The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality • Hacker News Board

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#451

Post by steveBK123 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:10 PM UTC

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #429

steveBK123 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is far more prominent in women’s clothing. My wife always says how buying from the same brands over the years that materials get thinner and thinner, as well as becoming more and more synthetic blend %s until it’s practically disposable.

LuLuLemon is guilty of this. Their quality was pretty good about 10 years ago, but since then all the materials have gotten thinner and less durable. I have some LuLuLemon clothes from 10+ years ago which outlasted things I bought 3 years ago. Now the quality is objectively bad and things get holes right away or are not even tailored correctly, but hey $7 billion wasn’t enough for Chip Wilson so he is going to keep s…

Lulu also fell prey to a typical pattern of building a brand on quality, at a higher price point for higher income consumer. Then as they grew and targeted the broader market, getting copied by low cost competitors and then trying to pivot to compete with them.

You see similar in NYC with fast casual / quick service type places that scale from 2-3 locations into a national chain. Stuff becomes less handmade, less fresh, ingredient quality goes down, all the care&attention gets optimized away into a sad bowl of slop.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#452

Post by teiferer » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:10 PM UTC

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…

> Prior to that energy was almost seen as disposable

Turns out that from an environmental perspective, that view was bad anyway and I'm glad it's gone for good (even if the AI hype almost makes us forget that again). I don't fully see how that implies everything having to be crap now. Lighter doesn't mean worse quality.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#453

Post by moomoo11 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

jcynix wrote: post #432

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Good example. Add https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons which acquired various popular apps (Evernote, Filmic, …), fired most developers, and now exploits these apps to death.

Oh they bought meetup. No wonder it’s so shit now.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#454

Post by cyanydeez » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #368

hliyan wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's how I see it: in the absence of growth in market share or cost-reducing innovation, the only remaining strategy for profit maximization is the delivering of progressively lower quality products for progressively higher prices. This obviously destroys the brand over time, but brands can be recycled/reinvented. A purely rational and self-interested (i.e. unencumbered by moral sentiment or empathy) economic agent…

Then from a purely rational and self-interested citizenry would hold any economic agents on the hook for future cleanups of land, water or air.

Theyd also nationalize certain products to minimize unnecessary waste and churn.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#455

Post by SpaceNugget » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #412

microflash wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been especially pronounced in medical equipments where there’s this unnecessary race to introduce “digital experiences”. An example is hearing aids. A few years ago, it was relatively easy to get an analog model with dedicated volume buttons and off switch. Now, most of the models come without off switch and need Bluetooth pairing with an app installed on your phone. What used to be plug and play is now a cl…

I run a media-lab at a art university and both HDMI and USB-C is flaming garbage. What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire and negotiates the acceptable resolution on the fly. What you get is something that does too much, doesn't work half the time and does things nobody cares about. Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image…

> Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image for 0.5 seconds before displaying a menu that asks me to press a button on the remote to show the image.

That's entirely the fault of your crappy smart display with some crappy OS and has entirely nothing to do with HDMI as a standard.

I would think as a plug and play standard for A/V stuff, HDMI is one of the farthest along the "just works" spectrum for the vast majority of people. Occasionally I see a device where there's something stupid like switching to a different HDMI source doesn't switch the audio source and you have to use some dumb OSD menu with many nested levels to get to the audio sources, but again, that's not HDMI's fault.

I have had quite a few broken HDMI cables in lecture halls at uni and in meeting rooms at various work places, but I think that's the reality of any connector that gets plugged and unplugged tens of times per day (especially by people who don't care and don't have to pay for them when they break). They just need to replace the cables more often.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#456

Post by 0x1ceb00da » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

forgotusername6 wrote: post #108

raspasov wrote: post #43

"Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia." This statement suffers from either viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses or from total cultural relativism in the most pejorative sense. I'm not sure about 2003, but around 2009, I owned a Nokia N900, which was arguably the flagship Nokia phone at the time. I can confidently state that c…

I owned a Nokia in 2003. The battery lasted a week and they were virtually indestructible. The phone never crashed or reset, the keys were so reliable and well placed that I could text without looking at the screen. The phone did not get slower with age. None of these things can be said about my current smart phone. Granted it does a lot more, but the quality of the things it does do is much worse.

Smartphones are pretty durable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2xGzHjYCcY

Note to mention they're waterproof.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#457

Post by jpalawaga » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #412

microflash wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been especially pronounced in medical equipments where there’s this unnecessary race to introduce “digital experiences”. An example is hearing aids. A few years ago, it was relatively easy to get an analog model with dedicated volume buttons and off switch. Now, most of the models come without off switch and need Bluetooth pairing with an app installed on your phone. What used to be plug and play is now a cl…

I run a media-lab at a art university and both HDMI and USB-C is flaming garbage. What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire and negotiates the acceptable resolution on the fly. What you get is something that does too much, doesn't work half the time and does things nobody cares about. Last time I plugged in an HDMI source and the darn "smart" television showed the image…

The duty cycle on hdmi connector is like 10k. I imagine probably some of your cables in a lab would actually plausibly hit that without too much issue (then apply standard deviation: some will have broken much earlier, and some won’t quit)

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#458

Post by moomoo11 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

an0malous wrote: post #434

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

PE is the corporate equivalent of cutting the crack with baking soda

Their goal is to make money but they need a few to die because that means their meth(ods) is good.

Jeez. I can see it. Omg.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#459

Post by pxoe » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

shelsilverstein wrote: post #163

raspasov wrote: post #43

"Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia." This statement suffers from either viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses or from total cultural relativism in the most pejorative sense. I'm not sure about 2003, but around 2009, I owned a Nokia N900, which was arguably the flagship Nokia phone at the time. I can confidently state that c…

This is missing the point of the post. New iPhones and Android phones eventually have to be replaced because the software is no longer supported. Flip phones continue to be supported, if we would just use them to call people, which would use up less of our lifespan than smartphones, playing games and using social media. Note: I personally wouldn’t suggest flip phones for everyone, because smartphones are expected for…

When compared on exact same use cases, smartphones don't have to be replaced either if they're used to just call people and receive messages. If it's just for calls, why would software support matter? People keep comparing smartphones to dumbphones, while not actually comparing them on that limited set of dumbphone functionality. Does that not seem silly, if not just fallacious?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#460

Post by xp84 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #353

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.

I'd argue that they both represent a kind of efficiency. If your product or service has an unacceptable quality, demand will decrease and you will lose money that way. On the other hand, if in the pursuit of higher quality your production costs become too high, profit will decrease and you will lose money that way. Somewhere between these is a sweet spot where the level of quality and demand are in balance so as to m…

> If your product or service has an unacceptable quality, demand will decrease and you will lose money

I challenge that assumption. If whole markets are dominated by companies who have downgraded quality to the minimum, then customers have no choice but to keep buying from you or someone else doing the same thing. If they don’t buy from you because of their most recent bad experience, someone else (who bought their jeans that ripped in a month from someone else) will. The only alternatives would be to make your own clothes or to seek out very specific high-quality artisanal sources. Both options are out of the reach of at least 75% of the market.