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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

#111

Post by Forgeties79 »

Towaway69 wrote: post #82
myrmidon wrote: post #49

I personally see two effects that are very detrimental here: 1) "Quality brands", where you pay a premium to get high quality/durability products, are economically incentivized to "sell-out" (cash in the brand name by producing as cheaply as possible). This is because customers take some time to catch on, and short-term financials are too often more important than anything else. 2) Increasing trend towards no-name pr…

> is to force companies to stick with their brand Punishment is never a good long term solution. Because punishment is related to revenge. And revenge reinforces the punishment - but on the other side. Perhaps questioning the underlying assumptions we make about products, money and capitalism is an alternative approach: - money is just a means, not an end. Allowing faceless investors to pump money into brands and the…

And to add a layer to the AI example that almost circles back to the original issue: there is a financial/time incentive to rationalize “it will do it better,” because it means you don’t have to do it at all yet you theoretically profit

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#112

Post by pif »

alright2565 wrote: post #96
iamflimflam1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, this is why we have regulation. The CE mark in Europe and the UL mark in the US is supposed to provide a floor on quality. That floor can be increased if we as a society decides that this is required. You might be unwilling to pay for this increased quality, but you don't have a choice.

The CE mark is worthless, since it is a self-certificaton. The UL mark is valuable, as are the other test lab marks. However, while an ethical storefront would require it, Amazon does not. I've bought plenty of things that are not listed, and if I want safe products I generally have to include "UL" or "ETL" in my search. Even that doesn't always work, I've seen products on there claiming a listing in the title but ph…

> The CE mark is worthless, since it is a self-certificaton.

Boeing 737 MAX tragedy did happen because of self-certification abuse, still I would not call FAA certification worthless.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#113

Post by Sharlin »

eru wrote: post #55
Sharlin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s some amount of gradient between use-once and fully bespoke clothing, and most people’s economic means are positioned somewhere on that gradient. Indeed it’s a U curve of sorts – cheap clothing can be surprisingly expensive (see also the Vimes Boots Theory).

I never bought Vimes Boots Theory. Yes, it can be expensive to be poor, but the rich really do consumer more dollars-of-boot per day, because they can afford it. > There’s some amount of gradient between use-once and fully bespoke clothing [...] Bespoke clothing mostly fits you better. It doesn't necessarily last longer. (But you can ask for harder wearing material or longer lasting manufacturing techniques, of cours…

The "rich" mapped to our world are the middle class (which only barely exists in Ankh-Morpork, just like it only barely existed historically in the real world). We could define "middle class" as the people who can afford to buy boots that last, but can’t afford to buy boots that don’t have to last. Exactly the bottom of the U curve I mentioned.

This is why wear-once ultra-fast fashion is attractive in the first place: not only is it cheap (in a very short-sighted sense) but it allows the less-than-affluent to signal affluence (by never wearing the same outfit twice – we call this "being fashionable" but of course being fashionable has historically been about signaling wealth first and foremost).

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#114

Post by epolanski »

PMunch wrote: post #6
epolanski wrote: post #2

There's few things where the drop in quality is astronomical, one of them being clothing. Clothes used to last a life time till few decades ago. Right now you buy stuff that after the first wash already looks worn out, terrible or starts falling apart. Major known brands are guilty of this too, often regardless of price. So people end up with closets filled of junk that they look terrible in anyway. I wish there was…

> Major known brands are guilty of this too, often regardless of price. I think this is part of the problem. Everyone wants high-quality (for the most part), but no-one wants to pay more than necessary. If known brand is no longer an indicator of quality, how do you determine that you want to spend say 2-5x the price on something? Reading reviews and such gets you part of the way, but they often focus on new products…

> but no-one wants to pay more than necessary

Why would you assume that to be true? It's definitely not true for me.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#115

Post by epolanski »

Sharlin wrote: post #113
eru wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never bought Vimes Boots Theory. Yes, it can be expensive to be poor, but the rich really do consumer more dollars-of-boot per day, because they can afford it. > There’s some amount of gradient between use-once and fully bespoke clothing [...] Bespoke clothing mostly fits you better. It doesn't necessarily last longer. (But you can ask for harder wearing material or longer lasting manufacturing techniques, of cours…

The "rich" mapped to our world are the middle class (which only barely exists in Ankh-Morpork, just like it only barely existed historically in the real world). We could define "middle class" as the people who can afford to buy boots that last, but can’t afford to buy boots that don’t have to last. Exactly the bottom of the U curve I mentioned. This is why wear-once ultra-fast fashion is attractive in the first place…

You remind me of what my grandpa always said "we're not rich enough to buy crap, we can only afford quality".

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#116

Post by carlosjobim »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #94
Saline9515 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cars are rented nowadays and they are less durable than ever. It's better for the manufacturer to lease and then get you to upgrade periodically to keep you as a novelty-seeking consumer. Long warranty is better as there is no other incentive who has to pay if the product breaks down. Cars should have a 7 years warranty by default for instance.

Aren’t newer cars more reliable than older ones? Back in the day it was a feat to get a 200000 km car and these days it’s like not that big a deal. I wouldn’t really know, I’ve only used car share for the past 10 years shrug

Cars and motorcycles have massively increased in quality compared to before. You can't fix them yourself as easily as before, but also you won't have to.

And this fact nukes most of the arguments made in this thread and in the article. Vehicles have become better because everybody who is going to buy a new or used vehicle will do very diligent research among their contacts to know which brands and models are reliable and which aren't. It's the free market and care of reputation in action.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#117

Post by austin-cheney »

carlosjobim wrote: post #106
austin-cheney wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they do. Local coffee shops fall under the regulation of local food inspectors just like restaurants.

That doesn't say anything about quality, except for "should not kill you or give you a disease". What shopper would be satisfied with the bare minimum of the minimum, no matter what they are buying?

I think you misunderstand quality versus competition. The purpose of regulation is to impose a minimum baseline of quality.

Software does not have regulation. In many areas of software we force shit quality on the users and just expect them to take it without complaint as a common practice. Then we as developers, like entitled children, completely rage the moment anyone casts light on this insanity.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#118

Post by bluGill »

sholladay wrote: post #109

One big problem is that prices are easy to compare, while quality is not. I recently bought a tub that was advertised as stainless steel on Amazon. I was suspicious but decided to take a chance. Turns out it is galvanized, not stainless. I’m not sure the average person knows the difference. To be charitable, perhaps that’s even why the listing advertised it that way. But the difference matters significantly in terms…

I finally subscribed to consumer reports. It is the only independent place we can trust for that information. However they only review a subset of the things I want to buy.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#119

Post by alright2565 »

pif wrote: post #112
alright2565 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CE mark is worthless, since it is a self-certificaton. The UL mark is valuable, as are the other test lab marks. However, while an ethical storefront would require it, Amazon does not. I've bought plenty of things that are not listed, and if I want safe products I generally have to include "UL" or "ETL" in my search. Even that doesn't always work, I've seen products on there claiming a listing in the title but ph…

> The CE mark is worthless, since it is a self-certificaton. Boeing 737 MAX tragedy did happen because of self-certification abuse, still I would not call FAA certification worthless.

Boeing is a company worth billions of dollars. "UKCSR" is not, there is absolutely no consequence to them getting shut down due to unsafe products. They'll just come back tomorrow as "JUSGB."
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