Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dupes took over the world

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 137 posts

Re: Dupes took over the world

#121

Post by marysol5 »

inigyou wrote: post #6
4ndrewl wrote: post #4

For the vast majority of human existence 'dupe culture' was the norm. So far this is just a tiny 200 year abberation.

The centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.

The other side of that is where there was a factory for the villagers to work in, and everybody had a wage, and a community.

The factory is now all robots, and only 3 people have a job there.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#122

Post by scbrg »

inigyou wrote: post #99
scbrg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And maybe there are even fewer people to worry about this, because when the moved to the city, those people stopped having children. > Who is this good for? Is it good for you? Well, as a global population reduction is sorely needed, this is good for pretty much everybody. There's absolutely no way we can keep extracting resources and polluting at the rate demanded by our current enormous population (which has more…

It's unethical to reduce population by making people starve to death.

Of course it is. I have no idea why you'd suggest such a thing.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#123

Post by marysol5 »

account42 wrote: post #110
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the start of the last century the UK had a million people working in the coal mining industry. Now it is effectively zero. That reduction happened over a long period but it wasn't without its problems. Even now there are old coal mining villages that have never really recovered economically.

> Even now there are old coal mining villages that have never really recovered economically. Are villages the correct unit to look at there though? Do individuals from these villages now have worse opportunities than they had before?

Very much so, nothing was done to even give them opportunities to get work anywhere else either. And then on top of that the Tories destroyed everything else.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#124

Post by marysol5 »

account42 wrote: post #113
bruce511 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find this line of thought interesting. Because it implies the manufacturer has all the power. But they don't. The consumer does. Ultimately the manufacturer wins the horse-shoe battle because they are cheaper. And the consumers in the village prefer cheap shoes to locally made (expensive) ones. Fundamentally consumers like cheap stuff. Manufacturing shifts happen because as soon as there's a cheaper output,…

> In Europe food generally costs more Is this actually true? As to your general point, I don't think the blame can lie with the consumer as the consumer almost always does not have the expertise to recognize quality and understand the consequences of buying lower quality. Nor can you expect everyone to be an expert in everything. Without that expertise, buying a more expensive product is a gamble while a lower priced…

No, 10-15% higher in the US, even when they have lower quality and consume higher amounts of it.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#125

Post by marysol5 »

Arainach wrote: post #62
zkmon wrote: post #59

"Dupe" might need to be more specific. What is copied? Is it design, brand name, quality, parts or functionality? What is not to be copied? and why? Dupe might affect the seller, but customer doesn't care much. In the past, people had to go by brand name as an assurance of quality. We have other means now. Reviews from other buyers, detailed specifications, return policies - all reduced the moat of branding. People c…

We have nothing of the sort. Reviews are bought and manipulated at scale. Dupe brands come and go month to month. Very few of the electronics I've bought on Amazon in the last 8 years are still for sale, but for most of them there are current listings with the same pictures and a "different" brand name. Most reviews that aren't fake are useless and written within the first few days of ownership anyway .

Also Amazon very intentionally structures it's business to allow these activities to happen.

Like stock mixing.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#126

Post by marysol5 »

RobotToaster wrote: post #95
JimsonYang wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is not being copied and why? Most counterfeits goods skimp on manufacturing quality. Like instead of very detailed stitching with intricate design they might just skip that altogether. For instance one of the easiest ways to identify dupes is if the brand name and design on a bag 'flows' to the other side. Obv counterfeits dont really care because they want to save money For counterfeit goods that are so high…

There are entire subreddits these days dedicated to reviewing fashion reps.

And the amount some people throw on products just because they're reps.

£15K rolex for £2k, yeah no thanks.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#127

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #69
inigyou wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an intentional policy choice btw. You could just legislate the horseshoe company pays 90% of each displaced blacksmith decreasing by 5% per year.

You should share your crystal ball that tells you the future so you can help leaders accurately predict changes in supply and demand curves so that they can make better policy choices.

[deleted]

Re: Dupes took over the world

#128

Post by aprilthird2021 »

j1elo wrote: post #100
cjs_ac wrote: post #7

> When Deckers, the company behind fleece-lined UGG boots, recently took Quince to court over its lookalike boots, it tried to bar Quince from referencing “dupe culture” at trial. > The bid failed, confirming that “dupes” and “dupe culture” — a commercial ecosystem built around providing consumers cheaper alternatives to name-brand products — are cultural phenomena here to stay. > The trial focused on whether Quince’…

> a commercial ecosystem built around providing consumers cheaper alternatives to name-brand products This is expected IMHO, given that name brand product do nothing more than raise and raise prices, with varying list of ~excuses~ reasons such as "war here or there", "material/labor costs", "crisis", etc... But consumers' salaries are the same than before price raises of the last 7~10 years, so the new prices are unj…

Businesses don't just price gouge. They often expand their product lines or have R&D to come up with new products and that's more costly than just making the same shoe with the same materials for 40 years. Many consumers feel like "Why do they need to grow? Why can't they just make the product I like and I'll pay for it?" But the reality is that not growing is not protecting yourself from the future. For every product Quince dupes (and they have every right to do them and congrats on their successful business model), there is a brand with a signature product people stopped caring about, and if they hadn't spent the money to expand and try selling new products they may not have survived.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#129

Post by xnx »

Unfortunately, reviews from publishers and forums tend to be so superficial and/or astroturfed that it's very difficult to judge quality without handling/using item directly.

Re: Dupes took over the world

#130

Post by goshcoding »

cjs_ac wrote: post #7

> When Deckers, the company behind fleece-lined UGG boots, recently took Quince to court over its lookalike boots, it tried to bar Quince from referencing “dupe culture” at trial. > The bid failed, confirming that “dupes” and “dupe culture” — a commercial ecosystem built around providing consumers cheaper alternatives to name-brand products — are cultural phenomena here to stay. > The trial focused on whether Quince’…

Serious question: If I wanted to buy quality "boots with the fur" (a.k.a uggs), what is a good brand these days?

(Is Hacker News even the right place to be asking fashion and fashion brand questions?)

Post reply on HN