11 ms·

I don't immediately discard an item because it's made in China, as I know of some high quality items made there. Most Apple products, some Xiaomi products or Me

by nextos 7y ago

I don't immediately discard an item because it's made in China, as I know of some high quality items made there. Most Apple products, some Xiaomi products or Meermin/Feit shoes. However, I tend to be very skeptical about its quality. Moving manufacturing to China is most often done to reduce cost. The only industry where it's not done due to cost, but supply chain issues, is electronics. And with cost reduction comes lower quality. Higher tolerances, zero pollution standards, etc. In particular, most items I got from China have this terrible new plastic smell that is almost intoxicating. Same for some clothing dyes. Studies show formaldehyde concentrations are really high in Chinese homes, and I'm not surprised. Hence, a few years ago I made a resolution to raise my standards and avoid those things. But it's a lot of trouble to find high quality items these days. I want to own few things and keep most for the rest of my life. I have slowly curated such a list, but it's as I said you need to go out of your way and often get custom things from niche brands. Once a big company in a particular industry moves to China, most will follow shortly. It's game theory. The average customer couldn't care less about things I mentioned above. Sadly, it's all about price. tl;dr As a consumer I miss much better reviews and reports on product quality, safety and repairability. I feel that'd improve the situation where most industries localize to China to cut costs at the expense of everything else due to information asymmetry.

