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I'm not sure I would call this "American Crap." As I see it, the wealth of the American economy has driven the rest of the world to create a world of low qualit

I'm not sure I would call this "American Crap." As I see it, the wealth of the American economy has driven the rest of the world to create a world of low quality goods to sell to us. I have made it a point to collect very little low quality equipment. But as I look around, most of the stuff I have collected says "made in China" or something like that. I'm doing my best here to make my point without flaming other cultures. We as Americans get blamed a whole lot when things go bad. I think this writer is engaging in lazy projection. Stop buying the crap and you'll stop seeing the crap. (I don't like this piece, if you can't tell.) I'm a big believer in buying quality stuff and repairing it when it breaks. I try to do my part to NOT buy the junk. But this fake history lesson in how all this garbage is the fault of American's is just low-rate in my opinion.

lisper 6y ago
The problem is that it's not enough for you to stop buying the crap. Everyone has to stop buying it to make it go away. Personally, I think Apple products are (now) crap, beautiful to look at, but with a UI/UX that has jumped the shark so badly that they are essentially useless. I haven't bought a new Apple product in many years. And yet they persist. UPDATE: "Essentially useless" is (obviously, I hope) rhetorical hyperbole. See subsequent discussion for clarification.
- zigzaggy 6y ago
  Yes, you're probably right. I can only affect change on those around me that will listen. Fortunately since I'm "the computer guy" people do listen. But for most people it's just easier to buy cheap junk and replace it when it craps out. Sometimes I blame greedy computer repair people of the 90's and early 2000's for this mess. I remember my friend opened up a repair shop (I helped weekends as a side gig). There were companies in our town charging OUTRAGEOUS prices for very easy repairs, and doing a really bad job. Then we would end up fixing the "repair" and then the original problem, which of course was always more than the original problem. It was really sad. Now I live in a town with NO computer repair shops, and the closest thing is the Best Buy which is the KING of overcharging for repairs and doing a crappy job. It's no wonder people just started buying cheap computers after being ripped off. /rant
  - lisper 6y ago
    Yes, repair is another significant aspect of the dynamic. One of the things that distinguishes a quality good is the ability to repair it if it does fail, but the economics of repair have very badly misaligned incentives. It can also be very hard for someone to tell if they are being ripped off, especially for complex products like computers. It's a lot easier to tell if a cabinet is well-made than a cell phone. But if the product is cheap then it matters less that it is crap. As long as you get some use out of it before it fails you can still get your money's worth if the price is low enough. As the Elton John song says, it's a sad, sad situation.
  - bluedino 6y ago
    Back in the early days of browser highjackers, we'd regularly charge $90 to re-install Windows 98 or XP. The same people would come back a few weeks later and pay for it again after getting a bunch more bugs.
  - Waterfall 6y ago
    I repaired computers for free and I doubt that is the reason. Cheap computers are good because they're cheap, in they all reach a point of diminishing returns very quickly for basic browsing, so much that a basic arm phone that is free with prepaid is more than sufficient. Desktops are luxury items that aren't needed anymore, laptops are quickly becoming those too. People don't need computers, their computing needs change too and the iPad is better at mobility so many people just get a tablet rather than a computer anyway. Even I question my need of using a full gnu Linux phone once I was able to get chrome desktop extensions in a browser on Android.
- bb123 6y ago
  Calling an iPhone "essentially useless" is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. Literally hundreds of millions of people run their lives on them. They must all be stupid?
  - lisper 6y ago
    OK, "essentially useless" was hyperbole. And when I wrote that I had Macs in mind more than iPhones (and Mac laptops in particular). But I will stand by the substance of my comment: Mac laptops have gotten a lot crappier in just about every way over the last 10 years.
    - AnonC 6y ago
      You’re still within the window of time where you can edit your original comment and clarify your position. I’m sure many people would agree on the point about the quality of Macs.
      - lisper 6y ago
        Thanks for reminding me. I've added an update.
    - jdkee 6y ago
