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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?

#31

Post by Mindless2112 »

cheschire wrote: post #18
chrisweekly wrote: post #4

... or things that work at all? (eg humidifiers, at various price points, maybe 40% of which are even functional when first unboxed)

Were your humidifiers just not good at making air moist? Or were they completely non-functional? Technology Connections had a good video on the quality of humidifiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHeehYYgl28

I bought the one he didn't like (the electrode boiler) after watching that video (and his tear-down video [1]). (I have hard water and have had trouble with ultrasonic humidifiers.) It works great! You do have to descale it regularly to keep it going.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC9-t47tKts

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

#32

Post by jotm »

zabzonk wrote: post #8

> Why is it hard to buy things that work well? Asks someone that posts a giant wall of unreadable text.

Haha, yeah, but actually it reminded me of old Web pages. Just text, format it however you want (make the product good yourself!), nothing in the way, just the content.

I'm surprised how much I've gotten used to fancy websites, colors and formatting.

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

#33

Post by jotm »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #2

Because we have unreasonable expectations. Making things work well is hard, and thus expensive. Take a chair, for example. Anyone can make a chair: just get a bucket, turn it over, and sit on it. Boom; backless chair. Want a backrest, arms? Get a 2x4, a saw, a drill, and some bolts. An hour later: Boom; chair. You want a chair that works well? How do you even define works well for a chair? Do you need cushioning? Do…

No post body was provided.

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

#35

Post by asdff »

giantg2 wrote: post #28
user3939382 wrote: post #14

Consumers have by and large come to believe that price matters more than anything, so the free market economy of goods has naturally optimized for that priority.

Or through the erosion of real wages over the past 50 years, consumers have been more or less forced into buying lower priced items. And was this not the promise of free trade and globalization - cheap stuff? Edit: why downvote?

Cheap stuff that used to be wood or metal and last for 100 years has turned into plastic cheap stuff that you write a nyt column about if it manages to survive the demands of regular expected usage for 1 year.

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

#36

Post by sjg007 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #15
maxerickson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 2 for 2 on humidifiers (1 ultrasonic, 1 wick evaporative). What fails on them?

I foolishly bought one off the top of the best-seller list at Amazon a couple years ago. It was like $35 and came with a little card that said "Hey, if you give us a 5 star review and send proof to SHADY_EMAIL_ADDRESS@gmail we'll give you a $25 Amazon gift card!" It did work reasonably well, but if you failed to clean it and fully dry it out within 6 hours of using it, it would get an INSANE mildew smell. Amazon of c…

You have to add bleach or humidistat to evaporative ones or keep them running full time. You also have to replace the media once a month or so. The steam ones are better imho.

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

#37

Post by Swizec »

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.

Look up "Things seen this week during structural inspections!" on imgur. Some truly horrifying stuff from that person.

For some of these foundations to still be standing and building occupants not to notice anything's wrong ... I can't even imagine how much safety factor is built-in. If we built software with those margins, nothing would ever ship.

Here's a few: https://imgur.com/gallery/Ko2jo4j

https://imgur.com/gallery/fD4jCdc

https://imgur.com/gallery/0JyOXy0

Sometimes they share pictures of foundations completely detached from anything. And it keeps working!

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

#38

Post by giantg2 »

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.

Many of those things mentioned have changed very little in decades. Some have also been under continuous improvement for hundreds or thousands of years.

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

#40

Post by emodendroket »

giantg2 wrote: post #38
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.

Many of those things mentioned have changed very little in decades. Some have also been under continuous improvement for hundreds or thousands of years.

Which?
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