josho 7y ago
> Sadly, it's all about price. It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else. Eg. I can’t tell which of two products is manufactured to higher standards, nor which one isn’t infested with formaldehyde. Until consumers are able to determine those other factors then yes sadly it is all about price (and marketing).
- nextos 7y ago
  That's not entirely true. In the EU, there are lots of tags that guarantee product safety. CE marks (for electronics), OEKO-TEX (safe textiles), GOTS (organic textiles), etc. The US has some equivalent ones I am less familiar with. In fact, both OEKO-TEX and GOTS are global standards. Some Xiaomi products have not been imported to EU because they failed to obtain CE marks. And you'd never encounter a product that smells formaldehyde with an OEKO-TEX label. But I agree the information is quite asymmetric. As a customer, I want to know a lot more about how products are made. And I want to be able to repair them and source replacement parts.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    >And you'd never encounter a product that smells formaldehyde with an OEKO-TEX label. These guys will put lead in children's toys but would never be so unscrupulous as to put a fake label on the product? Or lie to obtain certification?
    - floatrock 7y ago
      That's a criticism of the supply chain and enforcement, not the certification itself. I think most people would agree that a promise without verification is no real promise.
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      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        China executed people responsible for adding an industrial chemical to baby formula [1]. Without debating the merits of capital punishment, I think the issue is the lack of consistency in supple chain management. The only model I could compare to would be Costco, who is pretty good at curating products customers will like (and the quality is usually good IMHO). Trust sells, if you find buyers who value trust. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes-milk-scandal-pair https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes...
- davidw 7y ago
  On that same subject - it was interesting to me how much better fresh produce was in Italy. In no small part I think this is due to the fact that people have a pretty good ability to distinguish the quality of a lot of traditional foods there. In the stores, the produce isn't usually as neat and tidy and pretty as in the US - you might even find a few bad bits and pieces, but by and large, it tastes really good.
  - nextos 7y ago
    I'm not surprised. Local fresh produce tends to be the way to get much better food products. What I would like to see is a curated list of all common objects we use daily that have the properties I mentioned above: high quality, safety and repairability. Places like r/bifl and manufactum.de are good starting points, but they are far from complete.
    - davidw 7y ago
      It's not necessarily local - these aren't what I'd call high end or "hipster" type markets, just regular supermarkets. They'll bring in stuff from southern Italy, or Spain or wherever is convenient. But they do pay attention to quality because their customers want that.
      - nextos 7y ago
        I'd still argue that's quite local. In most Spanish supermarkets, stuff tended to be local or from nearby EU countries. Although now things are degrading. My favorite UK supermarket sells organic pine kernels from China, at a ridiculously high price. That's not local, nor pine kernels are typical produce from China. It's just seeking high margins.
        cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Soil composition, fertilizers, vegetable strains, and weather conditions all impact taste. Tomatoes from my garden made from heirloom seeds taste significantly better than best boy, beefsteak, or even tomatoes on the vine. I've had tomatoes from Italy, in Romania if all places, and can concur that even the produce exported tastes worlds better than what you can buy in the average US supermarket. I'd wager that the type of produce grown in the US is the culprit as it tends to be more important to have shelf stable and attractive produce than tasty produce. Stuff from my garden or the farmer's market is comparable to produce I've had in Europe.
- azernik 7y ago
  Yup. I worked at a company selling enterprise equipment, and they were absolutely opposed to entering the consumer market precisely because low-information customers push everyone into a race to the bottom.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    There are notable exception to this in most industries, but it’s got to be a hard path to walk. Somewhat amusingly, most people’s favourite brands tend to be the more quality ones, if my circle is anything to go by (which is a trap). If it’s what they buy is a whole different thing.
    - dc_gregory 7y ago
      A step further, it seems most people's favourite brands tend to be ones which were high quality in the past. Its a rare situation where that quality continues as mass market appeal arrives.
      - cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Irwin tools, Klein tools, Blaster Corp products, John Deere stuff, K-Bar, Leatherman, Ogio backpacks, and Patagonia. I'm sure there are others but these brands have held up well for me over time. It's definitely a short list. Lowe's Kobalt brand seems to be good for now but Craftsman is junk now, most major appliances are garbage, every television manufacturer I can think of has garbage QA, aside from Samsung and apple I can't think of a reputable phone brand sold in the US but even Apple quality has lessened a bit and Samsung has the exploding battery issue. It's gotten really hard to find quality that isn't hand made.
    - azernik 7y ago
      Yeah, this is kind of the entire point of trademarks - to let non-professionals get enough information about quality to make decisions on some basis other than just price.
    - nextos 7y ago
- option 7y ago
  that’s why we need regulatory bodies and, yes, tariffs which should factor all those additional costs: to environment, human rights, etc.
  - daveguy 7y ago
    tariffs are a poor instrument for anything except raising the price of incoming goods so that your local industries can compete. And then you're still "picking the winners and losers" by selectively applying tariffs. It's a tax that hurts consumers and helps industries. There's a place for it in well measured smart economic policy, but in almost every case it's better to use a tax (like carbon tax) than a tariff. Essentially that's what a tariff is, but calling it a tax and giving a good reason for it is a lot less likely to cause retaliatory tariffs.
    - gowld 7y ago
      A tarriff is just the name for a tax applied to imports. The reason and the scope and definition can be good or bad, just as with a tax.
- daveguy 7y ago
  I think this is one of the few places where blockchain would be more help than hurt. Provenance of materials, location of manufacture, even tolerances and standards applied could be tracked across multiple independent companies. Of course, enforcing what goes on the blockchain would be a whole different can of worms. This sort of tracking is important in manufacturing standards (ISO9001). Coupling non-central control of the manufacturing record would be very helpful implementing standards like ISO9001 and allow third party analysis of "manufacturing quality" and "environmental impact" ... even better if it can be integrated into manufacturing instruments that can register a step automatically. Shipping and supply companies are looking heavily into these types of applications.
- ppod 7y ago
  Good point. This is where public online reviews come in. It's a bit tricky with amazon, because for some products different sellers source slightly different versions of the product (or just knock-offs), but in theory open online review is a revolution for the customer-quality information gap.
  - baroffoos 7y ago
    I think it might have made it worse since most reviews we see are fake or influenced rather than word of mouth from trusted friends
  - nextos 7y ago
    Reviews are nice, but reviewers are rarely in the position to assess some properties of a product. Especially safety.
  - rangibaby 7y ago
    Why reviews are horrible, even (especially?) on Youtube: SO HYPED ABOUT THIS PRODUCT. CAN'T WAIT UNTIL IT'S RELEASED (5 stars) (brand) hits it out of the park again! Thanks for the review model, paid trip to Hawaii, and sweet t-shirt, (brand). This makes all (other brands) obsolete! Hail Sony! (5 stars) This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars) (One year earlier on the previous model): This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars) Used it for 5 minutes, I love it (5 stars) I've never used it but (YT celebrity) said it's good (5 stars) (paid spam review) (5 stars) (review of another product) (5 stars) Good and knowledgeable review that has an honest view of the strengths and weaknesses of the product. Might have a mix of broken English, bad production values, or be by a kid with a squeaky voice or someone who looks ugly: 3 stars WAS HYPED ABOUT THIS BUT SICK OF WAITING (1 star) Great five-star product but (random seller) sucks / was slow to ship it / wouldn't take my return! (1 star) It broke when I dropped it out of an airplane (1 star) How do I turn it on? (1 star) (complaint about related but different model of same product) (1 star) (review of another product) (1 star) Out of stock! (1 star)
