Parable of the Sofa • Hacker News Board

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#281

Post by izacus » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #87

concordDance wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. Things like Consumer Reports and Which are supposed to full this niche but they only assess big brands (and are probably under used by people).

Doesn't help you at all when the company waits until the review is done (possibly speeding it up by soliciting independent reviews early), and then swaps out the components and manufacturing process for cheaper, worse one, without changing the product name and the SKU. Big brands have already been caught red-handed doing it; most recent big story I recall was about hard drives.

This also assumes that there is actual competition to be compared, but corporations are surprisingly bandwagony.

E.g. look at phone, car, TV or any other similar markets and just how homogenous they became.

Heck, my mobile phone reviewers are outright quitting because that whole billion $ market is pretty much stagnant.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#282

Post by nakedneuron » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

card_zero wrote: post #159

nakedneuron wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the connection to intentionally banking on lower quality across the board here.

Well yeah, there's no potential to cheat the environment by pretending to be fit (as somebody already commented), except mimicry is a way to do that (as also already mentioned). But you can be successfully unconcerned about quality, hoping for returns on rare successes, like with the Chinese Santa snowglobes mentioned elsewhere in the comments.

Could you point to the example you mentioned, I couldn't find it.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#283

Post by nakedneuron » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

lovemenot wrote: post #223

nakedneuron wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is true, there are billions of convenient examples everybody knows. Also there are things that have a lot less variables than a table. I'm not convinced. (I don't thing so.)

I will bite. How do these multi-thousand-year furniture lobbyists continue to conspire to successfully frame our contemporary ideas toward their agenda?

Thanks for biting. But I'm also serious.

Some evidence that I'm not joking, two more or less prominent examples...

From Roger Penrose's "The road to reality", chapter 1.3 "Is Plato's mathematical world ‘real’?":

"I am aware that there will still be many readers who find difficulty with assigning any kind of actual existence to mathematical structures. Let me make the request of such readers that they merely broaden their notion of what the term ‘existence’ can mean to them. The mathematical forms of Plato’s world clearly do not have the same kind of existence as do ordinary physical objects such as tables and chairs. They do not have spatial locations; nor do they exist in time."

"Do Chairs Exist?" by Vsauce, ~11M views: https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE

"How" you ask.. I think we need to trace back when philosophers started to hit on that meme. I think the "multi-thousand-year furniture lobbyists" started to jump on the bandwagon from there and things co-evolved after that. I am determined to solve that humandkind-old mystery.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#284

Post by wazoox » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #185

wazoox wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you're talking of massively freeloading social an environmental costs of humongous size onto other people and places. Sure, "flatpack sawdust and glue" furniture made by slave labour while destroying rainforests and dumping toxic waste is cheap for you and right now ... But that can't last and won't last.

Sofa manufacture is not what's destroying rainforests or dumping toxic waste. And "flatpack sawdust" is better for the environment, actually -- where do you think all those leftover wood scraps would be going if they weren't mixed with glue and used productively? If you want to be using solid pieces of wood in everything, that's a lot more trees you're going to have to cut down.

My late grandmother had some pieces of furniture that were between 300 and 400 year old. We need less stuff and particularly less new stuff. A 400 year-old wardrobe ("armoire normande") is exactly as good as any new one to store your clothes, has much more character, and may still be just as good in the centuries to come.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#285

Post by wrs » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

fnordpiglet wrote: post #177

wodenokoto wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same thing. So, how is that story going to help me? Apparently, I can't buy a sofa of this quality any more, and if I want it fixed, I apparently have to go to Canada.

You can actually buy sofas of quality. The easiest way is to go to the local design center (most cities have one and if you’re not in a city you can drive to the closest and visit) and you’ll often find many retailers selling high quality furniture. It’s the stuff that’s kind of expensive but not so heavily styled as to incur a crazy premium just for looking expensive. You will be able to see it as it’ll look like Ti…

Read the Dwell article referenced in the article to learn that the whole ecosystem of the North Carolina furniture industry is dying out rapidly due to the onslaught of cheap, light, shippable, assemble-at-destination flatpack furniture.