      I am using a 2013 MacBook Pro as my daily driver, hosting Zoom classes, etc. It works fantastically. And I will sell it on eBay next year for a few hundred bucks and buy a 2021 MacBook. They are fantastic pieces of technology apart from the recent keyboard issue.
- Damogran6 6y ago
  Because they're not crap. Opinion aside, we get 5-6 years out of each one we buy. My ipad air2 just got an update to iOS 14 (probably the last one it'll get) it's going on 7 years old. Is Apple overpriced? I dunno, the rest of the market is priced similarly. But the hardware is no better or worse than the competitors, and it can be argued Apple supports it a whole lot longer than the competitors.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Once upon a time Apple products were terrific. I was a big fan. They were solidly made. Their UI/UX was the best in the business by a wide margin. Then Apple made a conscious decision to emphasize form over function. The result was products that fail often (e.g. the butterfly keyboard), cannot be easily repaired (if they can be repaired at all), and have a terrible UI/UX. Discoverability, configurability, and reliability are things of the past. Every software update (which are no longer optional, BTW) is a crap shoot (no pun intended) with regards to whether it will introduce more problems than it fixes. > we get 5-6 years out of each one we buy Then you're talking about products that were built before this trend really took hold. The butterfly keyboard was only introduced 5 years ago. The UI/UX horribleness began with Yosemite, which only came out 6 years ago, and didn't get really bad until Catalina, which is barely two years old.
    - filoleg 6y ago
      >didn't get really bad until Catalina, which is barely two years old. Catalina got released in October 2019, less than a year ago.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      They've also quit using the butterfly keyboard and replaced it with something arguably better than any keyboard they've ever put in a laptop. Apple has had plenty of missteps over the years, there was never really a Golden Era. And right now, there aren't really any better alternatives. I use MacOS, I use Windows, I use Linux. I have Android devices, and iPads. Apple's devices are every bit as good as any of the competition. They are ahead in a couple key areas like privacy and long-term support.
- AnonC 6y ago
  > Personally, I think Apple products are (now) crap, beautiful to look at, but with a UI/UX that has jumped the shark so badly that they are essentially useless. You’re right in criticizing Apple on certain things. But the alternatives are far worse, and to use the topic appropriate term here, “crappier”. For all its faults, I still prefer some Apple products and wouldn’t touch the competition even if they paid me to.
  - lisper 6y ago
    > the alternatives are far worse Yes, I agree. That's why some day someone will have to pry my mid-2013 MBP from my cold dead hands.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      I held onto mine until late last year. The keyboard on the late 2019 model is OK again. It ought not be surprising nor noteworthy that a premium-priced laptop would have a fully functional keyboard, but here we are.
  - msla 6y ago
    > But the alternatives are far worse Strongly disagree, and I think this is part of the problem: Apple positioned itself as "The Good UI Company" so strongly that people cannot imagine a good UI which doesn't come from Apple. Therefore, they compare all UIs to what Apple's doing now and take points off for not being Apple, as opposed to evaluating based on usability and fitness for purpose. The ultimate expression of this is people deriding UIs like Window Maker, essentially the NeXT UI, because it isn't Apple, when it's from the same mind as the "Wonderful Apple UIs" everyone seems to love.
bleepblorp 6y ago
Unfortunately, it's broadly not possible to buy quality anymore unless you have the money to have products custom built. It used to be possible to pay somewhat more to buy good quality products that would last for years or decades (obviously not for electronics) but today the manufacturers of these goods charge the same prices but their products are no better than Amazon/Walmart-grade junk available for half the price. The contemporary marketplace is littered with companies that used to produce high quality goods but are now selling away their former reputation to move overpriced garbage. See everything from Cole Haan (shoes) to Sears. And frankly, I do blame Americans for this. American refusal to enforce anti-monopoly laws, combined with the American legal concept of management fiduciary duty belonging exclusively to shareholders, provides no market incentive for manufacturers to produce quality goods and indeed obligates companies to rip off their customers by selling low-quality goods at inflated prices.
- jdkee 6y ago
