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Generation Junk

walterkirn.substack.com

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Re: Generation Junk

#431

Post by gumby »

nemo wrote: post #396
gumby wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reme…

Well I was talking about the Victorian era (emergence of iron bridge building) and indeed quite a few make that list. "Engineering" in the sense it has today didn't exist back then. Brunel was truly revolutionary in this regard, though even how he thought of it would be far from what we today call engineering.

We see this in the evolution of many technologies, from boiler explosions (especially in trains) that are pretty much unknown today to jet air travel (likewise at a rather extraordinary state of safety) and many others besides (consider the implementation and impact of vaccination).

Re: Generation Junk

#432

Post by shepherdjerred »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #287
shepherdjerred wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a mind-boggling anecdote. As an example, Crate and Barrel are known to make good, high-quality couches, and many of them are far less than $5000

Does Crate and Barrel actually make furniture? I thought they were a retailer only, a middleman between the consumer and a white label manufacturer. I don't mean to detract from your point with this - I've had a few things here and there from them, I agree they sell quality stuff.

I'm not really sure. In any case (almost) everything I've gotten from them has been durable, so I keep going back.

Re: Generation Junk

#433

Post by gnramires »

edrxty wrote: post #162
jonahss wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one thing about some of the shitty products out there today is we got MUCH better at making things out of less material. So they break easier and wear out faster, but we've been able to reduce material usage along with price. If you're a person who loses pens or holds onto them so long the ink dries up, it'd be better to waste an object made as cheaply as possible than one made to last. This is a balance to play as w…

Absolutely, it's a complex game. The easiest way to clean it up significantly is to better tax industry such that energy, resource usage, and transportation are all represented in the price such that the economy actually reflects the environmental impact of production rather than just the business costs of the moment.

Indeed, and I think we should be thinking about pricing the recycling or disposal costs too (even if that's difficult or inherently imprecise), as well as giving incentives for products with effective recycling supply chains (or simply low disposal rates! i.e. longlasting products). I think it's worth not being too heavy-handed about this, because low income people would be hit the hardest most likely, but I think something like this would help significantly.

Re: Generation Junk

#434

Post by bruce343434 »

ForestCritter wrote: post #423

If you shop by researching brand rather than price, you will find there are still good companies out there. Lots of cheap stuff is junk, some expensive stuff is junk. Even within brands there are differences. My fancy four wide slot cuisinart toaster has survived 20 years, lots of use many moves and getting slightly squished in an overstuffed trunk and is still going strong. Cuisinart coffee makers, however, lose the…

Great idea, but how can you tell in advance if something will last 20 years, especially when its not uncommon that products change while keeping their name and looks?

Re: Generation Junk

#435

Post by kube-system »

reeddavid wrote: post #429
kube-system wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts. Not if you buy one that is $250 because it has bells and whistles . You can buy a $250 dollar toaster that is just a toaster and it will be of good quality. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/waring-wct708-4-slice-comme...

The reviews suggest this $250 toaster isn't any better: "was hoping it lasted longer & would be better quality but was disappointed" "All the coils do no not glow and It toasts unevenly" "one side stops working after 6 months or so. I’ve gone through three of these" "Bought two of these toasters both stopped working" "Have to replace this toaster about once a year, one side will always stop working" "Lasted me about…

The site has other well reviewed toasters at similar prices, I picked that one because it was exactly the price being discussed.

Either way, the bathtub curve of product failure still applies no matter the price point.

Bear in mind that people on this site are using toasters at duty cycles hundreds to thousands of times higher than home users. 6 months of commercial use of one of these toasters could very easily be a lifetime of use for a single home.

Re: Generation Junk

#436

Post by lastofthemojito »

darth_avocado wrote: post #211
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…

The luxury boutique ones are also junk. I got a very expensive sofa from a boutique brand and I regret it every bit. In less than a year, the cushions are basically useless. All cheap junk, made in some third world country in Asia.

Well they might be, and they might not be. The old saying "you get what you pay for" ought to be "you get at most what you pay for". If you buy the expensive product, it might be higher quality, or it might be the cheap junk with a shiny logo.

