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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?

#331

Post by mdp2021 »

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.

Check the deltas, the derivative. There exist long lists from personal experiences of things that worked very well and now are of comparatively terrible quality.

The issue is then not just with the item, but with societies that are increasingly accepting low quality: this is a horrible trend, and one side of decadence. You get both, flanked: low quality here for the occasion and decadence around for the trend.

The idea you say of some "distracted" ones "not realizing the failure potential" has a legitimate justification, beyond the simple inattentive, in those (inexperienced) that assume, for a number of reasons (especially including an internal healthy "mindset" of good standards), things are done properly. There is a line in a script for Scorsese that goes like: «I'm the guy doing my job, you must be the other one».

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

#332

Post by jrockway »

elil17 wrote: post #179
cyounkins wrote: post #91

Great article! As a consumer that cares a lot about buying long-lasting quality products, here are a few resources: Project Farm (youtube.com/projectfarm) - Great independent reviews of tools Mcmaster.com - Higher quality products than you can get at your local hardware store and excellent customer service. When I've gotten the rare incorrect or damaged item, 1 email gets me a refund and a replacement overnighted. Wi…

As a frequent business user of McMaster I find it serves a very particular purpose - everything on there works and does not break. However, their markup is massive. I once placed an order large enough that they redirected me to their supplier and found that they had over 100% markup on their orders. You're paying this markup so that McMaster verifies the quality of what you're buying. This makes a lot of sense for a…

I'm continually disappointed with the quality of fasteners bought from Amazon. What you get from McMaster is much better. The problem, I guess is that Amazon is too low quality and McMaster is too high quality.

I also don't think they mark everything up 100%. I have built a lot of stuff out of T-slot extrusion ("80/20") and their price seems exactly the same as buying from 80/20 directly. I guess there is probably some Aliexpress vendor cheaper than the brand name, though.

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

#334

Post by IshKebab »

mdp2021 wrote: post #331
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.

Check the deltas, the derivative. There exist long lists from personal experiences of things that worked very well and now are of comparatively terrible quality. The issue is then not just with the item, but with societies that are increasingly accepting low quality: this is a horrible trend, and one side of decadence. You get both, flanked: low quality here for the occasion and decadence around for the trend. The id…

Society has always been accepting of low quality cheap stuff. It's just that there's a ton more of it available now.

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

#336

Post by beaconstudios »

one thing you quickly learn from pursuing an academic topic more deeply than surface level is that you often can't trust your perfect-model-based intuition to be correct. I think this is where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes from: people who haven't learned about how their intuitive reasoning is wrong in a specific field, taking a look at it and just saying "oh, it's obvious". For some reason (not sure if it's systemic or just my perception) this seems especially common among STEM-oriented people, and especially directed towards soft sciences and the humanities.

The efficient market hypothesis seems like a perfect example of this over-reliance on assuming paper-thin idealised models actually reflect reality.

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

#337

Post by dspillett »

kccqzy wrote: post #242

> An example from another industry: when I worked at a small chip startup, we had in-house capability to do end-to-end chip processing (with the exception of having its own fabs), which is unusual for a small chip startup. When the first wafer of a new design came off of a fab, we'd have the wafer flown to us on a commercial flight, at which point someone would use a wafer saw to cut the wafer into individual chips s…

> In this particular example idling 99% of the time is cheaper, but even if idling 99% of the time is slightly expensive, it might still be a good idea not to outsource due to resilience.

Or in some cases it might make sense to become an outsourcing destination. Your otherwise idle equipment & skills become a revenue stream rather than a cost when your need it low, your local equipment and skills are tested & re-enforced which reduces the risk of finding them unexpectedly wanting when you turn to them in those 1% times, and you might end up with a small controlling advantage in your market (you get priority over any competitors that outsource to that part of you). It could become a significant arm of your business & profit. Think Amazon farming out its network resources.

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

#338

Post by Juliate »

ownagefool wrote: post #318
kccqzy wrote: post #242

> An example from another industry: when I worked at a small chip startup, we had in-house capability to do end-to-end chip processing (with the exception of having its own fabs), which is unusual for a small chip startup. When the first wafer of a new design came off of a fab, we'd have the wafer flown to us on a commercial flight, at which point someone would use a wafer saw to cut the wafer into individual chips s…

What if the saw breaks, what if the person who knows how to use the saw leaves? There are good answers to these problems, but I find folks who find comfort in outsourcing assume it's easier for the downstream org solve them. Personal experience suggests it's often a false sense of security, and you often have to have your own experts anyway. Saw the same in software. We won't get budget to patch so let's outsource. T…

> Saw the same in software. We won't get budget to patch so let's outsource. [...] The problem is usually tech is ran by finance.

Same. Where actually, the budget is right there, it's just a matter of choice and priorities: do what's right now or invest 10x in it later because you didn't take care of it when you ought to.

I've been on both sides of the argument: "budget" is a magic word for those who want to skip responsibility for their choices.

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

#339

Post by hamsamrma »

ownagefool wrote: post #318
kccqzy wrote: post #242

> An example from another industry: when I worked at a small chip startup, we had in-house capability to do end-to-end chip processing (with the exception of having its own fabs), which is unusual for a small chip startup. When the first wafer of a new design came off of a fab, we'd have the wafer flown to us on a commercial flight, at which point someone would use a wafer saw to cut the wafer into individual chips s…

What if the saw breaks, what if the person who knows how to use the saw leaves? There are good answers to these problems, but I find folks who find comfort in outsourcing assume it's easier for the downstream org solve them. Personal experience suggests it's often a false sense of security, and you often have to have your own experts anyway. Saw the same in software. We won't get budget to patch so let's outsource. T…

ime the primary reason to outsource is to get rid of the responsibility and the long-tail due-diligence that comes with it.

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

#340

Post by ElephantsMyAnus »

Jensson wrote: post #182
DannyBee wrote: post #110

The problem here is actually very basic - markets do not enforce efficiency. Period. The efficient market hypothesis is simply wrong. Strong form efficiency was already formally disproven quite a while ago. Weak form efficiency has been show to only true if P=NP. There is not really a strong need to go into why inefficiencies can persist, etc, because at a baseline, it turns out there is no provable theory that marke…

It isn't about market efficiency at all, people are just incompetent. If people could create good products they would and they would become rich, but they can't. If Samsung suddenly started delivering the same quality as Apple they would make a lot of money long term, everyone knows this and even if it isn't true the people who manage Samsung actually believes it and they try to get there. The reason they can't isn't…

It's about what kind of competence is favored by the market - it favors people who can get funding, which is not necessarily related to the ability to get the job done.
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