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Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

worseonpurpose.com

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Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#71

Post by pjc50 »

inigyou wrote: post #16
NoboruWataya wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal and regulatory obstacles to starting a business probably don't help but IMO the bigger issue is trying to break into markets that are dominated by massive global players who benefit from economies of scale and access to funding that newer companies don't have. The other side of this is that consumers don't have the information required to properly differentiate between competitors. If I'm shopping for a new…

I'm not only talking about legal and regulatory issues, indeed. I think one of the big ones is rent. Suuuure you can just take some months to invent a product, but if you start with a $3000 loss per month, that's a high bar to clear. Another one is lack of pressure. The person who invented the TV was surely thinking about how much money he would make or how much he would change society. But now there are so many TVs…

> if you start with a $3000 loss per month

This is a question of access to capital. Since we're all on the VC site we should understand how that works; for things like that it's very important to get "angel" investors who are comfortable putting in less-than-six-figures to get a product to the stage where it is proven for bigger investors.

I'm glad that everyone's quoting Market for Lemons now, but it doesn't quite apply to Fairphone. Fairphone aren't trying to cheat you, there's no information asymmetry here; they're just providing a feature ("fairness") which you can't easily get elsewhere and that turns out to be really expensive.

At the other end of the "market entry" problem: this is why RAM is so expensive right now, you can't just spin up a new DRAM line in your garage even if you're Sam Zeeloof.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#72

Post by docjay »

xnx wrote: post #23

This entire site can be boiled down to: products get decrease in quality when customers don't know or don't care what quality is. Price is a clear and obvious thing to measure, quality is much more difficult. Consumers get little or no formal education in quality, and advertisements (and even review sites!) almost never address it properly. Any review site that is paid for by ads or affiliate links has the default po…

That might be an outdated accusation. There was a time when a touch of research or “caring about quality” was enough to avoid the pitfalls of garbage products, but I don’t believe that to be a fair statement anymore. The website details the history of some examples, but the implication is between the lines: the only reason you used to know a product would last 20 years is because that specific product with those specific parts has already lasted 20 years. Don’t take advice about living to 100 from a 32 year old, don’t trust a warranty that’s longer than the company selling it has existed, and don’t trust that model XB5 is the same as your grandmas XB1.

How can you possibly know if you’re getting a quality product when the reviews you’re reading are for a model that doesn’t exist anymore, or are meaningless generalizations about a mega conglomerate? Saying “Brand X sucks/wins” only has the potential to be meaningful when it’s a single company in a single area and that has made that exact model in the same way for longer than your warranty on it. “Whirlpool sucks/wins” is as meaningless as reading “Water tastes good/bad” from everyone on the planet.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#73

Post by DangitBobby »

tekla wrote: post #52
DangitBobby wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies organize and consumers can't. Seems pretty obvious.

It's obvious because no thinking. How do consumers lack the ability to choose what they want? Of course unless, you think they are dumb because they don't choose what YOU want them to choose.

What? I said organize, I didn't say they can't make their own choices. Why are we pretending there's no such thing as the tragedy of the commons or other negative affects for uncoordinated groups at scale?

I also didn't say they were "dumb", I said they couldn't coordinate. So in addition to not thinking you didn't bother to read my comment.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#74

Post by asimpletune »

What if there was a way to tax things that encouraged people to buy things that would last longer and then let the market correct?

Basically, we've done our experiment of hyper-disposable consumerism. It was great and the world has gotten richer. But not it seems like we should parlay that benefit into transitioning into a new era of quality.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#75

Post by ChrisArchitect »

Related discussions on articles from this site:

Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48147665

Brands got worse on purpose

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47849221

Backpacks got worse on purpose

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777209

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#76

Post by anal_reactor »

skeater15 wrote: post #37

I find it odd how corporate greed is always the focal point. But its never consumer greed. The consumer is the one who dictate's a market. So cheap, low quality products are the direct result of consumers paying for a less expensive product. The consumer has proven it doesn't care about quality. So as much as corporations are greedy so are consumers.

