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Review broken products instead of new ones

buyforlife.com

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Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#11

Post by easyas101110110 »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

For most people, the majority of positive reviews are noise on any product and they evaluate them by reading negative reviews. For once, let's turn it all upside down: We should build a collection about how things break - review broken and worn-out products to teach how to identify cheap products (where are the stress points, what manufacturing techniques exist to alleviate those). Then compare those with used produc…

It's where the bodies are buried by people who actually use products, not the usual glowing, happy-clappy nonsense of new customers or fake reviews.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#12

Post by easyas101110110 »

bluemandontcry wrote: post #3

Why dont they do it? I havent seen anywhere themdoing it in fact from their website "Free, hand curated updates on new products for people who think quality and sustainability matters."

Lawsuits from manufacturers seems like how this would die.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#13

Post by 1-6 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

This is a good idea, but a lot of products are only sold for a few years before being discontinued; reading a review for a printer that's no longer sold (except secondhand) is unfortunately not very useful.

You're right but if a company can convince consumers that they've done it once, they're surely able to do it again. Unfortunately, technology changes too quickly for that to work in many cases.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#14

Post by abathur »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

This is a good idea, but a lot of products are only sold for a few years before being discontinued; reading a review for a printer that's no longer sold (except secondhand) is unfortunately not very useful.

I think this practice is hand-in-glove with the general commercial model that a review site like this inherently pushes back against, though?

In any case, I've daydreamed about doing something along these lines, plus an aggressive list of policies that companies/products/brands are delisted for violating (i.e., delisting brands when teardowns find anything they went out of their way to engineer for predictable failure).

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#15

Post by IgorPartola »

ktpsns wrote: post #10
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

For most people, the majority of positive reviews are noise on any product and they evaluate them by reading negative reviews. For once, let's turn it all upside down: We should build a collection about how things break - review broken and worn-out products to teach how to identify cheap products (where are the stress points, what manufacturing techniques exist to alleviate those). Then compare those with used produc…

I find it meaningful that all items (currently) displayed at https://www.buyforlife.com/ are typical outdoor use, high-quality, representative for a certain kind of living. This kind of living has pros and cons, but I guess not everybody wants to live like that. For instance, some people would prefer to have some shitty but portable kitchenware instead of expensive, bulky and representative "professional" units. This…

You pinpointed what I’ve been feeling. There are things I want to buy for life. Things like (most) tools, camping equipment, or things I don’t expect to improve over time. But there is a large number of products that I don’t plan to hold onto because they are imperfect either because state of the art hasn’t advanced enough or because I can’t afford the better version yet. For example:

Boots. I can afford the boots I can afford today and I like them. But I am sure that 10 years from now I’ll be able to afford better ones.

Coffee mugs. I currently sport a Yeti that will likely last me at least 50 years. But I also expect that better coffee mugs will come.

Smart watch and mobile phone and laptop. No matter what, Moore’s law will catch up with you. And developers dislike worrying about running software on old hardware.

Clothing. Yes I know, but I do to an extent care about how I look and showing up somewhere in pleated pants and a plaid suit today because you bought it 30 years ago and it’s still holding up isn’t something I can pull off.

Vehicles. Yes, even your Tesla will become obsolete. There will be one that will be a no brainer upgrade.

This isn’t to say that I want to buy junk. But a $6 T shirt lasts me about two years and a $60 T shirt will need to last me more than 20 to make it worth it. In the mean time my body might change, my tastes might change, and styles might change. Timeless styles are a thing but when you spill red wine on it and can’t get the stain out four years in, who is your next move?