    - cannonedhamster 7y ago
- ghbvfv 7y ago
  “It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else.” Neither can statisticians so that’s why I don’t put any trust in CPI numbers (“inflation”). They don’t even track amount sold (I.e. did the 355 ml pop become 340ml?) how are they going to track quality???
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    CPI is difficult and flawed, but they do try to account for size. Soda is pretty consistent in size (12oz can), but, for example, yogurt which can come in a variety of sizes is added to the CPI per 8oz. The hard part is how you measure the quality change. The market is flooded with high end higher quality yogurts. Yogurt shelves in the grocery store look very different than they did 15 years ago before Chobani kicked off the Greek yogurt crazy, and completely different than 30 years ago before USDA organic certification.
    - ghbvfv 7y ago
      Add starch to yoghurt and the 8oz becomes 7oz is yoghurt
      - WillPostForFood 7y ago
        Make yogurt with organic grass fed milk and 8oz of yogurt costs as much as 32oz of plain old starchless yogurt.
- monk_e_boy 7y ago
  When the internet was young and I was wide eyed optimistic I thought reviews and ratings would solve this problem. It didn't. Then amazon came along and promised a similar panacea, user ratings... but again it didn't quite happen. I feel twitter suffers the same problems. Who is genuine? Who has unbiased knowledge? Who can tell me the truth about a product? Can I know your credentials online without knowing your name? ((Imagine twitter posts being flagged "This person has no qualifications and has failed a basic maths exam")) -- idea - online exams with my results cryptographically signed. Block-chain seemed to offer some sort of solution. Maybe if we had trusted manufacturers of components, then these components could be tracked (along with pollution, carbon miles, labour policies, etc) all logged in the block chain. A bit like "fair trade" but for other items. Easily checked using your phone/bar-code before purchasing.
  - jakevn 7y ago
    Blockchain does not provide any verification of trust, nor can it. It provides verification of number crunching transactions alone, as well as an immutable store of that number crunching. It's actually notoriously poor for trust compared to traditional systems, as there is no way to mediate in the case of fraud once a transaction has occurred.
  - gowld 7y ago
    How exactly would "blockchain" contribute anything to this solution?
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  "It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else." They can, but it's obviously the biggest signal. But let's not confuse the plight of the middle/upper middle class who can afford to start to invest in aspiration, and make other qualitative judgments about things like supply chain. China+Wallmart have made entire categories of goods and services available to regular working people, at prices they can afford. The consumer surpluses have been vast. However much we may not like all of the ugly bits that come along with that new reality (and there are many) - we often forget the immense surpluses they bring to quite a lot of people. Most people don't have a lot of money and are very price sensitive, and being able to afford 'stuff' can in many cases improve their lives quite dramatically. Anecdotally, I've been helping to create a physical product for mass consumption, and this has really hit home with me in our earlier trials and feedback from customers. Without getting into specifics, the 'simple' version of our product at $40 is accessible to most. The fancy version at $80 will be beyond the reach of most. Margins will be what they can be, but for the first time in my professional career, it dawned on my quite clearly all of these folks clamouring for our product for whom we would have to say 'no' to, because of price point: they are not going to be able to get the little bump in lifestyle. It was the weirdest bit of 'capitalist equality/opportunity' logic, but I really felt bad that we might have to tell all those folks that they 'can't have it'. All things equal, I want to make it as affordable as I can because that brings a lot of benefit to people. So yes, after 20 years of this China-Wallmart global supply chain powerhouse ... maybe we should start to take stock of all of these externalities, but let's also not forget how much of the surpluses go to those who need it. Now consider that there are still 4 billion people who are going to 'come online' into basic economic prosperity who are going to want and need 'stuff' to! I hope we start to figure out plastics, waste, pollution, but we also want to make stuff accessible.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    There seems to be a major difference in you trying to make a good, quality product which have yet to have benefited from economy of scale and cheap knock offs that are often dangerous, misleading, or just plain cut corners. For a large number of people and products this isn't actually a problem, like you say. Harbor freight had an excellent business model in just this but they are very up front about it. You're not buying the best wishlist quality, you're buying the best quality they can find at a specific and accessible price. That's adding efficiency to the supply chain, which is most of what Walmart does. Don't sell yourself short that your first product iteration isn't there yet. You'll find ways to improve and lower the cost of the product in safe and efficient ways over time.
H1Supreme 7y ago
> Meermin/Feit shoes There's another company out of the US called Grant Stone who makes shoes in China. They are some of the best constructed leather shoes I've ever seen. Lots of people compare them to Aldens, which are double the price.
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
>But it's a lot of trouble to find high quality items these days. I want to own few things and keep most for the rest of my life. I concur on both fronts. Might I suggest you check out thrift or second hand stores? I have a collection of old aluminum cased power tools made in the mid 20th century in North America, and I think the most I paid for any one of them was $12 CAD. They look amazing. You can take them apart quickly and easily if you need to re-grease them. You can re-wind the motor if you somehow manage to short it out. They don't need a warranty, as they have proven themselves over the past 50+ years already. Etc. We've made a LOT of quality products over the years, many of which make their way into thrift stores sooner or later. Paying 10% of what something would cost brand new, and getting quality that is typically 10x greater than the brand new version is a steal imho.
- obmelvin 7y ago
  Any tips on how you identify such items that are worth buying? Those tools sound like an amazing deal.
  - flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
    It's tougher than it looks. Especially so with newer Chinese made products actually adding lead weights inside their cheap plastic cases to make their cheap products feel as though they were cut from a heavier cloth. Some rules of thumb that I have when it comes to buying old power tools are: Does it look like something your grandfather might have owned? Is it of all metal construction? If not, are the plastics of a high enough density to make them almost as indestructible as metal? Does it plug directly into the wall? And does it work? If you can answer those questions in the affirmative when it comes to any power tool, chances are it is of good quality. The best way by far imho however is just to get out there and start looking. After a few months, you'll begin to notice lots and lots of exactly the same items showing up in the same shelving sections. The same kettles, the same breadmakers, the same drills, the same table lamps, most all of them having been made in the past 20 years and currently knocking on death's door. Once you've seen enough of that crap, when a quality item displays itself in front of you, you'll know it's a great deal and snap it up with excitement. I love thrifting. Good luck out there!
UI_at_80x24 7y ago
>Sadly, it's all about price. This is the problem, but not how you are stating it. If CEO's didn't make 300x the lowest paid employee, and "shareholders didn't demand" exponential growth quarter after quarter, then the price to be 'Not made in China' would be reasonable. Fix these problems then the damages caused by seeking "cheapest possible AND cheaper" would be non-existant. *NB: I am a shareholder. I want my investment to MATCH inflation not magically exceed it. If everybody stops being so greedy this is possible. (I wouldn't need to buy shares if my company and government didn't fuck up Retirement Benefits.)
- henriquemaia 7y ago
