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Parable of the Sofa

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Re: Parable of the Sofa

#311

Post by pokerface_86 »

brewdad wrote: post #258
drrotmos wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you allow a person to buy a $800 sofa which looks great on the outside and is made in China albeit with extremely low quality materials vs. a sofa which looks almost exactly the same but is priced at $1500 but is of much higher quality - most consumers will obviously choose the $800 dollar sofa vs the $1500 since that's how the free-market functions. Is this rational though? This is rarely the choice though. In…

I bought a sofa from a local builder a few years ago for around $2500. The frame is well built but the cushions lost their original shape within 6 months. All told, I'd rather have the sturdy sofa that looks a bit sloppy over a sofa that will break if more than three friends sit on it but I'd really rather have a sturdy one that still looks great after five years. Maybe next time.

you can buy high foam density replacement cushions for relatively cheap online if you want to replace them

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#312

Post by iraqmtpizza »

stana wrote: post #89
GolfPopper wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framing of 'government bureaucrat' vs. 'consumer choice' is at best misleading. As lordnacho pointed out, such a free market only works for consumers when the consumers have real agency. We exist in a state of immense information asymmetry, where vendors have immense advantages over the buyers. (Immense resources focused on highly misleading marketing vs. individual expertise, with attempts by consumers to organi…

Yes. We are heavily manipulated by the media to think that we need 20 brands of deodorant. I think this is the subject of Herman/Chomsky book "Manufacturing Consent" (from a more political angle but I think applies to advertising as well) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent (edited typo)

[dead]

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#313

Post by thrance »

tristor wrote: post #260
thrance wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. What I meant to convey, is that I (personally) don't believe the exploitation part was necessary in the (undeniable) uplifting of the average Chinese. And that a lot of Chinese workers are still alienated, putting upwards of 12 hours a day on soul-crushing jobs. I believe there are more effective ways of lifting populations out of poverty.

> I believe there are more effective ways of lifting populations out of poverty. I think you may be right. Unfortunately, what I have observed is that every attempt otherwise so far has failed. I think any approach which requires strong social and philosophical alignment will fail within a few generations, because the intrinsic motivation of humans includes an element of greed that seems impossible to stamp out. Syst…

I refuse to believe humans are fundamentally greedy. Primitive societies where built on favors and sharing, after all. We just live in an economic system that rewards greed and (some) anti-social behaviors.

As for other ways to get out of poverty, we could compare China with South Korea, for example. The latter implemented rather protectionist standards on exports, and as a result was able to focus its economy on improving the country. As it stands now, a lot of Chinese citizens are still dirt poor while South Koreans can almost (economically) rival with citizens of the global North.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#314

Post by geodel »

Lio wrote: post #31
roughly wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge right now is that even the expensive stuff is cheap shit. It’s goddamn near impossible to actually assess the quality of an item you’re purchasing, and the only guarantee is that if it’s a good quality product today, someone will recognize the brand has equity and financial engineer it into crap tomorrow.

This is the MBA curse. Some bright spark will recognise that they can make a short term profit by cheapening the product but retaining the high price. ...but if they don't then other firms selling crappy (but "good enough") products cheap will still drive quality products out of the market. To stay even slight competitive quality manufacturers will avoid investing in new processes or equipment so that they can sell w…

There is same story from Sofa to software. Though in here and many other tech oriented forums there is pretty popular support for crappy, slow, buggy software. Sometimes even with this hilarious veiled thread that imagine what would happen if this software would not even exist if it were not of this quality? No one really told them that world would be better place, you dummy.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#315

Post by unscaled »

meristohm wrote: post #239

Title a play on Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower?[0] Other cultures don't use sofas, and I'm curious if they were originally a thing for royalty (like flat green lawns and white bread and so many other "luxuries" we royal Americans went in for), and I would vote for leaving ours (IKEA, so not the worst in terms of PFAS coating and other toxins, but also not great) with the house when/if we move, and sitting on t…

I'm not sure if by other culture you mean Japan, but relatively Japanese definitely use sofa nowadays. Certainly, in the past they did not, but if you go back to the 19th centuries you could probably say the same about western countries (being "for the royalty" seems like a stretch, but they were certainly too expensive for commoners).

