. We do alot of extra damage to the average person's health and well being with the WAY we do capitalism. The plutocrats use the heavily propagandized stick of "SCARY SOCIALISM" to give you a more shriveled carrot year after year and tell you you should be thankful you dont get beat with the "SCARY SOCIALISM" stick while they still hit you with the "NO HOUSE, NO FOOD, NO HEALTHCARE" stick if you can't sell your bodily capital for enough value to please them.
The extra damage is all this profit over anything else no matter the circumstance. Look at United Healthcare getting sued because the new CEO, even if it was purely out of self preservation, decides they are going to actually give people some of the coverage they paid for and not do quite as many dirty tricks to skim as many denials off the top as they possibly can. MANY SUCH CASES
People on both sides of the capitalism/socialism divide also always conflate "Current Way Stock Markets Work" with capitalism. We do alot of extra damage to the average person's health and well being with the WAY we do capitalism. The plutocrats use the heavily propagandized stick of "SCARY SOCIALISM" to give you a more shriveled carrot year after year and tell you you should be thankful you dont get beat with the "SCARY SOCIALISM" stick while they still hit you with the "NO HOUSE, NO FOOD, NO HEALTHCARE" stick if you can't sell your bodily capital for enough value to please them.
The extra damage is all this profit over anything else no matter the circumstance. Look at United Healthcare getting sued because the new CEO, even if it was purely out of self preservation, decides they are going to actually give people some of the coverage they paid for and not do quite as many dirty tricks to skim as many denials off the top as they possibly can. MANY SUCH CASES
i'll try mine
because they are a fantasy of people who have never once in their life seen what happens to a company with a strong union or excessive worker power, they become repressive towards newer employees among other things
because they are a fantasy of people who have never once in their life seen what happens to a company with a strong union or excessive worker power, they become repressive towards newer employees among other things
I'll half-disagree. There are situations where "workers" having a seat at the table can produce favourable outcomes. Some German companies have union representation on the board and it results in workers sometimes willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, so long as they also then benefit if an upside materializes. It can also benefit the company as the top-down decisions can also receive comments and concerns from a different viewpoint within the company.
But it's also very much a cultural thing. The anglosphere tends to treat CEOs and corporate leaders as the smart drivers of corporate success, where as Germany and other European companies are more comfortable with some collective ways of working.
There's benefits to both models, but there's no arguing against the fact that the "anglo" way does seem much more successful at the entrepreneurial stages, especially with new ideas and industries.
I myself prefer the anglo-model, but I try my best to find places that appreciate and trust their workers. I also find myself appreciating goods that last a lifetime from "boring, but stable" companies. People like Jack Welch and his acolytes ruin companies.
But it's also very much a cultural thing. The anglosphere tends to treat CEOs and corporate leaders as the smart drivers of corporate success, where as Germany and other European companies are more comfortable with some collective ways of working.
There's benefits to both models, but there's no arguing against the fact that the "anglo" way does seem much more successful at the entrepreneurial stages, especially with new ideas and industries.
I myself prefer the anglo-model, but I try my best to find places that appreciate and trust their workers. I also find myself appreciating goods that last a lifetime from "boring, but stable" companies. People like Jack Welch and his acolytes ruin companies.
There's plenty of arguing about whether the entrepreneurial stages are more successful.
Financially? Of course, in the narrow stonks-go-up sense. But not so much in the kind of wealth distribution that accelerates inventiveness and creativity of all kinds at all wealth levels.
The kinds of products that are developed tend to be packaged digital (re)intermediations, fintech, and ad tech, all of which are more likely to be hype-boosted corporate slop with toxic consequences than a genuine boon to the culture around them.
It's a model that's more likely to create the next Theranos than the next Jonas Salk.
Financially? Of course, in the narrow stonks-go-up sense. But not so much in the kind of wealth distribution that accelerates inventiveness and creativity of all kinds at all wealth levels.
The kinds of products that are developed tend to be packaged digital (re)intermediations, fintech, and ad tech, all of which are more likely to be hype-boosted corporate slop with toxic consequences than a genuine boon to the culture around them.
It's a model that's more likely to create the next Theranos than the next Jonas Salk.
It boils down to what people are willing to pay for. How many of us go to buy something on Amazon, and buy the cheapest one? And if your product isn't the cheapest one, what are you going to do about it?
> How many of us go to buy something on Amazon, and buy the cheapest one?
An outfit like Amazon is in a position to make reviews work better. And when I buy on Amazon, I do pay attention to reviews. Of all kinds, text, photos, videos, plus other cues such as quantity sold and what other things do the sellers sell, quality of the description. Amazon could do better. Will Amazon improve the review mechanisms to fight abuse and garbage? I don't know. It seems to me that they have won the race, as it is, and they are now in a position where it's their choice to lose it again to the up and comers or to let us better figure out the tradeoff price-quality and keep their lead.
An outfit like Amazon is in a position to make reviews work better. And when I buy on Amazon, I do pay attention to reviews. Of all kinds, text, photos, videos, plus other cues such as quantity sold and what other things do the sellers sell, quality of the description. Amazon could do better. Will Amazon improve the review mechanisms to fight abuse and garbage? I don't know. It seems to me that they have won the race, as it is, and they are now in a position where it's their choice to lose it again to the up and comers or to let us better figure out the tradeoff price-quality and keep their lead.
Prices are so gamed though, they are basically drawn by salesmen, marketers, VCs, 200% profit CEOs and what not. Recent fad is to provide no description of the product, even on the vendor site, to reduce your ability to choose based on features, so you choose completely at random or based on price alone. You can buy anything and have no idea what it's made of.
Buy the Dyson version at 4x the price, avoid thinking about the money and concentrate on the fact that it's not crap (yet). We can expect the Dyson brand to go through the same quality arc in twenty years, but for now, I'm happy with the times I have splurged for their products.
The problem is naked capitalism doesn't have a meaningful reward function for quality products. If I buy a product and am happy with it in three years, or I buy a product and it's trash and unsuitable for its purpose, the company still already has my money. I have to care enough about the purchase to spend time and effort into writing a review online about the product, and the brand, which will go into the circular filing cabinet. For a $20 thermometer, I'm not even going to bother.
The problem is naked capitalism doesn't have a meaningful reward function for quality products. If I buy a product and am happy with it in three years, or I buy a product and it's trash and unsuitable for its purpose, the company still already has my money. I have to care enough about the purchase to spend time and effort into writing a review online about the product, and the brand, which will go into the circular filing cabinet. For a $20 thermometer, I'm not even going to bother.
Dyson only has the appearance of quality. Both Dysons that we had had broken accessories (though they happily replaced them). The first Dyson broke down in three years or so.
We also have a Miele vacuum cleaner. It's less glamorous, but it is, as Germans say, unkaputtbar (and also a very pleasant device to work with).
We also have a Miele vacuum cleaner. It's less glamorous, but it is, as Germans say, unkaputtbar (and also a very pleasant device to work with).
Miele is one brand that seems to show that it's still possible (to build lasting and repairable). But it's expensive, very expensive, and repairs themselves are not cheap. I would say, too expensive overall to become a default choice.
Parts are another story.
I have miele Washing Machine. It has brushed motor so after ~8 years I need to replace brushes. Miele ones cost 60$. That's 20% price of cheapest washing machine I found on market. Im' sure 40$ of that is handling those spare parts across many years.
Other, more complicated components cost more than cheap, other vendor washing machine.
Our Miele was less expensive than Dyson. Though I guess Miele might be much more expensive outside Europe.
Dyson makes great marketing and product concepts.
The actual quality is debatable and varies.
Do not get any of their fans. They are designed to fail.
They use a wimpy brushless motor mounted vertically and then shove a impeller on the top of it to move air. The problem is, they don't balance the impeller. And when I saw the motor is wimpy, I mean it's shaft is barely a 1/4". The motor shaft ends up destroying the bearings within a year or two due to the unbalanced impeller load. You will be annoyed to fuck by the high pitched noises it starts making from shot bearings.the bearings are integrated into the motor assembly so you can't just replace them. You have to replace the entire motor and do this basically every year or two because it's not a motor defect, it's a design defect.
The actual quality is debatable and varies.
Do not get any of their fans. They are designed to fail.
They use a wimpy brushless motor mounted vertically and then shove a impeller on the top of it to move air. The problem is, they don't balance the impeller. And when I saw the motor is wimpy, I mean it's shaft is barely a 1/4". The motor shaft ends up destroying the bearings within a year or two due to the unbalanced impeller load. You will be annoyed to fuck by the high pitched noises it starts making from shot bearings.the bearings are integrated into the motor assembly so you can't just replace them. You have to replace the entire motor and do this basically every year or two because it's not a motor defect, it's a design defect.
Dyson is shit now though. Maybe it used to be good but like many other established names they are squandering their good name for more profits by cutting quality.
I think GP is right. We buy stuff online now. You can't see, touch, or evaluate anything. Reviews are all fake. Brand names are comingled with counterfeits. The only signal left is price. So knowing it's likely going to be crap, why pay more than you have to.
I think GP is right. We buy stuff online now. You can't see, touch, or evaluate anything. Reviews are all fake. Brand names are comingled with counterfeits. The only signal left is price. So knowing it's likely going to be crap, why pay more than you have to.
> doesn't have a meaningful reward function for quality products
I.e. people aren't willing to pony up the money to buy them.
BTW, when I buy tools, I look at what tradesmen use and buy the tools they buy. Hasn't let me down yet.
If you want good kitchen appliances, buy them from a restaurant supply business.
If you want good tools for working on your car, look at what racing teams use.
Of course, you're going to pay much more for that quality, and the only people willing to pay are the people whose livelihoods depend on them.
I.e. people aren't willing to pony up the money to buy them.
BTW, when I buy tools, I look at what tradesmen use and buy the tools they buy. Hasn't let me down yet.
If you want good kitchen appliances, buy them from a restaurant supply business.
If you want good tools for working on your car, look at what racing teams use.
Of course, you're going to pay much more for that quality, and the only people willing to pay are the people whose livelihoods depend on them.
Then from a purely rational and self-interested citizenry would hold any economic agents on the hook for future cleanups of land, water or air.
Thankfully, the citizenry is irrational and self-interested, which enables an entire cottage industry of sheisters, marketers and psychologists, which then engineer our attention spans and purchasing decisions.
Turns out a large enough number of humans can be controlled by ads that cost less money than the money they generate by controlling these humans.
I like the idea, but "purely rational citizenry" is a theoretical construct.
And even if they/we were purely rational, there's the intractable problem of measuring the cost of future cleanups stretching into forever.
Plus the danger (certainty) of corporations paying out their current executives and then declaring bankruptcy.
And even if they/we were purely rational, there's the intractable problem of measuring the cost of future cleanups stretching into forever.
Plus the danger (certainty) of corporations paying out their current executives and then declaring bankruptcy.
> but "purely rational citizenry" is a theoretical construct.
So is a "purely rational economic agent". Nothing about it is real. It's a model.
So is a "purely rational economic agent". Nothing about it is real. It's a model.
Theyd also nationalize certain products to minimize unnecessary waste and churn.
My first reaction: beautifully thought through and expressed!
Upon reflection: as products become commodities, isn't the brand the most valuable thing, and the most expensive to reproduce?
Upon reflection: as products become commodities, isn't the brand the most valuable thing, and the most expensive to reproduce?
The era of the "brand" is over. Consumers have gotten wise to companies cutting corners while raising prices, burning up the goodwill earned on their past reputation for quality.
Apple had a top brand, yet most consumers are aware that now Apple Stores are overcrowded messes and the iPhone 16 doesn't offer anything meaningfully different than iPhone 13.
Netflix replaced AAA TV series licensed from other networks with in-house material, the overwhelming majority most of which is cheaply produced shovelware that doesn't make it to Season 2.
Apple had a top brand, yet most consumers are aware that now Apple Stores are overcrowded messes and the iPhone 16 doesn't offer anything meaningfully different than iPhone 13.
Netflix replaced AAA TV series licensed from other networks with in-house material, the overwhelming majority most of which is cheaply produced shovelware that doesn't make it to Season 2.
> The era of the "brand" is over.
That's just not true. Look around you right now. If you're American, almost everything you own is branded. Your phone, your laptop, TV, clothes you're wearing, shoes, books, food in your pantry, transportation.
There is almost always a cheaper non-branded choice. If you are like 99.99% of Americans, you didn't make that choice in almost every case.
Tellingly, you gave the example of Apple. Whether it's an iPhone 16 or an iPhone 13, more people than ever buy the Apple brand. I know I do.
That's just not true. Look around you right now. If you're American, almost everything you own is branded. Your phone, your laptop, TV, clothes you're wearing, shoes, books, food in your pantry, transportation.
There is almost always a cheaper non-branded choice. If you are like 99.99% of Americans, you didn't make that choice in almost every case.
Tellingly, you gave the example of Apple. Whether it's an iPhone 16 or an iPhone 13, more people than ever buy the Apple brand. I know I do.
You need to factor in planned obsolescence. The fundamentals of the market simply does not make sense when your product is cheap and lifecycle is long.
Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed and for them to maximize the lifecycle of a lightbulb.
Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed and for them to maximize the lifecycle of a lightbulb.
A lightbulb is a fascinating example, because there’s an argument to be made that a “minimum government specification” lightbulb would be superior to what the market provides (read: under-spec’d cheap caps that die due to heat https://www.edn.com/ensure-long-lifetimes-from-electrolytic-... ).
I’m tired of having to replace whole LED light fixtures instead of being able to replace a bulb. I am currently waiting on a special order to arrive with 2 fluorescent light fixtures. I refuse to put up more LED fixtures that will go bad in another 2 years.
It seems to me that for products that in general are cheap to buy as well as produce, companies would want to make these products somewhat longer-lasting to gain a better reputation and then make more sales and larger profits on more expensive items.
I think the fundamental problem here is that nobody trusts brands anymore because we have been trained by strategies like market segmentation and private equity cost cutting that the vast majority of brands don't consistently indicate quality. That product A could be fine and a very similar-looking product B could be horrible, and any company or even product could become shit at any moment. Breyers in the US is a great example - they sell real (though still watery) ice cream in the cartons that say "naturals," and all the other very similar looking cartons are full of crap artificial frozen dairy dessert. They had a very strong brand, and they decided it was time to cash out that brand goodwill by cheaping out, but deceptively so they could ride it out for a few decades, at which point who cares?
This has led to a situation where companies don't make any attempt anymore to gain a reputation for the quality of their products, because it's futile to convince the public that they can trust you. And also, they have to compete much more equally with alphabet soup brands on Amazon making the absolute cheapest version of products at the lowest margins (and labor costs). So why would anyone make a better lightbulb that no one will buy because it's $2 more expensive?
I think the fundamental problem here is that nobody trusts brands anymore because we have been trained by strategies like market segmentation and private equity cost cutting that the vast majority of brands don't consistently indicate quality. That product A could be fine and a very similar-looking product B could be horrible, and any company or even product could become shit at any moment. Breyers in the US is a great example - they sell real (though still watery) ice cream in the cartons that say "naturals," and all the other very similar looking cartons are full of crap artificial frozen dairy dessert. They had a very strong brand, and they decided it was time to cash out that brand goodwill by cheaping out, but deceptively so they could ride it out for a few decades, at which point who cares?
This has led to a situation where companies don't make any attempt anymore to gain a reputation for the quality of their products, because it's futile to convince the public that they can trust you. And also, they have to compete much more equally with alphabet soup brands on Amazon making the absolute cheapest version of products at the lowest margins (and labor costs). So why would anyone make a better lightbulb that no one will buy because it's $2 more expensive?
I would absolutely buy the $2 bulb. Problem is all the cheap brands also start marketing theirs as best quality and sell for $2.
Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets.
Absent boom-bust, and the related fraud/true-up that happens cyclically, you have sustained growth mirroring population growth, without the chaotic whipsaw, as well as other factors of general wear and tear that make sustain demand.
Less cost, and cost that follows real stable value without distortion, leads to more production over time, not less. Boom bust dynamics cause a slight move forward, followed my two steps back; repeatedly, until your out of steps.
In such older economies, you don't lose out such monumental opportunity cost and related resources to fraud or people who sit on their hands. Opportunity cost is immeasurable without a reference, so you don't know what you lose, or what could have been.
> Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed...
Honestly, seeing this rhetoric makes you sound like a shill peddling propaganda towards centralization as a solution, which includes both fascism and communism (statism for both), while ignoring the established failures of such systems.
I don't mean to be critical of what you have to say, but you come off as really ignorant, or deliberately misleading.
If you can only run on the same path on a circle, do you really think you'll eventually get to where you want to go when that point is not on the circle?
Absent boom-bust, and the related fraud/true-up that happens cyclically, you have sustained growth mirroring population growth, without the chaotic whipsaw, as well as other factors of general wear and tear that make sustain demand.
Less cost, and cost that follows real stable value without distortion, leads to more production over time, not less. Boom bust dynamics cause a slight move forward, followed my two steps back; repeatedly, until your out of steps.
In such older economies, you don't lose out such monumental opportunity cost and related resources to fraud or people who sit on their hands. Opportunity cost is immeasurable without a reference, so you don't know what you lose, or what could have been.
> Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed...
Honestly, seeing this rhetoric makes you sound like a shill peddling propaganda towards centralization as a solution, which includes both fascism and communism (statism for both), while ignoring the established failures of such systems.
I don't mean to be critical of what you have to say, but you come off as really ignorant, or deliberately misleading.
If you can only run on the same path on a circle, do you really think you'll eventually get to where you want to go when that point is not on the circle?
> Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets.
I have no idea why you're claiming that. What should I read?
But you're not going to get rid of business cycles by not having 2% inflation or whatever, and those cycles don't seem strong enough to impact product lifetimes all that much. "chaotic whipsaw" is a big exaggeration.
I have no idea why you're claiming that. What should I read?
But you're not going to get rid of business cycles by not having 2% inflation or whatever, and those cycles don't seem strong enough to impact product lifetimes all that much. "chaotic whipsaw" is a big exaggeration.
To start, you need to have a correct grasp of economics.
Hazlitt (Economics in 1 lesson), Mises (Human Action/Money and the Theory of Credit), Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Thomas Jefferson's letters to Thomas Cooper, Carl Menger (SVT) to start.
Adam Smith provides the requirements for factors and producers to operate in a market, also describing markets pre-fiat in a five volume set. The observations made are invaluable when comparing against the non-reserve modern monetary mechanics where they departed from fractional reserve in 2020 under Basel3.
In terms of actual monetary debasement/inflation, going back to the unobscured calculations before manipulations began occuring, its been much higher than 2% YOY, and the interest rates have been manipulated to a point where the delayed dynamics are in full swing and can't be prevented. Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio/Bridgewater Associates provides useful data, but his conclusions are rose-tinted.
The objective point of failure to non-market socialism from money-printing is where national outflows exceed inflows in debt growth to gdp, and in the private debt market that's likely already occurred we have a few years yet before another true-up. It gets to that point through concentration of business which concentrates bad decisions, and legitimate entities can't compete with slave labor, eventually leading to hyper-inflation then to deflation, or directly to deflation. Damned on both sides, with the safe shifting path dependent on lagging indicators amid chaos.
Each boom bust cycle started small on adoption to fiat, but has increased exponentially every 10 years where the banks are forced to crisis from bad investments, and seeking bailout during a true-up. Penn Station Bailout (1970s), Savings & Loan Crisis (1980s), Dotcom Bust (2000), Lehman CDOs 2008, the next will be the CDO equivalent for business (but that bubble hasn't burst yet) QE 2010-2022? (pure money printing to those banks), etc.
There is a third-party in the economic process, the money-lenders friend who receives preferential rates, allowing them to lower prices below cost to drive businesses out of business where leveraged buyouts aren't an option.
You are right 2% isn't sufficient by itself to cause whipsaws. Its not just business in isolation, its the entire monetary cycle in aggregate.
What about the petrodollar abandonment, and the loss of foreign demand for a pool of money we printed up to meet that demand over 50 years. Where's it go? What about paper warrants of commodities, where the ratio is now greater than 300 non-existent paper: 1 physical, where everyone starts requiring physical delivery (taking it out of the vault). Synthetic shares through options contracts.
The deficit spending of the government, or unfunded liabilities (social security), where the debt on that to pass the budget must be almost completely borrowed (and the associated interest rate risk).
Lets not forget the swap lines between other central banks and ours, and the carry trades happening, or the preferential swaps of existing already purchased treasuries for existing current rate treasuries 1:1 (no discount); blackrock and others.
One thing, would slow it down, but the magnitude of each of these things fuels it moving forward chaotically as it unwinds; and people don't have the capital to draw from anymore because its been systematically debased for decades.
Keynes has historically failed to properly account for the business cycle under fiat; a notable recent example being the housing crisis.
Real markets require money meeting 3 properties (stable store of value...), adversarial independent decision-making based on a cost constraint, and working visible price discovery to function (aka economic calculation), with little regulation/interference.
When these can't happen with money-printing, distortions naturally occur chaotically starting with the first rung of spending from that bank as a small blip, and growing to tsunami heights. Lets not forget what that AI may zero out most white-collar jobs, already having profound disruption in the factor markets, which whipsaw to the producer markets in a spiral.
You may want to also read about the economic history of Argentina and how Milei turned everything around with almost 100 years of poverty caused by the same policies we have been doing, and how he made such giant strides to fixing it within 1 year; by firing the parasites, removing the regulations, and letting the market do its thing.
State-controlled entities cooperate because they depend on the debt for continued existence, however indirect/laundered it came to them it originated in money-printing, and its not given to them for free; coercion and malign influence is well documented in many areas related to this. (i.e. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which may or may not be fictional; but the details match up, some of which weren't validated until recent releases.
I'd say you have quite a bit of reading ahead of you.
Hazlitt (Economics in 1 lesson), Mises (Human Action/Money and the Theory of Credit), Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Thomas Jefferson's letters to Thomas Cooper, Carl Menger (SVT) to start.
Adam Smith provides the requirements for factors and producers to operate in a market, also describing markets pre-fiat in a five volume set. The observations made are invaluable when comparing against the non-reserve modern monetary mechanics where they departed from fractional reserve in 2020 under Basel3.
In terms of actual monetary debasement/inflation, going back to the unobscured calculations before manipulations began occuring, its been much higher than 2% YOY, and the interest rates have been manipulated to a point where the delayed dynamics are in full swing and can't be prevented. Big Debt Crises by Ray Dalio/Bridgewater Associates provides useful data, but his conclusions are rose-tinted.
The objective point of failure to non-market socialism from money-printing is where national outflows exceed inflows in debt growth to gdp, and in the private debt market that's likely already occurred we have a few years yet before another true-up. It gets to that point through concentration of business which concentrates bad decisions, and legitimate entities can't compete with slave labor, eventually leading to hyper-inflation then to deflation, or directly to deflation. Damned on both sides, with the safe shifting path dependent on lagging indicators amid chaos.
Each boom bust cycle started small on adoption to fiat, but has increased exponentially every 10 years where the banks are forced to crisis from bad investments, and seeking bailout during a true-up. Penn Station Bailout (1970s), Savings & Loan Crisis (1980s), Dotcom Bust (2000), Lehman CDOs 2008, the next will be the CDO equivalent for business (but that bubble hasn't burst yet) QE 2010-2022? (pure money printing to those banks), etc.
There is a third-party in the economic process, the money-lenders friend who receives preferential rates, allowing them to lower prices below cost to drive businesses out of business where leveraged buyouts aren't an option.
You are right 2% isn't sufficient by itself to cause whipsaws. Its not just business in isolation, its the entire monetary cycle in aggregate.
What about the petrodollar abandonment, and the loss of foreign demand for a pool of money we printed up to meet that demand over 50 years. Where's it go? What about paper warrants of commodities, where the ratio is now greater than 300 non-existent paper: 1 physical, where everyone starts requiring physical delivery (taking it out of the vault). Synthetic shares through options contracts.
The deficit spending of the government, or unfunded liabilities (social security), where the debt on that to pass the budget must be almost completely borrowed (and the associated interest rate risk).
Lets not forget the swap lines between other central banks and ours, and the carry trades happening, or the preferential swaps of existing already purchased treasuries for existing current rate treasuries 1:1 (no discount); blackrock and others.
One thing, would slow it down, but the magnitude of each of these things fuels it moving forward chaotically as it unwinds; and people don't have the capital to draw from anymore because its been systematically debased for decades.
Keynes has historically failed to properly account for the business cycle under fiat; a notable recent example being the housing crisis.
Real markets require money meeting 3 properties (stable store of value...), adversarial independent decision-making based on a cost constraint, and working visible price discovery to function (aka economic calculation), with little regulation/interference.
When these can't happen with money-printing, distortions naturally occur chaotically starting with the first rung of spending from that bank as a small blip, and growing to tsunami heights. Lets not forget what that AI may zero out most white-collar jobs, already having profound disruption in the factor markets, which whipsaw to the producer markets in a spiral.
You may want to also read about the economic history of Argentina and how Milei turned everything around with almost 100 years of poverty caused by the same policies we have been doing, and how he made such giant strides to fixing it within 1 year; by firing the parasites, removing the regulations, and letting the market do its thing.
State-controlled entities cooperate because they depend on the debt for continued existence, however indirect/laundered it came to them it originated in money-printing, and its not given to them for free; coercion and malign influence is well documented in many areas related to this. (i.e. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which may or may not be fictional; but the details match up, some of which weren't validated until recent releases.
I'd say you have quite a bit of reading ahead of you.
I'll go look at those but a few things first. Business cycles existed before those monetary changes. I cannot figure out what you're accusing of being socialism. Deficit spending causes problems but you can borrow to spend without any fiat and printing and inflation improve the situation of governmental debt. Crooked handouts don't need fiat printing.
Business cycles as a phrase have existed, but that definition has changed over time, and people conflate the modern meaning neglecting the older specific meaning which was limited to seasonal variability.
The modern understanding of the boom bust bailout cycle is included in modern definitions, but this only occurred once non-reserve fiat was adopted; even back in Thomas Jefferson's day; the failures occurred when more was printed than was actually there and distortions aggregated until crisis. We're specifically talking about the over-subscription, mania, and bust that follows all money printing.
Its impossible to rationally differentiate without having a good detailed reference which is why Adam Smith's 5 volume set (most sets ignore volume 5 but they shouldn't), and Thomas Jefferson's/Coopers related letters are also useful.
Non-reserve fiat leads to collapse from a market economy to non-market socialism, through the assymetric feed from the money-printer driving state-apparatus (unconstrained) to run legitimate producers out of business (profit constrained), sieving resources into few hands. This has been happening since the 1970s, with additional bites at the apple taken during crisis when the banks hold everyone hostage facing systemic contagion from failures they created (perverse incentives).
The connection to socialism/communism is that the plan of concentrating resources has been written about by such groups quite publicly, as the first step prior to crisis engineering and seizing the means of production. While some of these words I use are more modern terms, the meaning remained the same, back then.
The first surviving reference I've found is the paper magazine published ~1895 by the Fabian's under the name "The American Fabian", in one of the first five publications they promote this plan with regards to the NYC real estate market coupled with rent-seeking behavior to create self-sustaining income until all real-estate over time would become under their control and 'could be passed into the common good', so it says,and their membership was tailored towards influential bankers and politicians at that time.
Within a few years (at that time, 1900s) several things occurred, the adoption of the prussian model of centralized schooling, the backroom deals following Jekyl Island leading to the creation of the Fed, and the landmark decision to treat Federal Law as separate to common/state laws with regards to predence (Erie Railroad, 1930s-1940s). One of the historic copies of this magazine I had a chance to examine had writing mentioning the same group influencing the decision towards centralizing authority via the UCC (which first came out around 1870s-1880s iirc. It seemed to be written about the time of publication, but providence is unknown. A good knowledge of detailed history really comes in handy.
The group itself ceased public publication in 1907, with splintering special interest groups forming under varying names since, continually change such names obscuring their origins like what we understand today as cells. 1917 (iirc) also had Lenin proclaiming the best way to destroy the West was through debasement of the currency.
With regards to debasement, it doesn't matter how many entities it passes through, the debasement hits a point where oversubscription of the resources cause the bust cycle failures (which lag), opportunity costs become untethered, and personal property of the individual is stolen through such mechanisms. Demoralizing, Destabilizing, and Crisis, where a new normalization must be found regardless of the cost ("Its the end of the world" - Big Short).
> Crooked handouts don't need fiat printing. A Crooked handout is fundamentally limited by the reserve of the stable store of value it has access to, when fiat printing is not available it has no rope in the economy to distort it beyond the initial value. You can't take what's not there, and you don't build things in places that will regularly be destroyed.
The government does the money-printing, the crooked handouts induce growing amounts of money-printing, inflation rises. The lagging indicator of disruption leads to chaotic hysteresis requiring perfect-futuresight to plot a safe path forward as you end up being on a cliff where you can only step forward, and on each side you have cascading failure (hyper-inflation->deflation, or direct deflation). The bill always comes due.
This issue is called the Economic Calculation Problem. Mathematical chaos is special, because it can't be predicted ahead of time, small changes dramatically affect the outcomes, and thus no wayfinding a safe path forward can occur since these aren't based on directly measurable indicators in realtime; the survival of those on your boat (which is everyone in the sphere of influence of said currency), depends on random chance heavily skewed against survival as the number of factors involved increase asymmetrically toward failure, similar to falsehoods vs. truth if one were to graph that.
Corruption of those administrating inflationary monetary policy which grows with time, leads to collapse, always, and the scale of that collapse is determined by the underlying amount of resources involved, and the distortions created.
Positive feedback systems are prone to run away with no warning about when that point of no return is. You have exponentially less control to resolve issues the longer you let it run. The baby boomers started this runaway experiment in the 70s.
You can't borrow to spend dollars without any fiat and printing, non-fiat currency has implicit value unlike fiat and you don't see people borrowing gold/silver these days. You'll find proper definitions of the types of money in Mises Theory of Money and Credit (money/money-substitutes). At its core any ambiguous indirection must be followed back to its underlying base or identity that is one or the other; which some people are bad at.
Inflation doesn't improve governmental debt, it creates slow moving distortions that accumulate over time culminating in a tsunami/crisis. Debt is borrowing against the future, or stealing from the future if you go the route of financial dominance. Eventually people will have no purchasing power to feed themselves, and stop having children.
"Socialism", is formally defined by structure in Mises book on Socialism. That book is a worthwhile read, its a professional failure domain map for every way mainstream forms, and variants inevitably fail, even with employ owned/run companies (syndicalism). The mismatch that one often has to come to grips with is the word ownership has been misused in contradictory ways, so much that its lost meaning.
If you've done an in-depth critical study of Communism and its history you'd recognize a number of common tactics used as well, such as the purposeful misuse of language corruption (orwellian doublespeak) which weaponize rhetoric and leverages psychological blindspots but ultimately fail rational/objective comparisons. In other words, the convincing lie.
"If one cannot speak the word, one cannot convey the idea, and thus the idea based in harmful behavior doesn't exist. It is through making people better and more virtuous that the common good can be attained." - Who decides harmful behavior, and to whom, no one can do this objectively and thus *cough bullshit*.
Needless to say, when talking of such things one does need to have a well rounded/working knowledge of the type of people involved to be able to come to sound conclusions.
A lot of the articles are a quagmire of propaganda. If your looking for a good starting point historically on the Communist perspective, reading about the Stasi and then moving backwards from there might be beneficial. Markus Wolfe from the Communist Side (Man without a Face), and John O. Koehler on the American Side as a useful comparison.
The modern understanding of the boom bust bailout cycle is included in modern definitions, but this only occurred once non-reserve fiat was adopted; even back in Thomas Jefferson's day; the failures occurred when more was printed than was actually there and distortions aggregated until crisis. We're specifically talking about the over-subscription, mania, and bust that follows all money printing.
Its impossible to rationally differentiate without having a good detailed reference which is why Adam Smith's 5 volume set (most sets ignore volume 5 but they shouldn't), and Thomas Jefferson's/Coopers related letters are also useful.
Non-reserve fiat leads to collapse from a market economy to non-market socialism, through the assymetric feed from the money-printer driving state-apparatus (unconstrained) to run legitimate producers out of business (profit constrained), sieving resources into few hands. This has been happening since the 1970s, with additional bites at the apple taken during crisis when the banks hold everyone hostage facing systemic contagion from failures they created (perverse incentives).
The connection to socialism/communism is that the plan of concentrating resources has been written about by such groups quite publicly, as the first step prior to crisis engineering and seizing the means of production. While some of these words I use are more modern terms, the meaning remained the same, back then.
The first surviving reference I've found is the paper magazine published ~1895 by the Fabian's under the name "The American Fabian", in one of the first five publications they promote this plan with regards to the NYC real estate market coupled with rent-seeking behavior to create self-sustaining income until all real-estate over time would become under their control and 'could be passed into the common good', so it says,and their membership was tailored towards influential bankers and politicians at that time.
Within a few years (at that time, 1900s) several things occurred, the adoption of the prussian model of centralized schooling, the backroom deals following Jekyl Island leading to the creation of the Fed, and the landmark decision to treat Federal Law as separate to common/state laws with regards to predence (Erie Railroad, 1930s-1940s). One of the historic copies of this magazine I had a chance to examine had writing mentioning the same group influencing the decision towards centralizing authority via the UCC (which first came out around 1870s-1880s iirc. It seemed to be written about the time of publication, but providence is unknown. A good knowledge of detailed history really comes in handy.
The group itself ceased public publication in 1907, with splintering special interest groups forming under varying names since, continually change such names obscuring their origins like what we understand today as cells. 1917 (iirc) also had Lenin proclaiming the best way to destroy the West was through debasement of the currency.
With regards to debasement, it doesn't matter how many entities it passes through, the debasement hits a point where oversubscription of the resources cause the bust cycle failures (which lag), opportunity costs become untethered, and personal property of the individual is stolen through such mechanisms. Demoralizing, Destabilizing, and Crisis, where a new normalization must be found regardless of the cost ("Its the end of the world" - Big Short).
> Crooked handouts don't need fiat printing. A Crooked handout is fundamentally limited by the reserve of the stable store of value it has access to, when fiat printing is not available it has no rope in the economy to distort it beyond the initial value. You can't take what's not there, and you don't build things in places that will regularly be destroyed.
The government does the money-printing, the crooked handouts induce growing amounts of money-printing, inflation rises. The lagging indicator of disruption leads to chaotic hysteresis requiring perfect-futuresight to plot a safe path forward as you end up being on a cliff where you can only step forward, and on each side you have cascading failure (hyper-inflation->deflation, or direct deflation). The bill always comes due.
This issue is called the Economic Calculation Problem. Mathematical chaos is special, because it can't be predicted ahead of time, small changes dramatically affect the outcomes, and thus no wayfinding a safe path forward can occur since these aren't based on directly measurable indicators in realtime; the survival of those on your boat (which is everyone in the sphere of influence of said currency), depends on random chance heavily skewed against survival as the number of factors involved increase asymmetrically toward failure, similar to falsehoods vs. truth if one were to graph that.
Corruption of those administrating inflationary monetary policy which grows with time, leads to collapse, always, and the scale of that collapse is determined by the underlying amount of resources involved, and the distortions created.
Positive feedback systems are prone to run away with no warning about when that point of no return is. You have exponentially less control to resolve issues the longer you let it run. The baby boomers started this runaway experiment in the 70s.
You can't borrow to spend dollars without any fiat and printing, non-fiat currency has implicit value unlike fiat and you don't see people borrowing gold/silver these days. You'll find proper definitions of the types of money in Mises Theory of Money and Credit (money/money-substitutes). At its core any ambiguous indirection must be followed back to its underlying base or identity that is one or the other; which some people are bad at.
Inflation doesn't improve governmental debt, it creates slow moving distortions that accumulate over time culminating in a tsunami/crisis. Debt is borrowing against the future, or stealing from the future if you go the route of financial dominance. Eventually people will have no purchasing power to feed themselves, and stop having children.
"Socialism", is formally defined by structure in Mises book on Socialism. That book is a worthwhile read, its a professional failure domain map for every way mainstream forms, and variants inevitably fail, even with employ owned/run companies (syndicalism). The mismatch that one often has to come to grips with is the word ownership has been misused in contradictory ways, so much that its lost meaning.
If you've done an in-depth critical study of Communism and its history you'd recognize a number of common tactics used as well, such as the purposeful misuse of language corruption (orwellian doublespeak) which weaponize rhetoric and leverages psychological blindspots but ultimately fail rational/objective comparisons. In other words, the convincing lie.
"If one cannot speak the word, one cannot convey the idea, and thus the idea based in harmful behavior doesn't exist. It is through making people better and more virtuous that the common good can be attained." - Who decides harmful behavior, and to whom, no one can do this objectively and thus *cough bullshit*.
Needless to say, when talking of such things one does need to have a well rounded/working knowledge of the type of people involved to be able to come to sound conclusions.
A lot of the articles are a quagmire of propaganda. If your looking for a good starting point historically on the Communist perspective, reading about the Stasi and then moving backwards from there might be beneficial. Markus Wolfe from the Communist Side (Man without a Face), and John O. Koehler on the American Side as a useful comparison.
Austrian economics is a pseudoscience.
When I worked at a big tech company, the life quality of software engineers was undergoing what old timers perceived as a significant decline.
The official response of the CFO was that the quality can't be declining that much because people aren't quitting an an accelerating rate.
This is the same phenomenon as your suspicion. There's some metric (e.g. people keep buying our widgets) and you stress test demand for it by making it cheaper to produce. If demand holds up there's no problem from the company's perspective.
From the consumer's perspective, every project is doing this and the entire world is declining in quality but prices aren't going down.
The official response of the CFO was that the quality can't be declining that much because people aren't quitting an an accelerating rate.
This is the same phenomenon as your suspicion. There's some metric (e.g. people keep buying our widgets) and you stress test demand for it by making it cheaper to produce. If demand holds up there's no problem from the company's perspective.
From the consumer's perspective, every project is doing this and the entire world is declining in quality but prices aren't going down.
You are pointing directly at the philosophical bedrock of western civilization, something which most white collar elites implicitly believe but don't state outright. It shows up right away in the article:
> ... quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer.
For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization believed that there WAS an objective notion of quality (i.e. value). The idea that these things are purely subjective is a very recent concept in human history.
In the west, and places influenced by it - most elites come to believe that value is purely subjective. We talk, instead, about people's _preferences_ - but we can't measure feelings, just actions. "Some things are more valuable than others" is a very different belief from "people prefer some things over others". In a world that only recognizes what it can measure, the idea that value is subjective reduces to "people do some things and not other things", and _any_ action which can reliably be motivated - whether that's having babies or getting divorced, losing weight or watching porn, eating healthy or eating junk food - _all_ that our economy cares about is, "can you reliably produce that outcome at scale." This is all a natural consequence of the idea that value isn't real. People can't be wrong in what they want, and what they want is revealed in what they do. Therefore, literally all that matters is, can you motivate some kind of action - whatever that action is? If you can, you're 'adding value.' Motivating people to go out and commit crimes could itself, be valuable - if you were, say, the operator of a private prison. As long as your motivational technique isn't too direct and obvious, it's profitable for you. You're creating demand for business!
What would the world look like if value were _real_, we could sense it intuitively, but we could not measure it, and had persuaded ourselves it were entirely subjective? I think it would look exactly as it does now: a prevailing sense that quality is declining. We would observe drops in numerous large-scale metrics like "does humanity value life enough to create more humanity", while metrics like "time people spend doing measurable things" would go way up, along with a creeping sense that something was deeply wrong.
If value _were_ purely subjective, I would have expected that we'd have locked into some functioning propaganda loop by now. If value is purely subject, and there's no hardwired human nature to value some outcomes over others, What would be better for the economy than convincing everyone that EVERYTHING IS AWESOME all the time?
> ... quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer.
For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization believed that there WAS an objective notion of quality (i.e. value). The idea that these things are purely subjective is a very recent concept in human history.
In the west, and places influenced by it - most elites come to believe that value is purely subjective. We talk, instead, about people's _preferences_ - but we can't measure feelings, just actions. "Some things are more valuable than others" is a very different belief from "people prefer some things over others". In a world that only recognizes what it can measure, the idea that value is subjective reduces to "people do some things and not other things", and _any_ action which can reliably be motivated - whether that's having babies or getting divorced, losing weight or watching porn, eating healthy or eating junk food - _all_ that our economy cares about is, "can you reliably produce that outcome at scale." This is all a natural consequence of the idea that value isn't real. People can't be wrong in what they want, and what they want is revealed in what they do. Therefore, literally all that matters is, can you motivate some kind of action - whatever that action is? If you can, you're 'adding value.' Motivating people to go out and commit crimes could itself, be valuable - if you were, say, the operator of a private prison. As long as your motivational technique isn't too direct and obvious, it's profitable for you. You're creating demand for business!
What would the world look like if value were _real_, we could sense it intuitively, but we could not measure it, and had persuaded ourselves it were entirely subjective? I think it would look exactly as it does now: a prevailing sense that quality is declining. We would observe drops in numerous large-scale metrics like "does humanity value life enough to create more humanity", while metrics like "time people spend doing measurable things" would go way up, along with a creeping sense that something was deeply wrong.
If value _were_ purely subjective, I would have expected that we'd have locked into some functioning propaganda loop by now. If value is purely subject, and there's no hardwired human nature to value some outcomes over others, What would be better for the economy than convincing everyone that EVERYTHING IS AWESOME all the time?
I think this is a great insight. Also, from a personal perspective, one of the problems I regularly experience as a consumer of goods is that it is very difficult for me to judge quality, meaning I can explicitly not intuit value. For example, two years ago I bought 3 identical pairs of Levi’s jeans at considerable cost. Granted, they’re all I wear, but given that I follow the washing instructions and don’t put undue stress on them I’d expect them to last 5 years. Two are busted already. I am looking for replacements and apparently buying from what I considered to be a reputable brand at a high price (which I foolishly believed to be an indicator of quality which it no longer is) is not a viable strategy anymore.
I am faced with a choice, do I join the problem and go for fast fashion crap or do I risk being burned again? Who do I believe when I’m researching quality? Google and Reddit have long since been astroturfed and small scale forums are dead.
I am faced with a choice, do I join the problem and go for fast fashion crap or do I risk being burned again? Who do I believe when I’m researching quality? Google and Reddit have long since been astroturfed and small scale forums are dead.
The search term BIFL (Buy It For Life) helps with some products. With ongoing supply chain, currency and trade variables, it's worth buying spares of proven products, which may later disappear from the market.
As for reputable brands, we may soon need version numbers for both products and companies, based on factors like supply chains, regulation, trade policy, corporate management, leadership or ownership (e.g. PE) changes. 2019 jeans from "Acme Corp v10" may be quite different from 2026 jeans from "Acme Corp v12".
As for reputable brands, we may soon need version numbers for both products and companies, based on factors like supply chains, regulation, trade policy, corporate management, leadership or ownership (e.g. PE) changes. 2019 jeans from "Acme Corp v10" may be quite different from 2026 jeans from "Acme Corp v12".
The only solution I know of is just not buying stuff from brands Walmart (and, increasingly, Home Depot, amazon, etc) carries.
A new pair of Levi’s are $20 at walmart and $80 everywhere else (before recent inflation).
In theory, the $80 pair matches their previous quality, but in practice, they were forced to chase profitability with high-volume $20 jeans, so it’s all outsourced to the same overseas factories. The $80 pair are also crap being produced for sustenance wages, but with slightly thicker denim.
This is absolutely intentional, and is the cornerstone of modern retail in the US. Monopoly retailers drove prices below production wages or environmental impact, and their profit is driven by by the frequency with which stuff breaks and is replaced.
It all relies on information asymmetry. Look at the market for grifters discussion on HN yesterday. It talks about the economics of targeted advertising, but similar games are played by name brands. For instance most appliance manufacturers own many brands, and rotate which brand is garbage in a given year. That constantly tricks people into buying garbage from a “reputable” brand.
https://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart-product-quality-durabil...
A new pair of Levi’s are $20 at walmart and $80 everywhere else (before recent inflation).
In theory, the $80 pair matches their previous quality, but in practice, they were forced to chase profitability with high-volume $20 jeans, so it’s all outsourced to the same overseas factories. The $80 pair are also crap being produced for sustenance wages, but with slightly thicker denim.
This is absolutely intentional, and is the cornerstone of modern retail in the US. Monopoly retailers drove prices below production wages or environmental impact, and their profit is driven by by the frequency with which stuff breaks and is replaced.
It all relies on information asymmetry. Look at the market for grifters discussion on HN yesterday. It talks about the economics of targeted advertising, but similar games are played by name brands. For instance most appliance manufacturers own many brands, and rotate which brand is garbage in a given year. That constantly tricks people into buying garbage from a “reputable” brand.
https://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart-product-quality-durabil...
lol jeans. Just got into selvedge denim, go buy from a company like brave star denim, and don’t buy anything less than 15 oz.
I can find a literal 21 oz unrippable insane heavy weight selvedge denim pants for less than 200, and it’ll be made in America of Japanese materials.
Most Americans are simply stupid when they buy clothes. They don’t do research and they make extremely suboptimal purchases by trusting big brands.
Just checked: https://bravestarselvage.com/collections/heavyweight-selvage...
168 USD for jeans so strong and thick they feel like armor. You will never wear out of these jeans or rip them.
I can find a literal 21 oz unrippable insane heavy weight selvedge denim pants for less than 200, and it’ll be made in America of Japanese materials.
Most Americans are simply stupid when they buy clothes. They don’t do research and they make extremely suboptimal purchases by trusting big brands.
Just checked: https://bravestarselvage.com/collections/heavyweight-selvage...
168 USD for jeans so strong and thick they feel like armor. You will never wear out of these jeans or rip them.
It's not just being stupid, it's that the information space is overflowing with marketing and BS. It's a mammoth task to parse through it all and not be suckered in by a slick advertisement that says the product you're looking at has everything you want. Amazon is absolutely the worst for false advertising, garbage masquerading as top of the line. And the usual alternative, using Google to search for companies directly, has turned into a largely futile experience as their search results are absolutely terrible, showing almost only the "top" retailers which are the same purveyors of cheap crap.
I have spent a considerable amount of time researching better, more durable pants and this is the first time I've heard about this company. So thank you for that!
I have spent a considerable amount of time researching better, more durable pants and this is the first time I've heard about this company. So thank you for that!
The noise is so loud, you can't find any signal. Shannon's Limit has been reached.
Also, the knowledge needed to differentiate has been lost by many, and suppressed given the economic disadvantage of quality vs cheap in a money-printing economy.
Unless you have a fairly good knowledge of sewing, construction, chemicals/materials, you end up getting things that look the same but aren't the same.
With Jeans, most of the durability came from the weave with extra strength from rivets at the stress points in the fabric and the properly locked-off stitching, at the seams; which a lot of industrial machining can't duplicate at the same cost (that's why you get the unraveling with those stitches using 4 threads at once). Then there is the synthetic fibers that are mixed in for flexibility/comfort that become stressed or dissolve upon exposure to detergents, and the use of low-quality cotton thread, or full synthetics and sometimes just glue to bind the seams instead of nylon/silk (both extremely strong).
You won't find any company offering Jeans that last more than a year or so, and any fraying near the belt loops, or main seam lines is a sign of poor worksmanship. I've had Walmart jeans, both the offbrand, and triple price regular brand rip, belt loops break, seams show signs of unraveling within 20 minutes of first use (brand new).
Also, the knowledge needed to differentiate has been lost by many, and suppressed given the economic disadvantage of quality vs cheap in a money-printing economy.
Unless you have a fairly good knowledge of sewing, construction, chemicals/materials, you end up getting things that look the same but aren't the same.
With Jeans, most of the durability came from the weave with extra strength from rivets at the stress points in the fabric and the properly locked-off stitching, at the seams; which a lot of industrial machining can't duplicate at the same cost (that's why you get the unraveling with those stitches using 4 threads at once). Then there is the synthetic fibers that are mixed in for flexibility/comfort that become stressed or dissolve upon exposure to detergents, and the use of low-quality cotton thread, or full synthetics and sometimes just glue to bind the seams instead of nylon/silk (both extremely strong).
You won't find any company offering Jeans that last more than a year or so, and any fraying near the belt loops, or main seam lines is a sign of poor worksmanship. I've had Walmart jeans, both the offbrand, and triple price regular brand rip, belt loops break, seams show signs of unraveling within 20 minutes of first use (brand new).
>You won't find any company offering Jeans that last more than a year or so
I literally just linked to a pair of jeans that you will try and fail to kill over a lifetime of use for most people.
If you still need bigger, Naked and Famous make 32 oz and 40oz, but the heavy denim crowd has bought them all and it's hard to find them right now.
Trying to teach HN how to buy high quality clothes is like talking to a brick wall.
This is 25 oz from the same brand: https://bravestarselvage.com/collections/heavyweight-selvage...
Quoting their description: "Selvage denim of this weight and caliber are rare, expensive and very difficult to manufacture here in USA due to the sheer weight, thickness of the yarn and time factor involved in slowing down the production line.
Each sewing operation has to be considered and necessary adjustments need to be made to accommodate the weight. Our sewing operators are required to wear safety goggles during the sewing process due the frequent exploding needles which can be quite dangerous. Needless to say it's extremely time consuming due to the half speed at which the operations can be accomplished which makes it a very labor intensive production process. "
I'd like to see you kill that in a year, or 10.
I found some 22 oz from some Indonesian selvedge company for 124 USD: https://wingmandenim.com/product/zero-zeke-22oz/
Japanese materials.
You just don't know how to buy jeans.
I literally just linked to a pair of jeans that you will try and fail to kill over a lifetime of use for most people.
If you still need bigger, Naked and Famous make 32 oz and 40oz, but the heavy denim crowd has bought them all and it's hard to find them right now.
Trying to teach HN how to buy high quality clothes is like talking to a brick wall.
This is 25 oz from the same brand: https://bravestarselvage.com/collections/heavyweight-selvage...
Quoting their description: "Selvage denim of this weight and caliber are rare, expensive and very difficult to manufacture here in USA due to the sheer weight, thickness of the yarn and time factor involved in slowing down the production line.
Each sewing operation has to be considered and necessary adjustments need to be made to accommodate the weight. Our sewing operators are required to wear safety goggles during the sewing process due the frequent exploding needles which can be quite dangerous. Needless to say it's extremely time consuming due to the half speed at which the operations can be accomplished which makes it a very labor intensive production process. "
I'd like to see you kill that in a year, or 10.
I found some 22 oz from some Indonesian selvedge company for 124 USD: https://wingmandenim.com/product/zero-zeke-22oz/
Japanese materials.
You just don't know how to buy jeans.
The link isn't something people buying work pants would buy.
22oz Selvedge has its issues, and under heavy use would last 4 or 5 years given societal constraints (i.e. you don't walk around in stinky clothes multiple days in a row).
At ~$124 + tariff, we're looking at significantly more for a five year period or a comparable minimum of $40/yr replacement.
Comparable products can be found with a replacement every year for that price, often better than that price, if one knows where to look. Its not just the material that is important, its the aggregate of many factors.
Most people don't buy quality for quality's sake.
The value of quality is derived by the benefit to human action, at least in a functioning market where no money-lenders without reserve have caused havoc; and when compared against similar alternative opportunities.
You generally don't buy work pants and care about the country of origin insofar as the functional quality remains the same.
You care about the effective use, and the cost in exchange. Demand isn't need, its the subset of need, who have the money and are willing to make the exchange and buy this over other comparable products at a specific price.
Given alternatives all things being equal with regard to effective use during a period of time, demand goes to the lower priced item or inferior good which serves the need at the lowest cost. (https://austrianeconomics.substack.com/p/the-subjective-theo...)
You don't seem to understand how economics works. I can understand the increased labor requirements, and the love of a craft, but it needs to make economic sense when you talk about buyers and sellers. Anything else is just branding/hype/marketing meant to mislead from the underlying important factors.
> You just don't know how to buy jeans.
I do, and in doing so it must make real economic sense (rationally), not following blindly to the mistakes of Keynes and other misleading variants or factors.
22oz Selvedge has its issues, and under heavy use would last 4 or 5 years given societal constraints (i.e. you don't walk around in stinky clothes multiple days in a row).
At ~$124 + tariff, we're looking at significantly more for a five year period or a comparable minimum of $40/yr replacement.
Comparable products can be found with a replacement every year for that price, often better than that price, if one knows where to look. Its not just the material that is important, its the aggregate of many factors.
Most people don't buy quality for quality's sake.
The value of quality is derived by the benefit to human action, at least in a functioning market where no money-lenders without reserve have caused havoc; and when compared against similar alternative opportunities.
You generally don't buy work pants and care about the country of origin insofar as the functional quality remains the same.
You care about the effective use, and the cost in exchange. Demand isn't need, its the subset of need, who have the money and are willing to make the exchange and buy this over other comparable products at a specific price.
Given alternatives all things being equal with regard to effective use during a period of time, demand goes to the lower priced item or inferior good which serves the need at the lowest cost. (https://austrianeconomics.substack.com/p/the-subjective-theo...)
You don't seem to understand how economics works. I can understand the increased labor requirements, and the love of a craft, but it needs to make economic sense when you talk about buyers and sellers. Anything else is just branding/hype/marketing meant to mislead from the underlying important factors.
> You just don't know how to buy jeans.
I do, and in doing so it must make real economic sense (rationally), not following blindly to the mistakes of Keynes and other misleading variants or factors.
Nice ChatGPT response.
> Nice ChatGPT response.
Sigh. Unfortunately, this has become the de-facto response to intelligent debate and conversation, where the person who says it, was being disingenuous from the start and where they can poke no holes in what was being said.
Its a capitulation and worse instead of saying "I disagree", and walking away in good faith, the person refuses to recognize the other person's humanity, and uses this more like an invective under social coercion and mental compulsion, in other words a false accusation with no proof, as a bully; and you won't find proof because what I said is organic, and the reasoning is sound.
I'm a person, and your absurd reality is not my monkey or circus.
That behavior is at the level of a toddler throwing a tantrum when play-acting fails. Overall, its quite a twisted and evil thing to do when you are not a toddler.
Personally, I don't get the impetus to do this because it doesn't matter that you are wrong in a conversation, or hold a different opinion; the simple saying speaks volumes about the person saying it.
You should be aware that making the choice and taking the action, towards willful blindness of evil acts, is how people become evil people.
They self-violate themselves repeatedly through fallacy (wrath), and other deadly sins (sloth=complacency ...), eventually accepting evil into their hearts themselves, where they no longer resist such choices and repeat such actions until someone stops them.
Denial of existence is an evil thing to do. Its what gaslighters, psychopaths, and worse engage in regularly, and they victimize others through such bullying/coercion. When you do such things, you communicate to everyone "I'm part of that group".
Ultimately, it shows a core weakness of a destructive person, just waiting for the right opportunity and circumstance to harm others, with the convenient willful lie "oh I didn't know", you didn't bother to know; and lip service matters not.
Its sad when people do this, because they don't realize what they are actually communicating by doing it; the accusation is easily proven false, because chain of reasoning isn't good enough, and any middle school student can understand reading comprehension, and quirks of writing competently, enough to see the human reasoning followed consistently.
Something AI doesn't "delve" to do. /s
I would say/warn that you might consider the specific things that action says about you, and where your behavior leads you; hopefully before the next time you think about throwing that around as an invective, but I doubt you will, if your previous pattern of behavior is an indicator.
Objective measure trumps subjective every time a conflict arises, and you seem to have lost yourself in subjective experience, which coupled with AI use leads to dangerous delusion given the right time, and circumstance.
As an important parallel, you might consider why doctor's or psychiatrists ask certain questions like what year is it, who is the president etc, and what it means when your answer doesn't match objective reality in such cases.
The professionals do this to check your mental status, when they suspect dementia, alzheimers, schizophrenia and other cognitive limiting issues may be present.
If you use AI regularly, you might want to think about dialing it back. Its cooking your brain.
If you told those professional's in response, "Nice chat-GPT response", the assumption would be they commit you to a facility or hold for observation.
Who would be around to listen, or want to listen to what someone who needs to be at those places has to say. Not the general public certainly, the people who are in those places don't have a firm grip on reality.
The phrase speaks most about the person saying it when it is false, and it is false here, and the fact that you don't have sufficient reading comprehension, or have conflated good writing skills to AI, enough to realize that, is why experts on AI worry about people using and being exposed to AI.
You might find the follow of value, especially the discussion about AI and reality in the latter.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/ai-therapy-bots-fuel-delu...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qObdS-bhRM
Sigh. Unfortunately, this has become the de-facto response to intelligent debate and conversation, where the person who says it, was being disingenuous from the start and where they can poke no holes in what was being said.
Its a capitulation and worse instead of saying "I disagree", and walking away in good faith, the person refuses to recognize the other person's humanity, and uses this more like an invective under social coercion and mental compulsion, in other words a false accusation with no proof, as a bully; and you won't find proof because what I said is organic, and the reasoning is sound.
I'm a person, and your absurd reality is not my monkey or circus.
That behavior is at the level of a toddler throwing a tantrum when play-acting fails. Overall, its quite a twisted and evil thing to do when you are not a toddler.
Personally, I don't get the impetus to do this because it doesn't matter that you are wrong in a conversation, or hold a different opinion; the simple saying speaks volumes about the person saying it.
