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Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

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Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#321

Post by lozenge »

orzig wrote: post #312
onion2k wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. Taking the example of grocery store logistics, the number of times products are unavailable in my local store makes me thing that's a thing that doesn't "just work". It's something that breaks down regularly, and possibly has lots of people working hard to keep it from breaking even more often. The same is true for lots of things. Stuff like w…

Are those people optimizing for having every product available at every time? They have to balance against the very real cost of spoilage, so I don’t think they consider the occasional out–of–stock as the system breaking

Yes they are. Product availability is the most important factor in choosing a grocery store, as unavailability makes people need to visit additional stores or change recipes/plans on the fly. Some spoilage is factored in and is just a minor bit of negative PR. However, the supply chain disruptions since 2020 are too big for any grocery chain to "solve".

https://hbr.org/2004/05/stock-outs-cause-walkouts

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#322

Post by andi999 »

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #144
roland35 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more expensive up front but probably cheaper in the long run!

If I could buy products that just work and don’t break, even if they cost 3x as much, they would pay for themselves with longer lifespans and less wasted productivity.

Historically you shd buy Miele then.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#325

Post by Double_a_92 »

bjarneh wrote: post #285
Double_a_92 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because they are women though, but because they had trouble finding work somewhere else. So the company had a bigger negotiation power. That's just capitalism, supply and demand...

> Not because they are women though, but because they had trouble finding work somewhere else Because they were women?

Originally yes, of course. But that's not the fault of the person that actually hires them. If you are the only company that hires everyone without any discrimination, you just have a bigger supply of people.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#326

Post by 4gotunameagain »

Decker87 wrote: post #248
ncmncm wrote: post #216

When I interview, I like to look around and see how many short people work there. A place that picks up the short people other companies don't must be recognizing their value. I would like to favor places with more women in tech jobs, but generally just don't find any at all, anywhere. Everywhere I have worked they were always trying to hire more women but never got any applicants, or couldn't hire the ones they foun…

Quoted post unavailable.

Shhh men and women are exactly the same, have the same desires and strong points, men that decided at 25 that they are not men can magically become women, there should be a 50/50 split in prestigious jobs (but not construction or underwater welding), and if you disagree with any of the above you don't believe in equality and are practically a Nazi.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#328

Post by Tenoke »

Jensson wrote: post #182
DannyBee wrote: post #110

The problem here is actually very basic - markets do not enforce efficiency. Period. The efficient market hypothesis is simply wrong. Strong form efficiency was already formally disproven quite a while ago. Weak form efficiency has been show to only true if P=NP. There is not really a strong need to go into why inefficiencies can persist, etc, because at a baseline, it turns out there is no provable theory that marke…

It isn't about market efficiency at all, people are just incompetent. If people could create good products they would and they would become rich, but they can't. If Samsung suddenly started delivering the same quality as Apple they would make a lot of money long term, everyone knows this and even if it isn't true the people who manage Samsung actually believes it and they try to get there. The reason they can't isn't…

The argument isn't about a specific company having the competency but that someone would and they would rise above.

Also, more specifically - as a Samsung user for my preferences they offer as good or better products than Apple while operating on a smaller budget.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#329

Post by Tenoke »

bjarneh wrote: post #253

> I valued men and women equally, and found that because other employers did not, good women economists were less expensive than men. Is this a very nice way of saying that you can hire women economists and underpay them in order to make money?

You can paint it negatively but hiring them when others don't also improves their salaries - if everyone else followed their lead there'll be no inefficiency and they won't be underpaid.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#330

Post by spacebanana7 »

analog31 wrote: post #119
yrral wrote: post #16

I 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.

House foundations, light switches, and water delivery, along with the professions that install them, are all regulated and licensed. There is somewhat of a trend for the quality of those things to have regional variation, e.g., lower quality in places that have historically had weak code enforcement and weak unions. And yes, the regulation probably did make those things more expensive.

The filesystems example given by OP is an interesting counterpoint - Linux filesystems are the opposite of regulated, regionally varied, and expensive.
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