Will Americans Ever Get Sick of Cheap Junk? | Hacker News Reader

Will Americans Ever Get Sick of Cheap Junk?

theatlantic.com

32 pointspaulpauper20 comments

The difficulty remains that in a lot of categories, the choice is between "cheap junk" and "expensive junk". "not junk" is not an option.

This is my problem. I am happy to pay more for a product that will be durable, reliable and last longer. But finding this (if it exists) is impossible. You try to look at old companies with strong reputations but across the board they have switched to selling low quality shit. You see comments like "don't buy any X from Y manufactured after 2010".

It seems really stupid to me. These established companies have made their products indistinguishable from no-name overseas brands but can't match the price. They may temporarily cash their good name for profit but what are they going to do when consumers catch on.

Pair this with the difficulty of finding honest reviews these days and it is impossible to find new quality brands. Not to mention that half of reviewers pick up an object and say "it's heavy so it must be well-made".

> These established companies have made their products indistinguishable from no-name overseas brands

In a lot of cases, those "established companies" no longer actually exist. Their name is just licensed out for other companies to use. Often those other companies are same manufacturers that produce cheap crap.

That's why you sometimes see things like people saying not to buy a particular brand after a certain date. That date is usually the time that the brand started to be licensed out.

Long story short: it's a mistake to trust an established brand name automatically. You need to know if the company you think is behind it is really behind it.

> They may temporarily cash their good name for profit but what are they going to do when consumers catch on.

The folks who gobble these companies up and streamline them for maximum profit don't care about the future. They only want to maximize the immediate value of their stake and cash out. The same dance keeps playing out.

Plus, if you inherit a perfectly functional Kitchen-aide stand mixer from Mema how are they ever going to sell more stand mixers which was the conclusion of the folks who bought Instapot and realized after the hype cycle died you just don't have a large recurring Instapot purchase market.

Something I have started doing when looking to purchase new things, is look for genuine made in America companies[1], as that generally correlates with a higher tier of product. Biggest downside is, I can't find a backpack for less than $100 now that pelican doesn't make them anymore and this dilemma is often repeated across most categories of purchases.

[1]https://www.madeindex.com/

It's way more than $100 but I bought a backpack from GoRuck[1] in 2012 or 2013. The cost was difficult to justify, but I always had issues with backpacks and their zippers turning to shit followed by the straps. I carry 20lb bags of clay and generally put it through some rough usage, and 12 years later nothing has broken or gone wrong. I could see myself using this another 10 years or more.

The only thing I regret is buying it in khaki as it's got a definite dirt patina that makes it a little harder to use in any sort of office situation.

[1] https://www.goruck.com/products/gr1?variant=32978334711908

Relatively new father here. Had no idea what had happened to children's game. Candyland, for example, is composed of a box,plastic player pieces, colored cards, and a board. I had no idea that a company could create such a shit product from such simple parts. The vintage game I found will continue to be passed to generations. The new Candyland board ripped apart after playing several times and is in the trash.

I've been banging this drum for a while now but everything has become a Market For Lemons.

"Not junk" is clearly an option for most categories.

I can walk you through my house, which includes two closets full of "extra" winter clothes, an entire pantry of "kitchen gadgets", a library of "decorative" books, and garage full of tools and "backup tools" (as well as a few boxes labeled "gifts - do not dispose".

So, yeah, this hits home.

Seems like a time and a place for it.

As an example, Harbor freight has been selling cheap junk from china for many years. It has its place, if you know how to use it. Often times even cheaper than just renting a tool without any of the hassle involved with returning it, etc.

I always first look at the most expensive item when looking to purchase. I address build quality and features and make decisions from there.

Try to "buy it for life" on all products I purchase. Totally over plastic garbage.

Most of the time I don't need an expensive overbuilt product. I just need to get a job done and a lot of junk does just that. The junk that we are getting is the almost the same stuff as the previous stuff we were getting at about 10% of the quality and 80% off the price (just random numbers for effect).

This leaves those that want the nice overbuilt stuff out because we cannot scale the high quality anymore.

Very good point. Unless you’re buying something niche for a specialist purpose, the cheaper alternative gets the job done.

This is a point that doesn't get made enough. Even in a world of "junk" - more stuff gets thrown out for obsolescence than for breaking.

Yeah, you know grandfather's all-metal electric saw was super over-engineered and will last longer than my Ryobi. But it can't make a straight cut to save it's life, weights 90 tons, and is horribly unsafe. And I'm not going to use either saw enough to see the end of their lives.

If you are actually going to use the thing like crazy, it's probably worth the investment.

Coming at this from the other side - I don't think the producers of cheap junk will be around forever.

My understanding is that the sea of crappy stuff from China you see in places like Dollar Tree or Temu is more or less a result of their industrial and export subsidy programs - some of them are little more than a recycling of waste products or waste capacity from a factory getting established.

The same stuff we used to crank out when we used to have small tool and die shops in the us - we just don't remember the crap that didn't survive.

But we are seeing a lot of macro changes going on in China and even despite increasing subsidies it is almost unsustainable at these levels in the long run.

Small tool-and-die shops in the US didn't have the infinite advertising budget that Temu seems to have.

Temu is the reseller, not a manufacturer. They have so much cheap crap listed because they are basically offloading junk that's being manufactured at a loss.

https://archive.ph/tgcVU

I hope so. Or, at least, I hope that people stop thinking that the equation is as simple as "cheap == good value". A lot more goes into the value equation than just the price tag.

Sure, but I don't have access to the other numbers.

Basically everything becomes a market for lemons because identifying quality takes to much time or is outright impossible. Reputations are fleeting resources that are mined of value, if you're paying attention you realize they have little meaning anymore.

So as a consumer you basically just have to assume everything is crap. And then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because the non-crap brands can't be found and go out of business or turn to crap as well to compete with other crap.

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