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One market where this has always been a problem is tools. So almost 20 years ago we were told in shop class that the industry magazines and reviews were basical

One market where this has always been a problem is tools. So almost 20 years ago we were told in shop class that the industry magazines and reviews were basically all paid for by manufacturers. The solution we learned was to always buy the cheapest option first. If it breaks or fails to meet your needs understand how and why and then move on to a more costly tool that you can demonstrate is better in the specific way you need it to be. Of course thats not always practical or feasible but for the majority of items it really is.

NovaS1X 5y ago
This is why I really appreciate YT channels like Project Farm.
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  That guy gives masterclasses on fast, efficient data presentation with every video. I really appreciate his approach.
9dev 5y ago
This strategy is smarter than it sounds at first. If you don't have any obvious criteria for comparison available, failing fast and iterating on that is a way to come up with criteria by yourself.
- kuboble 5y ago
  It requires a strong character to throw away things when they don't work well. I bought the cheapest drilling machine and it is so bad I end up borrowing one from a neighbor when I need to drill something. But I can't make myself to throw away the useless one.
  - ratww 5y ago
    I’m also unable to throw things away, but I do give things away or sell at a fraction very often. It’s also a fun past time. I don’t have anything useless at home anymore.
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    Where I live, Craigslist works really well for this situation - someone will take it away for free for sure and you might even be able to get something for it.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      This is what I do. I just put in "first email I get gets it" people will be at your house in an house or less to grab it. I'm always honest like "The bearings seem a little wobbly to me, but if you want it, it's yours if you can show up and pick it up today"
quercusa 5y ago
Harbor Freight is there for you!
idiotsecant 5y ago
Sometimes the cost for a quality piece of gear is incremental though, so you buy a harbor freight thingamajig then it breaks so you buy the Milwaukee thingamajigfor twice the price, for a total of 300% of the cost of the original thing. You could have saved 30% in that case by just buying the good thing in the first place.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ipaddr 5y ago
  You risk saving 100% to save 30%.
- bbarn 5y ago
  I'd argue then that the level of usage dictated a better one. Most people don't actually use tools to failure. I've owned edging tools, routers, sanders, even a small metal lathe from Harbor freight that have handled 10+ years of very occasional use just fine. If you're using things so much that they fail, yes, buy a more quality version. If it fails on the first use, Harbor freight happens to have a very generous return / exchange policy within the first 30 days.
  - wyre 5y ago
    Harbor Freight also has lifetime warranties on many of their products.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Alternatively this thingamajig is so rarely used that you buy the harbor freight version and use it a few times a year. It becomes a life long tool and you save a fair bit of the price. The second time you buy a type of tool you definitely need to go for quality, the first time though, are you certain you're actually going to be constantly using that tool?
  - aksss 5y ago
    The only exception to watch out for is when buying a crappy version of x will negatively color your new experiences with an activity. Tools meant for precision but the cheap versions are plastic rattle traps that get out of calibration/alignment from basic use can be extremely frustrating to someone just getting started in an activity. The user may throw their hands up and quit whereas a good quality tool would have made their new hobby more enjoyable/accessible (e.g. no, it’s not you, you’re just fighting a really crappy tool every step of the way). Again, tasks/activities that require repeatable precision come to mind here.
Terretta 5y ago
For a lot of people "cheapest tool first" is their goto (and not for the principled reason you shared). So eventually the cheapest tool makers get enough money to buy up the differentiated quality makers for their logo with enough branding power to price discriminate, and slap it on products from the same cheap factory line. Then, ugh.
- aksss 5y ago
  A lot of times the price differential is such that I can buy two or three of item x for the price of a single premium version. If you seldom use the tool and it isn’t getting handled a lot (transportation, etc), this is the way. You can replace the item and still come out ahead. There’s also that motto of “I’m too poor to buy it twice”, which comes into play when item y has a price like 75% of the premium version and/or you know the tool will have some rough travel and high demand, or time lost from outage isn’t acceptable. Then just spend the money on known-solid brands. Reviews are an area where I really value specialized forums more than social media or blogs or industry publications. In all cases with reviews even when no monetization involved, there can be a bandwagon mentality for brands and also people convincing themselves the high price they paid matters for something (even though it may not).
bbarn 5y ago
Harbor Freight's "low quality" tools will work for a great many average home owners doing some upgrading or light work. We absolutely fall into the trap of wanting the best thing ever, but how many people actually need the top of the line Milwaukee or Makita brand biscuit joiner for the 2 tables they ever make at 200$, vs the Harbor Freight one at 60 that you can probably find a coupon for to make it 45-50? On that note though, an even worse practice is when a brand achieves notoriety for quality and starts making "light" versions of their tools. One example of this before they went belly up was Craftsman making nearly identical looking "Sears" brand that weren't covered by the craftsman warranty. Bosch also did this with pimping out their brand name to extend to rather crappy home appliances here in the EU. Black and Decker was synonymous with reliability in the early 80s, and I still have some jigsaws and circular saws from my dad that work great from that era, but anything from them now is arguably worse than the cheapest things you can buy at Harbor Freight.
- barrkel 5y ago
  I'm sure a bunch of executives made nice bonuses selling the brand value down the river, though. It's an incentive problem. It's extremely difficult to get incentives aligned over a timeline longer than a few years that it might take for options or stock to vest or clawbacks to expire.
