Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical • Hacker News Board

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#21

Post by lupinglade » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #18

lupinglade wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, crappy knock-off products aren't going to be the right tool for most jobs and will fail when you need them most. The trick to not being owned by your possessions is to only own what you really, truly need. Further, buying low-quality throw-away type products ends up supporting the greedy, lazy low-quality manufacturers. We all end up with only junk for choice. And as @desine already commented: all…

Depends what you use them for. > The trick to not being owned by your things is to only own what you really, truly need. I don't think that is quite right. Let's say you need a button down shirt for work. So you only buy 5, custom tailored shirts out of high quality materials. You have bought a minimal amount, and you really do need those shirts. When you are eating, are you not worried about getting ketchup on your…

Shirts are more of a disposable product, they normally don't last very long. So the difference between the cheap knock off and proper quality isn't that significant. Although you probably don't want to be wearing the cheapest alibaba shirt to an important business meeting.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#22

Post by chakerb » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

I genuinely dont understand the reason behind hijacking right-click (long press on phone). I'm using a slow internet, and I'm used to open multiple tabs so I can only wait for one and then go through all of them. So I'm eager to understand if this is done to stop people from copying from the site or there's another reason behind it.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#23

Post by dang » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

thih9 wrote: post #16

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558941

Also these threads:

Show HN: I calculated the monthly cost of ownership for products - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26525183 - March 2021 (2 comments)

Show HN: Summarizing product reviews into simple bullet-point lists with GPT-3 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26224784 - Feb 2021 (41 comments)

Review broken products instead of new ones - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810708 - Jan 2021 (121 comments)

Show HN: Recurring reviews to track the whole lifecycle of a product - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558891 - Dec 2020 (61 comments)

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#24

Post by float4 » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

lupinglade wrote: post #19

bushbaba wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always amazed me that high carbon steel / cast iron / stainless steel pans aren’t more commonly used. You literally are buying it for life. They cook the food way better. And a small amount of oil is all that’s needed for eggs and other non stick applications

They cook the best too - a good carbon steel pan is worth its weight in gold. Non-stick is utter garbage in comparison - and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating. Food cooked on carbon steel or iron tastes so much better.

> and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating

There are actually ceramic non-stick pans, in which case you'd be eating sand if I understand the concept correctly.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#25

Post by zmmmmm » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly, as I've accumulated more wealth).

I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount of the garbage I bought earlier and I hate it.

So where I used to go into shops and look at all the expensive items with scorn and think "what idiots must there be who buy all these things that are twice the price!", now I go in and actively try to find out "but is there an even more expensive one I could get with higher quality?"

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#26

Post by m463 » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #2

One thing I have found, is that buying stuff that is supposed to last for life, ends up making the possessions own me, instead of me own the possessions. Especially with kids, when I have disposable objects, I don't have to worry if they trash it, or get it dirty. I don't have to worry about losing it(I can order a replacement on Amazon that will be here in 2 days). With long-lasting products that are for life, I fin…

yeah, there should be some products where "buy it for life" might be... just don't buy one.

Do you really need a cast iron frying pan? They seem to be over-represented in this category because they don't break. But iron in your diet is not that good for you if you're male because it accumulates.

Another thing to be wary of is "buy this best stuff" lists are easy money, people will curate your lists for you, then you just link to amazon and hoarding behavior does the rest.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#27

Post by lupinglade » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

float4 wrote: post #24

lupinglade wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They cook the best too - a good carbon steel pan is worth its weight in gold. Non-stick is utter garbage in comparison - and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating. Food cooked on carbon steel or iron tastes so much better.

> and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the coating There are actually ceramic non-stick pans, in which case you'd be eating sand if I understand the concept correctly.

Non-stick pans do not last. The ceramic coating option is terrible and everything will stick to it with a vengeance within about 6-8 months or so if you use it regularly - our experience with Cuisinart.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#28

Post by rolleiflex » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #17

tracer4201 wrote: post #4

Some of the product listings are not great. I see non stick skillets that I know won’t last than a year or two with moderate use. Otherwise I like the concept.

It’s always amazed me that high carbon steel / cast iron / stainless steel pans aren’t more commonly used. You literally are buying it for life. They cook the food way better. And a small amount of oil is all that’s needed for eggs and other non stick applications

I’ve bought into the cast iron hype a few years ago, and I have found it a little overhyped. There are several reasons why cast iron is not a common component of the average kitchen today. Here are mine:

- The non-stickiness of cast iron has probably been best in class in its age. Today, we have Teflon. Teflon is so non-stick we have trouble having it stick to the pan when making pans. My understanding is that nothing, especially nothing you’re likely to have in your kitchen, beats Teflon, ever. (Kenji Lopez-Alt, a well known chef and/or food scientist alongside being a cast iron fan, also attests to this: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-iro...)

- I’ve found that it does go against some of my (potentially hypochondriac) cleaning tendencies. Essentially, you can wash it and I think you can use soft soaps, but you can’t really actually scrub it with a hard sponge if you want to get the food out fully. It seems that the carbonisation of food and polymerisation of oil in a layer cake is in fact the thing gives the cast iron its nonstick properties. To someone used to the convivial shine of stainless steel, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Cast iron is cool, and I’m sure it has its uses, but as someone who only dabbles in kitchen stuff, I’ve found it very inconvenient and frustrating to use.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#29

Post by lupinglade » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #25

It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly, as I've accumulated more wealth). I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount of the…

It's not always the price too, often enough the higher quality item can be cheaper, just less of a fancy package maybe. A lot of companies blow all their budget on advertising and packaging instead of product quality and research. Knowledge is key. Especially be careful in stores like TJ Maxx, Home-sense and such -- lots of lowest quality fancy packaged junk to be had there.

Re: Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical

#30

Post by jeffbee » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

wyager wrote: post #7

One really nice thing about safety-critical activities is that the equipment tends to be made to extremely high standards and usually lasts a very long time. If you buy equipment for climbing, shooting, scuba diving, etc. you can reasonably expect that it's made to a very exacting standard (almost certainly in the US, Japan, or Europe) and will last many years (with well-defined consumable components and maintenance…

You probably just have a decent budget for guns and haven't seen the dodgy ones. The market is flooded with garbage that I would not even consider firing.