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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

#381

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #301
MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should be responsible for accurate listings, swift refunds, taking down misleading products, and banning repeat offenders. I somehow think making Amazon "responsible for what they sell" goes far beyond that in ways that are not reasonable. Only those that make products should be responsible for them.

Well they don't ban repeat offenders. Trying to directly regulate the banning of repeat offenders seems more difficult and less fruitful than giving the store fallback responsibility for the warranty. Australia gives the store primary responsibility and it seems to work well for them.

I guess if they aren't prohibited from having a contract with the manufacturers to have them fulfill or reimburse warranty claims, then it would be acceptable to to require stores to honor it. They'll be more careful about who they allow in.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#382

Post by nextlevelwizard »

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.)

This just isn't true. What has happened is that companies try to cut costs at every point to make more and more profit since that is what capitalism just does.

There are two ways to submit to capitalism when making products either mass producing the cheapest crap possible with hair thin margins, but since you make so much and they last so little you still make bank.

The other is to make ridiculously over priced luxury goods that rich assholes buy because they want lovingly hand crafted quality instead of the cheap crap, but of course you are marking it up 100-1000 times the price just because you can.

What cannot survive in capitalistic world is the good mid ground of lovingly produced products that actually last and are good quality, because those don't sell as often as they last for a life time or three and you can't gauge the price.

Sure there is a sub section of the economy that literally cannot afford but the cheapest thing, but they need to keep buying same thing year after year as it won't last and thus their children are cursed to suffer the same fate as they cannot inherit any good quality furniture or cars or even houses, everything is just cheaply made consumable with no expectation that it will last longer than a year or two

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#383

Post by lynx97 »

I would PAY Apple $500 if they'd dedicate a year of development only to fixing known issues. The number of sort-of-well-known bug grows from year to year, and it feels like they only accumulate, never go away. VoiceOver of my (touch-id-only) iPad said "Face not recognized" yesterday, because it failed to read my finger rpint. This is getting comically bad.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#384

Post by deathanatos »

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.

My gas pump has ads, despite me paying for the gas. My airplane has ads, despite me paying for the ticket. My phone has ads, despite me paying for the service. My doctor's office has ads, despite me paying for healthcare. My car has ads, despite me paying for the car.

I can pay for a service to watch sports, and I get ads during the event, ads painted on the field, ads superimposed on the field, normal ads embedded in the commentary, obtuse ads shoved into things like "and he's the Lite Beer Co.® Player of Match", ads in the name of the building, ads in the name of the match itself, ads on the player's jerseys. Frankly at this point I wouldn't be surprised if attending the game required receiving a free tattoo of a sponsor's logo.

Corporations have decided "why make ${service_cost}, when we could make ${service_cost} + ${ad_revenue}?"

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#386

Post by Dylan16807 »

MrDrMcCoy wrote: post #381
Dylan16807 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they don't ban repeat offenders. Trying to directly regulate the banning of repeat offenders seems more difficult and less fruitful than giving the store fallback responsibility for the warranty. Australia gives the store primary responsibility and it seems to work well for them.

I guess if they aren't prohibited from having a contract with the manufacturers to have them fulfill or reimburse warranty claims, then it would be acceptable to to require stores to honor it. They'll be more careful about who they allow in.

Oh sure, I'd encourage the manufacturer paying whenever possible. This is just a fallback for no-name trash.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#387

Post by toast0 »

irishcoffee wrote: post #143
Saline9515 wrote: post #48

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.

I abandoned levi's in mid-late 200x. They didn't last nearly long enough in the style I prefer (at the time, 501s were still reportedly durable maybe just the special tab ones, but I won't wear button fly). Plus the whole deal with inconsistent sizing got tiresome.

LL Bean jeans are pretty decent and consistent.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#388

Post by toast0 »

deathanatos wrote: post #384
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. My gas pump has ads, despite me paying for the gas. My airplane has ads, despite me paying for the ticket. My phone has ads, despite me paying for the service. My doctor's office has ads, despite me paying for healthcare. My car has ads, despite me paying for the car. I can pay for a service to watch sports, and I get ads during…

> Frankly at this point I wouldn't be surprised if attending the game required receiving a free tattoo of a sponsor's logo.

You don't have your BIM mark?

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/49069-the-apple (I apologize in advance to anyone who watches this as a result of my comment)

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#389

Post by mixermachine »

bluGill wrote: post #118
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.

Project Farm on YouTube has never disappointed me. The guy buys everything himself and finds creative & reproducible ways to test things.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#390

Post by eru »

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…

Taking Pratchett at his word, the obvious solution would be to rent good boots to poor people. The bootlord would make good money, and the poor would get access to better boots for cheaper. The troll mafia can threaten to to break some kneecaps to make sure people are properly incentivised to keep up with the rent.
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