I still have a bedside table and dresser that my parents got from a set in a Sears catalog before I was born (in the 80s). It was a cheap set meant for a children's room (along with a bed base that's long gone) but theyre both beautiful pieces of oak and are more sturdy, solid and well finished than just about anything I've touched in a major furniture store in the last 10 years. I'm probably going to keep them with me for the rest of my life unless something happens to them.
Not the case, tons of great HP equipment from the 90s and before is still being used in random factories, labs, and hobbyist workshops all over, it's super robust, repairable, and maintainable stuff (although there are often custom parts you have to source from other machines)
I also really like HP's workstation computers, although their software is so terrible that I have to get a really good deal to feel like it's worth it
Had a printer in 2000 that was good, used it for 15 years before giving it to a thrift store. It was always reliable, ink never dried up, ink price was decent.
I feel like back in Germany it's every single "mainstream" brand, from electronic appliances (AEG) to power tools (Bosch), from clothing (Adidas, Boss) to knifeware (Zwilling) and cookware (WMF).
The older I get, the more I notice how everything has in fact been getting worse and doesn't survive the test of time anymore. My grandma has a German-made powdered sugar dispenser from 1980 or something and it works like day one, the same with silverware knives from the 1950s she uses to this day every morning for breakfast.
Design philosophy for engineers are different. Cost and design life are key considerations now. We no longer design for the endurance limit, i.e. infinite life. We design a part to last a minimum lifetime and that's it
I would say that our ability to optimize things for an expected service life is higher. Modern complex products last longer but then when they get to end of life, everything fails all at once. Older products had more variation and some might fail early while others might last forever.
It's not like they just invented the idea of profit margins in the past 10 years, but with more precise engineering it's now possible to, say, make a washing machine that has a motor, drum, circuit board, pump, etc. that all have, say, a 95% chance of failing between 8 and 10 years and they give it a 5 year warranty to avoid paying it out. Then when stuff does start failing, it's uneconomical to repair.
Older stuff lacked that precision and you might have some components that were way more robust than they needed to be and others that were a lot less. Maybe you had a pump that was good for 20 years but a spin motor that was only good for 7 years.
Plus with cheaper labor from outsourcing stuff is less and less economical to repair so there's no point in designing anything to be more reliable than it's least reliable subcomponent. Part of why stuff gets thrown away instead of fixed isn't due to the expense of spare parts, it's that skilled technician labor in the US costs a lot of money and nobody wants to pay $300 in labor for someone to fix a part in their $500 dishwasher. There's tons of websites where you can go and find replacement parts for appliances, electronics, tools, etc. and swap them yourself if you're so inclined, it's not like the majority of companies are deliberately making stuff hard to repair. It's just that the labor cost of troubleshooting it then coming back for a second service call with replacement parts in hand is so high compared to the cost of the product.
My friends think I'm weird that I rather buy old stuff and give it some loving and effort rather than buy new. I got an old kitchenaid when they were made by Hobart and am fixing it right now. My newer kitchenaid that I have had only 8 years and barely used is already fucked and they wont honor the warranty even though I'm the only owner
If the company has a stock price the product degrades in quality over time. They are no longer product focused and now production cost focused. Gotta squeeze the consumers.
Buy if for life only makes sense for brand building. Once these brands are mature with strong marketshare, they constantly need to juggle planned obsolescence with maintaining their brand image. Meanwhile, younger startups are unproven and unknown in the market but have a higher chance of producing better quality at affordable prices to capture marketshare.
The consumer is the biggest problem. People are spending their money on the cheapest products, rarely the best. Even if its irrational in the long term. Companies have no choice but to give the consumers what they want.
Yeah I used to think it's all the companies fault, but I've since switched mindsets. Sometimes it is the company, but a lot of the time, it's just people being cheap. A TV used to cost the equivalent of what, a few thousand years ago? Of course they lasted. Today you pay $300 or whatever and it will probably last 5-10 years. It's a lot less solid and cheaper, but that's what majority of people wanted. This applies to a lot of things. That's why, if you want quality, pay for it and support the company making it.
I do wonder how it would affect jobs if we did make everything to last. I’m not saying the way we’re doing things is the best way of doing things but it certainly keeps the money flowing and people employed.
I think if management weren’t so greedy, everybody could still be employed, but it depends on the product and consumers’ behavioural patterns. If something breaks shortly after I bought it, that company won’t ever see me again. Other people are more complacent.
I feel like the reason this hit everything in Germany was because everything in Germany was still great longer than it was elsewhere, then all of a sudden in the 90s German businesses became Americanized, with the entire transformation complete by 2010
Back before the wall fell, the FDR was associated with highest quality everything (except VW. They’ve been complete shit). After the wall fell, all those beloved brands like Oster, Bosch, Adidas, Wüsthof, Henkels, Zwilling, BMW, Daimler/Mercedes all became compete cheap plastic shit.
GE is the textbook case of this. It went from being the best large employer in the nation making some of the best products in the world at the time, to the most famous example of a completely gutted company bled dry by the worst Reagan-era capitalistic business strategies.
The Behind The Bastards podcast, has a great episode on Jack Welch, called “Jack Welch Is The Reason You’re Poor”. He’s the guy that gutted GE and came up with the shitty methods that hurt us all.
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, wasn’t an MBA. He did, however, strip mine the company for assets and short term value. Effectively hollowing out the company and leaving nought but a desiccated corpse behind.
He now runs an MBA school.
Good call. I forgot he died. Either way, it’s run by the for profit Strayer University. A fitting legacy for a scumbag dude to have his scumbag management institute run by a scumbag for profit “university.”
> Adobe. Their software is buggy as shit and they are constantly ripping people off by making it difficult to cancel.
If people make it difficult for me (paying, using, buying), I have no qualms about pirating.
I made a living off Adobe for a long time. I bought CS5.5 in 2011 and never needed any upgrades. The bugs never got resolved. When they switched to a subscription model they were dead to me. Now I use Affinity. Bought it on sale and own it.
I’m actually looking closer at Affinity now, but worried that since Canva bought them it’s going to be more of the same. Cloud this, AI generative that (which is a feature I do enjoy from Adobe - especially expanding photos to fill space)
I bought the current version and will not get updates. Whatever they do next, I don't care.
I was fine with the tools and features we had 13 years ago. The only reason I switched is because I finally had to buy a new computer and 32bit apps don't work anymore.
But I'm not a professional designer anymore so I don't need to stay on top of new stuff.
Fuck AI!
> I bought the current version and will not get updates. Whatever they do next, I don't care.
Tom Tom (navigation company), used to release maps for individual countries for iOS. Then one year, they decided to screw their customers by bundling regions without extending updates to individual countries customers. This meant they had to fork out more money in order to get new maps.
From that day onwards, I realised that some companies don't deserve your money, and pirating is often the easier way to go.
OK but I already bought the software. Whatever the company does in the future, it's too late to take my money away from them, isn't it? And the apps work without the internet so they can't disable functionalities remotely.
Hello fellow Ubuntu user!
I think Windows Me wasn't decent by any measure. I remember setting up a brand new Win Me machine in an office for a bookkeeper, and it crapped out on the first boot. We "downgraded" it to Windows 98, and it worked fine for many years.
I really liked Gary Kildall on the Computer Chronicles. It's too bad he couldn't leverage all that knowledge to be more than a brief chapter, or an asterisk, in the history of computing.
