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Let's make quality the norm again

forbrukerradet.no

191–200 of 506 posts

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#191
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. The most expensive cars are also the least reliable. Rich people have multiple cars so when the Bentley has an electrical glitch they just drive the Porsche.

Quality means different things to different people. But the fact that Bentleys and Porsche exist support that case that not everything in a competitive markets drives things to the lowest cost product.

Exactly. The whole notion of "quality" is so subjective that it never was and never can be a norm.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#192
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is quite common and is usually referred to as "it's expensive to be poor". That said, unfortunately these days it's very difficult to know which brands are still actually quality anymore and which are the ones still coasting on previous good engineering reputation while currently shipping substandard crap to make an extra buck for the bean counters in charge before the ship sinks.

Everything has become a lemon market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons Even if a brand stays solid for 100 years, for all I know as I'm standing there in the store deciding whether to buy something, private equity bought them two quarters ago and hollowed them out. Harvard MBAs/private equity sees brand reputation as just another resource to be converted into money. If I were a billionaire my dream…

And yet it's socialism that has a reputation for shoddy products. How many people want to buy a Lada?

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, it's easier to bake in quality decreases (aka "cost reductions") to keep the price stable than increase the price. Users usually don't see it directly, and since the whole industry does the same there is no real alternative. A good way to see this is in clothing: my wife likes to buy vintage clothes, part because of the style, but also because most of them are actually well made and sturdy. Nowadays it…

I had to switch from levis jeans to carhartt pants because my levis would rip after 5-6 months, almost like clockwork. No, I am not at all overweight. Carhartt just makes more durable pants, and I hate shopping.

Why would being overweight make your jeans rip? Only if you were buying the wrong size...

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#194
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 years ago when I was a kid... Japan and Taiwan were known for making cheap junk. They shook the reputation. Now I feel old - get off my lawn.

I'm honestly happy for Japan, Taiwan, and China. It's great that they make cool stuff. I just wish we still did too.

I remember when "Made in Taiwan" was a punchline. Now you buy a fancy motherboard it says "designed in Taipei, Manufactured in China"

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#195
Enshittification is definitely real, but let's not look at the past with rose-colored glasses. A lot of things you can buy today are vastly superior to things available 50 years ago.

It used to be remarkable to drive a car 100k miles without major repairs. Volvo dealerships in the 80's and 90's would give you a badge at 100k milestones to advertise how reliable their cars were compared to others.

Anything tech related is just light years ahead of what it used to be, and for far cheaper. 65"+ OLED TVs for less than a couple grand are pretty much science fiction come to life. Gaming consoles are super-computers compared to an NES.

For many appliances, if you pay an inflation-adjusted cost for what a 1980's family would pay you can get something that will last forever. Last year I bought a commercial microwave for about $300 that has a single dial, hardly any features, and likely will last longer than the first microwave my family owned and also paid ~$300 for. Adjusting for inflation my new microwave is vastly better and cheaper than my childhood one.

I play guitar - in 1954 a new Stratocaster sold for $249, which is about $3k in today's dollars. And $249 today will get you a guitar that's easily as good as most 1954 Strats. If you spend the inflation-adjusted equivalent you're in ultra-luxury territory.

Want good furniture? That's ALWAYS been expensive, but you'd typically buy a table for the equivalent of $5k in today's dollars and expect it to last a lifetime. You can spend $5k on real wood furniture today, but nobody does.

Housing materials are much better and cheaper with the possible exception of copper pipes and anything made of real wood. Certainly builders of McMansions are cutting corners at every opportunity, but if you do your own building/finishing these days a lot of materials are available that will outlast their 1980's equivalent, and the cheap options are better.

I think a lot of this is a lack of perspective - everyone wants better things but nobody actually wants to pay for it.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebar: Don't video games have ever growing competition with existing games? I decided not to buy games until I beat the ones I already have. I am now stuck on NES games and will probably be stuck for the rest of my life.

Skyrim came out in 2011 and is at this moment, the 55th highest player count on Steam. Just playing top tier single player games over the past twenty years could keep you incredibly busy.

Which Skyrim is that? OG Skyrim (Oldrim), Skyrim Legendary edition, Skyrim Special edition, Skyrim VR, Skyrim Anniversary edition, or the Skyrim anniversary upgrade?

Are they even the same base SKUs at this point? I don’t want to pull out my gaming desktop but IIRC it was at least three different entries in the Steam library. I wonder if the stats combine them.

At this point I’ve spent so much money on Skyrim titles I should get TESVI for free with lifetime DLCs.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure, it's a Google Pixel. But a smartphone would probably fall into the "unless I have to" category. What's your point?

Wow defensive much? I was just curious to see if you’d found a non-Chinese phone and/or computer anywhere. Chill out man.

I don't think we read the same reply you did.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebar: Don't video games have ever growing competition with existing games? I decided not to buy games until I beat the ones I already have. I am now stuck on NES games and will probably be stuck for the rest of my life.

I should do that. I have almost 900 Steam games, the vast majority of which I have never touched. Over the years with sales and Humble Bundles, I've just hoarded the games because I might someday want to play it. Instead all I seem to do is replay Donkey Kong Country 2 and Streets of Rage 2.

Just have AI agents play them for you and have Opus write a summary.

AI to the rescue!

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#199
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s expensive to be poor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But…

It really pisses me off there are used car lots that obviously prey on the poor. I asked for their cash price and they wouldn't give me one, or it was ridiculously priced. They just want for people to pay off a debt and all the interest that goes with it.

Even worse: they want people to fail to pay it off, so they get half the debt amount and then get the car back to do it again.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#200
post #3

While it does relate to price discovery--i.e., some folks just aren't willing to pay for an additional unit of quality at 10x--my theory is that the decline in quality is another hidden form of inflation. Thing continues to cost X even though regulations have increased costs Y, ship production to China and scrimp on the inputs. (Or have market forces do that for you.)

Video games are a good example of an area where the pricing makes no sense. Inflation has risen, and they make like $20 or whatever off a brand new game in 1990s bucks. Video game prices will go up more and more, it also kind of explains to me why prices rarely drop below $59 anymore, used to be on Steam some AAA games could be snagged up for $20 after a year, now you can barely find them on reasonable sales, they ho…

For videogames I don’t think it really makes sense to try and compare against 90’s prices. It’s gotten so much easier to just make “a game” (in the sense that computers are enormously more powerful, third-party engines and assets exist, generally all tooling is much better, and so on). Expectations in terms of polish and graphics quality are much higher. Distribution is much easier. Videogames are a massive cultural thing these days, so the market is huge, and so is the pool of potential enthusiastic employees.

I mean the arrows are pointing in every direction, I have no idea if prices should have gone up or down or even how to make a comparison. Like we could get into details and talk about comparing a modern AAA game cost to a 90’s AAA games cost… except, even if you adjust for graphics quality generally improving, just the scope of modern AAA games is massive in a way that there doesn’t exist a 90’s equivalent.

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