You should be aware that making the choice and taking the action, towards willful blindness of evil acts, is how people become evil people.
They self-violate themselves repeatedly through fallacy (wrath), and other deadly sins (sloth=complacency ...), eventually accepting evil into their hearts themselves, where they no longer resist such choices and repeat such actions until someone stops them.
Denial of existence is an evil thing to do. Its what gaslighters, psychopaths, and worse engage in regularly, and they victimize others through such bullying/coercion. When you do such things, you communicate to everyone "I'm part of that group".
Ultimately, it shows a core weakness of a destructive person, just waiting for the right opportunity and circumstance to harm others, with the convenient willful lie "oh I didn't know", you didn't bother to know; and lip service matters not.
Its sad when people do this, because they don't realize what they are actually communicating by doing it; the accusation is easily proven false, because chain of reasoning isn't good enough, and any middle school student can understand reading comprehension, and quirks of writing competently, enough to see the human reasoning followed consistently.
Something AI doesn't "delve" to do. /s
I would say/warn that you might consider the specific things that action says about you, and where your behavior leads you; hopefully before the next time you think about throwing that around as an invective, but I doubt you will, if your previous pattern of behavior is an indicator.
Objective measure trumps subjective every time a conflict arises, and you seem to have lost yourself in subjective experience, which coupled with AI use leads to dangerous delusion given the right time, and circumstance.
As an important parallel, you might consider why doctor's or psychiatrists ask certain questions like what year is it, who is the president etc, and what it means when your answer doesn't match objective reality in such cases.
The professionals do this to check your mental status, when they suspect dementia, alzheimers, schizophrenia and other cognitive limiting issues may be present.
If you use AI regularly, you might want to think about dialing it back. Its cooking your brain.
If you told those professional's in response, "Nice chat-GPT response", the assumption would be they commit you to a facility or hold for observation.
Who would be around to listen, or want to listen to what someone who needs to be at those places has to say. Not the general public certainly, the people who are in those places don't have a firm grip on reality.
The phrase speaks most about the person saying it when it is false, and it is false here, and the fact that you don't have sufficient reading comprehension, or have conflated good writing skills to AI, enough to realize that, is why experts on AI worry about people using and being exposed to AI.
You might find the follow of value, especially the discussion about AI and reality in the latter.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/ai-therapy-bots-fuel-delu...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qObdS-bhRM
Jeans at old navy or costco or next are $20 to $30. And I can wash them on “normal” cycle every time I wear them, and dry them on normal and never have to worry about taking care of them.
They still last me at least a couple years. And I don’t have to trust that the manufacturer made them well enough to last 7+ years for me to break even.
They still last me at least a couple years. And I don’t have to trust that the manufacturer made them well enough to last 7+ years for me to break even.
Wearing unfashionable or ugly clothes will get you treated poorly by others, which leads to negative life outcomes. No one finds old navy or costco 20-30$ jeans fashionable.
You need to trust that the manufacturer didn't cheap out in ways that could negatively impact your health.
From https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/319092...
"Experts said Shein is not a unique case. Clothes from many large clothing brands like Lululemon, Old Navy, and REI have been found to contain toxic chemicals."
Selvedge Denim from made in america/japan brands (i.e. brave star, gustin, naked and famous, iron heart, etc) is made using 1940s machines/techniques using (usually) 100% cotton denim. No toxic chemicals.
My jeans are better than yours.
You need to trust that the manufacturer didn't cheap out in ways that could negatively impact your health.
From https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/319092...
"Experts said Shein is not a unique case. Clothes from many large clothing brands like Lululemon, Old Navy, and REI have been found to contain toxic chemicals."
Selvedge Denim from made in america/japan brands (i.e. brave star, gustin, naked and famous, iron heart, etc) is made using 1940s machines/techniques using (usually) 100% cotton denim. No toxic chemicals.
My jeans are better than yours.
Check out shopgoodwill.com. I get everything there.
Most clothes are incredible value, and even with a few duds in the mix, it's way better (for my wallet, and the environment) than buying new at retail.
Most clothes are incredible value, and even with a few duds in the mix, it's way better (for my wallet, and the environment) than buying new at retail.
There is only one reliable way to tell that a product can stand the test of time: how old is it already?
You can't buy anything second hand, but jeans you can.
You can't buy anything second hand, but jeans you can.
Buy the cheapest version that works for your needs. Or lower your expectations.
For example, I buy at Costco first, and if that doesn’t work, I seek higher quality. But I also don’t expect clothes to last many, many years.
For example, I buy at Costco first, and if that doesn’t work, I seek higher quality. But I also don’t expect clothes to last many, many years.
I’ve always viewed it as less a discussion about any sort of real defined “quality metric” and more companies asking “what is the least amount of time, money, and effort we can put in before people stop buying it?”
Even more simply put: what is the worst version of the product that people are willing to buy?
Even more simply put: what is the worst version of the product that people are willing to buy?
Yes! And because all competitors besides niche artisanal players are simultaneously playing that same exact game (or in many cases, there are 10 brands all made by 3 conglomerates), people have little chance of actually stopping buying the product even when its quality level dips to absurdity. People will “stop buying” one brand and buy another, but the root of their frustrations is identical across brands and manufacturers.
Yeah for a lot of stuff every vendor is making basically the same thing the same way.
Many products come in 3 levels of quality:
1. the stripper, designed for a minimum price that will draw people into the showroom
2. the luxe, which has every feature, designed for the people who don't care about the price
3. the midrange, which is what most people wind up buying
This strategy maximizes the profit that can be made. You'll see it from refrigerators to cars.
1. the stripper, designed for a minimum price that will draw people into the showroom
2. the luxe, which has every feature, designed for the people who don't care about the price
3. the midrange, which is what most people wind up buying
This strategy maximizes the profit that can be made. You'll see it from refrigerators to cars.
The problem I see is that main difference between those options is not quality, but features.
For example with refrigerators you see integrated touch screen, viewing windows, and all kinds of esoteric features.
But the core of the product, the compressor and overall cooling system is not actually any better. In fact, looking at reviews shows that those parts are often garbage quality too.
So it fails at the core job of keeping your food cold, and the added features are just more things to fail as well meaning that buying the more expensive products are generally a lose-lose situation.
For example with refrigerators you see integrated touch screen, viewing windows, and all kinds of esoteric features.
But the core of the product, the compressor and overall cooling system is not actually any better. In fact, looking at reviews shows that those parts are often garbage quality too.
So it fails at the core job of keeping your food cold, and the added features are just more things to fail as well meaning that buying the more expensive products are generally a lose-lose situation.
Concretely, don’t buy anything made by Samsung. Here’s a $3000 washer / dryer with a 90 day [x] warranty:
https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/all-in-one-washer...
[x] I got tired of following footnote disclaimers. Note the headline 20-year warranty and $2,200 price tags are blatant lies. The two year warranty below that claim has footnotes that references more off page disclaimers. When we had a samsung appliance die, we found the actual warranty was only 90 days.
Even worse, there are zero repair companies willing to touch samsung garbage in our area because it’s impossible to debug issues. So, even with their samsung care package, you’re still throwing this thing out in a few years.
I’ve also attempted to call their customer support. It makes the IRS call center seem prompt.
https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/all-in-one-washer...
[x] I got tired of following footnote disclaimers. Note the headline 20-year warranty and $2,200 price tags are blatant lies. The two year warranty below that claim has footnotes that references more off page disclaimers. When we had a samsung appliance die, we found the actual warranty was only 90 days.
Even worse, there are zero repair companies willing to touch samsung garbage in our area because it’s impossible to debug issues. So, even with their samsung care package, you’re still throwing this thing out in a few years.
I’ve also attempted to call their customer support. It makes the IRS call center seem prompt.
Why on earth you choose product so expensive where dryer is basically fan with heater ?
With that price range you can buy Miele hardware with heat pump dryer that is basically non-breakable and an order of magnitude more energy efficient.
Really - I would like to know how you came to purchase decision :)
Really - I would like to know how you came to purchase decision :)
With bigger appliance purchases like that the way often/should (clearly not always) work is they should be more robust and effective. A cheap drier needs to be babysat or it becomes a fire hazard. It also can just door a poor job of drying your stuff.
I have the cheapest Costco drier. It’s fine, but I do have to keep an eye on it.
I have the cheapest Costco drier. It’s fine, but I do have to keep an eye on it.
There is some logic to not over-engineering a product or using more materials than necessary to produce something. I wonder why that seems to have manifested in an anti-consumer application some places.
I think it has to do with having no limits on executive compensation.
There is no incentive to create long-term value when you can cost-optimize your brand into the garbage while creating large short term profits from which they can pay themselves outrageous bonuses. It's an easy playbook and there is no shortage of people willing to trade their reputation for a few hundred million.
Our economy has become almost entirely a race to the bottom.
There is no incentive to create long-term value when you can cost-optimize your brand into the garbage while creating large short term profits from which they can pay themselves outrageous bonuses. It's an easy playbook and there is no shortage of people willing to trade their reputation for a few hundred million.
Our economy has become almost entirely a race to the bottom.
$$$
> For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization believed that there WAS an objective notion of quality (i.e. value). The idea that these things are purely subjective is a very recent concept in human history.
Value has always been subjective, people in previous eras simply didn’t have the tools or technology to figure it out as quickly as today.
For example, IKEA furniture does 99% of the job for 90% of the people at less than 50% of the price of what was previously known as “quality” furniture.
The amount of money IKEA has saved me afforded multiple vacations, plus it is easier to move. So is it lower “value”?
Lots of people like to gripe about lower quality houses today. But I don’t want a house that lasts 500 years. I want a house that I can easily modify or repair that lets wireless signals through the wall, with drywall, wood studs, PEX piping, etc. And it will be a lot cheaper than a house built with masonry.
Value has always been subjective, people in previous eras simply didn’t have the tools or technology to figure it out as quickly as today.
For example, IKEA furniture does 99% of the job for 90% of the people at less than 50% of the price of what was previously known as “quality” furniture.
The amount of money IKEA has saved me afforded multiple vacations, plus it is easier to move. So is it lower “value”?
Lots of people like to gripe about lower quality houses today. But I don’t want a house that lasts 500 years. I want a house that I can easily modify or repair that lets wireless signals through the wall, with drywall, wood studs, PEX piping, etc. And it will be a lot cheaper than a house built with masonry.
Yes it is lower quality: doesn’t look as good as massive wood or other quality wood, less stable, breaks or loosens up after moves, so light that it easily falls over and must be anchored, etc.
What you’re saying is that low quality furniture is worth it to you for various reasons.
What you’re saying is that low quality furniture is worth it to you for various reasons.
You and parent comment are not going to see eye to eye because of different definitions of “quality”. They are using the term synonymously with the economic idea of “utility”. To them, a higher-quality item is that which provides them the most value.
To the contrary, you are using “quality” to mean something else; maybe you could elaborate on what “quality” is to you, what characteristics make something “high quality”, and why the categories you’ve used to measure quality are the “right ones”.
To the contrary, you are using “quality” to mean something else; maybe you could elaborate on what “quality” is to you, what characteristics make something “high quality”, and why the categories you’ve used to measure quality are the “right ones”.
I read that portion not as arguing that every possible metric is completely subjective, such that some people will actively prefer, for example, a version that doesn't last as long, or costs more for no additional benefit, but rather that quality has a lot of different axes, some of which are mutually exclusive or in active tension, and the relative weighting of different axes is purely subjective. There is no way that one can argue that it is "correct" to value durability over cost. Or aesthetic appeal over simplicity.
Basically, when there are many axes of quality, the pareto frontier gets very large and very complex and no one position on it is inherently better than another, even if everyone universally agrees which direction is "better" on every individual axis.
Basically, when there are many axes of quality, the pareto frontier gets very large and very complex and no one position on it is inherently better than another, even if everyone universally agrees which direction is "better" on every individual axis.
I agree with you in principle but I would not put as much moral or rational in peoples head. Maybe your comment had some sarcasm in it and I missed it, in this case what's next is pushing an open door.
> ...In the west, and places influenced by it - most elites come to believe that value is purely subjective. We talk, instead, about people's _preferences_ - but we can't measure feelings, just actions. "Some things are more valuable than others" is a very different belief from "people prefer some things over others".
When it comes to functionnal products, my take is this is the rational we give because it is impossible to take down. What I think it really mean is "This is not me who wants it, it's them". It is the same argument as "I do it because if I don't do it, someone else will" when doing something illegal or immoral.
This is why I'm inclined to believe when your argument is this empty you know what you are doing. This is how you end up inventing "customer personas" and asking your consumer themselves why they buy your product.
> ...In the west, and places influenced by it - most elites come to believe that value is purely subjective. We talk, instead, about people's _preferences_ - but we can't measure feelings, just actions. "Some things are more valuable than others" is a very different belief from "people prefer some things over others".
When it comes to functionnal products, my take is this is the rational we give because it is impossible to take down. What I think it really mean is "This is not me who wants it, it's them". It is the same argument as "I do it because if I don't do it, someone else will" when doing something illegal or immoral.
This is why I'm inclined to believe when your argument is this empty you know what you are doing. This is how you end up inventing "customer personas" and asking your consumer themselves why they buy your product.
Subjective things are real and some times even measurable too.
The problem with objective theories of value is that they are demonstrably wrong. If you rent a small apartment and have two washing machines, one of them has negative value to you, people often give those away; try explaining that with objective value.
And yes, people's values do align to a very large extent.
The problem with objective theories of value is that they are demonstrably wrong. If you rent a small apartment and have two washing machines, one of them has negative value to you, people often give those away; try explaining that with objective value.
And yes, people's values do align to a very large extent.
I don't agree with a lot of what you're writing here, but reading through the lines I think maybe there's some common ground.
There is a philosophy that value (including reality) is subjective and that all that matters is making people act. That's quite explicitly the philosophy of Marx. It's in strong contrast to the "philosophical bedrock of western civilization", which is the search for objective truth and objective reality. Whatever one thinks of Marx's idea that objective reality is a middle class fiction, I don't think people would agree that those ideas are associated with the elite of Western civilization. Quite the opposite.
I think what you're ultimately referring to is the use of ordinal utility functions by economists. It's not clear how to write equations in economics where each person's preferences are accurately expressed in well-behaved value-agnostic units. You could try using money, but not everyone values having a lot of money. And even if they did, which currency? Dollars? Euros? Gold? Bitcoin?
Because utility functions are hard to get right theoretically, Paul Samuelson proposed trying to measure them empirically by revealed preference. There are lots of things wrong with this from an academic perspective and it's reasonable to have concerns about the long-term effects if this is adopted for entire economies. But it didn't start until 1938 and it's certainly not a philosophical bedrock of Western civilization. More like a desperate hack.
> we can't measure feelings
We have several ways of measuring feelings, and we use them regularly. But you can't build a utility theory based literally on current feelings. Otherwise opium would have nearly infinite objective value. You want to use something that integrates over time, like life satisfaction. Or something that measures the current feeling, change in feeling, and integral over feeling like a PID controller. But even if you could get the measurements right, doing all the measurements for all 8.2 billion people in real time would be impossible right now. So it's not clear what the right theory is.
There is a philosophy that value (including reality) is subjective and that all that matters is making people act. That's quite explicitly the philosophy of Marx. It's in strong contrast to the "philosophical bedrock of western civilization", which is the search for objective truth and objective reality. Whatever one thinks of Marx's idea that objective reality is a middle class fiction, I don't think people would agree that those ideas are associated with the elite of Western civilization. Quite the opposite.
I think what you're ultimately referring to is the use of ordinal utility functions by economists. It's not clear how to write equations in economics where each person's preferences are accurately expressed in well-behaved value-agnostic units. You could try using money, but not everyone values having a lot of money. And even if they did, which currency? Dollars? Euros? Gold? Bitcoin?
Because utility functions are hard to get right theoretically, Paul Samuelson proposed trying to measure them empirically by revealed preference. There are lots of things wrong with this from an academic perspective and it's reasonable to have concerns about the long-term effects if this is adopted for entire economies. But it didn't start until 1938 and it's certainly not a philosophical bedrock of Western civilization. More like a desperate hack.
> we can't measure feelings
We have several ways of measuring feelings, and we use them regularly. But you can't build a utility theory based literally on current feelings. Otherwise opium would have nearly infinite objective value. You want to use something that integrates over time, like life satisfaction. Or something that measures the current feeling, change in feeling, and integral over feeling like a PID controller. But even if you could get the measurements right, doing all the measurements for all 8.2 billion people in real time would be impossible right now. So it's not clear what the right theory is.
Where in Marx do you find claims like reality is a middle-class fiction or all value is subjective? The labor theory of value is premised on an idea of surplus value as a very real thing. Substituting subjective theories takes the air out of the analysis, doesn't it?
I'm perhaps willing to grant "all that matters is making people act" in the sense that he was far more thoroughly a revolutionist than a scientist.
But your antipodal impression of Marx and "Western thought" misses the many strands which make up the latter, as well as the fact that he was no island: he was steeped (and elements of his thought remain visible) in a diverse intellectual tradition which is by no means a monolith.
I'm perhaps willing to grant "all that matters is making people act" in the sense that he was far more thoroughly a revolutionist than a scientist.
But your antipodal impression of Marx and "Western thought" misses the many strands which make up the latter, as well as the fact that he was no island: he was steeped (and elements of his thought remain visible) in a diverse intellectual tradition which is by no means a monolith.
> The labor theory of value
This is value in the sense of "price". The labor theory of value was from Adam Smith and Ricardo rather than something Marx contributed.
> Substituting subjective theories takes the air out of the analysis, doesn't it?
You're right that this is an apparent contradiction. Technically, Marx was making a prophecy about an upcoming revolution as being a historical inevitability. And when he was being more rigorous he was careful to clarify that this was a statement about historical inevitability (like manifest destiny) rather than something he thought was "good".
But many people have taken this to be a contradiction. Here's an essay from Michael Rosen defending the claim that his critique of morality isn't inconsistent with his condemnation of people's behaviors [0].
Marx's attitude toward morality is discussed on page 7. The basic gist is that morality claims to be objective, but it's really, to quote Rosen, "particular and relative to the society in question".
Nowadays people sympathetic to his approach paraphrase these ideas by saying that reality and morality are "socially constructed."
> But your antipodal impression of Marx and "Western thought" misses the many strands which make up the latter, as well as the fact that he was no island
This is a reasonable claim and one that has also been well-discussed. My personal take is that Marx critiqued and rejected the Enlightenment, which he saw as serving the interests of the middle class.
I group him with Rousseau and many German philosophers of his time as being overly influenced by the Romantic movement and longing for a return to a primitive way of life.
Western thought has been firmly in the direction of the Enlightenment, engineering, and science. And the romantics have generally been a conservative counter culture wanting to return to a simpler time.
[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/michaelrosen/files/the_mar...
This is value in the sense of "price". The labor theory of value was from Adam Smith and Ricardo rather than something Marx contributed.
> Substituting subjective theories takes the air out of the analysis, doesn't it?
You're right that this is an apparent contradiction. Technically, Marx was making a prophecy about an upcoming revolution as being a historical inevitability. And when he was being more rigorous he was careful to clarify that this was a statement about historical inevitability (like manifest destiny) rather than something he thought was "good".
But many people have taken this to be a contradiction. Here's an essay from Michael Rosen defending the claim that his critique of morality isn't inconsistent with his condemnation of people's behaviors [0].
Marx's attitude toward morality is discussed on page 7. The basic gist is that morality claims to be objective, but it's really, to quote Rosen, "particular and relative to the society in question".
Nowadays people sympathetic to his approach paraphrase these ideas by saying that reality and morality are "socially constructed."
> But your antipodal impression of Marx and "Western thought" misses the many strands which make up the latter, as well as the fact that he was no island
This is a reasonable claim and one that has also been well-discussed. My personal take is that Marx critiqued and rejected the Enlightenment, which he saw as serving the interests of the middle class.
I group him with Rousseau and many German philosophers of his time as being overly influenced by the Romantic movement and longing for a return to a primitive way of life.
Western thought has been firmly in the direction of the Enlightenment, engineering, and science. And the romantics have generally been a conservative counter culture wanting to return to a simpler time.
[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/michaelrosen/files/the_mar...
I can't easily recognize (post-)modern social construction in his worldview, especially construction of reality at large (morality it is easier to see the argument) but I admit it has been years since my reading. I agree with you that there is a strand in Western thought which is infatuated with science/engineering to a historically novel degree but I am not so sure that enlightenment ideals fit so neatly in the same box, or that statements like "Western thought is firmly X" can be meaningfully interpreted. In any case thanks for your response and for the link, I look forward to reading and learning from it.
> I can't easily recognize (post-)modern social construction in his worldview, especially construction of reality at large
The most relevant piece is probably Theses on Feuerbach. Feuerbach advocated a materialist (e.g. essentially naturalistic) point of view to which Marx objected.
His basic argument is that it doesn't make sense to talk about an objective materialist universe. That point of view leads to middle class society. His own point of view isn't really coherent, but it's essentially that humans create the objective world and truth through interacting with it.
To me it feels like what he's trying to do is try to take German idealism and apply it to groups of people rather than single people. Conceptually you get a sort of Cartesian solipsism at the social scale. But you can read it and you may get a different take away from it.
The most relevant piece is probably Theses on Feuerbach. Feuerbach advocated a materialist (e.g. essentially naturalistic) point of view to which Marx objected.
His basic argument is that it doesn't make sense to talk about an objective materialist universe. That point of view leads to middle class society. His own point of view isn't really coherent, but it's essentially that humans create the objective world and truth through interacting with it.
To me it feels like what he's trying to do is try to take German idealism and apply it to groups of people rather than single people. Conceptually you get a sort of Cartesian solipsism at the social scale. But you can read it and you may get a different take away from it.
> he most relevant piece is probably Theses on Feuerbach. Feuerbach advocated a materialist (e.g. essentially naturalistic) point of view to which Marx objected.
One must have a very warped understanding of Marx to claim he didn't advocate for materialism. Are you unfamiliar with his dialectical/historical materialism?
One must have a very warped understanding of Marx to claim he didn't advocate for materialism. Are you unfamiliar with his dialectical/historical materialism?
Of course I'm familiar with it. But beyond an unfortunate name clash the ideas aren't very related.
Materialism is the view that everything is fundamentally matter. Historical materialism is almost the opposite. It's the idea that there's some supernatural force guiding human history.
To quote Bertrand Russell:
> His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology.
Materialism is the view that everything is fundamentally matter. Historical materialism is almost the opposite. It's the idea that there's some supernatural force guiding human history.
To quote Bertrand Russell:
> His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology.
Historical materialism is an idea that social constructs are formed by (obviously) material factors like economics and technology as opposed to historical voluntarism. The dialectical part is that economics and technology in their turn are created by society on the previous iteration of the historical process, but this part isn't much of a discovery. As a result everything is fundamentally matter.
I am glad for our (rather dismissive) interlocutor's comment, because I can now ask you: do you see this in any tension with Marx as an early constructivist? Social construction as I think of it is hardly compatible with a teleological cosmology. What am I missing?
Another quibble: I don't think Marx thought of it as supernatural in our sense of the latter; rather his sense of the natural (like that of many of his contemporaries) had an element of what we might call the supernatural, located in a certain directedness or inevitability.
I guess where you see Marx as an early advocate of modern relativisms, I read him as deeply bound up in positivisms pervasive at the time. Maybe these are not contradictory positions. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Another quibble: I don't think Marx thought of it as supernatural in our sense of the latter; rather his sense of the natural (like that of many of his contemporaries) had an element of what we might call the supernatural, located in a certain directedness or inevitability.
I guess where you see Marx as an early advocate of modern relativisms, I read him as deeply bound up in positivisms pervasive at the time. Maybe these are not contradictory positions. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Marx in general wasn't self-consistent. That's part of why he wasn't taken seriously as a philosopher or economist until the Soviets evangelized for him as a sort of patron saint.
But you're right to raise the question. A closely related question is: "If Marx thought the revolution was inevitable, then why did he feel the need to advocate for it?". You can also ask this about any sort of prophecy: manifest destiny, the second coming of Jesus, the singularity, etc. There's of course a literature on this, e.g. [0].
But people do in fact hold both views simultaneously. A famous example is Karl Rove, unintentionally echoing Marx's ideas:
> We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
In other words, we construct reality and it's inevitable that we construct reality. Both historical inevitability and social construction in the same thought.
> I don't think Marx thought of it as supernatural in our sense of the latter
I doubt he did either, but it's supernatural in the literal sense. It's not entailed by the collection of physical laws. In fact his theory is empirically false, but even if it wasn't, the existence of a causal force in history requires an additional assumption outside of natural science. Whereas other authors had previously talked metaphorically of a spirit of force in history (e.g. the invisible hand) Marx tried to turn it into a real force the way the ancients thought of gods intervening in human affairs.
[0] "Historical inevitability and human agency in Marxism" https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspa.1986...
But you're right to raise the question. A closely related question is: "If Marx thought the revolution was inevitable, then why did he feel the need to advocate for it?". You can also ask this about any sort of prophecy: manifest destiny, the second coming of Jesus, the singularity, etc. There's of course a literature on this, e.g. [0].
But people do in fact hold both views simultaneously. A famous example is Karl Rove, unintentionally echoing Marx's ideas:
> We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
In other words, we construct reality and it's inevitable that we construct reality. Both historical inevitability and social construction in the same thought.
> I don't think Marx thought of it as supernatural in our sense of the latter
I doubt he did either, but it's supernatural in the literal sense. It's not entailed by the collection of physical laws. In fact his theory is empirically false, but even if it wasn't, the existence of a causal force in history requires an additional assumption outside of natural science. Whereas other authors had previously talked metaphorically of a spirit of force in history (e.g. the invisible hand) Marx tried to turn it into a real force the way the ancients thought of gods intervening in human affairs.
[0] "Historical inevitability and human agency in Marxism" https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspa.1986...
You argue like a true capitalist whose underlying assumption is that free will isn't mostly illusory.
Modern science disagrees:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined
Warning: ego might get bruised
Modern science disagrees:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined
Warning: ego might get bruised
That's not science, just Sapolsky having no idea what he's talking about.
> One must have a very warped understanding of Marx
Materialism is an extraordinarily overloaded word/concept.
OP's proposing an idiosyncratic take on Marx's reading of one of his main influences seems rather more in the dialectical spirit than a no true Scotsman (no true Marxist? ;) flung without substantiation. No offense.
Given Marx was famously "not a Marxist", and given the laboriousness/verbosity of his writing, and his tendency to change his mind over time, you could argue he had merely the first in a long lineage of warped understandings of himself.
Materialism is an extraordinarily overloaded word/concept.
OP's proposing an idiosyncratic take on Marx's reading of one of his main influences seems rather more in the dialectical spirit than a no true Scotsman (no true Marxist? ;) flung without substantiation. No offense.
Given Marx was famously "not a Marxist", and given the laboriousness/verbosity of his writing, and his tendency to change his mind over time, you could argue he had merely the first in a long lineage of warped understandings of himself.
> Given Marx was famously "not a Marxist"
Misrepresenting words out of context to make a point isn't a great approach.
http://isocracy.org/content/karl-marx-i-am-not-marxist
https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpret...
Misrepresenting words out of context to make a point isn't a great approach.
http://isocracy.org/content/karl-marx-i-am-not-marxist
https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpret...
Friend, if you're trying to convert people to your point of view, neither is yours. Cheers from someone with at least a few somewhat similar political sympathies.
> Whatever one thinks of Marx's idea that objective reality is a middle class fiction, I don't think people would agree that those ideas are associated with the elite of Western civilization. Quite the opposite.
Those are ideas are much more popular on, say, Harvard's campus and among its professoriate, than are the ideas that some things are objectively better than others, and that searching for truth is more important than social justice or people's feelings or racial equality or ending the patriarchy or reducing global warming etc etc. Witness, e.g. the uproar over anyone saying "men and women are different and those differences lead to different preferences which then affect the distribution of genders in different career tracks." That is a claim about objective reality, rooted in biology, measurable. It is, if you care about evidence more than feelings - most likely true. And yet it's deeply offensive to most people who work in an office. It doesn't matter whether or not it _might_ be true - what matters is how people feel about it. That's what i'm referring to as the bedrock.
The bedrock you're referring to _was_ the bedrock, of an older civilization that shared the same name as our own. Western civilization, today, is a distant relative of what it used to be 100 years ago. The bedrock I'm referring to was laid at the start of the 20th century, by the managerial class of the time, who wanted more power and authority, as elites always do. Our civilization today is as alien to that of the late 19th century americans as, say, the ancient romans were to the late-stage byzantines. There's a lineage relationship, for sure - but the mores, values, and guiding concepts are so radically different that it's properly conceptualized as a fundamentally different civilization, even if they both called themselves 'romans'.
Those are ideas are much more popular on, say, Harvard's campus and among its professoriate, than are the ideas that some things are objectively better than others, and that searching for truth is more important than social justice or people's feelings or racial equality or ending the patriarchy or reducing global warming etc etc. Witness, e.g. the uproar over anyone saying "men and women are different and those differences lead to different preferences which then affect the distribution of genders in different career tracks." That is a claim about objective reality, rooted in biology, measurable. It is, if you care about evidence more than feelings - most likely true. And yet it's deeply offensive to most people who work in an office. It doesn't matter whether or not it _might_ be true - what matters is how people feel about it. That's what i'm referring to as the bedrock.
The bedrock you're referring to _was_ the bedrock, of an older civilization that shared the same name as our own. Western civilization, today, is a distant relative of what it used to be 100 years ago. The bedrock I'm referring to was laid at the start of the 20th century, by the managerial class of the time, who wanted more power and authority, as elites always do. Our civilization today is as alien to that of the late 19th century americans as, say, the ancient romans were to the late-stage byzantines. There's a lineage relationship, for sure - but the mores, values, and guiding concepts are so radically different that it's properly conceptualized as a fundamentally different civilization, even if they both called themselves 'romans'.
You are talking in circles while missing the point, and ignoring quite a lot of established literature on economics.
I'd suggest if you are limited on time that you read Hazlitt. Economics in One Lesson. You seem to conflate need for demand in your examples. The two are not the same.
Need includes anyone who could benefit/find valuable from the use of something, the value being derived from productive human action.
Demand in reality includes only the people who would make an actual exchange at a specific price point. The former is a superset of the latter.
You end up misleading others, and going into delusional territory when you ignore this nuance.
I'd suggest if you are limited on time that you read Hazlitt. Economics in One Lesson. You seem to conflate need for demand in your examples. The two are not the same.
Need includes anyone who could benefit/find valuable from the use of something, the value being derived from productive human action.
Demand in reality includes only the people who would make an actual exchange at a specific price point. The former is a superset of the latter.
You end up misleading others, and going into delusional territory when you ignore this nuance.
Good analysis...
(Side note: I was looking at your comment history and it appears that most of your comments are down-voted, somebody has an axe to grind)
(Side note: I was looking at your comment history and it appears that most of your comments are down-voted, somebody has an axe to grind)
> most of your comments are down-voted, somebody has an axe to grind
Parent's comments are months apart. What sort of somebody did you have in mind?
Of note, parent's tag is "ask me anything and i will probably give you something new to think about." This is a bold promise.
Parent's comments are months apart. What sort of somebody did you have in mind?
Of note, parent's tag is "ask me anything and i will probably give you something new to think about." This is a bold promise.
This "grudge downvoting" shit has been a thing on HN for years, with Dang etc refusing to acknowledge it. Might as well join in on it yourself till they notice :)
It happens to me, sometimes. It doesn't work very well because I couldn't care less about my karma points.
It makes your comment [nearly] invisible to others, unless they have showdead. It can also limit the rate at which you can post. It achieves what spam-downvoters want, without any downsides to them.
I should probably post less often, so not a problem :-)
Your former CFO needs to read about the Trust Thermocline.
https://therightstuff.medium.com/the-trust-thermocline-expla...
https://therightstuff.medium.com/the-trust-thermocline-expla...
There's a simple answer in established literature.
There is an objective perspective. You might want to read Hazlitt, Economics in one lesson.
There is an objective perspective. You might want to read Hazlitt, Economics in one lesson.
This has been especially pronounced in medical equipments where there’s this unnecessary race to introduce “digital experiences”. An example is hearing aids. A few years ago, it was relatively easy to get an analog model with dedicated volume buttons and off switch. Now, most of the models come without off switch and need Bluetooth pairing with an app installed on your phone. What used to be plug and play is now a clunky mess of hand offs between brittle components.
My favourite example of this was the digital pregnancy test - which instead of having a test strip that changes color based on a chemical reaction, had the same test strip surrounded by a photodiode and a LED, which detected the color change and displayed the results on the screen.
People still buy it because it's digital so it must be better.
People still buy it because it's digital so it must be better.
It very well might be superior.
I have dealt with a pregnancy test only once in my life, and that was in acting as an interpreter (me: English, wife: Chinese and some English, couple: Chinese, very little English. Not easy!) Reading the instructions is one thing, but figuring out whether the result was positive was another matter. (Although I suspect it was an edge case--the woman's period showed up soon thereafter, I suspect reality was a very early miscarriage and the result was about at the dividing line.)
I have dealt with a pregnancy test only once in my life, and that was in acting as an interpreter (me: English, wife: Chinese and some English, couple: Chinese, very little English. Not easy!) Reading the instructions is one thing, but figuring out whether the result was positive was another matter. (Although I suspect it was an edge case--the woman's period showed up soon thereafter, I suspect reality was a very early miscarriage and the result was about at the dividing line.)
Also, when testing for pregnancy you want to be as “sure” as possible and price is assumed to be an indicator of quality.
I run a media-lab at a art university and both HDMI and USB-C is flaming garbage. What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire and negotiates the acceptable resolution on the fly. What you get is something that does too much, doesn't work half the time and does things nobody cares about. Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image for 0.5 seconds before displaying a menu that asks me to press a button on the remote to show the image. And don't get me started on DRM/HDCP..
The number of broken HDMI cables (as fraction of cables rented out) is way bigger than for any other connector, suggesting it is completely unsuitable and a broken design.
Whenever I can I go for SDI video, I do. You plug it in and it works. Why "consumer" techology has to be so much more pain than pro stuff makes me wonder.
The number of broken HDMI cables (as fraction of cables rented out) is way bigger than for any other connector, suggesting it is completely unsuitable and a broken design.
Whenever I can I go for SDI video, I do. You plug it in and it works. Why "consumer" techology has to be so much more pain than pro stuff makes me wonder.
> Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image for 0.5 seconds before displaying a menu that asks me to press a button on the remote to show the image.
That's entirely the fault of your crappy smart display with some crappy OS and has entirely nothing to do with HDMI as a standard.
I would think as a plug and play standard for A/V stuff, HDMI is one of the farthest along the "just works" spectrum for the vast majority of people. Occasionally I see a device where there's something stupid like switching to a different HDMI source doesn't switch the audio source and you have to use some dumb OSD menu with many nested levels to get to the audio sources, but again, that's not HDMI's fault.
I have had quite a few broken HDMI cables in lecture halls at uni and in meeting rooms at various work places, but I think that's the reality of any connector that gets plugged and unplugged tens of times per day (especially by people who don't care and don't have to pay for them when they break). They just need to replace the cables more often.
That's entirely the fault of your crappy smart display with some crappy OS and has entirely nothing to do with HDMI as a standard.
I would think as a plug and play standard for A/V stuff, HDMI is one of the farthest along the "just works" spectrum for the vast majority of people. Occasionally I see a device where there's something stupid like switching to a different HDMI source doesn't switch the audio source and you have to use some dumb OSD menu with many nested levels to get to the audio sources, but again, that's not HDMI's fault.
I have had quite a few broken HDMI cables in lecture halls at uni and in meeting rooms at various work places, but I think that's the reality of any connector that gets plugged and unplugged tens of times per day (especially by people who don't care and don't have to pay for them when they break). They just need to replace the cables more often.
> That's entirely the fault of your crappy smart display with some crappy OS and has entirely nothing to do with HDMI as a standard.
Sure yeah, but I don't buy it. If you create a standard that is too complicated or too feature-creeped to be implemented fully and that lack of full implementation means the fundamental role of the standard breaks down, that standard might be part of the problem.
I too could envision a solution that theoretically works perfectly, and all people are doing it wrong if it doesn't. But such standards have to be made with reality in mind. USB-C is another one of those. Cool – now I have a ton of USB-C cables none of which tell me on the cable what capabilities they have. One can't support USB-power delivery, the other doesn't work with video up to certain resolutions, etc.
I get that more data means higher frequency and that this directly translates to more problems, but nobody (at least no consumer) asked for the complexity of the HDMI spec. We want to connect a cable and see the picture in 99.99% of the cases. If that doesn't work 100% of the times the standard is at fault. The base functionality of the thing needs to be so dumb and so clear that it just works, even if the other side doesn't even know what an EDID is. That was the task and the result is catastrophic failure.
Sure yeah, but I don't buy it. If you create a standard that is too complicated or too feature-creeped to be implemented fully and that lack of full implementation means the fundamental role of the standard breaks down, that standard might be part of the problem.
I too could envision a solution that theoretically works perfectly, and all people are doing it wrong if it doesn't. But such standards have to be made with reality in mind. USB-C is another one of those. Cool – now I have a ton of USB-C cables none of which tell me on the cable what capabilities they have. One can't support USB-power delivery, the other doesn't work with video up to certain resolutions, etc.
I get that more data means higher frequency and that this directly translates to more problems, but nobody (at least no consumer) asked for the complexity of the HDMI spec. We want to connect a cable and see the picture in 99.99% of the cases. If that doesn't work 100% of the times the standard is at fault. The base functionality of the thing needs to be so dumb and so clear that it just works, even if the other side doesn't even know what an EDID is. That was the task and the result is catastrophic failure.
I think an awful lot of this could be solved by requiring the ports to export the information they get to the device, and requiring that if the devices can reasonably be able to display the information that they do so. PCs, phones, tablets would all tell you about the cable and the connection. Things without screens and interfaces would not be required to add them, though.
It's not that the cables support varying specs (which I actually have no problem with--you shouldn't have to pay for features you don't need, and some features trade off vs cable length), but that we have no easy way to find them out or test them.
It's not that the cables support varying specs (which I actually have no problem with--you shouldn't have to pay for features you don't need, and some features trade off vs cable length), but that we have no easy way to find them out or test them.
> HDMI is one of the farthest along the "just works" spectrum for the vast majority of people
Could I interest you in all the new features you could enable by instead tunneling video over HDMI Ethernet Channel?
Could I interest you in all the new features you could enable by instead tunneling video over HDMI Ethernet Channel?
Also, why does my 4k display run at 30hz when plugged into my mac?
I ruled out the cable, display and laptop by swapping components one at a time.
I ruled out the cable, display and laptop by swapping components one at a time.
> What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire and negotiates the acceptable resolution on the fly.
I think even that is more than it should be. I had made up my own kind of video connection (which is not implemented yet), which only has video (the audio is a separate cable, with balanced analog audio, although the standard arrangement of the connectors is supposed to be defined so that you can clip them together when wanted and unclip them if you want to move them separately), and does not negotiate the resolution (for several reasons).
> Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image for 0.5 seconds before displaying a menu that asks me to press a button on the remote to show the image.
At least a part of that is a problem with the smart TV (which has many other problems, too) rather than with HDMI itself, although HDMI also has many problems.
SDI is better in some ways, but it is not good enough either, I think.
I think even that is more than it should be. I had made up my own kind of video connection (which is not implemented yet), which only has video (the audio is a separate cable, with balanced analog audio, although the standard arrangement of the connectors is supposed to be defined so that you can clip them together when wanted and unclip them if you want to move them separately), and does not negotiate the resolution (for several reasons).
> Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image for 0.5 seconds before displaying a menu that asks me to press a button on the remote to show the image.
At least a part of that is a problem with the smart TV (which has many other problems, too) rather than with HDMI itself, although HDMI also has many problems.
SDI is better in some ways, but it is not good enough either, I think.
> What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire
HDMI is just that - it's the direct evolution of VGA signaling, with each color channel pushing pixels left-to-right top-to-bottom, it even has blanking periods (periods where there's no pixel info transmitted, used to steer back the electron beam on CRTs to the start of the row/column), same EDID format negotiation over I2C, the works.
What makes it crap is the absolute flood of cheap garbage HDMI cables/repeaters/KVMs which barely work even at the best of times and shouldn't be even allowed to be solved, as they are out of spec, but online vendors have flooded their stores with this cheap no-name garbage for some reason.
Unfortunately, the apparent build quality of the cable, or the price mean nothing when trying to get a working one.
HDMI is just that - it's the direct evolution of VGA signaling, with each color channel pushing pixels left-to-right top-to-bottom, it even has blanking periods (periods where there's no pixel info transmitted, used to steer back the electron beam on CRTs to the start of the row/column), same EDID format negotiation over I2C, the works.
What makes it crap is the absolute flood of cheap garbage HDMI cables/repeaters/KVMs which barely work even at the best of times and shouldn't be even allowed to be solved, as they are out of spec, but online vendors have flooded their stores with this cheap no-name garbage for some reason.
Unfortunately, the apparent build quality of the cable, or the price mean nothing when trying to get a working one.
Yeah I get that in theory, but then my 10x more expensive pro stuff works worse than the cheap stuff. Sure, because they follow the spec etc. But then it turns out that even name brand laptops (or their GPUs) do it wrong. My point was that the standard is crap. It is way too complicated, wants to be too many things to too many people (most of which are trying to sell stuff to consumers).
HDMI tries to be a video link, an audio hub, a remote‑control bus, and a content‑police checkpoint all at once. Strip out the DRM, kill the optional‑but‑mandatory feature soup, and let the cable do its one job: move bits from A to B. I had Apple laptops not working with 3-digit Pro A/V gear from reputable vendors because HDCP. This is fucking bullshit. By this point I am starting to consider analog video superior to whatever this is supposed to be.
HDMI tries to be a video link, an audio hub, a remote‑control bus, and a content‑police checkpoint all at once. Strip out the DRM, kill the optional‑but‑mandatory feature soup, and let the cable do its one job: move bits from A to B. I had Apple laptops not working with 3-digit Pro A/V gear from reputable vendors because HDCP. This is fucking bullshit. By this point I am starting to consider analog video superior to whatever this is supposed to be.
I kinda get what you're coming from - back in college i had a lab where we had to make a NES-style game console from scratch on an FPGA - including peripherals and video output - which used VGA, that's how I got to familiarize myself with the technology. It was super simple, you just output the correct voltages to the RGB pins and sent the proper HSYNC and VSYNC signals, and that was it, worked like a charm as long as you didn't mess up too bad, the monitor figured out the rest.
Recently I dusted off this project and bought myself a new FPGA board, with a HDMI output. Getting that thing to work was a nightmare. Not only did I have to configure the HDMI transciever, I had to build proper EDID support, and get I2C to cooperate, and get the timing of the signals exactly right. And even then, out of the 5 screens I could get my hands on, only 2 worked, one of which would inexplicably go to sleep despite displaying video on the screen.
Getting HDMI working was more painful and took about 10x as long as the rest of the original project did, and even then, it was a partial success.
Recently I dusted off this project and bought myself a new FPGA board, with a HDMI output. Getting that thing to work was a nightmare. Not only did I have to configure the HDMI transciever, I had to build proper EDID support, and get I2C to cooperate, and get the timing of the signals exactly right. And even then, out of the 5 screens I could get my hands on, only 2 worked, one of which would inexplicably go to sleep despite displaying video on the screen.
Getting HDMI working was more painful and took about 10x as long as the rest of the original project did, and even then, it was a partial success.
have you ever dabbled in creating games too? or just the console
Yeah, we did do some games, though nothing crazy - we did breakout and asteroids if I remember - not exactly groundbreaking.
The interesting thing about it was that we had very little RAM but the FPGA was quite fast, meaning instead of a framebuffer we scanned out tiles and sprites to the scanline at realtime, at a relatively high resolution (1024x768).
This combined with the low color depth (the 'DAC' was a resistor ladder per color channel, giving us 2 bits per channel, or 6 bits in total), meant we had that dithered, Transport Tycoon-y look, with tilemaps and animaton, so it looked quite okay by the standards of 2d games.
The interesting thing about it was that we had very little RAM but the FPGA was quite fast, meaning instead of a framebuffer we scanned out tiles and sprites to the scanline at realtime, at a relatively high resolution (1024x768).
This combined with the low color depth (the 'DAC' was a resistor ladder per color channel, giving us 2 bits per channel, or 6 bits in total), meant we had that dithered, Transport Tycoon-y look, with tilemaps and animaton, so it looked quite okay by the standards of 2d games.
I also thought that HDMI has many problems, like you have, too. My idea is: video and audio and other stuff are separate cables. The video cable will only be sending the digital RGB video data, with the wires for the pixel data and pixel clock, as well as power and ground and vsync. I think it is helpful for the video signal to be digital, but it does not need to be as complicated as HDMI. (The audio cable can be balanced analog audio signal.)
It is not only HDMI; many other common things are too complicated (than they should be) and often have other problems too (you mention some of them, such as HDCP, but there is many more problem than that).
(Someone else wrote: "The sad fact of the matter is that people play politics with standards to gain commercial advantage, and the result is that end users suffer the consequences. This is the case with character encoding for computer systems, and it is even more the case with HDTV.")
It is not only HDMI; many other common things are too complicated (than they should be) and often have other problems too (you mention some of them, such as HDCP, but there is many more problem than that).
(Someone else wrote: "The sad fact of the matter is that people play politics with standards to gain commercial advantage, and the result is that end users suffer the consequences. This is the case with character encoding for computer systems, and it is even more the case with HDTV.")
Why two cables if it can be done with one?
From the consumer perspective, two cables are more complicated.
From the consumer perspective, two cables are more complicated.
I think it makes sense to wire the video and audio separately, e.g. you might connect the audio to a speaker or amplifier, or to a audio recorder, etc. However, my idea was to be able to clip them together and to have a standard arrangement of them so that they can be used like one cable if you do not want to deal with two cables.
> Strip out the DRM
Um, you just hit why HDMI sucks. You have a "default broken" state that is required by the standard.
Look, every single interface could have been an evolution of Ethernet (and mostly ARE--HDMI and USB-C are basically enshittified Ethernet). But they weren't because everybody wants to put their fingers in the pie and take out a chunk for profit by being a rent-seeking middleman.
Um, you just hit why HDMI sucks. You have a "default broken" state that is required by the standard.
Look, every single interface could have been an evolution of Ethernet (and mostly ARE--HDMI and USB-C are basically enshittified Ethernet). But they weren't because everybody wants to put their fingers in the pie and take out a chunk for profit by being a rent-seeking middleman.
The duty cycle on hdmi connector is like 10k. I imagine probably some of your cables in a lab would actually plausibly hit that without too much issue (then apply standard deviation: some will have broken much earlier, and some won’t quit)
You don't want to know what my headphone extensions (TRSm 3.5 -> TRSf 3.5mm) or my XLR3 cables go through. That is way, way worse than anything the HDMI cables experience, based purey on the look of the cables returned.
I get that HDMI is higher frequency and smaller faults show earlier, but the plug is just inadequate. The plugs are levered off by the stiff cable, the thickness of the cables would require at least something like a Neutrik-D-norm connector, but they do as if something smaller is ok. By this point I am just glad that the receiving side seems to be sturdier 90% of the times, but by this point I also wonder why the heck we don't just use BNC connectors and coaxial cables..
I get that HDMI is higher frequency and smaller faults show earlier, but the plug is just inadequate. The plugs are levered off by the stiff cable, the thickness of the cables would require at least something like a Neutrik-D-norm connector, but they do as if something smaller is ok. By this point I am just glad that the receiving side seems to be sturdier 90% of the times, but by this point I also wonder why the heck we don't just use BNC connectors and coaxial cables..
I feel ya. The inability to diagnose cables drives me nuts. Some kind of reportable POST (power-on, self test) should be the norm. On both ends.
Grrr...
Grrr...
If that's a problem you repeatedly run into professionally, you want something like https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1721377-REG/vanco_hd4... for hdmi or something like
https://a.co/d/igcKyM2 for usb-c
HDMI is a piece of shit designed to keep device owners hostage of the spec consortium and manufacturers, and USB-C is a badly brand collection of specs with infinite diversity that shouldn't even work but somehow some times does.
But there is a reason nobody puts analogical signals in cables anymore. Beyond some bandwidth, the only way to keep cables reasonably priced and thin is to have software error correction.
But there is a reason nobody puts analogical signals in cables anymore. Beyond some bandwidth, the only way to keep cables reasonably priced and thin is to have software error correction.
More failure points means more people throwing up their hands and buying a new one
> Many comments here are arguing that quality has actually gone up over the past decades.
Yes, many people confuse technological development with quality improvements. Technology can improve quality, but it can also be used in other ways.
My personal view is the west, especially North America, never recovered from the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Prior to that energy was almost seen as disposable, at least compared with today, with the result that all sorts of objects were radically heavier than their newer equivalents. You take away the need for handling such enormous weights for everything everywhere and it becomes possible to replace almost our entire infrastructure with things that are simply much flimsier.
It is that combined with the culture of low expectations that puts up with the results.
Yes, many people confuse technological development with quality improvements. Technology can improve quality, but it can also be used in other ways.
My personal view is the west, especially North America, never recovered from the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Prior to that energy was almost seen as disposable, at least compared with today, with the result that all sorts of objects were radically heavier than their newer equivalents. You take away the need for handling such enormous weights for everything everywhere and it becomes possible to replace almost our entire infrastructure with things that are simply much flimsier.
It is that combined with the culture of low expectations that puts up with the results.
The curves largely break about 1971 across a wide set of areas, but the energy connection is interesting. J Storrs Hall argues in "Where is My Flying Car?" that the proximate cause is breaking the increasing availability of energy per person, which could only have been continued with very widespread nuclear, and that the turn from nuclear was a symptom of a culture of increasing regulation and excess caution, such that the only major industry that escaped the trap in the 70s and continued existing growth curves was computing.
Now that computing has advanced sufficiently and is being applied to everything else, we're finally getting sudden, major advances again in other areas (electric and autonomous cars, drones, reusable rockets, pharma...), but computing is in the race against smothering that most industries lost in the 20th, and it remains to be seen whether stagnation or abundance will win.
A side note is the resurgence of nuclear, and supersonic flight, etc, which suggests that maybe the problem was more about post-war culture than a systemic turn away from growth and prosperity... we'll see!
Now that computing has advanced sufficiently and is being applied to everything else, we're finally getting sudden, major advances again in other areas (electric and autonomous cars, drones, reusable rockets, pharma...), but computing is in the race against smothering that most industries lost in the 20th, and it remains to be seen whether stagnation or abundance will win.
A side note is the resurgence of nuclear, and supersonic flight, etc, which suggests that maybe the problem was more about post-war culture than a systemic turn away from growth and prosperity... we'll see!
Am I the only one annoyed by the continual low-level background radiation (heh) of pro-nuclear propaganda?
It's just another fossil fuel. Sure, it doesn't emit CO2, but the sustainability problem is still there. I'll support nuclear expansion when I see a credible plan to complete the transition to actual renewables within 30 years, using nuclear as a stopgap. We have less than 100 years of known uranium reserves if we use it to power everything. It'll be coal and oil all over again.
And now we don't need one because solar is already here.
It's just another fossil fuel. Sure, it doesn't emit CO2, but the sustainability problem is still there. I'll support nuclear expansion when I see a credible plan to complete the transition to actual renewables within 30 years, using nuclear as a stopgap. We have less than 100 years of known uranium reserves if we use it to power everything. It'll be coal and oil all over again.
And now we don't need one because solar is already here.
We have less than 100 years of uranium assuming we use enriched uranium once, don't reprocess the "spent" fuel, don't use breeder reactors to make plutonium for further energy production (going from 100 to thousands of years at current usage rates), and don't use breeder reactors to produce U233 from thorium, which is so much more abundant and available than uranium that it would extend current use by another 100-270 times, meaning current usage at hundreds of thousands of years, with already known deposits of nuclear fuel. These aren't breakthrough technologies, but just engineering, because we already know how to do this. Electricity was forecast in the 1950s to be too cheap to meter within a few decades of building reactors, and that future was completely practical. We just chose (at least temporary) stagnation, instead.
Solar is definitely cheaper than current nuclear, and continuing to fall rapidly, while battery cost is also improving apace. In the short term, solar can meet most of our needs and let us turn off more coal and oil, and that's certainly useful! In the medium term, though, we can't get back on the Henry Adams curve without denser sources than sunlight, which takes up quite a bit of real estate even if we move most capture to space.
Solar is definitely cheaper than current nuclear, and continuing to fall rapidly, while battery cost is also improving apace. In the short term, solar can meet most of our needs and let us turn off more coal and oil, and that's certainly useful! In the medium term, though, we can't get back on the Henry Adams curve without denser sources than sunlight, which takes up quite a bit of real estate even if we move most capture to space.
I don't know how you can say with a straight face that solar power is a stopgap and nuclear power is a long-term sustainable solution. I cannot rightly comprehend the confusion of ideas that would provoke such a statement.
Well, I said “medium” term. But ultimately if we stayed on the curve (that is, longer term), humanity would be using the entire output of the sun in less than 2000 years, requiring a Dyson sphere or something. Solar power can’t keep up with human flourishing. We’ll have to have something that is denser and more distributed. :)
Where do you propose to get enough uranium and thorium to match the power output of the entire sun for longer than five milliseconds?
I feel like we're talking past each other. If we are to get back on a steady growth rate in energy/person, solar on earth is a great short-term part of that, fission is required for continuing it in the medium term until we figure out something else (fusion, but then whatever we might unlock down the road).
You're globalizing what I said about having enough uranium and thorium in known deposits and at current power usage, but obviously we would outgrow that as we expand into the rest of the solar system.
My point is not that we should stop or slow investment in solar (we shouldn't!), just that we'd all have been much, much better off if nuclear had continued to be adopted at speed in the last 50-60 years rather than being demonized, and for high density or unlit areas, it's still a great option and has no risk of running out of available fuel in the next hundred years.
You're globalizing what I said about having enough uranium and thorium in known deposits and at current power usage, but obviously we would outgrow that as we expand into the rest of the solar system.
My point is not that we should stop or slow investment in solar (we shouldn't!), just that we'd all have been much, much better off if nuclear had continued to be adopted at speed in the last 50-60 years rather than being demonized, and for high density or unlit areas, it's still a great option and has no risk of running out of available fuel in the next hundred years.
We don't have to assume infinite growth. We can reach a comfortable sustainable point. We're already living in a pretty comfortable future (but it's not equally distributed). But if you do assume infinite growth and worry about the long term, then why stop at a Dyson sphere? What happens when every single human being wants more power than exists in the observable universe?
We've actually seen a decline in energy-per-utility ratios. We've got a lot more people and (apparently) a lot more utility per person, so we're still using more energy in total, but if we held those constant for the past several decades we'd actually be using a lot less energy per person and in total. It's not at all inevitable that energy/person/time only goes up. The Jevons paradox eventually maxxes out - if we could teleport anywhere instantly for free, we'd still only be making a finite number of teleportation trips each day. The crew of the Enterprise replicate a finite amount of food, and so on.
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Possibly, nuclear could have been a better intermediate energy source for the past 50-60 years than the fossil fuels we did use. In countries that did adopt nuclear energy (like France) it did seem to work out that way.
Now, in the present, which is when we are making decisions, it's time to go all in on renewables (and long-term infrastructure, much more generally). This brings some challenges, but not insurmountable ones. We'll probably need more load shifting, more cross-border power trading, and more batteries. (Hydropower is also renewable and works at all times of day, but it's not available in all locations, which brings us back to cross-border trading).
I don't see why you'd need nuclear power for high-density areas, or "unlit areas". High-density areas are full of all sorts of stuff, including power cables which can import power from the surrounding countryside - there is absolutely no need to build a fleet of nuclear reactors in the middle of New York City. Even with the substantially-lower-than-Chernobyl risk levels assumed by nuclear proponents, I think the idea of building a fleet of them in the middle of NYC should still be concerning to them. And for "unlit areas" - I assume this means extremely rural villages or whatever - you know a medium-size solar farm, a couple of wind turbines, or even a small diesel plant, takes a shitload less maintenance than a nuclear reactor, right? You're not importing nuclear technicians to permanently work in the middle of the Sahara or the Amazon - you're either connecting them to the grid properly, or you're giving them something set-and-forget that can hum away in the corner for years on end.
Big batteries coupled to diesel generators will remain a great local backup source for critical systems for the foreseeable future - if I was world dictator, I wouldn't ban them outright. Somewhat interestingly, the opposite is already also true: battery-buffered solar power is used in remote sites where you might expect to need the reliability a diesel generator, because a small chance of the thing being down outweighs having to keep it refueled.
We've actually seen a decline in energy-per-utility ratios. We've got a lot more people and (apparently) a lot more utility per person, so we're still using more energy in total, but if we held those constant for the past several decades we'd actually be using a lot less energy per person and in total. It's not at all inevitable that energy/person/time only goes up. The Jevons paradox eventually maxxes out - if we could teleport anywhere instantly for free, we'd still only be making a finite number of teleportation trips each day. The crew of the Enterprise replicate a finite amount of food, and so on.
---
Possibly, nuclear could have been a better intermediate energy source for the past 50-60 years than the fossil fuels we did use. In countries that did adopt nuclear energy (like France) it did seem to work out that way.
