Comment by contrarian1234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by contrarian1234 | Hacker News Reader

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I think there are two issues that are going in parallel

1. fixing stuff

As long as some dude on the other side of the world is willing to make a new sofa and send it to you for cheaper than it is to fix it locally, the idea of fixing it locally will just never take off. You can ban/limit international trade, but then you're just screwing over poor people on the other end of the world for a "feel good" kind of thing

2. not making cheap crap

You can find some way to disincentivize making cheap stuff. Ban IKEA.. etc. But then you are just making life harder for the poor in your own country. That's cool you can afford a 5 figure quality sofa.. many people in the US won't be able to afford that. It just comes off as a bit heartless as well when rich programmer types deplore the quality of cheap things. There are the five figure sofas if you want. Go buy them - nobody is stopping you. You don't have to force everyone else into that price bracket though

The two things aren't disconnected. But in the end it seems like rich people want to ban cheap things, so that they can have more local repair services for their expensive stuff

The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate the bottom tier from the market. The issue isn't with that, but with the tendency for the market to hollow out, which results in there being no middle-tier products available at all. You have a variety of products ranging from literally shit to figuratively shit, then nothing, then high-end custom-made professional grade stuff you can't afford, and probably can't source unless you know someone who knows someone. Any business trying to do OK stuff for OK price is forced to either sink to the bottom-tier, or become a niche high-end brand.

Or, in short: the problem isn't that I can buy cheap crap. The problem is that I cannot buy moderately expensive good stuff - there's only cheap shit, and moderately expensive shit pretending to be good (and then the good stuff I can't possibly afford).

This is indeed hard to solve. But there is need for a solution. Not because I want a good couch for 4 figures, but because we should have more sustainable and goomd couches. Not just for reducing environmental impact, but also for improving quality of life and financials for all but the poorest, by letting them actually get long lasting furniture.

Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer. Currently the best way to do that is hand-cut dovetails and only hardwoods. But there's quality to be had with modern solutions that are muuuch cheaper than the old methods.

> Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer.

To be honest, IKEA isn’t the problem here. Their stuff is above average quality / longevity until you’re at least a couple levels up in the market. The last time we were looking for furniture, it was eye-opening to see how many companies are trying to charge 2-4 times more for IKEA or lower quality furniture, where something looked nice from across the showroom but if you looked closer it was all sawdust and cheap plastic components.

Ikea already understood that there is a market for this kind of goods. They sell a few hardwood furnitures which are not crazy expensive.

(and there is another point that belongs to this conversation, even if not addressed in the OP.)

3. Sustainability: Everything will have to be replaced eventually, even repairable sofas. It is important when constructing a piece of furniture (or anything else) how will the parts be recycled? We should aspire an ecosystem that goes: buy -> repair -> repair -> recycle.

Ikea sofas can be underrated. My wife bought a Grönlid loveseat at a consignment store (read: it wasn't even new) for $100 and we enjoyed it for almost 9 years. No sagging or falling apart, it remained comfortable until the day we sold it or gave it away - I don't recall now.

Hmm, grön lid is Swedish for "green suffer!", message unclear.

Lid has more meanings though. It can also mean "inclination" or "hillside" (roughly) which makes more sense in the context. Grönlid would then be a green hillside or green slope or similar. Which sounds like a nice place to lay down and relax for a bit.

Yes, I may possibly have noticed that before commenting, cannot confirm or deny.

I have an Ikea leather sofa which is still going strong after 10+ years.

That's a part of IKEA's appeal. Because of the consistent quality and the extensive market share, there's a lively secondary market for the furniture. At least in Europe. You simply cannot sell (or even give away) similarly priced furniture of other brands but there's demand for second hand IKEA.

> not making cheap crap. You can find some way to disincentivize making cheap stuff. Ban IKEA.. etc.

As I type my keyboard is sitting on an Ikea desk. It's cheap, it's simple, it does the job and I'm happy with it.

Cheap stuff is not the problem. Crappy cheap stuff (and crappy expensive stuff!!!) is.

For example, I have two radios in my house that I don't use? Why because the crappy power leads have frayed and I can only use them with batteries.

Or again, I bought a kettle 2 years ago that stopped working after 6 months.

I've got plenty of relatively cheap things in my house, including a few from Ikea, that are perfectly good for what I use them for. And I've also bought things like relatively high-end small appliances that crapped out in short order.

And it's often very hard to tell which is which in advance--and it may very well be the luck of the draw in any case.

Even an obviously cheaper Ikea dresser I have in my bedroom. Yeah, it's cheaply made and was sort of a pain to assemble. But it looks and works fine and I'm not sure I could have even gotten a hardwood dresser that cost 5x as much into the space.

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