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Worse on Purpose

ledger.worseonpurpose.com

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Re: Worse on Purpose

#61

Post by jjice »

everdrive wrote: post #41
lastofthemojito wrote: post #32

Man, I clicked on "American Giant", which the website says is known for "Quality US-made staples at mainstream prices". Then I see how much a zip-up hoodie costs: $168. I guess I'm not in the mainstream anymore, yikes.

People didn't used to own so many clothes. Respective to income, clothing used to cost a lot more. As prices fell off a cliff, people's closets started overflowing. It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people. This might be more tolerable if you only owned a single hoodie (why woul…

I totally agree with the premise. I do agree with the parent that this wouldn't be a "mainstream" price. The mainstream is a $15 hoodie. I also try to own fewer, nicer things while keeping the overall cost comparable (if not lower) than someone with a more shitty things.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#62

Post by bookofjoe »

NoDodgeQuestion wrote: post #18
bookofjoe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

WorseOnPurpose methodology page does not answer the question: is it claude vomit or not? Are the articles written partially or totally by AI?

Here is the creator's X profile: https://x.com/keyanasapp

Re: Worse on Purpose

#63

Post by vintagedave »

skippyfish wrote: post #55
xnx wrote: post #31

This site is absolute catnip for HN. Do we know what motivates the site? Long-term SEO content authority reputation building before pivoting to affiliate links?

The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but…

This page [0] didn't read as very AI-generated to me. However, it had an interesting link:

> within days of closing a Cornell partner on the new board emailed the CEO to ask, "Is there fraud going on???"

(Italicised part is the link) linking to [1].

When I search that page, I cannot find the word 'fraud' let alone anything like that quote.

It's highly suspicious when a linked claim does not support the claim.

[0]: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-...

[1]: https://fortune.com/2024/11/19/crock-pot-explosion-cornell-c...

Re: Worse on Purpose

#64

Post by mannanj »

Site is hard to use and navigate and make sense of, because of all the ai slop. If the creators spent more effort tuning the language and UI it would be more usable. Right now, not usable for me.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#65

Post by bookofjoe »

burkaman wrote: post #30
jackb4040 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought you were just throwing this out there but no:

https://imgur.com/a/NW0Y21i

wow

Re: Worse on Purpose

#66

Post by jghn »

thesuitonym wrote: post #48
jghn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to keep track over time, however. Brands will build up a reputation as being the one that's actually good for a particular product, and then for one reason or another reduce in quality while relying on their brand history. And it can take a long time for that word of mouth reputation to die off. The effect is bolstered by people who own older generations of the product citing longevity. An example that…

> An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines. I should have figured when I noticed my local appliance store starting selling them. That was my plan for when the Samsung garbage that came with my house breaks. What's the quality machine now?

I'm not aware of one. And I suspect that Speed Queen is still better than the usual suspects. But they've shifted to some plastic parts, more electronics, that sort of thing.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#67

Post by FinnLobsien »

thesuitonym wrote: post #51
FinnLobsien wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's quite interesting how most of the decline of great brands came as a result of ownership changes, not complacency on part of the owner/founder. I've actually found AI a great resource for finding brands that offer great value for money by buying from obscure factories/brands with the same quality attributes as major brands, but without all the marketing spend and brand margin to subsidize.

This is actually a terrible use for AI, since it's going to regurgitate the marketing astroturfing on Reddit without showing you the source so you can see it's all bots.

It's not if you use it correctly. If you say "Find me good brands for X", then yes you'll get bad stuff.

I said something like:

"Identify [category]-making cluster regions in Europe (where I am), research the manufacturers/companies you find and see if they have online stores."

Once I had that list and found stuff I liked, I sent what I liked back to the AI and asked it to find me items of comparable build quality from better-known brands."

I did this latest step so that I could have a benchmark and to see if I was actually getting a better deal or if I could just buy from the big brand.

The trick was to specify the exact process I'd like to have run, but wouldn't take the time to do.

I ended up buying stuff directly from an obscure manufacturer's Shopify store for 1/3 the price I would've paid at a big brand. I think this could work in any product category where quality markers are somewhat objective and standardized.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#68

Post by skippyfish »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #59
skippyfish wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but…

The site may be slop and poorly made, but that doesn't invalidate that consumer products of a given quality tier are lower quality than they used to be. People like to see it confirmed because it matches their lived experience.

That's like saying "politicians are crooked, so every bad thing you can think of about politicians must be true". It doesn't and we shouldn't fall for it.

In fact, the one industry where enshittification is widely embraced is our own, so I guess maybe it's projection?... Most other goods and services are not deliberately designed to get worse over time. We're the masters of giving people something cool for free and then progressively worsening their experience until they're forced to pay.

Things like appliances don't get worse on purpose. They sometimes get worse as a combination of market pressures and regulations. Take fridges: you can buy a full-sized kitchen fridge for less than $600, that's kinda crazy? And yes, it probably won't last a lifetime, and they won't make it serviceable because it's not worth servicing given today's labor costs - if your bonded-and-certified repairman quotes you $500, you're going to toss it out either way.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#69

Post by yifanl »

ffsm8 wrote: post #47
everdrive wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People didn't used to own so many clothes. Respective to income, clothing used to cost a lot more. As prices fell off a cliff, people's closets started overflowing. It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people. This might be more tolerable if you only owned a single hoodie (why woul…

> It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people. Esp that example it's kinda triggering me a little, because someone I know can't shut up about it. From my perspective, what they consider "a good pair of shoes" is what I'd consider a "durable pair of shoes", which is - to them - crit…

What running shoes are you buying that last 2-3 years?

Re: Worse on Purpose

#70

Post by deepburner »

I understand vibe coding a website if you only care about putting out the info but this is sloppenheimer levels of garbage. It reeks of stunted, far up its own ass Claude-isms everywhere and none of the prose is remotely readable without wanting to running headbutt a wall. Seriously, "Private Equity" was too long so you decided to write "Ownership Type: PE-owned"? I despise ai writing so much and shame on you.
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