  >If everybody stops being so greedy this is possible. Problem is that we, as evolved creatures in a world of scarcity, are hoarders by... nature. Greed is just a morally misguided way of hoarding. So, waiting for people to stop being greedy is much more difficult than just making the right moral choices.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    And it's not _just_ greed. Is a person struggling to make rent in New York or San Francisco or Sydney being "greedy" when they demand more pay than workers with equivalent skills in rural China or Vietnam or Bangladesh or Rawanda? Global economies mean that while some things stay rooted in local pricing (like the food and shelter at the top of Maslow's hierarchy), while other things can be _way_ more valuable if you stuff them in a shipping container and send them to the docks of Oakland or New Jersey... If I can house and feed my family for $US10/month in Rawanda, and my neighbours can only afford to pay me 30c for my widgets, but they can sell for $100 in San Francisco, of _course_ I'll jam 100,000 of them into a container and pay $5,000 to send them there... That'll keep working great for the Rwandan guy - up until his kids decide they want iPhones and cars and university degrees, and the costs of their expectations increase until they cannot afford a manufacturing-based economy to fund them either...
- bigiain 7y ago
  I think it's more complex than that. It's not _just_ the CEO and investors greed. People's time in "1st world countries" is more expensive because _everything_ is more expensive. There's pretty much no manufacturing left here in Australia, because the wages on offer for "factory jobs" can't pay rent or buy food in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. And if you _did_ pay your "factory workers" in Australian cities enough to rent/buy a home there, your base assembly costs start out at more that the manufactured-and-delivered price for the same item from China. Automation will help fix one end of that problem (the cost to manufacure side), but will make the other end worse (even fewer jobs for lesser skilled workers). I don't _like_ that fact that global economies and inexpensive shipping have made arbitrage of inequity a real business profit driver. But the reality is that a bunch of people in China are prepared to work in factories making widgets for less money than anybody in Australia - and moving shipping containers full of widgets is _way_ less expensive than the difference.
taf2 7y ago
Seems to me you could share and possibly monetize your list for others and your benefit
quickthrower2 7y ago
I avoid things shipped directly from China or HK, but happy to buy something made in China from an Australia store so there is some guarantee of quality and safety.
zarkov99 7y ago
Do you happen to have published your curated list somewhere? I feel the same towards quality so I am always looking.
- matt_heimer 7y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ Note the sidebar links.
sasaf5 7y ago
Particularly I miss low-spec, high quality items. I want a good laptop for writing, it has to be only powerful enough to run emacs and a browser. but it has to survive being trashed around and the battery must be available 10 years from now for replacement. Good luck finding that kind of product...
- bitwize 7y ago
  They're called "used ThinkPads".
  - sasaf5 7y ago
    Yes, that's the closest I could find.
    - nextos 7y ago
      New Thinkpad E series is decent. Unlike previous ones, it has true Thinkpad construction and price is very reasonable, especially with some discount. Battery is not glued, and most components are serviceable.
- malloryerik 7y ago
  I'm very skeptical, but there's supposedly emacs for Chromebooks: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForChromeBooks https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForChromeBooks
  - atr_gz 7y ago
    I think at this point new Chromebooks can all run Linux software natively - so might as well just use normal emacs. Actually I have emacs running on Android as well. I don't really use it often - but it works fine. Maybe if I bought a little Bluetooth keyboard I would play around with it more.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  8 megs and swapping
fhbdukfrh 7y ago
While lots of cheap bicycles are made in China it's also where practically all high end carbon fiber bikes are made as well. Just like we discounted made in Japan a generation ago, we like to do the same with China today. It's true for some industries but just wishful thinking for many. Look at what's happening with Chinese cars for an example of rapid manufacturing improvement
- audiometry 7y ago
  "cheap" versus "high-end" is not as clear a distinction as it seems. In fairness, it depends what you're looking for. Carbon Fiber is lighter, ok, so call that the high-end one. But in reality, their durability is lousy -- in addition to being mostly-ruined by a crash, they do deteriorate over time. I know this first-hand as a colleague repairs carbon fiber frames [imagine lots of epoxy and carbon wraps], so I see a huge gamut of failures. Most of the frames coming in are probably 2-8 years old? Will be interesting to see how they 'wear' in the 10-20+ timeframe. This, in comparison to steel frames, which have fantastic crash resistance (one of my frame's toptube has a huge dent in in for years no problem, and, another friend, a racer, finished a multi-day stage race with the headtube angle crunched-in after rear-ending a car early in the race). Also, provided they're rust-proof'd the frames last decades and can be repaired, modified. I've been to ?a? ?the? Giant factory in Taiwan seeing them manufacture steel frames -- it was amazingly simple and primitive and mass-scale factory way out from Taipei, in the countryside. I suppose another win for carbon is it enables lots of weird/cool frame shapes. There are shaped steel and aluminum tubes, but nothing like the options in carbon. I think the weight advantage of carbon is lower than you'd expect -- high-end cromoly-steel frames are made from suprisingly thin tubing that is very sound. Anyway, I am clearly a fan of steel frames and more randonneur-style riding. If I was into triathlons or time trials, I'd probably reply differently. And I also increasingly dislike throwaway culture and I don't believe these carbon frames hold up in the longterm.
agreen 7y ago
> I have slowly curated such a list, but it's as I said you need to go out of your way and often get custom things from niche brands. Any plans on making this list publicly available?
Nition 7y ago
I have this vague idea of starting a "buy it for life" type store, everything with a 10+ year warranty, plus required maintenance stated clearly for each product. Sell tools, clothing, kitchenware, appliances, whatever. Is there anywhere like that already? I'm in New Zealand but I'd like to hear about international examples even if I couldn't shop there.
- inanutshellus 7y ago
  I think it was called "Sears"...
- nextos 7y ago
  I think Manufactum is the most similar thing out there, yet still far from perfect. They focus too much on old looks vs quality.
  - Nition 7y ago
    Thanks, Manufactum looks great. As you say though, everything looks plenty solid and reliable, but as far as I can see they don't state any sort of actual warranty/guarantee.
  - chopin 7y ago
    Manufactum (if you talk about the German company or division) sells mainly feel good stuff. I bought some and I wouldn't classify it as high quality items. They generally have a very good finish, that's it. I certainly wouldn't shop there for high quality.
hkmurakami 7y ago
Giant contract manufacturers bike frames for many brands that are considered “high end”, including Bianchi and Trek. So it’s not like they’re known for low quality.
rstuart4133 7y ago
A counter example is solar panels. China makes most of the worlds solar panels, and Chinese engineers design them, thereby proving under the right conditions the Chinese can put together a world class manufacturing chain without anyone else. Evidently Chinese engineers are as good at their jobs and any other engineer on the planet which is to be expected given the number of them they churn out. Given that, what's surprising is Solar panels are the exception. Push bikes are a great example. I'm pretty sure there are more electric push bikes in China, possibly more than the rest of the world put together. All are designed and built in China. So you would expect with that much volume and competition the best ebikes would come out of China. But that's not what has happened: Chinese designed ebikes are crap. There was a Australian documentary about China and the Chinese mentality called "Two men in China". One of the presenters was previously Australia's Chief Scientist. It's both hugely entertaining and very informative if you can find it. Anyway, they presented a typical Chinese house. It as small and cramped by Australian standards, but everything was shiny and modern. Only there was a problem: the cupboard doors were falling off. Apparently this generally happens after about 6 months. Doors fall off, carpet comes up, roofs leak, electronics breaks, LED lights that should last 50,000 hours died after 500. No one seemed overly upset by this turn of events. No one was demanding someone come back and fix it. It was just accepted. The difference then between the solar panels and the ebikes isn't the capability of the designed or the manufacturers. Of all things, it's the difference of the consumer. Where the Western consumer pushes back hard when their solar panels don't work (and by push back I mean law suites, legislation, and ultimately people going to jail) the Chinese consumer allows the manufacturers to get away delivering crap and lying about it. Who would have thought discerning customers were a key ingredient in making a great manufacturing nation?

