91–100 of 357 posts
“Capitalism” is not some entity that makes decisions, it’s people and groups who do. You want to blame someone? Blame the policies, programs, and choices (some intentional, others unintentional) of those who decided it was better to make things cheap than to make things well.
This is not a capitalist idea, it is a human decision.
I liked the outcome of the article but disagree with the author’s misplaced anger. “Capitalism” is not some entity that makes decisions, it’s people and groups who do. You want to blame someone? Blame the policies, programs, and choices (some intentional, others unintentional) of those who decided it was better to make things cheap than to make things well. This is not a capitalist idea, it is a human decision.
This is something that has bothered me for a while. When we're discussing capitalism, people seem to get it in their head that it's either what we have now, or you can fuck off to North Korea. How I would characterize my ideal economy is one where the feedback loop works: people can make reasonable guesses about what a product is, how long it will work for, and what its cost is. They can adjust their purchases accord…
That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? I would say yes, at least in some cases. High-quality, direct-to-consumer brands are great. I rely on purchasing guides for many of my buys and those point me to brands whose primary attribute is quality (or cost effectiveness) instead of marketing or historic adoption. That's great for me and great for th…
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A significant portion of the cost is labour, so if you translate that into a local non-US cost does it still seem absurd? I may have misunderstood your point, but I don't think it is a good argument for why running a business fixing things using local labour should be a fantasy. Aside from that, in my view a world where a sofa costs less than one weeks wages is the absurd and unsustainable one. We've adopted an attit…
I think there are two issues that are going in parallel 1. fixing stuff As long as some dude on the other side of the world is willing to make a new sofa and send it to you for cheaper than it is to fix it locally, the idea of fixing it locally will just never take off. You can ban/limit international trade, but then you're just screwing over poor people on the other end of the world for a "feel good" kind of thing 2…
3. Sustainability: Everything will have to be replaced eventually, even repairable sofas. It is important when constructing a piece of furniture (or anything else) how will the parts be recycled? We should aspire an ecosystem that goes: buy -> repair -> repair -> recycle.
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I have literally no idea what joins my sofa has. I own far too many things to check the seams and joints on everything I have ever bought.
There's a motte and bailey here. Motte: "people tell me to go to North Korea for my idea that it should be illegal to make couches with the wrong joins, use license agreements, or air ads that don't match my eventual experience", Bailey: "I don't know what a join is, and I shouldn't need to" Again, I ask: What's actually being proposed here? If nothing, is this just white collar barroom conversation, via griping?
- Ban most of the advertising as it's known today, recognizing it for the cancer on modern society that it is (see: [0]);
- Make vendors pay for costs of disposal of their products; this would curtail the profitability of shit-tier products and planned obsolescence;
- Institute a carbon tax; this will improve things across the board.
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[0] - http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html
you can also have the leather refinished instead of replacing it. they fill the cracks etc and touch up the "paint". I like this look more but ymmv depending what is available near you
If it's aniline, there's little they can do. That's also the nicest leather for a sofa (IMHO) as it breathes and so doesn't get uncomfortable to sit in when the weather is warm.
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> In conversation with venture capitalists, you hear the phrase “lifestyle business”, meaning one that is doing nicely and rewarding the people who run it and which isn’t planning for unbounded growth. The words “lifestyle business” are always, of course, uttered in a voice dripping with contempt. This makes me wonder what other type of business is there? How do VCs describe their business, what is their aim? Is it t…
The contemptuous phrase ‘lifestyle business’ is just VCs saying the quiet part out loud. You want to run a company that feeds your family and provides some decent stable jobs, indefinitely? You must be a clown, they think. The other memorably awful/ macho bullshit line I once personally heard when pitching an idea to a young thruster was: “Who gets fired?” by which the guy meant, whose jobs are on the line if you bui…
If they encourage a thousand lifestyle business bloom, one might turn into a boot-strapped "unicorn" that didn't take their money, so it's in their own interest to make lifestyle businesses seem like a terrible idea.
The more talented people are convinced the only way to start a business is with VC, the higher a value VCs can extract from talented people. If we actually had more socially acceptable options, more folks would have the leverage to walk away from the table and shove the VC's non-competes, non-disclosures, preferred shares and meddling board seats in their face.
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The framing of 'government bureaucrat' vs. 'consumer choice' is at best misleading. As lordnacho pointed out, such a free market only works for consumers when the consumers have real agency. We exist in a state of immense information asymmetry, where vendors have immense advantages over the buyers. (Immense resources focused on highly misleading marketing vs. individual expertise, with attempts by consumers to organi…
Yes. We are heavily manipulated by the media to think that we need 20 brands of deodorant. I think this is the subject of Herman/Chomsky book "Manufacturing Consent" (from a more political angle but I think applies to advertising as well) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent (edited typo)
The linked wikipedia overview lists 5 key points (of the authers outline) of the "Propaganda model of communication" and lists the government and the advertisers having a powerful shaping force on the media.
How is "modern capitalism" to blame? Modern capitalism allowed a small business to sell you the higher quality option, and you were able to direct your purchasing power to the product you wanted. If you convince more consumers to do the same (like you are) big brands will loose money and change. That's capitalism. The best term I can come up with to describe the phenomenon you dislike is _modern consumerism_ (althoug…
It's weird how many people here will shout against any (assumed) critic of capitalism. "So you want to live in North Korea???". No, I don't. What I want is a system where we can get quality products that are not manufactured by slaves on the other side of the world, and that didn't require burning 3 bathtubs of gasoline. And our system definitely ain't it.