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

The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

english.elpais.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 824 posts

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#231

Post by corimaith »

nfriedly wrote: post #188
simianparrot wrote: post #149

Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/even-with-fees-the-miracle-of... Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not say…

> I'm not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands. I think this needs to be repeated. People tend to think more expensive equals higher quality (I want this to be true!), and I think brands frequently take advantage of that to increase margins without significantly increasing quality. For example: I've been through th…

Expensive does mean higher quality if you know the right brands to pick*. Case in point, $180 for Sony Link Buds is pretty bad deal! There are much better options at the same price range like Apple Airpods, Samsung's AKG tuned Galaxy Buds or the higher end Sony XM4s or XM5.

Obviously there are many companies that do rely on branding to jack up prices like Beats or Marshal. But there are also companies that do no to little marketing and instead focus on craftsmanship where the majority of the cost is going into higher quality experience. And in those segments there isn't really some magical way to reduce costs. Akko is getting pretty popular, but their high-end IEMs like the Obsidian are still going to be in the same price-range as Sennheisers or AKG.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#232

Post by croisillon »

nfriedly wrote: post #188
simianparrot wrote: post #149

Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/even-with-fees-the-miracle-of... Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not say…

> I'm not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands. I think this needs to be repeated. People tend to think more expensive equals higher quality (I want this to be true!), and I think brands frequently take advantage of that to increase margins without significantly increasing quality. For example: I've been through th…

same here, i have been through several €50 Braun stabmixers which kept dying on me, the €8 no name one has now been working for over 10 years

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#233

Post by jonplackett »

layer8 wrote: post #176

Many comments here are arguing that quality has actually gone up over the past decades. However, a common experience for me is that I own something of good quality from 5/10/15 years ago and now buy the successor model from the same brand, but the product has gotten worse, being cheaper made. And I have a hard time finding a replacement that matches the quality of the old version. It’s a regularly reoccurring frustra…

Isn’t this all just Late Stage Calitalsm?

I don’t think it’s ‘efficiency’ in the same way spaceX is run. Yeah they cut costs, but they got better quality results.

With clothes / appliances etc we have reduced quality at our expense - while the companies doing it make more money than ever.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#234

Post by Spooky23 »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #108
raspasov wrote: post #43

"Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia." This statement suffers from either viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses or from total cultural relativism in the most pejorative sense. I'm not sure about 2003, but around 2009, I owned a Nokia N900, which was arguably the flagship Nokia phone at the time. I can confidently state that c…

I owned a Nokia in 2003. The battery lasted a week and they were virtually indestructible. The phone never crashed or reset, the keys were so reliable and well placed that I could text without looking at the screen. The phone did not get slower with age. None of these things can be said about my current smart phone. Granted it does a lot more, but the quality of the things it does do is much worse.

I have a 1960s western electric phone on my desk. Between calls it could be used to smash your Nokia into powder.

Does it matter? No. Those phones were built to purpose for their time. Sonim made/makes an Android phone that is approximately as durable as a Motorola radio for police. I used one for a bit, the speakerphone worked submerged, and it fell off a two story building when on a video call.

But it turns out nobody really wants that. When the technology for smartphone chips and displays matures, my guess is, like the tank Nokia, the iPhone Kevlar Edition will be the Nokia of 2035.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#235

Post by matthewdgreen »

danaris wrote: post #139
Xmd5a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Pirsig had a mental breakdown and spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals between 1961 and 1963. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with electroconvulsive therapy on numerous occasions >Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a book by Robert M. Pirsig first published in 1974. I'm afraid you're romanticizing the relationship between Pirsig's books and his life. That s…

While it may be true that Pirsig's mental breakdown had nothing to do with what went into the book, the facts you have presented here do not particularly support that conclusion. If his mental breakdowns had been, say, in 1976 and 1978, that would have supported it much better. But someone working on the philosophical underpinnings of a book for over a decade before the book is published is not at all unreasonable.

My primary memory of the book is that the author specifically ties together the quest for meaning and the loss of mental health, even within the book itself.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#237

Post by bsenftner »

Do not discuss "content" of this article, discuss the reasoning behind and the effect of this article. The author many not even realize this is a propaganda article, using a well known mechanism of "spray to dismay and therefore cripple". This article is a coordinated series of arguments that sum to the statement "you are powerless."

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#238

Post by microflash »

layer8 wrote: post #176

Many comments here are arguing that quality has actually gone up over the past decades. However, a common experience for me is that I own something of good quality from 5/10/15 years ago and now buy the successor model from the same brand, but the product has gotten worse, being cheaper made. And I have a hard time finding a replacement that matches the quality of the old version. It’s a regularly reoccurring frustra…

This has been especially pronounced in medical equipments where there’s this unnecessary race to introduce “digital experiences”. An example is hearing aids. A few years ago, it was relatively easy to get an analog model with dedicated volume buttons and off switch. Now, most of the models come without off switch and need Bluetooth pairing with an app installed on your phone. What used to be plug and play is now a clunky mess of hand offs between brittle components.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#239

Post by [deleted] »

moffkalast wrote: post #199
nfriedly wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands. I think this needs to be repeated. People tend to think more expensive equals higher quality (I want this to be true!), and I think brands frequently take advantage of that to increase margins without significantly increasing quality. For example: I've been through th…

Along that line of thought I've noticed this recently: I can buy an expensive tool for say $200 that will last me 10 years. Or I can buy a cheap tool that costs $20 but will only last me two years. But if I want to use that tool for the duration of 10 years it then makes more sense to buy five of the cheap tool and save half in costs. Which one is really providing more quality over time? For some things this doesn't…

[deleted]

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#240

Post by baq »

bamboozled wrote: post #207
xattt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E.g. the race to the bottom of the Billy bookcase. In the last 5 years, IKEA has started using plastic fasteners to secure the backing.

I break this promise from time to time, but every time I buy an IKEA product lately, I vow never to do it again.

IKEA has some of the best quality cheap furniture. To get something noticeably better you need to spend at least 2x for any given item; 3-5x is common for not at all fancy stuff.
Post reply on HN