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Worse on Purpose

ledger.worseonpurpose.com

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Re: Worse on Purpose

#81

Post by itintheory »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #32

Man, I clicked on "American Giant", which the website says is known for "Quality US-made staples at mainstream prices". Then I see how much a zip-up hoodie costs: $168. I guess I'm not in the mainstream anymore, yikes.

I have two American Giant hoodies. One was a gift. After around 10 months the zipper broke, so they sent me a new one.

I eventually repaired the zipper (and have done the same for the other since). They are high quality and have respectable service. I think they're worth the price. These are probably 7-8 years old now, so things could have changed since then.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#82

Post by InsideOutSanta »

skippyfish wrote: post #68
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site may be slop and poorly made, but that doesn't invalidate that consumer products of a given quality tier are lower quality than they used to be. People like to see it confirmed because it matches their lived experience.

That's like saying "politicians are crooked, so every bad thing you can think of about politicians must be true". It doesn't and we shouldn't fall for it. In fact, the one industry where enshittification is widely embraced is our own, so I guess maybe it's projection?... Most other goods and services are not deliberately designed to get worse over time. We're the masters of giving people something cool for free and t…

But they do get worse, and somebody decided to worsen them, and that website tracks these changes.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#83

Post by chanux »

jackb4040 wrote: post #26

It doesn't really take into account that not all products are meant to be premium. Like it says to avoid Black & Decker because it's "Built to a price point, not a quality standard". Like we know, it's not the 1980s - sometimes you just need a cheap drill to mount a TV and then forget about until you move.

I'd assume we can rent one in this era of renting.. everything.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#84

Post by oliwarner »

Djonckheere wrote: post #74
skippyfish wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but…

> There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. Keyana Sapp is the writer behind it: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/authors/keyana-sapp

But how far behind? Is he writing the article or the prompt?

What struck most of all is the deep disconnect between author and authority. The tools one (tools are better than they've even been) stood out as a great example of this. People like to say things got worse, but it read like somebody asked a LLM to show how they got worse, ignoring all the ways in which they got better. A human who'd ever used tools would recognise the omission.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#85

Post by xtiansimon »

The corporate ownership is interesting. I generally don’t buy brands. They just get my first attention.

What sucks about brands is the marketing that drowns out the signals from other brands making them impossible to find or discover. Come to think of it, that’s sort of like everything else these days. (The Corruptor in Chief being a skilled practitioner). It’s why ChatAi is so effective over google search. The latter pushes the most discussed or linked or read (whatever the Google ranking algorithm is doing these days to put crap content at the top).

Re: Worse on Purpose

#86

Post by al_borland »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #32

Man, I clicked on "American Giant", which the website says is known for "Quality US-made staples at mainstream prices". Then I see how much a zip-up hoodie costs: $168. I guess I'm not in the mainstream anymore, yikes.

I have a zip-up hoodie from Polo Ralph Lauren I got at Costco for $56. I wore it almost daily for many years and it still looks basically new. The only issue now is the zipper doesn’t stay up as much as it used to. It will slightly fall throughout the day, and I have to zip it back up if/when needed.

I ended up buying another one recently, from RL directly, I think it was around $150. Considering how well it held up to near daily wear for 6 years, it felt worth it. People still asked me if it was new. Other than the zipper falling a bit, there was only some minor wear on the cuff, that only the person wearing it would notice.

I’m assuming there is also some way I can just replace the zipper on my old one, but I didn’t look into it.

Assuming you wear it, and it holds up like my RL one did, the per wear price can actually end up being pretty low, maybe even less than a cheaper alternative that only lasts a season or two.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#87

Post by altacc »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #36
msdz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the downside of requiring infinite (in the sense of “never-ending”) growth, and not being content “just” with profit.

I'm moderately sure that there's a part of private equity that would be content with a steady profit (at the right price). It's just not the part that you usually hear about.

Private equity is often mining a company for money for a few years before discarding it or rolling it up with something. Quick results, not long term stability & growth. Profitable income from the company is not always a goal, often the money is to be made in asset stripping, financial engineering, management fees, etc... then reducing with layoffs, underinvestment, vendor abuse, etc... until nothing is left but a husk that is profitable enough on paper that it can be sold on.

Re: Worse on Purpose

#88

Post by rhizome »

ghostly_s wrote: post #76
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #46

I sure wasn't expecting to see multi-level-marketing company Cutco on the list of "Approved" vendors. I guess it depends on which moral failing you're monitoring.

I see Lodge is the first entry on their "approved" list: "The anchor of the entire counter-list." Everything I've heard from the cast iron nerds is that modern Lodge is crap because they switched to the cheaper sand casting process, which leaves a rough finish that is a PITA to season. Selling out to private equity is not a prerequisite to enshittification.

> Selling out to private equity is not a prerequisite to enshittification.

True, simple MBAs often reach the same conclusions.

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