Also emotional and not objective, FWIW.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#16

Post by 1-6 »

Answerawake wrote: post #6
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

For most people, the majority of positive reviews are noise on any product and they evaluate them by reading negative reviews. For once, let's turn it all upside down: We should build a collection about how things break - review broken and worn-out products to teach how to identify cheap products (where are the stress points, what manufacturing techniques exist to alleviate those). Then compare those with used produc…

Interesting idea but is your site curated for some items or just 100% autogenerated/crowd sourced? For example, you have listed the Thinkpad X220 which is a 10 year old laptop. Furthermore I also noticed the Magic mouse and is that really considered buy it for life(in terms of repairable)? Speaking as someone who has purchased and accidentally destroyed multiple Magic Keyboards by liquid spills, I love their products…

The Thinkpad line was acquired by Lenovo from IBM in 2005. They've done a good job in maintaining the quality of the product line but some products with the 'Thinkpad' branding is absolute crap. Technology products are hard to rank for build quality in my opinion. When Lenovo again made an acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2014, I thought they'd do a good job of maintaining Motorola phones just like Thinkpad. At first, you had almost a close to Vanilla version of Android with regular updates but since 2019+ they stopped maintaining Android Security updates and releasing whole Android versions on some of their bottom-tier phones. Things change quickly in the technology department so BIFL ranks are difficult.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#17

Post by skeeter2020 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #15
ktpsns wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it meaningful that all items (currently) displayed at https://www.buyforlife.com/ are typical outdoor use, high-quality, representative for a certain kind of living. This kind of living has pros and cons, but I guess not everybody wants to live like that. For instance, some people would prefer to have some shitty but portable kitchenware instead of expensive, bulky and representative "professional" units. This…

You pinpointed what I’ve been feeling. There are things I want to buy for life. Things like (most) tools, camping equipment, or things I don’t expect to improve over time. But there is a large number of products that I don’t plan to hold onto because they are imperfect either because state of the art hasn’t advanced enough or because I can’t afford the better version yet. For example: Boots. I can afford the boots I…

>> Yes, even your Tesla will become obsolete

not sure if this is tongue-in-cheek; your Tesla will become obsolete far sooner than your Honda civic will, and it's already 20 years old.

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#18

Post by jonah »

Speaking of useful reviews, I'm a fan of AvE's BOLTRs[1]. Takes tools apart and analyses materials, construction, and estimated failure points. (Beware some NSFW language though.)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvgS71fU12Mbx-w18Chu_...

[1] - Arduino vs. Evil - Bored of Lame Tool Reviews

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#19

Post by abathur »

ktpsns wrote: post #10
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

For most people, the majority of positive reviews are noise on any product and they evaluate them by reading negative reviews. For once, let's turn it all upside down: We should build a collection about how things break - review broken and worn-out products to teach how to identify cheap products (where are the stress points, what manufacturing techniques exist to alleviate those). Then compare those with used produc…

I find it meaningful that all items (currently) displayed at https://www.buyforlife.com/ are typical outdoor use, high-quality, representative for a certain kind of living. This kind of living has pros and cons, but I guess not everybody wants to live like that. For instance, some people would prefer to have some shitty but portable kitchenware instead of expensive, bulky and representative "professional" units. This…

Without knowing much about the site or where the items came from, you might be seeing a big founder effect based on the creator's interests (and, inevitably, the biases that likely builds into their network, etc.) But these things change.

Any effort to judge product quality is going to have some skew towards more expensive products--the stakes are just higher--but I think there's a risk here of conflating style, quality, durability, and price.

Most of us have probably had at least one ~expensive product marketed on quality that broke jaw-droppingly fast. We've probably all also bought some cheap utilitarian workhorse that lasted for decades.

Some of us care a lot about style and signalling, it's true, but I don't think many of the rest actually want to own crap?

Re: Review broken products instead of new ones

#20

Post by MichaelApproved »

jonah wrote: post #18

Speaking of useful reviews, I'm a fan of AvE's BOLTRs[1]. Takes tools apart and analyses materials, construction, and estimated failure points. (Beware some NSFW language though.) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvgS71fU12Mbx-w18Chu_... [1] - Arduino vs. Evil - Bored of Lame Tool Reviews

I really enjoyed AvE channel at first. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in equipment tear downs.

He uses his own colorful language to describe things. If it’s not appealing to you (I eventually grew tired of it) I’d still suggest you look past it and watch a few dozen of his videos anyway.

Lots of good insight on the manufacturing industry/process that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

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