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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

#361

Post by ip26 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #262
pif wrote: post #88

Quality was never the norm: cheap always beat quality with a hand tied behind his back! Western working class has spent decades complaining about cheap imports from China... while feeding that market with their own money. Western frequent fliers keep reminiscing about the grandiose pre-deregulation era or air travel, but cry a river when their low-cost carrier of choice actually enforces the limit on cabin baggage. E…

> Everybody hates ads, but no-one is willing to pay a penny for a service they use daily. I wish they would price the service commensurate to what they earn with ads. My ad watching gives them a few cents, and yet they want $8.99 for a month or some gems.

The dark part is you, as a consumer who is willing to pay to not watch ads, are worth considerably more than a few cents to advertise to. In fact, the more you are willing to pay to have no ads, the more valuable showing ads to you is…

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#362

Post by edmundsauto »

techpression wrote: post #281
jolt42 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, recently Rachel Ray sold her dog food brand. I didn't know until my dog started having digestion issues with it. That's how I found out it had been sold and other dogs were also having issues. Apparently buyer cheapened the recipe. At least we have the internet to quickly get the word out that it isn't what it used to be.

There’s a special place in hell for people who would buy a dog food brand only to make worse dog food…

The steelman is that by lowering the cost, more pets can afford better food than what they currently eat. No comment about whether that is reflected in the consumer facing price or in profits.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#363

Post by greenavocado »

_moof wrote: post #360
piker wrote: 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.)

Walmart used to be (and maybe still is?) known for doing this. They would get companies to produce lower-quality versions of products under the same name as the standard versions available elsewhere. They could sell them for cheaper and consumers were none the wiser - or so the theory went, anyway. Obviously people caught on.

People have caught on and nothing can be done because all ten "brands" are produced on the same machine in Ohio

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#364

Post by ip26 »

vladms wrote: post #230
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…

I see "quality brands" as a potential way to avoid knowing yourself stuff about what you buy. In itself, outsourcing one's expertise about a product might be the root cause of the detrimental effects you mention. As an example: I was once shopping with someone that had experience in fashion. While I don't remember all the details, with one look/touch the person could tell and explain if something was poor or high qua…

We can dream that every human should be self reliant enough to personally inspect a used car, test knife steel for ductility and carbon content, inspect the stitching in a pair of pants, on and on.

But if you need vast expertise and extensive product testing just to make a trip to the grocery store, that’s not a fluid market. You are requiring a system with a heavy reliance on unpaid labors by all parties.

There’s always a place for expertise, but trusted brands support market efficiency. The simplest is “I bought one of these before and I liked it; I trust that the brand & vendor will sell me an identical copy” without needing to interrogate their supply chain to confirm it’s the same good. Another is “if I buy this and the product has a defect, they will help set it straight”.

Trust in the seller is not far away in importance from transparent pricing, and arguably if the product hides a flaw (like a knockoff) the pricing is ipso facto not transparent.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#365

Post by thaumasiotes »

piker wrote: 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.)

> my theory is that the decline in quality is another hidden form of inflation

That is a well-known phenomenon, usually called "shrinkflation". (After the fact that the easiest way to lower quality while keeping the price consistent is to just give you less stuff for the same price.)

Although all economists are made aware of the phenomenon, they seem to be just as prone to the illusion as anyone else. Here you can see Tyler Cowen weighing in on a Twitter debate about the price of a meal at Chipotle: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/08/us...

A burrito is sold for the same price (well, 4.6% higher) now that it was 15 years ago. Case closed! Stop complaining about Chipotle's pricing.

