171–180 of 471 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are probably all made with the same guts from one or two manufacturers. Same with microwaves, nearly every model from $100 to $5000 is made by Midea. (Source: Wirecutter)
What can a $5,000 microwave do?
(Ok, fair, that's only $2,500)
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 lea…
Wow. My 13 hit 79% battery health after only 2 years of use, so clearly Apple products aren’t immune from this phenomena either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a mind-boggling anecdote. As an example, Crate and Barrel are known to make good, high-quality couches, and many of them are far less than $5000
I think you and the parent likely have different standards of quality. Crate and Barrel makes nicer couches but they're still made the same way with the same materials as what you get from Value City Furniture. They're still engineered wood, polyblend fabric and filling, and "genuine" leather. It's really hard to find anything non-antique that uses better materials or craftsmanship. They do exist and I own a few piec…
Author neglects selection bias: antiques that stopped working after 1 or 5 or 10 years have been in landfills for a long time. My grandfather (1922-2006) opined: "Some folks say things aren't made like they used to be. But I remember those junky old cars that would break down every 50 or 100 miles. I remember that unreliable crap. I'd far rather have a modern car, even if I can't fix it." (He was more of a carpenter…
I’ve had to buy a lot of furniture and other things for my new house this year, and one of the things that really sticks out to me is that practically every category of product seems to be split into a bimodal distribution: cheap crap & luxury boutique. There are practically no entries occupying the middle of the market that are on the basic end regarding features & frills but also high-quality. It’s incredibly annoy…
That's a mind-boggling anecdote. As an example, Crate and Barrel are known to make good, high-quality couches, and many of them are far less than $5000
So this tells me that the price for a sofa (that is made domestically and not slapped together from particle board, a half inch of foam, and about 4 springs) has gone up by 25-30%. And I think you're saying that therefore, this isn't an utterly crazy price hike. I'd agree it's modest.
Thing is, I think what's changed is demographics. In 1990, a LOT of people bought furniture at a department store or furniture store. They could afford it, but also here's the interesting part: It was much more rare then to find a $250 sofa. If that was your budget, you just bought a used good sofa and you probably got a better product. When super cheap everything appeared in the late 90s, it drove out the good manufactured goods, and many of the stores that sold those good items. People felt like buying the quality of things they used to buy would be extravagant, since they could buy an IKEA or Walmart version for less than half, and also, many families started to be worse off financially than their parents' generation had been, adding to their feelings of frugality. Unfortunately, this crap is so shoddy in most cases that it's actually more expensive when you factor in its lifetime.
[1] https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalogPage/1990-JCP...
* Some present-day comparisons:
- https://www.jcpenney.com/p/signature-design-by-ashley-camila...
- https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/paerup-sofa-gunnared-beige-s293...
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…
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…
I don't buy the survivorship bias thing for the most part. My mother has her original dryer, washer, deep freezer, and refrigerator all running at her house. These are all 40+ years old except for the washer which is probably 30ish years old. Also her furnace + water heater are 40 years old. If it was survivorship bias some of these appliances would've died.
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…
Either I'm having insanely good luck or I have extremely low expectations of a toaster, but I genuinely don't understand how a toaster does "bad job". What were the issues you were having?
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…
I don't buy the survivorship bias thing for the most part. My mother has her original dryer, washer, deep freezer, and refrigerator all running at her house. These are all 40+ years old except for the washer which is probably 30ish years old. Also her furnace + water heater are 40 years old. If it was survivorship bias some of these appliances would've died.
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…
Everyone is saying "survivorship bias" but I don't think its that easy. How is survivorship biased by reparability? Is the widget still considered more durable if it breaks but can be fixed? I would say so.