Now, in the present, which is when we are making decisions, it's time to go all in on renewables (and long-term infrastructure, much more generally). This brings some challenges, but not insurmountable ones. We'll probably need more load shifting, more cross-border power trading, and more batteries. (Hydropower is also renewable and works at all times of day, but it's not available in all locations, which brings us back to cross-border trading).
I don't see why you'd need nuclear power for high-density areas, or "unlit areas". High-density areas are full of all sorts of stuff, including power cables which can import power from the surrounding countryside - there is absolutely no need to build a fleet of nuclear reactors in the middle of New York City. Even with the substantially-lower-than-Chernobyl risk levels assumed by nuclear proponents, I think the idea of building a fleet of them in the middle of NYC should still be concerning to them. And for "unlit areas" - I assume this means extremely rural villages or whatever - you know a medium-size solar farm, a couple of wind turbines, or even a small diesel plant, takes a shitload less maintenance than a nuclear reactor, right? You're not importing nuclear technicians to permanently work in the middle of the Sahara or the Amazon - you're either connecting them to the grid properly, or you're giving them something set-and-forget that can hum away in the corner for years on end.
Big batteries coupled to diesel generators will remain a great local backup source for critical systems for the foreseeable future - if I was world dictator, I wouldn't ban them outright. Somewhat interestingly, the opposite is already also true: battery-buffered solar power is used in remote sites where you might expect to need the reliability a diesel generator, because a small chance of the thing being down outweighs having to keep it refueled.
It seems strange to me to attribute this to the 70s oil crisis vs factors like expectations of unceasing profit growth leading looking for any and all efficiencies, or globalization making extra translate into increased shipping costs from the other side of world.
> Prior to that energy was almost seen as disposable
Turns out that from an environmental perspective, that view was bad anyway and I'm glad it's gone for good (even if the AI hype almost makes us forget that again). I don't fully see how that implies everything having to be crap now. Lighter doesn't mean worse quality.
Turns out that from an environmental perspective, that view was bad anyway and I'm glad it's gone for good (even if the AI hype almost makes us forget that again). I don't fully see how that implies everything having to be crap now. Lighter doesn't mean worse quality.
> Lighter doesn't mean worse quality
For a number of product categories it means replacing solid metal parts with inferior materials, and that pretty explicitly does mean worse quality.
Have you used a 1960s KitchenAid mixer? They look almost identical to models that followed - but in the 1970s KitchenAid replaced the metal drive gear with one made of nylon on the consumer-focussed models, and now if you use one heavily, you'll have to replace that gear more or less annually.
For a number of product categories it means replacing solid metal parts with inferior materials, and that pretty explicitly does mean worse quality.
Have you used a 1960s KitchenAid mixer? They look almost identical to models that followed - but in the 1970s KitchenAid replaced the metal drive gear with one made of nylon on the consumer-focussed models, and now if you use one heavily, you'll have to replace that gear more or less annually.
The question is, does that prevent something worse from breaking? It's not inherently bad to have wear parts in a device, after all. Shear pins are a great example where you need to replace them, but something more important would break if it wasn't the shear pin, so it's worth it.
IDK the design of the mixers well enough to know if that's true for them, but I do wonder if that is the case.
IDK the design of the mixers well enough to know if that's true for them, but I do wonder if that is the case.
> The question is, does that prevent something worse from breaking?
That is the stated justification, yes. However, in practice pre-1970s models will happily knead bread dough for years on end, and more recent models tend to explode within the first few times you attempt to make a loaf of bread (leading home bread makers to have to spend more on an expensive commercial model...)
That is the stated justification, yes. However, in practice pre-1970s models will happily knead bread dough for years on end, and more recent models tend to explode within the first few times you attempt to make a loaf of bread (leading home bread makers to have to spend more on an expensive commercial model...)
> The question is, does that prevent something worse from breaking?
That doesn't matter if it means, for example, that my new mixer can't actually mix bread dough on a higher speed anymore (citing this as it's actually a failure mode on newer (like 1970s forward) KitchenAid mixers to the point that the manual mentions it).
That is an objective decrease in quality and fitness for purpose.
That doesn't matter if it means, for example, that my new mixer can't actually mix bread dough on a higher speed anymore (citing this as it's actually a failure mode on newer (like 1970s forward) KitchenAid mixers to the point that the manual mentions it).
That is an objective decrease in quality and fitness for purpose.
Lighter can mean worse quality, but it doesn't have to. For example, a whole lot of things don't need metal enclosures, and plastic can be molded into more ergonomic shapes too. Now, whether the plastic enclosure is made tough or super thin is up to the manufacturer, and of course most of them choose the more profitable planned obsolescence route.
It's hard to distinguish "worse because lighter" from "worse because planned obsolescense". Historically, both effects correlated in their introduction into design and manufacturing consumer products. Attributing everything to just once of the two is not doing justice to the actual mechanisms.
> Lighter doesn't mean worse quality.
It doesn't, but heft of a product is used as a proxy for quality, to the point that electronics will sometimes have a weight glued inside to pretend the item is heavier than it is, in order to seem of higher quality.
It doesn't, but heft of a product is used as a proxy for quality, to the point that electronics will sometimes have a weight glued inside to pretend the item is heavier than it is, in order to seem of higher quality.
Which greatly illustrates the point that it's mote of a feeling than inherent property. People got used to expect crap quality from lighter products, because at the same time as plastics became more available and more versatile, so did planned obsolescence. So they are fallaciously expecting a heavy item to not having been cheaped out on so much.
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> with the result that all sorts of objects were radically heavier than their newer equivalents
except for the most energy consuming and oil dependent objects of all: cars. curious, eh?
except for the most energy consuming and oil dependent objects of all: cars. curious, eh?
I've been surprised to see that several cycling products have gotten better over time.
For example I have bought these bottles https://www.zefal.com/en/bottles/545-magnum.html three times over ten years:
- the first time, the mouthpiece was attached by two plastic prongs. The prongs eventually failed
- The second time I bought them, the mouthpiece was attached by four prongs
- The last time I bought them, the hard plastic mouthpiece was replaced by a more comfortable plastic mouthpiece.
I also bought these pedals three times https://www.lookcycle.com/fr-en/products/pedals/road/race/ke... :
- With the first version, small rocks got stuck between the carbon spring and the body of the pedal, making it impossible to clip in and eventually dislodging the spring
- The second version fixed that by adding a plastic cover over the spring, and also improved the bearing seals (which was also a problem with the first version)
- The third version made the angles on the outside of the pedal less acute, making it harder to damage the pedals in a fall
For example I have bought these bottles https://www.zefal.com/en/bottles/545-magnum.html three times over ten years:
- the first time, the mouthpiece was attached by two plastic prongs. The prongs eventually failed
- The second time I bought them, the mouthpiece was attached by four prongs
- The last time I bought them, the hard plastic mouthpiece was replaced by a more comfortable plastic mouthpiece.
I also bought these pedals three times https://www.lookcycle.com/fr-en/products/pedals/road/race/ke... :
- With the first version, small rocks got stuck between the carbon spring and the body of the pedal, making it impossible to clip in and eventually dislodging the spring
- The second version fixed that by adding a plastic cover over the spring, and also improved the bearing seals (which was also a problem with the first version)
- The third version made the angles on the outside of the pedal less acute, making it harder to damage the pedals in a fall
How easy would it be do discover this info without personal experience?
I used to be a loyal buyer of a specific Eddie Bauer T-Shirt over at least a decade, until I bought four of them online a few years ago from their website. Despite my ordering all the same size and style, each shirt is a different length (varying by as much as two inches) and fabric weight. Haven't bought one since and won't do so again.
I've come to accept that, at least in latam, shirt sizes no longer have any real meaning.
Every manufacturer in the world has a different opinion as to what those letters mean.
Every manufacturer in the world has a different opinion as to what those letters mean.
There is truth to this and it has certainly been true of women’s sizing for many years where everyone wants to be a size 2 (or whatever your number is) but no size 2 is the same across brands.
It’s an entirely different problem when I buy two pairs of presumably the same pair of jeans in the same style and size yet one can barely be buttoned up and the other requires a belt at all times.
It’s an entirely different problem when I buy two pairs of presumably the same pair of jeans in the same style and size yet one can barely be buttoned up and the other requires a belt at all times.
And then there is the adventure of asymmetric cuts. Quality control has been outsourced to the customer. The return rates have increased a lot, some of it going straight into the bin.
Do you think maybe clothing is size now inferred from an item's weight? Cut close enough and then bin by weight...?
Finding knit caps for my pumpkin sized head is challenging. I'd find a good fit but then couldn't reorder the same item.
I stumbled onto the notion of selecting by weight instead of the declared size. Success!
More recently, there was a HN thread about buying good jeans. I then noticed the better quality mfgs also include the fabric's weight in the item's blurb. Which I then used to inform my foraging.
Finding knit caps for my pumpkin sized head is challenging. I'd find a good fit but then couldn't reorder the same item.
I stumbled onto the notion of selecting by weight instead of the declared size. Success!
More recently, there was a HN thread about buying good jeans. I then noticed the better quality mfgs also include the fabric's weight in the item's blurb. Which I then used to inform my foraging.
On the other hand, I bought a pair of hiking boots back in 2011 that are still going strong. So much so that I got another pair of boots by the same company a couple of years ago - same exact model, same size etc - solely as a spare in case they stop making them. Fits like a glove.
The trick? The company in question is Belleville, and they make boots for the US military; they just also happen to be good hiking boots. I suspect that people in charge of logistics as DoD don't like it when things suddenly change, which would explain why they still have the same model still going for 25+ years, and why the sizes and everything else stays the same.
The trick? The company in question is Belleville, and they make boots for the US military; they just also happen to be good hiking boots. I suspect that people in charge of logistics as DoD don't like it when things suddenly change, which would explain why they still have the same model still going for 25+ years, and why the sizes and everything else stays the same.
> However, a common experience for me is that I own something of good quality from 5/10/15 years ago and now buy the successor model from the same brand, but the product has gotten worse, being cheaper made.
My most recent experience with this was a Fjällräven 30L backpack. I'd had it for years, loved it to death but it was getting a bit ripped up. Went into the store, bought the exact same model, went out to the RV where I had my current one and did a comparison. I was shocked. No padding on the straps, nice padding on the back replaced with hard foam, many of the nicely designed little details gone. I went back in and returned it and just opted to repair my old one a bit (replaced a broken buckle and sewed up some holes).
My most recent experience with this was a Fjällräven 30L backpack. I'd had it for years, loved it to death but it was getting a bit ripped up. Went into the store, bought the exact same model, went out to the RV where I had my current one and did a comparison. I was shocked. No padding on the straps, nice padding on the back replaced with hard foam, many of the nicely designed little details gone. I went back in and returned it and just opted to repair my old one a bit (replaced a broken buckle and sewed up some holes).
I complained the same way about Speed 40, my 2011 one is more intact than 2018 one and I use it more even after buying the newer one. According to people in the outdoor industry the materials are noticeably more flimsy cause everyone wants ultralight ultralight ultralight ultralight. Nobody wants sturdy. Just look at carbon poles .. these things have no reason to exist unless you are setting a winter record on PCT. But they all but replaced much sturdier aluminum poles. Interestingly a few years ago this brand was suggested to me as one of those bucking the trend, but I guess that didn't last.
And that's not exactly a bargain brand, either. Wild.
Isn’t this all just Late Stage Calitalsm?
I don’t think it’s ‘efficiency’ in the same way spaceX is run. Yeah they cut costs, but they got better quality results.
With clothes / appliances etc we have reduced quality at our expense - while the companies doing it make more money than ever.
I don’t think it’s ‘efficiency’ in the same way spaceX is run. Yeah they cut costs, but they got better quality results.
With clothes / appliances etc we have reduced quality at our expense - while the companies doing it make more money than ever.
Yes. To be more specific, look for the point where a Private Equity firm gets involved. Whose aim is extractive and often bankrupts the host company - to cut costs, send production somewhere cheaper, and in general use up the value in the good name that the product has.
This is what happened to Dr. Martens (footwear)
to Instant pot (cookware)
to Red Lobster (restaurants)
This is what happened to Dr. Martens (footwear)
to Instant pot (cookware)
to Red Lobster (restaurants)
Good example. Add https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons which acquired various popular apps (Evernote, Filmic, …), fired most developers, and now exploits these apps to death.
> whose aim is extractive
Endorsed by legislative policy, e.g. tax-deductible interest payments on PE-induced debt.
Endorsed by legislative policy, e.g. tax-deductible interest payments on PE-induced debt.
Are there good arguments against outlawing those type of PE acquisitions?
How would you define "those type" (unambiguously enough to work as a law), as opposed to all others?
I'd argue that they both represent a kind of efficiency. If your product or service has an unacceptable quality, demand will decrease and you will lose money that way. On the other hand, if in the pursuit of higher quality your production costs become too high, profit will decrease and you will lose money that way. Somewhere between these is a sweet spot where the level of quality and demand are in balance so as to maximize profit.
The difference between cheap rocket launches and cheap clothes in those terms is just where this sweet spot is: there may not be a high demand at all for more failure prone rocket launches, while poorly constructed clothes and appliances have evidently come to seem perfectly acceptable to a lot of consumers.
The difference between cheap rocket launches and cheap clothes in those terms is just where this sweet spot is: there may not be a high demand at all for more failure prone rocket launches, while poorly constructed clothes and appliances have evidently come to seem perfectly acceptable to a lot of consumers.
> If your product or service has an unacceptable quality, demand will decrease and you will lose money
I challenge that assumption. If whole markets are dominated by companies who have downgraded quality to the minimum, then customers have no choice but to keep buying from you or someone else doing the same thing. If they don’t buy from you because of their most recent bad experience, someone else (who bought their jeans that ripped in a month from someone else) will. The only alternatives would be to make your own clothes or to seek out very specific high-quality artisanal sources. Both options are out of the reach of at least 75% of the market.
I challenge that assumption. If whole markets are dominated by companies who have downgraded quality to the minimum, then customers have no choice but to keep buying from you or someone else doing the same thing. If they don’t buy from you because of their most recent bad experience, someone else (who bought their jeans that ripped in a month from someone else) will. The only alternatives would be to make your own clothes or to seek out very specific high-quality artisanal sources. Both options are out of the reach of at least 75% of the market.
I don't agree that this is a challenge my assumption. You are talking about the lack of information and of alternatives; factors in how the demand for poor quality products can exist. That naturally affects where the balance point is, but I don't think that rebuts or even addresses my fundamental assumption. In my view there is such a balance point regardless of how the demand has come to exist.
A market without perfect information and where consumption isn't necessarily driven by rational needs is ripe for exploitation. Why should a business create higher quality clothes if they can instead manipulate consumers into thinking they're losers for not replacing their wardrobes every year, flood the market with thousands of labels to create brand uncertainty and pay people to "review" them favorably to further make it hard to be an informed consumre? They can can condition consumers into believing that poor quality is acceptable, so why shouldn't they if it ultimately results in higher profits?
A market without perfect information and where consumption isn't necessarily driven by rational needs is ripe for exploitation. Why should a business create higher quality clothes if they can instead manipulate consumers into thinking they're losers for not replacing their wardrobes every year, flood the market with thousands of labels to create brand uncertainty and pay people to "review" them favorably to further make it hard to be an informed consumre? They can can condition consumers into believing that poor quality is acceptable, so why shouldn't they if it ultimately results in higher profits?
Let me be clear, I didn’t mean I disagree with the rest of your comment in general or to disprove you somehow with my comment. Even with perfect information though most people have to purchase crap, because good stuff is so rare and expensive (though not all expensive stuff is even any good, most actually good stuff is expensive).
It’s interesting when you think of clothes vs appliances though. I don’t think anyone wants to replace their washer every 5 years for fashion, but it’s nearly required. You’re right with clothes though, fashion is geared to promote discarding. I wonder though, wasn’t fashion also a thing in the 1940s? Yet then, clothes still lasted longer.
It’s interesting when you think of clothes vs appliances though. I don’t think anyone wants to replace their washer every 5 years for fashion, but it’s nearly required. You’re right with clothes though, fashion is geared to promote discarding. I wonder though, wasn’t fashion also a thing in the 1940s? Yet then, clothes still lasted longer.
> Even with perfect information though most people have to purchase crap, because good stuff is so rare and expensive (though not all expensive stuff is even any good, most actually good stuff is expensive).
I'm talking about "perfect information" in the ideal, economic sense: in this case knowledge of every piece of information that could affect a consumption choice. With perfect information you would of course know which brands gave the best value for the money. All brands would necessarily compete by being the brand that gave the most value for the money for different segments of consumers with different ideas of what exactly "the most value" entails. A company that could produce equivalent goods and sell at lower prices would leave competitors in the dust, because you would know about it and have no reason to consider other options.
Of course, the $100 dress that lasts for 10 years might still be less valuable than a $9 dress of similar appearance that lasts for one year in those terms, depending on how much of a cost there is to making the purchase in itself and disposing of the broken dresses.
> I wonder though, wasn’t fashion also a thing in the 1940s? Yet then, clothes still lasted longer.
There certainly was a fashion industry and an awareness of ongoing trends, but I don't think the pace of dissemination and proliferation of new trends was nearly as high then as it is now. I don't know, but I'm betting that the pace picked up when television became a commonplace household item and then again with the advent of social media.
I also don't think they could have produced a $9 1/10 durability alternative to the $100 dress. The difference in production cost between shoddy products and high quality products may have been smaller with the state of the art of the 1940s in terms of production chains, alternative materials, labor, time.
I'm talking about "perfect information" in the ideal, economic sense: in this case knowledge of every piece of information that could affect a consumption choice. With perfect information you would of course know which brands gave the best value for the money. All brands would necessarily compete by being the brand that gave the most value for the money for different segments of consumers with different ideas of what exactly "the most value" entails. A company that could produce equivalent goods and sell at lower prices would leave competitors in the dust, because you would know about it and have no reason to consider other options.
Of course, the $100 dress that lasts for 10 years might still be less valuable than a $9 dress of similar appearance that lasts for one year in those terms, depending on how much of a cost there is to making the purchase in itself and disposing of the broken dresses.
> I wonder though, wasn’t fashion also a thing in the 1940s? Yet then, clothes still lasted longer.
There certainly was a fashion industry and an awareness of ongoing trends, but I don't think the pace of dissemination and proliferation of new trends was nearly as high then as it is now. I don't know, but I'm betting that the pace picked up when television became a commonplace household item and then again with the advent of social media.
I also don't think they could have produced a $9 1/10 durability alternative to the $100 dress. The difference in production cost between shoddy products and high quality products may have been smaller with the state of the art of the 1940s in terms of production chains, alternative materials, labor, time.
In theory quality gets balanced with price, but it's too hard to measure the difference in quality between different products. "perfectly acceptable" often means being tricked. And some people will say it was an intentional choice to go with the cheap appliance instead of the industrial one that costs 3x as much, but all they really needed was one that had fewer corners cut and cost 15% more to build. When designs are falling into the quality hole, the percent increase in lifetime per percent increase in build cost is really good but good luck figuring out which companies built better and which companies increased the price for nothing.
I think it's more of late stage consumerism.
Why do middle class people spend $1000 on a phone that's, for every single purpose they use it for, basically identical to a phone that would cost a fraction as much? Why do low class urban people buy sneakers for hundreds of dollars that, again, for every single purpose they use them for - are essentially identical to some no brand sneakers that would cost a tenth as much? Somehow, at some point, being overtly ripped off became a way of signaling 'class', which is just about the most idiotic thing imaginable. In 'better times' people would look at somebody with a $1000 phone or $300 sneakers as a gullible idiot, and that seems correct to me.
The way people spend money creates a major incentive for companies to rip them off. Our economic system isn't forcing people to behave this way, although mass advertising is probably playing a huge role in maintaining it.
Why do middle class people spend $1000 on a phone that's, for every single purpose they use it for, basically identical to a phone that would cost a fraction as much? Why do low class urban people buy sneakers for hundreds of dollars that, again, for every single purpose they use them for - are essentially identical to some no brand sneakers that would cost a tenth as much? Somehow, at some point, being overtly ripped off became a way of signaling 'class', which is just about the most idiotic thing imaginable. In 'better times' people would look at somebody with a $1000 phone or $300 sneakers as a gullible idiot, and that seems correct to me.
The way people spend money creates a major incentive for companies to rip them off. Our economic system isn't forcing people to behave this way, although mass advertising is probably playing a huge role in maintaining it.
> Why do low class urban people buy sneakers for hundreds of dollars that, again, for every single purpose they use them for - are essentially identical to some no brand sneakers that would cost a tenth as much?
I just made the mistake of buying cheapo flipflops a few weeks ago. One stroll through the park and they are full of gravel stuck in the sole that left holes when I removed it. A few a days I replaced them with 7x as expensive ones. Already walked around 10x as far distance, no sign of issues. A reminder that buying cheap ends up more expensive. I don't need crap in my life and maybe that holds too for the folks you are thinking of?
I just made the mistake of buying cheapo flipflops a few weeks ago. One stroll through the park and they are full of gravel stuck in the sole that left holes when I removed it. A few a days I replaced them with 7x as expensive ones. Already walked around 10x as far distance, no sign of issues. A reminder that buying cheap ends up more expensive. I don't need crap in my life and maybe that holds too for the folks you are thinking of?
You can buy garbage for high prices. You can buy great stuff for low prices. And you can buy great stuff for high prices.
For a market to function properly people need to hone in on the great stuff for low prices quadrant, but that is, increasingly frequently, not what's happening. And it's not like some esoteric art - just check reviews. It's not too hard to ignore fake reviews.
For a market to function properly people need to hone in on the great stuff for low prices quadrant, but that is, increasingly frequently, not what's happening. And it's not like some esoteric art - just check reviews. It's not too hard to ignore fake reviews.
The problem is there's plenty of crap masquerading as the good stuff, at the higher price point, and telling the difference is not easy. (At least pre-purchase!)
When you learn about clothes and fashion, it’s quite easy to tell the difference.
HN is full of computer nerds who can’t fanthom that computers are as mysterious to normies as sneakers are to the nerds of HN. A lot of people know how to tell apart good and bad footwear - it just isn’t you or your crowd!
HN is full of computer nerds who can’t fanthom that computers are as mysterious to normies as sneakers are to the nerds of HN. A lot of people know how to tell apart good and bad footwear - it just isn’t you or your crowd!
Shoe culture places very little emphasis on the actual quality of the product. Brand and exclusivity is far more important.
There's sneaker head culture and than there's the high end foot wear crowd.
Sneaker heads are all about the new nike x yeezy "mchitler edition" collab air joran X's
high end foot wear crowd will drop 700$ on aldens and almost 1000$ on a pair of boots from whites or nicks which will outlive you and your parents.
It's not the same crowd.
Sneaker heads are all about the new nike x yeezy "mchitler edition" collab air joran X's
high end foot wear crowd will drop 700$ on aldens and almost 1000$ on a pair of boots from whites or nicks which will outlive you and your parents.
It's not the same crowd.
Few people I know have a turnaround on gear as the footwear nerds. The year is split into multiple seasons, they buy a bunch of shoes for that season, wear them only a few times if at all, and when next season comes it all goes to the trash. Because next season is warmer/colder/wetter/drier, and next year same season the stuff is all out of fashion and they need to buy new models. It' sickening.
"Shoe culture" might be one the dumbest trends in the market today.
The purpose is signalling that you can afford to waste money (and this is not at all new).
> Isn’t this all just Late Stage Calitalsm?
You know this phrase originated in the 1930s or early 1940s, yes?
You know this phrase originated in the 1930s or early 1940s, yes?
Processed foods is another example. Reconstructing well-known food products with cheapest materials. If it still tastes and looks somewhat familiar, its a go.
A couple of days ago on Reddit, there was a thread about “company secrets”. A guy that did food tasting for some cookies company said that most people, when doing the tastings, think they are trying different brands and that the company is trying to get their preference. But what they are really doing, is testing the same cookie, each with one different (cheaper) ingredient than the current recipe in the market. The company is looking for the cheapest new recipe that people will still eat (buy)
No - the term Late Stage Capitalism gets thrown around a bunch as a scarecrow for anything seemingly bad going on, but in this case it’s more likely a symptom of lack of education of materials and/or people not caring, and resource depletion/competition due to overpopulation and rise in living standards across the world.
> With clothes / appliances etc we have reduced quality at our expense - while the companies doing it make more money than ever.
Specifically this is an issue of government failure and cultural malaise - food quality anyone? We need to vote better, and vote with our dollar better. Stop buying dumb DJI drones to race around and buy a nice sweater instead.
> With clothes / appliances etc we have reduced quality at our expense - while the companies doing it make more money than ever.
Specifically this is an issue of government failure and cultural malaise - food quality anyone? We need to vote better, and vote with our dollar better. Stop buying dumb DJI drones to race around and buy a nice sweater instead.
> resource depletion/competition due to overpopulation and rise in living standards across the world.
Interesting take. Any source ?
Interesting take. Any source ?
Nope just personal observation. There are only so many lobsters and marble quarries, and we can only raise so many sheep for high quality wool. Most of the hardwood trees are gone too. That’s why we have switched to plastic and other industrial materials to keep building suburban houses and we spend all day on Netflix.
Capitalism gives the market what it demands. You can't tell consumers what they should want.
Government failure an cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.
It doesn't, however, give any pointers on where to go from there.
Government failure an cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.
It doesn't, however, give any pointers on where to go from there.
> You can't tell consumers what they should want.
Why does marketing and advertising exist then?
> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.
If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise.
Either your premise is wrong or Late Stage Capitalism is wrong. Likely both.
Terms like Late Stage Capitalism are just there to give you something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world. An intellectual crutch, a helping hand into the graveyard. Car recall? Late Stage Capitalism! Forest fire? Climate change - late stage capitalism. Teeth fell out? Late Stage Capitalism. Covid-19 vaccines or a cure for cancer? Hmm somehow still Late Stage Capitalism.
And now you have your answer to why the world sucks and even better, Late Stage Capitalism says nothing about what comes next! No reason to do anything about it, like support the arts or educate a child, because it’s just Late Stage Capitalism after all.
Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) love to generate destructive and useless distractions and slogans. Reject them!
Why does marketing and advertising exist then?
> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.
If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise.
Either your premise is wrong or Late Stage Capitalism is wrong. Likely both.
Terms like Late Stage Capitalism are just there to give you something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world. An intellectual crutch, a helping hand into the graveyard. Car recall? Late Stage Capitalism! Forest fire? Climate change - late stage capitalism. Teeth fell out? Late Stage Capitalism. Covid-19 vaccines or a cure for cancer? Hmm somehow still Late Stage Capitalism.
And now you have your answer to why the world sucks and even better, Late Stage Capitalism says nothing about what comes next! No reason to do anything about it, like support the arts or educate a child, because it’s just Late Stage Capitalism after all.
Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) love to generate destructive and useless distractions and slogans. Reject them!
>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.
> If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise
You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism.
> Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism)
Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.
> If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise
You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism.
> Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism)
Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.
> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too?
It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it.
The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.
It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it.
The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.
50,000 people died by suicide in the USA in 2023. 12.8 million thought about it. 3.7 made a plan for it. 1.5 million attempted it. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html
105,000 people died by overdose in the USA in 2023. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
In 2023 the average daily incarceration population in the USA was 664,000. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-s...
Average daily homeless population for the USA in 2023 was 653,000. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless...
In 2023 only 86% of US households were food secure. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
The majority of US bankruptcies (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies annually. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/
It doesn't look like the USA has a healthy ideology to me. It just spreads it out to 'death by 1000 cuts' and makes everyone's' suffering invisible.
105,000 people died by overdose in the USA in 2023. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
In 2023 the average daily incarceration population in the USA was 664,000. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2023-s...
Average daily homeless population for the USA in 2023 was 653,000. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2023-annual-homeless...
In 2023 only 86% of US households were food secure. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...
The majority of US bankruptcies (58.5%) “very much” or “somewhat” agreed that medical expenses contributed, and 44.3% cited illness-related work loss; 66.5% cited at least one of these two medical contributors—equivalent to about 530,000 medical bankruptcies annually. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6366487/
It doesn't look like the USA has a healthy ideology to me. It just spreads it out to 'death by 1000 cuts' and makes everyone's' suffering invisible.
[deleted]
What did Churchill say about Democracy? It's the worst except all the others? Yea. I'll take all this government mismanagement and markets over Communism and Socialism. The State is never good at managing the means of production.
Churchill's democracy in Britain has social housing and social healthcare. Glad to know you'll take it though, because it looks like lot's of Americans are 'taking it', in a pretty brutal and ugly way.
FYI American police kill more people than any other country at 1100 people a year. Guess that's also 'democracy' and not, you know, just America:
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
FYI American police kill more people than any other country at 1100 people a year. Guess that's also 'democracy' and not, you know, just America:
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
Yea still better than Communism or Socialism.
I don't care about criticisms about America. They're not interesting or relevant. Democracy and markets are superior to state owned means of production.
> Churchill's democracy in Britain has social housing and social healthcare.
Well it had those but in the case of housing it was primarily private (as it should be) and in the case of healthcare running a healthcare system is not Communism or Socialism any more than roads are.
I don't care about criticisms about America. They're not interesting or relevant. Democracy and markets are superior to state owned means of production.
> Churchill's democracy in Britain has social housing and social healthcare.
Well it had those but in the case of housing it was primarily private (as it should be) and in the case of healthcare running a healthcare system is not Communism or Socialism any more than roads are.
"better than state owned"
"state owned is not communism or socialism"
Ok then.
"state owned is not communism or socialism"
Ok then.
Socialism isn't when the state manages the means of production, it's when the workers do. What we have now, but without 80% of the value you create getting siphoned off to lazy bums who do nothing all day and collect a fat paycheck.
There's nothing that stops you today from creating a business with your fellow workers and doing just that.
That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so. If your model is better, or if it works well for you and like-minded folks, then all is well.
If they're just lazy bums siphoning away their fat paycheck, surely your method will be better and you will show the other workers a better way and you can all unite and create similar collective ownership models.
That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so. If your model is better, or if it works well for you and like-minded folks, then all is well.
If they're just lazy bums siphoning away their fat paycheck, surely your method will be better and you will show the other workers a better way and you can all unite and create similar collective ownership models.
> There's nothing that stops you today from creating a business with your fellow workers and doing just that.
There are significant barriers to that, not least of which is access to capital.
But that's also not socialism, socialism is the economic system where that is true across the whole economy.
> That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so.
Aside from misunderstanding aocialism as a business model and not an economic system, what you describe (where you are superficially free to do this but obstructed by structural barriers and a politico-economic system geared to favor a different model) has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with capitalism, an economic system that,because political and economic power are fungible and capitalism is centered around around concentrating the latter in a narrow class, is in constant tension with and undermines political democracy.
There are significant barriers to that, not least of which is access to capital.
But that's also not socialism, socialism is the economic system where that is true across the whole economy.
> That's the great thing about Democracy. You can do things like found a socialist business model and have it compete in the market and you can respect the rights of others to not do so.
Aside from misunderstanding aocialism as a business model and not an economic system, what you describe (where you are superficially free to do this but obstructed by structural barriers and a politico-economic system geared to favor a different model) has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with capitalism, an economic system that,because political and economic power are fungible and capitalism is centered around around concentrating the latter in a narrow class, is in constant tension with and undermines political democracy.
I noticed you excluded my entire post except for the parts about communism, which nobody brought up except you.
I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either.
Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it).
After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example:
> What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better
The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either.
Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it).
After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example:
> What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better
The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
ericmay(1)
> Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead.
Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-distant history have embraced that to great success. "Millions dead" is just as much populistic nonsense as the equally misguided doomsday scenarios painted by hardcore haters of capitalism.
Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-distant history have embraced that to great success. "Millions dead" is just as much populistic nonsense as the equally misguided doomsday scenarios painted by hardcore haters of capitalism.
The Nordics are highly capitalist economies with mostly private ownership of the means of production. The usage of "socialism" here is misguided. Public programs including healthcare != Socialism or Communism.
[deleted]
> Isn’t this all just Late Stage Calitalsm?
If that were the explanation then you'd need another explanation for declining quality issues in communist countries.
A test claim that some problem caused by "capitalism" should always backed up by a proof that the problem doesn't exist in the many other economic systems the world has tried. If only because this forces people to actually think about the economics instead of just using words to evoke an emotional reaction.
If that were the explanation then you'd need another explanation for declining quality issues in communist countries.
A test claim that some problem caused by "capitalism" should always backed up by a proof that the problem doesn't exist in the many other economic systems the world has tried. If only because this forces people to actually think about the economics instead of just using words to evoke an emotional reaction.
There really isn't anybody with state ownership of the means of production. It's hard to find anything to make a comparison to.
Communism would have its own reasons for declining quality: the lack of an individual profit motive. The hope would be that you would no longer be alienated from the products of your work, but that never came close to happening.
So if you were referring to China... they are the world's foremost capitalists right now. Their products get worse because that's what the market tells them.
Communism would have its own reasons for declining quality: the lack of an individual profit motive. The hope would be that you would no longer be alienated from the products of your work, but that never came close to happening.
So if you were referring to China... they are the world's foremost capitalists right now. Their products get worse because that's what the market tells them.
Cuba, the Indian state of Karelia (and I think one other), and North Korea would like a word with you re: no state run enterprises. That means your back goes against the wall…
Communism has been tried many times always with severe quality issues. But my point isn't just about communism. You have to run a different argument for mercantilism, command economies, mixed economies, barter economies, etc.
The fact that people have historically tried devaluing currency for as long as they've had currency suggests that there's a force that favors attempting to sell inferior goods without decreasing price and that this force predates the industrial revolution.
> So if you were referring to China... they are the world's foremost capitalists right now.
This is the same logic by which communists called socialists who believed in democracy "fascists". It's just an attempt to excommunicate people from the church if their interpretation is different from yours.
The fact that people have historically tried devaluing currency for as long as they've had currency suggests that there's a force that favors attempting to sell inferior goods without decreasing price and that this force predates the industrial revolution.
> So if you were referring to China... they are the world's foremost capitalists right now.
This is the same logic by which communists called socialists who believed in democracy "fascists". It's just an attempt to excommunicate people from the church if their interpretation is different from yours.
> This is the same logic by which communists called socialists who believed in democracy "fascists". It's just an attempt to excommunicate people from the church if their interpretation is different from yours.
I mean, China is second only to to the US in minting new billionaires. Sure, gatekeeping and no true Scotsman are real things, but at the end of the day so are definitions. I don't see any definition of communism that allows for the private acquisition of billions of dollars of private capital.
I mean, China is second only to to the US in minting new billionaires. Sure, gatekeeping and no true Scotsman are real things, but at the end of the day so are definitions. I don't see any definition of communism that allows for the private acquisition of billions of dollars of private capital.
> Isn’t this all just Late Stage Calitalsm?
Yes, just as Marx predicted with his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF):
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2022/01/22/a-world-ra...
Yes, just as Marx predicted with his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (LTRPF):
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2022/01/22/a-world-ra...
"Late Stage" as a term means "right before it fails."
People have been calling capitalism "Late Stage" for decades.
People have been calling capitalism "Late Stage" for decades.
The distinct term "late stage capitalism" is exactly 100 years old, in fact.
Given that the entire history of capitalism spans several centuries, I don't think the term is even necessarily wrong. But it certainly has nothing to do with declining standards of quality - that is a much more recent phenomenon.
Given that the entire history of capitalism spans several centuries, I don't think the term is even necessarily wrong. But it certainly has nothing to do with declining standards of quality - that is a much more recent phenomenon.
Yes, capitalism requires perpetual growth. When the opportunities for growth through innovation dry up, businesses resort to cutting costs which usually involves cutting quality and hoping most consumers won’t notice.
Incidentally, this is the exact strategy that VC and Private Equity use. They know how the game is played.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
Incidentally, this is the exact strategy that VC and Private Equity use. They know how the game is played.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
This is correct. Capitalism requires perpetual growth because capitalist logic does not apply in saturated markets with excess capital.
Anyone who believes in capitalism must by necessity believe thatcapital produces part capital and part consumer goods and that the rate of capital production must exceed the rate of capital depreciation. But in the face of stagnating population growth this logic must by necessity result in excess capital, threatening investor profit, to which they respond with drastic anti consumer measures.
Anyone who believes in capitalism must by necessity believe thatcapital produces part capital and part consumer goods and that the rate of capital production must exceed the rate of capital depreciation. But in the face of stagnating population growth this logic must by necessity result in excess capital, threatening investor profit, to which they respond with drastic anti consumer measures.
E.g. the race to the bottom of the Billy bookcase. In the last 5 years, IKEA has started using plastic fasteners to secure the backing.
Those plastic clips work better than the traditional backing nails they used to use. Those nails couldn't hold back shit in the presses wood they used.
I have to agree, I just bought these and was at first skeptical, but they seem like a much better engineered solution. The two-part clip expands in the hole, greatly increasing friction to keep it in vs a static (and smooth!) nail, and their heads are also bigger than those little tacks reducing chances of the hole in the backboard failing.
Ah ah I have several white "Billy", the oldest dating back to the late 80s. The shelves are painted solid wood planks. The latest one has shelves made of beehive cardboard.
I break this promise from time to time, but every time I buy an IKEA product lately, I vow never to do it again.
Ikea has products at just about every price category. The cheap stuff is cheap, the more expensive stuff is nicer. There's something for everyone.
IKEA has some of the best quality cheap furniture. To get something noticeably better you need to spend at least 2x for any given item; 3-5x is common for not at all fancy stuff.
It’s true, but they used to have some of the best quality cheap-mid priced furniture.
They changed their target market segment to lean into the “discards their furniture in less than 5 years” ICP, and they also heavily optimized for shipping (eg their bottom-end Kallax is now actually made of corrugated cardboard instead of plyboard, strength-to-weight is amazing, but still less durable).
So both are true, that they still represent “good value” in a dollar-per-value sense, but also lowered their absolute quality. (This is the exact point OP is making.)
They changed their target market segment to lean into the “discards their furniture in less than 5 years” ICP, and they also heavily optimized for shipping (eg their bottom-end Kallax is now actually made of corrugated cardboard instead of plyboard, strength-to-weight is amazing, but still less durable).
So both are true, that they still represent “good value” in a dollar-per-value sense, but also lowered their absolute quality. (This is the exact point OP is making.)
I’m glad IKEA exists but it really only serves very specific use cases these days. They are great for the moves apartments every 12 months crowd and the needs a piece for the spare bedroom that will rarely get used crowd. They are also great for young kids furniture that will get trashed no matter what quality you buy.
I appreciate it for what it is but consumers really need to understand what they are buying.
I appreciate it for what it is but consumers really need to understand what they are buying.
OP is flat out wrong. Some SKUs got value engineered to be less durable over time to keep up with inflation (or material costs, i.e. solid wood is just more expensive now), i.e. expedite->kallax, billy. But new SKU enabled by new tech/manufacturing processes like their power coated steel / stamped metal pieces are absurd dollar per quality relative to engineered or even solid wood. Of course it's not to everyone's taste, but fundamental reality if ones taste is solid wood, that material is no longer abundant/cheap/affordable, like how we use to feed lobsters to prisoners. A $90 heavy duty BROR shelf is ~$30 IN 1990 DOLLARS, about a cost of a Billy back then, except it's larger and much stronger.
BILLY quietly slid from mid-tier to cheap tier in order to keep the nostalgic momentum. The twist is that there are certain products that people use as benchmarks of quality (like Arizona iced tea).
If the tier changes without some sort of inflection, you perceive it as degradation of quality.
If the tier changes without some sort of inflection, you perceive it as degradation of quality.
> benchmarks of quality (like Arizona iced tea)
Not a good example. Arizona tea is held in high esteem only because it never went up in price. The beverage itself has always been of a clearly dubious quality.
Not a good example. Arizona tea is held in high esteem only because it never went up in price. The beverage itself has always been of a clearly dubious quality.
I guess I meant to say a benchmark of “constants”. A change in quality of product (even from meh to more meh) suggests something’s amiss.
Do you have suggestions on where to buy high quality furniture? My local furniture stores seems to sell 20% better pieces at 100% more cost.
Some of my non-IKEA furniture were just really lucky finds. I was looking for bookcases at a time when there was no nearby IKEA, and they did not deliver.
I ended up going to a local store, finding an unfinished bookshelf that was able to paint to my liking. It was absolutely a BIFL find. Another I bought at a close-out sale.
There is no one suggestion, but rather piece things together. This was about a decade and a half ago, and it seems that everyone is hustling so good deals are hard to find.
I ended up going to a local store, finding an unfinished bookshelf that was able to paint to my liking. It was absolutely a BIFL find. Another I bought at a close-out sale.
There is no one suggestion, but rather piece things together. This was about a decade and a half ago, and it seems that everyone is hustling so good deals are hard to find.
I don't. My house is 95% IKEA. (I'm in the 'kids will destroy everything, so it doesn't make sense to pay extra' customer cohort.)
The buy for life alternative is only ever an option if you are a home owner. I would not want to move with the massive furniture of my parents.
Interesting. I rarely have problems with IKEA products, but I had quite many problems with bespoke wooden pieces of furniture.
I find it depends on what you buy... my couch and table are fine, my bed wobbles and squeaks a fair bit... /shrug
> my bed wobbles and squeaks a fair bit...
Well, that isn’t necessarily a bad sign I guess.
Well, that isn’t necessarily a bad sign I guess.
Well, you are right, my only IKEA bed was bad and I spent over USD 1500 (in CZK) for a solid hand made bed, which will likely outlast me.
On reflection (being an engineer) it makes sense this would happen even without malice. Engineering teams on existing products are incentivized to keep innovating. It's ideal if you can reinvent a part of a product or process while maintaining functionality but often it's easier to get an 80/20. So, a large number of small corner cuts reduce overall quality and costs. If in fact you try to increase functionality, that's actually a new product. The inevitable S curve of profits from any given product means businesses are incentivized to move improvements to new products, leaving old ones to be cut to death.
I design and repair electronics for the past decade and quality has gone down, significantly so. A part of this is increased complexity introducing more failure modes, but the main reason is bean counters trying to reduce the BOM cost as far as they can get away with. This naturally means the perfect product (from a bean-counter-perspective) uses the cheapest components and fails reliably one day after the warranty has run out.
They even have succeeded in selling people bean counting solutions as "design". So instead of a satisfying 1.50 € power switch and a 2.50€ rotary switch you get a SMD push button for 0.05 € and have to memorize multiple gestures for that button. Long press means off or something among those lines.
People hate it, but it is cheap.
They even have succeeded in selling people bean counting solutions as "design". So instead of a satisfying 1.50 € power switch and a 2.50€ rotary switch you get a SMD push button for 0.05 € and have to memorize multiple gestures for that button. Long press means off or something among those lines.
People hate it, but it is cheap.
I think that's a good take. Market pressure for durability decreases with brand awareness. Though I think the article argues there's little market pressure regardless.
I'm also worried it's all survivorship bias. If you acquired 100 items in 2010 and 5 of them lasted until 2025, it's hard to say if the 5 surviving would be the same 5 from another household or if the items you still have were all on the hardier end of that particular items quality distribution. Another house with 100 items from 2010 will have a different 5 remaining in 2025. If that's the case, the chance you'd buy those 5 again and even have 3 with the same 15 year life span is (1/20)^3 (I think. is that math right?)
I'm also worried it's all survivorship bias. If you acquired 100 items in 2010 and 5 of them lasted until 2025, it's hard to say if the 5 surviving would be the same 5 from another household or if the items you still have were all on the hardier end of that particular items quality distribution. Another house with 100 items from 2010 will have a different 5 remaining in 2025. If that's the case, the chance you'd buy those 5 again and even have 3 with the same 15 year life span is (1/20)^3 (I think. is that math right?)
Survivorship bias is an important thing to consider, but the weird thing about it is that although sometimes (usually?) people have a blind spot for it, other times I think it gets used as a kind of "just so" explanation for degradation in quality because it's hard to refute.
My experience with clothing kind of suggests it's not just survivorship bias. I once had a pair of pants that lasted maybe 10 years or so with regular washing, each use (yes I know, not ideal, I don't do that anymore), and I had to replace them. When I ordered a new pair, from the same company, same model, I noticed the new ones didn't last nearly as long, maybe 2 years, and seemed thinner. I emailed the company about this, and they acknowledged that they had made the fabric thinner, and even gave me the old and new fabric densities. I think clothing is one area where new brands have come in to partially move the needle back toward quality a teeny weeny bit, but experiences like that, tracking the actual material quality of the same products over time, leads me to conclude it's not always just random survivorship bias.
My experience with clothing kind of suggests it's not just survivorship bias. I once had a pair of pants that lasted maybe 10 years or so with regular washing, each use (yes I know, not ideal, I don't do that anymore), and I had to replace them. When I ordered a new pair, from the same company, same model, I noticed the new ones didn't last nearly as long, maybe 2 years, and seemed thinner. I emailed the company about this, and they acknowledged that they had made the fabric thinner, and even gave me the old and new fabric densities. I think clothing is one area where new brands have come in to partially move the needle back toward quality a teeny weeny bit, but experiences like that, tracking the actual material quality of the same products over time, leads me to conclude it's not always just random survivorship bias.
I wouldn’t mind that much if switching to another brand/model would solve the problem. But sometimes I order half a dozen of the most well-reviewed alternatives, and they are all worse in some way in comparison.
I feel that pain!
This comes up for me most often with running shoes. By the time the model shoe I've loved wears out, it'll be out of production and the n+1 iteration re-balanced whatever decisions to make the shoe a worse-for-me fit.
(It's tempting to think the big-sneaker cabal conspires to ensure consumers are perceptually exploring options)
This comes up for me most often with running shoes. By the time the model shoe I've loved wears out, it'll be out of production and the n+1 iteration re-balanced whatever decisions to make the shoe a worse-for-me fit.
(It's tempting to think the big-sneaker cabal conspires to ensure consumers are perceptually exploring options)
Increased financialization of the economy plays a role as well. It tends to consolidate market players though M&A. That in turn that allows firms to similarly profit from rent-seeking in captured and semi-captured markets, leading not just to lower quality but higher prices as well. Rising corporate profit margins have been a major contributor to the inflation of the past few years.
> However, a common experience for me is that I own something of good quality from 5/10/15 years ago and now buy the successor model from the same brand, but the product has gotten worse, being cheaper made.
Yes, absolutely. Quality has gone down across the board in nearly everything. What has gone up is more features. So at a high level comparison it seems like the newer thing does a lot more than the older same thing. Which is true, but that is not a measure of quality. Many of the added features are gimmicks that provide no meaningful value and at the same time the product is far more brittle and built much cheaper, so the overall quality is far lower.
Yes, absolutely. Quality has gone down across the board in nearly everything. What has gone up is more features. So at a high level comparison it seems like the newer thing does a lot more than the older same thing. Which is true, but that is not a measure of quality. Many of the added features are gimmicks that provide no meaningful value and at the same time the product is far more brittle and built much cheaper, so the overall quality is far lower.
Everyone has their own way of measuring quality.
Mine is that a Billy bookcase that I bought from Ikea 25 years ago is must stronger and more stable than a Billy bookcase I bought from Ikea 5 years ago.
And, when looking at what Ikea is selling in 2025 as a Billy bookcase, it's worse yet again.
But, with the cost of living increasing, companies have to cut corners to keep pricing down.
I wonder where the inflection point is where used items become more valuable than the new items being made at current quality levels, including degradation due to age.
Mine is that a Billy bookcase that I bought from Ikea 25 years ago is must stronger and more stable than a Billy bookcase I bought from Ikea 5 years ago.
And, when looking at what Ikea is selling in 2025 as a Billy bookcase, it's worse yet again.
But, with the cost of living increasing, companies have to cut corners to keep pricing down.
I wonder where the inflection point is where used items become more valuable than the new items being made at current quality levels, including degradation due to age.
It's ironic to use Ikea as an example.
When Ikea first expanded beyond Scandinavia, it was the 'fast fashion' of furniture: beautiful design, but sometimes made of particleboard or polyurethane foam.
There's nothing unusual about that today.
When Ikea first expanded beyond Scandinavia, it was the 'fast fashion' of furniture: beautiful design, but sometimes made of particleboard or polyurethane foam.
There's nothing unusual about that today.
You could have bought a Besta or Hemmes bookshelf, accounting for inflation it would be closer in price to the Billy you bought 25 years ago.
Assuming a product introduced 25 years ago has exactly the same role in the lineup today sounds crazy to me TBH.
Assuming a product introduced 25 years ago has exactly the same role in the lineup today sounds crazy to me TBH.
Isn't that the point though?
Quality of the basic model Maytag washer I bought 25 years ago versus one today. Quality of a Reese's cup I bought 25 years ago versus one today. Quality of Levi's I bought 25 years ago versus a pair today. Quality of the Billy that I bought 25 years ago versus today.
Quality of the Billy HAS declined.
Quality of the basic model Maytag washer I bought 25 years ago versus one today. Quality of a Reese's cup I bought 25 years ago versus one today. Quality of Levi's I bought 25 years ago versus a pair today. Quality of the Billy that I bought 25 years ago versus today.
Quality of the Billy HAS declined.
That's fair if we only strictly care about the Billy line and it's history.
From there we can't generalize to any other product without acknowledging IKEA's internal decision process or their vision for Billy across the years.
To parent's point
> where the inflection point is where used items become more valuable than the new items being made at current quality levels, including degradation due to age.
Buying the actual modern equivalent of what Billy was 25 years ago answers that question.
From there we can't generalize to any other product without acknowledging IKEA's internal decision process or their vision for Billy across the years.
To parent's point
> where the inflection point is where used items become more valuable than the new items being made at current quality levels, including degradation due to age.
Buying the actual modern equivalent of what Billy was 25 years ago answers that question.
The distribution of peoples needs even out. The quality settles where the "good enough" is. That could be super high quality or just mediocre. Once that settles the super high quality has a new price point (economies of scale are no longer being subsidized by the people that need less). If that price point is too much for the people of quality to pay the product disappears.
That situation happened to me with Logitech mice, they were really great some years ago. Now they are not the long lasting products they were.
Actually, they seem to have gotten their act together.
I love their trackballs. They dropped the warranty to 1 year--and even then every one failed within warranty. Disgusted but buying one every year was better than using an inferior product. But my latest has been sitting here for years, no erratic clicks.
I love their trackballs. They dropped the warranty to 1 year--and even then every one failed within warranty. Disgusted but buying one every year was better than using an inferior product. But my latest has been sitting here for years, no erratic clicks.
Enjoying M240 at the moment. No issues as yet.
> My suspicion is that when products are successful and mature but reach market saturation, profit growth pressure leads to cutting some corners on every iteration, and hence to a slow decline in quality over the years.
I'm sure that's one component. I can also imagine that another component is that in order to broaden the customer base, there is cost pressure as well as the pressure to appeal to more people. The initial market may have consisted of more quality focused nerds who were ok with spending a little more to get a robust thing with more knobs to tune behavior, while the mass market is fine with buying new stuff all the time, given that it's cheaper, and they don't care about fine tuning things, just want it to work out of the box, until they anyway buy a new thing in a year or two.
I'm sure that's one component. I can also imagine that another component is that in order to broaden the customer base, there is cost pressure as well as the pressure to appeal to more people. The initial market may have consisted of more quality focused nerds who were ok with spending a little more to get a robust thing with more knobs to tune behavior, while the mass market is fine with buying new stuff all the time, given that it's cheaper, and they don't care about fine tuning things, just want it to work out of the box, until they anyway buy a new thing in a year or two.
I agree too. And originally the company had multiple motivations to produce high quality. For pride reason (express your skills, new challenger mindset) and to gain brand recognition. Once that's settled, this forces get replaced by profit/ growth mindset.
A subtle variant of this is incorrect metrics. In 2000s, full featured audio chipsets started to show up, all in one chip 24bit audio. Soon everything used these, the 24bit resolution wasn't enough to make a good audio interface... (I think it was noisier) But it was too late, most devices used this and old audio cards were priced out.
A subtle variant of this is incorrect metrics. In 2000s, full featured audio chipsets started to show up, all in one chip 24bit audio. Soon everything used these, the 24bit resolution wasn't enough to make a good audio interface... (I think it was noisier) But it was too late, most devices used this and old audio cards were priced out.
It is often easier to make another sale of a downgraded product using earned customer goodwill than it is to continuously innovate, delight existing customers, and win new ones based on quality. It's less risky just to run a brand into the dirt, get paid, and screw any shareholders remaining.
Also many of these kinds of activities are illegal, but people do it anyway on the reasonable calculation that they won't be sued and that the government won't investigate them.
Also many of these kinds of activities are illegal, but people do it anyway on the reasonable calculation that they won't be sued and that the government won't investigate them.
I totally agree! Philips diamondclean toothbrush anyone?
The first one lasted literally 10 years, it was one of the best consumer purchases I ever made.
Ever since then each replacement has crapped out within a year or two, despite same usage pattern. I bought one at Costco on sale and after returning it broken after just six months, a record for a $100+ device, the clerk at the return counter said they have piles of those. Crazy.
The first one lasted literally 10 years, it was one of the best consumer purchases I ever made.
Ever since then each replacement has crapped out within a year or two, despite same usage pattern. I bought one at Costco on sale and after returning it broken after just six months, a record for a $100+ device, the clerk at the return counter said they have piles of those. Crazy.
Its this way for me, with restaurants, especially those that have expanded a lot. A good example of this for me is the restaurant Dig Inn. It used to be one single place and was called “The Pump Energy Food” and used to my goto place for lunch. Then it changed names and expanded to 2-3 other locations and was still relatively good. It then started expanding a lot more and now the food absolutely sucks
Yeah. You do not want my wife to like your restaurant. Every single restaurant she has ever liked has within a few years it's either gone or she no longer likes it because of price increases or quality decreases (usually associated with a change in ownership.)
I'm in the same camp of the people who like using things forever. However, I find that I'm in a small minority... I am not even talking about clothing, fast fashion etc., people around me are constantly doing kitchen renovations, changing cars every few years, phones every year, etc.
What's the point of building for durability if there's no demand for it?
Moreover, if you look at expensive cars or furniture, the markup on them has to be higher than cheap stuff. Honda Fit is like 20% of the price of a BMW, but I bet doesn't cost 20% to manufacture... So if people wanted quality it would be better for companies to produce more of the expensive option. Either companies are dumb or people don't want quality.
I just recently got a coffee grinder that costs 3 times as much as my old one and it's actually better across multiple dimensions, including material e.g. metal vs plastic . But how many units do you think the plastic junk at 0.33x the price sells vs mine?
What's the point of building for durability if there's no demand for it?
Moreover, if you look at expensive cars or furniture, the markup on them has to be higher than cheap stuff. Honda Fit is like 20% of the price of a BMW, but I bet doesn't cost 20% to manufacture... So if people wanted quality it would be better for companies to produce more of the expensive option. Either companies are dumb or people don't want quality.
I just recently got a coffee grinder that costs 3 times as much as my old one and it's actually better across multiple dimensions, including material e.g. metal vs plastic . But how many units do you think the plastic junk at 0.33x the price sells vs mine?
Like with much in the political situation, I think it's sort of a polarization.
The quality of some things has gone up significantly. This is going to be the things where improvements in technologies have made improved quality easier and cheaper (and that's not just electronics—materials technology, better manufacturing, etc can do this). It's also in products where other technological improvements have made it viable for there to be independent and artisanal (or similarly small-batch high-quality) production of them.
The quality of other things has declined precipitously. These are more likely to be commodities where improving quality still costs more, and the "innovation" they've done is in finding ways to make it cheaper and worse without it just always failing immediately (clothing is a prime example here).
Overall, I think that if you look into any given case of a product's quality getting better or worse over the past couple of decades, you'll almost invariably find that either way it's because that's how the manufacturers can make more money.
The quality of some things has gone up significantly. This is going to be the things where improvements in technologies have made improved quality easier and cheaper (and that's not just electronics—materials technology, better manufacturing, etc can do this). It's also in products where other technological improvements have made it viable for there to be independent and artisanal (or similarly small-batch high-quality) production of them.
The quality of other things has declined precipitously. These are more likely to be commodities where improving quality still costs more, and the "innovation" they've done is in finding ways to make it cheaper and worse without it just always failing immediately (clothing is a prime example here).
Overall, I think that if you look into any given case of a product's quality getting better or worse over the past couple of decades, you'll almost invariably find that either way it's because that's how the manufacturers can make more money.
It's possible for that to be true while also there being competitors that are just making a name or themselves and aren't cutting corners. Incumbents in areas of low competition always get complacent and attempt to maximize profits without any further investment. Quality really only depends on the competition, since it removes those who lack it.
True, but as I said I often fail to find a good replacement when surveying the market for alternatives. Sometimes everyone copied the product but didn’t copy the original quality.
In that case it might've been that the original product wasn't cost effective to produce in the first place, or that most people buying it don't really care much about quality but just about the price, so that's what each provider optimizes for instead?
One recent example is a sturdy fold-out clothes drying rack I owned. All reviews praised its quality. My unit unfortunately got damaged in a heavy storm when I left it outside by mistake. The manufacturer got bought up in the meantime, and the product now is more flimsy and unstable, metal axes have been replaced by plastic ones. And I haven’t found any other model comparable to the old one on the market. I’d be willing to pay double or triple the price because of how good it was, and it wasn’t particularly inexpensive to start with.
