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Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

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

#271

Post by watwut »

klodolph wrote: post #201
TOMDM wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree some people hide behind uncertainty and "weasel" in order to avoid accountability for anything they say. What that requires though is they caveat everything. I really respect people who say they are 99% sure and 60% sure when appropriate. It requires a level of honesty not just to the audience but to the self to admit openly what you are and aren't sure about.

Is it more honest? Or is it just more self-centered, or more defensive, or more timid? Are you admitting that you aren’t sure about something, or are you brazenly assuming that people care about how confident you are about things, or are you defensively trying to say the least possible? Framing this as a matter of “honesty” is, well reductive. Your confidence is irrelevant to the discussion, unless there’s some parti…

> Is it more honest? Or is it just more self-centered, or more defensive, or more timid?

Yes it is more honest. Pretending certainty where you don't have none is lying and pretty often has exact that effect. It is way more egoistic and self centered to act with certainty just so you dont look "defensive" or "timid".

Because then you are exchanging truth for feeling good from appearing strong.

> are you brazenly assuming that people care about how confident you are about things, or are you defensively trying to say the least possible?

This does not make any sense as accusation. You are expressing level of confidence. You can do that independently of whether "people care". It is also perfectly OK to defensively say the least possible. Literally nothing wrong with that.

Aggressively saying maximum, even if you know it is likely half truth at best, is much much worst.

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

#272

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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 is very common to see HN commenters only address the title not the contents of the web page, a genuine phenomenon IMO.

Experiment: No titles, just URLs. What would happen.

I have some experience with this as I freqently stream edit HTTP response bodies to make customised web pages using only simple HTML wrapped around only the data I am interested in, no cruft. For example, when I do web searches I process the response, i.e., the SERP, into simplified HTML, e.g., [url]. I do not include titles.

Titles can be descriptive and helpful, however I find most times they are a distraction. Think about the "clickbait" tactic. It is heaviliy reliant on misleading titles.

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

#273

Post by hobs »

Retric wrote: post #95
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #59

Looking through old Sears catalogs and seeing the prizes on older game shows, I think some of our memory is selective. Even in photos and SD video you can see the terrible build quality on many consumer products from those earlier times. This seems to be especially true for furniture and exercise equipment. When you convert into current dollars, this low quality junk often is more expensive than what is available tod…

Looking like crap says very little about utility. It’s standard practice to reduce safety margins when build quality increases. If you think in terms of expected lifespan, when the company has little control over how long things last and wants a minimum of say 1 year then some fail at 1 year and some fail after 20. As their process improves the minimum stays the same, but maximum lifespan decreases.

"Value Engineering" - make the same thing, but at half the cost, eventually you get chip bags filled with air and reduced by 1.5 oz margins until the profit matches what's needed.

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

#274

Post by watwut »

klodolph wrote: post #167
jseliger wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Most people can’t. “Read carefully or for comprehension” would probably translate to level 4/5 prose literacy skills in the NCES NAAL (National Center for Education Statistics National Assessment of Adult Literacy). Recent survey puts this group (level 4/5) at 12% of the adult population. Levels 4 and 5 are no longer separated because of the small percentage of people that fall into group 5. Level 4 tasks require you…

> Just to make up an example, think about the last time you sent an email to someone that had two questions in it.

Pretty often they are answering easy question and leaving the harder one sleep. Pretty often, the goal is to get rid of you email as fast as possible so that they can go back to what they actually want to be doing.

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

#275

Post by JoachimSchipper »

dotancohen wrote: post #265
roland35 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more expensive up front but probably cheaper in the long run!

Just like a quality automobile, to bring the discussion closer to the article. For example, a Tesla Model 3 might cost more than a Hyundai I10, but after three years of ownership you've not had to change the oil, fill it with gas, get the tailpipe emissions inspected, possibly see the catalytic converter stolen, etc. And the difference in maintenance only grows from there, when the plugs and timing belt and seals and…

Ehm, doesn’t Tesla have famously bad quality control in several areas, e.g. fit of body panels? EVs, as a category, need less maintenance - but Tesla’s are not an example of a trouble-free product!

(They are legitimately cool though!)

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

#276

Post by JoachimSchipper »

ncmncm wrote: post #228
NickNameNick wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that makes the slow Denise of Sears/Craftsman particularly unfortunate then.

What?

Your parent comment has an autocorrect error, and meant to write demise (death).

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

#277

Post by onion2k »

yrral wrote: post #16

I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.

These are all things that most people never notice because they just work.

Taking the example of grocery store logistics, the number of times products are unavailable in my local store makes me thing that's a thing that doesn't "just work". It's something that breaks down regularly, and possibly has lots of people working hard to keep it from breaking even more often.

The same is true for lots of things. Stuff like water delivery and silicon manufacturing doesn't break all the time because lots of people are fighting to make it work, and are actively maintaining it all the time.

I think it's possible that most things don't "just work", and we're just fortunate that there are teams of people out there stopping us seeing the effects of all the failures.

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

#278

Post by hutrdvnj »

yrral wrote: post #16

I think it's that you don't notice things that work well. House foundations, light switches, filesystems, silicon manufacturing, water delivery, grocery store logistics, etc etc etc. These are all things that most people never notice because they just work. It doesn't even occur to people day-to-day that these things can fail.

To be precise, that depends on the actual filesystem. But ext4 works really well.

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

#279

Post by Ma8ee »

makeitdouble wrote: post #114
______-_-______ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, 90% of everything is crap, both then and now. And thanks to Lindy's Law, you're usually better off buying something old than something new. But that's not how most people think :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

In personal experience things were more crappy then than now. The explaining factor could be that production techniques have evolved as a whole, and less manual steps harmonizes the quality of cheap goods. To take IKEA as an example, their table were really bad 20 years ago, and the only option was to either buy from another flatpack company, that was often worse (assembly would need like 50 screws for a single table…

IKEA always have had a range of different quality products. You could buy cheap stuff that didn't last or you could more expensive stuff that last 20 or 30 years ago as well as today.

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

#280

Post by kreddor »

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #275
dotancohen wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like a quality automobile, to bring the discussion closer to the article. For example, a Tesla Model 3 might cost more than a Hyundai I10, but after three years of ownership you've not had to change the oil, fill it with gas, get the tailpipe emissions inspected, possibly see the catalytic converter stolen, etc. And the difference in maintenance only grows from there, when the plugs and timing belt and seals and…

Ehm, doesn’t Tesla have famously bad quality control in several areas, e.g. fit of body panels? EVs, as a category, need less maintenance - but Tesla’s are not an example of a trouble-free product! (They are legitimately cool though!)

Also, I've driven a Hyundai i10 for the last 10 years and it's been very reliable. Maybe because I don't drive that much to begin with, but still.
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