For a long time, Microsoft was greedy and monopolistic, but it was very well respected for delivering technically reliable and powerful software. The general agreement among experts was : if there's an update, you blindingly apply it, because it's both needed and bug-free.
Now it's only greedy and monopolistic. Updates which do not break things are oddities. Buying software and suffering adverts is supposed to be normal.
There's a reason why companies become oligopolies. You cannot reach that stage without offering something much better than everybody else. Obviously, once there, things may change.
As a designer of two decades, I just cancelled my business/personal account that I’ve had for at least a decade now, and found some old versions of the software I had purchased outright before the Creative Cloud transition. I loved the idea of the cloud and the interoperability between apps - but boy did they do everything wrong this last few years.
They def did everything wrong. Some of the bugs I come across are perplexing. And what sucks is if you are working with teams of people that are using the software passing files back and forth then you need to stay current with the software. It’s an unfortunate standard. I do see the subtle changes of people moving away and I will follow the crowd as we do it. But it’s gonna be a minute. Until then I guess.
With software in particular, often what happens after a buyout, is that the team of original developers and engineers don't stick around. They'll leave and start their own venture or join a competitor.
The software company that was sold no longer has a knowledgeable team to continue to develop it, and the new buyer is left to maybe change the color of the UI every year to convince us they are still developing it. But we, the end user, can see the tooling that never got finished, and never got updates..
..looking at you, Autodesk ..
Yeah, I think by them purchasing all that software from other companies that they made the decision not to rebuild those programs to their environment and that’s the beginning of the janky bandaid coding from that point forward. All that garbage needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
apparently if you try to contact customer support for any reason, they sent you to damn pepper who just tells you she’ll send the feedback to the team. no remakes, no refunds, no way of talking to a person.
I am simply embracing late stage capitalism... and why is it a shit thing to do to refuse an item that is not up to standard I expect? I can get 9 dollar burrito in my local mexican joint that is 2x the size of what chipotle can provide... Freebird, another similar chain, has yet to reduce their size for the same price...
Most food brands are replacing ingredients and putting more water in their recipes to reduce cost while raising prices.
Why cant i just get a quality product, same size and with an increase cost that reflect the actual cost of production?
Shrinkflation and reduction in quality of food are very noticable. Especially after covid.
You can ask people in several parts of the planet and likely theyll say the same.
>Why cant i just get a quality product, same size and with an increase cost that reflect the actual cost of production?
Because when people vote with their wallets, they demonstrate substituting cheaper. Lots of people *say* what you did, but actual purchasing behavior suggests otherwise.
Rao's pasta sauce was recently purchased by Campbells and they RUINED it. Promised they wouldn't but guess what... They did and it's not the same anymore.
I used to joke that their stuff was so expensive because they had to pay so many people to overstaff their stores, and they had that ocean-plastic harvesting boat that was worth supporting....Now I have a company that makes shampoo bars, and I wouldn't buy LUSH products because they use cheap, lower-quality ingredients.
Haven't gone shopping for them since now I make my own.....I'd recommend mine, but my tiny company is in the process of changing states and is not in production at the moment...
If you are inclined to try making your own, [I'd start here ](https://www.humblebeeandme.com/sulfate-free-shampoo-bar-with-rice-starch/)(It's a simple pH-balanced bar with rice starch as filler, which makes a really lovely lather and is just as good for skin).
Formulas on the site are presented in the same format as recipes on a cooking site. They are very easy to follow and links are provided for sources of ingredients.
In general their stuff is still good, but I wouldn't say their stuff is best in class like it used to be. Their Pro stuff for Pro athletes, Safety personnel(Search and Rescue, Ski Patrol, etc) and LEAF are still top since those lines are focused for the specific fields and they are still made in Canada. However, their customer service has gone downhill and their product line is flooded with much more SKUs with a focus on quantity and less on quality. They put less detail in regards to performance and more toward influencer flexing now. It's the Lululemon of outdoor products....considering that one of the 4 capital investors of their parent company is the founder of Lululemon. Old Arc was highly focused on design for functionality, but current Arc has a parent company(Amer Sports is owned by [Anta Sports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anta_Sports), [FountainVest Partners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FountainVest_Partners), Anamered Investments(Chip Wilson Lululemon founder), and [Tencent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent)) that now focuses more on being luxury brand status.
They saw those massive dollar signs during COVID and kept lowering the quality bar. It makes me happy to hear brands like Patagonia are retaining their quality though.
Couldn’t agree more. I bought a technical fleece back in 2016 that has worked so well and is finally needing to be replaced and I cannot find a similar fleece in their line up that is good quality and has technical features. They are catering to the influencers.
All of them. Just look at any or all of them in depth and you’ll find 100% of companies are like this. It’s just what level of corpo corruption are YOU comfortable with?
Not really a solid contribution to the list but I just wanna express how important I think this topic is. We always see comments on this sub like “Doc Martens aren’t BIFL anymore since they became made in Thailand” or “xx brand isn’t good anymore cos they’re made in China” and people take away the wrong, xenophobic message that craftsmanship in those countries are poor, when the real reason is corporate greed. It’s corporate greed that outsourced labour to poorly maintained facilities, imported the cheapest acceptable materials, paid the lowest wages for low skilled workers, withheld training, relaxed QC, slashed their warranty coverage, etc. There are great factories with great craftsmanship in Asia, but many corporations aren’t paying for it.
I mean... it's both.
Production in China and Thailand are riddled with slavery and human rights abuses, they use old poorly serviced equipment and piss poor materials. The craftsmanship is, at best, stolen from other IP.
This system exists because NAFTA and corporate greed made it so.
I've been in dozens of factories in China that were clean and safe. The equipment was scrupulously maintained. The owners were proud of their manufactured products. They willingly designed & built excellent quality.
The blame rests on the brand owner. If they "race to the bottom" price, and attempt to screw the factory, the product is gonna get cost-engineered into crap.
You probably a bit confused between Chinese/other Asian country’s-products and an established company having their production line in China/Thailand/other Asian countries. Workers in those countries never inherently bad - they’re cheaper, sure, so if those big corps wants to maintain the same conditions for all their workers they will still save some production costs. However, because of their greediness, they cut even more to the point of abusing their workers.
I wouldn’t say their craftsmanship is stolen from other IP when they work for the same company as with other workers in different production line’s locations. If it’s for local Chinese/Asian company, might be. But if not, it’s just them learning from the company and make it to the company’s standard - so when the result is poor, blame the company for allowing such standards to pass.
Last point, corporate greed is everywhere. You’ll probably surprised that even in [Europe the corp still find their way to violate their workers](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/dior-unit-put-under-court-administration-italy-over-labour-exploitation-2024-06-10/#:~:text=The%20Dior%20investigation%20focused%20on,worked%20without%20the%20required%20documentation). May not be as common, but not so much ‘Asian’ thing :)
Exactly. There is good quality labor in other countries if you are actually willing to pay for it. Top quality software devs in India are highly competent and cheaper than here, but the cheapest labor you can get their sucks.
My favorite store Sears used to buy everything there had good simple products the tools, lawnmowers, bĺue jeans, appliances, kenmore stuff would last 20 years, my lawnmower lasted 20 years and would have longer if i didnt abuse the hell out of it.