The problem is that most shopping we do is one-off, as opposed to being a recurring customer. For example, if you're selling bread, your potential customers are 1000 locals and if these 1000 locals decide your bread sucks, your business goes belly up. But if you're selling ice cream in a tourist destination, then you'll never see your customers again even if your ice cream is so good it causes instant involuntary orgasm, so you have zero reason not to scam them.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#77

Post by DangitBobby »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #65
xingped wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if I do care about quality? As the consumer, I do not even have that choice to make 99% of the time. This is very much a false equivalency and it isn't even close. Companies get to choose what products or product qualities to make. If I, a consumer, want or need a product, I can only choose between what is made available to me by the companies. It certainly doesn't help that it's nearly impossible to tell wh…

> I can only choose between what is made available to me by the market The existence of that desire is an untapped market opportunity. And yes there are ranges of quality in almost every product you can think of from fishing rods, to furniture, to diapers. And theses brands clearly compete with cheaper options and still have strong businesses.

It is until the next brand becomes quality, people trust it, and they start riding on the brand name but skimp on quality for higher margin. There is no reliable signal for quality in any market unless you can get your hands on practically the same product someone else has.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#78

Post by kevincox »

xnx wrote: post #23

This entire site can be boiled down to: products get decrease in quality when customers don't know or don't care what quality is. Price is a clear and obvious thing to measure, quality is much more difficult. Consumers get little or no formal education in quality, and advertisements (and even review sites!) almost never address it properly. Any review site that is paid for by ads or affiliate links has the default po…

> and advertisements (and even review sites!) almost never address it properly

The thing that annoys me the most is when the reviewer opens the box, shakes it gently and says "feels well built" or "plastic build". It is actually harmful. Weight doesn't equal quality (there is some correlation, building well often results in more weight, but it is unreliable and easy to game) and plastic is a huge range of materials and some are absolutely the most robust option for many use cases (think a sturdy plastic water bottle that outlasts and glass or metal equivalent).

The problem is quality is very hard to measure. The only really good test is to use the product for many years. But by that time the existing model hasn't been sold for years, in theory you could correlate the new model's quality with the old one but brands are apparently disposable these days so it is very likely that all costs were cut on the new one once their previous model gained a reputation for quality.

I think the only real measure for quality is a warranty. That is the manufacturer promising a lifespan. However they are usually short, can be unreliable to get (often at manufacturer discretion) and more often than not cover only "manufacturing defects" not reasonable wear and tear.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#79

Post by bsenftner »

bena wrote: post #69
bsenftner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a little research study back in 2003 where I went to various grocers and purchased the same product at these grocers and compared. Walmart has larger boxes, and less contents, universally, for pretty much everything in a box, and they charge 1/3 more for their 2/3rds of what you get everywhere else. They make nearly 50% more profit from that little slight of hand. And try discussing this with any shoppers and t…

I'll admit that I tend to implicitly trust that the larger boxes on the shelves contain more. I haven't checked the price-per-unit in a bit. Granted, my closest grocery is not a WalMart and I'm typically purchasing mass-produced sundries. Basically, the "Family Size" of Cheez-its is the same at any store. One thing I have noticed is that 5lb bags of flour/sugar haven't been standard in a hot minute.

Actually, the family size Cheez-its is one of the worst offenders, they are not 1/3rd less, more like 50% less product.

Re: Worse on Purpose – How Corporate Greed Killed Product Quality

#80

Post by mingus88 »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #41

“corporate greed” is a signal to me of low quality commentary. The opening premise of Econ is that consumers want all the goods for free and producers want to give nothing in exchange for as much money as they can.

The problem here is that when the consumers try it they go to actual jail. Meanwhile the producers have been richly rewarded for getting away with their side of it.

So yeah, corporate greed actually has a meaning in this context for people.

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