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Generation Junk

walterkirn.substack.com

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Re: Generation Junk

#91

Post by dghlsakjg »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #54
fritzo wrote: post #29

Author neglects selection bias: antiques that stopped working after 1 or 5 or 10 years have been in landfills for a long time. My grandfather (1922-2006) opined: "Some folks say things aren't made like they used to be. But I remember those junky old cars that would break down every 50 or 100 miles. I remember that unreliable crap. I'd far rather have a modern car, even if I can't fix it." (He was more of a carpenter…

My granddad was just telling me of cars in the '40s that needed an oul change and "lube job" every 1000 miles.

The concept of a regular “tune-up” has likewise fallen out. Older cars needed carbs adjusted seasonally, spark plugs replaced, caps and rotors, timing, etc. tires are genuinely incredible. A car over 100k miles used to be at the end of its life, now cheap cars routinely go double that.

Those are all things that are still in cars (or have been replaced with digital equivalents) but have become so reliable that we need to be reminded to check them. It’s not unreasonable to expect spark plugs to last 100k miles.

Re: Generation Junk

#92

Post by woopwoop »

eduction wrote: post #71
woopwoop wrote: post #12

So this article implies that a number of things that we buy previously were built to last longer, and indeed did last longer. The first few examples are kitchen appliances. In this case I don't really know, but I'm at least willing to listen. Ultimately the evidence is people responding to a thread on Twitter where he solicited complaints. Not so compelling. But then he mentions a "hybrid sedan". Here I'm aware of th…

Totally irrelevant links — the assertion was about hybrid cars, those links speak to cars overall. The Toyota Prius debuted in the US in 2000. I’d argue 23 years is simply not sufficient to make an argument about long term reliability—particularly given that sales took a while to ramp, and any issues in, say, the first 10 years are likely to be dismissed as teething problems.

The article was about consumer goods in general, so data about cars overall is more relevant than a single brand. Nonetheless, the Toyota Prius is, by reputation, a very reliable car. Here a used car website used it's data to estimate car model's lifespan, finding that a Toyota Prius has a potential lifespan of 250000 miles, much greater than anything from the 1980s.

https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/cars-that-will-la...

Re: Generation Junk

#93

Post by [deleted] »

klausa wrote: post #78
willis936 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toasters are an interesting case study. I went on a tear last year after being fed up with every toaster doing the same bad job. I thought maybe someone made a proper toaster. What I found is that when you pay more the coat of paint gets nicer and maybe there's an MCU+LCD, but the guts and logic are identical. There is no good commercially available toaster today. It's sending a very loud message about how markets op…

Either I'm having insanely good luck or I have extremely low expectations of a toaster, but I genuinely don't understand how a toaster does "bad job". What were the issues you were having?

[deleted]

Re: Generation Junk

#94

Post by edrxty »

jonahss wrote: post #49

Ok no. First of all: survivorship bias. All of the old appliances that still work are only the ones which still work. This goes for the author's juicer. Second: things which have investment attention now are excellent quality and things which are waning towards the end of their lifecycle are having the last few corners cut before the Private Equity firm that now owns them throws in the towel, throughly wrung dry. Aut…

Seconded, though I'd add that with the current concerns about climate change and resource utilization, we need to think a bit more about product lifecycle and this is a reasonable way of illustrating that.

If the embodied environmental impact of a product increases 10% to make it last 100% longer then we need to think about making that change rather than producing twice as many to replace the broken ones.

Re: Generation Junk

#95

Post by paleface »

wredcoll wrote: post #20
upon_drumhead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our few year old kitchen aid has been a nightmare of broken plastic internal parts. I will weep when my mother passes, but I will be taking her mixer and ditching mine.

The irony of course is that they deliberately make some parts out of plastic so they break before the rest of the machine does when you're misstreating it.

I’ve had the same experience, with paper shredders - particularly the Fellowes brand, in the UK - which all have a nylon (possibly some other plastic) cog, somewhere to overheat, then break.

