5 ms·

>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 an

by 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.
  - mc32 11y ago
    With regard to clothing, "fashion" has, unfortunately, trickled down to everyone. One can buy clothing which lasts, or boots which last. You can buy a 400 pair of boots which will take a beating for up to a decade of use, or you can buy a pair for $100 which will last you a season. Lots of people will balk at the 400 boots. Same with clothing. They'll buy the stuff made with short cotton fiber which begins fraying after a couple of washes --or you can buy the long fiber textiles which cost a lot more. Or wool... or white goods or pots and pans... etc. Anyway, most people have adopted the fashion cycle --something that only wealthy people would import from the fashion capital du jour.

by Retra 11y ago

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.
- mc32 11y ago
  With regard to clothing, "fashion" has, unfortunately, trickled down to everyone. One can buy clothing which lasts, or boots which last. You can buy a 400 pair of boots which will take a beating for up to a decade of use, or you can buy a pair for $100 which will last you a season. Lots of people will balk at the 400 boots. Same with clothing. They'll buy the stuff made with short cotton fiber which begins fraying after a couple of washes --or you can buy the long fiber textiles which cost a lot more. Or wool... or white goods or pots and pans... etc. Anyway, most people have adopted the fashion cycle --something that only wealthy people would import from the fashion capital du jour.