  “ The contemporary marketplace is littered with companies that used to produce high quality goods but are now selling away their former reputation to move overpriced garbage. See everything from Cole Haan (shoes) to Sears.” I call this the Decontenting of America.
- machello13 6y ago
  It will be a great day on the Internet when people stop conflating citizens of a country with that country's government.
- rmah 6y ago
  This is simply not true. You (and perhaps most people) may have a difficult time discerning between high and low quality products, but both are readily available. That difficulty may be part of the problem why lower quality products dominate. Though I think it has more to do with cheaper prices. And while it's certainly true that many higher priced items are of similar quality as lower priced ones, higher quality products do exist. As an example, I'll use flash memory devices (USB thumb drives). I used to consult for a firm that assembled these things as part of their business for use by corporate customers. They would buy flash memory chips from various chip vendors. You can, if you wish, purchase flash memory chips that have passed stringent tests. Or chips that have been rejected by other OEM's. Guess which ones cost more? Some of my client's customers demanded the absolute cheapest possible chips. So my client provided them (with warnings). The failure rates for the cheapest of the cheap could reach as high as 20% in a batch in our testing. The clients didn't care. Sadly, ALL the clients that didn't care were American companies. Not even mainland Chinese companies would use them. There's a few interesting channels on youtube that deconstruct various products (from shoes to toasters) to see how high quality they are. It's quite instructive at how much different price points can differ (sometimes from the same company).
mc32 6y ago
I agree. I don’t know what the author is in about. At least it’s not the way they express it. As you said, crap _is_ found anywhere there are active markets: North America, Asia, South Asia, Africa, etc. you can find crap everywhere due to globalism. But... as you point out, it doesn’t have to be. You can buy quality items that are 2 to four times the cost of crappy ones, they last longer, are usually made with better materials and are designed and constructed better —be they designed locally or abroad and manufactured locally or abroad. You have a choice. Many people choose the cheapest crap that make used car salesman’s leisure suits look like they are of unequaled quality. But not everyone buys the crap option. If you buy too much crap it’s because people aren’t discriminating and aren’t in control of their discretionary spending.
lucideer 6y ago
> I think this writer is engaging in lazy projection. Stop buying the crap and you'll stop seeing the crap. (I don't like this piece, if you can't tell.) What's actually "lazy" is the individualistic, personal-responsibility-focused demand-led philosophy of preaching to consumers that if they (a single individual) don't like the industry they should stop buying, and that will bring about change. This offloading of responsibility from the industry onto consumers is nonsense, and belies the political nature of marketing, advertising, lobbying and the creation of a culture and market for "crap". > the wealth of the American economy has driven the rest of the world to create a world of low quality goods to sell to us And this is more lazy American exceptionalism. America is not the only wealthy economy.
dbtc 6y ago
From the perspective of what you (and I) personally have around us, I agree. But if you think of it from the perspective of e.g. what ends up in landfills, then it's a bigger and more general, more interesting issue. I think the article should have spoken more about how consumer culture is manufactured along with the goods that it consumes.
rootsudo 6y ago
The problem is "buying." reduction in build of material/resources to create "crap" means it can enter lower socioeconomic markets because it competes on price and utility. In essence, it helps build up a society because it allows everyone to participate in consuming, as long as they have some money to spend.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Progress is an advertisement-subsidized smart TV in the back of a Dodge Grand Caravan
andrekandre 6y ago
> Stop buying the crap and you'll stop seeing the crap. basically i agree with this sentiment, but if you take into account modern marketing and sales tactics, its a lot easier said than done... marketers really know how peoples brains work and the "buttons" to push to get more sales of "crap" the other side is, when a vast majority of people are squeezed for money, they usually go for "cheap"... so especially i notice in the us, people are very price-sensitive; many times, but not always cheap == crap...
around_here 6y ago
It’s an effect of American imperialism and global hegemony. That’s why calling it American crap isn’t a misnomer.