Re: Generation Junk

#96

Post by roenxi »

jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote: post #51
roenxi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also important to be aware that there is huge sampling bias. All the 1950s artefacts that were fragile went to the junk heap a long time ago.

All of the toasters sold today will be in the junk heap within 10 years

To make such bold claims about all the toasters being produced today you must be quite the toaster enthusiast.

Although I admit to some scepticism. Seems likely that some toasters will turn out to be of high quality.

Re: Generation Junk

#97

Post by OJFord »

willis936 wrote: post #27
fullstop wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A toaster in 1951 was $21, which is about $250 today. I would argue that a $250 toaster today is still not a "buy it for life" item, but it would certainly have a lot of bells and whistles and almost no user-serviceable parts.

Toasters are an interesting case study. I went on a tear last year after being fed up with every toaster doing the same bad job. I thought maybe someone made a proper toaster. What I found is that when you pay more the coat of paint gets nicer and maybe there's an MCU+LCD, but the guts and logic are identical. There is no good commercially available toaster today. It's sending a very loud message about how markets op…

I think Dualit still make pretty straightforward mechanical ones. Or if not, you can buy an old one that's already been someone else's toaster for life and can now be yours.

Re: Generation Junk

#98

Post by CrazyStat »

jonahss wrote: post #49

Ok no. First of all: survivorship bias. All of the old appliances that still work are only the ones which still work. This goes for the author's juicer. Second: things which have investment attention now are excellent quality and things which are waning towards the end of their lifecycle are having the last few corners cut before the Private Equity firm that now owns them throws in the towel, throughly wrung dry. Aut…

> pens - same as staples.

I focused in on pens as I was reading the piece because I'm something of a pen snob, something I realized when I was at a job fair one day in college and I had a brief feeling of aversion when a recruiter offered me a shitty free pen.

It's not hard to get good pens, and they're not particularly expensive. $1-2/pen will get you very solid ball-point pens that write smoothly and reliably. Some of them can be refilled to save more money and reduce waste. There are wide varieties of styles, color, and point fineness to choose from.

If you usually buy shitty pens for $0.10 each or whatever that may seem like a lot, but unless you go through multiple pens a day or something it's really not. The $10/year or so I spend on slightly nicer pens is well worth it to me.

I suspect there are probably also similar quality options available for things like staples and matches, but I'm not familiar with those.

Re: Generation Junk

#99

Post by willbush »

klipklop wrote: post #42

I wonder if this is the symptom of ever eroding purchasing power the average western person is experiencing. Everyone is looking to stretch their income further and are willing to buy ever cheaper, but flimsy goods. Really the only thing that will fix it is stronger warranty law, this will make things more expensive, but it will massively cut down on landfill fodder. A refrigerator that can’t last 20 years is terribl…

I recently made a blog post / rant about this exact thing https://willbush.dev/blog/complex-appliances/. I only shared it https://slrpnk.net/c/buyitforlife. Someone mentioned a warranty law in the EU that affects quality https://slrpnk.net/comment/4749319. I didn't look too far into it. Anyone know anything about that?

Re: Generation Junk

#100

Post by pete762 »

crooked-v wrote: post #6
drcode wrote: post #4

I feel arguments like this always ignore the fact that buying a toaster in 1950 was a major investment for a family, and if you want to spend $2000 on a high-end toaster in 2023, which is probably equivalent in inflation-adjusted price to the 1950s toaster, it will probably also be very nice.

For me, I think the prime comparison is the KitchenAid stand mixer. You can get a new one that's functionally identical to the classic models that have lasted forever... and it'll run you at least $350 even during a major sale.

My mom has a Kitchen Aid kettle. That shitty thing breaks all the time forcing my dad to replace some parts of the circuit. (And it's not the users' fault, it's a damn kettle, there's not much you can do wrong except maybe starting it empty which they don't do)
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