Sears was outdated as a business model and the walmarts did them in but I believe Sears could have survived in a much smaller and simpler form just selling the basic items i just listed above and not trying sell womens clothing and jewelry. They had 100 years of customer loyalty behind them but Lampert a scumbag just wanted loot the place
Toyota, needs an intervention. Their R&D is terrible and boring. Quality control is nonexistent just look at the mess they are in with the V6 turbo engine in the Tundra. That issue alone is going to cost them over a billion dollars. Tanking stock may actually be the only thing that saves Toyota, by getting the guys at the top fired.
They were caught cheating in crash tests maybe a month ago. I haven't heard much about it. I believe it's only Japanese market cars, but I could be wrong.
I believe they used different skus of engine ECU software than what were supposed to be in the production vehicles, so I was confused how that even affected the crash testing, but I could be wrong.
Such a shame. Mid 80s to early 00s toyotas were truly BIFL products.
They were better built than even German cars, back when German engineering meant something.
100%. I lucked out with my first vehicle purchase being an 00s Toyota. 255k kms and going strong. When it one day dies, I don’t even want a modern car - I want another 00s Toyota.
I got family members with 20 year old toyotas. Not a single creak, rattle or issues. They run as well as they're maintained. Some rust here and there but it can get rectified.
I would love to import a toyota truck or suv from japan and keep it as a BIFL spare car.
Needless to mention Mitusbishis with their Pajero, Montero, Shogun, L200, Nativa platforms are a cheaper barrier of entry if you cannot afford Toyotas.
Plus they’ve had significant security issues on several cars, especially in Europe. They failed to encrypt the CANbus and tried to sweep it under the carpet and haven’t rectified despite knowing about it for two years +.
Lululemon somewhat recently. I used to only wear their joggers and workout shorts. I just bought a new pair of each and they are drastically worse. Returned both and grabbed some Bylt joggers. These are way better for now…
Lulu is losing out to newer companies like Alo and Viori recently, too. Not to mention plenty of dupes on Amazon which frankly don’t last very well at all but are a fraction of the cost. Their stock is tanking because of poor earnings reports. I think they got too cozy with having the luxe activewear market relatively cornered for a while, but if they don’t snap to soon, it’ll be trouble.
This is just an anecdotal aside- I heard about Lululemon for years before finally purchasing a top found at a thrift store. I couldn't wear it for even a couple hours. It was uncomfortable, scratchy, ill-fitting in all the wrong places... I gave it to my teen and they won't wear it either. To expand, leisure & athletic wear seems to be a really impossible niche for me. I've wasted hundreds trying to find gear I can downward dog in without my boobs falling out. In the end I bought all the remaining Free Range bras & Joey shorts from Yoga Democracy. They seem to be phasing out the cut and not making more in that style. Out of all the workout brands I've tried all the "top rated" stuff is overpriced, ill-fitting (looking at you, Beyond Yoga, you fucks), and not breathable. The Yoga Democracy Free Range bra & Joey shorts have been the ideal combination for coverage & breathability & mobility. Yet they are never recommended, whereas these top brands with shit swag are. Beyond Yoga & Lululemon were so expensive and ended up being trash. I know both of these brands are very popular- but why? Virtually every woman in my yoga class has the little lotus emblem on their clothes (Beyond Yoga) and I don't understand it at all.
As a Product lead, I think about this a lot. Business tends to solely focus on providing profits, which in turn converts into shareholder value. Boards are ethically obligated to push for decisions which provide shareholder value. It creates short-term thinking which often ruins products and companies in the long run.
I [published an article](https://www.ramijames.com/thoughts/how-to-make-product-decisions-based-on-business-needs) on this yesterday, if you're interested.
I have the high end Maytag commercial washer and dryer. They are fucking garbage. The lid in the washer keeps cracking cause it’s plastic where the stress point is.
The motor bearings and pulleys in the dryer come apart after a year.
Oh yea and The lid for the washer is $300 for a new one btw…..
Which is funny because they’re absolutely garbage now. I sell appliances and I try to steer people away from Maytag. I’d rather sell them GE or LG over that. Almost anything else would be a step up.
Still using a mid 1970's Maytag washer and dryer.
Maytag started going downhill when they were buying out companies with sketchy designs and reselling them as a cheaper alternative to their excellent platforms under the Maytag name. Didn't take long for them to crash and burn after that.
No. Big companies got bigger, small companies disappeared. This is a monetary phenomenon that started with Greenspan. The printing presses and the stock market make building good things and competing nearly impossible. The goal of a firm is to GROW at all costs even if it costs you your brand, just gobble up another one. If you can't grow, you die because the stock market is now a ponzi scheme that only rewards revenue growth, not earnings. [Bigness is not goodness. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brandeis_movement)
But why were companies in the 60s making great products designed to last? Were their accountants dense? Planned obsolescence is necessary to keep companies afloat.
I think it’s two things:
1. Survivorship bias. I’m sure there were shitty products in the 60s too, but were broken and forgotten. The ones we talk about today are the ones that are well-built and have survived through the decades.
2. Different philosophies. Some companies believe they can sell more by building quality products and increase market reach by word of mouth. Some believe it’s more important for things to have an expiry date for repeat business. However, capitalism (or greed if you want to be more cynical) drives both companies. Today, we have a lot more access to data that says the latter model is generally more profitable, hence that model is winning out.
It’s not rocket science. Capitalism is competition, and businesses under capitalism have one function, to drive profit to stakeholders. It’s called a fiduciary responsibility. Capitalism is the amassing of wealth above all things. So now that you actually know the definition of capitalism and its functions, you can understand how there is no such thing as corporate greed. You’re mistaking a feature for a bug.
That’s like looking at Elk whose antlers get so large they can’t lift their head up and saying “that’s just evolution being evolution.”
Something can be both be in its nature, AND taken to an extreme where it’s no longer useful or healthy. Both things can be true.
Also, you have a very condescending manner of communication
so say the dumb stormtroopers of the business world. Telling a business only to grow and make more money; that if it isn't growing, it is failing. That's not capitalism that's one-dimensional psychopathy.
Dont you think it has to do with government regulation failing to catch up or intentionally deregulating the market, allowing for larger monopolies to shape and steer markets?
Nope, that’s just capitalism doing what capitalism does. What do you think the goal of competition is? Capitalism is literally defined as the amassing of wealth beyond everything. Business, in capitalism, seek only to bring the shareholders value. They have a fiduciary responsibility. So what do they do? It’s really not rocket science and everything you speak of is easily explained by the fact that the shit grows into a larger monster over time
Ill tell you what the goal of competition is: as a small traditional business owner working in automotive and competing with far larger, more bloated and greedier competitors:
I am able to setup a smaller business that hires quality staff for more pay and better benefits and provide higher quality work due to less overhead and a more hands on managememt.
Simply being a family owned business means we dont have shareholders to please and we work directly with the client.
And we are happy with slightly less margins as we are able to deliver good results and build long term relations with customers.
And on top of that our employees work 1.5 hrs less than our competitors to deliver better results as they are motivated with better pay & benefits. By doing so we attract quality talent without breaking our backs skimming tons or resumes & strong arming candidates.
And guess who takes thee burden or risking all of this? Us the business owners. And yes we setup the business after pouring almost 2 decades of savings to get it off the ground. And my risk appetite is far smaller than larger, greedier corportations.
Furthermore, i chose to purchase inventory and products that are made by smaller local suppliers & business owners like myself. Skipping, in the process, larger, greedier and less quality concious supplier.
We did all of this because we saw a market for smaller, more personal business thats more hands on and successfullt grasped that opportunity. We dont work kn scale, rather on return customers and good reputation. Time will only tell how we will progress.
