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I like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. It's a strange comfortable flexibility we have developed around truth. It's a

I like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. It's a strange comfortable flexibility we have developed around truth. It's almost as if "freedom of speech" means you can massage the truth if it increase sales but god forbid you make a drawing of 90 year old cartoon mouse.

BillinghamJ 8y ago
As someone not from the US, I just had a quick look on Google images. Such a bizarre concept, kinda amazing how different cultures can end up with such ridiculousness.
- doubleunplussed 8y ago
  Well, here in Australia we often used to buy credit for our mobile phones, and the credit was measured in "dollars", as opposed to "minutes". Over time things got inflated to the point where you might pay $50 for "$500" of credit. Then you pay for usage at like 30 "cents" per minute. Of course it costs you much less than 30 actual cents per minute in the end, because "dollars" of credit are not dollars at all. I don't know whether this ridiculous concept still exists since phone usage is so cheap now that everything except data is unlimited on the only plans I've been looking at, but it was that way for a while. The US measuring their credit in minutes makes a lot more sense - though having to have credit to receive a text message is pretty bizarre.
eugeniub 8y ago
It took me longer than I admit to realize that "8=16" or "12=32" meant literally nothing.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. The left is number of rolls in the package, the right is the number of the same brand “standard” rolls it is equivalent to by length (there is accommodating text which makes this explicit); this facilitates price comparisons among packages with different roll sizes.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  Yeah, it's basically the same as having both serving size and net weight. Far from a problem.
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    Ah, and it happens that no one makes any "standard" rolls. And what about Pam Spray On pure olive oil labeled fat-free? Serving size small enough for the fat to round to zero but not the olive oil content?
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Ah, and it happens that no one makes any "standard" rolls. Yes they do, e.g Charmin Regular rolls (which is important, because some dispensers won't handle bigger rolls), but in any case the utility for comparisons doesn't depend on regular rolls being an option, just as volume in liters of a drink product is useful even if 1.0l isn't one of the package sizes.
      - TomMckenny 8y ago
        Which would mean they are comparing to a standard they made up. Which is the gist of my point. Going further down the rabbit hole I find: Charmin rolls labeled "4=16" have 308 sheets. "Regular Rolls" were, when they were available, 121 sheets. Other implied "standards" within Charmin vary from sku to sku. So apparently the Charmin Standard does not exist in their product line and is not a fixed value either. They could just to put the total inches^2 on the package of course.
        austhrow743 8y ago
        Elsewhere in the thread is people talking about how a business tried to do away with "on sale" shenanigans, just listed reasonable prices, and got fucked horribly. When it comes to anything marketing/sale you have to assume the answer to weird messages like that is "because thats what the consumer wants to see". They want everything they buy to be on sale. They want their toilet paper measured in make believe units. They want me to say "yes we have an option to record that credential, it's just not turned on for this demo" rather than "yeah we can rename the heading of that textbox during implementation" during a software demo.
DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
Nothing new there - even in our industry, specifically computer data storage. It's been forever since backup tape manufacturers started describing their tape capacity assuming constant 2:1 compression ratios - even though that's a bad assumption to make as compression ratios wary wildly based on the original data. I think this started happening in the mid-1990s when tape drives had built-in hardware compression to save the host CPU from doing it in software? And of course, the canonical example of HDD vendors using "megabyte == 1000 kilobytes". Of course this results in a Nash equilibrium because vendors can't risk being honest if everyone else is dishonest/misleading because there's simply too many ignorant purchasers in the market - which is the exact same problem JC Penny had. At least AT&T is using "5Ge" instead of "5G" unlike they did with HSPA+ and "4G", and I'm okay with that, provided consumers won't think that "5Ge" stands for "Enhanced" instead of "Ersatz".
- gruez 8y ago
  >And of course, the canonical example of HDD vendors using "megabyte == 1000 kilobytes". That's a bad example because megabyte is defined as being 1000 kilobytes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    It's not a bad example because that definition was not in general use when the marketing practice started; at that time, kilobyte and megabyte had, in general use, exclusively the definitions later attached to kibibyte and mebibyte.
    - pseudalopex 8y ago
      When would you say the practice started?
    - mark-r 8y ago
      Just because the terms were in widespread use doesn't make them correct; the prefixes "kilo" and "mega" had well defined meanings long before the computer industry tried to redefine them. I side with the disk makers on this one.
max76 8y ago
I really wish companies measured toilet paper with a standard length measurement like meters. Even feet would be preferable over 'rolls'.

