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Worse on Purpose

ledger.worseonpurpose.com

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Re: Worse on Purpose

#21

Post by AnimalMuppet »

altacc wrote: post #7
FinnLobsien wrote: post #3

I wonder if there’s an inverse of this: brands that actually got better over time because they don’t have massive brand history to fall back on, or simply because they actually care.

The site lists "Approved" companies that have not been enshittified by private equity. What springs to mind for me are scissor manufacturers Ernest Wright and Whiteley. They maintained quality, relied on expert workers and aim to keep high quality staff for their career and hire people to learn manual skills. The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of wh…

Why would private equity not want high prices and a wait list? That's guaranteed future sales at high margin. Sounds pretty good to me...

Re: Worse on Purpose

#23

Post by jackb4040 »

bookofjoe wrote: post #6
fwip wrote: post #5

As far as I can tell, this is a site for an LLM to vomit out the same basic article with different specific products each time.

Methodology: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/methodology

Completely doesn't answer the AI question, nor the "who's paying for this" question. Because presumably it's not a hobbyist buying every tool, mattress, and boot in the world annually.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#24

Post by burkaman »

bob1029 wrote: post #11

I have a hard time with the Instant Pot case. If you have their first generation product, you never have to buy another one. This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products. It's really hard to get the customers to pay a premium for something that will last for 50 years but hasn't proven the ability to do so yet. No…

This is a myth. Instant Pot was purchased by private equity parasites when it first became popular, and they quickly extracted all value and destroyed the company when they saw it wouldn't keep growing exponentially forever.

It's possible the company would have failed on its own, but we'll never know, and it wouldn't be because their product was too good. If that were the case then all the recommended alternatives in the Worse on Purpose article would also be out of business. This company looks pretty comparable, and has been making basically one thing very well for 100 years: https://www.allamerican1930.com/pages/about. How often do people need to buy a new high quality pressure canner? They seem to be making it work despite durable products in a relatively niche market.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#26

Post by jackb4040 »

It doesn't really take into account that not all products are meant to be premium. Like it says to avoid Black & Decker because it's "Built to a price point, not a quality standard". Like we know, it's not the 1980s - sometimes you just need a cheap drill to mount a TV and then forget about until you move.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#27

Post by gjm11 »

bob1029 wrote: post #11

I have a hard time with the Instant Pot case. If you have their first generation product, you never have to buy another one. This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products. It's really hard to get the customers to pay a premium for something that will last for 50 years but hasn't proven the ability to do so yet. No…

> This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products.

I don't understand how "their first product was too good, so they had to start making worse ones" isn't "worse on purpose". It seems like a paradigm case of "worse on purpose" to me. What am I missing?

Re: Worse on Purpose

#28

Post by roryirvine »

fwip wrote: post #5

As far as I can tell, this is a site for an LLM to vomit out the same basic article with different specific products each time.

There's been a stream of these posts on HN recently; all clickbait nostalgia slop, based on everything having been so much better in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=worseonpurpose.com

Though, to be fair, the author works at Palantir - so probably does have relevant experience with making things worse on purpose!

Re: Worse on Purpose

#29

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

brk wrote: post #19
Apreche wrote: post #12

In a K shaped economy, there is no success in making quality goods at reasonable prices. There’s no middle class to buy them. You can make luxury goods for wealthy customers who do not care about price, or you can make absolute garbage to sell to the masses in bulk. If you want to bring back quality goods and services, end wealth inequality. Tax the rich.

FWIW, I was with you until the "Tax the rich" bit. Considering how many people the average "rich" person employs, they are generating plenty of tax revenue.

Geez, the rich already take credit for the things their employees do...and now you want to give them credit for the taxes their employees paid too! Wild!

Re: Worse on Purpose

#30

Post by burkaman »

jackb4040 wrote: post #23
bookofjoe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methodology: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/methodology

Completely doesn't answer the AI question, nor the "who's paying for this" question. Because presumably it's not a hobbyist buying every tool, mattress, and boot in the world annually.

Nobody is buying these things to review them, it's just a guy that works in "AI Strategy" in Palantir that has a lot of money to spend on LLM tokens.
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