7 ms·

> 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 hi

by 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...
      - verall 7y ago
        China executed scapegoats after huge internal outrage and an attempted coverup. Not the kind of thing that builds trust.
        im3w1l 7y ago
        I don't know whether they were just scapegoats. But if we assume the worst, that they were, it's still a big cost. Having to find scapegoats to pin the blame on while keeping morale of other employees up, I'd imagine that isn't easy. People will be scared. They will wonder whether they are next in line for scapegoating. They will try their best to stay away and cover their asses. It will raise costs to the point that no one will try this again.
  - monk_e_boy 7y ago
    I don't know about manufacturing. But for food products people get prosecuted all the time by trading standards. My friend who works for them has a lot of interesting stories to tell. One story, she visited a local pub and asked for a dairy free ploughman's, the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added, then she put the whole meal, plate and all into a plastic bag and took it away for analysis. The pub got fined and another visit from trading standards.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      >the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added // I've heard stories like this before. It sounds a bit stupid on the part of Trading Standards (TS). Waiter: "Do you want butter" Customer/TS agent: "Yes, please" Then the TS agent prosecutes you for putting butter on their food. Well why did they ask for butter. I mean, I realise that people are sometimes absolute idiots but I don't think you should prosecute restaurants for serving what you ask for. A story in our local press was that the TS agent said "no peanuts for me as I have an allergy, I'll have the lamb bhuna, ..." and then they ordered a load of dishes - as you would for a family - and they included in their order "chicken satay". They specifically asked for it. Guess what the restaurant did, they gave them what they asked for. And Trading Standards prosecuted them and made them out in the press to be evil. Now to me it sounded like the person was ordering a bhuna with no nuts and a load of stuff for other people, if they're stupid enough to order a nut dish isn't that their own fault? I don't know what's happened to personal responsibility but the expectation for businesses to coddle people has gone too far IMO. /rant
      - kqr 7y ago
        It takes very little for the waiter to inject, "The satay contains peanuts as an essential ingredient, do you still want to order it?"
        CogitoCogito 7y ago
        Sounds by that story that the other orders were intended for the other people eating given that the peanut free order was explicitly made. So I can only assume the waiter assumed the rest was an order for the others? Maybe that assumption may not (legally) be made and a warning needs to be made for everyone at a whole table? Either way that seems like a bit of a gray zone. Sounds almost like the point was to trip up the waiter.
- nraynaud 7y ago
  CE mark is a self reported thing. TüV and UL are more reliable, but they are still a minimum standard of safety, not a sign of quality.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    Are you talking the Conformite Europe Mark? Or the all but identical China Export Mark? (Now I'm expecting some Bitcoin "investor" to jump in with "blockchain all the certification marks!" as though that'd solve the problem of people not caring...)
    - nraynaud 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export 'The Commission responded that it was unaware of the existence of any "Chinese Export" mark' This legend has to stop. CE is a self declaration marking, and it's just people applying the CE marking when they have not respected the relevant standards.
    - xnyan 7y ago
      CE = Conformite Europe = "We promise we meet all the safety standards, scout's honor!"
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
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- reaperducer 7y ago
  In the EU, there are lots of tags that guarantee product safety Like all those EU-compliant logos on the 1TB SDXC cards that sell for €10? Totally legit.
  - vesinisa 7y ago
    Of course such tags are completely irrelevant without the effects of the jurisdiction that aims to secure their authenticity. In particular, when buying online from overseas you have very little guarantees of what you'll actually get, unless you are familiar with the brand and/or merchant. Things are different when buying domestically at a retail store. Retailers have supply chain or import the products themselves. Importing and selling products that violate safety standards, or products that show safety marks like CE without authorization, is not in the retailers' best interest, since the Customs Agents will come down hard on them. As large monetary sanctions are the only effective way to deter corporations from breaking the rules, the fines/reparations are proportional to the volume of the illegitimate products sold. Not to speak of the civil liability when some kid gets electrocuted thanks to the hazardous phone adapter your company imported.
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.