Is it the same burrito? Deep in the comments "Michael" reports, from current and archived Chipotle menu tools, that a steak burrito bowl in 2015 contained 875 calories and the same exact menu order in 2026 contained 830 calories... with 80 calories out of that 45 calorie difference representing additional steak in the 2015 bowl.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#366

Post by Xirdus »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #343
Xirdus wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I will need a second opinion. I just don't believe there was not a single brand of TV that was reliably good the way some brands of clothes, furniture, power tools, phones, spices, perfume, refrigerators, light fixtures, record players, guitars, lawn mowers, and basically all non-perishable goods on the market were. You could get the cheap stuff, or you could get the quality stuff, and you knew which is…

What they're describing is that TVs had consumable items in the circuitry. It isn't possible to have had a TV without tubes. Tubes were basically really fancy lightbulbs and had a finite life. No amount of quality could make consumables not necessary. TVs needed maintenance and manual back then. They sucked. It's like saying that buying a higher quality car means you don't need to buy tires. The broader point is that…

I wasn't saying things were better then than now. I was saying exactly what you're saying - cheap shit and expensive stuff was available, see furniture, see furniture, see furniture.

Except no, it's like that anymore. It's literally impossible - and I mean literally literally - to find any mass-produced brand (as in not needing to be custom made) of furniture that consistently, across all its products, will last more than warranty period. I haven't been an adult for that long, and I've had multiple beds break down under me and multiple sofas sag down entirely. And no, none of them were cheap. I paid extra specifically to avoid this kind of thing. It didn't work. And there's no alternative for me, literally nowhere I can buy furniture that doesn't break down unless I make it myself or pay some craftsman to.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#367

Post by settsu »

chairmansteve wrote: post #148
piker wrote: 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.)

Problem is, you pay 10x for shirt that is made in the same factory as the cheap shiry, just has a different logo.

I grasp what you’re expressing, I really do. I’ve probably pondered this very thing too often in my life and can think of very specific examples where purchasing a non-brand name version of a particular product really froze up the decision making process.

However I think as I’ve gotten older, certain realities have occurred to me:

1. there is a fairly significant amount of people that would still pay more for the shirt the “right” logo and who would absolutely not pay less if it had the “wrong” (I.e., vs no logo). In fact, they wouldn’t wear the wrong logo even if the shirt was free. I include myself in this under certain circumstances and would conclude that some times the recognizable name actually helps put my mind at ease about the purchase, while being fully able to acknowledge that it was entirely a psychological thing.

2. Unfortunately there’s just simply no way of knowing this information (brand name product vs essentially same product without brand name) most of the time so letting that weigh too heavily on an otherwise thoughtfully considered purchase achieves effectively nothing.

3. The thing was probably entirely discretionary for my existence, so don’t buy it (otherwise, see #2…)

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#368

Post by eru »

recursive wrote: post #154
eru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look for reviewer that care about the same things you care about? > Besides, who has time to wade through reviews for every purchase? Claude does! And most purchases I make are repeat purchases, so I don't have to read the reviews again.

Claude is subject to the same enshittification market forces. Think of the value Claude could unlock by having trusted commercial partners that just happen to have the best product in a market segment.

Claude was just an example. You can use an open source model or even run it locally.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#369

Post by f30e3dfed1c9 »

Kirby64 wrote: post #312
saturn8601 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also other tricks I fell for. I think I saw a recommendation for Travelpro on Buy it for life(Its been a while so dont remember fully). Nice luggage but expensive. I took a risk and bought it. I received it the day I was rushing to travel and there was some "registration card" that you had to fill out by a certain time that unlocked lifetime warranty else you were stuck with a shorter limited warranty. That…

Yeah, if you wanted a proper BIFL suitcase you needed to spend even more and get a Briggs and Riley suitcase. Also, Travelpro Platinum suitcases aren’t the cheapest… but how much do you think is so expensive? Sales should put them sub $200, maybe less if you bought awhile ago.

Curious, so I checked. A Briggs and Riley Essential 22" Carry-On Expandable Spinner is $729. Sorry, but that's insane.

I admittedly travel less than I used to but I bought my basic carry-on for about $110 more than 20 years ago. Close enough to "buy it for life" for me. It's not much worse for the wear, I fully expect to have it for 20 more years.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#370

Post by eru »

austin-cheney wrote: post #117
carlosjobim wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The purpose of regulation is to impose a minimum baseline of quality.

Quality has more than one dimension. Food regulation is mostly concerned with "don't poison the customer". It doesn't otherwise care about things like taste or smell or texture.

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