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The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

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Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#621

Post by fragmede »

teiferer wrote: post #452
fidotron wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Lighter doesn't mean worse quality.

It doesn't, but heft of a product is used as a proxy for quality, to the point that electronics will sometimes have a weight glued inside to pretend the item is heavier than it is, in order to seem of higher quality.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#622

Post by AznHisoka »

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.

Evernote still has maintained a lot of its old UI and features. Maybe it too will degrade eventally but its still very good

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#624

Post by [deleted] »

SapporoChris wrote: post #129
mayas_ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure about the affordability part. Cars are becoming prohibitively expensive. Housing is becoming a luxury. Even consumer products are becoming increasingly expensive. Safety largely improved but not craftsmanship.

BYD launches new 2025 Dolphin EV with the same $14K price tag and more range. https://electrek.co/2024/07/08/byd-launches-2025-dolphin-ev-... The problems you mentioned are a local problem, not a global problem.

[deleted]

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#625

Post by trod1234 »

cyanydeez wrote: post #449
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…

You need to factor in planned obsolescence. The fundamentals of the market simply does not make sense when your product is cheap and lifecycle is long. Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed and for them to maximize the lifecycle of a lightbulb.

Uhh, you are aware that planned obsolescence is only incentivized in fiat markets based in money-printing which aren't real markets.

Absent boom-bust, and the related fraud/true-up that happens cyclically, you have sustained growth mirroring population growth, without the chaotic whipsaw, as well as other factors of general wear and tear that make sustain demand.

Less cost, and cost that follows real stable value without distortion, leads to more production over time, not less. Boom bust dynamics cause a slight move forward, followed my two steps back; repeatedly, until your out of steps.

In such older economies, you don't lose out such monumental opportunity cost and related resources to fraud or people who sit on their hands. Opportunity cost is immeasurable without a reference, so you don't know what you lose, or what could have been.

> Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed...

Honestly, seeing this rhetoric makes you sound like a shill peddling propaganda towards centralization as a solution, which includes both fascism and communism (statism for both), while ignoring the established failures of such systems.

I don't mean to be critical of what you have to say, but you come off as really ignorant, or deliberately misleading.

If you can only run on the same path on a circle, do you really think you'll eventually get to where you want to go when that point is not on the circle?

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#626

Post by hedora »

gtowey wrote: post #579
WalterBright wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many products come in 3 levels of quality: 1. the stripper, designed for a minimum price that will draw people into the showroom 2. the luxe, which has every feature, designed for the people who don't care about the price 3. the midrange, which is what most people wind up buying This strategy maximizes the profit that can be made. You'll see it from refrigerators to cars.

The problem I see is that main difference between those options is not quality, but features. For example with refrigerators you see integrated touch screen, viewing windows, and all kinds of esoteric features. But the core of the product, the compressor and overall cooling system is not actually any better. In fact, looking at reviews shows that those parts are often garbage quality too. So it fails at the core job…

Concretely, don’t buy anything made by Samsung. Here’s a $3000 washer / dryer with a 90 day [x] warranty:

https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/all-in-one-washer...

[x] I got tired of following footnote disclaimers. Note the headline 20-year warranty and $2,200 price tags are blatant lies. The two year warranty below that claim has footnotes that references more off page disclaimers. When we had a samsung appliance die, we found the actual warranty was only 90 days.

Even worse, there are zero repair companies willing to touch samsung garbage in our area because it’s impossible to debug issues. So, even with their samsung care package, you’re still throwing this thing out in a few years.

I’ve also attempted to call their customer support. It makes the IRS call center seem prompt.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#627

Post by benrutter »

ryukoposting wrote: post #367
benrutter wrote: post #311

From the intro: > Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls. The author talks about a range of motivations behind these, but it seems like there's an obvious one we're missing. All these changes make products more profitable. I would love to live in a society that prioritises sustainability and quality of life for its citizens.…

Have you ever actually used a long-life incandescent lightbulb? They suck. It's like your bedroom is lit by the miserable little lamp in your oven. That's because Tungsten lighting has inherent tradeoffs between life span, and every other desirable characteristic. Brightness, spectral quality, and energy efficiency all improve as you make the filament thinner, and thus less durable. The Phoebus cartel is an example o…

No I haven't - has anyone? It sounds like you have, so I won't argue. I am no expert on what the actual consumer impact of the Phoebus Cartel was, maybe it wasn't a great choie of example. Wikipedia doesn't make it sound positive for consumers overall:

> Regulators in the UK and some independent engineers have noted that there are benefits to shorter bulb lifespans, as shorter-life bulbs can be brighter for the same wattage. Nevertheless, both internal comments from cartel executives and later findings by a US court suggest that the cartel's direct motivation for the change was to increase profits by forcing customers to buy bulbs more frequently.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#628

Post by trod1234 »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #286
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…

When I worked at a big tech company, the life quality of software engineers was undergoing what old timers perceived as a significant decline. The official response of the CFO was that the quality can't be declining that much because people aren't quitting an an accelerating rate. This is the same phenomenon as your suspicion. There's some metric (e.g. people keep buying our widgets) and you stress test demand for it…

There's a simple answer in established literature.

There is an objective perspective. You might want to read Hazlitt, Economics in one lesson.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#629

Post by figassis »

etbebl wrote: post #545
cyanydeez wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to factor in planned obsolescence. The fundamentals of the market simply does not make sense when your product is cheap and lifecycle is long. Think of the LED bulb. It would make more sense for the government to manage the few resources needed and for them to maximize the lifecycle of a lightbulb.

It seems to me that for products that in general are cheap to buy as well as produce, companies would want to make these products somewhat longer-lasting to gain a better reputation and then make more sales and larger profits on more expensive items. I think the fundamental problem here is that nobody trusts brands anymore because we have been trained by strategies like market segmentation and private equity cost cut…

I would absolutely buy the $2 bulb. Problem is all the cheap brands also start marketing theirs as best quality and sell for $2.

Re: The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality

#630

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

walterbell wrote: post #486
klabb3 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most things are still available at the same quality your parents remember Just no. The old reputable brands are enshittifying the same way. I’ve multiple times seen it first hand, with brands like Levi’s and Fjällräven. One year of wear is enough to disform the textile entirely. The fabric from those older clothes are still sturdy and whole, with only discoloration at the folding spots. No holes either from decades…

Uniqlo has a vertically integrated Japanese supply chain, including custom textiles. Their clothing has been relatively consistent.

Japanese companies have largely bucked the trend of declining quality, at least within their domestic market. I'm not sure if it's related to decades of Japanese deflation or just because of a more discerning quality-conscious consumer base. Uniqlo has done a decent job of carrying that quality consciousness over to the rest of the world.
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