by josho 7y ago

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...
    - verall 7y ago
      China executed scapegoats after huge internal outrage and an attempted coverup. Not the kind of thing that builds trust.
      - im3w1l 7y ago
        I don't know whether they were just scapegoats. But if we assume the worst, that they were, it's still a big cost. Having to find scapegoats to pin the blame on while keeping morale of other employees up, I'd imagine that isn't easy. People will be scared. They will wonder whether they are next in line for scapegoating. They will try their best to stay away and cover their asses. It will raise costs to the point that no one will try this again.
- monk_e_boy 7y ago
  I don't know about manufacturing. But for food products people get prosecuted all the time by trading standards. My friend who works for them has a lot of interesting stories to tell. One story, she visited a local pub and asked for a dairy free ploughman's, the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added, then she put the whole meal, plate and all into a plastic bag and took it away for analysis. The pub got fined and another visit from trading standards.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    >the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added // I've heard stories like this before. It sounds a bit stupid on the part of Trading Standards (TS). Waiter: "Do you want butter" Customer/TS agent: "Yes, please" Then the TS agent prosecutes you for putting butter on their food. Well why did they ask for butter. I mean, I realise that people are sometimes absolute idiots but I don't think you should prosecute restaurants for serving what you ask for. A story in our local press was that the TS agent said "no peanuts for me as I have an allergy, I'll have the lamb bhuna, ..." and then they ordered a load of dishes - as you would for a family - and they included in their order "chicken satay". They specifically asked for it. Guess what the restaurant did, they gave them what they asked for. And Trading Standards prosecuted them and made them out in the press to be evil. Now to me it sounded like the person was ordering a bhuna with no nuts and a load of stuff for other people, if they're stupid enough to order a nut dish isn't that their own fault? I don't know what's happened to personal responsibility but the expectation for businesses to coddle people has gone too far IMO. /rant
    - kqr 7y ago
      It takes very little for the waiter to inject, "The satay contains peanuts as an essential ingredient, do you still want to order it?"
      - CogitoCogito 7y ago
        Sounds by that story that the other orders were intended for the other people eating given that the peanut free order was explicitly made. So I can only assume the waiter assumed the rest was an order for the others? Maybe that assumption may not (legally) be made and a warning needs to be made for everyone at a whole table? Either way that seems like a bit of a gray zone. Sounds almost like the point was to trip up the waiter.
nraynaud 7y ago
CE mark is a self reported thing. TüV and UL are more reliable, but they are still a minimum standard of safety, not a sign of quality.
- bigiain 7y ago
  Are you talking the Conformite Europe Mark? Or the all but identical China Export Mark? (Now I'm expecting some Bitcoin "investor" to jump in with "blockchain all the certification marks!" as though that'd solve the problem of people not caring...)
  - nraynaud 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#China_Export 'The Commission responded that it was unaware of the existence of any "Chinese Export" mark' This legend has to stop. CE is a self declaration marking, and it's just people applying the CE marking when they have not respected the relevant standards.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    CE = Conformite Europe = "We promise we meet all the safety standards, scout's honor!"
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  I know "blockchain all the certification marks!" we can call it "ChainOfCustodyChain" $$$$$$$$$
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    Just be careful so you don't get sued for trademark infringement by 2 Chainz.
reaperducer 7y ago
In the EU, there are lots of tags that guarantee product safety Like all those EU-compliant logos on the 1TB SDXC cards that sell for €10? Totally legit.
- vesinisa 7y ago
  Of course such tags are completely irrelevant without the effects of the jurisdiction that aims to secure their authenticity. In particular, when buying online from overseas you have very little guarantees of what you'll actually get, unless you are familiar with the brand and/or merchant. Things are different when buying domestically at a retail store. Retailers have supply chain or import the products themselves. Importing and selling products that violate safety standards, or products that show safety marks like CE without authorization, is not in the retailers' best interest, since the Customs Agents will come down hard on them. As large monetary sanctions are the only effective way to deter corporations from breaking the rules, the fines/reparations are proportional to the volume of the illegitimate products sold. Not to speak of the civil liability when some kid gets electrocuted thanks to the hazardous phone adapter your company imported.

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.