5 ms·

"After doing a tour in Facebook’s news trenches, almost all of them came to believe that they were there not to work, but to serve as training modules for Faceb

"After doing a tour in Facebook’s news trenches, almost all of them came to believe that they were there not to work, but to serve as training modules for Facebook’s algorithm." ha! aren't we all.

mc32 11y ago
So.... They finally know what it feels like to be a blue collar worker whose job gets outsourced and sometimes are offered benefits contingent on training their offshore trainees. Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... But now that it affects them, oh my, this is bad now...
- Retra 11y ago
  >Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... I'm not sure this analogy works. Surely the people selling jeans would prefer to sell new $30 pairs every year rather than $70 pairs every five.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    What if that $70 jean costs them $60 and the $30 jean costs them $29.
  - mc32 11y ago
    Of course. Buy buyers mainly see "cheap jeans!". They don't always think about quality, craftsmanship, etc. They've been primed for yearly changing fashion which enables cheap jeans made from sub par materials.
    - slavik81 11y ago
      Even if they did care, it's not easy to tell until the jeans start falling apart.
      - B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
        Don't they come that way now, new from the store, all torn up and stuff?
  - majormajor 11y ago
    A lot of buyers would too. Overall price premium, but lower immediate costs to keep up with the latest fashions. See: H&M, etc.
  - EGreg 11y ago
    I see this as a fundamental problem of the unsustainability of our economy. The incentive of every corporation is to earn an increasing amount of money, and thus to move more things from resources to garbage as quickly as possible. "But all those jobs!!" is a stupid argument. Jobs aren't the goal. The goal should be getting resources to the right people, and sustainability for the long term.
    - harmegido 11y ago
      I don't buy this planned obsolescence bs. I get that most markets aren't very free, but they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out. Companies are trying to make money today. They aren't thinking: "hey, let's put out a crappy product that will be worse than our competitors' so that people will have to buy more of our stuff in the future!" Any company that did that wouldn't make it to tomorrow.
      - EGreg 11y ago
        "Superior" is a subjective term. Superior in what sense? Trump for example got tons of coverage. Is he "superior" to someone who may be more knowledgeable, skilled and would "make a better president" but got less coverage? The amount of advertisement, exposure, and just plain psychological manipulation matters. Is sugary soda superior to healthy drinks? Is bottled water superior to tap water? So we as a society really need to throw away metric tons of non biogradable materials every minute? Thinking that something wins out because it is "superior" is just confirming the free market ideology - whatever wins must be "superior" is a tautology which makes the word "superior" lose all meaning. Yes, lots of crappy products beat products that performed better in practice, because of external and network effects. But what we should be asking is about the correlation between a company's incentives and polluting the planet. In the main, they are pretty aligned, which is scary.
      - quanticle 11y ago
        >they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out. Doesn't this imply that the customer has enough information to determine which is the superior product? In reality, it's quite easy to dress up an inferior product with lots of marketing, and gain great success in the marketplace. Heck, look at Beats headphones. They're not superior in any way. Yet, by carefully crafting a marketing message, and putting massive amounts of money behind it, they've managed to get a fairly large share of the market.
- paganel 11y ago
  > Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... My only piece of designer clothes was a $160 pair of jeans that lasted for only 3 or so years. I concluded that from now on I should stick with buying $50 jeans which last me at least 2 years.

mc32 11y ago

So.... They finally know what it feels like to be a blue collar worker whose job gets outsourced and sometimes are offered benefits contingent on training their offshore trainees. Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... But now that it affects them, oh my, this is bad now...

Retra 11y ago
>Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... I'm not sure this analogy works. Surely the people selling jeans would prefer to sell new $30 pairs every year rather than $70 pairs every five.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  What if that $70 jean costs them $60 and the $30 jean costs them $29.
- mc32 11y ago
  Of course. Buy buyers mainly see "cheap jeans!". They don't always think about quality, craftsmanship, etc. They've been primed for yearly changing fashion which enables cheap jeans made from sub par materials.
  - slavik81 11y ago
    Even if they did care, it's not easy to tell until the jeans start falling apart.
    - B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
      Don't they come that way now, new from the store, all torn up and stuff?
- majormajor 11y ago
  A lot of buyers would too. Overall price premium, but lower immediate costs to keep up with the latest fashions. See: H&M, etc.
- EGreg 11y ago
  I see this as a fundamental problem of the unsustainability of our economy. The incentive of every corporation is to earn an increasing amount of money, and thus to move more things from resources to garbage as quickly as possible. "But all those jobs!!" is a stupid argument. Jobs aren't the goal. The goal should be getting resources to the right people, and sustainability for the long term.
  - harmegido 11y ago
    I don't buy this planned obsolescence bs. I get that most markets aren't very free, but they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out. Companies are trying to make money today. They aren't thinking: "hey, let's put out a crappy product that will be worse than our competitors' so that people will have to buy more of our stuff in the future!" Any company that did that wouldn't make it to tomorrow.
    - EGreg 11y ago
      "Superior" is a subjective term. Superior in what sense? Trump for example got tons of coverage. Is he "superior" to someone who may be more knowledgeable, skilled and would "make a better president" but got less coverage? The amount of advertisement, exposure, and just plain psychological manipulation matters. Is sugary soda superior to healthy drinks? Is bottled water superior to tap water? So we as a society really need to throw away metric tons of non biogradable materials every minute? Thinking that something wins out because it is "superior" is just confirming the free market ideology - whatever wins must be "superior" is a tautology which makes the word "superior" lose all meaning. Yes, lots of crappy products beat products that performed better in practice, because of external and network effects. But what we should be asking is about the correlation between a company's incentives and polluting the planet. In the main, they are pretty aligned, which is scary.
    - quanticle 11y ago
      >they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out. Doesn't this imply that the customer has enough information to determine which is the superior product? In reality, it's quite easy to dress up an inferior product with lots of marketing, and gain great success in the marketplace. Heck, look at Beats headphones. They're not superior in any way. Yet, by carefully crafting a marketing message, and putting massive amounts of money behind it, they've managed to get a fairly large share of the market.
paganel 11y ago
> Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... My only piece of designer clothes was a $160 pair of jeans that lasted for only 3 or so years. I concluded that from now on I should stick with buying $50 jeans which last me at least 2 years.