by nextos 7y ago

josho 7y ago

> Sadly, it's all about price. It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else. Eg. I can’t tell which of two products is manufactured to higher standards, nor which one isn’t infested with formaldehyde. Until consumers are able to determine those other factors then yes sadly it is all about price (and marketing).

nextos 7y ago
That's not entirely true. In the EU, there are lots of tags that guarantee product safety. CE marks (for electronics), OEKO-TEX (safe textiles), GOTS (organic textiles), etc. The US has some equivalent ones I am less familiar with. In fact, both OEKO-TEX and GOTS are global standards. Some Xiaomi products have not been imported to EU because they failed to obtain CE marks. And you'd never encounter a product that smells formaldehyde with an OEKO-TEX label. But I agree the information is quite asymmetric. As a customer, I want to know a lot more about how products are made. And I want to be able to repair them and source replacement parts.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  >And you'd never encounter a product that smells formaldehyde with an OEKO-TEX label. These guys will put lead in children's toys but would never be so unscrupulous as to put a fake label on the product? Or lie to obtain certification?
  - floatrock 7y ago
    That's a criticism of the supply chain and enforcement, not the certification itself. I think most people would agree that a promise without verification is no real promise.
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    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      China executed people responsible for adding an industrial chemical to baby formula [1]. Without debating the merits of capital punishment, I think the issue is the lack of consistency in supple chain management. The only model I could compare to would be Costco, who is pretty good at curating products customers will like (and the quality is usually good IMHO). Trust sells, if you find buyers who value trust. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes-milk-scandal-pair https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes...
davidw 7y ago
On that same subject - it was interesting to me how much better fresh produce was in Italy. In no small part I think this is due to the fact that people have a pretty good ability to distinguish the quality of a lot of traditional foods there. In the stores, the produce isn't usually as neat and tidy and pretty as in the US - you might even find a few bad bits and pieces, but by and large, it tastes really good.
- nextos 7y ago
  I'm not surprised. Local fresh produce tends to be the way to get much better food products. What I would like to see is a curated list of all common objects we use daily that have the properties I mentioned above: high quality, safety and repairability. Places like r/bifl and manufactum.de are good starting points, but they are far from complete.
  - davidw 7y ago
    It's not necessarily local - these aren't what I'd call high end or "hipster" type markets, just regular supermarkets. They'll bring in stuff from southern Italy, or Spain or wherever is convenient. But they do pay attention to quality because their customers want that.
    - nextos 7y ago
      I'd still argue that's quite local. In most Spanish supermarkets, stuff tended to be local or from nearby EU countries. Although now things are degrading. My favorite UK supermarket sells organic pine kernels from China, at a ridiculously high price. That's not local, nor pine kernels are typical produce from China. It's just seeking high margins.
      - cannonedhamster 7y ago
        Soil composition, fertilizers, vegetable strains, and weather conditions all impact taste. Tomatoes from my garden made from heirloom seeds taste significantly better than best boy, beefsteak, or even tomatoes on the vine. I've had tomatoes from Italy, in Romania if all places, and can concur that even the produce exported tastes worlds better than what you can buy in the average US supermarket. I'd wager that the type of produce grown in the US is the culprit as it tends to be more important to have shelf stable and attractive produce than tasty produce. Stuff from my garden or the farmer's market is comparable to produce I've had in Europe.
azernik 7y ago
Yup. I worked at a company selling enterprise equipment, and they were absolutely opposed to entering the consumer market precisely because low-information customers push everyone into a race to the bottom.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  There are notable exception to this in most industries, but it’s got to be a hard path to walk. Somewhat amusingly, most people’s favourite brands tend to be the more quality ones, if my circle is anything to go by (which is a trap). If it’s what they buy is a whole different thing.
  - dc_gregory 7y ago
    A step further, it seems most people's favourite brands tend to be ones which were high quality in the past. Its a rare situation where that quality continues as mass market appeal arrives.
    - cannonedhamster 7y ago
      Irwin tools, Klein tools, Blaster Corp products, John Deere stuff, K-Bar, Leatherman, Ogio backpacks, and Patagonia. I'm sure there are others but these brands have held up well for me over time. It's definitely a short list. Lowe's Kobalt brand seems to be good for now but Craftsman is junk now, most major appliances are garbage, every television manufacturer I can think of has garbage QA, aside from Samsung and apple I can't think of a reputable phone brand sold in the US but even Apple quality has lessened a bit and Samsung has the exploding battery issue. It's gotten really hard to find quality that isn't hand made.
  - azernik 7y ago
    Yeah, this is kind of the entire point of trademarks - to let non-professionals get enough information about quality to make decisions on some basis other than just price.
  - nextos 7y ago
option 7y ago
that’s why we need regulatory bodies and, yes, tariffs which should factor all those additional costs: to environment, human rights, etc.
- daveguy 7y ago
  tariffs are a poor instrument for anything except raising the price of incoming goods so that your local industries can compete. And then you're still "picking the winners and losers" by selectively applying tariffs. It's a tax that hurts consumers and helps industries. There's a place for it in well measured smart economic policy, but in almost every case it's better to use a tax (like carbon tax) than a tariff. Essentially that's what a tariff is, but calling it a tax and giving a good reason for it is a lot less likely to cause retaliatory tariffs.
  - gowld 7y ago
    A tarriff is just the name for a tax applied to imports. The reason and the scope and definition can be good or bad, just as with a tax.
daveguy 7y ago
I think this is one of the few places where blockchain would be more help than hurt. Provenance of materials, location of manufacture, even tolerances and standards applied could be tracked across multiple independent companies. Of course, enforcing what goes on the blockchain would be a whole different can of worms. This sort of tracking is important in manufacturing standards (ISO9001). Coupling non-central control of the manufacturing record would be very helpful implementing standards like ISO9001 and allow third party analysis of "manufacturing quality" and "environmental impact" ... even better if it can be integrated into manufacturing instruments that can register a step automatically. Shipping and supply companies are looking heavily into these types of applications.
