Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

voxl wrote: post #131

FanaHOVA wrote: post #98

> You might think that, if a single person can create or maintain a tool that's worth millions of dollars a year to the company, our competitors would do the same thing, just like you might think that if you can ship faster and at a lower cost by hiring a person who knows how to crack a wafer open, our competitors would do that, but they mostly didn't. He mentions a small chip startup he worked at for these examples,…

You miss the point though, as the problem is two-sided. The consumer struggles to find a quality product because they simply don't know how. The producer also struggles to produce a quality product, because it's hard to know what the consumer really wants. The cheat is to sell brand instead, to market quality regardless of if it's actually there. I would argue Apple is an example of a company that started with qualit…

Post by WWLink » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 5:45 AM UTC

NickNameNick wrote: post #196

xeromal wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a random anecdote, I own a steelcase gesture that runs about $1,100. I also own a 70$ chair from costco and I can "barely" feel the difference. I have all my settings configured correctly. I really don't buy into the the expensive officechair hype. I think it's a level of diminishing returns. I think a $200 office chairs is about what anyone needs. That'll get you 90%+ of the way.

Where would you say you sit on the physical-dimensions bell curve? I'd hope that the more expensive chair has better adjustability to suit a wider range of critical dimensions than the cheaper chair. But that may not matter for a lot of people.

Post by jader201 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 5:50 AM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #88

It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. In particular, the comments seem mostly focused on consumer product build quality whereas the article is more focused on e.g. businesses trying to outsource something (like same day delivery) and getting a worse result even when they pay more than doing it internally. And the cultural obstacle…

Post by WheelsAtLarge » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #88

It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. In particular, the comments seem mostly focused on consumer product build quality whereas the article is more focused on e.g. businesses trying to outsource something (like same day delivery) and getting a worse result even when they pay more than doing it internally. And the cultural obstacle…

Post by folli » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 6:07 AM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #215

Strilanc wrote: post #88

It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. In particular, the comments seem mostly focused on consumer product build quality whereas the article is more focused on e.g. businesses trying to outsource something (like same day delivery) and getting a worse result even when they pay more than doing it internally. And the cultural obstacle…

> It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. I’ve said this before on other threads, and it seems to resonate with others, so I’ll say it here too: I personally don’t care near as much about a single person’s opinion of a particular topic, as much as I care about the discussion of many people around a particular topic. And by “topic”,…