The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality • Hacker News Board

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#61

Post by nradov » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:22 AM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #9

phtrivier wrote: post #2

Begs an interesting question : some people can still afford quality items that last (namely, the people that sell throwaway shit to everyone else ; or, more precisely, the people who earn rents from companies that sell throwaway shit etc...) Are things getting shittier for them, too ? Are luxury brands immune to "energy is getting expensive, and corporate needs to buy shares back and increase dividend, so we have to…

This is a great thread about wealth and craftsmanship. Wealthy people used to appreciate craft, which has morphed into spending lots of money on a brand rather than an understanding of what it is that they're buying: https://bsky.app/profile/dieworkwear.bsky.social/post/3lswmj...

The actual wealthy people still appreciate craft, at least for certain things. It's mainly the socially insecure nouveau riche who buy brands as a signaling mechanism.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#62

Post by rambambram » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

jabjq wrote: post #15

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 dark blue trousers at C&A and after a dozen washes they are noticeably losing their colouring. Yes, I know, Cheap&Awful. I’m poor.

Wearing the same now, can agree.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#63

Post by blueflow » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:23 AM UTC

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #49

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 author doesn't really understand quality and starts out by defining it purelt in subjective terms. Then makes the mistake in the rest of the article by following this subjective reasoning by talking about perceptions of quality as a stand in for actual quality. Go read Zen anf the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a decent, if not weird, introduction to thinking about quality. Quality is both subjective and obje…

I'm surprised. What is the objective aspect of quality? Can you have quality without a human-intended purpose?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#64

Post by blfr » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:25 AM UTC

cherryteastain wrote: post #55

nradov wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, you prioritized price and availability over sheer product quality. Millions upon millions of people made the same choice.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#65

Post by qwery » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:25 AM UTC

palata wrote: post #29

dmezzetti wrote: post #21

It's called "lowest cost technically acceptable". Publicly traded companies are driven by quarterly earnings and increasing net margins. You do that by selling products at the lowest cost possible where buyers will still buy it. A bigger decline is coming if we let "vibe coding" and what we call AI replace human workers at scale. The technology isn't there yet for full automation but everything is blindly surging ahe…

> It's called "lowest cost technically acceptable". I like this wording better than "programmed obsolescence". I don't really believe that "programmed obsolescence" is common. If anyone in a company leaked that the company actively designs the product to stop working after some time, it would make the news. I call it "premature obsolescence", which sounds more passive to me: the product doesn't last as long as it cou…

Planned obsolescence is very much an actively employed, functional, business strategy.

I think you're only considering one aspect of planned obsolescence -- where the product is designed to have a short lifetime. I don't know why you would believe that that isn't part of "business as usual", but there's more than one way to make a product obsolete. The typical case is when a company releases yearly model refreshes for a product with an operational life far in excess of 12 months. This stategy is most common in markets with a monopoly or oligopoly, in saturated product segments.

Have you ever heard the phrase "last year's model"?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#66

Post by topspin » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:26 AM UTC

KoolKat23 wrote: post #35

Barriers to entry keep going up, access to capital is going down and required return on capital is high. People are going to maximize short term profits.

As part of that, there is a strong trend toward consolidation, and little competition emerging to challenge the oligopolies that have formed.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#67

Post by RangerScience » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:26 AM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #63

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This author doesn't really understand quality and starts out by defining it purelt in subjective terms. Then makes the mistake in the rest of the article by following this subjective reasoning by talking about perceptions of quality as a stand in for actual quality. Go read Zen anf the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a decent, if not weird, introduction to thinking about quality. Quality is both subjective and obje…

I'm surprised. What is the objective aspect of quality? Can you have quality without a human-intended purpose?

It’s worth noting that the author of Zen and the Art literally went crazy in pursuit of this.

I don’t mean this to say “you have asked a bad question”, but rather to say, “you have asked so large a question that a man once went insane in trying to answer it.”

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#68

Post by bornfreddy » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:28 AM UTC

> ...that the great promise of capitalism — if you work, you can have a decent life, buy a house, and go on vacation — is no longer being fulfilled;...

That's... not capitalism at all? Socialism maybe, but absolutely not capitalism. In average, those that work will have a good life (or at least, in average, better life than those who don't), but there is no guarantee on a single case, or even that this life will be good enough.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#69

Post by raspasov » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:28 AM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #63

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This author doesn't really understand quality and starts out by defining it purelt in subjective terms. Then makes the mistake in the rest of the article by following this subjective reasoning by talking about perceptions of quality as a stand in for actual quality. Go read Zen anf the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a decent, if not weird, introduction to thinking about quality. Quality is both subjective and obje…

I'm surprised. What is the objective aspect of quality? Can you have quality without a human-intended purpose?

How about empirical instead of objective? I think objective vs subjective can be a false dichotomy in terms of quality.

For example, when my phone connects to WiFi as soon as I get home every time, correctly, for the last many years, that's very strong empirical evidence of quality.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#70

Post by buran77 » Sun, Jul 20, 2025, 10:29 AM UTC

> Many products are hard to compare due to the enormous price difference

Well that explains a lot, doesn't it? The article is right overall but occasionally glances over the importance of the "quality/price" ratio. As the price went down, buying habits changed, and by extension the manufacturing habits. When things are cheap nobody wants to keep them forever, they get exchanged sooner to "keep up with the times".

My anecdote, when I bought my first fridge (a tiny 70-100l I think) it cost 2.5x the average net salary in my country, and it still broke down often, but it could be repaired so it lasted 20+ years. I think today a fridge costing 2.5x the average salary - for the US this would be a ~$10-12k fridge - will be more reliable but unrepairable so when it's done, it's done.