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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#401

Post by [deleted] »

fidotron wrote: post #348
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…

> Many comments here are arguing that quality has actually gone up over the past decades. Yes, many people confuse technological development with quality improvements. Technology can improve quality, but it can also be used in other ways. My personal view is the west, especially North America, never recovered from the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Prior to that energy was almost seen as disposable, at least compared…

[deleted]

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#402

Post by lotsofpulp »

nehal3m wrote: post #358
MarkPNeyer wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are pointing directly at the philosophical bedrock of western civilization, something which most white collar elites implicitly believe but don't state outright. It shows up right away in the article: > ... quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer. For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization bel…

I think this is a great insight. Also, from a personal perspective, one of the problems I regularly experience as a consumer of goods is that it is very difficult for me to judge quality, meaning I can explicitly not intuit value. For example, two years ago I bought 3 identical pairs of Levi’s jeans at considerable cost. Granted, they’re all I wear, but given that I follow the washing instructions and don’t put undue…

Buy the cheapest version that works for your needs. Or lower your expectations.

For example, I buy at Costco first, and if that doesn’t work, I seek higher quality. But I also don’t expect clothes to last many, many years.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#403

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dijit wrote: post #146
TrackerFF wrote: post #125

At least when it comes to musical instruments, cheap instruments today are astronomically better than the cheap instruments I grew up with - and they are cheaper. The manufacturing process has become so good that what you get for $350 today, is about the same standard as what you'd pay $500-$800 for 30 years ago (which is probably closer to $1000-$1500 today). As far as clothes go - I the cheap junk back in the day d…

Counter-anecdote. I bought some Jeans from ASDA (owned by Walmart now, not sure about then) for 5GBP in 2005.. FIVE, POUNDS. Crazy cheap by any measure; they were extremely thick, to the point where you could stand them up with no person inside them. They lasted me for over 10 years. New jeans (at any price point) seem to wear out in the inner thigh inside of a year, and I am not as active as I was back then due to a…

> ASDA (owned by Walmart now, not sure about then)

Not any more, they got bought by two rather dodgy petrol station owners.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#404

Post by walterbell »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #344
jonplackett wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. To be more specific, look for the point where a Private Equity firm gets involved. Whose aim is extractive and often bankrupts the host company - to cut costs, send production somewhere cheaper, and in general use up the value in the good name that the product has. This is what happened to Dr. Martens (footwear) to Instant pot (cookware) to Red Lobster (restaurants)

> whose aim is extractive

Endorsed by legislative policy, e.g. tax-deductible interest payments on PE-induced debt.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#405

Post by l0b0 »

No mention of value engineering? Isn't that what every big company does to a successful product? Barely-noticeable quality decreases compound over years, and more noticeable ones are rationalized away as necessary for survival. It doesn't take a genius to see where that leads.

Also enshittification, the more general trend where an initial offering is excellent, maybe even provided at a loss, to spread the word and provide great feedback, and then more and more money is squeezed out of it while riding consumer satisfaction lag, until the offering is taken behind the shed and mercy killed.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#406

Post by jjav »

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…

> 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.

Yes, absolutely. Quality has gone down across the board in nearly everything. What has gone up is more features. So at a high level comparison it seems like the newer thing does a lot more than the older same thing. Which is true, but that is not a measure of quality. Many of the added features are gimmicks that provide no meaningful value and at the same time the product is far more brittle and built much cheaper, so the overall quality is far lower.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#407

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

ericmay wrote: post #361
jfengel wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism gives the market what it demands. You can't tell consumers what they should want. Government failure an cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. It doesn't, however, give any pointers on where to go from there.

> You can't tell consumers what they should want. Why does marketing and advertising exist then? > Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise. Either your premise is wrong or Late Stage Capi…

>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight.

> If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise

You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism.

> Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism)

Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#408

Post by lotsofpulp »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #326
ants_everywhere wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a big tech company, the life quality of software engineers was undergoing what old timers perceived as a significant decline. The official response of the CFO was that the quality can't be declining that much because people aren't quitting an an accelerating rate. This is the same phenomenon as your suspicion. There's some metric (e.g. people keep buying our widgets) and you stress test demand for it…

You are pointing directly at the philosophical bedrock of western civilization, something which most white collar elites implicitly believe but don't state outright. It shows up right away in the article: > ... quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer. For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization bel…

> For most of history, people believed the opposite. For thousands of years, people in every major civilization believed that there WAS an objective notion of quality (i.e. value). The idea that these things are purely subjective is a very recent concept in human history.

Value has always been subjective, people in previous eras simply didn’t have the tools or technology to figure it out as quickly as today.

For example, IKEA furniture does 99% of the job for 90% of the people at less than 50% of the price of what was previously known as “quality” furniture.

The amount of money IKEA has saved me afforded multiple vacations, plus it is easier to move. So is it lower “value”?

Lots of people like to gripe about lower quality houses today. But I don’t want a house that lasts 500 years. I want a house that I can easily modify or repair that lets wireless signals through the wall, with drywall, wood studs, PEX piping, etc. And it will be a lot cheaper than a house built with masonry.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#409

Post by fastball »

shakna wrote: post #245
simianparrot wrote: post #149

Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/even-with-fees-the-miracle-of... Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not say…

> Airplane tickets used to cost a lot more for economy class, even adjusted for inflation and fees. To get the equivalent service and quality today you simply have to pay more, you just have the choice of paying very little for very low quality because there’s more flights and more planes. I don't think you actually can get the same quality, today. Even if you are paying more. The spacing of seats has changed. [0] Yo…

Yes, basically nothing stays the exact same quality over time. But if you can get better quality and worse quality that kinda obviates the OP's point.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#410

Post by walterbell »

dijit wrote: post #166
kookamamie wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there, too. Not at Nokia, but in the ecosystem of these companies. People wanted iPhone over Nokia, not due to its specs but due to its usability and presentation. Let's be honest, both Symbian and Maemo/Meego were abject messes in both of these categories.

They were really trying with MeeGo, we used to joke that we had the most expensive clock app in the world because it had been remade so many times. People forget that R&D can be super expensive. Apple definitely cooked there. Symbian though, I mean, considering the hardware constraints was crazy ! The smartphone variant of Symbian needed 2MiB of Memory and supported Qt... madness.

We need a Symbian/Nokia movie to accompany the "Blackberry" movie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXL_HDzBQsM

  Mike, are you familiar with the saying, "Perfect is the enemy of Good"?

  Well, "good enough" is the enemy of humanity.
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