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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#551

Post by Razengan »

WalterBright wrote: post #547
Razengan wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "grudge downvoting" shit has been a thing on HN for years, with Dang etc refusing to acknowledge it. Might as well join in on it yourself till they notice :)

It happens to me, sometimes. It doesn't work very well because I couldn't care less about my karma points.

It makes your comment [nearly] invisible to others, unless they have showdead. It can also limit the rate at which you can post. It achieves what spam-downvoters want, without any downsides to them.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#552

Post by torginus »

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…

> What you want is a digital video standard that simply pushes an A/V stream over the wire

HDMI is just that - it's the direct evolution of VGA signaling, with each color channel pushing pixels left-to-right top-to-bottom, it even has blanking periods (periods where there's no pixel info transmitted, used to steer back the electron beam on CRTs to the start of the row/column), same EDID format negotiation over I2C, the works.

What makes it crap is the absolute flood of cheap garbage HDMI cables/repeaters/KVMs which barely work even at the best of times and shouldn't be even allowed to be solved, as they are out of spec, but online vendors have flooded their stores with this cheap no-name garbage for some reason.

Unfortunately, the apparent build quality of the cable, or the price mean nothing when trying to get a working one.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#553

Post by nicoburns »

WalterBright wrote: post #543
klik99 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I came to say - growth as the primary goal DOES create innovation, until innovation in that field yields diminishing returns or bottoms out completely, then it creates shittier and shittier product. The entire American version of capitalism is built around growth as the primary goal, which did great things, but now (unequally, some sectors are still innovating) is creating more and more shitty th…

Do socialist economies produce superior products?

If by "socialism" you mean the majority of economic activity being state-run, then probably not.

If by "socialism" you mean things like worker-owned corporations, strong anti-competition laws, high levels of consumer regulation, then absolutely.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#554

Post by WalterBright »

Razengan wrote: post #551
WalterBright wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens to me, sometimes. It doesn't work very well because I couldn't care less about my karma points.

It makes your comment [nearly] invisible to others, unless they have showdead. It can also limit the rate at which you can post. It achieves what spam-downvoters want, without any downsides to them.

I should probably post less often, so not a problem :-)

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#555

Post by [deleted] »

djfivyvusn wrote: post #76
jstummbillig wrote: post #39

Quality has improved across many dimensions in nearly every domain I’m familiar with. In fact, I’d argue there are very few products or services that couldn’t be made today to a higher standard than at any point in the past, if we chose to prioritize that. But what’s often mistaken for a decline in quality is really a shift in priorities: toward affordability, efficiency, and accessibility. And that’s fantastic. Prod…

I'm not convinced the widening access to American consumerism is a moral win. The amount of fossil fuels we're dependent on as a species is obscene. I worry for our children. There is no offramp, only growth.

[deleted]

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#556

Post by klik99 »

WalterBright wrote: post #543
klik99 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I came to say - growth as the primary goal DOES create innovation, until innovation in that field yields diminishing returns or bottoms out completely, then it creates shittier and shittier product. The entire American version of capitalism is built around growth as the primary goal, which did great things, but now (unequally, some sectors are still innovating) is creating more and more shitty th…

Do socialist economies produce superior products?

No, and that’s not what I said. In fact I said being blindly pro or anti capitalism blinds people to things that could be fixed. Growth helps innovate and create great products up to point of innovation creating diminishing returns.

There’s a huge difference between capitalism and a specific implementation of capitalism.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#557

Post by WalterBright »

nicoburns wrote: post #553
WalterBright wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do socialist economies produce superior products?

If by "socialism" you mean the majority of economic activity being state-run, then probably not. If by "socialism" you mean things like worker-owned corporations, strong anti-competition laws, high levels of consumer regulation, then absolutely.

If worker-owned collectives produce superior products, why aren't they everywhere? It's not illegal to form one.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#558

Post by walleeee »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #504
walleeee wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The labor theory of value This is value in the sense of "price". The labor theory of value was from Adam Smith and Ricardo rather than something Marx contributed. > Substituting subjective theories takes the air out of the analysis, doesn't it? You're right that this is an apparent contradiction. Technically, Marx was making a prophecy about an upcoming revolution as being a historical inevitability. And when he wa…

I can't easily recognize (post-)modern social construction in his worldview, especially construction of reality at large (morality it is easier to see the argument) but I admit it has been years since my reading. I agree with you that there is a strand in Western thought which is infatuated with science/engineering to a historically novel degree but I am not so sure that enlightenment ideals fit so neatly in the same box, or that statements like "Western thought is firmly X" can be meaningfully interpreted. In any case thanks for your response and for the link, I look forward to reading and learning from it.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#559

Post by rixed »

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…

There is only one reliable way to tell that a product can stand the test of time: how old is it already?

You can't buy anything second hand, but jeans you can.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#560

Post by fancyfredbot »

This article manages to undermine itself with ridiculous quotes:

"There is no attachment, respect, or emotional journey with a garment you spend less than 20 years with.”

"we spend $3 on a carton of juice instead of squeezing oranges"

Perhaps by including words of wisdom like these they hope to demonstrate that their thesis of a decline in quality extends to journalism?

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