We have a 20-year-old quality sofa from a major NC company that we got reupholstered by them last year, just before they went out of business.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#286

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #268

mbravorus wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outcompeting? Hell no. Eliminating - sure.

It's the same thing when the outcome is that they "win".

It's not.

Lifestyle business has benefits B1, B2, B3, and cons C1, C2, C3.

VC/PE talks a lot about C1, C2, C3 and promotes its business that also has benefits B1 and B2.

Amidst the deceitful noise, people forget about B3 and migrate to the VC/PE backed thing.

Lifestyle business folds.

Society/people lose B3.

This is not out competing. It's just bullshit.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#287

Post by Arn_Thor » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

Micoloth wrote: post #110

Every time I read takes like this I think people forget why big brands exist? Small business (or “lifestyle business”) vs big brand is often framed about being high quality vs cheap price, because in practice it often is. But in theory the two things are completely unrelated. Yes fixing stuff is good for the planet. But big brands could offer customer service just fine if people wanted it. Small business vs big brand…

A key problem is that when people make purchasing decisions, price ranks extremely high on the priority list, even when it will be costlier and worse for the consumer in the long run. Capitalism has found a thousand ways to exploit that inherent trait we all share, and we have to work damn hard to counteract it—-and most people won’t even know they should be making that effort.

A lifestyle business isn’t elitist, nor necessarily for elitist customers. It is in most people’s interest to invest in quality, but not everyone can afford it and even among those that do, the final price tag has an undue weight in the equation. (Not to mention that big brands are removing quality as an option even in the higher price ranges)

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#288

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #225

photon_lines wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The point of the article is that the big business model is "continued growth", which depends on constantly increasing sales, which means products necessarily get shittier so that they must be replaced more frequently.' - Sorry to interject here, but this is extremely wrong and nowhere did I find this take-away from the posted article. There are massive businesses that do sell extremely high-quality products - in fac…

The problem isn't just short-term thinking. You alluded to another point yourself: > Looks great on the outside Consumers aren't often equipped to evaluate quality, partly due to skill issues, partly because the corners are cut in places which are hard to spot before purchase. Price doesn't work as a discriminating factor (except to filter out a portion of the worst inventory) because of the number of brands explicit…

> Consumers aren't often equipped to evaluate quality, partly due to skill issues

Maybe, maybe not. But regardless, in parallel to this, we have corporations whose modus operandi is at worst to lie to consumers about quality, and at best to mislead. And not just about specific products, but about quality as a general concept.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#289

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:40 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #200

Folks, not everything is “late stage capitalism.” Furniture repair has been the domain of small businesses forever. And they are in crappy little out of the way places because that’s where real estate is cheap, and they don’t need foot traffic. Customers come find them when they need furniture repaired. Furniture repair is also not a “lifestyle business.” That phrase is not a synonym for small business. Furniture rep…

I don't fundamentally disagree with what you've written here, but the reality is that we don't have any idea from TFA just what sort of situation Luxcious is actually in.

They may be a "just getting by" furniture repair shop, or they may make easily as much as the owners want it to, and in the meantime provides work that they and their employees (if there are any other than the owners) find interesting and/or rewarding.

This exists too (even if it may indeed not be the norm).

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#290

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jun 02, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

seer wrote: post #247

istultus wrote: post #171

Let me posit an ad-hoc theory built on our anchoring bias in regards to price and our inability to think in terms of inflation/hyperbolic discounting: tl;dr - Once a cheap alternative is on the market, us frugal folks can't imagine paying for what was once the default and only option, distorting our understanding of what constitutes good quality * He says buying a new sofa of the same quality today would cost upwards…

I don't know why HN has the idea that IKEA is cheap trash - yes some of the things in their catalog are not very high quality, but they seem to be very consistent. But more importantly (for me), because they have such a huge catalog, and a propensity to optimise, they ended up with a supremely hackable furniture - everything fits together with everything else, whenever you want to build something - there are tons of…

Ikea stuff with metal parts: grab it and keep it.

Ikea stuff with solid wood parts: if you really like it, it's probably good value.

Ikea stuff with manufactured wood parts: you'd better really like, because it probably won't last that long or that well.