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Brands got worse on purpose

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Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#71

Post by lo_zamoyski »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #55
shmeeed wrote: post #12

I hate to be the guy to say it, but this is just capitalism working as intended.

I'll repeat my definitions/understandings of capitalism as generally understood within the USA today: 1. strong entrepeneurial culture, limited obstacles from government when starting new business ventures and/or products & services 2. a "free" market, meaning that in broad terms government does not control prices nor what can be bought & sold or how much or when it is sold 3. distribution of profit generally goes to…

Political and economic orders or systems matter, of course, but ultimately, even good ones fail, because ultimately all political/social/economic orders depend on the quality of their participants. No system can neutralize the effects of human vice and stupidity as such, because every system is the product of the actions of those very same people.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#72

Post by logotype »

dfee wrote: post #65
logotype wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here.. i bulk buy tons of AG (American Giant) t-shirts (Premium Slub Crew Tee is awesome) and tons of their jeans too.

Interesting. Hadn't heard of American Giant. I buy AG Jeans and Robert Barakett shirts, and this is my usual outfit. However, AG Jeans ( https://www.agjeans.com/ ) is distinct from American Giant jeans ( https://www.american-giant.com/collections/mens-bottoms ). I also struggle to identify quality brands. Generally just shop at Nordstorm.

I meant American Giant jeans https://www.american-giant.com/collections/mens-bottoms :)

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#73

Post by lamasery »

AlexB138 wrote: post #48

Is there a review platform that focuses on brands, rather than on stores? For instance, if I look for Brooks Brothers reviews, I get reviews of individual stores, of their website, and a couple articles talking about the business. It seems like a good way to combat the information asymmetry being exploited here would be a trustworthy (I know, good luck) review platform that focuses on overall brands, rather than spec…

Trawling Reddit with great care and a critical eye, plus obscurer topic-specific forums, is the best solution I've come up with. Though even those are full lies-for-pay (advertising) especially on Reddit.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#74

Post by lamasery »

palmotea wrote: post #69
somewhatgoated wrote: post #13

Just but either professional (as in practitioners of a trade us it) or military products — those tend to be much better than “consumers” products. They cost more but they will last a lifetime. Of course not super applicable to every aspect of fashion, but I’ve been doing this for all kinds of products for years and was never disappointed. For fashion I would recommend to hit up small designers, ideally someone you kn…

> Just but either professional (as in practitioners of a trade us it) or military products — those tend to be much better than “consumers” products. They cost more but they will last a lifetime. Eh, I'm not sure that's such good advice. IIRC, I remember stumbling across tacticool "military grade" USB thumb drives, for instance. I doubt those are any better than your typical name-brand drive. "Professional" seems to b…

The impression I've gotten from ex-military folks is that regarding "military grade" as a marker of quality is a habit they find particularly funny.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#75

Post by palmotea »

keyana217 wrote: post #54
rsingel wrote: post #25

Love Pendleton but they have moved some production to Mexico and other spots. Check before you buy For example, Pendleton Ganado Matelassé Blanket | Belk https://share.google/0QaaEXgLnNu0EKClr

Author here. Good catch... you're right. The wool is still woven in Pendleton and Washougal, but finished product sourcing is a mix and some blankets are now assembled offshore. Will update the Ledger entry and the essay today.

Please address the criticisms that this is AI written slop here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47850659.

Why are you writing this and what's your goal? Are you actually checking every fact in the articles?

I think you'd do well to cite a lot more of your sources, especially given the AI concerns. Cite legal filings, public records, reddit comments, whatever. Verifiability would help.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#76

Post by AlexB138 »

keyana217 wrote: post #70
AlexB138 wrote: post #48

Is there a review platform that focuses on brands, rather than on stores? For instance, if I look for Brooks Brothers reviews, I get reviews of individual stores, of their website, and a couple articles talking about the business. It seems like a good way to combat the information asymmetry being exploited here would be a trustworthy (I know, good luck) review platform that focuses on overall brands, rather than spec…

Author here. The Ledger is designed to cover both sides. 59 Approved brands right now, 31 on Watchlist, plus the Avoid list and Former Great. It's meant to answer "what's still worth buying" just as much as "what's not." It's a living document and has just been released - will be expanded quickly

Very curious to see what you do with it. I like the premise very much and will be checking back to see how it develops.

