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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#301

Post by hollerith »

joenot443 wrote: post #287
deadbabe wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most 2020s cars are completely unaffordable or overpriced and over engineered but maybe by 2040s this will be largely solved. The 2010s was peak car.

Since 2018 every new car needs a rearview backup camera. Since 2022, AEB's been included, too. Fuel economy and emissions standards are also considerably stricter than they were 10 years ago. The list goes on, and on, and on. I think it's completely fair to say we haven't gotten worse at making cheap cars, we've just legislated them out of existence.

AEB == Autonomous Emergency Braking

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#302

Post by bee_rider »

Gigachad wrote: post #284
AndrewDavis wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up and started buying $4 rshirts. Why? Because each year the clothes I'd buy were were on quality than my previous clothes. When buying a $4 shirt I know the price:quality ratio, it's cheap:crap. Whereas majority of the time buying more expensive it might be slightly better, but it's still expensive:crap.

Try Uniqlo. Their $20 shirts have lasted me years. I haven’t thrown a single one out yet and I just have got around 90 uses out of some of the older ones so far.

Huh, that’s a funny number. I guess since we cycle through our laundry, that’s a couple years of use?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#303

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

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.

The buy for life alternative is only ever an option if you are a home owner. I would not want to move with the massive furniture of my parents.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#304

Post by rapnie »

jonplackett wrote: post #233
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.

Processed foods is another example. Reconstructing well-known food products with cheapest materials. If it still tastes and looks somewhat familiar, its a go.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#305

Post by layer8 »

wwfn wrote: post #292
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…

I think that's a good take. Market pressure for durability decreases with brand awareness. Though I think the article argues there's little market pressure regardless. I'm also worried it's all survivorship bias. If you acquired 100 items in 2010 and 5 of them lasted until 2025, it's hard to say if the 5 surviving would be the same 5 from another household or if the items you still have were all on the hardier end of…

I wouldn’t mind that much if switching to another brand/model would solve the problem. But sometimes I order half a dozen of the most well-reviewed alternatives, and they are all worse in some way in comparison.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#307

Post by [deleted] »

nativeit wrote: post #164
blueflow wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked the question because i thought it was good manners to do so. Actually I'm strongly convinced that quality describes how a thing fits the preconceptions about that thing. As testable example, I'm largely unable to tell the quality of beer as i never enjoyed any of it, and thus could not have developed a preconception of how a good beer is supposed to taste.

Trappist quad ales feature a high alcohol content, which makes them sweet but somehow not cloyingly so. Robust Belgian yeasts generate a surprising amount of effervescence, which keeps things light despite the heavy doses of malted barley, and produce esters that generate flavors of banana bread and dark stone fruits that compliment latent notes of burnt sugars and caramel. That’s a pretty standard description of som…

[deleted]

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#308

Post by calrain »

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…

Everyone has their own way of measuring quality.

Mine is that a Billy bookcase that I bought from Ikea 25 years ago is must stronger and more stable than a Billy bookcase I bought from Ikea 5 years ago.

And, when looking at what Ikea is selling in 2025 as a Billy bookcase, it's worse yet again.

But, with the cost of living increasing, companies have to cut corners to keep pricing down.

I wonder where the inflection point is where used items become more valuable than the new items being made at current quality levels, including degradation due to age.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#309

Post by II2II »

AndrewDavis wrote: post #248
bamboozled wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also interesting, as you said, that everyone seems to want to defend crap. It's like corporations keep spreading the idea that you're always getting more for your money and everyone just seems to parrot that verbatim. My life is a constant struggle when it comes to finding nice things.

I gave up and started buying $4 rshirts. Why? Because each year the clothes I'd buy were were on quality than my previous clothes. When buying a $4 shirt I know the price:quality ratio, it's cheap:crap. Whereas majority of the time buying more expensive it might be slightly better, but it's still expensive:crap.

I remember a number of years back when people were equating the feeling of sturdy and heft with quality. Just feelings. No actual metrics. I would constantly look down at my beaten up plastic junk and shake my head. At least my junk still worked. Everyone else seemed to be replacing their stuff all the time because their favourite products were only designed to give the illusion of quality. In reality, the very things that gave those products the illusion of quality were diminishing the longevity of the product or ensuring that it could not withstand any abuse.
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