I very much doubt that such a product can’t be manufactured sustainably in robust quality.
I very much doubt that such a product can’t be manufactured sustainably in robust quality.
It’s gotten absurd. I’ll easily pay 10x the regular price of some object if I’m confident it will last a very long time and I won’t have to think about it anymore. I’ve replaced all the crappy LED bulbs in my house with Yuji Sunwave brand. I’ve not had a single bulb flicker or go out in years now, and the quality of the light is superb (i.e. more akin to what everyone used to have with incandescent bulbs). I bought a Control Freak induction cooktop in 2018. The whole family uses it far more than the cheap gas range that came with the house and is a pain to clean. Similarly, I replaced all the Food Network brand pots and pans I had in college that were chipping paint and rusting with Demeyere versions. Not a single problem since.
And to your point, I’ve probably gone through six clothes drying racks by now that all break down after a short time. I have yet to find a high-quality one.
It sounds expensive, but I suspect that in the long-term, the approach of buying higher quality up front ultimately ends up cheaper in terms of time and replacement costs. I’ve debated replacing some home appliances with commercial or restaurant versions, but there are some notable tradeoffs with that unfortunately, as the purpose of the appliance becomes somewhat different than a home use case.
Of course this strategy is all well and good if you can foot the initial high cost of the products, which many people cannot on the typical family income. There’s been a lot written about how those of lower income are often taken advantage of in this way—they end up paying a higher “lifetime cost” for lower quality products and service, because the system attempts to produce the minimum viable affordable product, which then sets the bar for the “new normal”.
And to your point, I’ve probably gone through six clothes drying racks by now that all break down after a short time. I have yet to find a high-quality one.
It sounds expensive, but I suspect that in the long-term, the approach of buying higher quality up front ultimately ends up cheaper in terms of time and replacement costs. I’ve debated replacing some home appliances with commercial or restaurant versions, but there are some notable tradeoffs with that unfortunately, as the purpose of the appliance becomes somewhat different than a home use case.
Of course this strategy is all well and good if you can foot the initial high cost of the products, which many people cannot on the typical family income. There’s been a lot written about how those of lower income are often taken advantage of in this way—they end up paying a higher “lifetime cost” for lower quality products and service, because the system attempts to produce the minimum viable affordable product, which then sets the bar for the “new normal”.
Whenever I'm in this kind of pickle I add "amish" to my search query. sustainable, robust, yes - cheap, no. These drying racks look sturdy af tho: https://www.pennsylvania-woodworks.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoq3iYcE...
> My suspicion is that when products are successful and mature but reach market saturation, profit growth pressure leads to cutting some corners on every iteration,
I'm sure that is certainly part of it, especially when multiple players are competing at least partly on price or apparent value. One consideration once price based competition is significant is that absolute quality may drop while measures of quality/price value improve¹.
Another issue is that when something is new, to the company or the buying audience, it is often a flagship product/service so gets a lot more attention. As things become something the company rattles off as a matter of course and we consumers interact with them daily, that level of attention per production unit diminishes considerably.
As well as playing directly into this, possibly leading to an actual drop in quality, mass production has a less obvious effect on the perception of quality. If you are making hundreds or less and a couple fail, they are probably noticed before leaving the factory and if not the consumer gets a relatively personal service with fixing/replacing the item. If you are making hundreds of thousands many more bad units get into circulation (the absolute failure rate increasing even if the failure ratio drops) and processing returns is less logistically easy. That perception problem has become more significant in the last couple of decades as unhappy voices always tended to be louder and social media can act as a megaphone for both happy and unhappy voices.
This is a complex area with many things feeding into actual quality issues, the perception of them, and sometimes the perception of the matter being worse than it really is overall.
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[1] for instance, maybe in a made up example quality goes down by 5% when cuts or mass production bring the price down by more than 10%, so buyers get better for the same money but worse absolutely
I'm sure that is certainly part of it, especially when multiple players are competing at least partly on price or apparent value. One consideration once price based competition is significant is that absolute quality may drop while measures of quality/price value improve¹.
Another issue is that when something is new, to the company or the buying audience, it is often a flagship product/service so gets a lot more attention. As things become something the company rattles off as a matter of course and we consumers interact with them daily, that level of attention per production unit diminishes considerably.
As well as playing directly into this, possibly leading to an actual drop in quality, mass production has a less obvious effect on the perception of quality. If you are making hundreds or less and a couple fail, they are probably noticed before leaving the factory and if not the consumer gets a relatively personal service with fixing/replacing the item. If you are making hundreds of thousands many more bad units get into circulation (the absolute failure rate increasing even if the failure ratio drops) and processing returns is less logistically easy. That perception problem has become more significant in the last couple of decades as unhappy voices always tended to be louder and social media can act as a megaphone for both happy and unhappy voices.
This is a complex area with many things feeding into actual quality issues, the perception of them, and sometimes the perception of the matter being worse than it really is overall.
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[1] for instance, maybe in a made up example quality goes down by 5% when cuts or mass production bring the price down by more than 10%, so buyers get better for the same money but worse absolutely
> buy the successor model from the same brand
This might be the key issue. Let's say you bought a Roomba 10 years ago, and now go buy the successor model. Will it be any good ? probably not. At least not as good as the competition who got better than iRobot.
It will be the same for cars. If you bought a Nissan 10 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the successor isn't as good. Same for cameras, computers, bikes etc.
More than ever blind brand loyalty isn't paying off and even with brands staying at the top of their game the "successor" or best buying strategy might not be obvious.
Some see the world as having become more complex, I'd argue having stagnating signals was worse.
This might be the key issue. Let's say you bought a Roomba 10 years ago, and now go buy the successor model. Will it be any good ? probably not. At least not as good as the competition who got better than iRobot.
It will be the same for cars. If you bought a Nissan 10 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the successor isn't as good. Same for cameras, computers, bikes etc.
More than ever blind brand loyalty isn't paying off and even with brands staying at the top of their game the "successor" or best buying strategy might not be obvious.
Some see the world as having become more complex, I'd argue having stagnating signals was worse.
This is far more prominent in women’s clothing. My wife always says how buying from the same brands over the years that materials get thinner and thinner, as well as becoming more and more synthetic blend %s until it’s practically disposable.
I have noticed that woman’s clothing seems incredibly poor quality a lot of the time. Incredibly thin, and just looking at stuff on the racks and stores it was extremely common to find minor defects and loose threads.
Part of it may be matching to the use case.
Men will buy a shirt and wear it until its seams break in 2-10 years.
Women will buy blouses or dresses with cuts/colors that only work in certain seasons to be worn for a specific occasion that won’t come to pass again soon.
Now where women have more trouble is just in the utility work wear shopping space because that clothing is utilized frequently and until it fails.
Men will buy a shirt and wear it until its seams break in 2-10 years.
Women will buy blouses or dresses with cuts/colors that only work in certain seasons to be worn for a specific occasion that won’t come to pass again soon.
Now where women have more trouble is just in the utility work wear shopping space because that clothing is utilized frequently and until it fails.
So many people of HN need to google the terms “raw denim” and “selvedge denim”. Companies like naked and famous make high quality BIFL tier work wear clothes aimed at women.
Normies just don’t know about it cus denim heads are autistic.
Normies just don’t know about it cus denim heads are autistic.
I think even normies know about the selvedge denim. But where are the quality tee shirt, Oxford, polo, etc pieces that don’t fall apart in 2 years?
Gustin makes them, also wash on cold and hang dry.
Normies do NOT know about selvedge/raw denim at all.
Normies do NOT know about selvedge/raw denim at all.
This is the way I’ve been treating my clothes for years. I still have clothes that would’ve been thrown away a decade ago, but now they’re my favorite, softest shirts.
LuLuLemon is guilty of this. Their quality was pretty good about 10 years ago, but since then all the materials have gotten thinner and less durable. I have some LuLuLemon clothes from 10+ years ago which outlasted things I bought 3 years ago.
Now the quality is objectively bad and things get holes right away or are not even tailored correctly, but hey $7 billion wasn’t enough for Chip Wilson so he is going to keep sucking the brand dry.
Now the quality is objectively bad and things get holes right away or are not even tailored correctly, but hey $7 billion wasn’t enough for Chip Wilson so he is going to keep sucking the brand dry.
Lulu also fell prey to a typical pattern of building a brand on quality, at a higher price point for higher income consumer. Then as they grew and targeted the broader market, getting copied by low cost competitors and then trying to pivot to compete with them.
You see similar in NYC with fast casual / quick service type places that scale from 2-3 locations into a national chain. Stuff becomes less handmade, less fresh, ingredient quality goes down, all the care&attention gets optimized away into a sad bowl of slop.
You see similar in NYC with fast casual / quick service type places that scale from 2-3 locations into a national chain. Stuff becomes less handmade, less fresh, ingredient quality goes down, all the care&attention gets optimized away into a sad bowl of slop.
I've had that experience in three categories, all for different reasons.
I have clothing that I bought shortly after high school, and it's now more than 25 years old and still good. It's tougher and thicker cotton than anything I seem to be able to buy now. Aside from clothing getting worse (made overseas, made cheaply, or from poor materials), the textiles themselves have gotten worse. Cotton crops have yielded fibers of very low quality in recent years, especially post-pandemic. Once-dependable brands no longer make clothing that lasts. Brooks Brothers used to be the last hold out for high quality clothing in the U.S., and they sold their brand and turned to crap even before the pandemic.
Appliances are another thing. Washing machines routinely lasted more than twenty years. Same for refrigerators. The microwave my parents got as a wedding gift didn't have a lot of features, but it kept on heating for 30 years. Now, it's difficult to find machines that don't need replacing in 5 years, and microwaves are almost exclusively made in China. The good stuff that you used to be able to get just isn't made by manufacturers that attempt to make durable items. They're made to shave margins and turn to junk in a few years.
The third thing extends to all manner of consumer goods, and it is actually a materials and chemicals issue. So many of the things that worked really well, were made from materials that turned out to be actively harmful. Harmful plastics, harmful coatings on non-stick pans, and while I can still go out and purchase those things if I wanted, we've had to eliminate or replace them with worse alternatives.
Tea, when brewed from loose leaf in a pot and strained through a metal strainer instead of plasticized tea bags (they're not actually paper) means you need actual high-quality tea instead of the junk that's on grocery store shelves. It turns out that's actually difficult to come by. Porcelain and glass not made in China (China's porcelain and glass all--all--have unsafe lead levels) is also difficult to find. There very few safe sources: France and Turkey for porcelain, and Italy for glass.
There are a whole series of reasons, but consumer goods, are, in fact, worse than they used to be. It's not just fuzzy nostalgia.
I have clothing that I bought shortly after high school, and it's now more than 25 years old and still good. It's tougher and thicker cotton than anything I seem to be able to buy now. Aside from clothing getting worse (made overseas, made cheaply, or from poor materials), the textiles themselves have gotten worse. Cotton crops have yielded fibers of very low quality in recent years, especially post-pandemic. Once-dependable brands no longer make clothing that lasts. Brooks Brothers used to be the last hold out for high quality clothing in the U.S., and they sold their brand and turned to crap even before the pandemic.
Appliances are another thing. Washing machines routinely lasted more than twenty years. Same for refrigerators. The microwave my parents got as a wedding gift didn't have a lot of features, but it kept on heating for 30 years. Now, it's difficult to find machines that don't need replacing in 5 years, and microwaves are almost exclusively made in China. The good stuff that you used to be able to get just isn't made by manufacturers that attempt to make durable items. They're made to shave margins and turn to junk in a few years.
The third thing extends to all manner of consumer goods, and it is actually a materials and chemicals issue. So many of the things that worked really well, were made from materials that turned out to be actively harmful. Harmful plastics, harmful coatings on non-stick pans, and while I can still go out and purchase those things if I wanted, we've had to eliminate or replace them with worse alternatives.
Tea, when brewed from loose leaf in a pot and strained through a metal strainer instead of plasticized tea bags (they're not actually paper) means you need actual high-quality tea instead of the junk that's on grocery store shelves. It turns out that's actually difficult to come by. Porcelain and glass not made in China (China's porcelain and glass all--all--have unsafe lead levels) is also difficult to find. There very few safe sources: France and Turkey for porcelain, and Italy for glass.
There are a whole series of reasons, but consumer goods, are, in fact, worse than they used to be. It's not just fuzzy nostalgia.
It’s a great point.
I sometimes wonder how long it is before open-source manufacturing can fill the gap.
For a long time it’s been the case that it’s prohibitively expensive to do bespoke manufacturing using eg 3D printing and CAD lathes, vs. the cost attainable using mass manufacturing.
But perhaps a “made in America” option that can only compete on quality, not on price, could focus on “bring your own design” and fabricating nice, durable, repairable designs that apparently can’t be found elsewhere.
I guess the problem is that modern products need quite complex integrated electronics which are hard to build in an OSS paradigm.
I sometimes wonder how long it is before open-source manufacturing can fill the gap.
For a long time it’s been the case that it’s prohibitively expensive to do bespoke manufacturing using eg 3D printing and CAD lathes, vs. the cost attainable using mass manufacturing.
But perhaps a “made in America” option that can only compete on quality, not on price, could focus on “bring your own design” and fabricating nice, durable, repairable designs that apparently can’t be found elsewhere.
I guess the problem is that modern products need quite complex integrated electronics which are hard to build in an OSS paradigm.
I was searching recommendations at r/BuyItForLife the other day and saw a pattern of used-to-be-known-for-quality manufacturers scaled up and moved production abroad, which resulted in drop in quality.
Yes. Recommendations like that are not reliable, because the fact that a product has proven to hold up well for 10 or 20 years doesn't at all imply that it’s current incarnation will as well. The general trend is that it won't.
I think there is something to it. My favorite analogy for this is the car. I had a 2003 Acura TL once. By far, the best car I owned between the value, comfort and its specs. Compared to today's version, I can't help but notice that 2003 TL was one of company's initial foray's into US market so they had to offer something decent, useful or at least something that stood out.
In my first job out of engineering school 15 years ago I was working on a project to give people something they never had before.
Today most of my work goes towards making something that already exists cheaper. Not to pass on the savings to the customer of course, but to make the company's books look better and to make investors happier.
Today most of my work goes towards making something that already exists cheaper. Not to pass on the savings to the customer of course, but to make the company's books look better and to make investors happier.
I had the same impression when buying clothes. I often buy the Shirts Form H&M. I have some old Shirts and the quality IS a Lot better. No loose Threads, the colors did Not wash out for and after washing they stayed how they are. Today all of that is not the Case anymore.
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Same popular product gets value engineered over iterations to be worse. At same time, most category of products likely has competitors that have cropped up over last 20 years that has much better quality to price ratio.
Your suspicion makes total sense.
A major problem with the whole model of production is that if you make a good product and saturate the market you die. It’s not the result of some conspiracy to make shit products. It’s a simple outcome from the fact that purchases are one time while businesses are ongoing, combined with shareholder demands to boost growth. Those demands in turn come from things like pension funds that have promised a return to their customers.
One “solution” is to build subscriptions into everything but there’s already a customer revolt against that for obvious reasons. It’s obnoxious.
I think the best solution is to decouple and unbundle production. Have small design houses (or even individuals) that design products and have low ongoing costs and big manufacturing concerns that make things. Something always needs to be made so they always have business. Design products around commodity parts as much as possible to make retooling affordable.
This kind of already exists in the form of boutiques with kickstarter and Etsy products, or at least those folks have trailblazed this model.
A major problem with the whole model of production is that if you make a good product and saturate the market you die. It’s not the result of some conspiracy to make shit products. It’s a simple outcome from the fact that purchases are one time while businesses are ongoing, combined with shareholder demands to boost growth. Those demands in turn come from things like pension funds that have promised a return to their customers.
One “solution” is to build subscriptions into everything but there’s already a customer revolt against that for obvious reasons. It’s obnoxious.
I think the best solution is to decouple and unbundle production. Have small design houses (or even individuals) that design products and have low ongoing costs and big manufacturing concerns that make things. Something always needs to be made so they always have business. Design products around commodity parts as much as possible to make retooling affordable.
This kind of already exists in the form of boutiques with kickstarter and Etsy products, or at least those folks have trailblazed this model.
'big manufacturing concerns that make things'
Don't we already have this, isn't this called 'China' for most American businesses that no longer make things in the USA/in-house?
Don't we already have this, isn't this called 'China' for most American businesses that no longer make things in the USA/in-house?
Levis and Nike are common offenders here.
Quality has dropped insanely low.
Fast fashion brought down most of the fashion industry up to luxury level.
Quality has dropped insanely low.
Fast fashion brought down most of the fashion industry up to luxury level.
Razer deathadder is a great example. I didn't want to "upgrade" to the new model until I didn't have the choice and I'm stuck with enshitified, plastic version of what used to be a nice piece of hardware.
Perhaps something to that, but there is also consumer pressure to not raise prices. Think of those things you bought 5 / 10 / 15 years ago and adjust pricing for inflation… would you pay that much now?
We have become addicted to cheap. Same phenomenon with airlines: everyone bemoans how awful the experience is, and virtually everyone buys the cheapest possible ticket.
We have become addicted to cheap. Same phenomenon with airlines: everyone bemoans how awful the experience is, and virtually everyone buys the cheapest possible ticket.
People buy cheap because they don't have an option. People are "addicted to cheap" because of growing wealth inequality.
The state of modern cars is scary.
The state of modern personal electric vehicles (PEVs) is outstanding though; good enough to replace owning a car for most people! I personally have been riding an electric scooter this summer, and paired with a nice backpack, it has comfortably replaced all of my regular driving. For people who want to carry more than me, an e-bike with panniers or a cargo e-bike would likely meet your needs. Electric longboards and electric unicycles are also worth considering, and I have seen a couple of those around my city, but the e-scooters and e-bikes have dominated due to their capacities and how easy they are to ride.
I have two problems with EVs:
- I believe they're more immoral than ICE vehicles. They're existence displaces batteries for hybrids (yes I did the math)
- They're not practical for me for my use scenario. I have kids.
- I believe they're more immoral than ICE vehicles. They're existence displaces batteries for hybrids (yes I did the math)
- They're not practical for me for my use scenario. I have kids.
[deleted]
I'd love to see your math on how my 50 pound electric scooter is more immoral than a 2 ton ICE car.
Also I don't see your point about kids.
Also I don't see your point about kids.
My favorite example is the GoPro Hero 4 Black, which I still have and regularly use.
It's also interesting, as you said, that everyone seems to want to defend crap. It's like corporations keep spreading the idea that you're always getting more for your money and everyone just seems to parrot that verbatim.
My life is a constant struggle when it comes to finding nice things.
My life is a constant struggle when it comes to finding nice things.
I gave up and started buying $4 rshirts. Why? Because each year the clothes I'd buy were were on quality than my previous clothes.
When buying a $4 shirt I know the price:quality ratio, it's cheap:crap. Whereas majority of the time buying more expensive it might be slightly better, but it's still expensive:crap.
When buying a $4 shirt I know the price:quality ratio, it's cheap:crap. Whereas majority of the time buying more expensive it might be slightly better, but it's still expensive:crap.
I remember a number of years back when people were equating the feeling of sturdy and heft with quality. Just feelings. No actual metrics. I would constantly look down at my beaten up plastic junk and shake my head. At least my junk still worked. Everyone else seemed to be replacing their stuff all the time because their favourite products were only designed to give the illusion of quality. In reality, the very things that gave those products the illusion of quality were diminishing the longevity of the product or ensuring that it could not withstand any abuse.
The math on advertising and brand loyalty has changed. There was an article posted to HN this week that explained it pretty well I think. It's easy to start a new brand now, so it's OK to risk ruining your current brand. The decline in quality isn't bewildering, it's exactly what our form of capitalism encourages.
https://www.gojiberries.io/advertising-without-signal-whe-am...
https://www.gojiberries.io/advertising-without-signal-whe-am...
I bought the same Ray-Ban sunglasses model 15 years ago and 2 years ago. The older one is way better.
Cellphone is the opposite: the new one is way better.
So all in all, it's just capitalism: if quality sells more, people buy quality (whatever quality means). If cheaper sells more, companies cut costs.
I think the answer change from time to time.
Cellphone is the opposite: the new one is way better.
So all in all, it's just capitalism: if quality sells more, people buy quality (whatever quality means). If cheaper sells more, companies cut costs.
I think the answer change from time to time.
As long as there are customers who will pay for low quality, and there is no external [read: "regulatory"] goad, there will be vendors that will sell it.
Basic human (and capitalist) nature. Not good, but not evil, either. It's just the scorpion and the frog story.
It sucks, trying to actually create things with higher levels of Quality. It's a lot more expensive to add even rather incremental levels of Quality, and companies that try, usually (but not always) get ground into the dirt.
If we deliberately create substandard quality, it can really eat at our souls. I think many folks are able to work out a deal with their conscience, but I was never able to do that, so I worked for most of my career at a company that was all about Quality.
This whole thing brings to mind the Vimes Boots Theory: https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots...
Basic human (and capitalist) nature. Not good, but not evil, either. It's just the scorpion and the frog story.
It sucks, trying to actually create things with higher levels of Quality. It's a lot more expensive to add even rather incremental levels of Quality, and companies that try, usually (but not always) get ground into the dirt.
If we deliberately create substandard quality, it can really eat at our souls. I think many folks are able to work out a deal with their conscience, but I was never able to do that, so I worked for most of my career at a company that was all about Quality.
This whole thing brings to mind the Vimes Boots Theory: https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots...
That boots model is fascinating compared the the actual boot market in the USA. I can get an excellent pair of made in America, vibrax/goodyear welted extremely sturdy boots for 200 USD - maybe less. Redwing, danger, etc other PNW brands all exist and sell at this price point.
Compare to popular fashion boots like timberlands which are also 200 USD and reasonably sturdy but no Goodyear welt or proper sole so they fail in 5 years or less of regular wear.
Compare to popular fashion boots like timberlands which are also 200 USD and reasonably sturdy but no Goodyear welt or proper sole so they fail in 5 years or less of regular wear.
exactly! i came to this thread to smugly type “capitalism” in a comment. but i’d like to, less smugily, posit that it’s really just enshittification. MBA-driven physical-goods enshittification. It’s cheaper to use cheaper glues. To slightly change the fabric blend towards polyester. Thinner gauge wiring.
There are tradeoffs towards more complex devices being made, sure, but that’s not exactly what “quality” is, to me. There’s an extensive discussion about the iphone vs a snake-era nokia, which i feel like misses the point entirely
There are tradeoffs towards more complex devices being made, sure, but that’s not exactly what “quality” is, to me. There’s an extensive discussion about the iphone vs a snake-era nokia, which i feel like misses the point entirely
Do you not think it's capitalism driving enshittification? It's captialism that's the driving force pushing companies to reduce costs or be outcompeted. It's captialism that means that "it's cheaper" (in the short term) is what ends up driving decision making.
I think the "MBA-driven physical-goods enshittification" is a simplification and a cop-out because this is not just MBA-driven. This is across the board in all of society, and I believe the reason being that people, in general and enmass, are not being taught how to live with active critical analysis, and as a result when they choose an enshittificating decision, they do not realize it. They are not connecting the ramifications beyond their own mini-benefit. This is with the entire general population.
Making physical goods low quality, cheap, and therefore disposable is the equivalent of rent seeking.
Instead of growth and innovation, it’s how can the Company get recurring revenue after first sale.
The balance for the Company is finding a quality to price point ratio where either 1) the customer doesn’t care if it breaks because it was cheap and they know it’s cheap or 2) it’s cheap and breaks but the utility of it to the customer warrants (or with some goods, necessitates) them buying a replacement.
In the second case, the trade off would also include brand risk, but in the world of Amazon and TEMU, you can just sell the same thing under a new random name, there is no brand identity.
Instead of growth and innovation, it’s how can the Company get recurring revenue after first sale.
The balance for the Company is finding a quality to price point ratio where either 1) the customer doesn’t care if it breaks because it was cheap and they know it’s cheap or 2) it’s cheap and breaks but the utility of it to the customer warrants (or with some goods, necessitates) them buying a replacement.
In the second case, the trade off would also include brand risk, but in the world of Amazon and TEMU, you can just sell the same thing under a new random name, there is no brand identity.
You make my comment's point without realizing, emphasizing my point.
> a simplification and a cop-out
a simplification and a cop-out of what? blake, i am writing a hn comment and not an academic textbook
> This is across the board in all of society
ok but the article is largely about physical goods, that's what we're talking about
> I believe the reason being that people, in general and enmass, are not being taught how to live with active critical analysis
lmao i clicked on your bio and just knew i'd see MBA in there. maybe there's something that has happened to institutions that do this teaching. maybe it's because they, too, have mastered business administration
a simplification and a cop-out of what? blake, i am writing a hn comment and not an academic textbook
> This is across the board in all of society
ok but the article is largely about physical goods, that's what we're talking about
> I believe the reason being that people, in general and enmass, are not being taught how to live with active critical analysis
lmao i clicked on your bio and just knew i'd see MBA in there. maybe there's something that has happened to institutions that do this teaching. maybe it's because they, too, have mastered business administration
I've got multiple degrees, and the presence of an MBA invalidates my opinion?
I'm serious when I say this is not just "MBA think", this is everywhere. People are being short sighted. People are not thinking things logically through, and this is widespread.
Yes, we're talking physical goods. Items where short sighted thinking destroys brands, exactly what the original post discusses. It's too easy to just blame the MBAs. This is a widespread issue that is not just in physical goods, it is at the core of what is required to sustain democracy - a critical thinking population. We've educationally failed the population en mass by not having education verticals that stress perspective. We only teach short term perspectives as meaningful and worth action, and all this is coming home, today.
Those that should be able to talk sense in the critically short sighted decision makers have not been taught how to make their points and be understood. That is real, and widespread. Continue to label the cliche and get no where. We need to recognize this critical failure, because it is destroying one hell of a lot of foundation we need.
I'm serious when I say this is not just "MBA think", this is everywhere. People are being short sighted. People are not thinking things logically through, and this is widespread.
Yes, we're talking physical goods. Items where short sighted thinking destroys brands, exactly what the original post discusses. It's too easy to just blame the MBAs. This is a widespread issue that is not just in physical goods, it is at the core of what is required to sustain democracy - a critical thinking population. We've educationally failed the population en mass by not having education verticals that stress perspective. We only teach short term perspectives as meaningful and worth action, and all this is coming home, today.
Those that should be able to talk sense in the critically short sighted decision makers have not been taught how to make their points and be understood. That is real, and widespread. Continue to label the cliche and get no where. We need to recognize this critical failure, because it is destroying one hell of a lot of foundation we need.
You're getting downvoted because a huge chunk of HN spends their 9-5 making things worse with a fuggit attitude because that's what their KPIs incentivize.
Those MBAs didn't come out of nowhere. They answer to C suites who answer to boards. They have to weigh their decisions against the cost of customer attitudes and employee morale. The fact that we get the outcomes we do indicate this is a top to bottom societal problem.
Those MBAs didn't come out of nowhere. They answer to C suites who answer to boards. They have to weigh their decisions against the cost of customer attitudes and employee morale. The fact that we get the outcomes we do indicate this is a top to bottom societal problem.
The economics are simple when you know and understand the main driver, but its inconvenient, and there are entities that want it hidden, because you have bad people doing bad things, and wanting to hide those things, and historically leftist leaning places/people do all of the above to a greater or lesser degree rather then engaging in actual truth telling.
The simple fact, that will probably get your post downvoted to remove from view, is this reduction of quality is driven by fiat money-printing.
It may be non-reserve issued debt (Basel3), or government subsidy, or contract. There are many sources, laundered, and the economy for the most part today has been silently nationalized, which is why it fails. Bailout is required to overcome the end of the boom/bust cycle and continue forward for a time thereafter, it happens cyclically (a true-up, the difference between actual production and fraud/loss) and it requires exponential amounts each time which are taken from every person holding money. There have been at least 4 instances that I can see where this has happened since the 1970s changeover to fiat (de-peg from gold/petrodollar).
The inflation/debasement in purchasing power causes companies to debase their product, to keep up with the escalator of inflation to continue on moving forward. This is worsened when you have foreign entities using slave labor through controlling their own currency, to destroy domestic business; such as manufacturing over a long period of time.
There is obviously an objective point where eventually that can't continue, because the economics of money-printing fail, but that point is what many leftists knowingly or unknowingly aim for; the ones that know just don't want others to know the emperor has new clothes because knowing and communication of that knowledge allows reaction and adaption, and there are some people who believe if an individual can't express words, or convey meaning, then that negative behavior associated with that conveyance (in their deeply flawed perspective) doesn't exist, and they can make people better that way.
The strategy for doing this is through sieving and concentration of resources into fewer and fewer hands, while retaining control of such resources. The lead market players today based in money-printing can control and continue operating because of their preferential banking ties, while competitors cannot enter or compete in the market because the market no longer meets the conditions of a market. Namely adversarial price discovery which requires visibility, and non-cooperation. Money-printing/banking isn't given for free, it forces many entities to cooperate; and adversarial independent decisionmaking is needed for economic calculation. Mises wrote about this extensively in broad strokes. There are quite a large number of impossible hysteresis problems that mark the system the boomer's pivoted to as unsustainable, hyperbolic, and inevitably fails to impossible to solve hysteresis problems (where knowledge of a state needed to react doesn't provide sufficient time to change course because the effects precede that knowledge).
Artificial distortions, trending towards chaos will grow and self-sustain, eventually causing whipsaws that cause it to fail, but that takes time since the point of failure is stage 3 ponzi, where monetary properties lose all value seemingly overnight. Where objectively, outflows exceed inflows.
This is what also drives enshitiffication, why the business growth curve is an S adoption curve (following ponzi), and the inevitability of consolidation/hostile takeover.
The leftist connection is the strategy of sieving, you have to concentrate wealth in few hands first before you can seize it from those hands, and this is what the Fed has been doing. A gradual fabian-based induction to non-market socialism, while ensuring the political power base remains through bad actors that call out other bad actors decrying the public, and others in the group instigating and inducing bad actions while undermining, subverting, and making the resilient system brittle, at every point. Destroying the rule of law through shock doctrine and demoralization up to just prior to bringing it to crisis for the seizure, and re-normalization where either a socialist/communist takeover occurs, or when that fails; a rise of fascism to power. The same regime-change plan that all governments use (give or take). Also, the same driving dynamics that led to Hitler's rise to power.
Jamming communications so people don't catch on and can't react is part of that plan, which is why you have so many bots running around, and the platforms are complicit with the same people as those who want to enable this. Jamming doesn't work without the plausible deniability of karma systems that allow the platforms to grant moderator powers to a large group of sockpuppet accounts (sybil attacks), controlled by a surreptitious moderator. Who may also utilizes many psychological blindspots we all have to manipulate, and damage readers through structured distortion of reflected appraisal (or narrative control, memetics, or belief contagion to the layman, which includes Le Bon's works as a basis).
People are easily manipulated when they don't know the mechanism behind the how. Cialdini in his book Influence touch on the foundations, except reflected appraisal, but to understand distorted reflected appraisal you have to understand how torture works, and what it is really, and if you knew you would see it in almost everything today.
Torture is the structured imposition of psychological stress in sufficient exposure to cause involuntary hypnosis.
Your stated suspicion is a well crafted induction of a common lie that's been repeated so many times, many believe its truth, but it fails under close objective examination.
If the lie were true, you would have competitors coming into the market, and staying in the market; but its not because of the asymmetrical connection to a money printer; directly or indirectly.
Lowering prices below market value to drive competitor companies out of business has occurred in many places where a leveraged buyout or hostile takeover wasn't possible.
You need to operate on debt to compete, but in so doing you become food for takeover, until the parasitic nature has nothing left to eat. That hasn't happened yet, but its probably going to happen in our lifetime. These dynamics in the historic lifecycle is what is driving the adoption towards BRICS, and the chaos we see everywhere.
Eventually you get to a point where everything breaks, and you've been trapped by decisions your parents or grandparents generation chose through aggregate.
Decisions that result in worsening conditions, and your and your family; and their children's futures, being collapse into violent law of nature, or submission to enslavement and a life of suffering before death.
Either result in a loss of control from the choice upfront, that decreases until a point of no return, after which the dynamics cannot be stopped, but you can get out of the way, it just requires a ruthlessness, education, and knowledge that has been deprived from nearly everyone raised in recent generations today. Lone wolves die because they are weak, the movies promoting this concept are (5GW).
The simple fact, that will probably get your post downvoted to remove from view, is this reduction of quality is driven by fiat money-printing.
It may be non-reserve issued debt (Basel3), or government subsidy, or contract. There are many sources, laundered, and the economy for the most part today has been silently nationalized, which is why it fails. Bailout is required to overcome the end of the boom/bust cycle and continue forward for a time thereafter, it happens cyclically (a true-up, the difference between actual production and fraud/loss) and it requires exponential amounts each time which are taken from every person holding money. There have been at least 4 instances that I can see where this has happened since the 1970s changeover to fiat (de-peg from gold/petrodollar).
The inflation/debasement in purchasing power causes companies to debase their product, to keep up with the escalator of inflation to continue on moving forward. This is worsened when you have foreign entities using slave labor through controlling their own currency, to destroy domestic business; such as manufacturing over a long period of time.
There is obviously an objective point where eventually that can't continue, because the economics of money-printing fail, but that point is what many leftists knowingly or unknowingly aim for; the ones that know just don't want others to know the emperor has new clothes because knowing and communication of that knowledge allows reaction and adaption, and there are some people who believe if an individual can't express words, or convey meaning, then that negative behavior associated with that conveyance (in their deeply flawed perspective) doesn't exist, and they can make people better that way.
The strategy for doing this is through sieving and concentration of resources into fewer and fewer hands, while retaining control of such resources. The lead market players today based in money-printing can control and continue operating because of their preferential banking ties, while competitors cannot enter or compete in the market because the market no longer meets the conditions of a market. Namely adversarial price discovery which requires visibility, and non-cooperation. Money-printing/banking isn't given for free, it forces many entities to cooperate; and adversarial independent decisionmaking is needed for economic calculation. Mises wrote about this extensively in broad strokes. There are quite a large number of impossible hysteresis problems that mark the system the boomer's pivoted to as unsustainable, hyperbolic, and inevitably fails to impossible to solve hysteresis problems (where knowledge of a state needed to react doesn't provide sufficient time to change course because the effects precede that knowledge).
Artificial distortions, trending towards chaos will grow and self-sustain, eventually causing whipsaws that cause it to fail, but that takes time since the point of failure is stage 3 ponzi, where monetary properties lose all value seemingly overnight. Where objectively, outflows exceed inflows.
This is what also drives enshitiffication, why the business growth curve is an S adoption curve (following ponzi), and the inevitability of consolidation/hostile takeover.
The leftist connection is the strategy of sieving, you have to concentrate wealth in few hands first before you can seize it from those hands, and this is what the Fed has been doing. A gradual fabian-based induction to non-market socialism, while ensuring the political power base remains through bad actors that call out other bad actors decrying the public, and others in the group instigating and inducing bad actions while undermining, subverting, and making the resilient system brittle, at every point. Destroying the rule of law through shock doctrine and demoralization up to just prior to bringing it to crisis for the seizure, and re-normalization where either a socialist/communist takeover occurs, or when that fails; a rise of fascism to power. The same regime-change plan that all governments use (give or take). Also, the same driving dynamics that led to Hitler's rise to power.
Jamming communications so people don't catch on and can't react is part of that plan, which is why you have so many bots running around, and the platforms are complicit with the same people as those who want to enable this. Jamming doesn't work without the plausible deniability of karma systems that allow the platforms to grant moderator powers to a large group of sockpuppet accounts (sybil attacks), controlled by a surreptitious moderator. Who may also utilizes many psychological blindspots we all have to manipulate, and damage readers through structured distortion of reflected appraisal (or narrative control, memetics, or belief contagion to the layman, which includes Le Bon's works as a basis).
People are easily manipulated when they don't know the mechanism behind the how. Cialdini in his book Influence touch on the foundations, except reflected appraisal, but to understand distorted reflected appraisal you have to understand how torture works, and what it is really, and if you knew you would see it in almost everything today.
Torture is the structured imposition of psychological stress in sufficient exposure to cause involuntary hypnosis.
Your stated suspicion is a well crafted induction of a common lie that's been repeated so many times, many believe its truth, but it fails under close objective examination.
If the lie were true, you would have competitors coming into the market, and staying in the market; but its not because of the asymmetrical connection to a money printer; directly or indirectly.
Lowering prices below market value to drive competitor companies out of business has occurred in many places where a leveraged buyout or hostile takeover wasn't possible.
You need to operate on debt to compete, but in so doing you become food for takeover, until the parasitic nature has nothing left to eat. That hasn't happened yet, but its probably going to happen in our lifetime. These dynamics in the historic lifecycle is what is driving the adoption towards BRICS, and the chaos we see everywhere.
Eventually you get to a point where everything breaks, and you've been trapped by decisions your parents or grandparents generation chose through aggregate.
Decisions that result in worsening conditions, and your and your family; and their children's futures, being collapse into violent law of nature, or submission to enslavement and a life of suffering before death.
Either result in a loss of control from the choice upfront, that decreases until a point of no return, after which the dynamics cannot be stopped, but you can get out of the way, it just requires a ruthlessness, education, and knowledge that has been deprived from nearly everyone raised in recent generations today. Lone wolves die because they are weak, the movies promoting this concept are (5GW).
Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/even-with-fees-the-miracle-of...
Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands. There’s now cheap and expensive Nike ranges, for example, where there used to be only the quality expensive tier.
But if you look at the cost of, say, quality furniture today and adjust for inflation, it’s going to be around the same as quality furniture 50 years ago. We just have the choice to pay a lot less for much worse now.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/even-with-fees-the-miracle-of...
Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands. There’s now cheap and expensive Nike ranges, for example, where there used to be only the quality expensive tier.
But if you look at the cost of, say, quality furniture today and adjust for inflation, it’s going to be around the same as quality furniture 50 years ago. We just have the choice to pay a lot less for much worse now.
> I'm not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands.
I think this needs to be repeated. People tend to think more expensive equals higher quality (I want this to be true!), and I think brands frequently take advantage of that to increase margins without significantly increasing quality.
For example: I've been through three or four pairs of my $180 Sony link buds hitting various issues before giving up on them entirely. Meanwhile, my $5 Auki bluetooth earbuds keep on chugging.
I think this needs to be repeated. People tend to think more expensive equals higher quality (I want this to be true!), and I think brands frequently take advantage of that to increase margins without significantly increasing quality.
For example: I've been through three or four pairs of my $180 Sony link buds hitting various issues before giving up on them entirely. Meanwhile, my $5 Auki bluetooth earbuds keep on chugging.
Along that line of thought I've noticed this recently:
I can buy an expensive tool for say $200 that will last me 10 years. Or I can buy a cheap tool that costs $20 but will only last me two years. But if I want to use that tool for the duration of 10 years it then makes more sense to buy five of the cheap tool and save half in costs. Which one is really providing more quality over time?
For some things this doesn't hold at all, the cheap entry level offerings just don't get the job done or break relatively immediately, but for others the premium offer doesn't really improve a whole lot over the cheapest.
I can buy an expensive tool for say $200 that will last me 10 years. Or I can buy a cheap tool that costs $20 but will only last me two years. But if I want to use that tool for the duration of 10 years it then makes more sense to buy five of the cheap tool and save half in costs. Which one is really providing more quality over time?
For some things this doesn't hold at all, the cheap entry level offerings just don't get the job done or break relatively immediately, but for others the premium offer doesn't really improve a whole lot over the cheapest.
Some tools are much easier to use if you spend more money, I’ve compared a Harbor Freight oscillating multi-tool against a Fein and the Fein is so much more usable due to less vibration in the tool body that the Harbor Freight version is almost useless in comparison.
Air compressors are another one where spending money vastly improves usability, the more you spend the quieter the compressor pump motor is.
Makita’s portaband only lasts ~10 cuts before the blade falls off, Milwaukee’s portaband blades don’t fall off ever. I run electrical work and my guys cost $100-130/hr, I’d rather have them spend time cutting conduit and strut with a functional tool than replacing blades on a cheaper version.
I’ll grant that professional tool and homeowner tool usage patterns differ greatly, but sometimes it is worth spending the extra money.
Air compressors are another one where spending money vastly improves usability, the more you spend the quieter the compressor pump motor is.
Makita’s portaband only lasts ~10 cuts before the blade falls off, Milwaukee’s portaband blades don’t fall off ever. I run electrical work and my guys cost $100-130/hr, I’d rather have them spend time cutting conduit and strut with a functional tool than replacing blades on a cheaper version.
I’ll grant that professional tool and homeowner tool usage patterns differ greatly, but sometimes it is worth spending the extra money.
Very good perspective but I think that there is also a cost or loss of value in the inconvenience of a tool of good stopping its function at the wrong time.
The opposite can also be true, that it is sometimes convenient that something breaks down because I actually wanted this new model anyway but could not justify throwing away a perfectly fine good.
That, and the cognitive load. You need to buy the right amount, remember where you stored the $5 replacements, or else spend $100 worth of your time to figure out where you ordered from five years ago. And if they are no longer available you need time to figure out which of the replacements isn't total crap.
Does the tool degrade gradually over time or is it sudden? If the former, you're much better off over the 10 year span with the high quality tool, because the time you spend dealing with its degraded performance is much less. IME it's almost always better to go for a high quality, old, used tool than to buy a low quality new one. Usually the wear parts are replaceable or rebuildable as well.
Your comment is just nit picking. Point was there's a lot of situations where the math hugely favors the cheap tool.
Used tools of the brands that anyone screeching about nice tools would consider to be of repute are going to generally be priced at equivalent to new tools of unknown brand. Specialty tools frequently aren't available on the used market.
Anything that spins or plugs into the wall tends to be finicky after decades of prior owner abuse and if you're not in a commercial setting (and even a lot of times if you are) it makes more sense to just buy new cheap stuff because then using your tools won't be a project by itself.
I've got like three people's worth of used tools from various sources because you can never have too many and I never throw stuff out but they are not the outstanding value the Garage Journal forum or Reddit type "polish my wrenches more than I use them" crowd makes them out to be.
Used tools of the brands that anyone screeching about nice tools would consider to be of repute are going to generally be priced at equivalent to new tools of unknown brand. Specialty tools frequently aren't available on the used market.
Anything that spins or plugs into the wall tends to be finicky after decades of prior owner abuse and if you're not in a commercial setting (and even a lot of times if you are) it makes more sense to just buy new cheap stuff because then using your tools won't be a project by itself.
I've got like three people's worth of used tools from various sources because you can never have too many and I never throw stuff out but they are not the outstanding value the Garage Journal forum or Reddit type "polish my wrenches more than I use them" crowd makes them out to be.
I can't think of a single case where it has actually been true that the cheaper tool was better somehow apart from jackstands. I got some pretty decent 6 ton jackstands from harbor freight. Don't know that i'd actually trust them to hold 6 tons though. Shop press? Not really. Had to put a bunch of time and money into it to make it halfway decent. Should have just gotten a good one. For power hand tools I have all Makita stuff either bought new or remanufactured, wouldn't go near harbor freight for that stuff. My welder is a Miller, wouldn't dream of going with off brand stuff there. Torches however are northern tool (i think?) victor knockoffs which are ok apart from the orings, hoses, and regulators... should have just gone for the quality tool to start would have been cheaper in the long run. My machine tools are all antiques and work outstandingly well. Literally irreplaceable--could not buy something new that does the same job.
I guess all that is to say in my experience the cheap crap breaks and ends up being more expensive either in opportunity cost or cost of replacement/modification.
I guess all that is to say in my experience the cheap crap breaks and ends up being more expensive either in opportunity cost or cost of replacement/modification.
Depends on the failure mode I guess (if it explodes and hurts you, that could get expensive). Plus, you have to factor in 5 more trips to the store.
Even if it simply damages your work that's a considerable downside.
I do not buy cheap tools unless they are for a dedicated, simple purpose. (Such as the sockets that live in the car to permit me to install a battery.)
I do not buy cheap tools unless they are for a dedicated, simple purpose. (Such as the sockets that live in the car to permit me to install a battery.)
This is true, and in general people are usually financially better of getting cheap stuff and replacing it. But a lot of us like getting hobbyist stuff just because it's more fun. I have an expensive espresso machine because it's more fun than a standard breville machine or just making a pot of coffee. It's certainly not more economical, even though coffee nerds will try to convince (rather gaslight) themselves into thinking so.
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The main problem is that the average person has no way to evaluate quality. The closest most people get is heaver == built better (which is probably a correlation overall, but not that accurate for any two random products). At the extreme end of this you have companies putting little steel plates into things they want to appear higher quality.
How can consumers evaluate how robustly some Bluetooth firmware is written, if the product is actually durable or if some USB charger actually accurately follows the specification? For most cases there is no way to know. The best route for the average consumer is to find a review by and expert, but these are very rare (experts with the required skills can often find better jobs than reviewing) and they are more likely to find paid marketing which just misleads.
So we do end up the case that the only real metrics the user has is price and brand. Many formerly reputable brands have also started rebadging cheep crap so that works less often then you would hope. And while good products often can't be cheep, it is now common to see cheep crap sold at higher prices to seem premium.
So at the end of the day the consumer has really no way to judge product quality. So the market has very little incentive to actually provide quality.
How can consumers evaluate how robustly some Bluetooth firmware is written, if the product is actually durable or if some USB charger actually accurately follows the specification? For most cases there is no way to know. The best route for the average consumer is to find a review by and expert, but these are very rare (experts with the required skills can often find better jobs than reviewing) and they are more likely to find paid marketing which just misleads.
So we do end up the case that the only real metrics the user has is price and brand. Many formerly reputable brands have also started rebadging cheep crap so that works less often then you would hope. And while good products often can't be cheep, it is now common to see cheep crap sold at higher prices to seem premium.
So at the end of the day the consumer has really no way to judge product quality. So the market has very little incentive to actually provide quality.
That reminds me a bit of The Market for Lemons.
I mean you've just described why people pay the Apple premium. Their stuff is mostly going to work and work well.
Yes. They are one of the few examples of a brand that for most aspects of the word have kept quality up.
Expensive does mean higher quality if you know the right brands to pick*. Case in point, $180 for Sony Link Buds is pretty bad deal! There are much better options at the same price range like Apple Airpods, Samsung's AKG tuned Galaxy Buds or the higher end Sony XM4s or XM5.
Obviously there are many companies that do rely on branding to jack up prices like Beats or Marshal. But there are also companies that do no to little marketing and instead focus on craftsmanship where the majority of the cost is going into higher quality experience. And in those segments there isn't really some magical way to reduce costs. Akko is getting pretty popular, but their high-end IEMs like the Obsidian are still going to be in the same price-range as Sennheisers or AKG.
Obviously there are many companies that do rely on branding to jack up prices like Beats or Marshal. But there are also companies that do no to little marketing and instead focus on craftsmanship where the majority of the cost is going into higher quality experience. And in those segments there isn't really some magical way to reduce costs. Akko is getting pretty popular, but their high-end IEMs like the Obsidian are still going to be in the same price-range as Sennheisers or AKG.
>Expensive does mean higher quality if you know the right brands to pick
<laughs in Toyota turbo-4cyl that can't stay together for a laundry list of reasons>
You can't base decision on brand, no matter ho much a bunch of screeching morons on the internet tell you you can. You have to also consider how much the company cares about the product line, how core the product line is to the company, where in the lifecycle it is, etc, etc. The brands that people herald as good are very capable of phoning it in or whoring themselves around. Kitchen-aid slaps their name on all sorts of garbage outside the core products they built their name on, to pick one example of the latter. And the brands that people herald as bad are very capable of producing very good stuff when the incentives align.
<laughs in Toyota turbo-4cyl that can't stay together for a laundry list of reasons>
You can't base decision on brand, no matter ho much a bunch of screeching morons on the internet tell you you can. You have to also consider how much the company cares about the product line, how core the product line is to the company, where in the lifecycle it is, etc, etc. The brands that people herald as good are very capable of phoning it in or whoring themselves around. Kitchen-aid slaps their name on all sorts of garbage outside the core products they built their name on, to pick one example of the latter. And the brands that people herald as bad are very capable of producing very good stuff when the incentives align.
Bluetooth doesn’t follow the typical quality curve anyway, it is just random whether or not your devices like each other.
I bet the sound quality on the Sony buds was better.
I bet the sound quality on the Sony buds was better.
Depending on your use case, sound quality may be way down the line in importance. The earbuds I use on the subway don’t need to be high quality. Anything better than AM radio will do the job.
Anything without ANC is basically unusable, and better ANC (which usually correlates with good sound quality) pretty noticeably improves your experience on the subway.
Yeah, probably. At least until the Sony's break down and start sounding like trash.
But, to be honest, I do more audiobooks and podcasts than I do music, so the audio quality was not the top reason I picked them. The link buds have a fairly unique design with a 2~3 mm hole in the middle of the earbuds that lets outside sound in. I like it a lot better than any active transparency mode I've ever tried. They also have much better controls than any other earbuds I've tried.
The problem with the Sony's is that they either get something messed up inside the speaker and start sounding like crap at medium to high volume, or the case's open/closed sensor breaks and they wake up and start discharging in the case, and then they're dead by the time I try to use them.
I occasionally try watching videos on my phone, but the latency that Bluetooth adds throws me off, so I don't really enjoy anything with dialogue because the lips are moving out of sync with the words. I've tried lots of different Bluetooth earbuds - from Sony, Aukey, Jlab, even the "gamer" ones from razr - and all of them seem to have noticeable amounts of latency.
I'm not sure if I'm more sensitive to it than most people or they're just all shit, but the latency is the big reason that I'm annoyed that nearly all the manufacturers removed headphones jacks from flagship phones. (Sony actually deserves some credit here, I think their flagship Xperia phone still include a headphone jack and a MicroSD slot!)
But, to be honest, I do more audiobooks and podcasts than I do music, so the audio quality was not the top reason I picked them. The link buds have a fairly unique design with a 2~3 mm hole in the middle of the earbuds that lets outside sound in. I like it a lot better than any active transparency mode I've ever tried. They also have much better controls than any other earbuds I've tried.
The problem with the Sony's is that they either get something messed up inside the speaker and start sounding like crap at medium to high volume, or the case's open/closed sensor breaks and they wake up and start discharging in the case, and then they're dead by the time I try to use them.
I occasionally try watching videos on my phone, but the latency that Bluetooth adds throws me off, so I don't really enjoy anything with dialogue because the lips are moving out of sync with the words. I've tried lots of different Bluetooth earbuds - from Sony, Aukey, Jlab, even the "gamer" ones from razr - and all of them seem to have noticeable amounts of latency.
I'm not sure if I'm more sensitive to it than most people or they're just all shit, but the latency is the big reason that I'm annoyed that nearly all the manufacturers removed headphones jacks from flagship phones. (Sony actually deserves some credit here, I think their flagship Xperia phone still include a headphone jack and a MicroSD slot!)
I haven't specifically tested it, but my $50 "Backbay Tempo" earbuds have a low-latency "Movie Mode" that sacrifices range to I think buffer sound for ~0 latency.
same here, i have been through several €50 Braun stabmixers which kept dying on me, the €8 no name one has now been working for over 10 years
> Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes.
I don't think you actually can get the same quality, today. Even if you are paying more. The spacing of seats has changed. [0] You can pay more and get something more than you had by going up classes, but the same experience no longer exists.
[0] https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/airline-seats-are-t...
I don't think you actually can get the same quality, today. Even if you are paying more. The spacing of seats has changed. [0] You can pay more and get something more than you had by going up classes, but the same experience no longer exists.
[0] https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/airline-seats-are-t...
I think it might in other countries. JAL is an example where I felt they had a great economy class experience. Excellent food and service. Great legroom. I am average height male and can fully stretch out my legs.
Yes, basically nothing stays the exact same quality over time. But if you can get better quality and worse quality that kinda obviates the OP's point.
http://jsx.com is a tiny carrier flying out of only a handful of cities in the US, but it's basically a quarter step towards during private. They have their own terminals and all of their planes are smaller but the seats themselves are bigger.
> Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes.
I wish that were my experience as well. However, I've found that most brands simply add a huge markup for their name while investing very little into quality. As a result, you end up paying three times the price for just 20% better quality.
When it comes to electronics, I feel like I can judge that for myself, and my gut feeling about clothing was confirmed after falling down a YouTube rabbit hole of "clothing teardowns."
I wish that were my experience as well. However, I've found that most brands simply add a huge markup for their name while investing very little into quality. As a result, you end up paying three times the price for just 20% better quality.
When it comes to electronics, I feel like I can judge that for myself, and my gut feeling about clothing was confirmed after falling down a YouTube rabbit hole of "clothing teardowns."
I don't disagree with your point, but I suppose my wish then is that there were not low-quality (low-cost) everything in the world right now.
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I'm not unsympathetic regarding the poor, I grew up poor myself. And my single working mother raising two kids got by on hand-me-down furniture from her mother (probably, as you and the article suggest, of decent quality though).
Having the option for (new) inexpensive everything allows us to accept low-quality; even encourages it (as has been pointed out, there's a Dopamine hit from purchasing a new thing … I don't know if the same rush comes from purchasing a used piece of furniture from a Goodwill — I suspect though it does somewhat). And, as we know, the landfills, oceans, become the destination for all this consumption.
I admit that I am surprised that I am finding myself wishing that we, the Western world, were poorer again. It seems though that manufacturing has caught up to (down to?) the ability to provide new crap for us even if we were poorer.
One wonders what the Great Depression would resemble in the 21st Century. Would we still have the latest, but crappy, gadgets and such? I sure can't imagine new car sales would not be seriously impacted.
</ramble>
<ramble>
I'm not unsympathetic regarding the poor, I grew up poor myself. And my single working mother raising two kids got by on hand-me-down furniture from her mother (probably, as you and the article suggest, of decent quality though).
Having the option for (new) inexpensive everything allows us to accept low-quality; even encourages it (as has been pointed out, there's a Dopamine hit from purchasing a new thing … I don't know if the same rush comes from purchasing a used piece of furniture from a Goodwill — I suspect though it does somewhat). And, as we know, the landfills, oceans, become the destination for all this consumption.
I admit that I am surprised that I am finding myself wishing that we, the Western world, were poorer again. It seems though that manufacturing has caught up to (down to?) the ability to provide new crap for us even if we were poorer.
One wonders what the Great Depression would resemble in the 21st Century. Would we still have the latest, but crappy, gadgets and such? I sure can't imagine new car sales would not be seriously impacted.
</ramble>
> I admit that I am surprised that I am finding myself wishing that we, the Western world, were poorer again.
Luxury belief.
Doesn’t it feel a little suspicious that the only people to ever say “we should become poorer” are people from rich countries where even the poor can afford cars and gadgets? Go to the countries actually manufacturing your goods and ask the average factory worker if he wants to be poor and prepare to get flipped off.
Luxury belief.
Doesn’t it feel a little suspicious that the only people to ever say “we should become poorer” are people from rich countries where even the poor can afford cars and gadgets? Go to the countries actually manufacturing your goods and ask the average factory worker if he wants to be poor and prepare to get flipped off.
On a gdp scale, basically every country on earth is "poorer" than the united states. As you point out, even the poor in America can own cars and tvs and smartphones.
But if you visit any of these other countries you can often be shocked by how much they accomplish with so little. Vastly better standards of customer service, much higher quality public transportation systems, and they often have cheap quality goods and services which compromise in the right areas instead of being so crappy as to basically be a scam
But if you visit any of these other countries you can often be shocked by how much they accomplish with so little. Vastly better standards of customer service, much higher quality public transportation systems, and they often have cheap quality goods and services which compromise in the right areas instead of being so crappy as to basically be a scam
Poorer than average American != poor in 3rd world country.
These words sound similar but mean vastly different things. Poor people in 3rd world countries need more income, not a larger quantity of cheap T shirts.
These words sound similar but mean vastly different things. Poor people in 3rd world countries need more income, not a larger quantity of cheap T shirts.
> Luxury belief.
Sure.
But I've lived on both sides though and think we've gone too far to the other end of the spectrum.
Sure.
But I've lived on both sides though and think we've gone too far to the other end of the spectrum.
It's great having the option for cheap, low-quality stuff. If I need some oddball tool for a home improvement project then I can just buy the crap at Harbor Freight. If it breaks after a few uses then so what, I won't need it again anyway.
Exactly. I needed an angle grinder for one specific use. I bought the cheapest model from HF and then threw it in my garage to sit. 15 years later I needed it again. It did the job. No reason to buy the higher end model.
I did spend the extra to buy better quality wheels though.
I did spend the extra to buy better quality wheels though.
I wouldn't knock Harbor Freight.
I bought a screwdriver at Home Depot, and screw stripped the screwdriver! I returned it and bought the same type of screwdriver at Harbor Freight and it's been great.
The only product in Harbor Freight that I haven't liked so far, was their moving blankets - very thin.
I bought a screwdriver at Home Depot, and screw stripped the screwdriver! I returned it and bought the same type of screwdriver at Harbor Freight and it's been great.
The only product in Harbor Freight that I haven't liked so far, was their moving blankets - very thin.
Yeah, fuck the externalities
What are you proposing as an alternative? Spend a fortune on a high quality tool, and then either have it sitting in my garage unused for years or waste a bunch of time trying to sell it online?