lisper 6y ago

The problem is that it's not enough for you to stop buying the crap. Everyone has to stop buying it to make it go away. Personally, I think Apple products are (now) crap, beautiful to look at, but with a UI/UX that has jumped the shark so badly that they are essentially useless. I haven't bought a new Apple product in many years. And yet they persist. UPDATE: "Essentially useless" is (obviously, I hope) rhetorical hyperbole. See subsequent discussion for clarification.

zigzaggy 6y ago
Yes, you're probably right. I can only affect change on those around me that will listen. Fortunately since I'm "the computer guy" people do listen. But for most people it's just easier to buy cheap junk and replace it when it craps out. Sometimes I blame greedy computer repair people of the 90's and early 2000's for this mess. I remember my friend opened up a repair shop (I helped weekends as a side gig). There were companies in our town charging OUTRAGEOUS prices for very easy repairs, and doing a really bad job. Then we would end up fixing the "repair" and then the original problem, which of course was always more than the original problem. It was really sad. Now I live in a town with NO computer repair shops, and the closest thing is the Best Buy which is the KING of overcharging for repairs and doing a crappy job. It's no wonder people just started buying cheap computers after being ripped off. /rant
- lisper 6y ago
  Yes, repair is another significant aspect of the dynamic. One of the things that distinguishes a quality good is the ability to repair it if it does fail, but the economics of repair have very badly misaligned incentives. It can also be very hard for someone to tell if they are being ripped off, especially for complex products like computers. It's a lot easier to tell if a cabinet is well-made than a cell phone. But if the product is cheap then it matters less that it is crap. As long as you get some use out of it before it fails you can still get your money's worth if the price is low enough. As the Elton John song says, it's a sad, sad situation.
- bluedino 6y ago
  Back in the early days of browser highjackers, we'd regularly charge $90 to re-install Windows 98 or XP. The same people would come back a few weeks later and pay for it again after getting a bunch more bugs.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  I repaired computers for free and I doubt that is the reason. Cheap computers are good because they're cheap, in they all reach a point of diminishing returns very quickly for basic browsing, so much that a basic arm phone that is free with prepaid is more than sufficient. Desktops are luxury items that aren't needed anymore, laptops are quickly becoming those too. People don't need computers, their computing needs change too and the iPad is better at mobility so many people just get a tablet rather than a computer anyway. Even I question my need of using a full gnu Linux phone once I was able to get chrome desktop extensions in a browser on Android.
bb123 6y ago
Calling an iPhone "essentially useless" is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say. Literally hundreds of millions of people run their lives on them. They must all be stupid?
- lisper 6y ago
  OK, "essentially useless" was hyperbole. And when I wrote that I had Macs in mind more than iPhones (and Mac laptops in particular). But I will stand by the substance of my comment: Mac laptops have gotten a lot crappier in just about every way over the last 10 years.
  - AnonC 6y ago
    You’re still within the window of time where you can edit your original comment and clarify your position. I’m sure many people would agree on the point about the quality of Macs.
    - lisper 6y ago
      Thanks for reminding me. I've added an update.
  - jdkee 6y ago
    I am using a 2013 MacBook Pro as my daily driver, hosting Zoom classes, etc. It works fantastically. And I will sell it on eBay next year for a few hundred bucks and buy a 2021 MacBook. They are fantastic pieces of technology apart from the recent keyboard issue.
Damogran6 6y ago
Because they're not crap. Opinion aside, we get 5-6 years out of each one we buy. My ipad air2 just got an update to iOS 14 (probably the last one it'll get) it's going on 7 years old. Is Apple overpriced? I dunno, the rest of the market is priced similarly. But the hardware is no better or worse than the competitors, and it can be argued Apple supports it a whole lot longer than the competitors.
- lisper 6y ago
  Once upon a time Apple products were terrific. I was a big fan. They were solidly made. Their UI/UX was the best in the business by a wide margin. Then Apple made a conscious decision to emphasize form over function. The result was products that fail often (e.g. the butterfly keyboard), cannot be easily repaired (if they can be repaired at all), and have a terrible UI/UX. Discoverability, configurability, and reliability are things of the past. Every software update (which are no longer optional, BTW) is a crap shoot (no pun intended) with regards to whether it will introduce more problems than it fixes. > we get 5-6 years out of each one we buy Then you're talking about products that were built before this trend really took hold. The butterfly keyboard was only introduced 5 years ago. The UI/UX horribleness began with Yosemite, which only came out 6 years ago, and didn't get really bad until Catalina, which is barely two years old.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    >didn't get really bad until Catalina, which is barely two years old. Catalina got released in October 2019, less than a year ago.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    They've also quit using the butterfly keyboard and replaced it with something arguably better than any keyboard they've ever put in a laptop. Apple has had plenty of missteps over the years, there was never really a Golden Era. And right now, there aren't really any better alternatives. I use MacOS, I use Windows, I use Linux. I have Android devices, and iPads. Apple's devices are every bit as good as any of the competition. They are ahead in a couple key areas like privacy and long-term support.
AnonC 6y ago
> Personally, I think Apple products are (now) crap, beautiful to look at, but with a UI/UX that has jumped the shark so badly that they are essentially useless. You’re right in criticizing Apple on certain things. But the alternatives are far worse, and to use the topic appropriate term here, “crappier”. For all its faults, I still prefer some Apple products and wouldn’t touch the competition even if they paid me to.
- lisper 6y ago
  > the alternatives are far worse Yes, I agree. That's why some day someone will have to pry my mid-2013 MBP from my cold dead hands.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    I held onto mine until late last year. The keyboard on the late 2019 model is OK again. It ought not be surprising nor noteworthy that a premium-priced laptop would have a fully functional keyboard, but here we are.
- msla 6y ago
  > But the alternatives are far worse Strongly disagree, and I think this is part of the problem: Apple positioned itself as "The Good UI Company" so strongly that people cannot imagine a good UI which doesn't come from Apple. Therefore, they compare all UIs to what Apple's doing now and take points off for not being Apple, as opposed to evaluating based on usability and fitness for purpose. The ultimate expression of this is people deriding UIs like Window Maker, essentially the NeXT UI, because it isn't Apple, when it's from the same mind as the "Wonderful Apple UIs" everyone seems to love.

