Because china. Things used to be good 20 or 30 years ago. Then china started in with all that cheap crap. Same shit going on with India in the software space. Just look at oracle. Tot shit.
Every sale has a customer.
Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
21–30 of 542 posts
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#22> Why is it hard to buy things that work well? Asks someone that posts a giant wall of unreadable text.
In Firefox press F9
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#23> Why is it hard to buy things that work well? Asks someone that posts a giant wall of unreadable text.
With Chrome Desktop, and a fairly wide browser window (1475px in my case, required by many web applications), the text is small with minimal margins, and practically illegible. If I shrink the browser width considerably (to a minimum width) then the text does look good, like an ebook.
Typesetting matters.
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm 2 for 2 on humidifiers (1 ultrasonic, 1 wick evaporative). What fails on them?
I foolishly bought one off the top of the best-seller list at Amazon a couple years ago. It was like $35 and came with a little card that said "Hey, if you give us a 5 star review and send proof to SHADY_EMAIL_ADDRESS@gmail we'll give you a $25 Amazon gift card!" It did work reasonably well, but if you failed to clean it and fully dry it out within 6 hours of using it, it would get an INSANE mildew smell. Amazon of c…
not the problem you're trying to solve but there's an additive called "humidifier bacteriostatic treatment" that could help with the smell
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm 2 for 2 on humidifiers (1 ultrasonic, 1 wick evaporative). What fails on them?
I foolishly bought one off the top of the best-seller list at Amazon a couple years ago. It was like $35 and came with a little card that said "Hey, if you give us a 5 star review and send proof to SHADY_EMAIL_ADDRESS@gmail we'll give you a $25 Amazon gift card!" It did work reasonably well, but if you failed to clean it and fully dry it out within 6 hours of using it, it would get an INSANE mildew smell. Amazon of c…
I wonder if the old 10% hydrogen peroxide trick would fix that.
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#26I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.
As usual its just how much money you put in to it. We spend a lot of money making sure building foundations and silicon manufacturing works because failing is expensive and dangerous. I don't want to pay double/triple price for a toaster to slightly reduce its risk of failing because I'm happy to accept that on average it lasts a long time but there is some chance it fails sooner. If I'm in charge of buying a $100M building, you bet I want to pay extra to assure it will not fall over.
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much did you pay for that experience that you expected to work better? Even if we say that's an accurate description there's no irony.
> How much did you pay for that experience that you expected to work better? What? I expect people to put a little effort into what they are trying to comminicate - I know I try to. Not always succeeding, obviously
They've put quite a bit of effort into it. That much text is a lot of work.
For what it's worth, their Patreon nets over 3000 / month, so quite a few people think they put in just the right amount of effort, or even above and beyond :)
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#28Consumers have by and large come to believe that price matters more than anything, so the free market economy of goods has naturally optimized for that priority.
Or through the erosion of real wages over the past 50 years, consumers have been more or less forced into buying lower priced items. And was this not the promise of free trade and globalization - cheap stuff?
Edit: why downvote?
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#29Because more than a few people buy something because of it's (low) price. When something is inexpensive, it often has a shorter lifespan and you tend to replace it more frequently than you would a more expensive item.
Admittedly 1) not everyone can afford something pricier, and 2) higher cost doesn't always mean better quality. On top of that, if manufacturers made things that lasted forever, they'd go out of business quickly. Who'd buy a replacement, or something newer, if item X is still going strong after 10 years or more?
Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?
#30This article is long but excellent.
It is something of a rant rather than an article. Still excellent.