Tool rental is a thing (I don't imagine many people own their own cement mixer for example.)
I recall my grandfather having (decent) tools sitting in his garage. Neighbors/relatives often borrowed tools in those days.
To be a little more nuanced though, some tools don't benefit from "quality" versions. Perhaps an angle grinder is a good example. (The consumable grinding disk is probably the place not to cheap-out.) Maybe the cheap one is fine.
But other tools, like a wood plane, you're going to have a bad time if you cheap out on those and wind up with steel that doesn't hold an edge for example.
(Though I kind of wouldn't want to loan out a nice hand plane of mine to someone that might not worry as much as me about hitting a nail in a board they're planing.)
I recall my grandfather having (decent) tools sitting in his garage. Neighbors/relatives often borrowed tools in those days.
To be a little more nuanced though, some tools don't benefit from "quality" versions. Perhaps an angle grinder is a good example. (The consumable grinding disk is probably the place not to cheap-out.) Maybe the cheap one is fine.
But other tools, like a wood plane, you're going to have a bad time if you cheap out on those and wind up with steel that doesn't hold an edge for example.
(Though I kind of wouldn't want to loan out a nice hand plane of mine to someone that might not worry as much as me about hitting a nail in a board they're planing.)
Tool rental is barely a thing. And then only for larger tools. I've done that before for larger items like extension ladders and air compressors but for smaller stuff no one actually rents those. If I need to plane one piece of wood then I'll buy the cheap tool. Good enough.
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Borrow, rent, pay someone else to do it, or throw your hands up in the air when you've tried nothing, are all out of ideas, and fuck the externalities.
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I think that if we fully incorporate all the environmental costs of production into the end prices of customer goods, we will become poorer, at least in the short run.
In the long run, that could actually spur some development re cheap and safe energy etc.
In the long run, that could actually spur some development re cheap and safe energy etc.
Poorer in terms of $ accounting. Perhaps richer in terms of health, happiness, and the environment.
Given how much money people are spending on the latter things I think becoming $ poorer might be the cheapest way of getting healthier and happier.
Given how much money people are spending on the latter things I think becoming $ poorer might be the cheapest way of getting healthier and happier.
Possibly. Human happiness is complicated and rarely conforms to what it theoretically ought to.
> One wonders what the Great Depression would resemble in the 21st Century. Would we still have the latest, but crappy, gadgets and such
Think Star Wars. Live in a hovel, but have some magic gadgets.
Think Star Wars. Live in a hovel, but have some magic gadgets.
Much of the third world lives this way today. Atrocious living conditions but society runs on their personal cell phones. A cell phone can be more important in poorer parts of Asia than it is in the US.
> I’m not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality
I think that hints at part of the real problem: humans have very little ability to judge the quality of products. Marketing departments are very good at cosplaying quality. "Awards" on things like wine only tell you the manufacturer paid the owner of the trademark some money. Reviews are often fake or at least paid for by the manufacturer.
With price also not being a meaningful quality signal you're left with a choice: Buy the expensive product hoping the quality reflects the price, or buy the cheap product knowing the quality is probably not great, but at least you didn't spend a lot of money on something that isn't worth it.
I think that hints at part of the real problem: humans have very little ability to judge the quality of products. Marketing departments are very good at cosplaying quality. "Awards" on things like wine only tell you the manufacturer paid the owner of the trademark some money. Reviews are often fake or at least paid for by the manufacturer.
With price also not being a meaningful quality signal you're left with a choice: Buy the expensive product hoping the quality reflects the price, or buy the cheap product knowing the quality is probably not great, but at least you didn't spend a lot of money on something that isn't worth it.
I’ve just learned to discern quality better. For clothes, I learned from a friend who designs them how to tell fabric quality and seam quality. But there’s online resources to learn that as well. For electronics it can be hard but if I can’t tell from first principles and my knowledge of electronics design I’ll research brands via online reviews and tear-downs. Eventually you get a pretty good “instinct” that makes it less tedious.
> Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands.
Electric Kettles - Microwaves. The components that make up the actual boiling of water are now standard and all come from the same chinese manufacturer. You can pay $20 to $1000 for the same thing. The expensive one will look much better. Microwaves are the same - large numbers of manufacturers to all the same guts just different skins.
Retail clothing is the most obvious example. There used to be mid market clothing manufacturers that would produce clothing locally and try to compete on quality. That’s almost gone now. There’s just not enough demand.
Electric Kettles - Microwaves. The components that make up the actual boiling of water are now standard and all come from the same chinese manufacturer. You can pay $20 to $1000 for the same thing. The expensive one will look much better. Microwaves are the same - large numbers of manufacturers to all the same guts just different skins.
Retail clothing is the most obvious example. There used to be mid market clothing manufacturers that would produce clothing locally and try to compete on quality. That’s almost gone now. There’s just not enough demand.
My electric kettle may use the same basic heating components as most cheaper ones, but I paid extra to get one where the entire container is one piece metal — practically a tall cooking pot with a heater element built in under it, a water safe connector to a base station that’s connected to power, and a handle and lid.
It’s easier to clean, has no plastic in contact with the water, and has so far lasted me 14 years. It cost 800 NOK instead of the ~400 for a typical plastic one. But due to my experience with those in the past, I’d say absolutely worth it.
It’s easier to clean, has no plastic in contact with the water, and has so far lasted me 14 years. It cost 800 NOK instead of the ~400 for a typical plastic one. But due to my experience with those in the past, I’d say absolutely worth it.
Disagree. Panasonic's Inverter technology is definitely superior in my book. Everybody else's units only operate at full power no matter what you select--20% power is really 100% power with a 20% duty cycle. This can produce uneven heat for short runs and means that the load on the circuit is the full draw of the machine--doesn't share a circuit with other power-hungry devices very well. But at low power the Panasonic is much more friendly with other devices.
Key point is for many their real wages have decreased, adjusted for inflation.
This is true but flawed. Think about the iPhone. If you wanted the model of today but 5 years ago, it would have cost you millions? If that’s even possible.
What you are saying will be correct if we had no technological advancement whatsoever. But we had significant advancement. Everything should, must, be better if we applied the same cost. But while that’s the case in some things, lots of things have degraded in different ways.
What you are saying will be correct if we had no technological advancement whatsoever. But we had significant advancement. Everything should, must, be better if we applied the same cost. But while that’s the case in some things, lots of things have degraded in different ways.
But I don't want the equivalent service. I want the cheapest ticket possible to get me from A to B. And apparently most people agree with me, or that's not what they would be selling. This is the opposite of a problem.
That’s why there’s now a broader quality spectrum of plane tickets.
I travel seldomly, but when I do I tend to buy business class, because I value the comfort of the journey more than the frequency of journeys. But most other people, including you, have other priorities. Which is why at least in this example I think it’s a market working well based on supply and demand.
I travel seldomly, but when I do I tend to buy business class, because I value the comfort of the journey more than the frequency of journeys. But most other people, including you, have other priorities. Which is why at least in this example I think it’s a market working well based on supply and demand.
Yeah, I agree, but what's the difference between that and any other product?
That is where they get you, higher priced goods with better wrapping but marginaly higher quality
caominhtuong(1)
"Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia."
This statement suffers from either viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses or from total cultural relativism in the most pejorative sense.
I'm not sure about 2003, but around 2009, I owned a Nokia N900, which was arguably the flagship Nokia phone at the time. I can confidently state that current iPhones are _way_ better than that phone. On paper, the N900 phone was amazing: it had GPS, Wi-Fi, multitasking, a camera, a touchscreen, and (!) a hardware keyboard, and more. It had a desktop-class browser, on paper. But nothing quite worked well. It was far too bloated for the hardware capabilities of the time. When you came home, it never damn switched properly to WiFi, or it took forever. The same applies to switching off WiFi and switching to cellular when you leave home. The GPS always took minutes to establish a location and easily lost connection due to small obstructions. I recall that I compared it to a friend's iPhone at the time; the N900's GPS was embarrassingly bad and slow.
I can confidently say that today's flagship iPhones (or even Androids) are significantly better quality than the N900, in every way possible.
This statement suffers from either viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses or from total cultural relativism in the most pejorative sense.
I'm not sure about 2003, but around 2009, I owned a Nokia N900, which was arguably the flagship Nokia phone at the time. I can confidently state that current iPhones are _way_ better than that phone. On paper, the N900 phone was amazing: it had GPS, Wi-Fi, multitasking, a camera, a touchscreen, and (!) a hardware keyboard, and more. It had a desktop-class browser, on paper. But nothing quite worked well. It was far too bloated for the hardware capabilities of the time. When you came home, it never damn switched properly to WiFi, or it took forever. The same applies to switching off WiFi and switching to cellular when you leave home. The GPS always took minutes to establish a location and easily lost connection due to small obstructions. I recall that I compared it to a friend's iPhone at the time; the N900's GPS was embarrassingly bad and slow.
I can confidently say that today's flagship iPhones (or even Androids) are significantly better quality than the N900, in every way possible.
I owned a Nokia in 2003. The battery lasted a week and they were virtually indestructible. The phone never crashed or reset, the keys were so reliable and well placed that I could text without looking at the screen. The phone did not get slower with age. None of these things can be said about my current smart phone. Granted it does a lot more, but the quality of the things it does do is much worse.
I bought my dad a Nokia phone in 2008. A dumb phone, with just texting and calling features. It continues to work to this day, so, 17 years (the markings on the buttons are fully erased now, other than that it works). It outlived him. I don't know how they managed to build stuff like that. I would expect some electronic part to fail sometime along the way.
Well, I can tell you how: rigorous testing.
I worked for Nokia (briefly, just before Eloppification) and I remember being told that when the iPhone launched everyone laughed because there was no way that the battery could last more than a day, there was no app store back then, no flash, no high-speed data (2G) and it failed every single one of the internal tests that Nokia had.
Yet, people didn’t care, obviously - and the iPhone is the model for nearly all phones today.
I get bent out of shape about this, the same way I get bent out of shape about the death of small phones and modular laptops; but people vote with their wallets and if the market was large enough for both to exist then there would be better options; yet it seems like there’s not.
People seem to care much more about capacitive touch screens, large displays, hungry CPUs, incredible post-processing of cameras (and great camera sensors) than they do about being drop proof, having stable software or battery life.
Features > Stability ; to most people. (and, how do you put stability on a spec sheet for tech youtubers to care about or savvy consumers trying to buy the best “value” they can; build quality doesn’t fit onto a spec sheet).
I worked for Nokia (briefly, just before Eloppification) and I remember being told that when the iPhone launched everyone laughed because there was no way that the battery could last more than a day, there was no app store back then, no flash, no high-speed data (2G) and it failed every single one of the internal tests that Nokia had.
Yet, people didn’t care, obviously - and the iPhone is the model for nearly all phones today.
I get bent out of shape about this, the same way I get bent out of shape about the death of small phones and modular laptops; but people vote with their wallets and if the market was large enough for both to exist then there would be better options; yet it seems like there’s not.
People seem to care much more about capacitive touch screens, large displays, hungry CPUs, incredible post-processing of cameras (and great camera sensors) than they do about being drop proof, having stable software or battery life.
Features > Stability ; to most people. (and, how do you put stability on a spec sheet for tech youtubers to care about or savvy consumers trying to buy the best “value” they can; build quality doesn’t fit onto a spec sheet).
> People seem to care much more about...
One cannot conclude this from what the market does. Single individuals might want wildly different things than what the combined economy serves them.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy
One cannot conclude this from what the market does. Single individuals might want wildly different things than what the combined economy serves them.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy
I was there, too. Not at Nokia, but in the ecosystem of these companies.
People wanted iPhone over Nokia, not due to its specs but due to its usability and presentation.
Let's be honest, both Symbian and Maemo/Meego were abject messes in both of these categories.
People wanted iPhone over Nokia, not due to its specs but due to its usability and presentation.
Let's be honest, both Symbian and Maemo/Meego were abject messes in both of these categories.
They were really trying with MeeGo, we used to joke that we had the most expensive clock app in the world because it had been remade so many times. People forget that R&D can be super expensive. Apple definitely cooked there.
Symbian though, I mean, considering the hardware constraints was crazy!
The smartphone variant of Symbian needed 2MiB of Memory and supported Qt... madness.
Symbian though, I mean, considering the hardware constraints was crazy!
The smartphone variant of Symbian needed 2MiB of Memory and supported Qt... madness.
We need a Symbian/Nokia movie to accompany the "Blackberry" movie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXL_HDzBQsM
Mike, are you familiar with the saying, "Perfect is the enemy of Good"?
Well, "good enough" is the enemy of humanity.Meego’s N9 had in some areas better usability than the iPhone and was overall competitive.
Tap to wake, slide to homescreen, the control center were introduced by the N9.
Tap to wake, slide to homescreen, the control center were introduced by the N9.
having stable software - yeah that wasn't my experience. I used early and late Series 40 phones and they had plenty of problems. Mostly minor but not clearly getting better. And then it got worse. My N97 mini was a good phone with pretty terrible software. It was bad. And then it didn't matter anymore.
I'm not excited about the current duopoly, but a decent mid-range phone from either is better now that in was five years ago.
I'm not excited about the current duopoly, but a decent mid-range phone from either is better now that in was five years ago.
I once supported an expensive application for Symbian OS and the customers had plenty of problems with Nokia smartphones. Not dumb phones, but smartphones. HW keyboards failed constantly, wi-fi quality fluctuated randomly from piece to piece, displays developed weird errors, loudspeakers developed tin sound etc.
Oh, and my favorite, problems with microUSB charging ports were eternal.
Oh, and my favorite, problems with microUSB charging ports were eternal.
On the battery front that really is just a function of your use. I've got a smart phone I use purely for work, which in reality means sending a handful of messages in a day. That battery lasts 5 days or so.
Also my first phone, a "bomb proof" Nokia died when it fell out of my pocket into a shallow pond. Most modern phones would survive that no problem!
Also my first phone, a "bomb proof" Nokia died when it fell out of my pocket into a shallow pond. Most modern phones would survive that no problem!
In 2003 I almost never touched my phone, because you couldn’t do much on that tiny display other than actually calling people.
Maybe that’s the reason the battery lasted a week.
Maybe that’s the reason the battery lasted a week.
> virtually indestructible
Owned a Nokia in 2003 as well and it was destructed by some water. It had no Nokia Care and my grandma refused to buy me a new one.
> text without looking at the screen
I do it all the time by dictating.
Owned a Nokia in 2003 as well and it was destructed by some water. It had no Nokia Care and my grandma refused to buy me a new one.
> text without looking at the screen
I do it all the time by dictating.
Try doing that in class. I could message my friends without a teacher spotting it.
It’s 2025, kids just pull out their phone now
I owned a 3310. I remember going into the mountains for a week and didn’t even charge the phone beforehand, because the battery would last anyway.
Back then I used to climb, and I remember how it fell out of my pocket from around 30m (100 feet). When I got down, I just picked it up from the ground and put the back panel back on. The phone worked perfectly for at years after that.
If you limit your smartphone usage to the capabilities of a 2003 Nokia (turn off data and wifi, only use calls and SMS) the battery will last 2 weeks and never crash or reset. Before I got a phone with dual SIM capability I used to bring an old spare phone to keep my home SIM in with data off only to be able to not miss calls/SMS. They’d typically last the whole trip without charging when they’re not keeping connections alive for email, push etc.
Before I got a smartphone I used a j2me IRC client to keep connected with my friends, and I had to carry 3 batteries to swap throughout the day for it to last, the battery life was horrible if you actually did anything on it.
Before I got a smartphone I used a j2me IRC client to keep connected with my friends, and I had to carry 3 batteries to swap throughout the day for it to last, the battery life was horrible if you actually did anything on it.
I have a 1960s western electric phone on my desk. Between calls it could be used to smash your Nokia into powder.
Does it matter? No. Those phones were built to purpose for their time. Sonim made/makes an Android phone that is approximately as durable as a Motorola radio for police. I used one for a bit, the speakerphone worked submerged, and it fell off a two story building when on a video call.
But it turns out nobody really wants that. When the technology for smartphone chips and displays matures, my guess is, like the tank Nokia, the iPhone Kevlar Edition will be the Nokia of 2035.
Does it matter? No. Those phones were built to purpose for their time. Sonim made/makes an Android phone that is approximately as durable as a Motorola radio for police. I used one for a bit, the speakerphone worked submerged, and it fell off a two story building when on a video call.
But it turns out nobody really wants that. When the technology for smartphone chips and displays matures, my guess is, like the tank Nokia, the iPhone Kevlar Edition will be the Nokia of 2035.
My Nokia in 2003 didn't last a week. As a teenager I was on AIM on that thing constantly. The battery lasted maybe a day or two when I was actually using it a good bit.
The battery lasted a week when a week's worth of usage was a dozen messages and an hour of call time with the rest the phone is locked and dark.
The battery lasted a week when a week's worth of usage was a dozen messages and an hour of call time with the rest the phone is locked and dark.
Phones of the past also died when exposed to a little bit of water. Back then it was common to hear someone say their phone died because of water damage but it has been years since I‘ve heard that about a smartphone.
Smartphones are pretty durable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2xGzHjYCcY
Note to mention they're waterproof.
Note to mention they're waterproof.
my nothing phone (1) full of very ugly scratches (and one especially ugly testament on a corner to me dropping it one too many time) was stolen a few months ago while I was in a house of worship (I was introducing my favorite girlfriend to the forbidden pleasure of dipping fries into mcfreeze ice cream with caramel - and while in this trance state...)
anyway, the new Nothing phone (3a) is amazing batterywise!
anyway, the new Nothing phone (3a) is amazing batterywise!
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Memory loss and survivor bias.
There was mountains of tacky, throwaway crap produced in the 80s. Guess what, we've thrown it all away. Quality lasts.
And don't even get me started on the food. A lot of tin cans. Desserts that you reconstituted from powder in a packet. The list goes on.
There was mountains of tacky, throwaway crap produced in the 80s. Guess what, we've thrown it all away. Quality lasts.
And don't even get me started on the food. A lot of tin cans. Desserts that you reconstituted from powder in a packet. The list goes on.
Food is way better now than it was in the 90s. Every supermarket has refrigerated ready meals which are actually pretty healthy. Here in the UK, the quality of food in cafes (at least in the major cities) is far better than it was when I was a kid.
This. Every once in a while I end up somewhere that the revolution in food has somehow bypassed, and what would have been acceptable standard in the 90s is just _bad_ now.
Same. We had that phase were every manufacturer build their own tiny OS around 2007/2008. I had an LG KS360 and a Sony W200i. The LG would
crash regularly. The W200i would work fine, but of course had all the proprietary Sony connectors. The W350i on the other hand was a catastrophic phone, that I had replaced twice, as evident in my Amazon account.
It feels like when people watch the video of a 70s car crashes into a modern car and leaves in one piece.
"Wow, old car was much more solid! The modern car got destroyed!"
Until you realize that the old car utilizes the driver seat as the crumple zone.
"Wow, old car was much more solid! The modern car got destroyed!"
Until you realize that the old car utilizes the driver seat as the crumple zone.
2003 was Symbian time. The OS was built around cell network reliability and low power. The N900 was the promising side-show getting few resources and attention.
Compared to the iPhone or any modern phone, it did a lot more with a lot less battery. The networking on my iPhones is not great, but it’s hard to compare.
In the end modern smartphones couldn’t win at that game, but the game has changed. Lately, through addiction and almost omnipresent surveillance for the worst.
In that sense, the smartphones of old with some multimedia and internet would be a welcome change.
Compared to the iPhone or any modern phone, it did a lot more with a lot less battery. The networking on my iPhones is not great, but it’s hard to compare.
In the end modern smartphones couldn’t win at that game, but the game has changed. Lately, through addiction and almost omnipresent surveillance for the worst.
In that sense, the smartphones of old with some multimedia and internet would be a welcome change.
people are addicted to features though
that's why these pure/fair/libre phones were failing to reach any market share and even sustainability.
but things are slowly getting better, projects underway to get smoother better performance on every platform, taking better care of the battery (limit charge to some percentage), use more efficient stack - from network to graphics, Bluetooth and WiFi and of course all the other radios.
...
sure, most of this is unfortunately unnoticeable compared to the billions of people glued to the absolutely TikTokified Internet :/
(well, hopefully we'll get through this phase of developing social immune system for a new medium faster than we did after the printing press, after the radio, and after TV)
that's why these pure/fair/libre phones were failing to reach any market share and even sustainability.
but things are slowly getting better, projects underway to get smoother better performance on every platform, taking better care of the battery (limit charge to some percentage), use more efficient stack - from network to graphics, Bluetooth and WiFi and of course all the other radios.
...
sure, most of this is unfortunately unnoticeable compared to the billions of people glued to the absolutely TikTokified Internet :/
(well, hopefully we'll get through this phase of developing social immune system for a new medium faster than we did after the printing press, after the radio, and after TV)
> I can confidently say that today's flagship iPhones (or even Androids) are significantly better quality than the N900, in every way possible.
Until you need to replace the battery.
Battery replacement has been intentionally made not just a pain, but actually dangerous, by using excessive amounts of adhesive to hold in batteries that may spontaneously combust if physically damaged while trying to remove them.
Replaced a battery in a Nintendo Switch not too long ago, and what an absolute fucking pain that was to get the old battery out, IPA, dental floss (to try and get under the battery and cut through the glue), and still needed a worrying amount of levering out.
(It's not as if these batteries have any significant space in which to move around, why do they need adhesive at all, and not just some foam/rubber pads to hold them in place?)
Until you need to replace the battery.
Battery replacement has been intentionally made not just a pain, but actually dangerous, by using excessive amounts of adhesive to hold in batteries that may spontaneously combust if physically damaged while trying to remove them.
Replaced a battery in a Nintendo Switch not too long ago, and what an absolute fucking pain that was to get the old battery out, IPA, dental floss (to try and get under the battery and cut through the glue), and still needed a worrying amount of levering out.
(It's not as if these batteries have any significant space in which to move around, why do they need adhesive at all, and not just some foam/rubber pads to hold them in place?)
Disagree.
You want them rigidly held in place as *any* flex in their mounting will add up to fatigue failures over enough time. Realistically, that means glue or a screw-down anchor that exerts tension--and if you have such an anchor you need to beef up the substrate also to avoid it deforming the case over time. Glue is thinner and lighter, thus it wins in the market. Likewise, cases are glued because providing waterproofing via glue is thinner and more reliable than providing it by gaskets and screw-down anchors.
Simple observation: I have a chest strap heart rate monitor, uses a coin battery and is rated for swimming. What's the biggest failure mode? Imperfect seal of the gasket against the stuff around it permitting water intrusion. (There is a redesign that is supposed to be more reliable but since mine never gets submerged it's still working despite once I found the gasket was clearly not properly seated.)
You want them rigidly held in place as *any* flex in their mounting will add up to fatigue failures over enough time. Realistically, that means glue or a screw-down anchor that exerts tension--and if you have such an anchor you need to beef up the substrate also to avoid it deforming the case over time. Glue is thinner and lighter, thus it wins in the market. Likewise, cases are glued because providing waterproofing via glue is thinner and more reliable than providing it by gaskets and screw-down anchors.
Simple observation: I have a chest strap heart rate monitor, uses a coin battery and is rated for swimming. What's the biggest failure mode? Imperfect seal of the gasket against the stuff around it permitting water intrusion. (There is a redesign that is supposed to be more reliable but since mine never gets submerged it's still working despite once I found the gasket was clearly not properly seated.)
The gap between 2025 and 2009 is massive for smartphones but I'd say it gets drastically smaller around the midpoint.
If it wasn't for it no longer being supported by iOS I'd still be using a 2016 SE and the only things I'd seriously miss are an OLED screen (so good for using the phone in dark spaces) and wireless charging (basically for peace of mind if the charging port ever breaks)
If it wasn't for it no longer being supported by iOS I'd still be using a 2016 SE and the only things I'd seriously miss are an OLED screen (so good for using the phone in dark spaces) and wireless charging (basically for peace of mind if the charging port ever breaks)
This author doesn't really understand quality and starts out by defining it purelt in subjective terms. Then makes the mistake in the rest of the article by following this subjective reasoning by talking about perceptions of quality as a stand in for actual quality.
Go read Zen anf the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a decent, if not weird, introduction to thinking about quality. Quality is both subjective and objective and therein lies the rub. This author does not understand that.
Go read Zen anf the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a decent, if not weird, introduction to thinking about quality. Quality is both subjective and objective and therein lies the rub. This author does not understand that.
I read the “Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” many years ago. What I remember and took away from it is a lot about mental health and about being different and trying or not trying to fit in.
The quality idea in the book sadly never clicked. To my defense I have to say I was young and had no philosophical background whatsoever, but maybe I am ready now.
I should really re-read the book but maybe you could summarize your take away about quality from the book.
The quality idea in the book sadly never clicked. To my defense I have to say I was young and had no philosophical background whatsoever, but maybe I am ready now.
I should really re-read the book but maybe you could summarize your take away about quality from the book.
Agree, the quality part of the book is hard to grasp. I get that some written works are good and some are bad, that it is hard to qualify why yet there is a general consensus around it but I haven't been able to distill any deeper meaning than that.
However, the discussions regarding "gumption" and separating abstractions from reality when needed (i.e. "the carburetor set screw") as well as several other great lessons from the book have really helped me fine-tune my thinking. I think reading this a few times in your 20s is a fantastic time investment.
However, the discussions regarding "gumption" and separating abstractions from reality when needed (i.e. "the carburetor set screw") as well as several other great lessons from the book have really helped me fine-tune my thinking. I think reading this a few times in your 20s is a fantastic time investment.
I'm surprised. What is the objective aspect of quality? Can you have quality without a human-intended purpose?
It’s worth noting that the author of Zen and the Art literally went crazy in pursuit of this.
I don’t mean this to say “you have asked a bad question”, but rather to say, “you have asked so large a question that a man once went insane in trying to answer it.”
I don’t mean this to say “you have asked a bad question”, but rather to say, “you have asked so large a question that a man once went insane in trying to answer it.”
I asked the question because i thought it was good manners to do so. Actually I'm strongly convinced that quality describes how a thing fits the preconceptions about that thing.
As testable example, I'm largely unable to tell the quality of beer as i never enjoyed any of it, and thus could not have developed a preconception of how a good beer is supposed to taste.
As testable example, I'm largely unable to tell the quality of beer as i never enjoyed any of it, and thus could not have developed a preconception of how a good beer is supposed to taste.
Trappist quad ales feature a high alcohol content, which makes them sweet but somehow not cloyingly so. Robust Belgian yeasts generate a surprising amount of effervescence, which keeps things light despite the heavy doses of malted barley, and produce esters that generate flavors of banana bread and dark stone fruits that compliment latent notes of burnt sugars and caramel.
That’s a pretty standard description of some of the best ales on the planet (produced by monks in Belgium), if anyone’s curious.
That’s a pretty standard description of some of the best ales on the planet (produced by monks in Belgium), if anyone’s curious.
That description has no comparisons and no baseline definition of beer quality. Why do those things make them better than other ales, especially when most of that is subjective? For some people, high alcohol content, sweetness, effervescence, and heavy doses of malted barley are bad things when it comes to beers. All beers have flavor notes, though flavor notes are notoriously ephemeral and suggestible.
I’m familiar with Belgian Ales, I used to like Chimay, and have sampled many others (though not Westvleteren yet). These days I prefer something less strong. The story about Trappist monks is intriguing, but what does it actually mean? Obviously Chimay and several other Belgian Trappist ales are enormous commercial productions that ship beer globally. They are just beer factories doing a huge volume of beer business. The narrative about monks is intended to give people the perception of quality, but it doesn’t actually demonstrate anything, it’s just a narrative.
I’m familiar with Belgian Ales, I used to like Chimay, and have sampled many others (though not Westvleteren yet). These days I prefer something less strong. The story about Trappist monks is intriguing, but what does it actually mean? Obviously Chimay and several other Belgian Trappist ales are enormous commercial productions that ship beer globally. They are just beer factories doing a huge volume of beer business. The narrative about monks is intended to give people the perception of quality, but it doesn’t actually demonstrate anything, it’s just a narrative.
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>Pirsig had a mental breakdown and spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals between 1961 and 1963. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with electroconvulsive therapy on numerous occasions
>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a book by Robert M. Pirsig first published in 1974.
I'm afraid you're romanticizing the relationship between Pirsig's books and his life. That someone is losing touch with reality doesn't warrant anyone to deconstruct their biography at will and reconstruct it to suit their own narrative.
>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a book by Robert M. Pirsig first published in 1974.
I'm afraid you're romanticizing the relationship between Pirsig's books and his life. That someone is losing touch with reality doesn't warrant anyone to deconstruct their biography at will and reconstruct it to suit their own narrative.
While it may be true that Pirsig's mental breakdown had nothing to do with what went into the book, the facts you have presented here do not particularly support that conclusion.
If his mental breakdowns had been, say, in 1976 and 1978, that would have supported it much better. But someone working on the philosophical underpinnings of a book for over a decade before the book is published is not at all unreasonable.
If his mental breakdowns had been, say, in 1976 and 1978, that would have supported it much better. But someone working on the philosophical underpinnings of a book for over a decade before the book is published is not at all unreasonable.
My primary memory of the book is that the author specifically ties together the quest for meaning and the loss of mental health, even within the book itself.
That's why it's a bad idea to read too much into the myth of objective meaning. No meaning - no problem.
How about empirical instead of objective? I think objective vs subjective can be a false dichotomy in terms of quality.
For example, when my phone connects to WiFi as soon as I get home every time, correctly, for the last many years, that's very strong empirical evidence of quality.
For example, when my phone connects to WiFi as soon as I get home every time, correctly, for the last many years, that's very strong empirical evidence of quality.
I disagree that objective vs subjective is a false dichotomy with regards to quality. Not because I believe it is false, mind you, but because I don't believe they are a dichotomy; they are actually two essential axes when perceiving and discussing quality. And each of those two axes are measured empirically and valued ethically and aesthetically.
The subjective axis of quality concerns values. What do you value the most in a mobile phone? Is it battery life? Is it photo quality? Is it durability? Is it features? Is it security? Is it screen size? Is it repairability? Is it social approval? Is it free software support? Is it less effort due to habit?
The objective axis of each of those values (and their subvalues) can be empirically measured. Some of them trivially, such as screen size or battery life. Some are harder to measure but still quite easily, such as features, photo quality, or repairabilty. Others may end up in a quagmire of subvalues, some of them subconscious, but could ultimately be measured empirically with great effort (social approval, security, habit...)
What often happens is that, when debating quality, people make the mistake of using empirical arguments about objective characteristics without realising that they are disagreeing on their ultimate subjective preferences. Subjective values can of course be debated, sometimes successfully. However, I am never going to convince an average middle-class American teenager to prefer a Fairphone over an iPhone empirically proving its repairability and support for FOSS Android alternatives, and they are never going to convince me to prefer an iPhone because it's cooler and it takes awesome photos.
Going back to the main topic of the article, I believe that ultimately the problem is that the market has over-fitted and heavily optimised for specific axes of subjective preference, due to their alignment with profitability and ease of development, together with an inefficient feedback loop, to the detriment of large numbers of consumers such as myself who value less intrinsically profitable characteristics.
The subjective axis of quality concerns values. What do you value the most in a mobile phone? Is it battery life? Is it photo quality? Is it durability? Is it features? Is it security? Is it screen size? Is it repairability? Is it social approval? Is it free software support? Is it less effort due to habit?
The objective axis of each of those values (and their subvalues) can be empirically measured. Some of them trivially, such as screen size or battery life. Some are harder to measure but still quite easily, such as features, photo quality, or repairabilty. Others may end up in a quagmire of subvalues, some of them subconscious, but could ultimately be measured empirically with great effort (social approval, security, habit...)
What often happens is that, when debating quality, people make the mistake of using empirical arguments about objective characteristics without realising that they are disagreeing on their ultimate subjective preferences. Subjective values can of course be debated, sometimes successfully. However, I am never going to convince an average middle-class American teenager to prefer a Fairphone over an iPhone empirically proving its repairability and support for FOSS Android alternatives, and they are never going to convince me to prefer an iPhone because it's cooler and it takes awesome photos.
Going back to the main topic of the article, I believe that ultimately the problem is that the market has over-fitted and heavily optimised for specific axes of subjective preference, due to their alignment with profitability and ease of development, together with an inefficient feedback loop, to the detriment of large numbers of consumers such as myself who value less intrinsically profitable characteristics.
According to the Kano model what is perceived as quality changes over time for a product category.
Ten years ago your phone reliably connecting to WiFi was a "Delighter" over the course of time it turned over a "Want" into a "Must Have".
I'd say empirical evidence of quality is strongest in the "Want" phase but if something is considered a given and ubiquitously fulfilled, can it still function as a strong empirical indicator of quality?
Ten years ago your phone reliably connecting to WiFi was a "Delighter" over the course of time it turned over a "Want" into a "Must Have".
I'd say empirical evidence of quality is strongest in the "Want" phase but if something is considered a given and ubiquitously fulfilled, can it still function as a strong empirical indicator of quality?
'Correctly' being dropping IP bound VPNs so they can be reestabilished on the cheaper network, or transfring with no distruption even if it incurres cost?
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Yes, there is a number of models for quality. If you read: "What Does Product Quality Really Mean?" by David A. Garvin, you'll find that intended purpose is only one of a number of quality metrics you could concern yourself with.
In the less obvious cases quality can be something you can't really explain, but you'll recognize it. There's also the option of viewing it from the manufacturers view, and forgo the user-centric view altogether. In that case we view the quality as "How well do we make the product", according to standard and specifications. So you could have a product that's absolute trash, but it follows specs precisely and you have zero manufacturing defects.
In the less obvious cases quality can be something you can't really explain, but you'll recognize it. There's also the option of viewing it from the manufacturers view, and forgo the user-centric view altogether. In that case we view the quality as "How well do we make the product", according to standard and specifications. So you could have a product that's absolute trash, but it follows specs precisely and you have zero manufacturing defects.
When we talk nokia we mean 3310 ... and that bastard was indestructible, the battery lasted forever and you had snake and a phone book.
>Nokia N900
There is a fetishistic cult surrounding the N900.
Mainly comprised of people who were too young or broke to own one.
I am an old man who owned an N900.
Simply and concisely: the N900 was a half-baked, poorly thought out, frustrating piece of "exercise in box-ticking" junk.
There is a fetishistic cult surrounding the N900.
Mainly comprised of people who were too young or broke to own one.
I am an old man who owned an N900.
Simply and concisely: the N900 was a half-baked, poorly thought out, frustrating piece of "exercise in box-ticking" junk.
I had an N9 once and it was certainly much better than the Android I replaced it with years later.
My Palm Treo 700W was straight garbage. Battery lasted hours, terrible OS, Windows Mobile...
> I can confidently say that today's flagship iPhones (or even Androids) are significantly better quality than the N900, in every way possible.
Having owned both, no. The N900 was programmable, none of the current crop of phones are.
Having owned both, no. The N900 was programmable, none of the current crop of phones are.
Features are not the same thing as quality.
Not actually owning your phone is part of quality.
This is missing the point of the post.
New iPhones and Android phones eventually have to be replaced because the software is no longer supported. Flip phones continue to be supported, if we would just use them to call people, which would use up less of our lifespan than smartphones, playing games and using social media. Note: I personally wouldn’t suggest flip phones for everyone, because smartphones are expected for some types of MFA now.
The post also says that a lot more clothing is produced and sold that is cheap quality, resulting in more waste. Fast-fashion is also popular, which results in more low-quality material being thrown away than the previous slower release of new styles.
imo the way to help would be to:
- Save enough money to buy higher quality used appliances, clothing, furniture, etc. and stop funding the companies that do this.
- Don’t use social media or websites/apps that promote (through ads or just photos/video) purchase and consumption of low quality goods. Buy used products instead.
I think there’s an opportunity here for everyone to get involved. You can still purchase high quality products, because the point is to increase product quality for future generations.
New iPhones and Android phones eventually have to be replaced because the software is no longer supported. Flip phones continue to be supported, if we would just use them to call people, which would use up less of our lifespan than smartphones, playing games and using social media. Note: I personally wouldn’t suggest flip phones for everyone, because smartphones are expected for some types of MFA now.
The post also says that a lot more clothing is produced and sold that is cheap quality, resulting in more waste. Fast-fashion is also popular, which results in more low-quality material being thrown away than the previous slower release of new styles.
imo the way to help would be to:
- Save enough money to buy higher quality used appliances, clothing, furniture, etc. and stop funding the companies that do this.
- Don’t use social media or websites/apps that promote (through ads or just photos/video) purchase and consumption of low quality goods. Buy used products instead.
I think there’s an opportunity here for everyone to get involved. You can still purchase high quality products, because the point is to increase product quality for future generations.
When compared on exact same use cases, smartphones don't have to be replaced either if they're used to just call people and receive messages. If it's just for calls, why would software support matter? People keep comparing smartphones to dumbphones, while not actually comparing them on that limited set of dumbphone functionality. Does that not seem silly, if not just fallacious?
Your are now carrying around a mobile, personal telescreen called a “smart”phone. The telescreen was also the height of technology.
I googled the author's name and from a cursory look at his linkedin he was a toddler in 2003. It’s therefore reasonable to conclude that he has no idea how a phone from 2003 worked. I mean, he could’ve used one for a bit, but definitely not as a daily driver.
If he wasn’t born yet in 2003 then yeah.
I was born in 1980’s and for me what we have currently feels exactly like I live in the future.
Personal computers from 2003 sucked and now I have much more reliable and powerful personal computers in my pocket - as much as I have fond memories of Windows XP I also remember offhand serial key because I was reinstalling it loads of times for friends family and myself. Nowadays I don’t remember having to reinstall an operating system for at least last 10 years or more.
I was born in 1980’s and for me what we have currently feels exactly like I live in the future.
Personal computers from 2003 sucked and now I have much more reliable and powerful personal computers in my pocket - as much as I have fond memories of Windows XP I also remember offhand serial key because I was reinstalling it loads of times for friends family and myself. Nowadays I don’t remember having to reinstall an operating system for at least last 10 years or more.
As late as 2011 Nokias like the N8 or N9 were competitive with the iPhones of that time i.e. the iPhone 4. That iPhone is the famous “holding it wrong” phone.
Then Nokia admitted defeat and switched to Windows which failed badly. Symbian was too hard and expensive to maintain and their Linux OS strategy was to redo the OS three times instead of incrementally developing it.
Then Nokia admitted defeat and switched to Windows which failed badly. Symbian was too hard and expensive to maintain and their Linux OS strategy was to redo the OS three times instead of incrementally developing it.
Quality has improved across many dimensions in nearly every domain I’m familiar with. In fact, I’d argue there are very few products or services that couldn’t be made today to a higher standard than at any point in the past, if we chose to prioritize that.
But what’s often mistaken for a decline in quality is really a shift in priorities: toward affordability, efficiency, and accessibility. And that’s fantastic. Products that were once expensive and exclusive are now available, at good-enough quality, to billions more people around the world.
Yes, that trade-off can mean shorter lifespans or less repairability. But on balance, widening access is a moral win, and one made possible by the very progress the article seems to mourn.
But what’s often mistaken for a decline in quality is really a shift in priorities: toward affordability, efficiency, and accessibility. And that’s fantastic. Products that were once expensive and exclusive are now available, at good-enough quality, to billions more people around the world.
Yes, that trade-off can mean shorter lifespans or less repairability. But on balance, widening access is a moral win, and one made possible by the very progress the article seems to mourn.
I'm not convinced the widening access to American consumerism is a moral win. The amount of fossil fuels we're dependent on as a species is obscene. I worry for our children. There is no offramp, only growth.
This is one of these philosophies that I hate more then almost any other.
The idea that is bad that poor Indian and Chinese people now have access to anything from clean water to planes is absurd. You can sit there in your luxury house and cry about consumer culture but for millions of people its basic stuff that they have access to for the first time.
And in Europe, despite increasing quality of live, both total energy consumption and fossil fuel consumption is going down.
Now part of this is export of emissions to China but China own growth explains the majority of it.
Continued growth is good, and only continued growth and better technology will get humanity off fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels have been a net good for society and still are!
The idea that is bad that poor Indian and Chinese people now have access to anything from clean water to planes is absurd. You can sit there in your luxury house and cry about consumer culture but for millions of people its basic stuff that they have access to for the first time.
And in Europe, despite increasing quality of live, both total energy consumption and fossil fuel consumption is going down.
Now part of this is export of emissions to China but China own growth explains the majority of it.
Continued growth is good, and only continued growth and better technology will get humanity off fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels have been a net good for society and still are!
The reason it's seen as bad is because there are not enough natural resources to sustain such a consumption, and many of these countries (esp India) will practically become unhabitable if global warming continues like it does. There are very few signs that technology will be able to fix this.
No one is against clean access to water...
No one is against clean access to water...
The real villain here is advertising, which pushes us to always want more than we need.
there are of course more than enough "natural resources" to sustain such consumption, the problem is paradoxically the opposite, too much easy to extract shit that we then emit into our own environment
the fix is also not complicated (remove GHG from the air, remove endocrine disruptors from the food cycle, etc.)
the costs are high though, but not that high, compared to - for example - the famines of past
but as population will peak - at least for now - and as we continue to ramp up renewable energy generation these problems are not insurmountable in any sense
...
places affected by storms and extreme heat/cold days need better infrastructure, but since urbanization continues to drive people to cities (as it did for the last few hundreds of years) these places need new and better infrastructure anyway!
the fix is also not complicated (remove GHG from the air, remove endocrine disruptors from the food cycle, etc.)
the costs are high though, but not that high, compared to - for example - the famines of past
but as population will peak - at least for now - and as we continue to ramp up renewable energy generation these problems are not insurmountable in any sense
...
places affected by storms and extreme heat/cold days need better infrastructure, but since urbanization continues to drive people to cities (as it did for the last few hundreds of years) these places need new and better infrastructure anyway!
> the fix is also not complicated (remove GHG from the air, remove endocrine disruptors from the food cycle, etc.)
Are you abstracting away the technical complexity when stating that it's not complicated? GHG removal tech that would scale simply doesn't exist if we intend to have some energy left to do anything else, as for removing pfas and microplastics from the environment, we are at the stage of running experiments in petri dishes.
And even if we abstract away the technical complexity, good luck convincing anyone to stop burning the free fuel we have lying around doing nothing now that we have everything-nuclear-solar and GHG removal at scale. We can barely convince our councils to build cycle lanes in dense areas if that removes any space for SUVs.
I wish I'd share the blind optimism of people like you, it seems pleasant to live in your heads...
Are you abstracting away the technical complexity when stating that it's not complicated? GHG removal tech that would scale simply doesn't exist if we intend to have some energy left to do anything else, as for removing pfas and microplastics from the environment, we are at the stage of running experiments in petri dishes.
And even if we abstract away the technical complexity, good luck convincing anyone to stop burning the free fuel we have lying around doing nothing now that we have everything-nuclear-solar and GHG removal at scale. We can barely convince our councils to build cycle lanes in dense areas if that removes any space for SUVs.
I wish I'd share the blind optimism of people like you, it seems pleasant to live in your heads...
ah, sorry, I am not optimistic, I just accepted that it's not a technical, logistical, or "resource constraints" problem
it's a coordination problem as you mentioned
based on this I moved to a place where I think things are a bit less crazy with regards to that (well, famous last comments ...eheh)
it's a coordination problem as you mentioned
based on this I moved to a place where I think things are a bit less crazy with regards to that (well, famous last comments ...eheh)
Lmao how can you say 'poor Indian and Chinese people' in the same sentence? China is a first world country
No it's not. 50c army out today.
You're giving a very poor reading of OP's argument, first of all. Jumping to the conclusion that they don't want Chinese people to have clean water is downright bad faith.
Second, "continued growth is good" is a hell of a thing to say on a planet with finite resources. There's a limit! And if you expand your worldview to include other life on this planet and not just society then we've pushed far beyond what's wise already.
Second, "continued growth is good" is a hell of a thing to say on a planet with finite resources. There's a limit! And if you expand your worldview to include other life on this planet and not just society then we've pushed far beyond what's wise already.
China is a developed country! This dialogue about Chinese people and clean water is bizarre
Fair point, I ought have made that clear. There are many ways in which Chinese people have it better than Americans these days, if my eyes are to be believed.
Insane take.
That's not how we talk here. Also, I was defending your argument lol.
But still, I'll bite - how so? Because I see videos like this:
https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1947556095779610961
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNrcHhDTsI
And I compare them to, say, any American city.
You can't watch those and seriously believe that there couldn't possibly be any aspects of Chinese life which are superior, and further, to think that's "insane".
Those aren't cherry-picked videos. There are thousands out there, if you care to look; watch xiaomanyc's videos and there's simply no denying your eyes. Their cars are better, their night life is better, their food is better, their housing is better, their daily lives are better, in many, many ways. Not every way, but in many ways - which is what I said.
You've been propagandized your whole life to think America is number one, but that was only even remotely true before 'we' pissed away our future on genocidal forever wars to make the 0.1% a little wealthier. Now most people see America negatively. Literally the vast majority of countries have an overall negative opinion of America; and we're seen as the number one threat to peace and stability.
Chinese people used to think they're hearing propaganda when they hear American's stories about health insurance, or the political scene - because to them, that's impossible to believe. Yet what you find impossible to believe is that they might have it better in some ways. I hope you have a good long think about that.
But still, I'll bite - how so? Because I see videos like this:
https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1947556095779610961
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNrcHhDTsI
And I compare them to, say, any American city.
You can't watch those and seriously believe that there couldn't possibly be any aspects of Chinese life which are superior, and further, to think that's "insane".
Those aren't cherry-picked videos. There are thousands out there, if you care to look; watch xiaomanyc's videos and there's simply no denying your eyes. Their cars are better, their night life is better, their food is better, their housing is better, their daily lives are better, in many, many ways. Not every way, but in many ways - which is what I said.
You've been propagandized your whole life to think America is number one, but that was only even remotely true before 'we' pissed away our future on genocidal forever wars to make the 0.1% a little wealthier. Now most people see America negatively. Literally the vast majority of countries have an overall negative opinion of America; and we're seen as the number one threat to peace and stability.
Chinese people used to think they're hearing propaganda when they hear American's stories about health insurance, or the political scene - because to them, that's impossible to believe. Yet what you find impossible to believe is that they might have it better in some ways. I hope you have a good long think about that.
Fossil fuels will crumble down when the ITER gets working well. China already did some experiments on salts based nuclear plants, but no fusion jet.
Still, the days for the uber-polluted Beijing are numbered. It will change drastically.
Still, the days for the uber-polluted Beijing are numbered. It will change drastically.
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Not quite sure about the affordability part.
Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive. Housing is becoming a luxury.
Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive.
Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.
Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive. Housing is becoming a luxury.
Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive.
Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.
> Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive
This isn’t true. There are dozens of car models near $20k today, and most of the base model inexpensive cars in the US have always cost around today’s $20k-$30k in adjusted dollars. Even the Ford model T: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0512/how-inflati...
Quality of cars today is unquestionably better, and the number of features and conveniences is unquestionably higher. Cars last longer than they used to, a lot longer on average. There’s ample stats on this.
The average price of cars has gone up slowly relative to inflation because there are now better cars to choose from, and people choose to pay more. But you can’t even buy something as bad as a 1930s or 1950s or 1980s car today, and you can get a much better car now for less money than you could then.
This isn’t true. There are dozens of car models near $20k today, and most of the base model inexpensive cars in the US have always cost around today’s $20k-$30k in adjusted dollars. Even the Ford model T: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0512/how-inflati...
Quality of cars today is unquestionably better, and the number of features and conveniences is unquestionably higher. Cars last longer than they used to, a lot longer on average. There’s ample stats on this.
The average price of cars has gone up slowly relative to inflation because there are now better cars to choose from, and people choose to pay more. But you can’t even buy something as bad as a 1930s or 1950s or 1980s car today, and you can get a much better car now for less money than you could then.
BYD launches new 2025 Dolphin EV with the same $14K price tag and more range.
https://electrek.co/2024/07/08/byd-launches-2025-dolphin-ev-...
The problems you mentioned are a local problem, not a global problem.
https://electrek.co/2024/07/08/byd-launches-2025-dolphin-ev-...
The problems you mentioned are a local problem, not a global problem.
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That is uniquely american or first world experience. I won't comment on the mechanisms of wealth transfer from rest of the world to first world. The rest of the world has been very hardworking and trying to make it one day at a time. Here's an example.
A Day in Life of Africa’s Wooden Scooter Crew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzL3vZ6jDSk
A Day in Life of Africa’s Wooden Scooter Crew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzL3vZ6jDSk
Great recommendation, I'm watching it now. It reminds me of another documentary about a festival with hand-built vehicles made of recycled Vespas that are extremely customized.
Indonesia’s Tricked Out Vespas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVeVZ-Iugkg
Indonesia’s Tricked Out Vespas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVeVZ-Iugkg
Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive because they get more and more stuff included. I owned cars in the 90's and cars from 2015, the newer one came in the basic trim with stuff that adds to complexity and cost, from AC and electric windows to dozen aibags, sensors and driving aids.
For housing, there are 2 things that happened: regulations made houses more expensive to build (I personally built 3 houses in the past 35 years, I saw the increase in cost) and second thing is house prices are totally disconnected to cost, my current home is evaluated (for tax purpose) about 3 times the real cost to build it. Except the buyers, everyone is happy to have a huge increase in housing cost, builders make more money, local governments raise more taxes, buyers are screwed from all sides and not many people go build their own, even if it many places is still possible (I currently planning to build a house for some friends).
But in a way building a house is cheaper: tools, technology and new materials make it faster and cheaper to build. It should make houses more affordable, if the other factors would not completely eat this saving.
For housing, there are 2 things that happened: regulations made houses more expensive to build (I personally built 3 houses in the past 35 years, I saw the increase in cost) and second thing is house prices are totally disconnected to cost, my current home is evaluated (for tax purpose) about 3 times the real cost to build it. Except the buyers, everyone is happy to have a huge increase in housing cost, builders make more money, local governments raise more taxes, buyers are screwed from all sides and not many people go build their own, even if it many places is still possible (I currently planning to build a house for some friends).
But in a way building a house is cheaper: tools, technology and new materials make it faster and cheaper to build. It should make houses more affordable, if the other factors would not completely eat this saving.
FYI (and for anyone who wants) to see data on this check out this blog
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so...
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-homes-in-west...
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/what-makes-housing-so...
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-homes-in-west...
Car prices are affected by ease of financing and a huge second hand market. The former make it easier to “afford” a fancy vehicle (whether or not you actually afford it is another question) and the later means fierce competition in the lower parts of the market making cheap cars less profitable.
No they aren't https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1KJks
> Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive.
Adjusted for inflation, car prices are actually lower now than decades ago, especially factoring in huge safety and tech improvements. Entry-level models remain affordable, while buyers voluntarily pay more for SUVs and tech-heavy EVs.
> Housing is becoming a luxury.
Rising housing prices are mostly driven by land scarcity and zoning. The actual cost per square meter of construction (build quality) has improved and remains stable.
> Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive.
Nope. Electronics, clothing, and appliances have become dramatically cheaper. Quality-adjusted prices for TVs and computers have plummeted.
> Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.
Craftsmanship is alive and well, if you are willing to pay for it. Which most consumers are not; they prefer being able to afford more things at lower prices and quicker tech cycles.
Adjusted for inflation, car prices are actually lower now than decades ago, especially factoring in huge safety and tech improvements. Entry-level models remain affordable, while buyers voluntarily pay more for SUVs and tech-heavy EVs.
> Housing is becoming a luxury.
Rising housing prices are mostly driven by land scarcity and zoning. The actual cost per square meter of construction (build quality) has improved and remains stable.
> Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive.
Nope. Electronics, clothing, and appliances have become dramatically cheaper. Quality-adjusted prices for TVs and computers have plummeted.
> Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.
Craftsmanship is alive and well, if you are willing to pay for it. Which most consumers are not; they prefer being able to afford more things at lower prices and quicker tech cycles.
Generally agree.
In snowbelt (and even somewhat sub-snowbelt) regions, cars would pretty much rust out at 50K miles and starting when conditions were wet or cold could be an adventure.
And, while I have the option of buying an expensive "handmade" (with the aid of expensive CNC equipment) dining room table--which I have done--I also have the option of buying a sturdy and nice-looking mail-order bed for $300 that I assemble.
Housing is the main thing but, as you say, that's mostly a matter of location. There are a ton of cheaper locations but many don't want to live there--even if they're fairly accessible to a major city.
In snowbelt (and even somewhat sub-snowbelt) regions, cars would pretty much rust out at 50K miles and starting when conditions were wet or cold could be an adventure.
And, while I have the option of buying an expensive "handmade" (with the aid of expensive CNC equipment) dining room table--which I have done--I also have the option of buying a sturdy and nice-looking mail-order bed for $300 that I assemble.
Housing is the main thing but, as you say, that's mostly a matter of location. There are a ton of cheaper locations but many don't want to live there--even if they're fairly accessible to a major city.
> Adjusted for inflation, car prices are actually lower now than decades ago
And so are salaries. Just compare what kind of job you needed to be able to afford a car 40 years ago to today.
Reality is still reality, people live in it and face it everyday.
And so are salaries. Just compare what kind of job you needed to be able to afford a car 40 years ago to today.
Reality is still reality, people live in it and face it everyday.
Disagree. Real wages are ahead of all market sectors except medical and rent. People are making a bad comparison--they look at what they have vs what their parents have and see their parents doing better. Yeah, 20 or 30 years later in their career, plus a lot of time building up assets, that's actually to be expected. The proper comparison is between cohorts, but that can only be done by digging into the data, not by experience.
Wealth inequality? The majority is from comparing those starting out to those at retirement. Likewise, the majority of income inequality is hours worked. (Not to say that there aren't other factors, but in both cases when you compare apples to apples it explains more than half the range.)
Wealth inequality? The majority is from comparing those starting out to those at retirement. Likewise, the majority of income inequality is hours worked. (Not to say that there aren't other factors, but in both cases when you compare apples to apples it explains more than half the range.)
But their parents didn't need 20 or 30 years to build up their assets, or did they? They could purchase a new car when they were in their prime at 20-30 years old. Real estate they already had before buying the car. People who are in their prime today have to wait to be 50+ to have real estate, and if they want to have a new car they have to forgo that.
Oh?
My parents, both PhD's. AFIAK first car (they had lived where they didn't have as much need of one) was in their 40s. First house in their 50s. We bought our first house (bigger and better than anything my parents ever owned) when I was still in my 20s. (She's older but did not come with any assets beyond her education.)
My parents, both PhD's. AFIAK first car (they had lived where they didn't have as much need of one) was in their 40s. First house in their 50s. We bought our first house (bigger and better than anything my parents ever owned) when I was still in my 20s. (She's older but did not come with any assets beyond her education.)
Cost per square meter is a misleading measure. A model that assigns a fixed price to a 0 m2 home and an additional price for each square meter is a better match for both construction costs and subjective utility.
Or maybe the additional price should be based on the number of rooms instead. Adding empty space by making the rooms bigger is cheap, but extra rooms are usually more valuable to those on a limited budget.
Where I live in California, construction itself has become unaffordable. Even if the land were free, construction and permits are now so expensive that it's impossible to build affordable housing without subsidies.
Or maybe the additional price should be based on the number of rooms instead. Adding empty space by making the rooms bigger is cheap, but extra rooms are usually more valuable to those on a limited budget.
Where I live in California, construction itself has become unaffordable. Even if the land were free, construction and permits are now so expensive that it's impossible to build affordable housing without subsidies.
> factoring in huge safety and tech improvements
safety... maybe. tech? no. Having to plug in an expensive proprietary diagnostic device to diagnose problems, dozens of computers, hundreds of sensors many of which can render the vehicle bricked and inoperable if they're not working correctly.. None of this is better.
safety... maybe. tech? no. Having to plug in an expensive proprietary diagnostic device to diagnose problems, dozens of computers, hundreds of sensors many of which can render the vehicle bricked and inoperable if they're not working correctly.. None of this is better.
> The actual cost per square meter of construction (build quality) has improved and remains stable.
Do you have a source? And are you considering expensive markets (cough, Los Angeles)?
Do you have a source? And are you considering expensive markets (cough, Los Angeles)?
Adjusted for inflation? Who cares? People's compensation haven't risen enough to even account for inflation so how is that helpful?
It's not. Saying something isn't expensive because its the same price after adjusting for inflation is a slap to the face of millions, perhaps even billions who are effectively making less now than they were ten or twenty years ago after they adjust for inflation.
That phrase is not the silver bullet you seem to think it is.
It's not. Saying something isn't expensive because its the same price after adjusting for inflation is a slap to the face of millions, perhaps even billions who are effectively making less now than they were ten or twenty years ago after they adjust for inflation.
That phrase is not the silver bullet you seem to think it is.
I would add that sometimes when people usually say that rancid phrase of "they don't make it as they used to", they are comparing expensive products in the past with cheap ones in the present.
Most of those "good 'ol" goods exist, but probably are pretty/too expensive for what we are used to pay.
Most of those "good 'ol" goods exist, but probably are pretty/too expensive for what we are used to pay.
While that's sometimes the case, those expensive products were the norm, and now no longer exist as an accessible option.
For many products, the market went with cheap and crappy, and quality became a niche that is no longer available in the general economy, and can only be found with great cost and effort.
