Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

goodnewsnetwork.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 622 posts

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#351

Post by at-fates-hands »

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

> Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime.

I've found if you buy something from IKEA when you're putting it together, using wood glue and better screws actually lengthens the life of their stuff considerably. I feel its not the wood that is the issue, just the crappy hardware they send with their stuff that is the issue.

But agreed on the rest of your points.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#352

Post by eropple »

Ygg2 wrote: post #318
nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

I bought an IKEA desk and tried to assemble it myself. Between the poor wood quality, bad paint job, hard to connect components and painful assembly process, I gave up and got a refund. I asked a friend of a friend that's a carpenter and he made way better desk for same amount of money.

In America at least, the only way to make a significantly better desk than an IKEA one at similar prices is to omit the costs of tools and labor.

Even after omitting the very significant cost of tooling (my corner clamp jigs for cabinetry cost half what a GALANT table does), getting good material you actually want will easily hit a hundred bucks for a fairly small, plywood-based desk. (Baltic birch isn't cheap! But it's cheaper than solid wood.)

I would rather own that desk, for sure, but it's not cheaper, and IKEA is pretty amazing at what kind of quality they offer at what prices--sure it's all fiberboard or cheap wood, but it's reasonably reliable and it's impressive that it's doable at that scale at all.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#353

Post by rychco »

sneak wrote: post #340
istjohn wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is sketchy. Here's more info on IKEA's tax evasion scheme: https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-...

avoidance != evasion

Fwiw, the first definition I found for the word evade is “escape or avoid, especially by cleverness or trickery.”

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#354

Post by cedricbonhomme »

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

Personally I hate IKEA because they are selling pure crap.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#355

Post by detritus »

glenneroo wrote: post #269
detritus wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? You'd likely not need IraqWarII levels of commitment - just a few enthusiastically-delivered missives at 1100kph to get the message across. A few loitering drones and a few dozen more missiles might actually be a highly efficient use of resources. I'm not sure where 'intelligence' comes into play here, beyond condescension of an idea you evidently disagree with.

Apologies I didn't mean to be derogatory. I was just a little bit surprised at the bravado-military mentality that surfaced on a tech forum. To clarify, there are so many issues here I don't even know where to begin, just some quickies off the top of my head: - the most obvious was mentioned already: forest fires, when missiles explode in a forest you are trying to protect, things tend to burn and fire tends to sprea…

Yeah, my apologies - I too was being slightly tongue in cheek.

That said, if you entirely removed morality from the equation, I suspect it would actually be an efficient use of resources, to 'surgically' target varying levels of unwanted enterprise to make a somewhat dissuasive point.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#356

Post by afterburner »

nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

> I never understood why people hate IKEA

Snobs, basically.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#357

Post by [deleted] »

maccard wrote: post #103
audunw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess the argument would go that we would be better off building small quantities of long-lasting re-usable furniture, rather than building and throwing away lots of new cheaper furniture No way. Not as long as population growth is a thing. A lot of people shopping at IKEA are buying furniture for the first time. Imagine if we switched to all hardwood furniture. People would still need to buy as much furniture fo…

> Making things out of cheap and low-impact particle boards, cardboard cores, etc, is probably the most realistic way of reducing the environmental impact. Not only that, it being made out of particleboard doesn't necessarily make it disposable. My parents have a set of Pax wardrobes that they've had for 20 years (give or take?), and they're perfectly functional, and with some small amount of TLC (a small tin of pain…

[deleted]

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#358

Post by cedricbonhomme »

cedricbonhomme wrote: post #354
nom wrote: post #256

I never understood why people hate IKEA. Yes it's cheap. Yes it doesn't last a lifetime. Yes it needs a lot of wood. Yes it's highly optimized. But guess what, IKEA is a business responding to the needs of people. The negatives that are mentioned frequently are merely a symptom of our ever faster developing society. The people who complain are the same ones that just buy cheap crap from china without even thinking ab…

Personally I hate IKEA because they are selling pure crap.

Close to the quality of an Apple product.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#359

Post by dalbasal »

killtimeatwork wrote: post #348
dalbasal wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think IKEA represents plastic consumerism to people. A lot of people feel alienated from the modern world and IKEA registers as fake and therefore alienating. Mass produced, cheap culture with a copy in every house. The best criticisms of these kinds of "problems" are in pop art, as opposed to rational discourse. Fight Club is the canonical example. The film picks IKEA to symbolize the enemy and justification for s…

> Phoebe thinks she has an antique apothecary table. You can smell the history of opium and medicinal brews. Turns out it's IKEA. Off the top of my head, I think it was Pottery Barn, not IKEA.

oops.

Re: IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed

#360

Post by snarfy »

FriedrichN wrote: post #109
loceng wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because they're fighting the arguably true reality that the majority of their furniture is designed to be disposable, and consumers are generally fine with that. I'd like to be wrong, though until we require companies to be responsible for all costs associated with the full lifecycle of a product so externalized costs are incorporated, we're not going to develop the most sustainable practices.

I've been using a lot of IKEA furniture for many years, some new, some secondhand (sometimes I'm the third or fourth owner) and I must say they're quite durable unlike some of the new furniture I've bought over the year and had to throw away.

They have different quality levels in their products.

The IKEA kitchen island I have is made of solid wood and standard hardware. The top is butcherblock and can easily be resurfaced. This island will last many years.

The IKEA 'linmon' desk I have is laminated cardboard. The weight of my monitor causes the desk to bow. The surface has the durability of flat paint. My phone slipped out of my hand from 12 inches above the desk and put a 1/4 inch deep dent in it. I'm pretty sure if I squeezed it hard enough with my fingers, I could crush it.

Post reply on HN