4 ms·

"It's funny to see the sharing economy promoted as a goal in itself, when 30 years ago one of the criticisms of the Soviet Union was that people there are so po

"It's funny to see the sharing economy promoted as a goal in itself, when 30 years ago one of the criticisms of the Soviet Union was that people there are so poor that they are forced to share kitchens and cars with strangers." And how the soviet union would only have one manufacturer and one shitty product. Now we have walmart. No matter the ideology, powerful people will want to possess power and wealth and will use whatever systems are in place to get there.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
djsumdog 10y ago
> one shitty product. Many of the things made during the Soviet era were made to last. I'd recommend the documentary: "The Lightbulb Conspiracy." It talks about planned obsolesce and the throw away economy. It's not necessarily because the Soviet state, but more simply due to resource scarcity and needing to make things that last a very long time. It's more than appalling that our cell phones are only intended to last two ~ four years. Of course that gives miners and Chinese manufactures jobs and growth (and the war industry too as they start a few more wars to collect resources).
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > but more simply due to resource scarcity and needing to make things that last a very long time And no pressure to make shitty things just to ensure you have return customers.
  - umberway 10y ago
    Increase sales tax on status/luxury items. Decrease sales tax on long-life products.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      I don't see how the latter would help - "long-life" products would break anyway. OTOH, if we could get minimum warranties from the EU's standard 2 years to something like 20 years for appliances and 10+ years for digital electronics... maybe then companies would start to care.
      - umberway 10y ago
        The idea is to give companies an incentive to make tough stuff by increasing their revenue for such products. But let's do both!
- mc32 10y ago
  There is both good and bad in a quick product cycle. The bad, if done wrong, you get poor recycling of input materials. If done right, you get iteratively better more environmentally friendly products. We would not want to be using inefficient air conditioners, washers, dryers, refrigerators, water heaters, etc. from yen years ago. They are simply inefficient compared to a new model. The problem is in recycling the displaced products.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  >Many of the things made during the Soviet era were made to last. They were made to last because they were costly and difficult to obtain, but they were of shockingly poor quality. Consumer goods in the soviet union were uniformly terrible. These dreadful products were the natural result of material shortages, obsolete design, inept management, a total indifference to quality and consumers who had no other choice. Look at soviet cars. Trabants, Yugos and Ladas were shoddily built from the cheapest materials. Soviet citizens kept these cars running because they had no other choice - either you figured out some way to fix up your pile of junk, or you walked. When Ladas and Yugos were exported to the west, they required major upgrades to meet safety and emissions standards and were still the worst cars on the market. That maps across the entire soviet economy. The very best goods available to soviet citizens were usually worse than the shoddiest goods on the western market.
achamayou 10y ago
Walmart doesn't source from a single manufacturer though, and while competing with them may not be a walk in the park, it's still orders of magnitude less tricky than competing with state owned soviet companies ever was. There's plenty of wrong with the current state of facts, but suggesting it's roughly similar, let alone equivalent, to what the situation was in the USSR is quite ridiculous.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

djsumdog 10y ago

> one shitty product. Many of the things made during the Soviet era were made to last. I'd recommend the documentary: "The Lightbulb Conspiracy." It talks about planned obsolesce and the throw away economy. It's not necessarily because the Soviet state, but more simply due to resource scarcity and needing to make things that last a very long time. It's more than appalling that our cell phones are only intended to last two ~ four years. Of course that gives miners and Chinese manufactures jobs and growth (and the war industry too as they start a few more wars to collect resources).

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> but more simply due to resource scarcity and needing to make things that last a very long time And no pressure to make shitty things just to ensure you have return customers.
- umberway 10y ago
  Increase sales tax on status/luxury items. Decrease sales tax on long-life products.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I don't see how the latter would help - "long-life" products would break anyway. OTOH, if we could get minimum warranties from the EU's standard 2 years to something like 20 years for appliances and 10+ years for digital electronics... maybe then companies would start to care.
    - umberway 10y ago
      The idea is to give companies an incentive to make tough stuff by increasing their revenue for such products. But let's do both!
mc32 10y ago
There is both good and bad in a quick product cycle. The bad, if done wrong, you get poor recycling of input materials. If done right, you get iteratively better more environmentally friendly products. We would not want to be using inefficient air conditioners, washers, dryers, refrigerators, water heaters, etc. from yen years ago. They are simply inefficient compared to a new model. The problem is in recycling the displaced products.
jdietrich 10y ago
>Many of the things made during the Soviet era were made to last. They were made to last because they were costly and difficult to obtain, but they were of shockingly poor quality. Consumer goods in the soviet union were uniformly terrible. These dreadful products were the natural result of material shortages, obsolete design, inept management, a total indifference to quality and consumers who had no other choice. Look at soviet cars. Trabants, Yugos and Ladas were shoddily built from the cheapest materials. Soviet citizens kept these cars running because they had no other choice - either you figured out some way to fix up your pile of junk, or you walked. When Ladas and Yugos were exported to the west, they required major upgrades to meet safety and emissions standards and were still the worst cars on the market. That maps across the entire soviet economy. The very best goods available to soviet citizens were usually worse than the shoddiest goods on the western market.

achamayou 10y ago

Walmart doesn't source from a single manufacturer though, and while competing with them may not be a walk in the park, it's still orders of magnitude less tricky than competing with state owned soviet companies ever was. There's plenty of wrong with the current state of facts, but suggesting it's roughly similar, let alone equivalent, to what the situation was in the USSR is quite ridiculous.