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Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

danluu.com

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Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#131

Post by voxl »

FanaHOVA wrote: post #98

> You might think that, if a single person can create or maintain a tool that's worth millions of dollars a year to the company, our competitors would do the same thing, just like you might think that if you can ship faster and at a lower cost by hiring a person who knows how to crack a wafer open, our competitors would do that, but they mostly didn't. He mentions a small chip startup he worked at for these examples,…

You miss the point though, as the problem is two-sided. The consumer struggles to find a quality product because they simply don't know how. The producer also struggles to produce a quality product, because it's hard to know what the consumer really wants. The cheat is to sell brand instead, to market quality regardless of if it's actually there.

I would argue Apple is an example of a company that started with quality, established brand, and has been coasting off brand for a long while.

If buying and selling were a chess game, the ELO of the consumers would be very low, but the producers ELO is not much better, as they just learned a tricky opener and nothing else. Of course the real game is not two player and open information, but this only makes it worse for the consumer, and easier to fall into marketing schemes for the producer.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#132

Post by renewiltord »

The appendix is interesting because I have noticed that a lot. I think it might be because I'm on mostly American sites but it seems like any sort of "why can't we do this in America?" always has some sort of explanation why not. No one ever considers that the answer is "we could, actually, if someone chooses to do it". For instance, gigabit fibre in San Francisco was this impossible task if you ever asked someone. It would cost too much, SF is too old a city to trench, America is too big, etc.

In practice, all it took was a dude called Dane Jasper deciding that the barriers were mostly regulatory and he could beat it and boom! Sonic covers so much of the city in $60/mo symmetric fiber. I think people will still explain why it's impossible in SF.

Occasionally, and I am saddened that I haven't bookmarked these for later amusement, someone will ask "Why can't we do X here?" and people will come up with an explanation for why X would never work in America, etc. while I'll be sitting experiencing X here.

Perhaps that's the thing. Human beings have a very natural status quo bias and we have a very quick explain-why-this-is bias. So if you tell someone that Y is the case, they can come up with a posteriori explanations. But that's why good science is hard: you have to make a priori claims and then subject to hypothesis testing. And in normal conversation that is really hard.

I don't claim to be immune to this. But knowing it is a flaw is a better position than not knowing, I hope.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#134

Post by xmprt »

rascul wrote: post #97
chii wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an aeron chair costs about $2000 dollars (give or take). The construction is sturdy, so i expect it to last at least 10 years, if not 20 (you take care of it etc). So the amortized cost is some 100-200 dollars a year for an excellent chair. If you buy a crappy chair, i bet that the cushion starts failing after a year or so of constant sitting. So you'd probably replace it yearly, or suffer a bad chair for a few years…

My $60 office chair from Walmart has lasted five years so far.

Same for my $70 IKEA chair (which also survived 4 moves). I only stopped using it because my job let us take home the office chairs once work from home started a few years ago.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#135

Post by renewiltord »

chii wrote: post #44
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #2

Because we have unreasonable expectations. Making things work well is hard, and thus expensive. Take a chair, for example. Anyone can make a chair: just get a bucket, turn it over, and sit on it. Boom; backless chair. Want a backrest, arms? Get a 2x4, a saw, a drill, and some bolts. An hour later: Boom; chair. You want a chair that works well? How do you even define works well for a chair? Do you need cushioning? Do…

an aeron chair costs about $2000 dollars (give or take). The construction is sturdy, so i expect it to last at least 10 years, if not 20 (you take care of it etc). So the amortized cost is some 100-200 dollars a year for an excellent chair. If you buy a crappy chair, i bet that the cushion starts failing after a year or so of constant sitting. So you'd probably replace it yearly, or suffer a bad chair for a few years…

Well, personally, I have a lot of durable chairs, but I love my Aeron because the adjustability got me out of RSI. I don't mind replacing the chair every year if it would help me avoid RSI. I haven't had to, but I wouldn't mind. Durability in chairs seems to be easy.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#137

Post by jerry1979 »

angarg12 wrote: post #107

I just moved to the USA from the UK (having lived in Germany before) and the quality of the services I'm experiencing here is appalling. To get concrete, we submitted an application for an apartment let. After not hearing back for 4 days we reached out and it looks like somehow they misplaced our application. By then the unit we wanted was gone so they asked us to pay a holding fee to ensure they would keep another u…

Whereabouts do you live in the United States?

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#138

Post by bluGill »

titzer wrote: post #12
dragontamer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a reason why that's a comedy film instead of a serious take on modern consumerism. We have plenty of "indestructible" tools today. Cast Iron skillets, hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, ladders. Most furniture qualifies as well (though MDF-board crap exists, they still have a use. Its more efficient for a college-student to get disposable MDF-based crap for their dorms with a lifespan of ~4 years or les…

I'm amazed at how they keep trying to reinvent hammers. I have two. One good old one with a wooden handle and a steel head, and one with a super-ergonomic rubber/metal handle and a smaller, treated steel head. They both bang nails and both feel alright. If I need to wield one for hours, I can see the rubber handle being better, but I'll wear gloves if it's an issue with the other. Rubber handle will likely last < 20…

Take it from a former pro, get a wood handle. Steel lasts forever, but your arm won't. Fiberglass is a lot better than steel and will last a almost forever, but wood is cheap and the best for your joints.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#139

Post by emtel »

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t think Dan even attempts to answer the titular question! The article, while quite good, is just a very long list of things that suck, and anecdotes about people who tried to make things suck less.

I’ve thought about this question very often, and I think the answer does come back to the market efficiency argument that Dan ridicules at the beginning. I think in many cases, what the market provides is actually about as good as what the market can sustain.

Sure, most products have obvious flaws, and maybe you could fix them. But could you build a successful company solely on the basis of addressing those flaws? Sometimes, yes. Some products do get displaced by better alternatives. But can you expect that process to happen reliably, for all types of products, at all times? When you put it that way, I think it seems silly to expect the answer would be yes.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#140

Post by jseliger »

Strilanc wrote: post #88

It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. In particular, the comments seem mostly focused on consumer product build quality whereas the article is more focused on e.g. businesses trying to outsource something (like same day delivery) and getting a worse result even when they pay more than doing it internally. And the cultural obstacle…

It's like most people don't read carefully or for comprehension: https://jakeseliger.com/2022/01/31/most-people-dont-read-car...

(A few of the replies I've gotten purely answered the title and didn't discuss the content.)

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