bleepblorp 6y ago

Unfortunately, it's broadly not possible to buy quality anymore unless you have the money to have products custom built. It used to be possible to pay somewhat more to buy good quality products that would last for years or decades (obviously not for electronics) but today the manufacturers of these goods charge the same prices but their products are no better than Amazon/Walmart-grade junk available for half the price. The contemporary marketplace is littered with companies that used to produce high quality goods but are now selling away their former reputation to move overpriced garbage. See everything from Cole Haan (shoes) to Sears. And frankly, I do blame Americans for this. American refusal to enforce anti-monopoly laws, combined with the American legal concept of management fiduciary duty belonging exclusively to shareholders, provides no market incentive for manufacturers to produce quality goods and indeed obligates companies to rip off their customers by selling low-quality goods at inflated prices.

jdkee 6y ago
“ The contemporary marketplace is littered with companies that used to produce high quality goods but are now selling away their former reputation to move overpriced garbage. See everything from Cole Haan (shoes) to Sears.” I call this the Decontenting of America.
machello13 6y ago
It will be a great day on the Internet when people stop conflating citizens of a country with that country's government.
rmah 6y ago
This is simply not true. You (and perhaps most people) may have a difficult time discerning between high and low quality products, but both are readily available. That difficulty may be part of the problem why lower quality products dominate. Though I think it has more to do with cheaper prices. And while it's certainly true that many higher priced items are of similar quality as lower priced ones, higher quality products do exist. As an example, I'll use flash memory devices (USB thumb drives). I used to consult for a firm that assembled these things as part of their business for use by corporate customers. They would buy flash memory chips from various chip vendors. You can, if you wish, purchase flash memory chips that have passed stringent tests. Or chips that have been rejected by other OEM's. Guess which ones cost more? Some of my client's customers demanded the absolute cheapest possible chips. So my client provided them (with warnings). The failure rates for the cheapest of the cheap could reach as high as 20% in a batch in our testing. The clients didn't care. Sadly, ALL the clients that didn't care were American companies. Not even mainland Chinese companies would use them. There's a few interesting channels on youtube that deconstruct various products (from shoes to toasters) to see how high quality they are. It's quite instructive at how much different price points can differ (sometimes from the same company).

mc32 6y ago

I agree. I don’t know what the author is in about. At least it’s not the way they express it. As you said, crap _is_ found anywhere there are active markets: North America, Asia, South Asia, Africa, etc. you can find crap everywhere due to globalism. But... as you point out, it doesn’t have to be. You can buy quality items that are 2 to four times the cost of crappy ones, they last longer, are usually made with better materials and are designed and constructed better —be they designed locally or abroad and manufactured locally or abroad. You have a choice. Many people choose the cheapest crap that make used car salesman’s leisure suits look like they are of unequaled quality. But not everyone buys the crap option. If you buy too much crap it’s because people aren’t discriminating and aren’t in control of their discretionary spending.

lucideer 6y ago

> I think this writer is engaging in lazy projection. Stop buying the crap and you'll stop seeing the crap. (I don't like this piece, if you can't tell.) What's actually "lazy" is the individualistic, personal-responsibility-focused demand-led philosophy of preaching to consumers that if they (a single individual) don't like the industry they should stop buying, and that will bring about change. This offloading of responsibility from the industry onto consumers is nonsense, and belies the political nature of marketing, advertising, lobbying and the creation of a culture and market for "crap". > the wealth of the American economy has driven the rest of the world to create a world of low quality goods to sell to us And this is more lazy American exceptionalism. America is not the only wealthy economy.

dbtc 6y ago

From the perspective of what you (and I) personally have around us, I agree. But if you think of it from the perspective of e.g. what ends up in landfills, then it's a bigger and more general, more interesting issue. I think the article should have spoken more about how consumer culture is manufactured along with the goods that it consumes.

rootsudo 6y ago

The problem is "buying." reduction in build of material/resources to create "crap" means it can enter lower socioeconomic markets because it competes on price and utility. In essence, it helps build up a society because it allows everyone to participate in consuming, as long as they have some money to spend.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Progress is an advertisement-subsidized smart TV in the back of a Dodge Grand Caravan

andrekandre 6y ago

> Stop buying the crap and you'll stop seeing the crap. basically i agree with this sentiment, but if you take into account modern marketing and sales tactics, its a lot easier said than done... marketers really know how peoples brains work and the "buttons" to push to get more sales of "crap" the other side is, when a vast majority of people are squeezed for money, they usually go for "cheap"... so especially i notice in the us, people are very price-sensitive; many times, but not always cheap == crap...

around_here 6y ago

It’s an effect of American imperialism and global hegemony. That’s why calling it American crap isn’t a misnomer.