ppod 7y ago
Good point. This is where public online reviews come in. It's a bit tricky with amazon, because for some products different sellers source slightly different versions of the product (or just knock-offs), but in theory open online review is a revolution for the customer-quality information gap.
- baroffoos 7y ago
  I think it might have made it worse since most reviews we see are fake or influenced rather than word of mouth from trusted friends
- nextos 7y ago
  Reviews are nice, but reviewers are rarely in the position to assess some properties of a product. Especially safety.
- rangibaby 7y ago
  Why reviews are horrible, even (especially?) on Youtube: SO HYPED ABOUT THIS PRODUCT. CAN'T WAIT UNTIL IT'S RELEASED (5 stars) (brand) hits it out of the park again! Thanks for the review model, paid trip to Hawaii, and sweet t-shirt, (brand). This makes all (other brands) obsolete! Hail Sony! (5 stars) This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars) (One year earlier on the previous model): This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars) Used it for 5 minutes, I love it (5 stars) I've never used it but (YT celebrity) said it's good (5 stars) (paid spam review) (5 stars) (review of another product) (5 stars) Good and knowledgeable review that has an honest view of the strengths and weaknesses of the product. Might have a mix of broken English, bad production values, or be by a kid with a squeaky voice or someone who looks ugly: 3 stars WAS HYPED ABOUT THIS BUT SICK OF WAITING (1 star) Great five-star product but (random seller) sucks / was slow to ship it / wouldn't take my return! (1 star) It broke when I dropped it out of an airplane (1 star) How do I turn it on? (1 star) (complaint about related but different model of same product) (1 star) (review of another product) (1 star) Out of stock! (1 star)
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
ghbvfv 7y ago
“It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else.” Neither can statisticians so that’s why I don’t put any trust in CPI numbers (“inflation”). They don’t even track amount sold (I.e. did the 355 ml pop become 340ml?) how are they going to track quality???
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  CPI is difficult and flawed, but they do try to account for size. Soda is pretty consistent in size (12oz can), but, for example, yogurt which can come in a variety of sizes is added to the CPI per 8oz. The hard part is how you measure the quality change. The market is flooded with high end higher quality yogurts. Yogurt shelves in the grocery store look very different than they did 15 years ago before Chobani kicked off the Greek yogurt crazy, and completely different than 30 years ago before USDA organic certification.
  - ghbvfv 7y ago
    Add starch to yoghurt and the 8oz becomes 7oz is yoghurt
    - WillPostForFood 7y ago
      Make yogurt with organic grass fed milk and 8oz of yogurt costs as much as 32oz of plain old starchless yogurt.
monk_e_boy 7y ago
When the internet was young and I was wide eyed optimistic I thought reviews and ratings would solve this problem. It didn't. Then amazon came along and promised a similar panacea, user ratings... but again it didn't quite happen. I feel twitter suffers the same problems. Who is genuine? Who has unbiased knowledge? Who can tell me the truth about a product? Can I know your credentials online without knowing your name? ((Imagine twitter posts being flagged "This person has no qualifications and has failed a basic maths exam")) -- idea - online exams with my results cryptographically signed. Block-chain seemed to offer some sort of solution. Maybe if we had trusted manufacturers of components, then these components could be tracked (along with pollution, carbon miles, labour policies, etc) all logged in the block chain. A bit like "fair trade" but for other items. Easily checked using your phone/bar-code before purchasing.
- jakevn 7y ago
  Blockchain does not provide any verification of trust, nor can it. It provides verification of number crunching transactions alone, as well as an immutable store of that number crunching. It's actually notoriously poor for trust compared to traditional systems, as there is no way to mediate in the case of fraud once a transaction has occurred.
- gowld 7y ago
  How exactly would "blockchain" contribute anything to this solution?
sonnyblarney 7y ago
"It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else." They can, but it's obviously the biggest signal. But let's not confuse the plight of the middle/upper middle class who can afford to start to invest in aspiration, and make other qualitative judgments about things like supply chain. China+Wallmart have made entire categories of goods and services available to regular working people, at prices they can afford. The consumer surpluses have been vast. However much we may not like all of the ugly bits that come along with that new reality (and there are many) - we often forget the immense surpluses they bring to quite a lot of people. Most people don't have a lot of money and are very price sensitive, and being able to afford 'stuff' can in many cases improve their lives quite dramatically. Anecdotally, I've been helping to create a physical product for mass consumption, and this has really hit home with me in our earlier trials and feedback from customers. Without getting into specifics, the 'simple' version of our product at $40 is accessible to most. The fancy version at $80 will be beyond the reach of most. Margins will be what they can be, but for the first time in my professional career, it dawned on my quite clearly all of these folks clamouring for our product for whom we would have to say 'no' to, because of price point: they are not going to be able to get the little bump in lifestyle. It was the weirdest bit of 'capitalist equality/opportunity' logic, but I really felt bad that we might have to tell all those folks that they 'can't have it'. All things equal, I want to make it as affordable as I can because that brings a lot of benefit to people. So yes, after 20 years of this China-Wallmart global supply chain powerhouse ... maybe we should start to take stock of all of these externalities, but let's also not forget how much of the surpluses go to those who need it. Now consider that there are still 4 billion people who are going to 'come online' into basic economic prosperity who are going to want and need 'stuff' to! I hope we start to figure out plastics, waste, pollution, but we also want to make stuff accessible.
- cannonedhamster 7y ago
  There seems to be a major difference in you trying to make a good, quality product which have yet to have benefited from economy of scale and cheap knock offs that are often dangerous, misleading, or just plain cut corners. For a large number of people and products this isn't actually a problem, like you say. Harbor freight had an excellent business model in just this but they are very up front about it. You're not buying the best wishlist quality, you're buying the best quality they can find at a specific and accessible price. That's adding efficiency to the supply chain, which is most of what Walmart does. Don't sell yourself short that your first product iteration isn't there yet. You'll find ways to improve and lower the cost of the product in safe and efficient ways over time.

