4 ms·

if it fails prematurely, you have bad luck, report it to some consumer advocacy group and buy a new one just as you did today. It's really funny to see the bac

by fock 7y ago

if it fails prematurely, you have bad luck, report it to some consumer advocacy group and buy a new one just as you did today. It's really funny to see the backlash on demanding such a basic premise of capitalism as information transparency in a forum like this.

benj111 7y ago
If it's just about information transparency, how do you enforce honesty? What's to stop me saying that my kettle is designed to last 1000 years?
- fock 7y ago
  if you lie, said consumer advocacy group will sue the company and the company's chapter will be revoked? seems quite easy.
  - benj111 7y ago
    "company's chapter" Chapter? But my point is, what is lying? If a kettle is designed to last 10 years, it's reasonable to expect that 100% won't last that long, so what percentage should we reasonably allow to break in that time, 10%? 20%? 50%?. If the manufacturer was found to be lying, do I with my still working kettle get compensated? And your answer raises other concerns, who is this consumer advocacy group that's going to lead this? Is it reasonable to assume some proportion of people are going to direct their complaints there? This to me doesn't seem like an easy thing to police at all.
    - fock 7y ago
      the company is dissolved, when it lies. bad for shareholder value, and a very good incentive to be honest, but this doesn't seem to fit too well into todays corporate scheme. If there's reasonable doubt (ie a large number of complaints about the kettle failing), the manufacturer has to provide sales statistics and test results and will be judged accordingly. As for the consumer advocacy groups: it's pretty standard in Europe to have these (and they are the only ones to initiate something like class-action). As for the metrics: everything is measured, I'm sure, we can come up with a sensible metric?!

4 ms·

if it fails prematurely, you have bad luck, report it to some consumer advocacy group and buy a new one just as you did today. It's really funny to see the bac

by fock 7y ago

benj111 7y ago
If it's just about information transparency, how do you enforce honesty? What's to stop me saying that my kettle is designed to last 1000 years?
- fock 7y ago
  if you lie, said consumer advocacy group will sue the company and the company's chapter will be revoked? seems quite easy.
  - benj111 7y ago
    "company's chapter" Chapter? But my point is, what is lying? If a kettle is designed to last 10 years, it's reasonable to expect that 100% won't last that long, so what percentage should we reasonably allow to break in that time, 10%? 20%? 50%?. If the manufacturer was found to be lying, do I with my still working kettle get compensated? And your answer raises other concerns, who is this consumer advocacy group that's going to lead this? Is it reasonable to assume some proportion of people are going to direct their complaints there? This to me doesn't seem like an easy thing to police at all.
    - fock 7y ago
      the company is dissolved, when it lies. bad for shareholder value, and a very good incentive to be honest, but this doesn't seem to fit too well into todays corporate scheme. If there's reasonable doubt (ie a large number of complaints about the kettle failing), the manufacturer has to provide sales statistics and test results and will be judged accordingly. As for the consumer advocacy groups: it's pretty standard in Europe to have these (and they are the only ones to initiate something like class-action). As for the metrics: everything is measured, I'm sure, we can come up with a sensible metric?!