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Comment by sgustard | Hacker News Reader

Another possible cause: Do people even know how to make high-quality products any more? Who are the top 1% of refrigerator engineers, and do they still even go into refrigerator design, or did they become wall street quants instead? This is the same thing I wonder when I eat at crappy restaurants. It's not like the staff knows how to make good food and they choose not to do it. They don't know how!

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Top refrigerator engineers are probably making lab freezers. I imagine a lot consumer hardware is JDM these days. Parent company mostly doing industrial design (if that) and the rest is farmed out to China where they have a standard design they're working from.

That reminds me of something I always wondered: during that window (I'd say, roughly 1975-2000) where Japan had strong brand equity for "quality, reliable, innovative", why did they seem to make no footprint in the US appliance sector? I've never seen a Panasonic washer or Sony fridge.

It wasn't a "we can't make/ship big things with relatively low value density" factor (they made cars, after all) and I'm assuming they were making something for domestic consumption (or were they buying Whirlpool fridges for Tokyo apartments?). Was there some tarriff situation keeping them out of this sector?

>during that window (I'd say, roughly 1975-2000) where Japan had strong brand equity for "quality, reliable, innovative", why did they seem to make no footprint in the US appliance sector? I've never seen a Panasonic washer or Sony fridge.

I have a Panasonic washer and fridge. They're great.

>I'm assuming they were making something for domestic consumption (or were they buying Whirlpool fridges for Tokyo apartments?)

Whirlpool and other western brands have no presence in Japan for appliances. It's all Panasonic, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, plus Haier, and for the cheap brand, Iris Ohyama. Virtually all appliances are made in Japan, or some (usually cheap ones) in China by Japanese companies.

They probably don't bother with the US because American consumers don't want to pay for quality, and they'd have to re-engineer everything for American sizes and preferences. American appliances look nothing like Japanese ones.

Engineering doesn’t change. If it was learned by one it can and will be learned by another. Manufacturers know how to make quality parts, they are just not able to, or choose not to, for whatever reason. Aftermarket parts business is a large portion of an appliance or vehicle manufacturer’s bottom line, so they make decisions to augment the profit of that business, including sacrificing quality on the appliance or vehicle.

> Do people even know how to make high-quality products any more?

Is it even possible to lose this knowledge? Surely they know how to make good reliable products, they simply choose not to...

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