H1Supreme 7y ago

> Meermin/Feit shoes There's another company out of the US called Grant Stone who makes shoes in China. They are some of the best constructed leather shoes I've ever seen. Lots of people compare them to Aldens, which are double the price.

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

>But it's a lot of trouble to find high quality items these days. I want to own few things and keep most for the rest of my life. I concur on both fronts. Might I suggest you check out thrift or second hand stores? I have a collection of old aluminum cased power tools made in the mid 20th century in North America, and I think the most I paid for any one of them was $12 CAD. They look amazing. You can take them apart quickly and easily if you need to re-grease them. You can re-wind the motor if you somehow manage to short it out. They don't need a warranty, as they have proven themselves over the past 50+ years already. Etc. We've made a LOT of quality products over the years, many of which make their way into thrift stores sooner or later. Paying 10% of what something would cost brand new, and getting quality that is typically 10x greater than the brand new version is a steal imho.

obmelvin 7y ago
Any tips on how you identify such items that are worth buying? Those tools sound like an amazing deal.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
  It's tougher than it looks. Especially so with newer Chinese made products actually adding lead weights inside their cheap plastic cases to make their cheap products feel as though they were cut from a heavier cloth. Some rules of thumb that I have when it comes to buying old power tools are: Does it look like something your grandfather might have owned? Is it of all metal construction? If not, are the plastics of a high enough density to make them almost as indestructible as metal? Does it plug directly into the wall? And does it work? If you can answer those questions in the affirmative when it comes to any power tool, chances are it is of good quality. The best way by far imho however is just to get out there and start looking. After a few months, you'll begin to notice lots and lots of exactly the same items showing up in the same shelving sections. The same kettles, the same breadmakers, the same drills, the same table lamps, most all of them having been made in the past 20 years and currently knocking on death's door. Once you've seen enough of that crap, when a quality item displays itself in front of you, you'll know it's a great deal and snap it up with excitement. I love thrifting. Good luck out there!

UI_at_80x24 7y ago

>Sadly, it's all about price. This is the problem, but not how you are stating it. If CEO's didn't make 300x the lowest paid employee, and "shareholders didn't demand" exponential growth quarter after quarter, then the price to be 'Not made in China' would be reasonable. Fix these problems then the damages caused by seeking "cheapest possible AND cheaper" would be non-existant. *NB: I am a shareholder. I want my investment to MATCH inflation not magically exceed it. If everybody stops being so greedy this is possible. (I wouldn't need to buy shares if my company and government didn't fuck up Retirement Benefits.)

henriquemaia 7y ago
>If everybody stops being so greedy this is possible. Problem is that we, as evolved creatures in a world of scarcity, are hoarders by... nature. Greed is just a morally misguided way of hoarding. So, waiting for people to stop being greedy is much more difficult than just making the right moral choices.
- bigiain 7y ago
  And it's not _just_ greed. Is a person struggling to make rent in New York or San Francisco or Sydney being "greedy" when they demand more pay than workers with equivalent skills in rural China or Vietnam or Bangladesh or Rawanda? Global economies mean that while some things stay rooted in local pricing (like the food and shelter at the top of Maslow's hierarchy), while other things can be _way_ more valuable if you stuff them in a shipping container and send them to the docks of Oakland or New Jersey... If I can house and feed my family for $US10/month in Rawanda, and my neighbours can only afford to pay me 30c for my widgets, but they can sell for $100 in San Francisco, of _course_ I'll jam 100,000 of them into a container and pay $5,000 to send them there... That'll keep working great for the Rwandan guy - up until his kids decide they want iPhones and cars and university degrees, and the costs of their expectations increase until they cannot afford a manufacturing-based economy to fund them either...
bigiain 7y ago
I think it's more complex than that. It's not _just_ the CEO and investors greed. People's time in "1st world countries" is more expensive because _everything_ is more expensive. There's pretty much no manufacturing left here in Australia, because the wages on offer for "factory jobs" can't pay rent or buy food in Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane. And if you _did_ pay your "factory workers" in Australian cities enough to rent/buy a home there, your base assembly costs start out at more that the manufactured-and-delivered price for the same item from China. Automation will help fix one end of that problem (the cost to manufacure side), but will make the other end worse (even fewer jobs for lesser skilled workers). I don't _like_ that fact that global economies and inexpensive shipping have made arbitrage of inequity a real business profit driver. But the reality is that a bunch of people in China are prepared to work in factories making widgets for less money than anybody in Australia - and moving shipping containers full of widgets is _way_ less expensive than the difference.

taf2 7y ago

Seems to me you could share and possibly monetize your list for others and your benefit

quickthrower2 7y ago

I avoid things shipped directly from China or HK, but happy to buy something made in China from an Australia store so there is some guarantee of quality and safety.

zarkov99 7y ago

Do you happen to have published your curated list somewhere? I feel the same towards quality so I am always looking.

