Let's make quality the norm again • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#491

Post by maerF0x0 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

phyzome wrote: post #485

maerF0x0 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wrote a program and used publicly available numbers as the inputs. We're not in the "how many r's in strawberry" era anymore.

And you verified that program and its input sources, right?

Do you verify every input and output of your car's fuel system map? No, if the car runs well enough most of the time for your purposes you stop looking.

That is where chatGPT is for me these days on the kinds of tasks I throw at it, and for the seriousness of HN comment threads.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#492

Post by asdff » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 5:28 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #429

asdff wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has become a sort of unintentional skill in the ecommerce era. Everyone is using china, either the actual "first party" brand that is really just ordering bulk from china and reselling it stateside, or the various clones of that brand. The skill then becomes feeling out which of these various products and clones are coming from the better option of the couple chinese manufacturing companies everyone is using, th…

This misses the quality control aspect. Just because two items come out the same production line doesn't mean they have the same quality.

I mean, it's a gamble either way. The first party product can be flawed too. The no name product could last for decades.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#493

Post by cestith » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

VorpalWay wrote: post #467

cestith wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea is not high quality compared to most gallery-style furniture. If you're buying flat-pack furniture to assemble at home few brands will serve you better. Oddly enough, none of my bookcases in my new house are Billy ones though. Yes, I still have loads of physical books. I found a Chinese brand of all-metal bookcases that are lighter weight than Hon or Steelcase but hold a lot more weight than Ikea bookcases of si…

For books an important features is that the shelves have doors and a back, to have to dust off the books less often. Do yours come with that? I'm not finding that brand on any Swedish retailer from a quick search either, so not sure how relevant it is. I have some older Billy shelves that have been very solid, even when overloaded with books (I too have a lot of physical books, a lot of them older and not available a…

Mine from that company so far are library-style open shelves. I have a vacuum attachment I like for cleaning shelves and books, so it doesn't require a feather duster. I keep certain books inside doors and backs.

The same company also makes cabinets and enclosed cases. They are available via a handful of retailers in the US. The big one is Amazon. I would have guessed they sell and ship worldwide since they're on Amazon. It appears I would have been wrong. I can't find the brand on the sites for Sweden, UK, or Germany. If I set my delivery to Sweden, I can't even find them on the US site by searching but can still see their store page. They don't seem to be on AliExpress either.

Here's their store on Amazon US.: https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/E14E7D47-A6A4-44AD-95CB-6...

It seems on AliBaba proper the parent company does ship to Sweden under its own name. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Office-Furniture-Vert...

I can't vouch for this one, but it looks interesting. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012805578614.html?spm=a2...

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#494

Post by jjk7 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #91

Gigachad wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition partially causes this though. When you have 100 brands selling the same thing it became a race to the lowest price.

My experience is competition invokes two races happening at the same time, one for lowest price and one for highest quality. You can get a cheap car or really high quality car. Same goes for clothes, restaurants, basically anything where there is lots of market choices and competition.

Luxury is another dimension than price quality.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#495

Post by Xirdus » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #471

Xirdus wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where do you live and what is "not cheap" to you? In the US there is Flexsteel, Stickley, Herman Miller, Hooker, Bradington Young and many more. Even La-z-boy makes decent quality. Expect a lower end sofa from these companies to be $3,000 on sale, and a really nice one to be $10k+. Quality furniture is typically made to order since people paying that much are going to want to choose a finish and fabrics. I don't know…

> Quality furniture is typically made to order

Exactly!!! It used to NOT be like that!!!

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#496

Post by anjel » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

slumberlust wrote: post #420

saturn8601 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worker owned cooperatives could be a reliable indicator however i'm not sure there are many examples of this being scaled upwards, like could an airline do that? Could they even have an option for a worker owned company provide an alternative for everything in the economy? You need capital to make a competitor and all the capital is rapidly being sucked up by the people enshittifying everything. The answer probably l…

Would Publix count as a co-op?

Win-Co, a US western states supermkt chain is employee-owned

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#497

Post by tonymet » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:50 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #484

tonymet wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subject was “you should buy quality items with longevity”. My point is that’s not a reasonable demand on consumers, or even producers, until the restrictions on creating accessible , quality items have been resolved.

It is an unreasonable demand. Consumers need to find items of sufficient quality and longevity that have desirable aesthetics and appropriate maintenance costs and meet all the other relevant factors. 200 years ago, you could buy a table from that guy or the other guy or make one. Today there are endless choices (including local craftspeople and DIY) and sometimes the right choice is a $10 table made from cardboard a…

ok

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#498

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:51 PM UTC

ninalanyon wrote: post #470

WalterBright wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A car dealership makes most of their money off of the financing. > I asked for their cash price and they wouldn't give me one When I bought a car from a dealer, the dealer told me that what I wanted was impossible. So I walked out and got in my car, and started to back out. The salesman came running out and agreed to my terms. The trick to making a good deal is a willingness to walk away. P.S. My accounting teacher u…

> The trick to making a good deal is a willingness to walk away. Not just the willingness but the ability to live without if the salesman doesn't cave in. If you need the car (or other goods) now you might not have that luxury.

There are always other dealers.

> If you need the car now

If you put yourself in a bad negotiating position, that's on you.

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#499

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

Xirdus wrote: post #454

WalterBright wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was the brand was not a determinant of quality. People assumed Mercedes was the quality brand, but it was inferior to Ford.

But was Mercedes always inferior to Ford or were only some particular models of Mercedes inferior to Ford? If it's the former than my point still stands.

4 of them owned by members of my family over 4 decades is good enough for me. Mercedes cars a patchwork of overengineering and underengineering. Overengineering like sodium cooled valves, but a fatal susceptibility to overheating. Like a driveline that is not aligned properly with the engine. And electric windows that are so poorly made they keep the mechanism in stock.

Fords, on the other hand, have an even, predictable quality. The same with my 72 Dodge. The windows still crank up and down nicely!

Re: Let's make quality the norm again

#500

Post by f30e3dfed1c9 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #462

f30e3dfed1c9 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Shrinkflation" as a word only caught on when the process got to the point it is completely impossible to miss. It has actually been going on for a while. If you take a "basket of goods" since the 1990s, inflation will be such and such a number... but if you insist that the "basket of goods" match not just function but quality your inflation number skyrockets. Now, I can personally vouch for the fact that in the 1990…

Not denying that a lot of stuff these days is crap. Just objecting to the idea that if you want a "proper BIFL suitcase" you need to buy an expensive luxury brand, because it's absolutely not true.

If you spend $700 to $1,000 on a carry-on suitcase, will it be good? Damn well better be. Can you get one that will last a long time for around one third that price, or even less? Yes, you can.