Just as feedback, the reason I got the feeling that it was largely focused on "the bad" is that the "approved" entries seem much lower signal. For instance, I opened Leatherman to get a sense of why it was approved, but there was essentially no information there other than ownership. Maybe that's your focus, but it's a little difficult to get a sense of why I should be confident in it as a buyer.

Best luck with the project, it seems like meaningful work.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#77

Post by a1o »

habosa wrote: post #33
vharuck wrote: post #24

I (or really, my parents) were burned by something like this recently. They bought my kid an FAO Schwarz marble run tower for Christmas. It's made of terrible plastic, with rough seams, and every play session ends when a marble gets stuck somewhere nearly impossible to reach. It requires partial disassembly, bending, and a screwdriver to pry things out. I was shocked that an FAO Schwarz toy sucked so much. I looked a…

I bought a teddy bear from them in 2014 and another in 2025. It's night and day. The earlier one is really high quality, the newer one feels like I won it from a claw machine.

Yo, Teddy bear from a claw machine at the end of the 90’s were high quality btw

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#78

Post by radicality »

AlexB138 wrote: post #39

Funny baader-meinhof moment for me reading this. My wife recently bought me some Brooks Brothers polo shirts that essentially dissolved the first time they were washed. I had never seen a shirt that was such poor quality. We were both flabbergasted, and the employees apparently gave her a bit of a hard time when she tried to return them. I suppose I now know why. What this company is doing is taking advantage of, and…

Definitely feels like fraud to me too. Kind of reminds me of Amazon listings where some seller has some decent quality product, collects a lot of high reviews, then uses the same listing and does a complete switcharoo to a much shittier more profitable product, replacing images and the description, but keeping the higher rating from earlier. Which also to me sounds like fraud.

At least the Chinese brands don’t try and hide it much like the companies listed here, they’ll just generate a new 5-letter new company to sell low quality crap.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#79

Post by awakeasleep »

neurobashing wrote: post #67

one thing to note (I didn't see it in the article or the comments as of this moment) but a thing that happened a lot with eg LL Bean was, people were buying old Bean stuff from yard sales and so on, then returning it for a new one, under the lifetime warranty. The implicit "customer for life" cycle was thus broken, and they were giving all-but-free stuff to people who had little intention of ever buying new.

Part of the marketing for a consumer hostile change like this is cooking up a reason to blame the victim.

Look at the implicit assumptions we're supposed to make in the story you shared, like there was some point in time when people decided to start abusing the policy, necessitating the change. Like people cared about new ll bean so much they'd scour garage sales and do the return fraud. Like they hadn't built this margin into their product to begin with. Like they didn't have a dozen other ways to address these trends, if they were actually happening. (like restricting the policy to original purchasers, requiring you to have a receipt, tracking it themselves, etc)

It really seems like hogwash if you think about it critically. They just wanted to expand their margins, simplify bookkeeping, etc.

Re: Brands got worse on purpose

#80

Post by palmotea »

lamasery wrote: post #74
palmotea wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just but either professional (as in practitioners of a trade us it) or military products — those tend to be much better than “consumers” products. They cost more but they will last a lifetime. Eh, I'm not sure that's such good advice. IIRC, I remember stumbling across tacticool "military grade" USB thumb drives, for instance. I doubt those are any better than your typical name-brand drive. "Professional" seems to b…

The impression I've gotten from ex-military folks is that regarding "military grade" as a marker of quality is a habit they find particularly funny.

Yeah, isn't the joke that "military grade" means made by the lowest bidder?
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