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Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

danluu.com

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Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#81

Post by jules »

massysett wrote: post #62
Gigachad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual its just how much money you put in to it. We spend a lot of money making sure building foundations and silicon manufacturing works because failing is expensive and dangerous. I don't want to pay double/triple price for a toaster to slightly reduce its risk of failing because I'm happy to accept that on average it lasts a long time but there is some chance it fails sooner. If I'm in charge of buying a $100M b…

There’s a lot of stuff that works remarkably well even though it’s cheap. I just came from a supermarket. It’s filled with items from around the world, of which most are very inexpensive. The consistent quality of these products is astounding—a bag of potato chips or a box of crackers tastes exactly the same, anywhere in the country where I buy it, year-round. A can of Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same even though th…

The coke bottles themselves are amazing too. I used to go to school with a reusable bottle filled with milk. Those cylindrical lunch bottles for kids were absolutely horrible. They leaked half the time, spoiling my bag and notebook. If you dropped them they would break because they were hard plastic. The rubber ring that was supposed to stop it from leaking would degrade quickly and start to smell funny. Those things cost as much as 20 bottles of coke, and an empty coke bottle is a vastly superior product in almost every way!

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#82

Post by syntheweave »

zozbot234 wrote: post #51
jrockway wrote: post #19

I always enjoy danluu's blog; one of the few I have bookmarked and go randomly read from time to time. Some random comments on out-of-context snippets: > For example, we tried "buy" instead of "build" for a product that syncs data from Postgres to Snowflake. ... Despite being widely recommended and the leading product in the space, the product has a number of major design flaws that mean that it literally cannot work…

> having ever locked down was stupid, we were always going to end up with endemic covid COVID lock down/shelter in place orders were never intended to avoid endemic disease altogether. They were about slowing down its spread just enough that the healthcare system would remain functional while the disease became endemic. And they mostly worked OK for that.

One of the issues with how it was handled was the handwavy and contradictory information that many governments and public health czars circulated: that handwashing is most important, that masks are effective or not effective or only some kinds are, that the lockdown will be "two weeks to slow the spread" and so forth.

It was the public health equivalent of "take two asprin and call in the morning". While there were successes for sure, clear and consistent communication was not among them.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#83

Post by samgtx »

massysett wrote: post #62
Gigachad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual its just how much money you put in to it. We spend a lot of money making sure building foundations and silicon manufacturing works because failing is expensive and dangerous. I don't want to pay double/triple price for a toaster to slightly reduce its risk of failing because I'm happy to accept that on average it lasts a long time but there is some chance it fails sooner. If I'm in charge of buying a $100M b…

There’s a lot of stuff that works remarkably well even though it’s cheap. I just came from a supermarket. It’s filled with items from around the world, of which most are very inexpensive. The consistent quality of these products is astounding—a bag of potato chips or a box of crackers tastes exactly the same, anywhere in the country where I buy it, year-round. A can of Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same even though th…

A bit of a woo-woo aside but I've been trying to practice more gratitude thinking in my daily life and the grocery store is an easy place to be reminded of how good we have it.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#84

Post by cwkoss »

I think these sorts of failures of 'common sense' are common among people who have studied economic theory. Economic theory often does a decent job at describing steady states: where the asymptote will eventually land, but does a very poor job of describing the chaotic middle steps, IMO.

If you chop a 10 huge trees down in a forest, an economist would tell you "There should be 10 300-year old trees here". That may be true in 300 years, but the procession of species in the 300-year interim will be much more interesting, and understanding that tells you much more about ecology than knowing the eventual result. And the forest may not last 300 years before conditions change so significantly that it invalidates the prediction.

Similarly, the efficient markets hypothesis really breaks down in the modern era, because market conditions don't ever experience an unperturbed steady state. Technology, politics, availability of expertise, and shifting social norms rearrange the foundations more frequently so equilibrium is never reached.

Any long-term theoretical predictions on quality or efficiency of CRT monitors or horseshoes or fondue pots converging to an efficient ideal state were nonsensical and doomed from the start: the market conditions around them changed faster than the market is able to adapt.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#85

Post by fendy3002 »

massysett wrote: post #62
Gigachad wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As usual its just how much money you put in to it. We spend a lot of money making sure building foundations and silicon manufacturing works because failing is expensive and dangerous. I don't want to pay double/triple price for a toaster to slightly reduce its risk of failing because I'm happy to accept that on average it lasts a long time but there is some chance it fails sooner. If I'm in charge of buying a $100M b…

There’s a lot of stuff that works remarkably well even though it’s cheap. I just came from a supermarket. It’s filled with items from around the world, of which most are very inexpensive. The consistent quality of these products is astounding—a bag of potato chips or a box of crackers tastes exactly the same, anywhere in the country where I buy it, year-round. A can of Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same even though th…

Exactly. I can't imagine how expensive a computer chip should be if the process isn't optimized / streamlined.

