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Comment by ImprovedSilence | Hacker News Reader

Right. It’s unreal how hard it is to find decent shit built to last, and don’t tell me I’m not willing to pay a premium for it, because I am willing. What I don’t like buying is shit branded as upscale high quality that is really the same garbage underneath.

I’m sure there a number of different elements at play here, but one aspect I’ve seen happen time and again is private equity buying out a company and using that strong brand to make progressively shittier and shittier goods, for the same or higher price, while still retaining enough critical mass mindshare that the brand is still “quality”.

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All the "buy quality stuff" people seem to ignore the fact that it's nearly impossible to recognize quality stuff.

I can spend $10 or $40 on a toaster. Both will do the job. One will maybe look slightly nicer. Maybe the $10 toaster will break after 2 years (if it breaks before that, it's still within the mandatory warranty period), then I'm out $10 at worst.

But when I get the $40 toaster, it might be higher quality, or someone just put even worse crap into a nice box and charged me a ridiculous price for it. I can't distinguish those two scenarios. It might last 10 years, or it might crap out after 2 and now I'm out $40.

And the cheap toaster might also last 10 years (mine is 5 years old, so even if it craps out now, the $40 toaster would have had to last for 20 years to be "cheaper"). In the end, it's a gamble, and I'm not convinced that paying a factor of X more increases your chance of not getting crap by that much.

In fact, I've been quite happy with most products, cheap or otherwise, and the occasional disappointment is much less of a problem when you buy cheap.

I'm just pissed off with owning stuff taking up space that doesn't work. I REALLY don't need a washing machine that doesn't work taking up space in my home.

You're quite right: price is not a good guide to quality. But I am beginning to think that "consumer" products fail much sooner than "industrial" products. So I'm thinking that my next utility room will be kitted out with industrial washers. Stuff the "consumer" stuff where it don't shine.

This is something that really bothers me about the current market in North America (not sure if this applies to the rest of the world but I assume it does), there is no such thing as a basic well made product anymore. You either get cheap crap designed to be disposable, or you pay a whole bunch for a "smart" product that is really the same crap as the cheap thing in a nicer housing, but now you have software that works worse than a physical interface and will become a brick in a year when the company stops supporting it. To get anything worth purchasing you pretty much have to find a craftsman for your object, or find a fully private company that doesn't desire to maximize their profit.

The particularly infuriating part about it is that I work in product design, and it isn't something we can fix. If I were to start my own product company, it would absolutely be something with a significant "smart" component to it. Not only is it what the customer seems to want, but you need it to prevent someone else from copying your IP and undercutting you.

Yeah, they did this with all the good British bicycle brands. Raleigh, Dawes and so on; they were good bikes. Nobody makes good bikes in the UK any more. The good bike makers got bought by Chinese companies, and the results are crap. Get a USA bike. Trek are good value.

Trek makes 99% of its bicycles overseas.

As do 99% of bicycle manufacturers producing CF frames - the expertise and manufacturing base are primarily in Taiwan, and everyone from Trek to Canyon are sourcing from the same few people. There are some boutique brands still doing lugged carbon builds that may be assembled in the USA with the AL components manufacturer here as well, but they'll be more expensive and worse performing models for the crowd who hasn't moved on from their "steel is real" phase.

Yeah, same with a lot (but not all) US bike companies. Cannondale was a family owned business, got bought by private equity, and manufacturing moved overseas. I can't say much as to the quality of their bikes, they're probably still fine, as high end bikes are all about geeking out over the tech, and you don't cut corners on that kind of market, but still.

> shit branded as upscale high quality that is really the same garbage underneath.

and this is how bad money drives good money out of the market. What is the general solution for this, assuming the quality level isn't illegal?

I imagine the solution is going to be some sort of parallel to open source, that I can't quite visualize atm.

Maybe the next generation beyond 3D printing will be able to do multi-component assembly tasks, and you can get/print your own high quality components, and assemble your own high quality toaster... Maybe

The open source angle is an interesting concept. The raspberry pi seems to be doing quite alright, despite its design being completely open sourced. Can that model be tweaked a little to apply to all sorts of manufactured goods...? I’m mean, a brand name can have value.

The Raspberry Pi isn't a great example: You can't make a clone of it, because Broadcom will not sell you the SoC for it.

The parent mentioned 3D printing: I think that's the space were right now this plays out the most. Many designs are open or at least have open components, and people build and sell variations, but brands and brand loyalty are very much a thing.

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