For many products, the market went with cheap and crappy, and quality became a niche that is no longer available in the general economy, and can only be found with great cost and effort.
You are highlighting the difference between theory and practice.
In theory we can make higher quality things, but in practice we are not doing it.
Quality has gone down.
In theory we can make higher quality things, but in practice we are not doing it.
Quality has gone down.
Thos who think quality has decreased should watch this youtube shorts channel.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LqnWuMD6DU8
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LqnWuMD6DU8
Most things are still available at the same quality your parents remember, thanks to ecommerce much more avilable, but sadly also at a similar real price your parents remember which we find extortionary by comparison to all the cheap crap flooding the market.
You can have a tailored suit/shirt, hardwood furniture, grass-fed beef, vacuum to last decades, etc, but it will cost around the same in real terms and you're used to prices from Zara/Lidl.
Some things have truly declined because the demand collapsed so much that they basically got discontinued in the 1st world (that tailored shirt is coming from Ceylon) but others have improved tremendously by soaking up that drive for quality (check any independent coffee shop).
Not to mention the true pinnacles of modern manufacturing. Because for the price of a decent camera my father could get, I have a 100x zoom camera in my pocket, with a 7" touch screen, and 5g connectivity, also somehow all the books I could have ever read.
You can have a tailored suit/shirt, hardwood furniture, grass-fed beef, vacuum to last decades, etc, but it will cost around the same in real terms and you're used to prices from Zara/Lidl.
Some things have truly declined because the demand collapsed so much that they basically got discontinued in the 1st world (that tailored shirt is coming from Ceylon) but others have improved tremendously by soaking up that drive for quality (check any independent coffee shop).
Not to mention the true pinnacles of modern manufacturing. Because for the price of a decent camera my father could get, I have a 100x zoom camera in my pocket, with a 7" touch screen, and 5g connectivity, also somehow all the books I could have ever read.
> Most things are still available at the same quality your parents remember
Just no. The old reputable brands are enshittifying the same way. I’ve multiple times seen it first hand, with brands like Levi’s and Fjällräven. One year of wear is enough to disform the textile entirely. The fabric from those older clothes are still sturdy and whole, with only discoloration at the folding spots. No holes either from decades of use.
I magically found a sturdy canvas backpack 10 years ago and went back to the store recently to check what they had: same brand, but now all polyester.
The difference in quality is immense. Especially textile: clothes and shoes. I don’t expect the same prices, I’m happy to pay more for quality. But the brand alone often means nothing.
Just no. The old reputable brands are enshittifying the same way. I’ve multiple times seen it first hand, with brands like Levi’s and Fjällräven. One year of wear is enough to disform the textile entirely. The fabric from those older clothes are still sturdy and whole, with only discoloration at the folding spots. No holes either from decades of use.
I magically found a sturdy canvas backpack 10 years ago and went back to the store recently to check what they had: same brand, but now all polyester.
The difference in quality is immense. Especially textile: clothes and shoes. I don’t expect the same prices, I’m happy to pay more for quality. But the brand alone often means nothing.
Uniqlo has a vertically integrated Japanese supply chain, including custom textiles. Their clothing has been relatively consistent.
Japanese companies have largely bucked the trend of declining quality, at least within their domestic market. I'm not sure if it's related to decades of Japanese deflation or just because of a more discerning quality-conscious consumer base. Uniqlo has done a decent job of carrying that quality consciousness over to the rest of the world.
Yes, you can't get the very same product (Levi's 501s) but you can absolutely get the same thing (straight cut jeans). I don't wear jeans or workwear but heard good things about Bronson Mfg and Red Tornado from enthusiasts.
The price is also quite reasonable (~100 USD) thanks to workwear revival and you can get them in heavier weights (15 oz).
The price is also quite reasonable (~100 USD) thanks to workwear revival and you can get them in heavier weights (15 oz).
The polyester will sell better because it's lighter and resists water penetration better. Some time back I went through an old box of outdoor stuff from my childhood. Dumped most of it because between a choice of the old free (as I already owned it) gear or buying modern I would buy modern if I hadn't already done so.
Yeah, looking back to my father's SLR. Incredible lens, went all the way up to 100mm! He'd probably faint (can't, he's long gone) if I showed him my DSLR with a 28-300 lens on it that takes far better pictures than his could. And the wastefulness of setting the default on my camera to be a 7-shot bracket??? 5 actual shots per roll??? You measure your shooting capacity in batteries rather than film??? You can put 10,000 rolls of film in that little case that would survive if a truck ran over it???
This is intuitive but the problem with expensive things is you can’t know who’s legit, and who’s pulling a fast one. Everything is a lemon market.
The strategy I’m adopting for this is a total ban on any brand or mark that appears on slop. BMW and JBL were the first on my list.
The strategy I’m adopting for this is a total ban on any brand or mark that appears on slop. BMW and JBL were the first on my list.
> clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash
What clothes are these? I don't buy any kind of expensive brands. I don't take any care when washing. I don't own a lot of clothes so I wear each item weekly. And my clothes last me for several years at least. The dyes have gotten noticeably better than when I was a child - when was the last time you had colors run in the wash?
What clothes are these? I don't buy any kind of expensive brands. I don't take any care when washing. I don't own a lot of clothes so I wear each item weekly. And my clothes last me for several years at least. The dyes have gotten noticeably better than when I was a child - when was the last time you had colors run in the wash?
I've got a pack of seemingly nice quality t-shirts that got a lot shorter and wider after first wash.
I tried stretching them back to their original form but that doesn't work.
Used to be the cheap "three pairs for 10 euro" socks lasted a couple of years. Now I get, maybe, a year out of them before the holes get too obvious.
And price is not a reliable indicator of quality. Buying expensive can be just as much as a gamble as buying the cheap stuff.
Used to be the cheap "three pairs for 10 euro" socks lasted a couple of years. Now I get, maybe, a year out of them before the holes get too obvious.
And price is not a reliable indicator of quality. Buying expensive can be just as much as a gamble as buying the cheap stuff.
Do you have Uniqlo where you live? Cost performance is excellent.
"May shrink on first washing" or something like it seems to be pretty common; you might've accidentally tried something on which had that labelling (or didn't, which would suck).
I bought some wrangler jeans, because I remembered that I had a pair years ago that fit me better than levis, the levis were quite expensive and the wranglers cheap.
They were ok for the first wear - but not great to be honest.
Then I washed them and they were unwearable.
Didn't do anything fancy, just a cool wash, dried them on the line.
They turned to cardboard.
They were ok for the first wear - but not great to be honest.
Then I washed them and they were unwearable.
Didn't do anything fancy, just a cool wash, dried them on the line.
They turned to cardboard.
That's kind of what happens to denim when you air dry it. They are fine. Wear them a bit and you won't notice. If it bothers you next time tumble dry them on low.
Having recently compared one tumble dryer to another, “low” covers an exceedingly wide range, from genuinely lukewarm to “damage my clothing please”. Oddly, both machines I compared were LG and were not especially old. “Low” is a relative term.
Then beat them on the clothes line with a stick. Denim always gets stiff when it’s dried like that.
Yeah, I like that about new denim. After 6 months of wear it won’t do that so much and you’ll miss it. Maybe the poster is used to denims that are not 100% cotton.
Interesting, my experience with Levi's and Wrangler is equally the opposite, and to the larger extent - 501's, 510's would barely survive 6-9 months of wearing, while Wranglers (mostly Arizona And Texas) happily roll into... <checks purchase date> third year.
Washing in 30 degrees, always tumble drying on low (dryer has a humidity sensor and stops when it's dry, doesn't overdo).
Washing in 30 degrees, always tumble drying on low (dryer has a humidity sensor and stops when it's dry, doesn't overdo).
Levis quality has gone done and their pants doesn't last long, but neither does most Wrangler. However, Wrangler does have a line of pants made from 100% cotton, not added elastic materials. I have yet to test, but my theory is that the people who have long lasting Wrangler may have purchased the 100% cotton variant, but remind unaware of that fact.
The last two times I purchased men's socks off the shelf at a big box store, they looked like fishnets after I put them on. Perfectly normal looking, brand name crew socks.
It does seem to take some more effort these days to find quality, but it’s mostly out there - even for clothing.
For jeans I’ve settled on Duluth Trading for the time being, found a style and size that fits well and is easily cared for. Many washes later and they are just fine!
Levi’s still seems fine to me as well, but you have to get them from their “high end” retail channel - such as their own storefronts. I’ve definitely noticed a wide difference between that channel and the “low end” retail channels like Amazon and mass market retailers. Seems many brands are doing this weird “channel segmentation” thing recently.
That said, you’re not gonna find a decent pair of jeans for less than around $80 today, unless you get rather lucky with a clearance sale. This makes sense to me, despite my formative years price anchoring being 20 years ago and the initial sticker shock.
I’ve found decent clothing for all my needs really - the most annoying thing is a brand discontinuing and item I started to rely on being there.
For jeans I’ve settled on Duluth Trading for the time being, found a style and size that fits well and is easily cared for. Many washes later and they are just fine!
Levi’s still seems fine to me as well, but you have to get them from their “high end” retail channel - such as their own storefronts. I’ve definitely noticed a wide difference between that channel and the “low end” retail channels like Amazon and mass market retailers. Seems many brands are doing this weird “channel segmentation” thing recently.
That said, you’re not gonna find a decent pair of jeans for less than around $80 today, unless you get rather lucky with a clearance sale. This makes sense to me, despite my formative years price anchoring being 20 years ago and the initial sticker shock.
I’ve found decent clothing for all my needs really - the most annoying thing is a brand discontinuing and item I started to rely on being there.
Costco garbage don't bleed :)
Seriously though...
Seriously though...
I'll name and shame - Fruit of the Loom.
They may never have been amazing, but that's the point - they were a representative, middle-of-road brand and you could just assume their clothes would last. I've got a >10 year old shirt that's still fine and a new one that's holed after a single wash. It's not a QA fail, the loss of quality is very clearly deliberate.
They may never have been amazing, but that's the point - they were a representative, middle-of-road brand and you could just assume their clothes would last. I've got a >10 year old shirt that's still fine and a new one that's holed after a single wash. It's not a QA fail, the loss of quality is very clearly deliberate.
It happens the same to me. Probably we don't experience that because we don't either buy any cheap garments from Shein or similar Chinese stores.
I tried to get all kinds of expensive tshirts but I have yet to find a brand that won't develop holes around the seams after a year of weekly wear.
Shein crap falls apart in the first wash
I bought some dark blue trousers at C&A and after a dozen washes they are noticeably losing their colouring.
Yes, I know, Cheap&Awful. I’m poor.
Yes, I know, Cheap&Awful. I’m poor.
Wearing the same now, can agree.
This article's thesis is all over the place, but the discussion here brings up an interesting topic: the decline in quality is relative to your evaluation function.
If you want long lasting products, then maybe the cheaper furniture is of lower quality. If you want something light weight and affordable, then ikea is higher quality.
Assuming there is a uniform product evaluation function seems like lazy journalism. The addition of AI was also odd
If you want long lasting products, then maybe the cheaper furniture is of lower quality. If you want something light weight and affordable, then ikea is higher quality.
Assuming there is a uniform product evaluation function seems like lazy journalism. The addition of AI was also odd
But we are not in control of the evaluation function.
It is heavily manipulated by ads and other patterns.
You can control your own evaluation if you are actively working on it but market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter
It is heavily manipulated by ads and other patterns.
You can control your own evaluation if you are actively working on it but market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter
Idk. I feel like at some point we have to blame society as a whole for things or things will never get changed. Social change in the past has been hard fought to get public perception to change. When my grandparents were kids, for example, black people were not allowed to use the same facilities as white people and a majority of people supported this. Sure powerful interests in the media promoted this view, but ultimately the majority was wrong and had to change.
Blaming society seems like a pointless exercise to me. It doesn't help solve any problems, and even could make some people give up on trying to do better. Society can change pretty quickly if people make an actual effort to do so and education people to new ideas and realizations.
Ads can be sometimes good, I got recommended the ad for Zeiss SmartLife lenses. Then I did my own research on youtube and I took the shot. I must say I am liking my pricey purchase.
Nonsense. If you want really nice, high quality furniture then you can just pay a local craftsman to make it for you. This is always an option regardless and some of us are not easily manipulated by ads. Of course good furniture will be expensive.
The mass production discount must not be overlooked, whatever most people want becomes the most cost effective, and it appears that most people want cheap, and so anything beyond the absolute minimum costs a lot more relative to the quality.
I don't believe the "people want cheap" spiel. Sure, they want affordable.
As consumers can not tell the quality of products beforehand, and price is certainly no guarantee of quality, the only logical choice is to buy cheap.
I wish there was a sort of rating of product quality [1], so I can choose the optimum price/quality for a product.
[1] Reviews suck for this purpose. Half of them say things like "Fast shipping, five stars!". By the time defects show up months later and the one-star reviews arrive, the product is discontinued anyway.
As consumers can not tell the quality of products beforehand, and price is certainly no guarantee of quality, the only logical choice is to buy cheap.
I wish there was a sort of rating of product quality [1], so I can choose the optimum price/quality for a product.
[1] Reviews suck for this purpose. Half of them say things like "Fast shipping, five stars!". By the time defects show up months later and the one-star reviews arrive, the product is discontinued anyway.
You can’t do this for a washing machine of a tv or a phone.
Even if you can now, it is getting more difficult.
And there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid it as every washing machine is becoming “smart”, worse at actually washing clothes and using internet to send your data so it can be sold for more profit.
Even if you can now, it is getting more difficult.
And there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid it as every washing machine is becoming “smart”, worse at actually washing clothes and using internet to send your data so it can be sold for more profit.
You can buy a dumb washing machine on the commercial market.
https://speedqueencommercial.com/en-us/products/top-load-was...
https://speedqueencommercial.com/en-us/products/top-load-was...
Last time I wanted to do this for a desk which perfectly fits a particular nook in my home, the local craftsmen quoted 20x the price of Ikea and an 8 month lead time.
Needless to say, I got an Ikea desk delivered 3 days later.
Needless to say, I got an Ikea desk delivered 3 days later.
Yeah, you prioritized price and availability over sheer product quality. Millions upon millions of people made the same choice.
I mean I bought an Ikea desk like, 15 years ago and have moved it through multiple home offices in that time and it's holding up fine. I also bought it because it was cheap enough I wouldn't worry about taking a jigsaw to it to get it customized just right for me (which was mostly cutting a hole for my tower computer case to sit just right in).
The problem with "you want real quality" people is they mostly seem to advocate buying expensive demonstrative items, rather then properly evaluating what they need.
If a desk has successful held my things and enabled me to work at it for over a decade, what exactly is "quality" meant to be and be bought for?
The problem with "you want real quality" people is they mostly seem to advocate buying expensive demonstrative items, rather then properly evaluating what they need.
If a desk has successful held my things and enabled me to work at it for over a decade, what exactly is "quality" meant to be and be bought for?
That's true: millions of people bought a desk right for their needs but we are comparing it to some super expensive (in real terms) item from 80 years ago.
Except of course we are in fact in control of the evaluation function. Hence, lots of people do not buy into mainstream for each thing. The thing about capitalism is that each person still spends their money according to their evaluation function. Ads might tell me I should discard close as soon as possible, sorry but I don't. Ads also tell me I should buy a new computer, and I might. Now have I been manipulated by ads or not?
If there are ads and manipulation for every possible thing, then what you end up buying still depends on your personal tastes and preferences.
At the end of the day, ever living creatures depends on its extend environment to some extent. The idea that this ever could be different is not realistic. Even if you band all ads, other things would simply take its place as the environment your exposed to.
That said, I'm not against limit some kinds of ads and specially in some places. But we should just outright claim people are not capable of making their own decisions, that's a bad road to go down.
> market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter
Except it does matter because we do not live in a state controlled system where if 51% people believe pants should be green, 100% of people wear green pants. Even a small number of people can be enough to create a small market for something. Go look into retro computers. The majority clearly doesn't care about old Amiga hardware and software, but yet you can buy it in various forms. There are countless examples.
If there are ads and manipulation for every possible thing, then what you end up buying still depends on your personal tastes and preferences.
At the end of the day, ever living creatures depends on its extend environment to some extent. The idea that this ever could be different is not realistic. Even if you band all ads, other things would simply take its place as the environment your exposed to.
That said, I'm not against limit some kinds of ads and specially in some places. But we should just outright claim people are not capable of making their own decisions, that's a bad road to go down.
> market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter
Except it does matter because we do not live in a state controlled system where if 51% people believe pants should be green, 100% of people wear green pants. Even a small number of people can be enough to create a small market for something. Go look into retro computers. The majority clearly doesn't care about old Amiga hardware and software, but yet you can buy it in various forms. There are countless examples.
> If you want something light weight and affordable,
Affordability has nothing to do in the quality evaluation, it is already taken into account in the quality/cost ratio.
Also, where did you get this idea that particle board furniture were particularly lightweight?
Affordability has nothing to do in the quality evaluation, it is already taken into account in the quality/cost ratio.
Also, where did you get this idea that particle board furniture were particularly lightweight?
People fall largely in two categories: Those who condemn the past and those who glorify it.
Of course the reality is between. Whenever something experiences mass adoption, of course quality will decline, e. g. airplane seats with mass adoption of flying.
But so, so many things improved dramatically in quality. I could give you endless examples but just think about cars.
Despite anecdata to the contrary the reliability of cars increased over the decades.
Most 60s cars had rust problems after a couple of years. By the 80s this was largely solved.
Most 70s cars had all kinds of mechanical problems but by the 90s this was largely solved.
Most 80s cars had lots of electronics problems but by the 2000s this was largely solved.
Sure we still have software issues and the whole transition to EV's makes has us deal with new problems, but do I want any of my old cars back? Hell no!
Of course the reality is between. Whenever something experiences mass adoption, of course quality will decline, e. g. airplane seats with mass adoption of flying.
But so, so many things improved dramatically in quality. I could give you endless examples but just think about cars.
Despite anecdata to the contrary the reliability of cars increased over the decades.
Most 60s cars had rust problems after a couple of years. By the 80s this was largely solved.
Most 70s cars had all kinds of mechanical problems but by the 90s this was largely solved.
Most 80s cars had lots of electronics problems but by the 2000s this was largely solved.
Sure we still have software issues and the whole transition to EV's makes has us deal with new problems, but do I want any of my old cars back? Hell no!
Cars still rust what was solved?
These days the bigger problem with cars is one piece breaks and it isn't made anymore so you total it when 90% of the rest of the car is still good.
https://youtu.be/e7c2_JMxR0s?si=diMVZ_YBXtW48LOy
These days the bigger problem with cars is one piece breaks and it isn't made anymore so you total it when 90% of the rest of the car is still good.
https://youtu.be/e7c2_JMxR0s?si=diMVZ_YBXtW48LOy
Galvanized steel and zinc coated steel were only used from the 80s on in cars. Electrophoretic plating was mass adopted only in the late 80s. Before that the slightest scratch meant you could literally watch the rust build up.
Most 2020s cars are completely unaffordable or overpriced and over engineered but maybe by 2040s this will be largely solved.
The 2010s was peak car.
The 2010s was peak car.
I grew up in Germany and as a kid I always thought when I grow up I will drive a Mercedes. Why? Because taxis were 100% Mercedes back then and if a car is good enough to be a taxi it will be good enough for me.
Of course I never got a Mercedes because it always was way to expensive.
Nowadays every Uber driver seems to drive a BYD Dolphin. They are nice cars and obviously good enough as "taxis". The BYD Dolphin Surf costs 8000 EUR in China (called Seagull there) and between 13000 EUR and 20000 EUR in most other places where it is available.
Of course I never got a Mercedes because it always was way to expensive.
Nowadays every Uber driver seems to drive a BYD Dolphin. They are nice cars and obviously good enough as "taxis". The BYD Dolphin Surf costs 8000 EUR in China (called Seagull there) and between 13000 EUR and 20000 EUR in most other places where it is available.
Since 2018 every new car needs a rearview backup camera. Since 2022, AEB's been included, too. Fuel economy and emissions standards are also considerably stricter than they were 10 years ago. The list goes on, and on, and on.
I think it's completely fair to say we haven't gotten worse at making cheap cars, we've just legislated them out of existence.
I think it's completely fair to say we haven't gotten worse at making cheap cars, we've just legislated them out of existence.
[deleted]
> People fall largely in two categories: Those who condemn the past and those who glorify it. Of course the reality is between.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/550
Panel 1 is a depiction of Neanderthals in the Shanidar Cave, in particular the "Shanidar 1" specimen, which showed a large number of old injuries and disabilities in the individual. The fact that they had lived for so long showed that the Neanderthal community cared for their members even when they were no longer "useful" physically to society.
It's kind of hard to imagine going back and showing the Shanidar Neanderthals all the gains we've made as a society to produce enough food for everyone, and yet people still go hungry. Then again, imagine showing him Nintendo Switch. I bet he'd love Nintendo Switch, so it's really a wash.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/550
Panel 1 is a depiction of Neanderthals in the Shanidar Cave, in particular the "Shanidar 1" specimen, which showed a large number of old injuries and disabilities in the individual. The fact that they had lived for so long showed that the Neanderthal community cared for their members even when they were no longer "useful" physically to society.
It's kind of hard to imagine going back and showing the Shanidar Neanderthals all the gains we've made as a society to produce enough food for everyone, and yet people still go hungry. Then again, imagine showing him Nintendo Switch. I bet he'd love Nintendo Switch, so it's really a wash.
Cars are enshitification example in a different area of the society - they are not scalable so you might as well be stuck in traffic for days.
And somehow we still see great reviews about everything.
I looked at this hotel made from containers recently:
https://www.booking.com/hotel/de/tin-inn-montabaur.html
I thought it is an interesting concept. And it has a rating of 8.5 out of 10 on booking.com, which means "Very good".
But then I read through the details and the reviews (sorted by new) and see:
You can hear your neighbors.
You cannot open the windows.
Staff enters the room before your checkout time.
The rooms and the stuff inside the rooms are dirty.
Lots of broken amenities, including the air condition.
For check-in you have to enter your passport-id (where does it end up?).
And on and on an on ...
How is that "Very good"?
What threshold should one assign to book something on booking.com these days? 9.9/10?
I looked at this hotel made from containers recently:
https://www.booking.com/hotel/de/tin-inn-montabaur.html
I thought it is an interesting concept. And it has a rating of 8.5 out of 10 on booking.com, which means "Very good".
But then I read through the details and the reviews (sorted by new) and see:
You can hear your neighbors.
You cannot open the windows.
Staff enters the room before your checkout time.
The rooms and the stuff inside the rooms are dirty.
Lots of broken amenities, including the air condition.
For check-in you have to enter your passport-id (where does it end up?).
And on and on an on ...
How is that "Very good"?
What threshold should one assign to book something on booking.com these days? 9.9/10?
Online reviews follow an inverted gaussian distribution it seems like, the majority of users never bother, it's either the fans/bots or the angry ones.
It’s tough to trust ratings when the details tell a different story. Using something like HiFive Star to track and compare reviews across sites helped me get a clearer picture before booking. Made choosing a place less stressful and more reliable.
Grade inflation seems like another facet of the same economic problem.
I’ve noticed a significant drop even recently, having recently bought the single worst pair of shoes at a brand name store. They basically dissolved like tissue paper within a week. I’ve never seen anything like it.
My working assumption right now is this two phenomena together.
One, a sneakier kind of “shrinkflation”. You can make a can of coke smaller but you can’t do this with shoes. But you can swap out materials or hire more careless manufacturers.
Two, the breakdown of communication caused by AI, earlier fake reviewers and the death of the media at the hands of the web. Taken together, you can get away with a lot more without liquidating your brand simply because word won’t spread.
My working assumption right now is this two phenomena together.
One, a sneakier kind of “shrinkflation”. You can make a can of coke smaller but you can’t do this with shoes. But you can swap out materials or hire more careless manufacturers.
Two, the breakdown of communication caused by AI, earlier fake reviewers and the death of the media at the hands of the web. Taken together, you can get away with a lot more without liquidating your brand simply because word won’t spread.
> simply because word won’t spread
Shame the shoe brand!
Shame the shoe brand!
According to the amazon page, TOTOFOYAGOO has been a trusted brand since June 11th 2025.
> For some consumers — although we know there won’t be many — the Nokia’s extreme durability may be more valuable than the iPhone’s technological innovations
I still use a phone of the generation after Nokia - it must be 20 years old now. The thing is, for everyday use voicemail and SMS are enough for me. I don't need more technology. And certainly not the kind of technology that make people walk like zombies on the street. If you remember the old Youtube video about viewers not noticing a gorilla in the middle of basketball players because viewers were instructed to count something, this is exactly that.
> there’s another, lesser-known but even more effective method: convincing consumers that a product is outdated for aesthetic or symbolic reasons, even if it still works.
Long story short, durability is the greatest enemy for businesses. They have decades of experience of fighting against it. IIRC Europe introduced laws against planned obsolescence, but businesses probably did start to switch to "perceived obsolescence" when consumers proved the existence of planned obsolescence.
It's not even something evil to do for some categories of products. Good household appliances use less energy, even good ICE cars probably are more efficient than they used to be, etc. It seems that it defines a different metric for product quality, total cost of ownership.
> However, Rodríguez argues that, generally speaking, automation does improve customer service. [...] The initial investment in technology is extremely high, and the benefits remain practically the same. We have not detected any job losses in the sector either.
If companies really are investing in order to improve their customer service, that's big news.
I still use a phone of the generation after Nokia - it must be 20 years old now. The thing is, for everyday use voicemail and SMS are enough for me. I don't need more technology. And certainly not the kind of technology that make people walk like zombies on the street. If you remember the old Youtube video about viewers not noticing a gorilla in the middle of basketball players because viewers were instructed to count something, this is exactly that.
> there’s another, lesser-known but even more effective method: convincing consumers that a product is outdated for aesthetic or symbolic reasons, even if it still works.
Long story short, durability is the greatest enemy for businesses. They have decades of experience of fighting against it. IIRC Europe introduced laws against planned obsolescence, but businesses probably did start to switch to "perceived obsolescence" when consumers proved the existence of planned obsolescence.
It's not even something evil to do for some categories of products. Good household appliances use less energy, even good ICE cars probably are more efficient than they used to be, etc. It seems that it defines a different metric for product quality, total cost of ownership.
> However, Rodríguez argues that, generally speaking, automation does improve customer service. [...] The initial investment in technology is extremely high, and the benefits remain practically the same. We have not detected any job losses in the sector either.
If companies really are investing in order to improve their customer service, that's big news.
That's great for your use but meanwhile my phone has now better eyesight than I do (and I'm 20/20), carries all my notes and photos, answers random questions about prions, and offers fully e2e encrypted instant communication with virtually anyone across the world.
I live in a developed country. People buy a new home here, and find the kitchen counter top surface bulges up easily when a hot plate is placed on it. Turns out that the surface is a laminate that is not heat resistant.
Family business houses used to invest in long-term success through brand, reputation and durability. Startups or hired CEOs focus on short-term goals and invest in creating superficial perceptions that can help the sale.
Family business houses used to invest in long-term success through brand, reputation and durability. Startups or hired CEOs focus on short-term goals and invest in creating superficial perceptions that can help the sale.
> kitchen counter top surface bulges up easily when a hot plate is placed on it
This is pretty normal when I was growing up. You should never put a hot anything on a countertop.
This is pretty normal when I was growing up. You should never put a hot anything on a countertop.
You hardly ever see any real stone, real wood, real brick, or real walls. Also, floor tiles are not glued or cemented to floor. They are just a floating layer of plastic (in case of laminate).
They don't have granite counter tops in your country?
He didn't pick the tops.
We got to spec this place from the builder's options. Granite would have been a few percent of the total price of the house and granite comes with the problem that it's somewhat porous.
We decided on Corian countertops--it's basically a plastic resin, a bit scratchable (but on the flip side it's full depth material so you can buff out some damage), but totally waterproof and no grout lines. Now there's a version that uses quartz in the resin, much tougher but otherwise similar.
We got to spec this place from the builder's options. Granite would have been a few percent of the total price of the house and granite comes with the problem that it's somewhat porous.
We decided on Corian countertops--it's basically a plastic resin, a bit scratchable (but on the flip side it's full depth material so you can buff out some damage), but totally waterproof and no grout lines. Now there's a version that uses quartz in the resin, much tougher but otherwise similar.
They probably went for the laminated granite...
Most of the people on this board are upper middle to lower upper class (thinking American, apologies to my non US friends). Such people can afford products outside the grasp of most Americans.
What naturally happens to such products is that the manufacturers find a way to broaden their customer base. They find ways to bring the price point down so they can sell more.
For most people this is a boon. They can afford a luxury or convenience they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Overall most people are better off when this happens.
For the first group of people however, they are worse off. They cannot get the same product as before. Such is life.
What naturally happens to such products is that the manufacturers find a way to broaden their customer base. They find ways to bring the price point down so they can sell more.
For most people this is a boon. They can afford a luxury or convenience they otherwise wouldn't be able to. Overall most people are better off when this happens.
For the first group of people however, they are worse off. They cannot get the same product as before. Such is life.
Your parents, lower middle class in the 80s, could afford a washing machine that lasts 40 years.
You, lower middle class in the 2020s, can afford with the same resources a washing machine that lasts 5 years and is no more effective than your parents' (but has an app).
In the sense of the parent comment, you are fortunate that the magic of capitalism currently produces such cheap washing machines that even people as poor as you can afford them. But from another angle, the purchasing power of the lower middle class has sunk over time, and quality has degraded to match because durable products have now become "outside the grasp of most Americans".
You, lower middle class in the 2020s, can afford with the same resources a washing machine that lasts 5 years and is no more effective than your parents' (but has an app).
In the sense of the parent comment, you are fortunate that the magic of capitalism currently produces such cheap washing machines that even people as poor as you can afford them. But from another angle, the purchasing power of the lower middle class has sunk over time, and quality has degraded to match because durable products have now become "outside the grasp of most Americans".
It lasted 40 years because when it broke they called the repairman. Now when stuff breaks people just buy a new one and complain that it doesn’t last as long.
The repairman charges $150 labor and offers to fix it by replacing a single part that costs half the purchase price of the machine. Seems likely you'd be better off buying the new machine.
Bought Speed Queen TC5 9 years ago - ugly, no app or buttons, but runs as a tank, cleans much better and faster, no detergent residue.
When I asked movers to replace existing LG with my speed queen, they asked why - LG looks so much better.
It's what consumer wants, others go a-11.
When I asked movers to replace existing LG with my speed queen, they asked why - LG looks so much better.
It's what consumer wants, others go a-11.
My parents have no washing machine in 80s, because it cost 1/4 of yearly salary(USSR)
The parable of boots seems apt here. In the extreme, expensive pair can last for a decade while people who can only afford the cheap pair will have to keep buying a new one every year.
Yes, the fact that any family can afford a new shelving unit is great! But the fact that it’ll last them just a few years is not good; they’ll spend more in the long run
Yes, the fact that any family can afford a new shelving unit is great! But the fact that it’ll last them just a few years is not good; they’ll spend more in the long run
Except it's getting so difficult to find the companies producing the more durable alternative, so everyone is forced to buy the flimsy piece that falls apart
It is not that hard, if you do the minimum effort to educate yourself. For example 20 years ago I struggled to find motorcycle gear in Eastern Europe, it was very hard and stuff was extremely expensive for the salaries in this region. I bought initially cheap stuff that broke fast, then the next generation I knew what to buy and I have now equipment that is over 10 years old that I am using with great pleasure. It is similar in most cases I have to buy something, but it takes some effort to look for options.
$35 for the cheapest thinnest plastic shelving you can buy. The entire HDX line is the lowest quality stuff known to man.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-4-Tier-Easy-Assembly-Scratch...
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-4-Tier-Easy-Assembly-Scratch...
Only the parable does not work. Objectively. The fact that the poor are forced to spend more because they cannot afford something is complete bs. I can't imagine any area (maybe except perhaps interaction with government bureaucracy) where the parable would be relevant.
Shoes that last a decade are cost a lot more than five pairs of cheap shoes that last two years. And the same with furniture and everything else.
"Pay less in the long run" is a pure marketing ploy for dumb pompous people with money to make them pay more.
Shoes that last a decade are cost a lot more than five pairs of cheap shoes that last two years. And the same with furniture and everything else.
"Pay less in the long run" is a pure marketing ploy for dumb pompous people with money to make them pay more.
This article manages to undermine itself with ridiculous quotes:
"There is no attachment, respect, or emotional journey with a garment you spend less than 20 years with.”
"we spend $3 on a carton of juice instead of squeezing oranges"
Perhaps by including words of wisdom like these they hope to demonstrate that their thesis of a decline in quality extends to journalism?
"There is no attachment, respect, or emotional journey with a garment you spend less than 20 years with.”
"we spend $3 on a carton of juice instead of squeezing oranges"
Perhaps by including words of wisdom like these they hope to demonstrate that their thesis of a decline in quality extends to journalism?
At least when it comes to musical instruments, cheap instruments today are astronomically better than the cheap instruments I grew up with - and they are cheaper. The manufacturing process has become so good that what you get for $350 today, is about the same standard as what you'd pay $500-$800 for 30 years ago (which is probably closer to $1000-$1500 today).
As far as clothes go - I the cheap junk back in the day didn't last too long, either. Cheap supermarket jeans would last me maybe 1 season, before something ripped. Granted they probably only cost $20 back then - but the quality isn't too different from the H&M you purchase today for $50.
As far as clothes go - I the cheap junk back in the day didn't last too long, either. Cheap supermarket jeans would last me maybe 1 season, before something ripped. Granted they probably only cost $20 back then - but the quality isn't too different from the H&M you purchase today for $50.
Counter-anecdote. I bought some Jeans from ASDA (owned by Walmart now, not sure about then) for 5GBP in 2005..
FIVE, POUNDS.
Crazy cheap by any measure; they were extremely thick, to the point where you could stand them up with no person inside them. They lasted me for over 10 years.
New jeans (at any price point) seem to wear out in the inner thigh inside of a year, and I am not as active as I was back then due to age. I also haven’t gained a significant amount of weight to account for this. I thought it could be caused by cycling, but I stopped cycling and the wear outs still happen. I thought it could be the quality of what I was buying so I bought more and more expensive jeans, alas, the same was true.
The best Jeans I ever owned are simultaneously the cheapest.
(side note; I also noticed that nearly all Jeans these days contain “elastane” which is basically plastic, which probably contributes to the degradation - Elastane didn’t exist for jeans in 2005, they were mostly still 100% cotton until the legging jeans fad and then it started making its way into normal jeans).
FIVE, POUNDS.
Crazy cheap by any measure; they were extremely thick, to the point where you could stand them up with no person inside them. They lasted me for over 10 years.
New jeans (at any price point) seem to wear out in the inner thigh inside of a year, and I am not as active as I was back then due to age. I also haven’t gained a significant amount of weight to account for this. I thought it could be caused by cycling, but I stopped cycling and the wear outs still happen. I thought it could be the quality of what I was buying so I bought more and more expensive jeans, alas, the same was true.
The best Jeans I ever owned are simultaneously the cheapest.
(side note; I also noticed that nearly all Jeans these days contain “elastane” which is basically plastic, which probably contributes to the degradation - Elastane didn’t exist for jeans in 2005, they were mostly still 100% cotton until the legging jeans fad and then it started making its way into normal jeans).
> ASDA (owned by Walmart now, not sure about then)
Not any more, they got bought by two rather dodgy petrol station owners.
Not any more, they got bought by two rather dodgy petrol station owners.
you mean two owners of a massive petrol station chain. What's dodgy about them?
another counter example: Tomatoes.
The price evolution:
https://www.in2013dollars.com/Tomatoes/price-inflation/1953-...
They used to have taste. Now it's gone.
They used to have taste. Now it's gone.
> Many products are hard to compare due to the enormous price difference
Well that explains a lot, doesn't it? The article is right overall but occasionally glances over the importance of the "quality/price" ratio. As the price went down, buying habits changed, and by extension the manufacturing habits. When things are cheap nobody wants to keep them forever, they get exchanged sooner to "keep up with the times".
My anecdote, when I bought my first fridge (a tiny 70-100l I think) it cost 2.5x the average net salary in my country, and it still broke down often, but it could be repaired so it lasted 20+ years. I think today a fridge costing 2.5x the average salary - for the US this would be a ~$10-12k fridge - will be more reliable but unrepairable so when it's done, it's done.
Well that explains a lot, doesn't it? The article is right overall but occasionally glances over the importance of the "quality/price" ratio. As the price went down, buying habits changed, and by extension the manufacturing habits. When things are cheap nobody wants to keep them forever, they get exchanged sooner to "keep up with the times".
My anecdote, when I bought my first fridge (a tiny 70-100l I think) it cost 2.5x the average net salary in my country, and it still broke down often, but it could be repaired so it lasted 20+ years. I think today a fridge costing 2.5x the average salary - for the US this would be a ~$10-12k fridge - will be more reliable but unrepairable so when it's done, it's done.
Not that sure. I know Bosch, Liebherr and Samsung fridges bought in the 2000’s that lasted 10+ years, some of them that keeps running even after being used heavily (being moved, used by families of 5…etc). They are repairable and some got repaired. They are 2-3000€+. Which is 2-3x the average monthly salary.
An other thing to account for is the price of repairs. If your appliances costs less than one hour of a mid-skill technician, it’s hard to justify the spending. Same for doing it yourself if you’re time is worth a lot. The only solution is to by high end, which is always risky and more cash intensive. Most people will prefer buying cheap and change to new if required
An other thing to account for is the price of repairs. If your appliances costs less than one hour of a mid-skill technician, it’s hard to justify the spending. Same for doing it yourself if you’re time is worth a lot. The only solution is to by high end, which is always risky and more cash intensive. Most people will prefer buying cheap and change to new if required
You start by saying "not that sure" but then continue to support my point. So now I'm also not that sure what you mean.
3000€+ in the early 2000s is easily 5000€ today accounting for inflation. Even if you mean they are 3000€ today, at that price point the market is needle thin. The best selling fridges on Amazon.de right now are in the 300€ region, maybe 500-600€ if you want to go "premium". So you're saying a fridge that's 10-15 times more expensive than the cheap best sellers is also better.
This is exactly the quality/price trap. People remember the quality from "way back when" but forget the price. We mostly just traded quality/longevity for cheaper and faster replacement. Quality didn't necessarily go down, it's just people target cheaper products today.
3000€+ in the early 2000s is easily 5000€ today accounting for inflation. Even if you mean they are 3000€ today, at that price point the market is needle thin. The best selling fridges on Amazon.de right now are in the 300€ region, maybe 500-600€ if you want to go "premium". So you're saying a fridge that's 10-15 times more expensive than the cheap best sellers is also better.
This is exactly the quality/price trap. People remember the quality from "way back when" but forget the price. We mostly just traded quality/longevity for cheaper and faster replacement. Quality didn't necessarily go down, it's just people target cheaper products today.
Average salary over what time period? A week, a month, a year?
I use a 35 year old German-brand fridge that still works perfectly. I wouldn’t necessarily expect a modern fridge to last that long.
It also used a really bad refrigerant
Do not discuss "content" of this article, discuss the reasoning behind and the effect of this article. The author many not even realize this is a propaganda article, using a well known mechanism of "spray to dismay and therefore cripple". This article is a coordinated series of arguments that sum to the statement "you are powerless."
Objectively as individuals we are absolutely powerless. Nothing we do or don't do makes any difference in the grand scheme of things. Anyone telling us otherwise is selling us snake oil.
We as part of a collective are incredibly powerful beyond imagination. When our concerns and our world start to become bigger than just our individual needs, we find strength in numbers. Only then can our individuality truly shine.
Seeing us as part of a group, a class and building that sense of community and collective action is long and difficult work.
We as part of a collective are incredibly powerful beyond imagination. When our concerns and our world start to become bigger than just our individual needs, we find strength in numbers. Only then can our individuality truly shine.
Seeing us as part of a group, a class and building that sense of community and collective action is long and difficult work.
Not far off.
The author either submitted to the inevitable. Or, decided that they don't want to make change.
Hate the cheap fashion, make a choice, buy proper products they just cost more and require the slightest of effort to care for.
Hate bad writing, move on read something else.
Dislike the quality of product X buy Y.
Frankly if you had told me the quality of product you would be and to buy for example in the MacBook air for <<$1k a few years ago I'd have laughed. There are food brands which are still going that make the same quality products and don't sacrifice, but they now cost more than the competitors because they don't compromise.
And that's just the beginning. The moaning about China, AI, people is just the same "I can't do anything to improve my lot in life" you see too much online.
Stop reacting to things happening to you and start doing things.
The author either submitted to the inevitable. Or, decided that they don't want to make change.
Hate the cheap fashion, make a choice, buy proper products they just cost more and require the slightest of effort to care for.
Hate bad writing, move on read something else.
Dislike the quality of product X buy Y.
Frankly if you had told me the quality of product you would be and to buy for example in the MacBook air for <<$1k a few years ago I'd have laughed. There are food brands which are still going that make the same quality products and don't sacrifice, but they now cost more than the competitors because they don't compromise.
And that's just the beginning. The moaning about China, AI, people is just the same "I can't do anything to improve my lot in life" you see too much online.
Stop reacting to things happening to you and start doing things.
The "power" of your consumer choice is a consolation within a life of servitude anyway though right?
Like even if the author is totally wrong, that "actually all our products are actually much better thank you, good thing we don't live 50 years ago!" Is that something we can truly be happy about? Is that winning? You too, im sure, feel that itchy emptiness when you have received all your products, when all the plastics has been peeled off and the software has been updated.
This is not a battle you even want to win! The power you are defending is already second-hand, is just a sedative. You can want more.
Like even if the author is totally wrong, that "actually all our products are actually much better thank you, good thing we don't live 50 years ago!" Is that something we can truly be happy about? Is that winning? You too, im sure, feel that itchy emptiness when you have received all your products, when all the plastics has been peeled off and the software has been updated.
This is not a battle you even want to win! The power you are defending is already second-hand, is just a sedative. You can want more.
Can we discuss food packaging a bit?
What's better -- often food packaging has clever ways to be resealable so you can use it without letting your food get stale.
What's worse -- the above is combined with "make it as thin as possible to not fall apart before it gets home. Quite frequently... I try to carefully open a resealable package, and completely shred it ruining the part that is supposed to reseal.
I imagine this is regional, but our local deli meat bags... well this adds a second issue... the bags are super thin, but then they put strong stickers folded across the resealable portion. It's nigh impossible to get the sticker lifted without ripping a hole in the bag and again, ruining the "resealable" feature.
What's better -- often food packaging has clever ways to be resealable so you can use it without letting your food get stale.
What's worse -- the above is combined with "make it as thin as possible to not fall apart before it gets home. Quite frequently... I try to carefully open a resealable package, and completely shred it ruining the part that is supposed to reseal.
I imagine this is regional, but our local deli meat bags... well this adds a second issue... the bags are super thin, but then they put strong stickers folded across the resealable portion. It's nigh impossible to get the sticker lifted without ripping a hole in the bag and again, ruining the "resealable" feature.
Here's a dirty little secret.
These companies are so fine tuned that they notice a 0.05% drop in revenue. Don't like what they do. Don't buy it and see if they change.
If they change something and you vote with your cash they notice. The biggest lie is that you don't matter because you're statistically insignificant. If you believe that they lose 0.005% vs 0.05%.
For better or worse look at Bud Light. The customer is always the opinion they listen to. 50% loss in profits or 0.5% this gets blamed on someone ultimately and they tend to revert unpopular decisions when they're not related to regulatory changes.
These companies are so fine tuned that they notice a 0.05% drop in revenue. Don't like what they do. Don't buy it and see if they change.
If they change something and you vote with your cash they notice. The biggest lie is that you don't matter because you're statistically insignificant. If you believe that they lose 0.005% vs 0.05%.
For better or worse look at Bud Light. The customer is always the opinion they listen to. 50% loss in profits or 0.5% this gets blamed on someone ultimately and they tend to revert unpopular decisions when they're not related to regulatory changes.
Is it not a little ironic that, in order to read this article without a subscription, I must agree to share my browser data with 920 interested parties?
Needless to say, I declined this unfair trade, but didn't hold out the greatest hopes for this being a particularly enlightening or profound piece.
Needless to say, I declined this unfair trade, but didn't hold out the greatest hopes for this being a particularly enlightening or profound piece.
For public services, every year people get older, more of the economy has to be reallocated towards looking after them. More spending on pensions rather than education, more old people using all the health services (since they use up so much more than young people).
The upper-middle class in the US is also bigger than ever, and all those upper-middle interests are getting saturated: AMEX lounges, expensive resorts. Air travel is also a lot more affordable for the common person than back in the golden age.
The upper-middle class in the US is also bigger than ever, and all those upper-middle interests are getting saturated: AMEX lounges, expensive resorts. Air travel is also a lot more affordable for the common person than back in the golden age.
It's called inflation guys. Most innovation is selling an inferior product for a lower price. Most of us can only afford that. It's the same old inflation, but repackeged to keep the official inflation number down.
This is not inflation, it's divorced from all factors, these companies are raking in record profits, and they still squeeze out price increases, smaller seats, worse customer service, just because you have no alternative, you gotta take it.
It's called "Enshittification": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification. It's just the free market and the corporations giving a big middle finger to its clients. It's the same reason Microsoft can do all of the above:
- "The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April"
- "Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels, teams and geographies, affecting about 6,000 people."
- "These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said."
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/13/microsoft-is-cutting-3percen...
If you are thinking this is in any way tied to inflation, it's not. It's just greed and the absence of laws to curb that greed. So you are gonna get less and worse for more money, and like it, because the monopolies are lobbying the governments and can do literally what they want to do in countries susceptible to it.
When Broadcom tried these kinds of stunts in civilized countries, they quickly got shown their place:
- https://www.networkworld.com/article/4015489/dutch-court-for...
- https://licenseware.io/broadcom-faces-eu-scrutiny-over-contr...
Does 800% and 1500% price increase sound to you like related to inflation? Enshittification is not out of our hands if we elect governments that have our interest in mind.
It's called "Enshittification": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification. It's just the free market and the corporations giving a big middle finger to its clients. It's the same reason Microsoft can do all of the above:
- "The company reported better-than-expected results, with $25.8 billion in quarterly net income, and an upbeat forecast in late April"
- "Microsoft on Tuesday said that it’s laying off 3% of employees across all levels, teams and geographies, affecting about 6,000 people."
- "These new job cuts are not related to performance, the spokesperson said."
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/13/microsoft-is-cutting-3percen...
If you are thinking this is in any way tied to inflation, it's not. It's just greed and the absence of laws to curb that greed. So you are gonna get less and worse for more money, and like it, because the monopolies are lobbying the governments and can do literally what they want to do in countries susceptible to it.
When Broadcom tried these kinds of stunts in civilized countries, they quickly got shown their place:
- https://www.networkworld.com/article/4015489/dutch-court-for...
- https://licenseware.io/broadcom-faces-eu-scrutiny-over-contr...
Does 800% and 1500% price increase sound to you like related to inflation? Enshittification is not out of our hands if we elect governments that have our interest in mind.
On one side you have companies that are working hard 24/7 to have more money at any cost. On the other side you have average Joe who can barely work, have time for family and have time for relaxing.
Also it is expected for the company to have absolutely no care for ethics unless it affects their bottom line. And there are many blockers for the average Joe like ethics, feeling guilt etc. etc.
It is only natural that companies are pushing more and more as time goes on. And there is no reason it should stop other than companies messing it up?
Maybe if gains were huge, the regular people would get some benefits but it seems like the gains are just not enough for that to happen anymore?
Also it is expected for the company to have absolutely no care for ethics unless it affects their bottom line. And there are many blockers for the average Joe like ethics, feeling guilt etc. etc.
It is only natural that companies are pushing more and more as time goes on. And there is no reason it should stop other than companies messing it up?
Maybe if gains were huge, the regular people would get some benefits but it seems like the gains are just not enough for that to happen anymore?
> On one side you have companies that are working hard 24/7 to have more money at any cost. On the other side you have average Joe who can barely work, have time for family and have time for relaxing.
You are taking that as a natural state of things, a law that can't be broken, while this is just the end effect of living under capitalism. It's not set in stone and can be changed. We just need to change the incentives:
> It is only natural that companies are pushing more and more as time goes on. And there is no reason it should stop other than companies messing it up?
Jail time for executives, breaking down monopolies, and enforcing of antitrust laws come to mind as an effective way that's worked in the past. Also unionizing and strikes for the workers for fair pay. State intervention and re-nationalization of companies that misbehave, especially water, utilities, transport and agriculture. Also progressive wealth tax up to 70%-99%, so there is less incentives to be greedy (if you think that's too much...well, that already happened in 50's USA).
You are taking that as a natural state of things, a law that can't be broken, while this is just the end effect of living under capitalism. It's not set in stone and can be changed. We just need to change the incentives:
> It is only natural that companies are pushing more and more as time goes on. And there is no reason it should stop other than companies messing it up?
Jail time for executives, breaking down monopolies, and enforcing of antitrust laws come to mind as an effective way that's worked in the past. Also unionizing and strikes for the workers for fair pay. State intervention and re-nationalization of companies that misbehave, especially water, utilities, transport and agriculture. Also progressive wealth tax up to 70%-99%, so there is less incentives to be greedy (if you think that's too much...well, that already happened in 50's USA).
Just because it's got a Wikipedia entry doesn't mean that it's the correct term for anything. Outside of the most navel gazing hacker communities you won't find anybody taking you seriously with that language. You sound like some kind of pervert.
Thanks for the input, very constructive. You sound like you really know what you are talking about, with all the counterexamples and links you gave to support your thesis that I am a "pervert".
That's powerful debate skills, you really showed me!
That's powerful debate skills, you really showed me!
> these companies are raking in record profits.
Only the Mag7 are raking in projects. The rest have gone nowhere.
https://x.com/pmarca/status/1946500584674324842
Only the Mag7 are raking in projects. The rest have gone nowhere.
https://x.com/pmarca/status/1946500584674324842
7bit(1)
It's called "lowest cost technically acceptable". Publicly traded companies are driven by quarterly earnings and increasing net margins. You do that by selling products at the lowest cost possible where buyers will still buy it.
A bigger decline is coming if we let "vibe coding" and what we call AI replace human workers at scale. The technology isn't there yet for full automation but everything is blindly surging ahead due to the allure of it and the same reason as the first paragraph above.
A bigger decline is coming if we let "vibe coding" and what we call AI replace human workers at scale. The technology isn't there yet for full automation but everything is blindly surging ahead due to the allure of it and the same reason as the first paragraph above.
> It's called "lowest cost technically acceptable".
I like this wording better than "programmed obsolescence". I don't really believe that "programmed obsolescence" is common. If anyone in a company leaked that the company actively designs the product to stop working after some time, it would make the news.
I call it "premature obsolescence", which sounds more passive to me: the product doesn't last as long as it could because the company doesn't actively work on making it last as long. Because it's cheaper of course. Hence "lowest cost technically acceptable".
"It's not that we make a bad product, but rather that we don't make a good product", in a way. There is no need, consumers buy it even if it's not good.
I like this wording better than "programmed obsolescence". I don't really believe that "programmed obsolescence" is common. If anyone in a company leaked that the company actively designs the product to stop working after some time, it would make the news.
I call it "premature obsolescence", which sounds more passive to me: the product doesn't last as long as it could because the company doesn't actively work on making it last as long. Because it's cheaper of course. Hence "lowest cost technically acceptable".
"It's not that we make a bad product, but rather that we don't make a good product", in a way. There is no need, consumers buy it even if it's not good.
Planned obsolescence is very much an actively employed, functional, business strategy.
I think you're only considering one aspect of planned obsolescence -- where the product is designed to have a short lifetime. I don't know why you would believe that that isn't part of "business as usual", but there's more than one way to make a product obsolete. The typical case is when a company releases yearly model refreshes for a product with an operational life far in excess of 12 months. This stategy is most common in markets with a monopoly or oligopoly, in saturated product segments.
Have you ever heard the phrase "last year's model"?
I think you're only considering one aspect of planned obsolescence -- where the product is designed to have a short lifetime. I don't know why you would believe that that isn't part of "business as usual", but there's more than one way to make a product obsolete. The typical case is when a company releases yearly model refreshes for a product with an operational life far in excess of 12 months. This stategy is most common in markets with a monopoly or oligopoly, in saturated product segments.
Have you ever heard the phrase "last year's model"?
Not sure I like the tone. Yes, I have heard the phrase "last year's model".
Say you buy a smartphone, and you want it to last for 7 years. If you buy the model from 2025, the manufacturer commits to supporting it until 2032 (it already exists). Now if you buy the 2025 model in 2029, it will still last until 2032, so in 2029 it actually makes sense to not buy the model from 2025. But I would say that it's pretty great that the manufacturer commits to supporting the devices for 7 years.
Planned obsolescence suggests that the company has been actively investing resources into it. "This lightbulb lasts for 4 years, have our engineers find a way to make it die after 1 year" is the typical example of that.
Now of course, as a customer, you can buy the 2025 model, and throw it away in 2026 to buy the new model.
Say you buy a smartphone, and you want it to last for 7 years. If you buy the model from 2025, the manufacturer commits to supporting it until 2032 (it already exists). Now if you buy the 2025 model in 2029, it will still last until 2032, so in 2029 it actually makes sense to not buy the model from 2025. But I would say that it's pretty great that the manufacturer commits to supporting the devices for 7 years.
Planned obsolescence suggests that the company has been actively investing resources into it. "This lightbulb lasts for 4 years, have our engineers find a way to make it die after 1 year" is the typical example of that.
Now of course, as a customer, you can buy the 2025 model, and throw it away in 2026 to buy the new model.
For what it's worth, I see now how that would read as condescending and I'm sorry about that.
I mentioned the "last year's model" thing because, to me, it's a phrase most associated with automobile makers and advertising c. 1950 -- with that business in particular often being cited as the originator (or at least, codifier) of the "yearly refresh" planned obsolescence strategy.
> I would say that it's pretty great that the manufacturer commits to supporting the devices for 7 years.
Sure. Your scenario is describing planned obsolescence, though. As I understand it, you're saying that the device will be practically unusable when the support period ends in 2032. It doesn't matter if it's 7 years or 7 months, that's something that came about because of a decision made by the company -- it was planned. Further, the company releases a new version of the product in 2026. The older model still works, but it has nevertheless been rendered obsolete, by an (arbitrary) action of the company that produced it.
> I would say that it's pretty great that the manufacturer commits to supporting the devices for 7 years.
Sure. Your scenario is describing planned obsolescence, though. As I understand it, you're saying that the device will be practically unusable when the support period ends in 2032. It doesn't matter if it's 7 years or 7 months, that's something that came about because of a decision made by the company -- it was planned. Further, the company releases a new version of the product in 2026. The older model still works, but it has nevertheless been rendered obsolete, by an (arbitrary) action of the company that produced it.
I do understand how my "premature obsolescence" may sound exactly like "planned obsolescence".
It's just that in my mind, there is a difference between "I put efforts into making sure that it won't last longer than what I plan" and "I don't put efforts into making it last longer than what I plan".
- Actively making the product worse is an arsehole move. The way to prevent that is to make it illegal to do it.
- Not actively keeping it alive is actually rational if it is less profitable. We do agree that it is premature for a smartphone to be unusable after 2 weeks. We probably do agree that it is not reasonable to expect a smartphone to last for 10 000 years. So we need regulations that enforces something reasonable upon company. Then it becomes rational for the company to apply it, because if they don't they will get fines and it will be more costly.
I see the first one as "planned obsolescence". The second as "premature obsolescence". For the former, I think we should be extremely severe with companies (the CEO who clearly asks for that should go to prison, if it's at the scale of smarphones). But the latter comes from a lack of regulations.
It's just that in my mind, there is a difference between "I put efforts into making sure that it won't last longer than what I plan" and "I don't put efforts into making it last longer than what I plan".
- Actively making the product worse is an arsehole move. The way to prevent that is to make it illegal to do it.
- Not actively keeping it alive is actually rational if it is less profitable. We do agree that it is premature for a smartphone to be unusable after 2 weeks. We probably do agree that it is not reasonable to expect a smartphone to last for 10 000 years. So we need regulations that enforces something reasonable upon company. Then it becomes rational for the company to apply it, because if they don't they will get fines and it will be more costly.
I see the first one as "planned obsolescence". The second as "premature obsolescence". For the former, I think we should be extremely severe with companies (the CEO who clearly asks for that should go to prison, if it's at the scale of smarphones). But the latter comes from a lack of regulations.
Lowest cost possible is often fun optimization problem engineers enjoy. Save a fraction of cent here and there and there too. And in some ways it is good for consumer getting cheaper products.
On the other end you have something like Juicero. Massively and wastefully overengineered piece of crap. To do not that useful task. While being extremely expensive. And probably not actually last that long.
Maybe one day if far future we end up with some mature balance between two. But I doubt it...
On the other end you have something like Juicero. Massively and wastefully overengineered piece of crap. To do not that useful task. While being extremely expensive. And probably not actually last that long.
Maybe one day if far future we end up with some mature balance between two. But I doubt it...
I don't think that engineers think "okay, so if I use this chip, the product will last 4 years, so I can use this other chip that will last only 2 years because it's a few cents cheaper".