And for kitchenware and dinningware, we still get decent quality for a still rather cheap price. Of course as the article stated it's not easy to determine which one with decent quality, however if customers only aim for the cheapest one of course it won't be good.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#86

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

chii wrote: post #44
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #2

Because we have unreasonable expectations. Making things work well is hard, and thus expensive. Take a chair, for example. Anyone can make a chair: just get a bucket, turn it over, and sit on it. Boom; backless chair. Want a backrest, arms? Get a 2x4, a saw, a drill, and some bolts. An hour later: Boom; chair. You want a chair that works well? How do you even define works well for a chair? Do you need cushioning? Do…

an aeron chair costs about $2000 dollars (give or take). The construction is sturdy, so i expect it to last at least 10 years, if not 20 (you take care of it etc). So the amortized cost is some 100-200 dollars a year for an excellent chair. If you buy a crappy chair, i bet that the cushion starts failing after a year or so of constant sitting. So you'd probably replace it yearly, or suffer a bad chair for a few years…

Yes, I wish I could replace the seat cushion in my chair. That’s literally the only thing wrong with it.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#87

Post by fouc »

______-_-______ wrote: post #80
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #59

Looking through old Sears catalogs and seeing the prizes on older game shows, I think some of our memory is selective. Even in photos and SD video you can see the terrible build quality on many consumer products from those earlier times. This seems to be especially true for furniture and exercise equipment. When you convert into current dollars, this low quality junk often is more expensive than what is available tod…

In other words, 90% of everything is crap, both then and now. And thanks to Lindy's Law, you're usually better off buying something old than something new. But that's not how most people think :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

> Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, it is also likely to have a longer remaining life expectancy.

Makes sense!

I was also thinking there's a related rule - something worth buying used has proven itself to not be crap.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#88

Post by Strilanc »

It's pretty depressing how many of the comments are purely answering the title and not discussing the content of the article. In particular, the comments seem mostly focused on consumer product build quality whereas the article is more focused on e.g. businesses trying to outsource something (like same day delivery) and getting a worse result even when they pay more than doing it internally. And the cultural obstacles that make these problems difficult to fix or even sometimes perceive.

I will note that I often wish Dan Luu was a bit less apparently-uniformly-confident in some of the statements he writes. He does back up what he says, but he'll use the same tone for something he's seen anecdotally and something he's spent a month personally investigating.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#89

Post by tashoecraft »

bombcar wrote: post #73
analog31 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every customer can assess the quality of a product. I can judge the quality of a violin, but I can't tell you how long the compressor in a refrigerator will last.

This is why the only signal that customers used to have got removed - a refrigerator that had the same design and components for twenty years is likely well made (if it weren’t people would have found out or changed the parts). But these are rare (one of the few I know of is Speed Queen but I suspect there are others in other industries, mainly commercial/industrial products). Amusingly enough these work best when in…

Except being made well isn't the only criteria. From what I understand, speed queen uses so much water compared to a more modern machine that you could buy a new machine on the cost savings.

There are a multitude of reasons, companies no longer make products to last. Watch videos where they dissect products, you'll find machines are designed to fail after a certain amount of time. Motors that only contain a certain amount of oil and cannot be serviced.

Re: Why is it hard to buy things that work well?

#90

Post by Aunche »

samgtx wrote: post #83
massysett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of stuff that works remarkably well even though it’s cheap. I just came from a supermarket. It’s filled with items from around the world, of which most are very inexpensive. The consistent quality of these products is astounding—a bag of potato chips or a box of crackers tastes exactly the same, anywhere in the country where I buy it, year-round. A can of Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same even though th…

A bit of a woo-woo aside but I've been trying to practice more gratitude thinking in my daily life and the grocery store is an easy place to be reminded of how good we have it.

Relevant video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BNpk_OGEGlA

Grocery stores are a marvel for sure. It's a miracle that we can get a season fruit like grapes 365 days a year.

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