I bought a small dining table and 4 chairs from a nearby store that specializes in Scandinavian furniture. I ended up mixing and matching 2 pairs of chairs because I liked the contrast of 2 different styles at different sides of the table. Anyhow, fast forward about 15 years and 4 house moves and the table and 2 of the chairs are rock solid. The other 2 chairs are wobbly junk that I've repeatedly tried to fix but am about to give up on. The table and 2 good chairs were made in Denmark, the 2 shit chairs were made in Malaysia and are just "Scandinavian style" I guess. So yeah, decent stuff is still out there, but perhaps it's harder than ever to parse the marketplace and figure out which items are the high-quality ones. Even if you go to a store with lots of quality stuff, they might have some junk mixed in as they try to expand their market.

Re: Generation Junk

#437

Post by rufus_foreman »

pixl97 wrote: post #174
fritzo wrote: post #29

Author neglects selection bias: antiques that stopped working after 1 or 5 or 10 years have been in landfills for a long time. My grandfather (1922-2006) opined: "Some folks say things aren't made like they used to be. But I remember those junky old cars that would break down every 50 or 100 miles. I remember that unreliable crap. I'd far rather have a modern car, even if I can't fix it." (He was more of a carpenter…

I'm guessing a fair part of the population here on HN is too young to remember the Japanese takeover of the US market in the 70s and 80s. I remember my grandfather buying one and people still had the post WWII 'everything Japanese is junk' mentality going on. It was his first car to last 300k miles without an engine rebuild. Nothing US built was getting close to it at that time.

>> I'm guessing a fair part of the population here on HN is too young to remember the Japanese takeover of the US market in the 70s and 80s

I'm old enough to remember that, and from what I recall, the objections of people I knew to buying Japanese cars were not that they were junk, they were that in some of the places I lived growing up, working at an automobile assembly plant was the best occupational outcome that a large part of the population could realistically aspire to. If those jobs disappear, then what?

That was back when the Democrats were against free trade. That all changed, their argument being that trade would make us, in aggregate, better off, and if certain parts of the population were harmed by free trade, we could use the gains of the people that benefited from trade to compensate those who were harmed.

That all happened except for the compensate those who were harmed part.

Yes, I remember.

Re: Generation Junk

#438

Post by ip26 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #257
ip26 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing I suspect has tipped the scales in favour of less repairable products is the massive decline in social capital. 30-40 years ago, if your lawnmower broke down you'd ask Dave from two doors down to come and have a look at it. Now, you'd either take it to a professional repairman (and get it back 2 weeks and $100+ later), try to work it out yourself via online tutorials, or just throw it in the bin. Either way…

There’s clearly some of the baumol effect at play. The small engine repairman hasn’t gotten much more productive, which is part of why it’s so expensive to hire out repair.

Re: Generation Junk

#439

Post by myroon5 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #376

> The strangely short power cords on electronics. That's lawyers, as well as the insane flagpole of stickers on each wire. The simple fact of the matter, is that people are willing to buy junk. They want a certain level of functionality, at low prices. Manufacturers (or software developers) have figured out how to provide a simulacrum of the functionality, for very low prices. These manufacturers put others, that mak…

Information asymmetry plays a large role. Many people would be willing to pay premiums for higher quality but that's easier said than done

Re: Generation Junk

#440

Post by ggm »

mikrotikker wrote: post #334
ggm wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your survivors bias thing is very true. I've used old things which would survive nuclear blast, and still have some. And, old things which were gimcrack rubbish and unusable. Some old plastics de-polymerised badly in heat. A lot of old chrome and tin plating corrodes. Bone handled cutlery is not designed for dishwashers. Sure, the mix master is going strong but it was gold plated when my mother in law got it.…

My Stihl shopvac finally crapped out. Not sure how old as it came with the house. I went to the Stihl shop to see if they had replacements and they asked me what museum I pulled it from. No replacement motor but still replacement filters so now it's a prefilter for my new Stihl shopvac.

Tried Stihl direct? In any case, a second life as a preclean isn't such a bad end. Or, you could use it to clean the filters on the new one and prolong its life.
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