Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#21

Post by kalleboo » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #16

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.

Ikea has optimized the price and durability of an item to maximize utility for both the end user and the corp. People like getting new stuff for cheap and dont value resale or reuse. Ikea is an excellent machine for turning Borneo rain forest into landfill at the lowest price.

> Borneo rain forest

Most of IKEAs wood comes from Europe/Russia. They also probably do a lot more work tracing the source of their wood and making it sustainable than your average furniture maker, simply due to their visibility. You might be better off with something hand-crafted by an artisan from local wood, but who can afford that? Most people get their furniture from other big box stores, with unknown provenance

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#22

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #19

jacquesm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortunately it really isn't. It is ok, mostly single use stuff that seems to be cheap but that is actually quite expensive if you take into account the material costs and the production quality. Even so, their sticker price and economies of scale put almost everybody competing with them out of business.

Could you point out specifically where they are cutting corners? Their materials are cheap, but not particularly short-lived. The woodwork quality is second to none: never experienced jams, excess play or position mismatches on IKEA pieces.

The edge connectors are particularly troublesome and those are present in almost all their furniture making it next to impossible to disassemble a piece of furniture to move it to a new house. They are designed to be single use.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#23

Post by dbuder » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

Ikea should lose their tax exemption.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#24

Post by dingaling » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

osrec wrote: post #11

mherrmann wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Such a shame about his (apparently) dark past.

If you're referring to his fascist involvement, he later described it as one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Another "mistake" was outsourcing production to East German prisoners during the 1970 and 80s.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#25

Post by kalleboo » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #24

osrec wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're referring to his fascist involvement, he later described it as one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Another "mistake" was outsourcing production to East German prisoners during the 1970 and 80s.

So he was both a Nazi and a Communist.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#26

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

Emouri wrote: post #13

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.

I've still got an Ikea table my in-laws bought in the early 70s, it'll last another 30 years no problem. Some of it wasn't so bad.

Stuff from that era was really good. High quality woods and good finishing work. Then it went downhill with the low point somewhere around '97 or so and since then it has been slowly climbing back up. But there is a long way to go if they ever want to get back to their old quality level and their profit margins would likely suffer as a consequence.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#27

Post by dbrgn » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #16

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.

Ikea has optimized the price and durability of an item to maximize utility for both the end user and the corp. People like getting new stuff for cheap and dont value resale or reuse. Ikea is an excellent machine for turning Borneo rain forest into landfill at the lowest price.

Ikea actually plans to become "forest positive": https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/ikea-sustai... The article is from 2012, not sure how far they progressed (true sustainability is difficult). I doubt they use any tropical wood though. Most of their wood supplies are already FSC certified.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#28

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

5_minutes wrote: post #3

Nice trivia: he actually started with delivering self-made furniture on his bike in his local town.

[deleted]

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#29

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #17

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.

You obviously have never bought anything second hand. Ikea items are extremely popular and easy to sell used.

I visit the local garbage drop off a couple of times per year and the amount of Ikea stuff that gets dumped there is depressing. If you actually read the comment above you'd see that I do buy stuff second hand.

Re: Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died

#30

Post by 5_minutes » Sun, Jan 28, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

5_minutes wrote: post #3

Nice trivia: he actually started with delivering self-made furniture on his bike in his local town.

I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.

My take on this is that they make some real crappy stuff, like in: if you ever take it apart, you might as well throw it away.

And then they also have some decent, quality stuff, like some of their couches.

The problem is that as a consumer, it’s sometimes a bit unclear which category you’re buying into. Price is not a good indicator when it comes to ikea stuff: they have cheap stuff that’s great and expensive stuff that’s dispensible.