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Generation Junk

walterkirn.substack.com

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Re: Generation Junk

#101

Post by GlenTheMachine »

One issue here is that there are well built quality products on the market; the problem is distinguishing them from the crap.

Also, they cost more. Total cost of ownership is typically a lot lower, though.

Want a mechanical pencil that will last you through grad school and at least a decade of your career? Buy a RotRing. It’ll be $30, and worth every penny. Tools? Snap-On or Wright. Shoes? Goodyear welt top-grain leather, such as Grant Stone or top end Allen Edmonds. Luggage? Travelpro or Tom Bihn or Goruck.

All of those items will be 3 or 4x what a Target ratchet or bag or pair of dress shoes will cost, but they’ll last at least 10x longer and in the Snap-On example possibly 100x longer.

Electronics are a somewhat different issue, of course, but even there, my iPhone XR is still going strong, 85% battery health and receiving OS updates.

Re: Generation Junk

#102

Post by WrongAssumption »

paleface wrote: post #87
willis936 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toasters are an interesting case study. I went on a tear last year after being fed up with every toaster doing the same bad job. I thought maybe someone made a proper toaster. What I found is that when you pay more the coat of paint gets nicer and maybe there's an MCU+LCD, but the guts and logic are identical. There is no good commercially available toaster today. It's sending a very loud message about how markets op…

Modern retail toasters, don’t seem to be able to fit a proper standard English sized, slice of bread - the size of which, I’m not convinced has increased over time - but rather, the toasters have been designed primarily with US sized slices (which I’m under the possibly erroneous impression, are smaller?!), as the target market. Quite annoying…

Dualit is a quality hand built toaster made in the UK since the 1950s.

Re: Generation Junk

#103

Post by Gigachad »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #50

Personally this is what ends up happening to me when I try to fix small electronic devices like coffee grinders: https://xkcd.com/1994 In reality I need to consider the cost of my time. It’s much cheaper to buy new, already keyed CAT-6 cables than to split and order a raw cable end myself into an RJ45 jacket. If reducing waste is more important to you than time, then yes by all means try to repair things. But remembe…

There is a middle ground. List your broken stuff for free on facebook marketplace or wherever. There are people who have learned all the common problems with a particular appliance and will go around collecting broken ones to either fix, or use for parts.

That way there is no waste. The appliance will get fixed and resold. It also allows people to specialize their skills to repair things more optimally.

Re: Generation Junk

#104

Post by samstave »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #36
woopwoop wrote: post #12

So this article implies that a number of things that we buy previously were built to last longer, and indeed did last longer. The first few examples are kitchen appliances. In this case I don't really know, but I'm at least willing to listen. Ultimately the evidence is people responding to a thread on Twitter where he solicited complaints. Not so compelling. But then he mentions a "hybrid sedan". Here I'm aware of th…

For those goods which are in fact more durable and reliable (e.g. modern cars) the downside tends to be that they are less repairable.

[flagged]

Re: Generation Junk

#105

Post by jonahss »

edrxty wrote: post #94
jonahss wrote: post #49

Ok no. First of all: survivorship bias. All of the old appliances that still work are only the ones which still work. This goes for the author's juicer. Second: things which have investment attention now are excellent quality and things which are waning towards the end of their lifecycle are having the last few corners cut before the Private Equity firm that now owns them throws in the towel, throughly wrung dry. Aut…

Seconded, though I'd add that with the current concerns about climate change and resource utilization, we need to think a bit more about product lifecycle and this is a reasonable way of illustrating that. If the embodied environmental impact of a product increases 10% to make it last 100% longer then we need to think about making that change rather than producing twice as many to replace the broken ones.

one thing about some of the shitty products out there today is we got MUCH better at making things out of less material. So they break easier and wear out faster, but we've been able to reduce material usage along with price.

If you're a person who loses pens or holds onto them so long the ink dries up, it'd be better to waste an object made as cheaply as possible than one made to last.

This is a balance to play as well.

Re: Generation Junk

#106

Post by LiquidPolymer »

We have friends that just laid out $3000 for a new washer drier set and washer is already leaking from the front door. Pursuing warranty repair has been a major hassle.

My wife and I use a washer and drier set from the late 90's that are nothing to look at but work really well. They appear to be designed with service in mind and changing components is usually extremely easy - something I have done infrequently. These machines are used almost every day. Honestly, for a while I was kind of embarrassed by our beat up old machines. We discussed getting something new but dropped it after sticker shock set in. We also found it nearly impossible to get an honest review of any of the newer appliances. I also just hate "smart home" stuff that requires a wi-fi connection to work correctly.

The workman we hired to re-model our rear entry mud-room was looking at our old washer/drier set and unprompted said if we ever want to get rid of them - please let him know. I wondered why and he explained that he and his wife purchased new a couple years ago and have had nothing but complaints. They miss their old setup that cleaned superbly with minimal fuss.

Re: Generation Junk

#107

Post by yesbut »

woopwoop wrote: post #92
eduction wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally irrelevant links — the assertion was about hybrid cars, those links speak to cars overall. The Toyota Prius debuted in the US in 2000. I’d argue 23 years is simply not sufficient to make an argument about long term reliability—particularly given that sales took a while to ramp, and any issues in, say, the first 10 years are likely to be dismissed as teething problems.

The article was about consumer goods in general, so data about cars overall is more relevant than a single brand. Nonetheless, the Toyota Prius is, by reputation, a very reliable car. Here a used car website used it's data to estimate car model's lifespan, finding that a Toyota Prius has a potential lifespan of 250000 miles, much greater than anything from the 1980s. https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/cars-th…

Not to get too deep into this, in the 80s cars were crap. That is based only on my own personal experience. But I have no idea how reliable cars made 70 years ago were (like the kitchen appliance mentioned in the article). I've seen really old cars still on the road, but those are probably owned by collectors / people that take effort to preserve those types of cars.

Re: Generation Junk

#108

Post by ProcNetDev »

fipar wrote: post #84
somewhat_drunk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't last longer. https://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/diagnosing-car...

Well, they do (present tense) last longer in the sense that they’re still around and working, which of course doesn’t mean newer cars are worse. It’s a bit like saying someone who’s 70 lives longer than someone who’s 7. I think newer cars seem to be more reliable but older cars probably lasted longer than you think, it’s just that your view is skewed due to the market you’re used to (reading your link, while a millio…

The population of old cars that you see driving around today is very different from the population of old cars that ever existed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: Generation Junk

#109

Post by vinnymac »

fullstop wrote: post #11
drcode wrote: post #4

I feel arguments like this always ignore the fact that buying a toaster in 1950 was a major investment for a family, and if you want to spend $2000 on a high-end toaster in 2023, which is probably equivalent in inflation-adjusted price to the 1950s toaster, it will probably also be very nice.

A toaster in 1951 was $21, which is about $250 today. I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts.

We don’t even call them toasters anymore in my household. Our Cosori air fryer has a toast setting that works beautifully.

It cost less than $250. It warms, bakes, roasts, dehydrates, as well as 10 other settings. It has 3 different racks, so I can toast 3-4x as much bread than I could in a regular toaster.

I’ve only had it for 6 years, but it has held up nicely, no issues whatsoever. I guess what I am trying to say, is that the product is the bells and whistles these days.

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