BillinghamJ 8y ago

As someone not from the US, I just had a quick look on Google images. Such a bizarre concept, kinda amazing how different cultures can end up with such ridiculousness.

doubleunplussed 8y ago
Well, here in Australia we often used to buy credit for our mobile phones, and the credit was measured in "dollars", as opposed to "minutes". Over time things got inflated to the point where you might pay $50 for "$500" of credit. Then you pay for usage at like 30 "cents" per minute. Of course it costs you much less than 30 actual cents per minute in the end, because "dollars" of credit are not dollars at all. I don't know whether this ridiculous concept still exists since phone usage is so cheap now that everything except data is unlimited on the only plans I've been looking at, but it was that way for a while. The US measuring their credit in minutes makes a lot more sense - though having to have credit to receive a text message is pretty bizarre.

eugeniub 8y ago

It took me longer than I admit to realize that "8=16" or "12=32" meant literally nothing.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I like that every single brand of toilet paper now boasts "8=16" or "12=32" etc. The left is number of rolls in the package, the right is the number of the same brand “standard” rolls it is equivalent to by length (there is accommodating text which makes this explicit); this facilitates price comparisons among packages with different roll sizes.

Dylan16807 8y ago
Yeah, it's basically the same as having both serving size and net weight. Far from a problem.
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  Ah, and it happens that no one makes any "standard" rolls. And what about Pam Spray On pure olive oil labeled fat-free? Serving size small enough for the fat to round to zero but not the olive oil content?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Ah, and it happens that no one makes any "standard" rolls. Yes they do, e.g Charmin Regular rolls (which is important, because some dispensers won't handle bigger rolls), but in any case the utility for comparisons doesn't depend on regular rolls being an option, just as volume in liters of a drink product is useful even if 1.0l isn't one of the package sizes.
    - TomMckenny 8y ago
      Which would mean they are comparing to a standard they made up. Which is the gist of my point. Going further down the rabbit hole I find: Charmin rolls labeled "4=16" have 308 sheets. "Regular Rolls" were, when they were available, 121 sheets. Other implied "standards" within Charmin vary from sku to sku. So apparently the Charmin Standard does not exist in their product line and is not a fixed value either. They could just to put the total inches^2 on the package of course.
      - austhrow743 8y ago
        Elsewhere in the thread is people talking about how a business tried to do away with "on sale" shenanigans, just listed reasonable prices, and got fucked horribly. When it comes to anything marketing/sale you have to assume the answer to weird messages like that is "because thats what the consumer wants to see". They want everything they buy to be on sale. They want their toilet paper measured in make believe units. They want me to say "yes we have an option to record that credential, it's just not turned on for this demo" rather than "yeah we can rename the heading of that textbox during implementation" during a software demo.

DaiPlusPlus 8y ago

Nothing new there - even in our industry, specifically computer data storage. It's been forever since backup tape manufacturers started describing their tape capacity assuming constant 2:1 compression ratios - even though that's a bad assumption to make as compression ratios wary wildly based on the original data. I think this started happening in the mid-1990s when tape drives had built-in hardware compression to save the host CPU from doing it in software? And of course, the canonical example of HDD vendors using "megabyte == 1000 kilobytes". Of course this results in a Nash equilibrium because vendors can't risk being honest if everyone else is dishonest/misleading because there's simply too many ignorant purchasers in the market - which is the exact same problem JC Penny had. At least AT&T is using "5Ge" instead of "5G" unlike they did with HSPA+ and "4G", and I'm okay with that, provided consumers won't think that "5Ge" stands for "Enhanced" instead of "Ersatz".

gruez 8y ago
>And of course, the canonical example of HDD vendors using "megabyte == 1000 kilobytes". That's a bad example because megabyte is defined as being 1000 kilobytes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megabyte
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  It's not a bad example because that definition was not in general use when the marketing practice started; at that time, kilobyte and megabyte had, in general use, exclusively the definitions later attached to kibibyte and mebibyte.
  - pseudalopex 8y ago
    When would you say the practice started?
  - mark-r 8y ago
    Just because the terms were in widespread use doesn't make them correct; the prefixes "kilo" and "mega" had well defined meanings long before the computer industry tried to redefine them. I side with the disk makers on this one.

max76 8y ago

I really wish companies measured toilet paper with a standard length measurement like meters. Even feet would be preferable over 'rolls'.