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

Shopping Sucks Now

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 230 posts

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#131

Post by dsego »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
0x262d wrote: post #79

Buying things sucks now. This drives me nuts all the time and is one of many reasons I want a democratically planned economy. In addition to too many choices to meaningfully use, the vast majority of them are trying to essentially trick you into buying them. The drive for each glove (or whatever) manufacturer to increase profits causes them all to buy fake reviews, use cheap materials, imitate the style of the authen…

Hard pass. I admit the corruption (wasn't the FTC supposed to be about preventing false advertising?), but your alternative is worse. It won't actually be "democratically planned". It will be as democratic as a "democratic republic". It will be bureaucratically planned (by your salaried people). Historically, that has worked out badly. It hasn't worked out with the consumers being happier. Yeah, I know, "this time wi…

Aren't big corps not hierarchical bureaucracies anyway? Historically there were centrally planned economies. Nothing to say we can't organize things differently with collectives and worker's self management. "Consumers" might not be happier, but working people just might live a more fulfilling life.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#132

Post by riversflow »

pkilgore wrote: post #28

If you're interested in a deeper treatment of these issues check out the 2004 book [1] The Paradox of Choice. Some interesting notes from follow-up research [2]: > In a meta‐analysis of 99 observations (N = 7202) reported by prior research, we identify four key factors—choice set complexity, decision task difficulty, preference uncertainty, and decision goal—that moderate the impact of assortment size on choice overl…

Gonna add that Barry Schwartz does a TED talk by the same name. Really eye opening.

link: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#133

Post by godshatter »

Physical in-store shopping has always been a nightmare for me. Too many people moving in too many random directions, most of them oblivious or actively hostile to those around them. I can feel the waves of frustration and anxiety of everyone around me. I'm one of those people that goes to a store only when they really need something, and I plan it out like a bank heist. Park here, away from everyone else, keep my head down, go this route to get to thing X, see if there is anything there that would remotely work for me, grab it if there is, head directly to the checkout farthest away from the mass of humanity jockeying for position, pay quickly, exit quickly, start to breathe a sigh of relief as I head for the car. I don't know how I got this way, I'm not antisocial in most other contexts, but for me shopping has been a terrible experience and online shopping has been a blessing.

Probably because of my "smash-and-grab" shopping routine, I don't spend much time searching for that Perfect Item. I just buy something that looks reasonable and hope for the best. If I have bought enough of that kind of item to have a brand preference or non-preference, I would take that into account. If I were wanting to buy some gloves, I'd first go to Amazon (sorry) and search for leather gloves or whatever. I'd maybe use the checkboxes on the left to narrow it down. I'd look at maybe four different choices, and pick one. Sometime a day or two later I'd wonder what was in the box, because I would have forgotten about the whole experience already.

My shopping-phobia or whatever it is has conditioned me to not buy too many things, even now where online shopping makes it stress-free. Which is probably a good thing, because I'm always trying to downsize anyway thinking I have too much crap.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#135

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dsego wrote: post #131
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard pass. I admit the corruption (wasn't the FTC supposed to be about preventing false advertising?), but your alternative is worse. It won't actually be "democratically planned". It will be as democratic as a "democratic republic". It will be bureaucratically planned (by your salaried people). Historically, that has worked out badly. It hasn't worked out with the consumers being happier. Yeah, I know, "this time wi…

Aren't big corps not hierarchical bureaucracies anyway? Historically there were centrally planned economies. Nothing to say we can't organize things differently with collectives and worker's self management. "Consumers" might not be happier, but working people just might live a more fulfilling life.

Big corps were hierarchical bureaucracies, but they were replaceable. Let's say that GM messed up, and didn't build cars that people wanted to buy. Well, you could buy a Ford or a Chrysler instead. You could even buy a VW or a Honda.

But if your central planning bureaucracy messes up, there's no way to bypass it to get what you want to buy.

Or was your point that workers' fulfillment is more important than consumers' satisfaction? That might be a workers' paradise, but it's a lot less nice for the consumers. But the problem is that workers and consumers are the same people. I'm not sure that it would be a net win...

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#137

Post by pontifier »

thiagomgd wrote: post #84
papreclip wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brick and mortar shops can't stop you from coming in and finding the perfect item, then buying it online to save money. I bought an office chair recently and didn't feel confident picking one without trying chairs out in person. The chair I settled on was $100 cheaper online

It is especially weird when it's cheaper online on the SAME store. That happened with me in brazil.

Happened to me in target the other day.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#138

Post by stevenwliao »

sofal wrote: post #109
stevenwliao wrote: post #34

Shopping sucks less now. Wider selection and more transparent information means that you can make a better choice today. If the author stops looking for the absolute best item, they'll find that it's a great world for the satisficing consumer. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/satisficing.asp

The wider selection is very often knockoff, quasi-fraudulent garbage dressed up in fake reviews that will drown out most of the transparent information you were hoping to find.

Overall, what you can buy with a little research is much better in 2019 than 1999, even with the lemons and fake reviews.

Re: Shopping Sucks Now

#140

Post by pests »

arkitaip wrote: post #55
jkhwleroiu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But reddit is flawed in a different way - it's extremely biased towards the trendy and the fashionable. For example if you search reddit for what computer mouse to buy, you'll be told that unless it weighs less than 70g and has holes, it's utter shit and not worth your money.

That's when you hit up r/builtForLifeMice... That's one of the strengths of Reddit: you can get ever increasingly niche with your community.

I was expecting a real sub ha! It wouldn't surprise me
Post reply on HN