I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... but once you stop scraping the bottom of the barrel, their mid-range and up stuff does complete really well on quality and price, especially if mid-century style aesthetics appeal to you...
Their Lack coffee table is an iconic POS. It’s almost completely hollow but I’ve seen them last years and it doesn’t look that bad. It’s also really cheap so I’ve seen lots of hacks for it.
I think the hacking is where IKEA really shines. If you’re careful of what you buy, you can reconfigure, paint and chop up their furniture on the cheap and make it your own.
I've had mine for several years and despite the top surface having some wear on it, it's just fine. Definitely a solid purchase considering it costs about as half as much as a takeout pizza.
Obviously they make compromises to meet a price point, so given the price points of these products I believe they well lean heavily to the Ikea quality rather than Legos quality.
I would almost say if people have kids it’s maybe an option since they’d grow out of it, but then engineered wood would have lots of chemicals in them.
The rest of “real” furniture shopping involves sifting though large volumes of future which are nearly as bad as ikea’s worst quality for some multiple of the price, or of decent quality with a “grandma’s house” look or cheap suburban look.
Reasonably priced, reasonably designed, furniture of reasonable quality is very hard to find.
Expensive furniture would own me, as in the value lost through worry about damage, time spent finding, or moving hassle outweighs the value gained with aesthetics, durability, and other quality.
Ikea furniture is often of questionable quality, but frequently of acceptable design and price such that i can’t find anything of middling price that i actually want. In other words, I want a $300 couch or a $3000 couch but can’t find or am not willing to spend any more time looking for something in between.
If you're going to IKEA for a sofa, mattress, or coffee table -- yeah, it's going to be super-cheap stuff that doesn't last.
But IKEA's phenomenal at a whole range of other stuff that's just as high quality but far cheaper than elsewhere. Lighting/lamps, storage boxes, kitchenware, a lot of their chairs/stools, bathroom, and so on.
They're also really good for a lot of "basic" apartment pieces like bookshelves, dressers, storage cubes. A lot of people shop for those things at IKEA not for the price, but simply for the aesthetics.
People with a lot of money and good taste still often wind up buying a bunch of stuff at IKEA because it works well. Not for a nice wooden coffee table mind you, but a nice white media stand for sure.
I just personally don't see a piece of furniture worthy of that much money.