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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#51

Post by Earw0rm »

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…

Memory loss and survivor bias.

There was mountains of tacky, throwaway crap produced in the 80s. Guess what, we've thrown it all away. Quality lasts.

And don't even get me started on the food. A lot of tin cans. Desserts that you reconstituted from powder in a packet. The list goes on.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#52

Post by sgt101 »

esperent wrote: post #4

> clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash What clothes are these? I don't buy any kind of expensive brands. I don't take any care when washing. I don't own a lot of clothes so I wear each item weekly. And my clothes last me for several years at least. The dyes have gotten noticeably better than when I was a child - when was the last time you had colors run in the wash?

I bought some wrangler jeans, because I remembered that I had a pair years ago that fit me better than levis, the levis were quite expensive and the wranglers cheap.

They were ok for the first wear - but not great to be honest.

Then I washed them and they were unwearable.

Didn't do anything fancy, just a cool wash, dried them on the line.

They turned to cardboard.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#53

Post by ath3nd »

dottjt wrote: post #24

I'm not sure if this is quite related, but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people. I feel like knowing that we might live well-beyond our working age has caused all sorts of odd/irrational behaviours in the way we approach life. I think for example, having to save for retirement makes us rethink how we sp…

Have you considered that it's not that we are spending money on cheap stuff, it's that even expensive stuff is built to not last with the incentive you come back for more? You do realize there are whole R&D departments working on planned obsolescence.

- Apple's planned obsolescence on batteries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate

- Window's 10 to 11 garbage hardware requirements: https://www.euroconsumers.org/microsoft-security-windows-10-... If an OS's new version is supposedly...faster and better written, why does it require newer hardware?

- Apple's right to repair fight: https://sustainablebrands.com/read/apple-support-right-to-re... and then, when they saw they can't support this position anymore, suddenly becoming a champion of sustainability

- Apple's refusal to change their idiotic charging cables to a standard one, so they can sell you crap that works on no other device. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66778528

I know Apple are mentioned a lot here, but they are a perfect example of what happens when nobody calls out a monopoly on their shady practices.

> but I can't help but feel that a lot of the ills of society that we're witnessing is simply coming down to the fact that we're living a lot longer as people.

Ah yes blame it on the consumer, who dares to live longer.

> Whereas it's like, if you expected that you would die in your 50s/60s you'd probably be happier spending your money on stuff that you felt served you better, irrespective of the cost, cause you're still working and able to service that lifestyle.

I don't get the logic here. If I knew I would live to 100, would it not make sense to buy stuff that serves me well over the long run (i.e more expensive)?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#54

Post by haunter »

>clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash

Or maybe just don't buy cheap thrash?

I bought some T-shirts while in Covid from a sports brand and 5 years later they are still as if they were new :shrug:

Of course price =/= quality, but when almost everyone is ordering their new clothes from Shein then what do you really expect?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#55

Post by cherryteastain »

nradov wrote: post #42
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are not in control of the evaluation function. It is heavily manipulated by ads and other patterns. You can control your own evaluation if you are actively working on it but market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter

Nonsense. If you want really nice, high quality furniture then you can just pay a local craftsman to make it for you. This is always an option regardless and some of us are not easily manipulated by ads. Of course good furniture will be expensive.

Last time I wanted to do this for a desk which perfectly fits a particular nook in my home, the local craftsmen quoted 20x the price of Ikea and an 8 month lead time.

Needless to say, I got an Ikea desk delivered 3 days later.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#57

Post by ozgrakkurt »

nradov wrote: post #42
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are not in control of the evaluation function. It is heavily manipulated by ads and other patterns. You can control your own evaluation if you are actively working on it but market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter

Nonsense. If you want really nice, high quality furniture then you can just pay a local craftsman to make it for you. This is always an option regardless and some of us are not easily manipulated by ads. Of course good furniture will be expensive.

You can’t do this for a washing machine of a tv or a phone.

Even if you can now, it is getting more difficult.

And there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid it as every washing machine is becoming “smart”, worse at actually washing clothes and using internet to send your data so it can be sold for more profit.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#58

Post by CarRamrod »

esperent wrote: post #4

> clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash What clothes are these? I don't buy any kind of expensive brands. I don't take any care when washing. I don't own a lot of clothes so I wear each item weekly. And my clothes last me for several years at least. The dyes have gotten noticeably better than when I was a child - when was the last time you had colors run in the wash?

The last two times I purchased men's socks off the shelf at a big box store, they looked like fishnets after I put them on. Perfectly normal looking, brand name crew socks.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#60

Post by markovs_gun »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #32
bitter_michael wrote: post #27

This article's thesis is all over the place, but the discussion here brings up an interesting topic: the decline in quality is relative to your evaluation function. If you want long lasting products, then maybe the cheaper furniture is of lower quality. If you want something light weight and affordable, then ikea is higher quality. Assuming there is a uniform product evaluation function seems like lazy journalism. Th…

But we are not in control of the evaluation function. It is heavily manipulated by ads and other patterns. You can control your own evaluation if you are actively working on it but market moves based on majority so it doesn’t matter

Idk. I feel like at some point we have to blame society as a whole for things or things will never get changed. Social change in the past has been hard fought to get public perception to change. When my grandparents were kids, for example, black people were not allowed to use the same facilities as white people and a majority of people supported this. Sure powerful interests in the media promoted this view, but ultimately the majority was wrong and had to change.
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