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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#471

Post by dspillett »

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…

> My suspicion is that when products are successful and mature but reach market saturation, profit growth pressure leads to cutting some corners on every iteration,

I'm sure that is certainly part of it, especially when multiple players are competing at least partly on price or apparent value. One consideration once price based competition is significant is that absolute quality may drop while measures of quality/price value improve¹.

Another issue is that when something is new, to the company or the buying audience, it is often a flagship product/service so gets a lot more attention. As things become something the company rattles off as a matter of course and we consumers interact with them daily, that level of attention per production unit diminishes considerably.

As well as playing directly into this, possibly leading to an actual drop in quality, mass production has a less obvious effect on the perception of quality. If you are making hundreds or less and a couple fail, they are probably noticed before leaving the factory and if not the consumer gets a relatively personal service with fixing/replacing the item. If you are making hundreds of thousands many more bad units get into circulation (the absolute failure rate increasing even if the failure ratio drops) and processing returns is less logistically easy. That perception problem has become more significant in the last couple of decades as unhappy voices always tended to be louder and social media can act as a megaphone for both happy and unhappy voices.

This is a complex area with many things feeding into actual quality issues, the perception of them, and sometimes the perception of the matter being worse than it really is overall.

--------

[1] for instance, maybe in a made up example quality goes down by 5% when cuts or mass production bring the price down by more than 10%, so buyers get better for the same money but worse absolutely

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#472

Post by xp84 »

delfinom wrote: post #253
xattt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E.g. the race to the bottom of the Billy bookcase. In the last 5 years, IKEA has started using plastic fasteners to secure the backing.

Those plastic clips work better than the traditional backing nails they used to use. Those nails couldn't hold back shit in the presses wood they used.

I have to agree, I just bought these and was at first skeptical, but they seem like a much better engineered solution. The two-part clip expands in the hole, greatly increasing friction to keep it in vs a static (and smooth!) nail, and their heads are also bigger than those little tacks reducing chances of the hole in the backboard failing.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#473

Post by jvanderbot »

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…

On reflection (being an engineer) it makes sense this would happen even without malice. Engineering teams on existing products are incentivized to keep innovating. It's ideal if you can reinvent a part of a product or process while maintaining functionality but often it's easier to get an 80/20. So, a large number of small corner cuts reduce overall quality and costs. If in fact you try to increase functionality, that's actually a new product. The inevitable S curve of profits from any given product means businesses are incentivized to move improvements to new products, leaving old ones to be cut to death.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#475

Post by lll-o-lll »

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…

> Same can be said for most electronics and even clothes. I’m not saying that a high price label guarantees high quality, just that the spectrum of cost vs quality has broadened, even within big name brands.

Electric Kettles - Microwaves. The components that make up the actual boiling of water are now standard and all come from the same chinese manufacturer. You can pay $20 to $1000 for the same thing. The expensive one will look much better. Microwaves are the same - large numbers of manufacturers to all the same guts just different skins.

Retail clothing is the most obvious example. There used to be mid market clothing manufacturers that would produce clothing locally and try to compete on quality. That’s almost gone now. There’s just not enough demand.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#476

Post by teiferer »

ericmay wrote: post #417
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 thin…

> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move…

> Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead.

Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-distant history have embraced that to great success. "Millions dead" is just as much populistic nonsense as the equally misguided doomsday scenarios painted by hardcore haters of capitalism.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#477

Post by walleeee »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #433
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 don't agree with a lot of what you're writing here, but reading through the lines I think maybe there's some common ground. There is a philosophy that value (including reality) is subjective and that all that matters is making people act. That's quite explicitly the philosophy of Marx. It's in strong contrast to the "philosophical bedrock of western civilization", which is the search for objective truth and objecti…

Where in Marx do you find claims like reality is a middle-class fiction or all value is subjective? The labor theory of value is premised on an idea of surplus value as a very real thing. Substituting subjective theories takes the air out of the analysis, doesn't it?

I'm perhaps willing to grant "all that matters is making people act" in the sense that he was far more thoroughly a revolutionist than a scientist.

But your antipodal impression of Marx and "Western thought" misses the many strands which make up the latter, as well as the fact that he was no island: he was steeped (and elements of his thought remain visible) in a diverse intellectual tradition which is by no means a monolith.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#478

Post by Zambyte »

mousethatroared wrote: post #461
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…

The state of modern cars is scary.

The state of modern personal electric vehicles (PEVs) is outstanding though; good enough to replace owning a car for most people! I personally have been riding an electric scooter this summer, and paired with a nice backpack, it has comfortably replaced all of my regular driving. For people who want to carry more than me, an e-bike with panniers or a cargo e-bike would likely meet your needs. Electric longboards and electric unicycles are also worth considering, and I have seen a couple of those around my city, but the e-scooters and e-bikes have dominated due to their capacities and how easy they are to ride.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#479

Post by makeitdouble »

calrain wrote: post #308
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…

Everyone has their own way of measuring quality. Mine is that a Billy bookcase that I bought from Ikea 25 years ago is must stronger and more stable than a Billy bookcase I bought from Ikea 5 years ago. And, when looking at what Ikea is selling in 2025 as a Billy bookcase, it's worse yet again. But, with the cost of living increasing, companies have to cut corners to keep pricing down. I wonder where the inflection p…

You could have bought a Besta or Hemmes bookshelf, accounting for inflation it would be closer in price to the Billy you bought 25 years ago.

Assuming a product introduced 25 years ago has exactly the same role in the lineup today sounds crazy to me TBH.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#480

Post by ericmay »

teiferer wrote: post #476
ericmay wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move…

> Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Geez, seriously? The most successful societies in the world and human history have combined aspects of capitalism and socialism. A market based economy with social constructs that just provide better lives for people than pure capitalism would. Examples are not just the often-cited nordic countries. Germany, France, even the U.S. in its not-so-dista…

The Nordics are highly capitalist economies with mostly private ownership of the means of production. The usage of "socialism" here is misguided. Public programs including healthcare != Socialism or Communism.
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