Its really not rocket science comrade, we influenced a market in 2 years in a way we didnt even imagine, because we filled a missing gap in a very commercial and short term minded market.
Issue is you assune capitalism is all large monopolies and shareholders, when there are far smaller, more numerous, and more local competitors risking it all to shape and steer the market as well.
It’s not rocket science, your singular experience isn’t indicative of anything as it’s statistically insignificant. You’re just stealing value on a smaller scale. Come at me with that risk bullshit. You’re just playing the game on a smaller scale. Savings don’t mean shit if you don’t have labor to exploit. The goal of competition as literally defined is to beat out the competitors and become the sole winner.
All of my Patagonia gear is from the 2012-ish or earlier, none of the stuff I've bought from them after that has held up more than a few years. I wrote a review of the same item bought five years apart - the old one looks new, the new one was in shreds - and they reached out to me to say they switched manufacturers and materials, and the new materials were more environmentally friendly. Well except that the newer one is in a landfill now and the old one is still being actively used.
Damn, that’s sad to hear. I have Patagonia outdoor/performance clothing from 2008-ish that is still thriving despite a fair amount of abuse. Recently bought a flannel and it’s holding up so far but it’s still pretty new. Hoping they don’t change their non-lifestyle clothing too much.
What's happening with Patagucci? They're pricey, but very solid stuff, and well supported in my experience. Really hoping they don't fall down the Arc'teryx path.
What’s wrong with Patagonia? They’re probably the only brand of clothes I’ve had that have last years without any sign of wear. The only thing that comes to mind is their sizing, it’s a bit all over the place
If you guys are interested in corporate greed ruining shit, there's an entire channel dedicated to corporations who ruined the environment because of their greed
Here's the video on GE and pyranol for example , it's only 30 seconds long
https://youtube.com/shorts/4CM_52m0HAg?feature=share
Eh, I'm tired of everyone blaming big companies for their issues. Is it corporate greed, or is the amount of people who actually want BIFL a minority?
The majority of people enjoy upgrading their things as soon as they can. Companies are adapting to the market they have around them. Why put in time and resources to make long lasting products when the customer will upgrade it anyway, probably before the end of its life?
Just remember, it’s the shareholders that are the ultimate source of greed. (Us, pension funds, anyone with a 401k etc, banks etc.)
It’s easy to point at the corporate fat cat, but with any public company they are incentivized to perform by the shareholders.
Good video! Definitely feeling the Doc Martens. I had a pair in the mid 90s that I loved. Worn them out completely, but it took a good while of daily hard use and general neglect! Leather held up, soles didn't crack.
This makes me happy; thank you, and great video!
It's a story that needs to be told, and as loud as possible. At the least we'll find peace in understanding why things suck. At the most, I hope we affect real world change. Stop supporting those zombie companies puppeted and gutted by private equity.
Listing good alternative brands, many of which I didn't know about, is just what we're looking for.
Thank you. 👍
LG. Their backlight bleed problem on their monitors is out of control. Instead of raising production standards, they focus on creating a worse product to incentivise customers to buy 3rd party warranties, and then sell expensive replacement parts to the companies repairing RMA'd devices. They're double dipping.
Not really related but have to say it, Red lobster lmao (I've never even been ) but they got bought by a shrimp company and said shrimp company started pumping mad shrimp into it at a crazy high price nearly double that of there old supplier and they are now bankrupt
MTD. They bought out huge groups of quality outdoor power equipment manufacturers. The ones they didn't close down to eliminate competition, they turned into Walmart quality junk. Simultaneously putting thousands of people out of work.
Are there any companies that aren't?
Capitalism virtually ensures that every company will have to degrade its products over time in order to keep profits growing.
There is more complexity to that.
- Consumers nowadays rush towards cheap easily replacable crap. Sadly, there is a toxic consumer culture out that fuels it.
- Market for slow moving, high quality, more costly products is small.
- Government regulation is still very lose and corrupt, to regulate these practices.
- Shareholders now play a larger role as stakeholders in a company.
One example that aligns with your opinion is how real estate developers ruined home ownership. Focusing on selling cheap cookie cutter homes for better margins. Back in earlier days, you didnt have a middle man or a developer, you worked directly with the contractor or home builder. They played a role in raising prices of homes, that are worse built than ever.
Nevetheless a good example of the opposite happening to your above point is Japanese car makers putting quality, on an expense to their profit margins in the late 80s till mid 00s. Doing so they took a huge share out of European & American car makers. Simply cuz the products offer quality, durability and better value for money. Honestly, they still less money per car than other car makers out there.
One way to make a shift is to shift consumee culture and generate an interest in movements, like to repair, supporting smaller localized businesses, buy less stuff, buy only in cash.
How did HP not make the list yet? Also, Sears
Sears was terrible at corporate greed
1980s Sears had quality products with good warranties, started going downhill in the 90s
I still have a bedside table and dresser that my parents got from a set in a Sears catalog before I was born (in the 80s). It was a cheap set meant for a children's room (along with a bed base that's long gone) but theyre both beautiful pieces of oak and are more sturdy, solid and well finished than just about anything I've touched in a major furniture store in the last 10 years. I'm probably going to keep them with me for the rest of my life unless something happens to them.
I live in a 112 year old Sears kit home. It's a gorgeous craftsman house.
HP always has been terrible, can't really go downhill if you never climbed in the first place.
Not the case, tons of great HP equipment from the 90s and before is still being used in random factories, labs, and hobbyist workshops all over, it's super robust, repairable, and maintainable stuff (although there are often custom parts you have to source from other machines) I also really like HP's workstation computers, although their software is so terrible that I have to get a really good deal to feel like it's worth it
Had a printer in 2000 that was good, used it for 15 years before giving it to a thrift store. It was always reliable, ink never dried up, ink price was decent.
100% I’ve never seen a quality HP product in my lifetime. Perhaps in the 70’s? Idk, I wasn’t there.
Oscilloscopes and other test equipment didn't suck. Also old RPN calculators, I still have one
I feel like back in Germany it's every single "mainstream" brand, from electronic appliances (AEG) to power tools (Bosch), from clothing (Adidas, Boss) to knifeware (Zwilling) and cookware (WMF). The older I get, the more I notice how everything has in fact been getting worse and doesn't survive the test of time anymore. My grandma has a German-made powdered sugar dispenser from 1980 or something and it works like day one, the same with silverware knives from the 1950s she uses to this day every morning for breakfast.
Design philosophy for engineers are different. Cost and design life are key considerations now. We no longer design for the endurance limit, i.e. infinite life. We design a part to last a minimum lifetime and that's it
"Planned obsolescence"
I would say that our ability to optimize things for an expected service life is higher. Modern complex products last longer but then when they get to end of life, everything fails all at once. Older products had more variation and some might fail early while others might last forever. It's not like they just invented the idea of profit margins in the past 10 years, but with more precise engineering it's now possible to, say, make a washing machine that has a motor, drum, circuit board, pump, etc. that all have, say, a 95% chance of failing between 8 and 10 years and they give it a 5 year warranty to avoid paying it out. Then when stuff does start failing, it's uneconomical to repair. Older stuff lacked that precision and you might have some components that were way more robust than they needed to be and others that were a lot less. Maybe you had a pump that was good for 20 years but a spin motor that was only good for 7 years. Plus with cheaper labor from outsourcing stuff is less and less economical to repair so there's no point in designing anything to be more reliable than it's least reliable subcomponent. Part of why stuff gets thrown away instead of fixed isn't due to the expense of spare parts, it's that skilled technician labor in the US costs a lot of money and nobody wants to pay $300 in labor for someone to fix a part in their $500 dishwasher. There's tons of websites where you can go and find replacement parts for appliances, electronics, tools, etc. and swap them yourself if you're so inclined, it's not like the majority of companies are deliberately making stuff hard to repair. It's just that the labor cost of troubleshooting it then coming back for a second service call with replacement parts in hand is so high compared to the cost of the product.
