3 ms·
>Middle-class Americans have captured gains through cheaper, higher-quality products than would have otherwise existed without trade and development. Cheaper p
by ezzzzz 7y ago
>Middle-class Americans have captured gains through cheaper, higher-quality products than would have otherwise existed without trade and development.
Cheaper products, sure, but higher quality? Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are essentially operating cartels, they dictate the prices they are willing to pay for manufactured goods. For manufacturers to meet these demands, cuts will have to come from somewhere--cheaper materials, less R&D etc. Consumers may benefit in a cheaper price for their widget, but that widget is not as likely to have the service life it would have in the past. Shorter service life results in buying 'cheaper' goods at a higher frequency (which is likely to result as a net loss for the consumer). This is rhetorical, yes, but not hard to defend. Clothing, appliances, electronics (in price-point verticals) all reflect this 'trend'. This is not even going in to 'Planned-Obsolescence', which is another symptom of the same problem.
- dcolkitt 7y agoAutos, which were the first major industry to globalize, have shown undeniably significant and sustained improvements in quality, reliability and safety over time. I don't really hard data for any other major sector, and would be interested in anyone that does. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/06/28/average-vehicle-age-ihs-markit/1593764001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/06/28/average...
- ezzzzz 7y agoThis is true, but there are 2 things to consider here. First, purchasing a new or gently used car is likely to be a person's second biggest monthly expense after housing. It is therefore in the best interest of the manufacturer to create a product that is reliable (at least reliable enough to last as long as the 6-7 year loan which are common today). Secondly, you have a couple of 'unicorn' manufacturers (to use a SV parlance) in Toyota and Honda that have historically been outliers in reliability within their market, and have subsequently dominated the market. This is a huge difference from the sweat-shop in Bangladesh making t-shirts for Wal-Mart or H&M, or the electronics manufacturer in Shenzhen making toasters. It's all about supply and demand, the demand for a reliable automobile creates a market for that product. Meanwhile, as lower and middle-class people have less purchasing power due to high housing prices, debt, medical expenses etc, the demand for cheap toasters is greater than the demand for a more expensive (but robust) alternative.