If you want it to last longer, it's a lot of work: you have to somehow test the components you buy (or get those who produce them to do it) and then you have to test whatever you build with them. So you have to invest in it, it's not just a design decision.
Same for waterproofness: it's not that you actively drill holes in your device to make sure that it won't be waterproof. It's just that if you actually want it waterproof, you have to design for it, then you have to test, and iterate a few times. If your consumers still buy your device if it's not waterproof, then there is no need to invest in waterproofness. But it's not "planned un-waterproofness".
If you want it to last longer, it's a lot of work: you have to somehow test the components you buy (or get those who produce them to do it) and then you have to test whatever you build with them. So you have to invest in it, it's not just a design decision.
Same for waterproofness: it's not that you actively drill holes in your device to make sure that it won't be waterproof. It's just that if you actually want it waterproof, you have to design for it, then you have to test, and iterate a few times. If your consumers still buy your device if it's not waterproof, then there is no need to invest in waterproofness. But it's not "planned un-waterproofness".
So the health service did not get worse but there are now more elderly which have an effect…
And this does not result in the health service having lower quality for the individual?
This is a very funky way to frame this.
And this does not result in the health service having lower quality for the individual?
This is a very funky way to frame this.
Quality comes at a cost. That cost has gone down for some types of products (iPhones, TVs) but gone up for other types of products (housing).
Clothing cost after accounting for inflation has actually not increased. There are many of high quality textiles companies that only produce hand made organic cotton sourced from sustainable farms etc. Some of them are actually not too expensive - check out Isto from Portugal. Yes, i'm willing to pay $50 for a tshirt instead of the usual $25 from Uniqlo or Zara but most people are not.
The article is from Spain - the birthplace of Zara, Inditex and fast fashion. Spain is also known for sitting on cheap plastic chairs outside drinking cheap beer for hours. The quality of housing interiors is pretty poor - despite wood parquet flooring being no more expensive than in other parts of the world, almost every house here (even after renovation) has laminate, concrete or ceramic flooring. Yet plenty of people here have the top of the latest Playstation or iPhone.
Which we all get - if housing start costing close to 40% of your paycheck which is typical for a young person in Spain, is that $50 high quality tshirt or $80 / sqm parquet really what you should logically do with your left over money?
High quality items has traditionally been a luxury good - one reserved for the rich. Back then we simply did not have the choice to buy low quality items which allowed us to shift more spending on things that we actually cared more about. The real lament is that most of us actually care less about the quality of clothing and furniture than we would like to believe.
Clothing cost after accounting for inflation has actually not increased. There are many of high quality textiles companies that only produce hand made organic cotton sourced from sustainable farms etc. Some of them are actually not too expensive - check out Isto from Portugal. Yes, i'm willing to pay $50 for a tshirt instead of the usual $25 from Uniqlo or Zara but most people are not.
The article is from Spain - the birthplace of Zara, Inditex and fast fashion. Spain is also known for sitting on cheap plastic chairs outside drinking cheap beer for hours. The quality of housing interiors is pretty poor - despite wood parquet flooring being no more expensive than in other parts of the world, almost every house here (even after renovation) has laminate, concrete or ceramic flooring. Yet plenty of people here have the top of the latest Playstation or iPhone.
Which we all get - if housing start costing close to 40% of your paycheck which is typical for a young person in Spain, is that $50 high quality tshirt or $80 / sqm parquet really what you should logically do with your left over money?
High quality items has traditionally been a luxury good - one reserved for the rich. Back then we simply did not have the choice to buy low quality items which allowed us to shift more spending on things that we actually cared more about. The real lament is that most of us actually care less about the quality of clothing and furniture than we would like to believe.
One factor around this is private equity buyouts. PE has been snapping up a lot of well established smaller companies and squeezing more profits out of them. Part of this is value engineering the products and offerings. These companies have built up names over a long time based on good products so you can ride the name and existing customers for a bit and maximize profits. By the time people get fed up the investment has paid off.
While it's something with a myriad of causes, the main one to me is the decrease of real wages for the middle class, not just consumer culture.
Some products and services managed to decrease in price to match this, and but the culture of craftsmanship had to be sacrificed to match lower purchasing parity.
Product culture ends up being the culture in which the middle class are engaged in.
Some products and services managed to decrease in price to match this, and but the culture of craftsmanship had to be sacrificed to match lower purchasing parity.
Product culture ends up being the culture in which the middle class are engaged in.
We're still in the early phases of millennials getting their first jobs and saving up to get apartments, etc. Gen Z is right there with them. The result has been a generation of the workforce that didn't learn good work ethic and skills in their teenage drug years (from approx 13 to 31). I worked from 13 on, but I have friends who didn't get their license until they were 19, didn't work until after finishing their gender studies degree, and now aren't qualified for their job monitoring the self checkout at Publix.
That is why quality has declined.
That is why quality has declined.
From the intro:
> Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls.
The author talks about a range of motivations behind these, but it seems like there's an obvious one we're missing. All these changes make products more profitable.
I would love to live in a society that prioritises sustainability and quality of life for its citizens. We currently only achieve those things if they're a byproduct of profit for coorporations.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I definitely don't see these changes as bewildering. Quality has been intentionally lowered when it conflicts with profit since at least the Phoebus cartel[0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
> Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls.
The author talks about a range of motivations behind these, but it seems like there's an obvious one we're missing. All these changes make products more profitable.
I would love to live in a society that prioritises sustainability and quality of life for its citizens. We currently only achieve those things if they're a byproduct of profit for coorporations.
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I definitely don't see these changes as bewildering. Quality has been intentionally lowered when it conflicts with profit since at least the Phoebus cartel[0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
Have you ever actually used a long-life incandescent lightbulb? They suck. It's like your bedroom is lit by the miserable little lamp in your oven. That's because Tungsten lighting has inherent tradeoffs between life span, and every other desirable characteristic. Brightness, spectral quality, and energy efficiency all improve as you make the filament thinner, and thus less durable.
The Phoebus cartel is an example of planned obsolescence, but it's a bad example for your argument because it made lightbulbs much, much better at their intended purpose. Consumer number-gawking incentivized manufacturers to make their product objectively worse, and the cartel solved that problem.
The Phoebus cartel is an example of planned obsolescence, but it's a bad example for your argument because it made lightbulbs much, much better at their intended purpose. Consumer number-gawking incentivized manufacturers to make their product objectively worse, and the cartel solved that problem.
No I haven't - has anyone? It sounds like you have, so I won't argue. I am no expert on what the actual consumer impact of the Phoebus Cartel was, maybe it wasn't a great choie of example. Wikipedia doesn't make it sound positive for consumers overall:
> Regulators in the UK and some independent engineers have noted that there are benefits to shorter bulb lifespans, as shorter-life bulbs can be brighter for the same wattage. Nevertheless, both internal comments from cartel executives and later findings by a US court suggest that the cartel's direct motivation for the change was to increase profits by forcing customers to buy bulbs more frequently.
> Regulators in the UK and some independent engineers have noted that there are benefits to shorter bulb lifespans, as shorter-life bulbs can be brighter for the same wattage. Nevertheless, both internal comments from cartel executives and later findings by a US court suggest that the cartel's direct motivation for the change was to increase profits by forcing customers to buy bulbs more frequently.
>clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash
Or maybe just don't buy cheap thrash?
I bought some T-shirts while in Covid from a sports brand and 5 years later they are still as if they were new :shrug:
Of course price =/= quality, but when almost everyone is ordering their new clothes from Shein then what do you really expect?
Or maybe just don't buy cheap thrash?
I bought some T-shirts while in Covid from a sports brand and 5 years later they are still as if they were new :shrug:
Of course price =/= quality, but when almost everyone is ordering their new clothes from Shein then what do you really expect?
Anyone else starting to see this as an unconscious but inevitable outcome of the world’s tail-end stage of becoming developed?
Moore’s law has ended. The LHC found nothing of note. Childhood mortality and Polio have been defeated. The periodic table is effectively complete. R&D is having limited returns. This AI capex spend is just hardware and data catching up to R&D from the 1980s.
We were born thinking the curve from the 1950s onwards was a god-given eternal exponential. But since about the early 2000s we’ve quietly known the curve was logistic, and not god-given.
Economists and the well-off are in denial about exponential growth. We’ve hit the current carrying capacity for an economy of n-billion silicon-flinging apes on a globe with a limited number of resources.
Businesses are still in high gear expecting growth eternal. This puts a chain of pressure down from CEO through every decision maker in the organisation: “at the end of the day, this number has to go up and this number go down”.
Businesses used to make the lives of their customers a little better through their products or services. The only model left, now that all the large pile of low-hanging fruit of innovation are gone, is to aggressively extract money from customers.
Perhaps this is all just stemming from business assumptions of exponential growth being flawed. Should we require MBAs to know what a logistic curve is?
I don’t know a lot, but I know that the current business paradigm and the products and services I interact with everyday are very optimised. But not optimised for me. They’re optimised for businesses maligned to my goals, but the only businesses left offering anything.
Moore’s law has ended. The LHC found nothing of note. Childhood mortality and Polio have been defeated. The periodic table is effectively complete. R&D is having limited returns. This AI capex spend is just hardware and data catching up to R&D from the 1980s.
We were born thinking the curve from the 1950s onwards was a god-given eternal exponential. But since about the early 2000s we’ve quietly known the curve was logistic, and not god-given.
Economists and the well-off are in denial about exponential growth. We’ve hit the current carrying capacity for an economy of n-billion silicon-flinging apes on a globe with a limited number of resources.
Businesses are still in high gear expecting growth eternal. This puts a chain of pressure down from CEO through every decision maker in the organisation: “at the end of the day, this number has to go up and this number go down”.
Businesses used to make the lives of their customers a little better through their products or services. The only model left, now that all the large pile of low-hanging fruit of innovation are gone, is to aggressively extract money from customers.
Perhaps this is all just stemming from business assumptions of exponential growth being flawed. Should we require MBAs to know what a logistic curve is?
I don’t know a lot, but I know that the current business paradigm and the products and services I interact with everyday are very optimised. But not optimised for me. They’re optimised for businesses maligned to my goals, but the only businesses left offering anything.
Moore's law might have ended but Wright's law didn't, and even if it did, it would still be progress, we don't have exponential development in everything. Continues improvement is still continuous.
> The LHC found nothing of note.
That's just wrong.
> Childhood mortality and Polio have been defeated.
Childhood mortality has not been defeated. And while Polio has been, many other things haven't.
> The periodic table is effectively complete.
People in the next 100 years will add more. And even so, there is so much about materials we don't understand its actually insane. There are many things we learn about materials that is just as or more relevant then discovering a new element.
> R&D is having limited returns.
It has always had limited returns. And in some ways it has huge returns. Making an airlplane 1% more efficient today has a much larger overall impact then making a plane 10% more efficient 50 years ago.
> This AI capex spend is just hardware and data catching up to R&D from the 1980s.
That's just dismissive of 30+ years of research and work. You might as well argue that its just 200 years of catching up to the vision of Ada.
> But since about the early 2000s we’ve quietly known the curve was logistic, and not god-given.
From a global perspective there is no slowdown, its only relative to US experience.
> Businesses are still in high gear expecting growth eternal. This puts a chain of pressure down from CEO through every decision maker in the organisation: “at the end of the day, this number has to go up and this number go down”.
This has literally been every business for 5000 years.
> Businesses used to make the lives of their customers a little better through their products or services.
And they still do.
> The only model left, now that all the large pile of low-hanging fruit of innovation are gone, is to aggressively extract money from customers.
That's just not accurate. Go look up how much investment in next generation notes cost TSMC and then tell me all they do is extract money from consumers. Tell me that the restaurant down the street who works hard creating incredibly food is just extracting money from consumers in some kind of aggressive way.
When SpaceX deployed a whole new infrastructure around the globe, was that just extracting money because innovation is impossible, or was it massive innovation and massive infrastructure spending?
This is just a cynical world-view glorifying the past. When in effect, innovation wasn't easy. Go look up how many people died in air accidents, or car accidents. Go look up how many mainframe and minicomputer companies came and went, trying to invent the future. If anything the length companies now-days go to, to prevent a single death is actually kind of crazy.
> Perhaps this is all just stemming from business assumptions of exponential growth being flawed.
There are tons of business that don't expect exponential growth. There are even many that expect to shrink. And tons of business who do expect it don't get it. And yet the world keeps turning for those business too.
Capitalism can work perfectly fine in situation of now growth, plenty of countries have seen little growth for decades. And yet food still gets delivered to stores. Trains and cars keep going around. And so on and so on. But even in those places, companies don't stop trying to grow.
Maybe we will live in a world where no company will ever grow and wont for decades, even in that world, MBA and everybody else will still try to grow companies. Even if the world experienced a 50 year decline, that wouldn't change anything. Teach them about logistic curves all you like.
> But not optimised for me.
The world doesn't evolve around you. Shocking that you had to realize that like this.
> The LHC found nothing of note.
That's just wrong.
> Childhood mortality and Polio have been defeated.
Childhood mortality has not been defeated. And while Polio has been, many other things haven't.
> The periodic table is effectively complete.
People in the next 100 years will add more. And even so, there is so much about materials we don't understand its actually insane. There are many things we learn about materials that is just as or more relevant then discovering a new element.
> R&D is having limited returns.
It has always had limited returns. And in some ways it has huge returns. Making an airlplane 1% more efficient today has a much larger overall impact then making a plane 10% more efficient 50 years ago.
> This AI capex spend is just hardware and data catching up to R&D from the 1980s.
That's just dismissive of 30+ years of research and work. You might as well argue that its just 200 years of catching up to the vision of Ada.
> But since about the early 2000s we’ve quietly known the curve was logistic, and not god-given.
From a global perspective there is no slowdown, its only relative to US experience.
> Businesses are still in high gear expecting growth eternal. This puts a chain of pressure down from CEO through every decision maker in the organisation: “at the end of the day, this number has to go up and this number go down”.
This has literally been every business for 5000 years.
> Businesses used to make the lives of their customers a little better through their products or services.
And they still do.
> The only model left, now that all the large pile of low-hanging fruit of innovation are gone, is to aggressively extract money from customers.
That's just not accurate. Go look up how much investment in next generation notes cost TSMC and then tell me all they do is extract money from consumers. Tell me that the restaurant down the street who works hard creating incredibly food is just extracting money from consumers in some kind of aggressive way.
When SpaceX deployed a whole new infrastructure around the globe, was that just extracting money because innovation is impossible, or was it massive innovation and massive infrastructure spending?
This is just a cynical world-view glorifying the past. When in effect, innovation wasn't easy. Go look up how many people died in air accidents, or car accidents. Go look up how many mainframe and minicomputer companies came and went, trying to invent the future. If anything the length companies now-days go to, to prevent a single death is actually kind of crazy.
> Perhaps this is all just stemming from business assumptions of exponential growth being flawed.
There are tons of business that don't expect exponential growth. There are even many that expect to shrink. And tons of business who do expect it don't get it. And yet the world keeps turning for those business too.
Capitalism can work perfectly fine in situation of now growth, plenty of countries have seen little growth for decades. And yet food still gets delivered to stores. Trains and cars keep going around. And so on and so on. But even in those places, companies don't stop trying to grow.
Maybe we will live in a world where no company will ever grow and wont for decades, even in that world, MBA and everybody else will still try to grow companies. Even if the world experienced a 50 year decline, that wouldn't change anything. Teach them about logistic curves all you like.
> But not optimised for me.
The world doesn't evolve around you. Shocking that you had to realize that like this.
Your response leans on pedantic literalism and techno-optimism.
Yes, continuous improvement is still happening – but that's exactly the point. We're now largely in the slow, incremental phase of a logistic curve, not the wild exponential boom of mid-century.
Declaring "Wright's law didn't end" doesn't magically revive Moore's Law or deliver another physics revolution. It just means costs fall gradually – a far cry from the paradigm-shifting breakthroughs we once took for granted. Take your example of airplane efficiency: you argue that a 1% improvement today has more total impact than a 10% improvement 50 years ago. Precisely – because we've already squeezed out the big gains. We're fighting over the last few percent now. That's diminishing returns in a nutshell.
Claiming "the LHC found nothing of note" is "just wrong" without elaboration is not a rebuttal – it's empty hand-waving. In truth, the LHC confirmed the Higgs (important, but expected) and thus far hasn't found new physics beyond the Standard Model. In other words, no earth-shaking discovery to mark on the timeline.
Similarly, quibbling that "the periodic table isn't complete because we might add element 119+" is technically true yet profoundly trivial. Synthesizing a superheavy element that decays in microseconds won't herald a new era of materials (you brought up material science, not me); it only underscores that we're tinkering at the margins of what we already know.
The original point – that the big foundational discoveries (DNA, the atom, electromagnetism, etc.) have been made – still stands. And yes, childhood mortality isn't zero and new diseases appear – but pretending the original claim was that "everything is 100% solved" is a straw man. Polio has been virtually eradicated worldwide; childhood mortality is down to a fraction of historic levels. These are monumental victories. Dismissing them because "many other things haven't been defeated" is like shrugging off the moon landing because we haven't colonized Mars. It's disingenuous nitpicking that ignores the broader truth: the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. Progress now tends to be harder-fought and incremental, exactly as a logistic curve (or plain old reality) predicts.
You insist "business has always been this way" – growth-obsessed and optimizing numbers – as if 5,000 years of merchants hustling invalidates any concern about today. This is a false equivalence. For most of history, economic growth was glacial and businesses were limited by local markets and resources. The modern era's exponential growth expectations are a relatively recent phenomenon fueled by industrialisation and cheap energy. Now we're hitting planetary and societal limits, something those ancient businesses never had to grapple with on a global scale. Pointing out that reality has a carrying capacity isn't "denial" – it's maths. We live on a finite planet. Endless exponential GDP growth in a closed system is fantasy. By slyly conceding that some companies "even expect to shrink" or that "plenty of countries have seen little growth for decades", you're actually reinforcing the original argument: perpetual growth is not guaranteed. Yet in the same breath you acknowledge businesses will "still try to grow" even in a no-growth world – which is exactly the problem being highlighted!
An economic paradigm built on eternal growth starts to cannibalise itself when growth dries up. Debt-fueled bubbles, resource depletion, and exploitative practices aren't signs of a healthy status quo – they're symptoms of chasing an impossible target. Teaching MBAs about logistic curves and limits to growth isn't frivolous; it's an attempt to inject reality into boardroom delusions. Dismissing that as irrelevant is just embracing willful ignorance.
And no, global progress isn't all wine and roses just because some developing countries are catching up. Your "from a global perspective there is no slowdown" line ignores that much of global GDP growth in recent decades came from population increase and China/India's rapid development – one-time events that don't prove infinite growth is sustainable. Meanwhile, frontier innovation and productivity in mature economies have slowed, a fact noted by plenty of economists. Simply put, we're coasting on momentum. Pointing that out isn't "glorifying the past," it's cautioning that the frenetic growth phase is leveling off – and our economic mindset needs to catch up.
You object to the statement that the only model left is "aggressively extracting money from customers," by rattling off examples of ongoing innovation. Sure, TSMC pours billions into next-gen chip nodes – but that actually supports the point about diminishing returns (each shrink is exorbitantly expensive and yields smaller gains). Yes, SpaceX built a new rocket infrastructure – an impressive outlier that everyone admires precisely because true game-changing innovation is so rare these days. Citing a local restaurant making "incredible food" or a rocket company revolutionising launch doesn't magically erase the countless counter-examples of businesses optimizing for profit at the expense of customer benefit.
Look around: software shifting to subscription models for basic features, appliances designed to break faster or use proprietary consumables, games riddled with predatory microtransactions, tech ecosystems that lock you in and harvest your data, airlines nickel-and-diming passengers for things that used to be free. These are all optimizations for revenue extraction, not for making your life better. My frustration was about this very shift – that many products and services nowadays feel like they exist to trap users in a maze of monetisation, rather than to deliver clear value.
Your response that "businesses still make lives better" reads like a blanket corporate press release, not an engagement with reality. Nobody said innovation has literally ceased. My claim was that the "large pile of low-hanging fruit" is gone – and you haven't actually refuted that. Incremental improvements and isolated leaps forward (like reusable rockets) happen, but they're increasingly hard-won. Meanwhile, companies flush with MBAs and pressured by investors turn to easier plays: locking in customers, eliminating competition, and squeezing every penny. When you counter with "but look at this new chip/rocket/restaurant," you're cherry-picking exceptions to downplay a broad trend that every consumer can feel.
The weakest part of your rebuttal is how it mischaracterises my original arguments and occasionally even undermines your own. You spend a lot of energy torching straw men. Nowhere did I claim "the world should revolve around me" – that's your invented absurdity. Complaining that products are not optimized for users (but for profit metrics) is not the same as expecting a personal utopia tailored to each individual. It's pointing out a systemic misalignment between what customers want and what companies prioritise.
The irony is that in your rush to refute every point, you often validate them. You argue "R&D has always had limited returns", which doesn't rebut the idea that current R&D is yielding less bang for the buck – it reinforces it. You point out how much harder it is now to get small improvements (exactly the complaint!). You deride the notion of a logistic curve, yet your own examples (small incremental gains, global catch-up growth slowing as it matures, etc.) paint a textbook logistic scenario. Your unwavering faith that "everything's fine, progress is progress" blinds you to the qualitative difference between transformative growth and grinding optimization.
It's like responding to someone worried about crop yields plateauing by saying "nonsense, we're still growing some corn every year." Totally misses the point. Finally, your tone doesn't do you any favors. Dismissing valid concerns as "cynical world-view" or implying anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand that "the world doesn't revolve around them" is more insulting than illuminating. It's possible to appreciate past innovation and be concerned about current trends – that doesn't make one a nostalgia-blinded cynic. Throwing out patronising asides might feel like scoring points, but it only highlights the emptiness of the rebuttal. When substance is lacking, sneering condescension fills the void.
Your response really tries to read like a thoughtful counter-argument and yet comes off as a knee-jerk denial of anything remotely critical of the status quo. Nobody is saying human progress stopped or that businesses overnight turned into pure evil. The argument is that we're entering a new phase: slower growth, harder innovation, and yes, a desperate push by many companies to maintain profits now that the easy growth is gone. You haven't disproven that; in fact, you've indirectly affirmed many aspects of it while arguing past the point.
To address this because it seems to be a repeated thought pattern underlying a lot of your responses lately: labeling every concern "wrong" or "cynical" doesn't make it go away. Sometimes metrics do plateau, sometimes the next big thing doesn't pan out (ask the LHC physicists hoping for new particles), and sometimes companies really do put profits over people in ways that hurt quality and trust. Acknowledging these realities isn't about glorifying the past – it's about not deluding ourselves regarding the present. No, the world doesn't revolve around any of us. But it's not supposed to revolve around corporate KPIs or your personal techno-optimism either. Progress isn't a given, and pretending otherwise is as misguided as assuming we were on an endless exponential.
A little less hubris and a little more humility about these limits would go a long way – especially before dismissing others as simply "wrong" without having the muscle to back it up.
Yes, continuous improvement is still happening – but that's exactly the point. We're now largely in the slow, incremental phase of a logistic curve, not the wild exponential boom of mid-century.
Declaring "Wright's law didn't end" doesn't magically revive Moore's Law or deliver another physics revolution. It just means costs fall gradually – a far cry from the paradigm-shifting breakthroughs we once took for granted. Take your example of airplane efficiency: you argue that a 1% improvement today has more total impact than a 10% improvement 50 years ago. Precisely – because we've already squeezed out the big gains. We're fighting over the last few percent now. That's diminishing returns in a nutshell.
Claiming "the LHC found nothing of note" is "just wrong" without elaboration is not a rebuttal – it's empty hand-waving. In truth, the LHC confirmed the Higgs (important, but expected) and thus far hasn't found new physics beyond the Standard Model. In other words, no earth-shaking discovery to mark on the timeline.
Similarly, quibbling that "the periodic table isn't complete because we might add element 119+" is technically true yet profoundly trivial. Synthesizing a superheavy element that decays in microseconds won't herald a new era of materials (you brought up material science, not me); it only underscores that we're tinkering at the margins of what we already know.
The original point – that the big foundational discoveries (DNA, the atom, electromagnetism, etc.) have been made – still stands. And yes, childhood mortality isn't zero and new diseases appear – but pretending the original claim was that "everything is 100% solved" is a straw man. Polio has been virtually eradicated worldwide; childhood mortality is down to a fraction of historic levels. These are monumental victories. Dismissing them because "many other things haven't been defeated" is like shrugging off the moon landing because we haven't colonized Mars. It's disingenuous nitpicking that ignores the broader truth: the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. Progress now tends to be harder-fought and incremental, exactly as a logistic curve (or plain old reality) predicts.
You insist "business has always been this way" – growth-obsessed and optimizing numbers – as if 5,000 years of merchants hustling invalidates any concern about today. This is a false equivalence. For most of history, economic growth was glacial and businesses were limited by local markets and resources. The modern era's exponential growth expectations are a relatively recent phenomenon fueled by industrialisation and cheap energy. Now we're hitting planetary and societal limits, something those ancient businesses never had to grapple with on a global scale. Pointing out that reality has a carrying capacity isn't "denial" – it's maths. We live on a finite planet. Endless exponential GDP growth in a closed system is fantasy. By slyly conceding that some companies "even expect to shrink" or that "plenty of countries have seen little growth for decades", you're actually reinforcing the original argument: perpetual growth is not guaranteed. Yet in the same breath you acknowledge businesses will "still try to grow" even in a no-growth world – which is exactly the problem being highlighted!
An economic paradigm built on eternal growth starts to cannibalise itself when growth dries up. Debt-fueled bubbles, resource depletion, and exploitative practices aren't signs of a healthy status quo – they're symptoms of chasing an impossible target. Teaching MBAs about logistic curves and limits to growth isn't frivolous; it's an attempt to inject reality into boardroom delusions. Dismissing that as irrelevant is just embracing willful ignorance.
And no, global progress isn't all wine and roses just because some developing countries are catching up. Your "from a global perspective there is no slowdown" line ignores that much of global GDP growth in recent decades came from population increase and China/India's rapid development – one-time events that don't prove infinite growth is sustainable. Meanwhile, frontier innovation and productivity in mature economies have slowed, a fact noted by plenty of economists. Simply put, we're coasting on momentum. Pointing that out isn't "glorifying the past," it's cautioning that the frenetic growth phase is leveling off – and our economic mindset needs to catch up.
You object to the statement that the only model left is "aggressively extracting money from customers," by rattling off examples of ongoing innovation. Sure, TSMC pours billions into next-gen chip nodes – but that actually supports the point about diminishing returns (each shrink is exorbitantly expensive and yields smaller gains). Yes, SpaceX built a new rocket infrastructure – an impressive outlier that everyone admires precisely because true game-changing innovation is so rare these days. Citing a local restaurant making "incredible food" or a rocket company revolutionising launch doesn't magically erase the countless counter-examples of businesses optimizing for profit at the expense of customer benefit.
Look around: software shifting to subscription models for basic features, appliances designed to break faster or use proprietary consumables, games riddled with predatory microtransactions, tech ecosystems that lock you in and harvest your data, airlines nickel-and-diming passengers for things that used to be free. These are all optimizations for revenue extraction, not for making your life better. My frustration was about this very shift – that many products and services nowadays feel like they exist to trap users in a maze of monetisation, rather than to deliver clear value.
Your response that "businesses still make lives better" reads like a blanket corporate press release, not an engagement with reality. Nobody said innovation has literally ceased. My claim was that the "large pile of low-hanging fruit" is gone – and you haven't actually refuted that. Incremental improvements and isolated leaps forward (like reusable rockets) happen, but they're increasingly hard-won. Meanwhile, companies flush with MBAs and pressured by investors turn to easier plays: locking in customers, eliminating competition, and squeezing every penny. When you counter with "but look at this new chip/rocket/restaurant," you're cherry-picking exceptions to downplay a broad trend that every consumer can feel.
The weakest part of your rebuttal is how it mischaracterises my original arguments and occasionally even undermines your own. You spend a lot of energy torching straw men. Nowhere did I claim "the world should revolve around me" – that's your invented absurdity. Complaining that products are not optimized for users (but for profit metrics) is not the same as expecting a personal utopia tailored to each individual. It's pointing out a systemic misalignment between what customers want and what companies prioritise.
The irony is that in your rush to refute every point, you often validate them. You argue "R&D has always had limited returns", which doesn't rebut the idea that current R&D is yielding less bang for the buck – it reinforces it. You point out how much harder it is now to get small improvements (exactly the complaint!). You deride the notion of a logistic curve, yet your own examples (small incremental gains, global catch-up growth slowing as it matures, etc.) paint a textbook logistic scenario. Your unwavering faith that "everything's fine, progress is progress" blinds you to the qualitative difference between transformative growth and grinding optimization.
It's like responding to someone worried about crop yields plateauing by saying "nonsense, we're still growing some corn every year." Totally misses the point. Finally, your tone doesn't do you any favors. Dismissing valid concerns as "cynical world-view" or implying anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand that "the world doesn't revolve around them" is more insulting than illuminating. It's possible to appreciate past innovation and be concerned about current trends – that doesn't make one a nostalgia-blinded cynic. Throwing out patronising asides might feel like scoring points, but it only highlights the emptiness of the rebuttal. When substance is lacking, sneering condescension fills the void.
Your response really tries to read like a thoughtful counter-argument and yet comes off as a knee-jerk denial of anything remotely critical of the status quo. Nobody is saying human progress stopped or that businesses overnight turned into pure evil. The argument is that we're entering a new phase: slower growth, harder innovation, and yes, a desperate push by many companies to maintain profits now that the easy growth is gone. You haven't disproven that; in fact, you've indirectly affirmed many aspects of it while arguing past the point.
To address this because it seems to be a repeated thought pattern underlying a lot of your responses lately: labeling every concern "wrong" or "cynical" doesn't make it go away. Sometimes metrics do plateau, sometimes the next big thing doesn't pan out (ask the LHC physicists hoping for new particles), and sometimes companies really do put profits over people in ways that hurt quality and trust. Acknowledging these realities isn't about glorifying the past – it's about not deluding ourselves regarding the present. No, the world doesn't revolve around any of us. But it's not supposed to revolve around corporate KPIs or your personal techno-optimism either. Progress isn't a given, and pretending otherwise is as misguided as assuming we were on an endless exponential.
A little less hubris and a little more humility about these limits would go a long way – especially before dismissing others as simply "wrong" without having the muscle to back it up.
Nothing bewildering. There is simple explanation. Your country's economy going downhill. You are no longer prosperous country you once was.
Off-shoring much of the manufacturing of American consumer goods to an overseas competitor known for quality issues, and the growth of online retailers that do not police for quality or counterfeits, may have something to do with the overall trend.
Just for the west I think. Quality is actually sky rocketing in Asian countries compared to past for example. My best bet is resources were over allocated to West prior because of colonization and it's getting reversed to mean at a rapid pace.
This is one of the reasons I do like Apple products. I've owned many PC's/Android phones/etc. - none of them come even close the longevity of Apple hardware (the exceptions are real, for sure).
My atari STE (4mb upgrade) is still going strong, and is stll rock (and roll) steady for music.
The article itself easily gives light to what drives certain declines in longevity (if that's your only measure of quality, since there are others too):
"Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”"
People don't care. As sheer product diversity and sourcing increased across the last several decades, so many products have become so much cheaper as a percentage of disposable income that people just stopped caring about how durable they are. The logic is sound from the standpoint of a consumer for most products for which durability isn't an absolute must: Just accept a cheaper thing because it's not too cumbersome to replace it sooner rather than later.
This has slowly worn down a general tendency towards careful thriftiness that previous generations had internalized and made the latest generations internalize that durability doesn't matter as much.
That many products marketed as high quality and sold at such prices also end up being poorly made doesn't help either: If you can't even trust the outcome when you make an effort to be careful, why bother?
"Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”"
People don't care. As sheer product diversity and sourcing increased across the last several decades, so many products have become so much cheaper as a percentage of disposable income that people just stopped caring about how durable they are. The logic is sound from the standpoint of a consumer for most products for which durability isn't an absolute must: Just accept a cheaper thing because it's not too cumbersome to replace it sooner rather than later.
This has slowly worn down a general tendency towards careful thriftiness that previous generations had internalized and made the latest generations internalize that durability doesn't matter as much.
That many products marketed as high quality and sold at such prices also end up being poorly made doesn't help either: If you can't even trust the outcome when you make an effort to be careful, why bother?
I grew up in the 1970s. I remember my dad having to regularly lube the joints of his truck, crawling under it with a grease gun to reach the Zerk fittings. I remember vehicles needing a tuneup every 3000 miles, and reaching 100,000 was an achievement.
Cars today? First tuneup at 100,000 miles.
You can say that cars are a lot more fragile today - get in a crash and they fall apart. That's true, but it's deliberate, and it's not deliberate so that they can make them cheap. It's deliberate so that fewer people die.
Cars today? First tuneup at 100,000 miles.
You can say that cars are a lot more fragile today - get in a crash and they fall apart. That's true, but it's deliberate, and it's not deliberate so that they can make them cheap. It's deliberate so that fewer people die.
Some people do want a good quality and do want to keep using the same one for many years, so what they say is not necessarily true of everyone. However, often the good quality things can be difficult to find (even if it is available, which in some cases it will be but often it isn't), or something has some advantages and some disadvantages over the other one which also makes it difficult to find an actually good one. Like they say sometimes people discard things for other reasons and buy new things too often, but some people don't want to do that, and shouldn't discard and keep buying new things too much. But, the quality is often bad too, with worse durabilty and worse quality in many other ways too. The other thing that is done is making it incompatible which can also make it difficult to actually have one which is of a good quality, especially if the specifications which may be required for such a thing are of a bad quality (which is also common). (It is true even with computer programs. FOSS can help a bit, although even programs that are made FOSS can be of a bad quality in many ways, it does at least allow people to try to improve them if they want to do. It is one part of one reason why I and some people might write some programs differently than others are commonly made.)
Meanwhile, in China, there's a push from the top to improve quality.[1]
Government policy previously favored production quantity and increased market share. Mission accomplished. Now there's overcapacity in many areas. So the new policy push is to increase quality to add value. The government is willing to let low-quality companies go out of business.
This is very obvious in China's electric vehicles. There used to be several hundred manufacturers, most producing really crappy cars. Now, there are fewer manufacturers, and the cars are much better. Ford's CEO on the BYD Shark: “It’s a great product. It’s sold well. They’re trying to sell in high volume in Mexico, but it’s also being localized in Thailand. If we want to be a global player in pickups, like we are now, we have to compete.”
Tools from China used to be total crap, and now they are at least OK.
There's a strong trend towards branded products from China, rather than white-label production. Brand reputation starts to matter.
[1] https://qualityinspection.org/cheap-and-crappy-to-excellent-...
This is very obvious in China's electric vehicles. There used to be several hundred manufacturers, most producing really crappy cars. Now, there are fewer manufacturers, and the cars are much better. Ford's CEO on the BYD Shark: “It’s a great product. It’s sold well. They’re trying to sell in high volume in Mexico, but it’s also being localized in Thailand. If we want to be a global player in pickups, like we are now, we have to compete.”
Tools from China used to be total crap, and now they are at least OK.
There's a strong trend towards branded products from China, rather than white-label production. Brand reputation starts to matter.
[1] https://qualityinspection.org/cheap-and-crappy-to-excellent-...
It's fascinating to me that people find there's no noticable quality decline. It might be the case for US, as the quality of food and textile wasn't great in 90s or 2000s. It's very noticable in Europe though, especially in southern Europe. You could buy local food for so cheap, same for textile.
I remember the first time my parents bought big-farm grown chicken at a local shop in 1997. I was fascinated and so happy because they also had chicken burgers (instead of buying a whole chicken at the butcher). Then came big dairy made yogurt and cheese, around 2000. There was even a failed experiment with factory made packaged bread, but nobody buys stale bread here, so that didn't work out. Now nobody remembers the taste of free range chicken from the villages, or any small scale farm for that matter.
Change in textile is a bit more complicated and quality decline has hit only in the last 10 years or so but to an even larger scale. I have tshirts I bought 15 years ago for 1-2 Euros looking almost new, but now tshirts in any proce range don't last a year most of the time. I only buy 100% cotton but somehow the fabric quality is so low.
I remember the first time my parents bought big-farm grown chicken at a local shop in 1997. I was fascinated and so happy because they also had chicken burgers (instead of buying a whole chicken at the butcher). Then came big dairy made yogurt and cheese, around 2000. There was even a failed experiment with factory made packaged bread, but nobody buys stale bread here, so that didn't work out. Now nobody remembers the taste of free range chicken from the villages, or any small scale farm for that matter.
Change in textile is a bit more complicated and quality decline has hit only in the last 10 years or so but to an even larger scale. I have tshirts I bought 15 years ago for 1-2 Euros looking almost new, but now tshirts in any proce range don't last a year most of the time. I only buy 100% cotton but somehow the fabric quality is so low.
This article is absolutely terrible.
> There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Well, wouldn't older people have more perspective from a greater amount of lived experience? Then, in the next sentence, the article assumes away a reason to throw their conclusions out.
> José Francisco Rodríguez, president of the Spanish Association of Customer Relations Experts, admits that a lack of digital skills can be particularly frustrating for older adults, who perceive that the quality of customer service has deteriorated due to automation. However, Rodríguez argues that, generally speaking, automation does improve customer service.
When the automation on the other end can't understand my problem and I can't talk to a human, then I cannot solve my problem. This is definitively a regression and is occurring more than ever before. I have a problem with getting paid from a large company, and there is no reasonable way outside of hiring a lawyer for me to resolve the problem, and the dollar amount is so low the company knows full well that I will not hire a lawyer to resolve the problem, and it is automation that makes this possible, more than ever. But I'm sure the back-end metrics look great to management and the experts in this article.
> It’s difficult to prove that today’s products are worse than those of 20 years ago.
Why is "20 years ago" the baseline? And that word "prove" establishes an unattainable bar within such a subjective field of study.
> There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Well, wouldn't older people have more perspective from a greater amount of lived experience? Then, in the next sentence, the article assumes away a reason to throw their conclusions out.
> José Francisco Rodríguez, president of the Spanish Association of Customer Relations Experts, admits that a lack of digital skills can be particularly frustrating for older adults, who perceive that the quality of customer service has deteriorated due to automation. However, Rodríguez argues that, generally speaking, automation does improve customer service.
When the automation on the other end can't understand my problem and I can't talk to a human, then I cannot solve my problem. This is definitively a regression and is occurring more than ever before. I have a problem with getting paid from a large company, and there is no reasonable way outside of hiring a lawyer for me to resolve the problem, and the dollar amount is so low the company knows full well that I will not hire a lawyer to resolve the problem, and it is automation that makes this possible, more than ever. But I'm sure the back-end metrics look great to management and the experts in this article.
> It’s difficult to prove that today’s products are worse than those of 20 years ago.
Why is "20 years ago" the baseline? And that word "prove" establishes an unattainable bar within such a subjective field of study.
Two things:
1. Quality has been dieing mainly because people are addicted to cheap shit. The cheaper things are, the more they can buy. The amount of personal possessions people have nowadays is totally insane and unsurprisingly lots of cheap stuff.
2. Planned obsolescence is not a thing. Maybe it's happened a few times with a few products. But it certainly doesn't deserve a name. I have been on the engineering side of many business and consumer products and swam in waters of the industry for years.
No one has ever used that term. There is no engineering associated with it. No books or talks or specialists.
It's purely a function of point #1. People want the lowest cost above all else, so lower quality parts get used. Warranty durations are pretty standard too, 1 year 2 year 5 year. You never see a 566 day warranty like you would expect from a calculated failure model.
Also, the best way for 25 years now to make a product fail just after warranty is to program it in software. Everything has a microcontroller nowadays. How many devs here have written that code?
1. Quality has been dieing mainly because people are addicted to cheap shit. The cheaper things are, the more they can buy. The amount of personal possessions people have nowadays is totally insane and unsurprisingly lots of cheap stuff.
2. Planned obsolescence is not a thing. Maybe it's happened a few times with a few products. But it certainly doesn't deserve a name. I have been on the engineering side of many business and consumer products and swam in waters of the industry for years.
No one has ever used that term. There is no engineering associated with it. No books or talks or specialists.
It's purely a function of point #1. People want the lowest cost above all else, so lower quality parts get used. Warranty durations are pretty standard too, 1 year 2 year 5 year. You never see a 566 day warranty like you would expect from a calculated failure model.
Also, the best way for 25 years now to make a product fail just after warranty is to program it in software. Everything has a microcontroller nowadays. How many devs here have written that code?
Regarding planned obsolescence, what do you think of Veritasium's video on the topic?
Anyway, I think nobody in the industry needs to be aware of that term, and it can still be in play. Nobody in media really talks about Chomsky media filters, yet they arguably exist. As you mention, all that is needed for planned obsolence is if engineers only consider parts with expected percentile failure after the warranty, and then go by other criteria, e.g. cheapness. This will easily result in a situation where a product that would otherwise last relies on a cheap part that prematurely failed.
For example, I had a monitor where the "on" button failed after couple years. I replaced the failed plastic hinge with a piece of cardboard and the monitor still works, good 15 years later.
Anyway, I think nobody in the industry needs to be aware of that term, and it can still be in play. Nobody in media really talks about Chomsky media filters, yet they arguably exist. As you mention, all that is needed for planned obsolence is if engineers only consider parts with expected percentile failure after the warranty, and then go by other criteria, e.g. cheapness. This will easily result in a situation where a product that would otherwise last relies on a cheap part that prematurely failed.
For example, I had a monitor where the "on" button failed after couple years. I replaced the failed plastic hinge with a piece of cardboard and the monitor still works, good 15 years later.
My own theory is that we used to make the trade off between quality and cost.
Now we make a trade off between quality, cost, and convenience - with convenience being heavily weighted.
Consider the rise of bottled water, or Apple (it just works...)
People have shown that they will pay a huge premium for convenience. That premium might be paid in the form of sacrificed quality or it might be paid in dollars.
Now we make a trade off between quality, cost, and convenience - with convenience being heavily weighted.
Consider the rise of bottled water, or Apple (it just works...)
People have shown that they will pay a huge premium for convenience. That premium might be paid in the form of sacrificed quality or it might be paid in dollars.
The tie-break between producing better products and why some organisations get out competed even with better facilities and product fine-tuning is this, when starting out one should not think only of trying to change the world,if you have what it takes to be the great one,fine but a better approach is this, for every project,idea,invention etc try to find the utility delta of the state of the art in that field and how your product is going to affect the people under the curve. Your product may not change the world but it sure does make a lot of sense to start out from a well understood and occupied niche, and as we continue to transition to synthetic data these kind of planning will prove indispensable as products/brands get reinvented,replaced or legalese opaque reporting obfuscation gets the better part of our collective pretentious studies
Creativity and competence have become a commodity in the eyes of the modern management. Employees are headcount and customers are blood bags to bleed until there’s nothing left. Each and every one is an economic unit to mobilize and squeeze.
And when creativity and competence are commodities, companies expect they can replace creativity and competence with another SaaS platform or another vendor who'll do the dirty work. Companies don’t dare hire new graduates and train them. They don't try to educate them on how to build and maintain things while preserving the fresh thinking that comes with youth and inexperience. Those days are gone because the MBA wizards have decided long term investment, investment into an industry or one's community, is bad business.
The pied pipers of modern business thinking openly encourage “minimum viable” as the secret to success. “Minimum viable” is only a a fly’s eyelash from “not viable”. That results in “nearly not viable” schlock filling the shelves anywhere things are sold.
Modern business philosophy is literally that, for years, we’ve made things too good. That thinking infects every level of business, from development to manufacturing to service and support. Companies instruct their teams and vendors to fly as close to the sun as possible. They use words like “agile” and “lean” and “efficient”, when in most cases they are just using those words to wallpaper over shoddy work.
And because the way we used to do things is always wrong, companies hire one “consultant” after another poisoning the well with this garbage. The need for “consultant” help never ends, as the real money in consulting is in prolonging problems.
When all of that outsourcing, outsourcing of thinking and outsourcing of actual production, doesn’t adequately insulate the decision makers from accountability, companies embrace “big data” and decision committees and auditors and anything else that shields the org chart from real scrutiny. Companies refuse to trust anyone who actually has their ear to the ground in favor of some artificial signal discerned from the mountain of white noise collected from inconsistent and uneven sources. Nobody trusts the prophet in their own hometown, but the prophet from the next town is an oracle.
All of that, coupled with a consumer market that is neither educated nor savvy enough to discern quality and unwilling to pay for what quality actually costs, results in the sorry state we are experiencing. This can't sustain.
And when creativity and competence are commodities, companies expect they can replace creativity and competence with another SaaS platform or another vendor who'll do the dirty work. Companies don’t dare hire new graduates and train them. They don't try to educate them on how to build and maintain things while preserving the fresh thinking that comes with youth and inexperience. Those days are gone because the MBA wizards have decided long term investment, investment into an industry or one's community, is bad business.
The pied pipers of modern business thinking openly encourage “minimum viable” as the secret to success. “Minimum viable” is only a a fly’s eyelash from “not viable”. That results in “nearly not viable” schlock filling the shelves anywhere things are sold.
Modern business philosophy is literally that, for years, we’ve made things too good. That thinking infects every level of business, from development to manufacturing to service and support. Companies instruct their teams and vendors to fly as close to the sun as possible. They use words like “agile” and “lean” and “efficient”, when in most cases they are just using those words to wallpaper over shoddy work.
And because the way we used to do things is always wrong, companies hire one “consultant” after another poisoning the well with this garbage. The need for “consultant” help never ends, as the real money in consulting is in prolonging problems.
When all of that outsourcing, outsourcing of thinking and outsourcing of actual production, doesn’t adequately insulate the decision makers from accountability, companies embrace “big data” and decision committees and auditors and anything else that shields the org chart from real scrutiny. Companies refuse to trust anyone who actually has their ear to the ground in favor of some artificial signal discerned from the mountain of white noise collected from inconsistent and uneven sources. Nobody trusts the prophet in their own hometown, but the prophet from the next town is an oracle.
All of that, coupled with a consumer market that is neither educated nor savvy enough to discern quality and unwilling to pay for what quality actually costs, results in the sorry state we are experiencing. This can't sustain.
> “Perhaps the best-known example of buying for convenience is paying around €75 per kilo for coffee just because it comes in capsules,” says Vinyals.
Maybe not the best example. If there’s ever a product where timeliness is a feature, it’s the morning coffee. A $.70 Nespresso pod may not match a freshly ground light roast pour over, but to the dreary eyed wage slave just rising to seize the day, the taste consistency and convenience are distinct features.
> Today, it’s easier to converse with a machine than with a real person. The problem is that no one likes these systems: according to a study by the Cetelem Observatory published last October, five out of 10 consumers openly reject virtual assistants.
People fail to realize the cost of interactions too. With minimum wage at nearly $20/hour, a six (6) minute phone call costs $2 more than the $0 marginal cost of an automated phone system. Would you pay a $2 human-interaction-surcharge to order a pizza?
Maybe not the best example. If there’s ever a product where timeliness is a feature, it’s the morning coffee. A $.70 Nespresso pod may not match a freshly ground light roast pour over, but to the dreary eyed wage slave just rising to seize the day, the taste consistency and convenience are distinct features.
> Today, it’s easier to converse with a machine than with a real person. The problem is that no one likes these systems: according to a study by the Cetelem Observatory published last October, five out of 10 consumers openly reject virtual assistants.
People fail to realize the cost of interactions too. With minimum wage at nearly $20/hour, a six (6) minute phone call costs $2 more than the $0 marginal cost of an automated phone system. Would you pay a $2 human-interaction-surcharge to order a pizza?
This is a feeling that definitely becomes more acute the older one gets.
Try shopping for toys for your kids today. Every time I'm with my 7 year old browsing the toy aisles I fondly remember my Tonka truck from when I was his age.
I outgrew it and it was still in perfect condition. My sons toys barely last a month.
Try shopping for toys for your kids today. Every time I'm with my 7 year old browsing the toy aisles I fondly remember my Tonka truck from when I was his age.
I outgrew it and it was still in perfect condition. My sons toys barely last a month.
I think it's inevitable that businesses will optimise for profit at the expense of quality as far as they are able without tarnishing their brand. Sports shoe companies, for example, have proven that you can take this to extremes so long as your brand is well-established.
Unfortunately, I see no mention of a closed related issue that nobody ever seems to discuss or even question: the Internet has turned most people into 24-hours-per-day shoppers. Who decided that we should want to live this way and just accept it unquestioningly?
Being at home used to mean being able to shut off browsing, buying, and consuming and to shut out the people and companies that want us to think about purchasing this or that.
I've stopped doing this. I now avoid every part of the Internet and every electronic practice that subjects me to this awful facet of our culture. My life has improved, and I'm certain my brain has benefited.
Being at home used to mean being able to shut off browsing, buying, and consuming and to shut out the people and companies that want us to think about purchasing this or that.
I've stopped doing this. I now avoid every part of the Internet and every electronic practice that subjects me to this awful facet of our culture. My life has improved, and I'm certain my brain has benefited.
In inflation calculation, is quality taken into account? I guess not, given the inherent problem stated in the article.
If that's the case, even if it's true that we can say "sure, quality is declining, but it's fine, just fine", it would follow that inflation is actually much higher than reported.
When you buy a fridge today, it buys you the "fridge service" for a much shorter time span, forcing you to invest a lot more money into that service over a given time span. That's a steep inflation of fridge price that isn't counted in official statistics.
This should be taken into account in inflation calculation. If this was, it would give a much fairer view of the decline in purchasing power.
If that's the case, even if it's true that we can say "sure, quality is declining, but it's fine, just fine", it would follow that inflation is actually much higher than reported.
When you buy a fridge today, it buys you the "fridge service" for a much shorter time span, forcing you to invest a lot more money into that service over a given time span. That's a steep inflation of fridge price that isn't counted in official statistics.
This should be taken into account in inflation calculation. If this was, it would give a much fairer view of the decline in purchasing power.
It is, in theory (hedonic price adjustment can go both ways), but I don't know how accurate their measurement is.
Edit, now that I checked it looks like hedonic price adjustment measurements are performed on only 7.5%[1]of the goods in the CPI basket, and the main goal seems to be to avoid overestimating inflation by tracking quality improvements better.
[1]: https://www.nber.org/digest/20239/correcting-quality-change-...
Edit, now that I checked it looks like hedonic price adjustment measurements are performed on only 7.5%[1]of the goods in the CPI basket, and the main goal seems to be to avoid overestimating inflation by tracking quality improvements better.
[1]: https://www.nber.org/digest/20239/correcting-quality-change-...
The examples that the article give are "memory size and CPU speed for computers or horsepower and miles per gallon for cars", that is, technological improvements that would be a reason to adjust inflation value further down because "quality" went up. Without, of course, taking overall lifetime of the product.
So this would in fact make the inflation misreporting problem even worse.
So this would in fact make the inflation misreporting problem even worse.
To websites that talk about declining quality and then return a 403 for tor users: sweep your own front door first please! I have the luck to be able to circumvent via a residential IP, but users from oppressive regimes may be less fortunate.
The lack of local purchasing is driving some of this. Whenever I buy t-shirts from Amazon, they are always very thin. You can't feel the quality via the web page, so why make it anything better than 'acceptable'?
Shirts are one of those things that are difficult to buy something of quality for some reason, even the same brands differ batch to batch.
I think I should probably stick to buying clothes from local shops.
January this year a water pipe burst in the kitchen directly over a Belling Range cooker (some 13+ years old). Switched it off at the mains and awaited a visit from an electrician once the place had dried out.
The sparky that arrived had worked for Belling, was very familiar with their products. He checked it over, tested, declared it safe. He then added that if something had been wrong I would have been better to get parts replaced rather than a complete new oven - because Belling products these days are much less reliable.
I have no data on that, but I can't but believe someone in the industry.
Had almost the exact same thing happened here with our clothes dryer. Tech said it was worth replacing the motor on our 20-year-old model, even though it was 70% the price of a new dryer. Said the new ones just aren't built to last, and our restored one would last another 20 years.
We also still use the same 40 year old Coleman camping stove every summer, while other campers only get a few years out of much newer models.
But recently we found a happy exception, when we replaced our Contigo spill-proof coffee mugs (with a button you press to drink). They were always prone to the mechanism getting gross with milk scum, and were very hard to clean. The new models have an updated design that encloses the mechanism and keeps it much easier to keep clean. The metal seems heavier and high-quality, and the top lip has been folded over so it's not sharp like the old model. They've actually improved them a fair bit, for about the same price as the older ones.
We also still use the same 40 year old Coleman camping stove every summer, while other campers only get a few years out of much newer models.
But recently we found a happy exception, when we replaced our Contigo spill-proof coffee mugs (with a button you press to drink). They were always prone to the mechanism getting gross with milk scum, and were very hard to clean. The new models have an updated design that encloses the mechanism and keeps it much easier to keep clean. The metal seems heavier and high-quality, and the top lip has been folded over so it's not sharp like the old model. They've actually improved them a fair bit, for about the same price as the older ones.
Begs an interesting question : some people can still afford quality items that last (namely, the people that sell throwaway shit to everyone else ; or, more precisely, the people who earn rents from companies that sell throwaway shit etc...)
Are things getting shittier for them, too ? Are luxury brands immune to "energy is getting expensive, and corporate needs to buy shares back and increase dividend, so we have to cut costs everywhere" ?
In other words, are growing inequality going to end up having billionaires who functionally live the same quality of life as upper-middle-class from the end of 90s ?
Are things getting shittier for them, too ? Are luxury brands immune to "energy is getting expensive, and corporate needs to buy shares back and increase dividend, so we have to cut costs everywhere" ?
In other words, are growing inequality going to end up having billionaires who functionally live the same quality of life as upper-middle-class from the end of 90s ?
This is a great thread about wealth and craftsmanship. Wealthy people used to appreciate craft, which has morphed into spending lots of money on a brand rather than an understanding of what it is that they're buying: https://bsky.app/profile/dieworkwear.bsky.social/post/3lswmj...
Excellent thread, nicely juxtaposed to this utterly insane sentence:
> One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
I've noticed this in clothing and vehicles. If you want to own a durable car, you need to get an old one. Mid 1990s seems optimal for most manufacturers, some skew earlier (e.g. Mercedes-Benz which peaked about half a decade earlier). If you want durable shoes, it's very hard to beat a set of custom Limmers which are made pretty much the same way they were in the 1950s. Neither option is cheap, but you get something for it--knowing your car won't strand you with some bewildering array of christmas tree lights on the dashboard, and that your feet will be fine if you have an unplanned 20mi hike.
> One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
I've noticed this in clothing and vehicles. If you want to own a durable car, you need to get an old one. Mid 1990s seems optimal for most manufacturers, some skew earlier (e.g. Mercedes-Benz which peaked about half a decade earlier). If you want durable shoes, it's very hard to beat a set of custom Limmers which are made pretty much the same way they were in the 1950s. Neither option is cheap, but you get something for it--knowing your car won't strand you with some bewildering array of christmas tree lights on the dashboard, and that your feet will be fine if you have an unplanned 20mi hike.
The actual wealthy people still appreciate craft, at least for certain things. It's mainly the socially insecure nouveau riche who buy brands as a signaling mechanism.
Go and learn about the 1700 century and how people spent all their money on spices because it was trendy with other nobles. Why did they build certain buildings? Because nobles in other places built those buildings.
The idea that people in the past where more sophisticated, and more intelligent is simply not true.
The idea that people in the past where more sophisticated, and more intelligent is simply not true.
I guess it depends. There are items for which there's just no margin for cutting quality. Take for example a Hermes bag. While some buyers would probably settle for less quality, the brand depends on the image of a high quality product, thus the bags have increased in price by 5%+x annually for the past 20 years. That's a rate which is unsustainable for non-luxury items.
Another example is Miele washing machines, which most likely deserve to be considered top notch and high quality. The prices have barely increased in the same timespan, which technically means they are 25%-30% less expensive after inflation. It's hard to imagine that the production process was improved by that much.
No one wants to pay for them. The $20 screwdriver is the same or better quality than the one 50 years ago. People would now have the option to buy the $1 screwdriver and then complain it doesn't last.
Plenty of companies buy the $1 screwdrivers, put them in nicer packaging and sell them for $20. ... including many of the brands formerly known for making good screwdrivers.
The result is that even when you're willing to pay for quality, you can't-- you can just overpay for junk. Might as well just buy 20 of the $1 screwdrivers instead-- they'll still last much less long than the proper $20 one, but finding the good one is too difficult amid the overpriced crap.
The result is that even when you're willing to pay for quality, you can't-- you can just overpay for junk. Might as well just buy 20 of the $1 screwdrivers instead-- they'll still last much less long than the proper $20 one, but finding the good one is too difficult amid the overpriced crap.
I'm not sure the billionaire ever cared about the durability of things. Pretty sure most of them have people managing their things, who will throw anything to the bin at the first sign of degradation.
Here's an anecdote:
As a student, I visited one Hermes (French luxury brand) manufacture in Paris. They showed us how crocodile skin was worked with to make hand bags and showed us the finished products. They had two finishes for the bags: - with protective coating (brilliant) - without (mate)
Without coating the crocodile skin was very fragile they told us, and even water droplets would stain the skin. We were quite surprised that anyone would spend a five figures amount of money in a bag that will get stained by anything, but the guy guiding us told us that their customers simply considered their products to be disposable item that would quickly be thrown away anyway.
