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Let's make quality the norm again

forbrukerradet.no

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Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#31

Post by spwa4 »

jdw64 wrote: post #25
eru wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in poor countries have gotten massively richer over the last few decades. Especially those that participate in global trade, ie those that you could even call 'your slaves'. After all, some poor soul in North Korea who doesn't trade with you can hardly slave away to your benefit. More specifically, people in PR China have gotten massively richer since the late 1970s. How does that square with your slavery thes…

No. China is a colonial structure of extreme 1-tier cities, 2-tier cities, and the lower cities beneath them. It's called hukou... That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces. People in China's first-tier cities live well and are more up to date than almost anywhere, but in the lower cities, they are not free. I usually think that popular literature reflects a country's social…

> That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces.

Recently you're even starting to hear stories I thought ended with the Soviet Union. People who are literally terrified of getting on a train out of the city because they think they might never be allowed to come back.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#32

Post by dakolli »

altern8 wrote: post #15
chpatrick wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoiler alert, almost everything is made in China, including the premium stuff.

I definitely have to do a lot of work every time I need something, but I can often find products that aren't made in China (normally Germany). If not, I usually just don't buy it new and just go to the thrift store. I can usually find what I need, made 30 years ago that will probably last me for the rest of my life.

[flagged]

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#33

Post by alansaber »

eru wrote: post #10
altern8 wrote: post #7

I think about this a lot because I try to never buy anything Chinese or low quality unless I have to. Unfortunately, from my experience artisans aren't willing to do the work anymore, even if you pay them premium. For instance, a carpenter here in Poland that decided to be a carpenter would rather cut up pre-made cabinets to your specs than make them from scratch using wood, even if I pay them 10x. Then, people aren'…

There's lots of high quality Chinese stuff, too. Why do you say it as if quality and Chinese don't go together?

Historically, they're lax on regulation. Hence the association with bad quality.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#34

Post by spwa4 »

altern8 wrote: post #7

I think about this a lot because I try to never buy anything Chinese or low quality unless I have to. Unfortunately, from my experience artisans aren't willing to do the work anymore, even if you pay them premium. For instance, a carpenter here in Poland that decided to be a carpenter would rather cut up pre-made cabinets to your specs than make them from scratch using wood, even if I pay them 10x. Then, people aren'…

> Unfortunately, from my experience artisans aren't willing to do the work anymore, even if you pay them premium.

"premium" ? No they've had to lower their prices because otherwise you would never even look at them in the first place (or they don't get a livable amount of work, even if you personally do pay like you say).

And the drop in prices has to come from somewhere. Quality is by far the easiest thing to skimp on.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#35

Post by altern8 »

eru wrote: post #28
altern8 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I go to any store, the Chinese version is ALWAYS lower quality. I've yet to see the opposite.

Where are you going to shop? And how do you know something is the 'Chinese version'? It's not like for example Apple advertises where they assemble their products. For a concrete example, we get very good rice varieties specifically from certain parts of China. (But here in Singapore people also really care about rice. You generally can't buy good and fresh rice in the middle of the Polish countryside for example.) A…

I either look at the label or do research beforehand. I buy from all kind of places.

I wasn't thinking of agricultural products, but rather anything manufactured. As an example, appliances made in Germany will have a cord long enough that you can actually plug into the wall, while the one that's made in China will have a useless 10-centimeter cord that would force me to use an extension.

Your mileage might vary, this is just my experience, but it's been pretty consistent for a few decades, with things going downhill in the past I'd say 5 years or so.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#36

Post by alansaber »

stabbles wrote: post #26

With sufficient competition, the incentives of companies would change if consumers would be willing to rent instead of owning products. Then planned obsolescence is not to their benefit.

...some kind of subscription as a service model? looks up dramatically

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#37

Post by jdw64 »

spwa4 wrote: post #31
jdw64 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. China is a colonial structure of extreme 1-tier cities, 2-tier cities, and the lower cities beneath them. It's called hukou... That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces. People in China's first-tier cities live well and are more up to date than almost anywhere, but in the lower cities, they are not free. I usually think that popular literature reflects a country's social…

> That's also why ordinary Chinese young people don't want to go down to the provinces. Recently you're even starting to hear stories I thought ended with the Soviet Union. People who are literally terrified of getting on a train out of the city because they think they might never be allowed to come back.

We're all navigating through hard times.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#38

Post by altern8 »

dakolli wrote: post #32
altern8 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have to do a lot of work every time I need something, but I can often find products that aren't made in China (normally Germany). If not, I usually just don't buy it new and just go to the thrift store. I can usually find what I need, made 30 years ago that will probably last me for the rest of my life.

[flagged]

That's just my opinion, man. If you think that the Chinese make great stuff, buy it.

I don't have a Twitter account.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#39

Post by dgarciaf18 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #11

There are economic impacts to raising quality: 1. Higher quality requires better trained technicians. That means fewer people will be able to participate due to any of missing experience, costs of training/education, and opportunity costs. 2. Higher quality generally requires third party certification, such as the CE or FCC identifiers on electronic equipment. Certification costs time and money resulting in a form ex…

I don't think the idea of circular economy, where goods are produced with high manufacturing quality standards, applies to software. In the sense that producing high quality physical goods may not be beneficial for the producer. But producing high quality software is rarely not beneficial for the developer, specially in the long term.

Maybe idea could be maybe applied to the offering of long-term technical support and backwards-compatibility (in terms of durability of the software) and open source (in terms of reusability of the software).

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#40

Post by juleiie »

alansaber wrote: post #17
juleiie wrote: post #4

The way I see it we all have 30-60 modern slaves working for each one of us. More or less depending on the country and personal consumption. So I don’t have such determination in complaining about the quality of the goods that I participated in exploited labour of. It’s all working somehow more or less. Seems like it could stop any moment. The continuous decrease in quality is rather the least of my worries. What wor…

Such is the nature of being part of a global supply chain, whilst living in one of the richest countries in the world.

Then why this supply chain hangs by a thread and progressively produces shittier and shittier results?
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