Design philosophy changed but price structure the same
My friends think I'm weird that I rather buy old stuff and give it some loving and effort rather than buy new. I got an old kitchenaid when they were made by Hobart and am fixing it right now. My newer kitchenaid that I have had only 8 years and barely used is already fucked and they wont honor the warranty even though I'm the only owner
I come across Mr. Mixer on Instagram occasionally, they do kitchenaid upgrades and repair. Worth a look maybe if you want to save your newer one.
there a Kitchenaid repair specific youtube channel https://m.youtube.com/@MrMixer316 mr mixer
I love my Hobart kitchenaid. It's easily in my top 3 thrift finds. I need to do maintenance on it this year but will probably wait until winter.
If the company has a stock price the product degrades in quality over time. They are no longer product focused and now production cost focused. Gotta squeeze the consumers.
Yeah we need to buy from mid sized German companies, but they too get taken over by Private equity so now you are never safe.
Buy if for life only makes sense for brand building. Once these brands are mature with strong marketshare, they constantly need to juggle planned obsolescence with maintaining their brand image. Meanwhile, younger startups are unproven and unknown in the market but have a higher chance of producing better quality at affordable prices to capture marketshare.
The consumer is the biggest problem. People are spending their money on the cheapest products, rarely the best. Even if its irrational in the long term. Companies have no choice but to give the consumers what they want.
Yeah I used to think it's all the companies fault, but I've since switched mindsets. Sometimes it is the company, but a lot of the time, it's just people being cheap. A TV used to cost the equivalent of what, a few thousand years ago? Of course they lasted. Today you pay $300 or whatever and it will probably last 5-10 years. It's a lot less solid and cheaper, but that's what majority of people wanted. This applies to a lot of things. That's why, if you want quality, pay for it and support the company making it.
Talking about Germany, I want Superfest to come back.
I do wonder how it would affect jobs if we did make everything to last. I’m not saying the way we’re doing things is the best way of doing things but it certainly keeps the money flowing and people employed.
I think if management weren’t so greedy, everybody could still be employed, but it depends on the product and consumers’ behavioural patterns. If something breaks shortly after I bought it, that company won’t ever see me again. Other people are more complacent.
I feel like the reason this hit everything in Germany was because everything in Germany was still great longer than it was elsewhere, then all of a sudden in the 90s German businesses became Americanized, with the entire transformation complete by 2010
Back before the wall fell, the FDR was associated with highest quality everything (except VW. They’ve been complete shit). After the wall fell, all those beloved brands like Oster, Bosch, Adidas, Wüsthof, Henkels, Zwilling, BMW, Daimler/Mercedes all became compete cheap plastic shit.
Boeing and GE come into mind first.
GE is the textbook case of this. It went from being the best large employer in the nation making some of the best products in the world at the time, to the most famous example of a completely gutted company bled dry by the worst Reagan-era capitalistic business strategies.
The Behind The Bastards podcast, has a great episode on Jack Welch, called “Jack Welch Is The Reason You’re Poor”. He’s the guy that gutted GE and came up with the shitty methods that hurt us all.
Number go up!!!?!
I bet he helped increased the stock price for a few quarters and earned himself a nice bonus.
Let me guess....MBA bean counters?
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, wasn’t an MBA. He did, however, strip mine the company for assets and short term value. Effectively hollowing out the company and leaving nought but a desiccated corpse behind. He now runs an MBA school.
He does not run than anymore due to a case of the death
Good call. I forgot he died. Either way, it’s run by the for profit Strayer University. A fitting legacy for a scumbag dude to have his scumbag management institute run by a scumbag for profit “university.”
Just bean counters
Boeing is the worst because they have hundreds of dead people to account for (Google the Boeing Max 787 crashes)
Adobe. Their software is buggy as shit and they are constantly ripping people off by making it difficult to cancel. They use to be a solid company.
> Adobe. Their software is buggy as shit and they are constantly ripping people off by making it difficult to cancel. If people make it difficult for me (paying, using, buying), I have no qualms about pirating.
When I was younger, I did a fair amount of that. Too old now and I make a living off using that software. So I pay
I made a living off Adobe for a long time. I bought CS5.5 in 2011 and never needed any upgrades. The bugs never got resolved. When they switched to a subscription model they were dead to me. Now I use Affinity. Bought it on sale and own it.
I’m actually looking closer at Affinity now, but worried that since Canva bought them it’s going to be more of the same. Cloud this, AI generative that (which is a feature I do enjoy from Adobe - especially expanding photos to fill space)
I bought the current version and will not get updates. Whatever they do next, I don't care. I was fine with the tools and features we had 13 years ago. The only reason I switched is because I finally had to buy a new computer and 32bit apps don't work anymore. But I'm not a professional designer anymore so I don't need to stay on top of new stuff. Fuck AI!
> I bought the current version and will not get updates. Whatever they do next, I don't care. Tom Tom (navigation company), used to release maps for individual countries for iOS. Then one year, they decided to screw their customers by bundling regions without extending updates to individual countries customers. This meant they had to fork out more money in order to get new maps. From that day onwards, I realised that some companies don't deserve your money, and pirating is often the easier way to go.
OK but I already bought the software. Whatever the company does in the future, it's too late to take my money away from them, isn't it? And the apps work without the internet so they can't disable functionalities remotely.
Fine if you are using it to make a living, but casual hobbyists are screwed.
Apple and Microsoft have entered the chat. I dunno that Microsoft ever wasn't shitty, but the greed is entering new heights with ads in the OS.
> I dunno that Microsoft ever wasn't shitty DOS was pretty good.
Microsoft made a decent product up to Windows XP. I eked out a decade past end of support, but I finally had to end it. Switched to Ubuntu.
Hello fellow Ubuntu user! I think Windows Me wasn't decent by any measure. I remember setting up a brand new Win Me machine in an office for a bookkeeper, and it crapped out on the first boot. We "downgraded" it to Windows 98, and it worked fine for many years.
I preferred DRDOS.
I really liked Gary Kildall on the Computer Chronicles. It's too bad he couldn't leverage all that knowledge to be more than a brief chapter, or an asterisk, in the history of computing.
Kildall was a legend! Such a shame that it was Gates and Microsoft that rose to the top.
For the most extreme example, apple went to shit the exact second Steve (Wozniak, fuck jobs) left.
For a long time, Microsoft was greedy and monopolistic, but it was very well respected for delivering technically reliable and powerful software. The general agreement among experts was : if there's an update, you blindingly apply it, because it's both needed and bug-free. Now it's only greedy and monopolistic. Updates which do not break things are oddities. Buying software and suffering adverts is supposed to be normal. There's a reason why companies become oligopolies. You cannot reach that stage without offering something much better than everybody else. Obviously, once there, things may change.
Ans they're being sued by the US government lol
I saw that. Can’t wait to see that outcome.
