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Generation Junk

walterkirn.substack.com

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Re: Generation Junk

#391

Post by nunez »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #68

I’ve had to buy a lot of furniture and other things for my new house this year, and one of the things that really sticks out to me is that practically every category of product seems to be split into a bimodal distribution: cheap crap & luxury boutique. There are practically no entries occupying the middle of the market that are on the basic end regarding features & frills but also high-quality. It’s incredibly annoy…

Mid-tier still exists; you've just got to look for it.

We purchased a $3200 couch that is definitely mid-tier for its size and it's been a fantastic value so far.

Re: Generation Junk

#392

Post by MichaelZuo »

dehrmann wrote: post #256
gocartStatue wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small production batches are absolutely required for high quality (see Toyota, TQM)

But there isn't enough overall volume to ever get the kinks worked out.

That's only if they don't QC every single part, for every single car, coming from new suppliers.

Which RR would do to avoid the obvious problem, only after a supplier has been verified to be sending only the highest quality product, would they ease off.

The simplest thing is that the supplier charges double or triple the unit price such that they can accept half the parts failing inspection and getting sent back.

Re: Generation Junk

#393

Post by nunez »

akvadrako wrote: post #327
CobaltFire wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are brands built to super high standards, but no-one wants to pay for them or deal with their compromises. We have been buying Miele appliances, and have nothing but excellent experiences. They aren't cheap, but the general opinion I've seen online is that they are one of the few brands that build quality modern appliances. My experiences would tend to back that up. Specific to the Miele washer and dryer, we ha…

Miele for most stuff is unfortunately no longer better than the competition. They only come with 2 year warranties and the you can find lots of complaints on the internet of their appliances failing within a few years.

Additionally, some of Miele's lower-end stuff is made in China, not Germany, and has been reported to be less reliable.

Re: Generation Junk

#394

Post by nunez »

xtracto wrote: post #120
marginalia_nu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the high end stuff is crap too. You get a toaster with wifi and a touch screen and an app instead of something that works.

The other day I was telling my wife that the next blender I'll get will be a "fuck you" blender. That's the name I gave to an old blender I had 25 years ago when I lived on my own while studying. The blender was an Oster brand and only had an on/off switch. I sold it to a friend when I left that city. Fast forward 25 years, my friend told me that his mom is still using the same blender. No programs, no memories, no m…

Blendtec or Vitamix are what you want. They have modes, but the motors are very very good and they stand by their products (8 and 10-year warranties, respectively)

Re: Generation Junk

#395

Post by nunez »

upon_drumhead wrote: post #10
crooked-v wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I think the prime comparison is the KitchenAid stand mixer. You can get a new one that's functionally identical to the classic models that have lasted forever... and it'll run you at least $350 even during a major sale.

Our few year old kitchen aid has been a nightmare of broken plastic internal parts. I will weep when my mother passes, but I will be taking her mixer and ditching mine.

Not all KitchenAid stand mixers are made the same: https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_...

TL;DR: The Pro Line is what you want. These have higher-wattage motors and are made with all-stainless steel. This is important if you mix heavy things like doughs or meats frequently, as these materials tend to stress and shear plastic more easily.

Re: Generation Junk

#396

Post by nemo »

gumby wrote: post #382
spzb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a survival bias in that we don't consider the appliances from yesteryear that packed up back when disco was king.

I enjoyed the rant nature of the essay but your comment hits the spot. We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed, and ignore the overconstruction required of the survivors because mechanical theory was still developing at the time. Also we used to have more single-application devices; while a juicer is often still a single-application device today, at the other…

>We admire the Victorian era bridge still in use but forget all the bridges that long ago collapsed,

Engineers tend to put care into building bridges that don't collapse, and have been doing so for millenia so collapses can happen, but are rare. "All the bridges that long ago collapsed" is in my opinion not all that many bridges, really [1], and lots of people remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. I still remember the bridge collapse from the Northridge quake too.