Old, tatami-only houses generally won't have heavy legged furniture at all, but tatami-only houses are rarely being built. It used to be come to have a single tatami room in most homes, but that is also becoming more uncommon for new houses nowadays. In modern houses, you'd usually have sofa. I don't remember if I've ever seen a multi-room Japanese house without one, but one-room apartments can be really small, and if the owner doesn't host people often (or ever) they won't have a sofa.

What is very common in Japan (especially in small apartments and one room apartments) is a low-sofa (basically a low profile sofa, often without a base or legs) and zaisu[1] - originally a fancier sitting pillow with back for tatami floors, but nowadays it's mostly low-profile sofa chair or more often just a sofa chair without legs. These things are more flexible and portable and allow you to sit closer to the floor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaisu

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#316

Post by nakedneuron »

coldtea wrote: post #267
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.)

> While this is true, there are billions of convenient examples everybody knows. Well, in those days they had a billion less examples than we have today - or at least tens of thousands of common today product categories and things not yet existing. But they also used weaponry (Zeno on infinite division), chariots (Plato on soul), pots (Plato on art), caves (Plato on reality), dice (Heraclitus on chance), and many oth…

Both are fair points. Still, a table - or chair - is/was one of thousands of options to choose. So you might be right that good examples tend to be reproduced. Question remains why it would be a good example to begin with.

Personally I think at some point such choice became baked in into the concept of physical existence because people think in pictures and physical existence in itself is such an abstract thing. The choice of furniture however is kind of hilarious.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#317

Post by Spivak »

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #296
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…

>when i need a sofa, i want to be able to “just” get a sofa Which is understandable, and also the whole problem. Everything that used to go along with getting that sofa, like the human interaction, is thrown out in the name of efficiency, and eventually we all end up locked in our houses with nowhere to go but our jobs.

It's not just efficiency, the very last thing I want to do when buying any good or service is talk to another human being. Hell if self checkout is any indication people will trade efficiency for not having to talk to a person.

Eventually we'll all end up conserving our social battery for friends and loved ones rather than work and shopping.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#318

Post by crazygringo »

wazoox wrote: post #284
crazygringo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's wonderful if you only move a few times in your whole life, and always have space in your bedroom for a wardrobe, and like the style.

It's impossible if you move apartments every couple/few years, the bedrooms come with closets and there's no good place to put the wardrobe and you don't need it anyways because you have closets, and sure it has "character" but it looks completely out of place because it's the wrong character.

If you want to preserve antique furniture and are able to, then more power to you. There are lots of antique furniture enthusiasts.

But I don't want an antique wardrobe any more than I want to wear a high-collared four-button men's sack suit from 1885.

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#319

Post by II2II »

alerighi wrote: post #230
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…

> Yes fixing stuff is good for the planet. But big brands could offer customer service just fine if people wanted it. They could but they won't. Because they realized (and probably all agreed) that it's far more profitable to sell the customer a new product, rather than fixing the old one. And since they are the big brands, and they have practically a monopoly (think about big tech companies) they make the rules. The…

You don't even have to go the conspiratorial route to realize that repair doesn't make sense to big businesses. The cost of diagnosing the problem, performing the repair, and validating the repair is fairly high. It is also difficult to ensure consistency in the quality of repairs. Then you have to consider that they think about things on a large scale, while repair is an individualized thing. Just look at how computers are repaired. The actual defective component may cost pennies, yet an entire module is replaced. It's not necessarily because the module is impossible to repair. It's because repair processes are difficult to standardize, the cost of replacing the module may be lower than repairing it, and consistent outcomes are difficult to ensure.

Then there is dealing with the customer. A lot of people like to know how much a repair will cost. You can offer an accurate quote when replacing an entire module. A lot of people cannot understand bills that are $0.05 parts + $100.00 labour, so they feel ripped off. A lot of people cannot understand why a repaired product would exhibit problems when it is returned to them (e.g. there was an independent undiagnosed problem).

Re: Parable of the Sofa

#320

Post by fnordpiglet »

wrs wrote: post #285
fnordpiglet wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah. I expect only the best craftsman paired with the best businessmen will survive. But there’s a decent market among the affluent for quality furniture and most commercial furniture for high traffic environments demand pretty high end and durable stuff.
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