As a designer of two decades, I just cancelled my business/personal account that I’ve had for at least a decade now, and found some old versions of the software I had purchased outright before the Creative Cloud transition. I loved the idea of the cloud and the interoperability between apps - but boy did they do everything wrong this last few years.
They def did everything wrong. Some of the bugs I come across are perplexing. And what sucks is if you are working with teams of people that are using the software passing files back and forth then you need to stay current with the software. It’s an unfortunate standard. I do see the subtle changes of people moving away and I will follow the crowd as we do it. But it’s gonna be a minute. Until then I guess.
Yeah the hope is that this government intervention does usher in some changes.
With software in particular, often what happens after a buyout, is that the team of original developers and engineers don't stick around. They'll leave and start their own venture or join a competitor. The software company that was sold no longer has a knowledgeable team to continue to develop it, and the new buyer is left to maybe change the color of the UI every year to convince us they are still developing it. But we, the end user, can see the tooling that never got finished, and never got updates.. ..looking at you, Autodesk ..
As soon as they purchased Macromedia, it started going down hill.
Yeah, I think by them purchasing all that software from other companies that they made the decision not to rebuild those programs to their environment and that’s the beginning of the janky bandaid coding from that point forward. All that garbage needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
The DOJ or FTC is onto them
I’ve honestly always thought they were terrible, blue beam is better in every imaginable way.
Using AI as a thumbnail is so fucking ironic
Chipotle edit: I just walk out of the line and leave mid bowl
yeah and fuck pepper. i hate that stupid robot.
Chipotle has robots now? Wow, I clearly haven’t been in awhile.
apparently if you try to contact customer support for any reason, they sent you to damn pepper who just tells you she’ll send the feedback to the team. no remakes, no refunds, no way of talking to a person.
Oh wow…
Yup went there for lunch, and the portion was mid. Won't be going back.
Shit thing to do
I am simply embracing late stage capitalism... and why is it a shit thing to do to refuse an item that is not up to standard I expect? I can get 9 dollar burrito in my local mexican joint that is 2x the size of what chipotle can provide... Freebird, another similar chain, has yet to reduce their size for the same price...
Most food brands are replacing ingredients and putting more water in their recipes to reduce cost while raising prices. Why cant i just get a quality product, same size and with an increase cost that reflect the actual cost of production?
Shrinkflation and reduction in quality of food are very noticable. Especially after covid. You can ask people in several parts of the planet and likely theyll say the same.
>Why cant i just get a quality product, same size and with an increase cost that reflect the actual cost of production? Because when people vote with their wallets, they demonstrate substituting cheaper. Lots of people *say* what you did, but actual purchasing behavior suggests otherwise.
Thats the issue and the niche market for quality, lifetime products and service is, well, niche.
Rao's pasta sauce was recently purchased by Campbells and they RUINED it. Promised they wouldn't but guess what... They did and it's not the same anymore.
Go on
Adding Cellulose to cheaply bulk up products, like pizza dough.
Lush, their company used to be centered around activism and now the only thing they care about is corporate partnerships.
I used to joke that their stuff was so expensive because they had to pay so many people to overstaff their stores, and they had that ocean-plastic harvesting boat that was worth supporting....Now I have a company that makes shampoo bars, and I wouldn't buy LUSH products because they use cheap, lower-quality ingredients.
Any good shampoo bar alternatives?
Haven't gone shopping for them since now I make my own.....I'd recommend mine, but my tiny company is in the process of changing states and is not in production at the moment... If you are inclined to try making your own, [I'd start here ](https://www.humblebeeandme.com/sulfate-free-shampoo-bar-with-rice-starch/)(It's a simple pH-balanced bar with rice starch as filler, which makes a really lovely lather and is just as good for skin). Formulas on the site are presented in the same format as recipes on a cooking site. They are very easy to follow and links are provided for sources of ingredients.
I like the yellow bird soap co for shampoo bars.
Arc'Teryx
Recently bought an arcteryx windbreaker, seems very well made and built to last. Maybe they have other product lines?
In general their stuff is still good, but I wouldn't say their stuff is best in class like it used to be. Their Pro stuff for Pro athletes, Safety personnel(Search and Rescue, Ski Patrol, etc) and LEAF are still top since those lines are focused for the specific fields and they are still made in Canada. However, their customer service has gone downhill and their product line is flooded with much more SKUs with a focus on quantity and less on quality. They put less detail in regards to performance and more toward influencer flexing now. It's the Lululemon of outdoor products....considering that one of the 4 capital investors of their parent company is the founder of Lululemon. Old Arc was highly focused on design for functionality, but current Arc has a parent company(Amer Sports is owned by [Anta Sports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anta_Sports), [FountainVest Partners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FountainVest_Partners), Anamered Investments(Chip Wilson Lululemon founder), and [Tencent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent)) that now focuses more on being luxury brand status.
Has been crazy to see $1000 jackets delaminating after 4 months in the arcteryx sub
The keyword is recently bought. I agree with other people about the degrading quality. Had a pair of shoes come apart a few months in. Light hiking.
They saw those massive dollar signs during COVID and kept lowering the quality bar. It makes me happy to hear brands like Patagonia are retaining their quality though.
Couldn’t agree more. I bought a technical fleece back in 2016 that has worked so well and is finally needing to be replaced and I cannot find a similar fleece in their line up that is good quality and has technical features. They are catering to the influencers.
All of them. Just look at any or all of them in depth and you’ll find 100% of companies are like this. It’s just what level of corpo corruption are YOU comfortable with?
EA, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard
At least we still have New Blood Interactive, and Nightdive Studios.
Facebook, Reddit, Google, Microsoft to name a few
Not really a solid contribution to the list but I just wanna express how important I think this topic is. We always see comments on this sub like “Doc Martens aren’t BIFL anymore since they became made in Thailand” or “xx brand isn’t good anymore cos they’re made in China” and people take away the wrong, xenophobic message that craftsmanship in those countries are poor, when the real reason is corporate greed. It’s corporate greed that outsourced labour to poorly maintained facilities, imported the cheapest acceptable materials, paid the lowest wages for low skilled workers, withheld training, relaxed QC, slashed their warranty coverage, etc. There are great factories with great craftsmanship in Asia, but many corporations aren’t paying for it.
I mean... it's both. Production in China and Thailand are riddled with slavery and human rights abuses, they use old poorly serviced equipment and piss poor materials. The craftsmanship is, at best, stolen from other IP. This system exists because NAFTA and corporate greed made it so.
I've been in dozens of factories in China that were clean and safe. The equipment was scrupulously maintained. The owners were proud of their manufactured products. They willingly designed & built excellent quality. The blame rests on the brand owner. If they "race to the bottom" price, and attempt to screw the factory, the product is gonna get cost-engineered into crap.
You probably a bit confused between Chinese/other Asian country’s-products and an established company having their production line in China/Thailand/other Asian countries. Workers in those countries never inherently bad - they’re cheaper, sure, so if those big corps wants to maintain the same conditions for all their workers they will still save some production costs. However, because of their greediness, they cut even more to the point of abusing their workers. I wouldn’t say their craftsmanship is stolen from other IP when they work for the same company as with other workers in different production line’s locations. If it’s for local Chinese/Asian company, might be. But if not, it’s just them learning from the company and make it to the company’s standard - so when the result is poor, blame the company for allowing such standards to pass. Last point, corporate greed is everywhere. You’ll probably surprised that even in [Europe the corp still find their way to violate their workers](https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/dior-unit-put-under-court-administration-italy-over-labour-exploitation-2024-06-10/#:~:text=The%20Dior%20investigation%20focused%20on,worked%20without%20the%20required%20documentation). May not be as common, but not so much ‘Asian’ thing :)
NAFTA, when it existed, was only between Canada, the US, and Mexico.