Bridges are a special case of civic architecture where long durability and long reliability are taken into account that are kind of a special class, so they're probably not a great thing to generalize from.

[1] You can judge for yourself from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures

Re: Generation Junk

#397

Post by nunez »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #90
crooked-v wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I think the prime comparison is the KitchenAid stand mixer. You can get a new one that's functionally identical to the classic models that have lasted forever... and it'll run you at least $350 even during a major sale.

KitchenAid sells 4 or 5 different versions of their stand mixers with retail prices ranging from $350 - $1000+. There is a reason for the price difference.

Summary of how they differ: https://old.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/a6510b/wife_loves_...

Re: Generation Junk

#398

Post by korse »

ip26 wrote: post #194
edrxty wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average they didn't (oh no, that repair costs more than the "car is worth" as if that's a metric that actually means anything) but it was far easier to keep one running indefinitely. You could take an engine to a small machine shop and get the head and block resurfaced, valves reamed and cylinders lapped. Without any electronics to fail it was just a block of metal that was slowly losing material and a quick hit w…

It’s the old fuel injection vs carburetor debate. Do you want something that usually runs for 200k miles without a single problem, but takes a fancy shop to fix? Or do you want something that needs a complete rebuild every three months and needs to be retuned for your ski trip, but can be repaired by a high school boy with a tongue depressor, a q-tip, and a hammer? The rapid exodus of carburetors shocked and dismayed…

My backup commuter vehicle is a inexpensive (but modified) off-highway motorcycle for exactly this reason.

Sure, you have to have a small 'bug-out bag' (in this case a belt pack) with spare parts (bolts, belts, master links etc.) and some critical sockets if you want to take a ride without fear, but beyond that the thing is a tank. Even the most critical of problems can be fixed for minimal expenditure at Harbor Freight and/or a local motorcycle parts shop.

Aside from being fun, and confusing people every time they see it in the parking lot next to the Tesla/Rivian/Mercedes AMG crew, it is serious peace of mind that I've always got motorized transport that won't fail me.

Re: Generation Junk

#399

Post by phaedrus »

nunez wrote: post #385

> I can’t say the same about my coffee grinders. I use the plural because I’ve owned a lot of them, all bought in their original packaging and dead within a year Grind size and consistency are everything when making coffee. As such, good coffee grinders are expensive as hell because of the blades and motors. Mostly the blades. You can easily spend thousands on an espresso grinder (a grinder that can only grind ultra-…

I have a German-made coffee grinder that was between $200 - $300 retail (though I got it for significantly less on clearance. It grinds well, but within a short time of getting it the electronics burned out. I opened it up to find a bafflingly complex circuit board with relays, opto-isolators, transformer, microchips, fuses, timers, etc. etc. Mind you this board has only one function: to turn an AC motor on and off.

I noticed the motor is a brushed "universal" motor like you'd find in a vacuum cleaner; that is, old technology that can run on DC or AC and needs only two wires to run. This complex circuit board... wasn't even justified for being a motor controller, because there was nothing to control! I replaced the entire burnt out circuit board with a hefty 20A 120-240 VAC momentary switch from my parts bin.

Since then the grinder's been working perfectly for about 14 years. But if I hadn't been willing and able to do that repair I might have gone through 10 of them in the same time. Part of making a quality product is restraint: to NOT put something on it (like that circuit board) that is unnecessary.

Re: Generation Junk

#400

Post by efields »

cs702 wrote: post #387

Many of these junky mass-market products are currently stuck in a Nash Equilibrium [a]: Each manufacturer is unable improve the product's quality without increasing its retail price, but increasing the price would make the product more expensive than competing products made by other manufacturers, who are in the same situation. No manufacturer can improve quality without raising prices and losing market share. Their…

Thanks for this. I didn’t know there was a name for it. We’ve probably accelerated the effects that lead to the equilibrium in many product categories. It takes a big mover like an Apple to take the risk to move the needle now, but so many consumer products lack an Apple in that space.
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