Here's an anecdote:
As a student, I visited one Hermes (French luxury brand) manufacture in Paris. They showed us how crocodile skin was worked with to make hand bags and showed us the finished products. They had two finishes for the bags: - with protective coating (brilliant) - without (mate)
Without coating the crocodile skin was very fragile they told us, and even water droplets would stain the skin. We were quite surprised that anyone would spend a five figures amount of money in a bag that will get stained by anything, but the guy guiding us told us that their customers simply considered their products to be disposable item that would quickly be thrown away anyway.
Somewhat related: I have an acquaintance who maintains the IT infrastructure for a rich guy's house. Lots of smart TVs. Lots of cameras, with local data storage. Lots of IoT.
At a guess, it's a 20% to 25% gig. Something is always breaking or misbehaving. The rich guy probably notices almost none of the problems. If he had to maintain it himself, he would insist on simplifying things.
At a guess, it's a 20% to 25% gig. Something is always breaking or misbehaving. The rich guy probably notices almost none of the problems. If he had to maintain it himself, he would insist on simplifying things.
It definitely takes more effort to identify non-shit products than it used to, but I would assume said billionaires have delegated that to someone else so won't notice.
This article is really trying to gaslight us into believing it is only pessimism, when decline in quality is very real. The best example is that ikea no longer sells solid wood tables, they are particle board with wood grain stickers. The exciting part is they are more expensive than the original hardwood versions.
My experience is different (and I doubt that Ikea ever sold anything that wasn't made of particle boards). For example in Czechia, I bought the same bed in Ikea in 2010 and in 2021, and the price was nominally the same, so because of inflation, it is actually cheaper. But the quality went down and it's really bad.
A lot of that quality decline of the same product is called "value engineering". Companies are always looking for tiny ways to save money.
Is solid hardwood production better for the environment than particle board, at the societal level (i.e. over the average societal lifespan of the finished products)?
Particle boards with wood grain stickers are the actual good stuff now. Ikea is literally selling cardboard with woodgrain stickers (that's not a joke).
It seems to support your point if you go through the whole article. It goes over both perspectives.
[deleted]
> ikea no longer sells solid wood tables,
A quick look at IKEA's web pages shows that this is simply untrue.
A quick look at IKEA's web pages shows that this is simply untrue.
Let me put it this way: in my area, the vast majority are veneers or what looks like a vinyl sticker. This is an inversion of what it used to be, which was the majority were hardwood. The market in every geo is different, but I am in a top 10 major city in US. I don’t buy from Ikea online, so maybe that is possible! It doesn’t change my experience though.
This is the crux of my argument against these types of articles, they try to retcon “you are the one who is crazy! it’s always been like that”. I was searching at an autistic level for a dinner table for the last five years from IKEA until I just gave up and bought a vintage thing made of real teak, made by a craftsperson for less than a mid range sticker and mechanically separated wood table from IKEA.
This is the crux of my argument against these types of articles, they try to retcon “you are the one who is crazy! it’s always been like that”. I was searching at an autistic level for a dinner table for the last five years from IKEA until I just gave up and bought a vintage thing made of real teak, made by a craftsperson for less than a mid range sticker and mechanically separated wood table from IKEA.
I have a solid wood table that I bought at Ikea a few years ago. I think it’s made of bamboo. Isn’t that hardwood? Even if it’s compressed I don’t think it’s made of grain. It definitely doesn’t have stickers.
The author is romanticizing a past that never was. A deep sense of melancholy clouds his writing. I always find it puzzling how some pathologies manage to disguise themselves as wisdom.
Southpark is always prescient in this regard. Memberberries has been a meme on reddit for ages. Maybe the author should immerse himself in popular culture so that the same objections that are commonly made could be avoided.
It is quite ironic that this article is littered with ads for temu…
"Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) "
Well that's one way to translate "tarado". Moron would be the correct way though.
Well that's one way to translate "tarado". Moron would be the correct way though.
It's all just Baumol's cost disease.
Sectors like ours becoming more productive drags up the cost of labour everywhere else. In manufacturing, that increases the incentive to skip any step that needs human input (e.g. increasing the stitch pitch and avoiding saddle stitching in leather). In services, it's your main input cost.
We can increase the efficiency of huge swathes of the economy, but eventually humans become a hard bottleneck. It takes a huge technological leap to overcome that.
Sectors like ours becoming more productive drags up the cost of labour everywhere else. In manufacturing, that increases the incentive to skip any step that needs human input (e.g. increasing the stitch pitch and avoiding saddle stitching in leather). In services, it's your main input cost.
We can increase the efficiency of huge swathes of the economy, but eventually humans become a hard bottleneck. It takes a huge technological leap to overcome that.
I think one of the indicators of of declining quality is the unwillingness to support products (beyond initial installation support), and that the unwillingness to make products supportable.
Did it break after two years? Make it so inconvenient that they’ll just buy a new one.
Failure is seen as an upgrade opportunity, and repair is seen as a captive revenue stream rather than an opportunity for other businesses or DIYers.
If you can tolerate or enjoy the style, Louis Rossmann is a great watch on YouTube.
Did it break after two years? Make it so inconvenient that they’ll just buy a new one.
Failure is seen as an upgrade opportunity, and repair is seen as a captive revenue stream rather than an opportunity for other businesses or DIYers.
If you can tolerate or enjoy the style, Louis Rossmann is a great watch on YouTube.
When quality goes down, most of the time, its bc a corporation is trying to cut costs.
I have 2022 Toyota 4runner. The frame is already getting surface rust. I have been noticing new Toyotas have been needing new engines, other major problems. even Toyota is riding hi on a reputation from the past.
When that happens, you should take your dollars elsewhere, so I bought another car.
I have 2022 Toyota 4runner. The frame is already getting surface rust. I have been noticing new Toyotas have been needing new engines, other major problems. even Toyota is riding hi on a reputation from the past.
When that happens, you should take your dollars elsewhere, so I bought another car.
I think at least part of the problem is that we very often can't determine quality very well. And that which can't be measured gets corners cut on it.
For many products I believe we could address this fairly well with a simple consumer protection law: Products must state an estimated mean time to failure, workmanship must be fully warrantied to at least 1/2 of this time.
For many products I believe we could address this fairly well with a simple consumer protection law: Products must state an estimated mean time to failure, workmanship must be fully warrantied to at least 1/2 of this time.
> One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance. [..] Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.
Is this describing aliens? Because of all the people in my social circle, maybe one is like this.
Is this describing aliens? Because of all the people in my social circle, maybe one is like this.
Barriers to entry keep going up, access to capital is going down and required return on capital is high.
People are going to maximize short term profits.
People are going to maximize short term profits.
As part of that, there is a strong trend toward consolidation, and little competition emerging to challenge the oligopolies that have formed.
Perhaps the author should take a look in the mirror. The article sounds suspiciously LLM like on a site filled with garbage ads.
A lot of stuff looks flashier and cheaper now, but when you actually use it, something just feels off. Older versions from the same brand often felt more solid and better designed. It’s not just that quality dropped. It feels like the focus has shifted from durability to profit, faster updates, and short-term user metrics.
Reading through this comment section of people whose 'big brains' won't even allow them to come to the correct conclusion about whether or not products have declined in quality over time, I am awestruck by the fact that knowledge of anything is ever possible under any circumstances.
Truly, human beings deserve no respect. Only pity.
Truly, human beings deserve no respect. Only pity.
Shame. This is a poorly made case for an important phenomenon.
> “the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity.“
This is table stakes now for cars so it would be weird for a car company to highlight it. So in the case for cars the baseline quality expectation has significantly increased.
The case is much easier to make for fashionable items like clothes and interiors.
> “the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity.“
This is table stakes now for cars so it would be weird for a car company to highlight it. So in the case for cars the baseline quality expectation has significantly increased.
The case is much easier to make for fashionable items like clothes and interiors.
just gonna throw this out there: I started a garden plot this year, all dug up by hand with a mattock, and harvested my first bush beans today; hecking great.
I got components in yday for a variable DC-DC power supply (though I can't seem to find the DACs I know I have because I have everything inventoried -- but I'll find them). Will give me wireless control and read of test routines for products I review (funnily enough, given point about reviews in article) via an ESP32. China takes my eCAD design and ships me PCBs I've had no issue with, and at less than $1/board (granted, it takes them a couple weeks, but I'm in no rush).
if you don't like what society's offering up, DIY. nothing wrong with being a little antisocial sometimes, even if only for exercise; "what would Terry do?" hoist the bird, fly the flag, and reject glowies.
I got components in yday for a variable DC-DC power supply (though I can't seem to find the DACs I know I have because I have everything inventoried -- but I'll find them). Will give me wireless control and read of test routines for products I review (funnily enough, given point about reviews in article) via an ESP32. China takes my eCAD design and ships me PCBs I've had no issue with, and at less than $1/board (granted, it takes them a couple weeks, but I'm in no rush).
if you don't like what society's offering up, DIY. nothing wrong with being a little antisocial sometimes, even if only for exercise; "what would Terry do?" hoist the bird, fly the flag, and reject glowies.
very insightful to read the comments here.
it seems quality isn't universally declining, but the variance in quality is increasing, and finding good quality is nearly impossible in the influx of product offers. reviews are fake, to most short term profit margins are more important than reputation.
it seems quality isn't universally declining, but the variance in quality is increasing, and finding good quality is nearly impossible in the influx of product offers. reviews are fake, to most short term profit margins are more important than reputation.
My biggest worry is what AI is going to do to software development, I fear that we will soon be submerged in a sea of low(human)-effort, low quality software. As an Indie product developer, I plan to keep developing software the 'old fashioned' way, with a focus on quality.
This a result of the investors demand for more profits, every single year.
The only way to achieve this, reliably, is to squeeze your cash cow until it bleeds. Reduce BOM, introduce more ads, lock down repairs, introduce an annual subscription for a crucial function etc
The only way to achieve this, reliably, is to squeeze your cash cow until it bleeds. Reduce BOM, introduce more ads, lock down repairs, introduce an annual subscription for a crucial function etc
This is very simple. Growth has declined. When growth declines, you can’t rely on scale economies to expand your margins. So you have to take cost out of your product or service. And if you do that long enough, you start cutting not just fat but then muscle, then bone.
Inflation is the answer. It never went away. It just got disguised as labor exploitation and quality decline. And now it's back. We will get the worst of two worlds now. Inflation rising and low quality, highly polluting, exploitative industry.
I'm still wearing stuff I bought 20 or 30 years ago. It appals me that someone would wear something a few times and then discard it. If you are doing that just because you worry what other people think, then you must have a very weak personality.
The original article in Spanish:
https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-07-13/el-asombroso-fenomeno-de...
https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-07-13/el-asombroso-fenomeno-de...
I'm not sure if this is quite related, but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.
I feel like knowing that we might live well-beyond our working age has caused all sorts of odd/irrational behaviours in the way we approach life. I think for example, having to save for retirement makes us rethink how we spend our money. Which then means people are ultimately spending less on other things i.e. clothing. Then it becomes a kind of vicious cycle of hoarding wealth, but then expecting everything else to be cheap (at any cost).
Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
I feel like knowing that we might live well-beyond our working age has caused all sorts of odd/irrational behaviours in the way we approach life. I think for example, having to save for retirement makes us rethink how we spend our money. Which then means people are ultimately spending less on other things i.e. clothing. Then it becomes a kind of vicious cycle of hoarding wealth, but then expecting everything else to be cheap (at any cost).
Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
Have you considered that it's not that we are spending money on cheap stuff, it's that even expensive stuff is built to not last with the incentive you come back for more? You do realize there are whole R&D departments working on planned obsolescence.
- Apple's planned obsolescence on batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate
- Window's 10 to 11 garbage hardware requirements: https://www.euroconsumers.org/microsoft-security-windows-10-... If an OS's new version is supposedly...faster and better written, why does it require newer hardware?
- Apple's right to repair fight: https://sustainablebrands.com/read/apple-support-right-to-re... and then, when they saw they can't support this position anymore, suddenly becoming a champion of sustainability
- Apple's refusal to change their idiotic charging cables to a standard one, so they can sell you crap that works on no other device. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66778528
I know Apple are mentioned a lot here, but they are a perfect example of what happens when nobody calls out a monopoly on their shady practices.
> but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.
Ah yes blame it on the consumer, who dares to live longer.
> Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
I don't get the logic here. If I knew I would live to 100, would it not make sense to buy stuff that serves me well over the long run (i.e more expensive)?
- Apple's planned obsolescence on batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate
- Window's 10 to 11 garbage hardware requirements: https://www.euroconsumers.org/microsoft-security-windows-10-... If an OS's new version is supposedly...faster and better written, why does it require newer hardware?
- Apple's right to repair fight: https://sustainablebrands.com/read/apple-support-right-to-re... and then, when they saw they can't support this position anymore, suddenly becoming a champion of sustainability
- Apple's refusal to change their idiotic charging cables to a standard one, so they can sell you crap that works on no other device. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66778528
I know Apple are mentioned a lot here, but they are a perfect example of what happens when nobody calls out a monopoly on their shady practices.
> but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.
Ah yes blame it on the consumer, who dares to live longer.
> Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.
I don't get the logic here. If I knew I would live to 100, would it not make sense to buy stuff that serves me well over the long run (i.e more expensive)?
I'm not sure if those examples are really applicable when there are perfectly fine alternatives i.e. linux, desktops etc. that don't have those issues. Ultimately it's a choice to be part of those eco-systems, at least from a consumer point of view.
With that said, I'm not sure why both our arguments have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't it be that things are being planned for obsolescence + we're living too long?
Regarding your last point, let's say that you did know you were going to live to 100, I think you'd be hard pressed to be able to afford a lot of that nice stuff which would serve you in the long run without working into retirement age (unless if you just happen to very wealthy).
I earn a relatively high salary and even if I was making the most of my retirement contributions and considering compounding, it would still only last me by 90 without requiring state assistance. And most importantly, that's if I were to maintain my current lifestyle, which includes buying the cheap shit I can afford (in part so I can keep up with funding retirement).
I couldn't imagine how much harder it would be for those on an average salary.
With that said, I'm not sure why both our arguments have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't it be that things are being planned for obsolescence + we're living too long?
Regarding your last point, let's say that you did know you were going to live to 100, I think you'd be hard pressed to be able to afford a lot of that nice stuff which would serve you in the long run without working into retirement age (unless if you just happen to very wealthy).
I earn a relatively high salary and even if I was making the most of my retirement contributions and considering compounding, it would still only last me by 90 without requiring state assistance. And most importantly, that's if I were to maintain my current lifestyle, which includes buying the cheap shit I can afford (in part so I can keep up with funding retirement).
I couldn't imagine how much harder it would be for those on an average salary.
[flagged]
> Apple's slowing down the clock speed allows people to use a phone with an old and dying battery for longer before they need to replace either the device or the battery.
That's laughable. Apple before 2023 didn't even allow you to replace yourself unless you had their crappy plan.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8306588?sortBy=rank
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253345955?sortBy=rank
https://www.wired.com/story/iphone-16-battery-is-easier-to-r...
And their lightning adapters were a deliberate strategy so they keep you on their system and sell you commodity hardware at a premium pricing.
Until the EU forced them to use standard chargers to reduce the mountain of e-waste that's directly tied to Apple's shady practices.
> Lightning cables are superior to the "standard" USB-C. It's a travesty against freedom of choice that the EU has legislated against them.
You have the freedom of choice to use an old IPhone with an old Lightning cable, since they are "superior" to USB-C, and old IPhones are apparently of such high quality.
OR you can go with the far worse (according to you) USB-c standard which allows charging, video and data transfer and internet connectivity.
> 2018 and 2021 and still I think look the same as new. Colours haven't faded
Wow, a shirt lasting 4 years, impressive!
> I don't find the complaints valid about anything else either. The tshirts in my weekly rotation were bought -- I just checked my emails ....In short: yes, there is plenty of cheap crap around -- I actually think this is a good thing for people who will not be using it heavily.
"who will not be using it heavily" is a reference to the fact that sometimes cheap nowadays crap is poisonous and you might not live to see another day?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/20/eu-commissi...
That's laughable. Apple before 2023 didn't even allow you to replace yourself unless you had their crappy plan.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8306588?sortBy=rank
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253345955?sortBy=rank
https://www.wired.com/story/iphone-16-battery-is-easier-to-r...
And their lightning adapters were a deliberate strategy so they keep you on their system and sell you commodity hardware at a premium pricing.
Until the EU forced them to use standard chargers to reduce the mountain of e-waste that's directly tied to Apple's shady practices.
> Lightning cables are superior to the "standard" USB-C. It's a travesty against freedom of choice that the EU has legislated against them.
You have the freedom of choice to use an old IPhone with an old Lightning cable, since they are "superior" to USB-C, and old IPhones are apparently of such high quality.
OR you can go with the far worse (according to you) USB-c standard which allows charging, video and data transfer and internet connectivity.
> 2018 and 2021 and still I think look the same as new. Colours haven't faded
Wow, a shirt lasting 4 years, impressive!
> I don't find the complaints valid about anything else either. The tshirts in my weekly rotation were bought -- I just checked my emails ....In short: yes, there is plenty of cheap crap around -- I actually think this is a good thing for people who will not be using it heavily.
"who will not be using it heavily" is a reference to the fact that sometimes cheap nowadays crap is poisonous and you might not live to see another day?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/20/eu-commissi...
> You have the freedom of choice to use an old IPhone with an old Lightning cable, since they are "superior" to USB-C, and old IPhones are apparently of such high quality.
It's so bizarre to act like this is a crazy thing to do, like, yeah, my iPhone does have Lightning, I haven't upgraded since they switched to USB-C and have felt no need to? Like that was pretty recent? It's not like the Dock Connector where the only iPhones that support it use wireless networks that are being actively dismantled?
It's so bizarre to act like this is a crazy thing to do, like, yeah, my iPhone does have Lightning, I haven't upgraded since they switched to USB-C and have felt no need to? Like that was pretty recent? It's not like the Dock Connector where the only iPhones that support it use wireless networks that are being actively dismantled?
> I haven't upgraded since they switched to USB-C and have felt no need to?
I'd have done the same if I had an IPhone. As a matter of fact, that's commendable.
I'd have done the same if I had an IPhone. As a matter of fact, that's commendable.
Or actually, just simply remember computers of 15-20 years ago. How many times per day you had to press "Ctrl-Alt-Del" or even "Reset", to reboot a stuck one? When was the last time you had to do it these days?
I have a picture from a vacation I took in 2003, and the shirt I was wearing still hangs in my closet. I don't know if that will be the case for anything I buy today because I don't expect to live another 22 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_prof...
This one seems to tick all the boxes
This one seems to tick all the boxes
We get the leftovers from the ultra rich. Quality can still be found but the cost is crazy. Vs ‘back in the day’ when quality products were more affordable and available to more people.
There something about this.
I am on my 6th smartphone, it is the first phone of which the screen accumulates scratches. Google Pixel 9. None of my previous phones needed a screen protector.
I am on my 6th smartphone, it is the first phone of which the screen accumulates scratches. Google Pixel 9. None of my previous phones needed a screen protector.
True, software used to mean something and never crash (if it did we wouldn't use it, we had standards back then after all) 9 nines and all that.
Nowadays people just want what aint good for em
Nowadays people just want what aint good for em
Seems related to this other submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44609969
Free market is a volume increase and cost reduction device. There's only so much cost you can reduce without affecting quality. And the reduction doesn't ever stop.
The argument that customers are demanding lower quality products only makes sense if they have a choice. That isn't really the case (not without a lot of rhetorical contortions, anyhow).
When the iPod first appeared, customers did not see its enclosed battery as desirable. They put up with it. Soon enough, no batteries are replaceable.
Few car buyers wanted touch screen controls, but the entire auto industry transitioned to them, almost at once. Customers put up with them.
The problem is not that companies focus on customers and reluctantly provide crappy products. The problem is that customer focus died shortly after the year 2000.
When the iPod first appeared, customers did not see its enclosed battery as desirable. They put up with it. Soon enough, no batteries are replaceable.
Few car buyers wanted touch screen controls, but the entire auto industry transitioned to them, almost at once. Customers put up with them.
The problem is not that companies focus on customers and reluctantly provide crappy products. The problem is that customer focus died shortly after the year 2000.
This is only bewildering to people who refuse to admit the problems of our current economic system because our current economic system benefits them.
Advertising needs to go. Advertising is why worse products at higher prices beat out better products at lower prices. Advertising isn't information, it's lies: nobody tells you the problems with their product or things their competitor does better. We don't need advertising to find out about products: word of mouth, experts, and independent review sites are much better sources of information already. And it's a huge drain on our economy: once you let one company advertise, then advertising is no longer optional for all their competitors.
Advertisers of HN will surely refuse to admit these pretty basic, obvious facts, use their advertising platforms to make sure pro-advertising talking points are louder than reason, and the enshittification of everything will continue.
Advertising needs to go. Advertising is why worse products at higher prices beat out better products at lower prices. Advertising isn't information, it's lies: nobody tells you the problems with their product or things their competitor does better. We don't need advertising to find out about products: word of mouth, experts, and independent review sites are much better sources of information already. And it's a huge drain on our economy: once you let one company advertise, then advertising is no longer optional for all their competitors.
Advertisers of HN will surely refuse to admit these pretty basic, obvious facts, use their advertising platforms to make sure pro-advertising talking points are louder than reason, and the enshittification of everything will continue.
Settling for less can be economically optimal; planned obsolescence for producers (securing revenue), riding the bus for consumers (affordability).
You don't get ahead by focusing on quality and caring about your customers. The guy who cuts corners gets ahead.
Maybe someone will respond "why should a business care about you?" and that just proves my point. We've created a zero empathy, greed-driven society and then we wonder why quality is declining.
Maybe someone will respond "why should a business care about you?" and that just proves my point. We've created a zero empathy, greed-driven society and then we wonder why quality is declining.
Capitalism is the reason for declining quality. The incentive isn't to make quality products and services - the incentive is to monopolize an industry, and then squeeze every last cent from the captured consumers. Line must go up!
And yet almost no industry is actually a monopoly, funny how that works. Even even if it is, most of the time its only in certain region. And even then, often the pricing power of those 'monopolies' is not very strong.
In fact, historically most monopolies were state sanctioned, and that is still mostly true.
Literally non of the things mentioned in the article are monopolies. Cloths, absolutely not even close to a monopoly. AI, nope. Flying, nope. Maybe airplanes is duopoly for certain kinds of planes and that is one of the closest things to a monopoly. And yet despite that, prices for actually flying between places are incredibly low, the expect opposite of what you expect to happen in a typical monopoly.
Food industry, no monopoly. Computer, no monopoly. Hotels, no monopoly. Property, no monopoly.
In fact the largest global industries (just google list):
Global Life & Health Insurance Carriers
Global Car & Automobile Sales
Global Commercial Real Estate
Global Pension Funds
Global Oil & Gas Exploration & Production
Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing
Global Direct General Insurance Carriers
Global Auto Parts & Accessories Manufacturing
Global Engineering Services
Global Wireless Telecommunications Carriers
Not a single monopoly in the list.
So please tell me what you are talking about. Maybe some Health insurance have some limited monopoly in some place.
Please post here, from your monthly budget, how much of that budget goes to what you would call monopolies?
In fact, historically most monopolies were state sanctioned, and that is still mostly true.
Literally non of the things mentioned in the article are monopolies. Cloths, absolutely not even close to a monopoly. AI, nope. Flying, nope. Maybe airplanes is duopoly for certain kinds of planes and that is one of the closest things to a monopoly. And yet despite that, prices for actually flying between places are incredibly low, the expect opposite of what you expect to happen in a typical monopoly.
Food industry, no monopoly. Computer, no monopoly. Hotels, no monopoly. Property, no monopoly.
In fact the largest global industries (just google list):
Global Life & Health Insurance Carriers
Global Car & Automobile Sales
Global Commercial Real Estate
Global Pension Funds
Global Oil & Gas Exploration & Production
Global Car & Automobile Manufacturing
Global Direct General Insurance Carriers
Global Auto Parts & Accessories Manufacturing
Global Engineering Services
Global Wireless Telecommunications Carriers
Not a single monopoly in the list.
So please tell me what you are talking about. Maybe some Health insurance have some limited monopoly in some place.
Please post here, from your monthly budget, how much of that budget goes to what you would call monopolies?
I would argue that almost every industry has been increasingly monopolized. Look at the historic number of players in every major industry - it's indisputable that the trend has been towards consolidation, not increased competition.
What's more - the companies that dominate various industries are majorituly owned by the same financial entities, which in turn own each other.
Think of the biggest players in each industry, and search to determine who owns the most stock in those companies. You will find the same organizations over and over again - Blackrock, Citadel, States Street, etc.
Think of the biggest players in each industry, and search to determine who owns the most stock in those companies. You will find the same organizations over and over again - Blackrock, Citadel, States Street, etc.
That's likely because you are looking at the US and not globally. And it also depends of you are evaluating the total number or the total number that control say 50% of the market.
And when people think of large industries the look at the large players and ignore the much larger market behind that. And industries that are very distributed, generally are not perceived as large industries, despite them being very large, like hotels or food.
Also Blackrock for example is 170 billion, that's about half a % of US GDP and like 0.1% of global GDP. so if after 200 years Blackrock is the best example you can come up with, I'm not convinced.
And the companies Blackrock are owning a stake in, are still competing with each other, because companies like Blackrock can't control all those companies.
And when people think of large industries the look at the large players and ignore the much larger market behind that. And industries that are very distributed, generally are not perceived as large industries, despite them being very large, like hotels or food.
Also Blackrock for example is 170 billion, that's about half a % of US GDP and like 0.1% of global GDP. so if after 200 years Blackrock is the best example you can come up with, I'm not convinced.
And the companies Blackrock are owning a stake in, are still competing with each other, because companies like Blackrock can't control all those companies.
Couldn't help noticing they reference the now-shuttered FakeSpot for detecting AI-written product reviews.
Some counterpoints: Apple devices of today are of near perfect quality with almost no mechanical, electronic, or software quirks. Gone are the days of keyboards that got stuck after a month of use, cables that wore down in a month too, phones you had to hold in a particular way or they lost signal, useless Maps app forced upon you, phones that bent in the pocket, exploding batteries, endless shit like that. Sure we continued loving Apple through all this, but by about 2020 or so, everyone who wasn't an Apple fan started to kinda see us like we all see Trump's fans, sorta... It was hard to justify for any person outside of the Apple bubble.
Another counterpoint: hotel quality has arguably improved a great lot in the last 10 year or so. Especially, after Covid. That's rather perplexing, especially since airlines are going in the opposite direction while they two are usually a part of the same purchase by the same people and logically i'd expect their trajectories to be similar.
Bigger counterpoint: cars. 10-year old electric cars today drive like new because well, there's nothing to wear out there. Our kids will see lots of 40-50 year old cars on roads, with completely worn out interiors but still driving just fine. Probably with batteries replaced once or twice thus driving a lot better than when they were new because 2035 batteries will have a lot higher density, C-ratings, and will heat less than 2015 batteries, and replacement will cost less than replacement of a gearbox on a 2015 Volvo goofed up by incompetent servicemen.
Another counterpoint: hotel quality has arguably improved a great lot in the last 10 year or so. Especially, after Covid. That's rather perplexing, especially since airlines are going in the opposite direction while they two are usually a part of the same purchase by the same people and logically i'd expect their trajectories to be similar.
Bigger counterpoint: cars. 10-year old electric cars today drive like new because well, there's nothing to wear out there. Our kids will see lots of 40-50 year old cars on roads, with completely worn out interiors but still driving just fine. Probably with batteries replaced once or twice thus driving a lot better than when they were new because 2035 batteries will have a lot higher density, C-ratings, and will heat less than 2015 batteries, and replacement will cost less than replacement of a gearbox on a 2015 Volvo goofed up by incompetent servicemen.
No mention of value engineering? Isn't that what every big company does to a successful product? Barely-noticeable quality decreases compound over years, and more noticeable ones are rationalized away as necessary for survival. It doesn't take a genius to see where that leads.
Also enshittification, the more general trend where an initial offering is excellent, maybe even provided at a loss, to spread the word and provide great feedback, and then more and more money is squeezed out of it while riding consumer satisfaction lag, until the offering is taken behind the shed and mercy killed.
Also enshittification, the more general trend where an initial offering is excellent, maybe even provided at a loss, to spread the word and provide great feedback, and then more and more money is squeezed out of it while riding consumer satisfaction lag, until the offering is taken behind the shed and mercy killed.
That page design is a case in point.
commodities are a lie.
quality is real, commodity markets have been historically abused to "steal through quality"
for example, all the best fruits from the global south are not consumed in the countries they grew, but exported for "better profits". this has gone on too long.
quality is real, commodity markets have been historically abused to "steal through quality"
for example, all the best fruits from the global south are not consumed in the countries they grew, but exported for "better profits". this has gone on too long.
> ...that the great promise of capitalism — if you work, you can have a decent life, buy a house, and go on vacation — is no longer being fulfilled;...
That's... not capitalism at all? Socialism maybe, but absolutely not capitalism. In average, those that work will have a good life (or at least, in average, better life than those who don't), but there is no guarantee on a single case, or even that this life will be good enough.
That's... not capitalism at all? Socialism maybe, but absolutely not capitalism. In average, those that work will have a good life (or at least, in average, better life than those who don't), but there is no guarantee on a single case, or even that this life will be good enough.
So many concepts conflated in that article, I start to wonder if an LLM genius was involved in its creation.
One needs to distinguish between quality, consistency, value, and utility.
My parents have a fridge that has been running consistently without issue for 40 years. It is a quality fridge.
What fraction of the fridges made at the same time by the same company are also still running? I can't say for certain but I certainly haven't encountered one since my childhood. They may have been capable of high quality, but not consistently high quality. My parents just lucked out.
The fridge lacks most features of more modern fridges like water filtration or an ice maker, and the design of its shelves weren't particularly ergonomic. A similar fridge would be much cheaper today, at least adjusted for inflation. Put another way, a modern fridge of the same price point would be more valuable.
But the fridge has spent the past 25 years as a backup fridge mostly for longer term storage of bulk items, so the lack of features have not really impacted its utility. Keeping things cold is the primary purpose of a fridge, everything else is a gimmick.
Things have across the board gotten more consistent and cheaper for a given value. A lot of products have suffered feature bloat which detracts from their utility. I don't believe there has been any meaningful shift in quality in the past few decades - for the most part its just people misremembering the past, cherry picking anecdotes, or being deliberately obtuse about how they actually use products and services. Some specific industries may have seen changes, but there is not a bewildering phenomenon across the board.
My parents have a fridge that has been running consistently without issue for 40 years. It is a quality fridge.
What fraction of the fridges made at the same time by the same company are also still running? I can't say for certain but I certainly haven't encountered one since my childhood. They may have been capable of high quality, but not consistently high quality. My parents just lucked out.
The fridge lacks most features of more modern fridges like water filtration or an ice maker, and the design of its shelves weren't particularly ergonomic. A similar fridge would be much cheaper today, at least adjusted for inflation. Put another way, a modern fridge of the same price point would be more valuable.
But the fridge has spent the past 25 years as a backup fridge mostly for longer term storage of bulk items, so the lack of features have not really impacted its utility. Keeping things cold is the primary purpose of a fridge, everything else is a gimmick.
Things have across the board gotten more consistent and cheaper for a given value. A lot of products have suffered feature bloat which detracts from their utility. I don't believe there has been any meaningful shift in quality in the past few decades - for the most part its just people misremembering the past, cherry picking anecdotes, or being deliberately obtuse about how they actually use products and services. Some specific industries may have seen changes, but there is not a bewildering phenomenon across the board.
People love inexpensive goods.
Inexpensive goods leads to reduced quality (to a point it’s acceptable).
Inexpensive goods leads to reduced quality (to a point it’s acceptable).
This has been a problem since industrialization and I think is inherent in capitalist systems which strive towards maximum profit margins over every other factor. Where ever a corner can be cut it will be in the name of profit, reputation be damned because they can just use advertising, marketing, and marketplace dominance to suppress concerns over quality as they boil the frog.
Declining product quality was even one of the major complaints luddites had over factory looms, it wasn't just that they were being replaced with lesser skilled workers and their wages cut, but the quality of fabric from the factory looms they built just got worse and worse over time so they couldn't even claim their loss of wages was worth having better clothes, they got worse wages and worse clothes.
Everyone likes to hem and haw over free market supposedly fixing such problems, but completely ignores the huge amount of friction in moving markets that require massive tons of capital to even challenge to the smallest degree. And even if you get the overall established market to change practices for a small time span it is only through essentially open war with one another as the companies battle it out; and as soon as there is either a clear dominating winner, or a few of the larger companies essentially decide peace is better and stop truly challenging each other for dominance, everything goes right back to reducing quality and increasing profit margins. The big companies know being at perpetual war in the market, which is what would be best for consumers in providing the best prices and products, makes their position less stable and leaves them vulnerable to new challengers, and instead tend to default towards unspoken collusion with other big established companies in order to not rock the boat. It makes the companies more stable and profitable, but is worse for consumers, and gets even worse for consumers when those companies start looking at other ways to entrench their position through politics and law.
Declining product quality was even one of the major complaints luddites had over factory looms, it wasn't just that they were being replaced with lesser skilled workers and their wages cut, but the quality of fabric from the factory looms they built just got worse and worse over time so they couldn't even claim their loss of wages was worth having better clothes, they got worse wages and worse clothes.
Everyone likes to hem and haw over free market supposedly fixing such problems, but completely ignores the huge amount of friction in moving markets that require massive tons of capital to even challenge to the smallest degree. And even if you get the overall established market to change practices for a small time span it is only through essentially open war with one another as the companies battle it out; and as soon as there is either a clear dominating winner, or a few of the larger companies essentially decide peace is better and stop truly challenging each other for dominance, everything goes right back to reducing quality and increasing profit margins. The big companies know being at perpetual war in the market, which is what would be best for consumers in providing the best prices and products, makes their position less stable and leaves them vulnerable to new challengers, and instead tend to default towards unspoken collusion with other big established companies in order to not rock the boat. It makes the companies more stable and profitable, but is worse for consumers, and gets even worse for consumers when those companies start looking at other ways to entrench their position through politics and law.
It's a scale problem and a targets one: we are damn many, if we all want a fillet a day we haven't enough cows to satisfy such demand, and that's valid for essentially anything. So far we prove to be very skilled in doing identical stuff on scale, which enable industry hyper-growth but we can't feed production lines with enough raw materials, we can't produce most things in circular manner and even some production naturally renewable can't be completely renewable due to the scale of the demand. In an ideal world we cultivate and farm in proportions where the guano and manure from the species we raise provide enough fertiliser for what we grow. But there are many of us, and to feed everyone, this balance is impossible, so we must crush rocks to nourish plants sufficiently, which is obviously not renewable... We know how to makes wood-frame homes and trees grow up again, but again the demand much surpass the capacity of trees to grow up again and so on.
The result it's finding new way to do more with less, and finding them quickly. Some do works well, some do works a bit, many gives only the illusion to work enough and people buy them anyway because an illusion it's still something more than nothing.
The target issue is the model, capitalism, issue, in the past we have used money as a means to barter things counter something we all accept. Nowadays we use money to makes more money, so goods are just a mean not a target, and the result is that we do not care about quality, being just a mean if we can sell them it's enough to milk money. To solve this we need to makes money public, creating by governments without fractionary reserves and public debt mechanism, taxed to keep the supply limited enough following the availability of any specific resources, so essentially like Swiss we need to tax just VAT with continuously variables rates following nature and tech, while taxing local properties just to assure local consumption does not exceed a sustainable threshold of resources usage.
The result it's finding new way to do more with less, and finding them quickly. Some do works well, some do works a bit, many gives only the illusion to work enough and people buy them anyway because an illusion it's still something more than nothing.
The target issue is the model, capitalism, issue, in the past we have used money as a means to barter things counter something we all accept. Nowadays we use money to makes more money, so goods are just a mean not a target, and the result is that we do not care about quality, being just a mean if we can sell them it's enough to milk money. To solve this we need to makes money public, creating by governments without fractionary reserves and public debt mechanism, taxed to keep the supply limited enough following the availability of any specific resources, so essentially like Swiss we need to tax just VAT with continuously variables rates following nature and tech, while taxing local properties just to assure local consumption does not exceed a sustainable threshold of resources usage.
When I was growing up we had an old Soviet fridge at our dacha. It was at least 30 years old (maybe more, it's age was definitely compared to my mother's on multiple occasions) and it was working 3 months out of a year in unheated uninsulated room in up to 90 degree heat, while sitting idle thru Russian winter.
The only issue with it was that the door didn't close too well. My more conscientious family would bend down to push it gently, whereas I would just kick it. It took me less time to quit smoking than to quit kicking fridges every time I close the door. I think I was still kicking fridges in the US in 2010 after last seeing that one in 2000. It was also small and didn't have any features other than producing some amount of cold air. But it worked! It still works for all I know.
If most hand wringing in this thread is to be taken at face value this is what we should pivot to :)
The only issue with it was that the door didn't close too well. My more conscientious family would bend down to push it gently, whereas I would just kick it. It took me less time to quit smoking than to quit kicking fridges every time I close the door. I think I was still kicking fridges in the US in 2010 after last seeing that one in 2000. It was also small and didn't have any features other than producing some amount of cold air. But it worked! It still works for all I know.
If most hand wringing in this thread is to be taken at face value this is what we should pivot to :)
This is what record high corporate profits feels like.
Few observations over the past few decades (my paycheck went up by slightly less than the US inflation rate during this time):
Air travel is much more affordable to me. It has become psychologically nasty which makes the overall deal feel worse, while it is actually better in $ terms.
Housing build quality is worse, things need more frequent repairs, cost is higher probably due to increase in land value.
Much more trashy food in the grocery store aisles, one needs to be aware and shop carefully.
Politics especially in the US has gotten FAR worse.
The internet after the early promise has gotten FAR worse (better in bandwidth and far worse via enshittification).
Cars improved till around 2010 and now worse for the dollar (too much electronics, and repairs are prohibitively expensive).
Air travel is much more affordable to me. It has become psychologically nasty which makes the overall deal feel worse, while it is actually better in $ terms.
Housing build quality is worse, things need more frequent repairs, cost is higher probably due to increase in land value.
Much more trashy food in the grocery store aisles, one needs to be aware and shop carefully.
Politics especially in the US has gotten FAR worse.
The internet after the early promise has gotten FAR worse (better in bandwidth and far worse via enshittification).
Cars improved till around 2010 and now worse for the dollar (too much electronics, and repairs are prohibitively expensive).
The main metric has always been care.
Care beat quality as a metric, because care is very inefficient to fake and very powerful when genuine.
How does the company providing the physical product or the service care ?
Most companies right now care about AI. Some integration are impressive. But where's real care about users ? It seems it's not the subject anymore. We may have tricked ourselves into beveling technology will resolve in itself all problems, and it's at its peak with AI. As engineers we can forget sometimes that technology is just a tool and its fine, but as a society it may leads us all in a bad direction.
Care beat quality as a metric, because care is very inefficient to fake and very powerful when genuine.
How does the company providing the physical product or the service care ?
Most companies right now care about AI. Some integration are impressive. But where's real care about users ? It seems it's not the subject anymore. We may have tricked ourselves into beveling technology will resolve in itself all problems, and it's at its peak with AI. As engineers we can forget sometimes that technology is just a tool and its fine, but as a society it may leads us all in a bad direction.
> Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller,
This is infuriating. Due to better nutrition, we all got bigger. Our parents were smaller in comparison, and our grandparents seem tiny. I'm 6'6" and I'm on the tall end, but I see more and more giants roaming the Earth (and they do seem like giants if you're used to be the tallest in the room).
Yet they make airplane seats smaller. I have to pay hundreds of dollars extra just to buy extra leg room and all that crap. It's frustrating.
This is infuriating. Due to better nutrition, we all got bigger. Our parents were smaller in comparison, and our grandparents seem tiny. I'm 6'6" and I'm on the tall end, but I see more and more giants roaming the Earth (and they do seem like giants if you're used to be the tallest in the room).
Yet they make airplane seats smaller. I have to pay hundreds of dollars extra just to buy extra leg room and all that crap. It's frustrating.
I was going to write something like this at one time, only mine would be better because it would make frequent mentions of The Space Merchants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants
>Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants
>Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market.
Quality is being sacrificed on the altar of Moloch [1].
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140730043944/http://slatestarc...
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140730043944/http://slatestarc...
Quality has not gone up. Products are deliberately made to fail sooner by Chinese manufacturers who are reducing costs on super tiny margins.
The mantra that "consumers get lower prices and everything is better as a result" deliberately elides any discussion of quality and reliability.
The mantra that "consumers get lower prices and everything is better as a result" deliberately elides any discussion of quality and reliability.
One word: MBAs
> is that the great promise of capitalism — if you work, you can have a decent life, buy a house, and go on vacation — is no longer being fulfilled;
I'd just like to comment on this line in particular. The promise of capitalism isn't this, but, rather, if you own capital (i.e. are a capitalist), you explicitly do not have to work. There is no promise made to the workers, except that in some way they are compensated for their work.
There are other systems wherein if you don't work (and aren't retired/disabled), you don't get paid. But capitalism is one of them in which non-workers get paid, and usually with a disgusting disparity between the rate of the two classes.
I'd just like to comment on this line in particular. The promise of capitalism isn't this, but, rather, if you own capital (i.e. are a capitalist), you explicitly do not have to work. There is no promise made to the workers, except that in some way they are compensated for their work.
There are other systems wherein if you don't work (and aren't retired/disabled), you don't get paid. But capitalism is one of them in which non-workers get paid, and usually with a disgusting disparity between the rate of the two classes.
> According to a 2024 report by the software company Salesforce, 62% of these services in Spain are already automated. Today, it’s easier to converse with a machine than with a real person.
Whats adorable is that the author thinks this has anything to do with AI. Shitty AI is an excuse to get rid of customer service. It's a move that most of tech made a long time ago.
How many times BEFORE AI have you heard the lament from someone that "Thank fully I am internet famous, or blew up on social media. because other wise google/etsy/ebay/Facebook would never have fixed their automated decision to pull the rug out from under me"
> The conclusion is clear: society isn’t adapting to the pace of technological advancement.
Uhhh, the change already happened, in the attention economy the only thing that matters is your social clout (credit?).
> packaged foods with more preservatives than ingredients.
Heirloom tomatoes in the grocery store. Avocado year round, Brussel sprouts that dont taste like ass. Whole Foods, and other more 'local' choices.
> According to the expert, the main factor driving this criticism is that the great promise of capitalism — if you work
The problem is that there are lots of people all over the globe who are willing to do MORE for LESS and we are in a global marketplace. Adapt or die.
> buy a house
Except you can have all this. Plenty of people do: "buying a house" is very literally the same as it ever was: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
> The real problem isn’t buying pants that don’t last or traveling in an uncomfortable plane. The real problem is that, with each purchase, we support two of the most polluting industries on the planet.
The author could have done a far better job in highlighting all the waste that goes into a pair of pants. Oil for synthetics, Waste from fabric making and dying. Scraps from the cutting process only to have them thrown away after a year to make another pair. Instead we got a bunch of "feel good" talking points that you can nod along to even if they are misinformed.
Whats adorable is that the author thinks this has anything to do with AI. Shitty AI is an excuse to get rid of customer service. It's a move that most of tech made a long time ago.
How many times BEFORE AI have you heard the lament from someone that "Thank fully I am internet famous, or blew up on social media. because other wise google/etsy/ebay/Facebook would never have fixed their automated decision to pull the rug out from under me"
> The conclusion is clear: society isn’t adapting to the pace of technological advancement.
Uhhh, the change already happened, in the attention economy the only thing that matters is your social clout (credit?).
> packaged foods with more preservatives than ingredients.
Heirloom tomatoes in the grocery store. Avocado year round, Brussel sprouts that dont taste like ass. Whole Foods, and other more 'local' choices.
> According to the expert, the main factor driving this criticism is that the great promise of capitalism — if you work
The problem is that there are lots of people all over the globe who are willing to do MORE for LESS and we are in a global marketplace. Adapt or die.
> buy a house
Except you can have all this. Plenty of people do: "buying a house" is very literally the same as it ever was: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
> The real problem isn’t buying pants that don’t last or traveling in an uncomfortable plane. The real problem is that, with each purchase, we support two of the most polluting industries on the planet.
The author could have done a far better job in highlighting all the waste that goes into a pair of pants. Oil for synthetics, Waste from fabric making and dying. Scraps from the cutting process only to have them thrown away after a year to make another pair. Instead we got a bunch of "feel good" talking points that you can nod along to even if they are misinformed.
> Whole Foods, and other more 'local' choices.
Whole Foods used to be the place to go for quality throughout the store. It seems to me that now you can still get plenty of quality, but it's not guaranteed if you just go and grab something off the shelf. Instead, you have to know what's worth buying and what's not.
(I can't back this up with examples, because exactly this phenomenon means that I don't shop at Whole Foods as much. I could be wrong.)
Whole Foods used to be the place to go for quality throughout the store. It seems to me that now you can still get plenty of quality, but it's not guaranteed if you just go and grab something off the shelf. Instead, you have to know what's worth buying and what's not.
(I can't back this up with examples, because exactly this phenomenon means that I don't shop at Whole Foods as much. I could be wrong.)
As you point out, speaking to a human rather than AI is no worse than speaking to a human who isn’t empowered to do anything. Certainly ten years ago in the UK, if you called a customer service number and ended up speaking to someone with a thick Indian accent, it was unlikely — through no fault of their own — that they were empowered to do anything to solve your problem.
Yes, consumerism makes us throw out and replace perfectly working things. That doesn't mean there's not a decline in quality _as well_.
> One is that attributes like durability -- which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product's quality -- have lost relevance.
> some companies design certain products -- especially household appliances -- stop working after a certain period of time. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but a proven fact.
So, in many cases we no longer factor in durability because we know that consumer products don't offer that quality _by design_.
> healthcare services may not be worse than they were a few years ago. "The big problem is that they haven't adapted to the pace of social change. They haven't evolved enough to serve the entire elderly population, whose demographic size is increasing every year"
But then they are, in fact, of worse quality for a large group of the population.
> five out of 10 consumers openly reject virtual assistants. The conclusion is clear: society isn't adapting to the pace of technological advancement.
No, that's not a clear conclusion. Another conclusion that could be drawn is that the adaptation of AI technology in customer service has lowered the quality to a point customers don't even care to bother with. I.E., the pace of technological advancement, in this case, isn't ready for the demands of society.
> It's difficult to prove that today's products are worse than those of 20 years ago.
No, it's not. Some products and consumption patterns may be harder to compare. In other cases, we have clear examples of engineered decline in quality. One example: soap companies changing not just the size of the soap (shrinkflation) but also altering the ingredients to make the bar of soap last about half as long as before. Ever look under the bed at a hotel? After the pandemic, the quality of cleaning has declined substantially, at least in my country. My previous landlord lowered the indoor temperature and raised the rent, all in the same year. House prices keep going up, but building standards are lowered.
In short: there are very real and measurable declines in quality because economies are tanking and, as the article correctly states, "the promise of capitalism" is no longer being fulfilled.
> One is that attributes like durability -- which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product's quality -- have lost relevance.
> some companies design certain products -- especially household appliances -- stop working after a certain period of time. This isn't a conspiracy theory, but a proven fact.
So, in many cases we no longer factor in durability because we know that consumer products don't offer that quality _by design_.
> healthcare services may not be worse than they were a few years ago. "The big problem is that they haven't adapted to the pace of social change. They haven't evolved enough to serve the entire elderly population, whose demographic size is increasing every year"
But then they are, in fact, of worse quality for a large group of the population.
> five out of 10 consumers openly reject virtual assistants. The conclusion is clear: society isn't adapting to the pace of technological advancement.
No, that's not a clear conclusion. Another conclusion that could be drawn is that the adaptation of AI technology in customer service has lowered the quality to a point customers don't even care to bother with. I.E., the pace of technological advancement, in this case, isn't ready for the demands of society.
> It's difficult to prove that today's products are worse than those of 20 years ago.
No, it's not. Some products and consumption patterns may be harder to compare. In other cases, we have clear examples of engineered decline in quality. One example: soap companies changing not just the size of the soap (shrinkflation) but also altering the ingredients to make the bar of soap last about half as long as before. Ever look under the bed at a hotel? After the pandemic, the quality of cleaning has declined substantially, at least in my country. My previous landlord lowered the indoor temperature and raised the rent, all in the same year. House prices keep going up, but building standards are lowered.
In short: there are very real and measurable declines in quality because economies are tanking and, as the article correctly states, "the promise of capitalism" is no longer being fulfilled.
>declining quality
Just like this article I'm afraid.
If it's making a point it's lost by meandering to too long.
If it's point it's simply longevity then it's missed the point about how LLM are simply here to stay, the genie is out of the bottle with regards to that tool.
If the point is some anti hyper-capitalist rant then it's a thinly veiled option piece.
If the point is the breakdown of the social contract/elevator. Then why when you're interviewing experts who study this aren't you asking poignant questions like "when do you think this happened?" or "can this be fixed?". Rather than ranting about the dreams of the nuclear (pub intended) family to China and "AI".
If it that if you're not chasing these answers you're either afraid to admit you know them or are scared of them?
Just like this article I'm afraid.
If it's making a point it's lost by meandering to too long.
If it's point it's simply longevity then it's missed the point about how LLM are simply here to stay, the genie is out of the bottle with regards to that tool.
If the point is some anti hyper-capitalist rant then it's a thinly veiled option piece.
If the point is the breakdown of the social contract/elevator. Then why when you're interviewing experts who study this aren't you asking poignant questions like "when do you think this happened?" or "can this be fixed?". Rather than ranting about the dreams of the nuclear (pub intended) family to China and "AI".
If it that if you're not chasing these answers you're either afraid to admit you know them or are scared of them?
Furniture really is the prime example. I've heard endless complaints about IKEA, along the lines of "I move two times and it's broken."
You ask people whether they have a sturdy childhood wardrobe that they could use. The idea seems disgusting. You ask them what other options they considered. The comment appears to be offensive. How many people have researched and considered a company's service hotline quality before deciding to buy? Noone.
People love to hate "evil" companies and expect laudations for knowing the concept of "planned obsolence" (they heard it once.) It's easy, it's someone else's fault.
But mention their own responsibility as capitalist consumers and they'll quickly leave the discussion.
You ask people whether they have a sturdy childhood wardrobe that they could use. The idea seems disgusting. You ask them what other options they considered. The comment appears to be offensive. How many people have researched and considered a company's service hotline quality before deciding to buy? Noone.
People love to hate "evil" companies and expect laudations for knowing the concept of "planned obsolence" (they heard it once.) It's easy, it's someone else's fault.
But mention their own responsibility as capitalist consumers and they'll quickly leave the discussion.
imagine thinking this is a mystery
This was a big theme in the 1970s, one book that captures that Zeitgiest is this
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145212225-by-marvin-harr...
and there were a lot of books offering answers such as
https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Free-Certain-Becomes-Business...
There are two theories of quality: (1) quality is conformance to a specification and (2) quality is conformance to customer requirements.
The answer to type (1) quality is to reduce variance. One response to type (1) quality is to say something like "you can't get good help today", e.g. blame the worker, which has elements such as "they come to the factory drunk somedays", "they are smoking pot all the time", "they don't care". Crosby says management should take responsibility because management hires the workers, trains the workers, supervises the workers, designs the work process, fires the workers, etc.
There's a dark side to type (1) quality thinking in that reducing variance lets you reduce the mean. For instance, a metal pail needs a certain thickness of metal on the bottom, if you go under a threshold the bottom fails. Because of variance you can't make a pail with exactly that thickness, you have to be several standard deviations above the threshold. Get that variation down and you can reduce the mean, use less metal. (Saves money at the factory, costs less to ship, less global warming, etc.) Now you have a system with less reserve, if a new source of variation shows up you are making crap pails again.
Thinking about type (2) quality involves a conversation with customers to understand what their requirements are. The Toyota Corolla and Cadillac Escalade are both excellent vehicles from the perspective of customers who have different values. If customers aren't being heard, you have problems in the type (2) department -- in Doctorow's "enshittification" scenario the voice of neither end users nor advertisers or vendors are being heard. In cases such as Meta, even ordinary shareholders are unheard and the inevitable consequence of that is "it sucks." See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/145212225-by-marvin-harr...
and there were a lot of books offering answers such as
https://www.amazon.com/Quality-Free-Certain-Becomes-Business...
There are two theories of quality: (1) quality is conformance to a specification and (2) quality is conformance to customer requirements.
The answer to type (1) quality is to reduce variance. One response to type (1) quality is to say something like "you can't get good help today", e.g. blame the worker, which has elements such as "they come to the factory drunk somedays", "they are smoking pot all the time", "they don't care". Crosby says management should take responsibility because management hires the workers, trains the workers, supervises the workers, designs the work process, fires the workers, etc.
There's a dark side to type (1) quality thinking in that reducing variance lets you reduce the mean. For instance, a metal pail needs a certain thickness of metal on the bottom, if you go under a threshold the bottom fails. Because of variance you can't make a pail with exactly that thickness, you have to be several standard deviations above the threshold. Get that variation down and you can reduce the mean, use less metal. (Saves money at the factory, costs less to ship, less global warming, etc.) Now you have a system with less reserve, if a new source of variation shows up you are making crap pails again.
Thinking about type (2) quality involves a conversation with customers to understand what their requirements are. The Toyota Corolla and Cadillac Escalade are both excellent vehicles from the perspective of customers who have different values. If customers aren't being heard, you have problems in the type (2) department -- in Doctorow's "enshittification" scenario the voice of neither end users nor advertisers or vendors are being heard. In cases such as Meta, even ordinary shareholders are unheard and the inevitable consequence of that is "it sucks." See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
Sometimes the specification is no good, and sometimes the customer requirements are different for many customers, in some cases being something which is less common (or that they try to make it appear less common (even to the customers) in order to try to be dishonest).
Maybe you shouldn’t elect politicians who increase your public debt perennially by printing money like there’s no tomorrow. Perhaps that way the money you earn would be worth something and you would be able to afford quality products. It’s hard, I know.
Quality has become something reserved for the rich. To get a garment or an item of the same quality that was available 20-30 years ago, I'd have to pay 10-100x the price. And I wouldn't even know where to start looking or how to get them.
You can by a "professional" set of Zwilling or Fissler cookware from Germany, which is actually made outside of Germany, and corrodes and warps way worse than a set of pots from the 1990s. Pitting from dishwashers, bad welds, delamination that occurs when using the boost function on the induction hob... The quality that was present in those pots from the 90s are now reserved for actual professional cookware sets not found in regular catalogues, which costs upwards of 300€ per pot.
Same goes for garments. If you want cotton spun from high-quality yarn that won't pill or fray within 1 year, the only place you will find it is by the yard at the tailor's, or in brands you don't even know the name of. Meanwhile, I am still rocking the same T-shirt that I wore in elementary school 30 years ago.
Office chairs — I have an Italian one from early 2000s and it's a beast. Both the mechanism and the upholstery. Today's "best" office chair — the SteelCase Leap is a rickety piece of trash by comparison. You can see the same decline in materials if you compare a Herman Miller Aeron from the early 2000s and ones built today.
Look at the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The old ones had metal internals, and powerful, reliable motors. The new ones are much weaker, have nylon load bearing parts, and have a life span of 5 years tops.
Cutlery, tools... Everything has become worse, and there is a new category of "premium" items which are anything but.
And the biggest problem is that people's standards have been lowered to incredibly low levels. It's like they don't even understand how bad the things they are using actually are.
You can by a "professional" set of Zwilling or Fissler cookware from Germany, which is actually made outside of Germany, and corrodes and warps way worse than a set of pots from the 1990s. Pitting from dishwashers, bad welds, delamination that occurs when using the boost function on the induction hob... The quality that was present in those pots from the 90s are now reserved for actual professional cookware sets not found in regular catalogues, which costs upwards of 300€ per pot.
Same goes for garments. If you want cotton spun from high-quality yarn that won't pill or fray within 1 year, the only place you will find it is by the yard at the tailor's, or in brands you don't even know the name of. Meanwhile, I am still rocking the same T-shirt that I wore in elementary school 30 years ago.
Office chairs — I have an Italian one from early 2000s and it's a beast. Both the mechanism and the upholstery. Today's "best" office chair — the SteelCase Leap is a rickety piece of trash by comparison. You can see the same decline in materials if you compare a Herman Miller Aeron from the early 2000s and ones built today.
Look at the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The old ones had metal internals, and powerful, reliable motors. The new ones are much weaker, have nylon load bearing parts, and have a life span of 5 years tops.
Cutlery, tools... Everything has become worse, and there is a new category of "premium" items which are anything but.
And the biggest problem is that people's standards have been lowered to incredibly low levels. It's like they don't even understand how bad the things they are using actually are.
Same in the US.
My suspicion is that when products are successful and mature but reach market saturation, profit growth pressure leads to cutting some corners on every iteration, and hence to a slow decline in quality over the years.