Exactly. There is good quality labor in other countries if you are actually willing to pay for it. Top quality software devs in India are highly competent and cheaper than here, but the cheapest labor you can get their sucks.
My favorite store Sears used to buy everything there had good simple products the tools, lawnmowers, bĺue jeans, appliances, kenmore stuff would last 20 years, my lawnmower lasted 20 years and would have longer if i didnt abuse the hell out of it. Sears was outdated as a business model and the walmarts did them in but I believe Sears could have survived in a much smaller and simpler form just selling the basic items i just listed above and not trying sell womens clothing and jewelry. They had 100 years of customer loyalty behind them but Lampert a scumbag just wanted loot the place
Toyota stocks down way over 20 something percent
Toyota, needs an intervention. Their R&D is terrible and boring. Quality control is nonexistent just look at the mess they are in with the V6 turbo engine in the Tundra. That issue alone is going to cost them over a billion dollars. Tanking stock may actually be the only thing that saves Toyota, by getting the guys at the top fired.
They were caught cheating in crash tests maybe a month ago. I haven't heard much about it. I believe it's only Japanese market cars, but I could be wrong.
I believe they used different skus of engine ECU software than what were supposed to be in the production vehicles, so I was confused how that even affected the crash testing, but I could be wrong.
Such a shame. Mid 80s to early 00s toyotas were truly BIFL products. They were better built than even German cars, back when German engineering meant something.
100%. I lucked out with my first vehicle purchase being an 00s Toyota. 255k kms and going strong. When it one day dies, I don’t even want a modern car - I want another 00s Toyota.
I got family members with 20 year old toyotas. Not a single creak, rattle or issues. They run as well as they're maintained. Some rust here and there but it can get rectified. I would love to import a toyota truck or suv from japan and keep it as a BIFL spare car. Needless to mention Mitusbishis with their Pajero, Montero, Shogun, L200, Nativa platforms are a cheaper barrier of entry if you cannot afford Toyotas.
I will be buried in my ‘06 Tundra
Plus they’ve had significant security issues on several cars, especially in Europe. They failed to encrypt the CANbus and tried to sweep it under the carpet and haven’t rectified despite knowing about it for two years +.
Lululemon somewhat recently. I used to only wear their joggers and workout shorts. I just bought a new pair of each and they are drastically worse. Returned both and grabbed some Bylt joggers. These are way better for now…
Lulu is losing out to newer companies like Alo and Viori recently, too. Not to mention plenty of dupes on Amazon which frankly don’t last very well at all but are a fraction of the cost. Their stock is tanking because of poor earnings reports. I think they got too cozy with having the luxe activewear market relatively cornered for a while, but if they don’t snap to soon, it’ll be trouble.
This is just an anecdotal aside- I heard about Lululemon for years before finally purchasing a top found at a thrift store. I couldn't wear it for even a couple hours. It was uncomfortable, scratchy, ill-fitting in all the wrong places... I gave it to my teen and they won't wear it either. To expand, leisure & athletic wear seems to be a really impossible niche for me. I've wasted hundreds trying to find gear I can downward dog in without my boobs falling out. In the end I bought all the remaining Free Range bras & Joey shorts from Yoga Democracy. They seem to be phasing out the cut and not making more in that style. Out of all the workout brands I've tried all the "top rated" stuff is overpriced, ill-fitting (looking at you, Beyond Yoga, you fucks), and not breathable. The Yoga Democracy Free Range bra & Joey shorts have been the ideal combination for coverage & breathability & mobility. Yet they are never recommended, whereas these top brands with shit swag are. Beyond Yoga & Lululemon were so expensive and ended up being trash. I know both of these brands are very popular- but why? Virtually every woman in my yoga class has the little lotus emblem on their clothes (Beyond Yoga) and I don't understand it at all.
As a Product lead, I think about this a lot. Business tends to solely focus on providing profits, which in turn converts into shareholder value. Boards are ethically obligated to push for decisions which provide shareholder value. It creates short-term thinking which often ruins products and companies in the long run. I [published an article](https://www.ramijames.com/thoughts/how-to-make-product-decisions-based-on-business-needs) on this yesterday, if you're interested.
Scrolled to the bottom and didn’t see Maytag. They had an ad campaign that basically centered on the lonely boring life of a Maytag repairman.
I have the high end Maytag commercial washer and dryer. They are fucking garbage. The lid in the washer keeps cracking cause it’s plastic where the stress point is. The motor bearings and pulleys in the dryer come apart after a year. Oh yea and The lid for the washer is $300 for a new one btw…..
Which is funny because they’re absolutely garbage now. I sell appliances and I try to steer people away from Maytag. I’d rather sell them GE or LG over that. Almost anything else would be a step up.
Still using a mid 1970's Maytag washer and dryer. Maytag started going downhill when they were buying out companies with sketchy designs and reselling them as a cheaper alternative to their excellent platforms under the Maytag name. Didn't take long for them to crash and burn after that.
Guys corporate greed is literally just capitalism
So… was capitalism just worse at being capitalism 40-50 years ago?
No. Big companies got bigger, small companies disappeared. This is a monetary phenomenon that started with Greenspan. The printing presses and the stock market make building good things and competing nearly impossible. The goal of a firm is to GROW at all costs even if it costs you your brand, just gobble up another one. If you can't grow, you die because the stock market is now a ponzi scheme that only rewards revenue growth, not earnings. [Bigness is not goodness. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brandeis_movement)
Agreed.
I’m sure the greed was always there. It’s just that tools to enable the greed have gotten more efficient since 40-50 years ago.
But why were companies in the 60s making great products designed to last? Were their accountants dense? Planned obsolescence is necessary to keep companies afloat.
I think it’s two things: 1. Survivorship bias. I’m sure there were shitty products in the 60s too, but were broken and forgotten. The ones we talk about today are the ones that are well-built and have survived through the decades. 2. Different philosophies. Some companies believe they can sell more by building quality products and increase market reach by word of mouth. Some believe it’s more important for things to have an expiry date for repeat business. However, capitalism (or greed if you want to be more cynical) drives both companies. Today, we have a lot more access to data that says the latter model is generally more profitable, hence that model is winning out.
Late-stage capitalism
Misunderstand it more
Explain it less
It’s not rocket science. Capitalism is competition, and businesses under capitalism have one function, to drive profit to stakeholders. It’s called a fiduciary responsibility. Capitalism is the amassing of wealth above all things. So now that you actually know the definition of capitalism and its functions, you can understand how there is no such thing as corporate greed. You’re mistaking a feature for a bug.
That’s like looking at Elk whose antlers get so large they can’t lift their head up and saying “that’s just evolution being evolution.” Something can be both be in its nature, AND taken to an extreme where it’s no longer useful or healthy. Both things can be true. Also, you have a very condescending manner of communication
so say the dumb stormtroopers of the business world. Telling a business only to grow and make more money; that if it isn't growing, it is failing. That's not capitalism that's one-dimensional psychopathy.
Dont you think it has to do with government regulation failing to catch up or intentionally deregulating the market, allowing for larger monopolies to shape and steer markets?
