So it’s bad that now apart from high quality expensive option (which is still available!) you can also get cheaper, lower quality one?
Backpacks got worse on purpose
221–230 of 396 posts
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#222This is yet another instance of a weirdly specific domain that pops up and starts posting seemingly LLM-generated articles that follow a single pattern - in this case, how "they" made everything worse. We had a similar instance few days ago with smarterarticles.co.uk, and many others before that.
I get that this says something we might believe, but I don't think it's a good use of our time to engage with engineered nerd-bait that probably wasn't produced in good faith.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#223Talk to any Aussie tech workers you know and chances are they or their friend has a Crumpler backpack. (No affiliation just a big fan).
Originally created by a bike courier who sick of bags breaking sewed a bag out of the toughest material he could get, marine canvas. To this day they make somewhat indestructible, well designed, trendy well loved bags.
Also they have a lifetime warranty and repair policy that is very hard to beat. Maybe you’re not local, but you can tell these will be well made (and they really are)
https://www.crumpler.com/pages/repair
Not sure if they ship to the US. But worth a look if you are serious about excellent well made well design backpacks.
https://www.crumpler.com/collections/backpacks
I know so many Aussie tech folk who swear by the Crunpler Entity as their laptop bag of choice.
https://www.crumpler.com/products/entity?variant=44393825992...
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#224> JanSport still advertises a lifetime warranty...Go try to use it.
Literally every product with a lifetime warranty does this same game. It's best to read them as puffery.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#225While I personally find this kind of thing extremely annoying, to me, the main problem is the _difficulty_ of determining quality. The Donut media guys did a (relatively unscientific) video comparing a whole bunch of products from the 50s to modern day across several price points. What they found was that the things that "looked" the same now were simultaneously worse and also much cheaper. They also found that, if i…
Doesn't the problem of quality now being barely distinguishable mean that manufacturers would aim to fool consumers by setting high prices to low quality goods to mimic as high quality goods (which probably can't be cheap by definition)?
If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price This is what so many don't understand, especially among the youth / reddit crowd. They expect their $25 jeans to be equivalent quality to the $25 or even $100 jeans from 60 years ago, for some reason. There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and chea…
> They don't know that in 1970, in today's money, a fridge was ~$4000, a burger and fries was $17, and a typical dress was $350. The Internet Archive claims to have Sears Catalogues from many years including 1970. If we check out Spring/Summer 1970, we can see that they actually have the first 33 pages of a catalogue that prominently advertises "index begins on page 391". Disappointing. That said, a women's dress fro…
My source was https://thewarwhoop.com/9677/news/average-cost-of-dresses-th... but either source supports the point; you can get Temu dresses for a lot less than $100 now.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#227I spent way too much money on a Peak Design backpack. 4 years in, the zipper broke. They honored the lifetime warranty, and swapped me for a brand new one. That was my first time ever dealing with such a high-end product and a lifetime warranty. Just sharing because it was a good experience.
Hah, around the time of COVID, I was in SF renewing my Australian passport. Went into the Peak Design store, and was talking about my V1 Backpack, and the employee there was basically intimating that [my extremely trivial issue], if it somehowwww got just a little worse, would be covered by their lifetime warranty and also, just FYI, since we're out of stock on them, I'd get a V2 instead.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#228> I'll be writing about those next. I doubt it, you didn't write about this! You prompted it and signed your name to it.
I missed this but now that you point it out, seems plausible. Pretty ironic on an article about quality products being replaced by cheaper ones.
I envy you, I can’t even read more than a few paragraphs because this style of adding catchy sentences to make you go „wow“ every few sentences is so annoying.
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#229While I personally find this kind of thing extremely annoying, to me, the main problem is the _difficulty_ of determining quality. The Donut media guys did a (relatively unscientific) video comparing a whole bunch of products from the 50s to modern day across several price points. What they found was that the things that "looked" the same now were simultaneously worse and also much cheaper. They also found that, if i…
Doesn't the problem of quality now being barely distinguishable mean that manufacturers would aim to fool consumers by setting high prices to low quality goods to mimic as high quality goods (which probably can't be cheap by definition)? If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.
I personally think many clothing brands are doing this. You absolutely cannot assume higher price points mean higher quality anymore
Re: Backpacks got worse on purpose
#230I gritted my teeth and bought a GoRuck GR1 a year ago. If it fell into a volcano, which is what it might take to destroy it, I’d buy another one. It’s still possible to find “buy it for life” backpacks but be prepared for eye-watering price tags.
I used my employer's fitness stipend to buy a GoRuck GR2, and I have no regrets. There is just a level of build quality that I desperately wish I could find in the other fitness and travel items I buy.