matt_heimer 7y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/ Note the sidebar links.

sasaf5 7y ago

Particularly I miss low-spec, high quality items. I want a good laptop for writing, it has to be only powerful enough to run emacs and a browser. but it has to survive being trashed around and the battery must be available 10 years from now for replacement. Good luck finding that kind of product...

bitwize 7y ago
They're called "used ThinkPads".
- sasaf5 7y ago
  Yes, that's the closest I could find.
  - nextos 7y ago
    New Thinkpad E series is decent. Unlike previous ones, it has true Thinkpad construction and price is very reasonable, especially with some discount. Battery is not glued, and most components are serviceable.
malloryerik 7y ago
I'm very skeptical, but there's supposedly emacs for Chromebooks: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForChromeBooks https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForChromeBooks
- atr_gz 7y ago
  I think at this point new Chromebooks can all run Linux software natively - so might as well just use normal emacs. Actually I have emacs running on Android as well. I don't really use it often - but it works fine. Maybe if I bought a little Bluetooth keyboard I would play around with it more.
z3phyr 7y ago
8 megs and swapping

fhbdukfrh 7y ago

While lots of cheap bicycles are made in China it's also where practically all high end carbon fiber bikes are made as well. Just like we discounted made in Japan a generation ago, we like to do the same with China today. It's true for some industries but just wishful thinking for many. Look at what's happening with Chinese cars for an example of rapid manufacturing improvement

audiometry 7y ago
"cheap" versus "high-end" is not as clear a distinction as it seems. In fairness, it depends what you're looking for. Carbon Fiber is lighter, ok, so call that the high-end one. But in reality, their durability is lousy -- in addition to being mostly-ruined by a crash, they do deteriorate over time. I know this first-hand as a colleague repairs carbon fiber frames [imagine lots of epoxy and carbon wraps], so I see a huge gamut of failures. Most of the frames coming in are probably 2-8 years old? Will be interesting to see how they 'wear' in the 10-20+ timeframe. This, in comparison to steel frames, which have fantastic crash resistance (one of my frame's toptube has a huge dent in in for years no problem, and, another friend, a racer, finished a multi-day stage race with the headtube angle crunched-in after rear-ending a car early in the race). Also, provided they're rust-proof'd the frames last decades and can be repaired, modified. I've been to ?a? ?the? Giant factory in Taiwan seeing them manufacture steel frames -- it was amazingly simple and primitive and mass-scale factory way out from Taipei, in the countryside. I suppose another win for carbon is it enables lots of weird/cool frame shapes. There are shaped steel and aluminum tubes, but nothing like the options in carbon. I think the weight advantage of carbon is lower than you'd expect -- high-end cromoly-steel frames are made from suprisingly thin tubing that is very sound. Anyway, I am clearly a fan of steel frames and more randonneur-style riding. If I was into triathlons or time trials, I'd probably reply differently. And I also increasingly dislike throwaway culture and I don't believe these carbon frames hold up in the longterm.

agreen 7y ago

> I have slowly curated such a list, but it's as I said you need to go out of your way and often get custom things from niche brands. Any plans on making this list publicly available?

Nition 7y ago

I have this vague idea of starting a "buy it for life" type store, everything with a 10+ year warranty, plus required maintenance stated clearly for each product. Sell tools, clothing, kitchenware, appliances, whatever. Is there anywhere like that already? I'm in New Zealand but I'd like to hear about international examples even if I couldn't shop there.

inanutshellus 7y ago
I think it was called "Sears"...
nextos 7y ago
I think Manufactum is the most similar thing out there, yet still far from perfect. They focus too much on old looks vs quality.
- Nition 7y ago
  Thanks, Manufactum looks great. As you say though, everything looks plenty solid and reliable, but as far as I can see they don't state any sort of actual warranty/guarantee.
- chopin 7y ago
  Manufactum (if you talk about the German company or division) sells mainly feel good stuff. I bought some and I wouldn't classify it as high quality items. They generally have a very good finish, that's it. I certainly wouldn't shop there for high quality.

hkmurakami 7y ago

Giant contract manufacturers bike frames for many brands that are considered “high end”, including Bianchi and Trek. So it’s not like they’re known for low quality.

rstuart4133 7y ago

A counter example is solar panels. China makes most of the worlds solar panels, and Chinese engineers design them, thereby proving under the right conditions the Chinese can put together a world class manufacturing chain without anyone else. Evidently Chinese engineers are as good at their jobs and any other engineer on the planet which is to be expected given the number of them they churn out. Given that, what's surprising is Solar panels are the exception. Push bikes are a great example. I'm pretty sure there are more electric push bikes in China, possibly more than the rest of the world put together. All are designed and built in China. So you would expect with that much volume and competition the best ebikes would come out of China. But that's not what has happened: Chinese designed ebikes are crap. There was a Australian documentary about China and the Chinese mentality called "Two men in China". One of the presenters was previously Australia's Chief Scientist. It's both hugely entertaining and very informative if you can find it. Anyway, they presented a typical Chinese house. It as small and cramped by Australian standards, but everything was shiny and modern. Only there was a problem: the cupboard doors were falling off. Apparently this generally happens after about 6 months. Doors fall off, carpet comes up, roofs leak, electronics breaks, LED lights that should last 50,000 hours died after 500. No one seemed overly upset by this turn of events. No one was demanding someone come back and fix it. It was just accepted. The difference then between the solar panels and the ebikes isn't the capability of the designed or the manufacturers. Of all things, it's the difference of the consumer. Where the Western consumer pushes back hard when their solar panels don't work (and by push back I mean law suites, legislation, and ultimately people going to jail) the Chinese consumer allows the manufacturers to get away delivering crap and lying about it. Who would have thought discerning customers were a key ingredient in making a great manufacturing nation?