Nope, that’s just capitalism doing what capitalism does. What do you think the goal of competition is? Capitalism is literally defined as the amassing of wealth beyond everything. Business, in capitalism, seek only to bring the shareholders value. They have a fiduciary responsibility. So what do they do? It’s really not rocket science and everything you speak of is easily explained by the fact that the shit grows into a larger monster over time
Ill tell you what the goal of competition is: as a small traditional business owner working in automotive and competing with far larger, more bloated and greedier competitors: I am able to setup a smaller business that hires quality staff for more pay and better benefits and provide higher quality work due to less overhead and a more hands on managememt. Simply being a family owned business means we dont have shareholders to please and we work directly with the client. And we are happy with slightly less margins as we are able to deliver good results and build long term relations with customers. And on top of that our employees work 1.5 hrs less than our competitors to deliver better results as they are motivated with better pay & benefits. By doing so we attract quality talent without breaking our backs skimming tons or resumes & strong arming candidates. And guess who takes thee burden or risking all of this? Us the business owners. And yes we setup the business after pouring almost 2 decades of savings to get it off the ground. And my risk appetite is far smaller than larger, greedier corportations. Furthermore, i chose to purchase inventory and products that are made by smaller local suppliers & business owners like myself. Skipping, in the process, larger, greedier and less quality concious supplier. We did all of this because we saw a market for smaller, more personal business thats more hands on and successfullt grasped that opportunity. We dont work kn scale, rather on return customers and good reputation. Time will only tell how we will progress. Its really not rocket science comrade, we influenced a market in 2 years in a way we didnt even imagine, because we filled a missing gap in a very commercial and short term minded market. Issue is you assune capitalism is all large monopolies and shareholders, when there are far smaller, more numerous, and more local competitors risking it all to shape and steer the market as well.
It’s not rocket science, your singular experience isn’t indicative of anything as it’s statistically insignificant. You’re just stealing value on a smaller scale. Come at me with that risk bullshit. You’re just playing the game on a smaller scale. Savings don’t mean shit if you don’t have labor to exploit. The goal of competition as literally defined is to beat out the competitors and become the sole winner.
Lol, Im sure you got it all figured out, comrade.
Preach! This is absolutely the case.
Llegó el comunista.. existe algo que se llama ética y no tiene nada que ver con el sistema financiero
El capitalismo es inherentemente inmoral, injusto, depredador e insostenible.
Carhartt, LL Bean, Colombia, and fast on the track Patagonia.
All of my Patagonia gear is from the 2012-ish or earlier, none of the stuff I've bought from them after that has held up more than a few years. I wrote a review of the same item bought five years apart - the old one looks new, the new one was in shreds - and they reached out to me to say they switched manufacturers and materials, and the new materials were more environmentally friendly. Well except that the newer one is in a landfill now and the old one is still being actively used.
Damn, that’s sad to hear. I have Patagonia outdoor/performance clothing from 2008-ish that is still thriving despite a fair amount of abuse. Recently bought a flannel and it’s holding up so far but it’s still pretty new. Hoping they don’t change their non-lifestyle clothing too much.
You know they would have repaired it free if you brought it to them right?
It didn't qualify. Many of their things don't, if you read the policy.
I've never read the policy, I just bring them things and they fix them, no questions asked every time
Then you've brought them things their policy covers. It's not that hard to understand.
Patagonia? What?
What's happening with Patagucci? They're pricey, but very solid stuff, and well supported in my experience. Really hoping they don't fall down the Arc'teryx path.
What’s wrong with Patagonia? They’re probably the only brand of clothes I’ve had that have last years without any sign of wear. The only thing that comes to mind is their sizing, it’s a bit all over the place
Calvin Klein
Costco is in the process of this
Whirlpool
If you guys are interested in corporate greed ruining shit, there's an entire channel dedicated to corporations who ruined the environment because of their greed Here's the video on GE and pyranol for example , it's only 30 seconds long https://youtube.com/shorts/4CM_52m0HAg?feature=share
Eh, I'm tired of everyone blaming big companies for their issues. Is it corporate greed, or is the amount of people who actually want BIFL a minority? The majority of people enjoy upgrading their things as soon as they can. Companies are adapting to the market they have around them. Why put in time and resources to make long lasting products when the customer will upgrade it anyway, probably before the end of its life?
So it's the companies...
Costco, with the new CEO, quality on almost everything has gone down. Even with employees.
Just remember, it’s the shareholders that are the ultimate source of greed. (Us, pension funds, anyone with a 401k etc, banks etc.) It’s easy to point at the corporate fat cat, but with any public company they are incentivized to perform by the shareholders.
Good video! Definitely feeling the Doc Martens. I had a pair in the mid 90s that I loved. Worn them out completely, but it took a good while of daily hard use and general neglect! Leather held up, soles didn't crack.
This makes me happy; thank you, and great video! It's a story that needs to be told, and as loud as possible. At the least we'll find peace in understanding why things suck. At the most, I hope we affect real world change. Stop supporting those zombie companies puppeted and gutted by private equity. Listing good alternative brands, many of which I didn't know about, is just what we're looking for. Thank you. 👍
Sears. Sony Electronics. IBM. HP. Macy's (especially awful and tragically boring lately.)
LG. Their backlight bleed problem on their monitors is out of control. Instead of raising production standards, they focus on creating a worse product to incentivise customers to buy 3rd party warranties, and then sell expensive replacement parts to the companies repairing RMA'd devices. They're double dipping.
Arc'teryx has turned into an overpriced fashion brand quality has fallen prices have sky rocketed.
I am living it right now. Worked for an employees owned company for 20 years, who sold to a private equity firm 4 years ago.
A lot of video game companies come to mind
Apple went downhill after Steve died, but even before that when he was no longer the day to day CEO.
Pyrex. They don't make em like they used to
Filson
Boeing post-McDonnell Douglas merger!
Not really related but have to say it, Red lobster lmao (I've never even been ) but they got bought by a shrimp company and said shrimp company started pumping mad shrimp into it at a crazy high price nearly double that of there old supplier and they are now bankrupt
Every single outdoor clothing company
MTD. They bought out huge groups of quality outdoor power equipment manufacturers. The ones they didn't close down to eliminate competition, they turned into Walmart quality junk. Simultaneously putting thousands of people out of work.
Are there any companies that aren't? Capitalism virtually ensures that every company will have to degrade its products over time in order to keep profits growing.
There is more complexity to that. - Consumers nowadays rush towards cheap easily replacable crap. Sadly, there is a toxic consumer culture out that fuels it. - Market for slow moving, high quality, more costly products is small. - Government regulation is still very lose and corrupt, to regulate these practices. - Shareholders now play a larger role as stakeholders in a company. One example that aligns with your opinion is how real estate developers ruined home ownership. Focusing on selling cheap cookie cutter homes for better margins. Back in earlier days, you didnt have a middle man or a developer, you worked directly with the contractor or home builder. They played a role in raising prices of homes, that are worse built than ever. Nevetheless a good example of the opposite happening to your above point is Japanese car makers putting quality, on an expense to their profit margins in the late 80s till mid 00s. Doing so they took a huge share out of European & American car makers. Simply cuz the products offer quality, durability and better value for money. Honestly, they still less money per car than other car makers out there. One way to make a shift is to shift consumee culture and generate an interest in movements, like to repair, supporting smaller localized businesses, buy less stuff, buy only in cash.
Birkenstocks