Tell HN: Amazon shopping is racing to the bottom of quality
- There are multiple products, sometimes dozens, which are actually the same product in the same or different colors, and often with a variety of nonsense manufactorer names. So there is the appearance of choice while actually the non-same items are difficult to find (needle in haystack)
- Products tend to be very low quality. If you take time to read the reviews, it's obvious that many of the high reviews are stuffed. The low score reviews usually tell the same story: a critical part breaks on first use, or a critical flaw renders the item completely unsuitable for the task it is intended for.
- Counterfeits... I don't even need to get into this, as it's a very well-known problem.
Unfortunately, the Walmart effect applies here too, because the low prices attract most shoppers, and the small players (and brick and mortar stores) can't compete and go out of business. If they try to compete, they typically just find the same garbage manufacturers who are selling on Amazon. It's a race to the bottom.
As consumers, we end up with items that are either useless on arrival (and not even worth returning), or they are far less than we would have hoped or wished for or been willing to pay for.
The great irony is, with the ability to import items from around the globe, and the significant number of online stores, it can still be impossible to find even a decent simple item (such as an extended reach car wash brush).
Even if you search more broadly than directly on Amazon, you see the same few items across most online retailers. And when you read reviews of the items on each retailer website, you see the same low score complaints... sometimes in such detail that you can be certain that it was the exact same product.
I see no solution to this. There is one country where most of this garbage comes from, but any special measures to penalize their exports will just result in shifting the manufacturing to another don't-care country which will pick up the slack.
Imagine the total cost of this situation, from materials consumption to trash piles (which is a short process for many of these products). It's an obscene waste.
/rant