61–70 of 357 posts
Hooray for lifestyle businesses! I started my company in 1999 with my wife and I around the kitchen table. My vision: a consulting company that never told a lie to a client. With that philosophy and 25 years of work we have built the company into two people around the same kitchen table.
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
Things like Consumer Reports and Which are supposed to full this niche but they only assess big brands (and are probably under used by people).
The wonderful thing about the free market is that consumers have choice. There is indeed a large market for high quality products at a higher price. Old brands become shitty, and new brands pop up. Bernie Sanders, a famous modern-day socialist, is famous for saying we don’t need so many brands of deodorant: https://fortune.com/2024/02/12/too-many-products-bernie-sand... This is where I fundamentally disagree. Only th…
Not even 'the market' can do this. Unless you mean it in some sort of tautological sense - e.g. only the market can tell us how many brands of deodorant the market can bear.
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
But many people haven't adapted to ecommerce like that. I think that will change as people learn to have more suspicion and place more of their trust in neutral third parties (historically how you made purchases when everything was local and your community gossiped about which places were good and bad). Yeah, there will be issues when those third parties turn out not to be trustworthy (like Yelp), but I think overall the ability to make well-informed purchasing decisions has never been higher. People are just slow to change their habits for this new world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not as hard to recognize good craftsmanship in furniture as in other types of products. https://www.thosmoser.com/
I don’t see why that should be the case. As someone who rarely/never buys furniture I have no idea what good craftsmanship looks like in the finished product.
It’s not really that hard, although of course with a couch the upholstery can hide a lot of sins.
Markets have determined that people prefer cheaper, shoddier sofas compared to expensive high quality sofas.
If you don't believe that, then go into business as a high quality sofa factory.
How is "modern capitalism" to blame? Modern capitalism allowed a small business to sell you the higher quality option, and you were able to direct your purchasing power to the product you wanted. If you convince more consumers to do the same (like you are) big brands will loose money and change. That's capitalism. The best term I can come up with to describe the phenomenon you dislike is _modern consumerism_ (althoug…
Yes of course, and that's why our grandparents got fewer things that cost more, because that's what they wanted.
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
IMF (surprisingly) allowed two economists to take a look at an alternative.
Chicago Plan Revisited, 2012
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. Things like Consumer Reports and Which are supposed to full this niche but they only assess big brands (and are probably under used by people).
This role used to be filled by reputable stores.