- brewdad 5y ago
  I managed to get a 48" flex bit stuck in my wall when I was running ethernet last summer. Since it was the last hole I needed and it only cost me $9 at Harbor Freight, I left it in the wall and called it good. The $90 bit from Home Depot probably would have meant removing a bunch of drywall and then having to patch it. The batteries on my ~20 year old Craftsman cordless drill are finally getting to the point where they won't hold a charge. I'll probably have to bite the bullet and wade into the mess of "brand-name" tools the next time I have a significant project.
  - secabeen 5y ago
    For a replacement like that, it's probably worth watching for Father's Day and other sales. With cordless tools, you're really buying into a battery accessory system, and it's good to know what tools are available for the battery you select.
version_five 5y ago
Just an aside as a former carpenter: Battery powered hand tool systems are a big cost now, especially that brushless motor have got so good. Its important to think about them as a system, like will replacement batteries still exist in 2 years, can more tools work with the same battery, etc. That makes it harder to try something and see how good it is. I agree with you re many tools though. For tools I'd recommend talking to someone who works with them daily to get a real opinion, and wouldn't trust anything I read
- aksss 5y ago
  Batteries are a point of vendor lock-in and forced obsolescence. Not saying modern tech isn’t great, but young me who spent all that money tooling up with cordless has changed to older me who honestly prefers corded or hosed (or even ICE) tools when the application allows for it, not just for the longevity of the tool but the power (amps/psi), lighter weight, and availability of service (no issues with charging, temperature problems, etc) during a job.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  Can anyone explain why such systems are so seemingly successful? I find it surprising. It seems great to create vendor lock-in, but they also change the form factor frequently enough that you have to replace your entire system in order to benefit from it being a system anyway; at which point you might change vendors. It feels like the first vendor that stops changing form factor wins; but they all still keep changing them. My best guess is that by doing this they can raise margins on some items by making them lower quality or by charging more than they could otherwise get away with. If a brand has a great tool X, you might buy their lousy tool Y just to be able to use the same chargers and batteries. For me, anyway, as a non-carpenter, I just end up with an annoying bespoke set of chargers and batteries.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    The major brands do not change formats often. The store brands do change formats though. By Milwaukee or Dewalt and you will have tools and parts for many years, or even Ryobi if you want to save a penny. (There are others, just the 3 that come to mind). The thing about their system is the whole only works so long as they keep you locked in. Once you make a choice you are locked into that choice and won't be looking at alternatives - but if they change batteries you suddenly are faced with the loss of your entire investment and so you are likely to look at the competition and might buy something else. That makes changing battery formats less attractive to the big brands trying to get people who buy a lot of tools. The store brands have a different motivation: they know you won't be buying them again anyway, so they don't care. Changing formats means they can come up with some tiny reason the new one is better and try to sell the next customer on how their new battery is better. If you are not a buying a lot of tools your plan isn't bad, just throw away the tools when the batteries die in 10 years. The tiny reasons some battery is better - over 10 years might add up to something slightly better than before anyway.
mindslight 5y ago
In the days of Amazon (aka Aliexpress) that advice has to become more nuanced though. You still need a baseline of fitness-for-purpose rather than one-click buying a GENSYM Cordless Drill and thinking it might possibly suffice. And the traditional go-to of (brick and mortar curated) Harbor Fright has become somewhat expensive thanks to Trump's inflation, as well as increasing margins due to popularity (see also: Monoprice). There's also just quality of life. As a DIYer I'm not particularly concerned about wearing out tools. But still I might want to pay more for better ergonomics, ecosystem compatibility, power, tolerances, or other non-longevity qualities, rather than being stuck with an adequate but suboptimal tool that gets the job done while bothering me.
Geezus-42 5y ago
Buy the one from Harbor Freight, return it when it breaks.
dustymcp 5y ago
This is how my sad thought me to buy tools just seems insane to go expensive cause best every time..
ineedasername 5y ago
This is why (in the US) I buy what I can from Harbor Freight. Unless it's something that can have critical safety issues if things go bad.
reeddavid 5y ago
I've noticed a problem when I try to buy tools (especially automotive tools): The only tools available locally are cheap and crappy. I know they are crappy because half the reviews state that it didn't even work once. But I can't pay more to get a higher quality version of the tool, because the store doesn't even bother stocking a higher quality version. If I plan ahead, I can shop online and find a quality tool. But what I really want is the option to buy a quality tool during a weekend project.

NovaS1X 5y ago

This is why I really appreciate YT channels like Project Farm.

Baeocystin 5y ago
That guy gives masterclasses on fast, efficient data presentation with every video. I really appreciate his approach.

9dev 5y ago

This strategy is smarter than it sounds at first. If you don't have any obvious criteria for comparison available, failing fast and iterating on that is a way to come up with criteria by yourself.

kuboble 5y ago
It requires a strong character to throw away things when they don't work well. I bought the cheapest drilling machine and it is so bad I end up borrowing one from a neighbor when I need to drill something. But I can't make myself to throw away the useless one.
- ratww 5y ago
  I’m also unable to throw things away, but I do give things away or sell at a fraction very often. It’s also a fun past time. I don’t have anything useless at home anymore.
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  Where I live, Craigslist works really well for this situation - someone will take it away for free for sure and you might even be able to get something for it.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    This is what I do. I just put in "first email I get gets it" people will be at your house in an house or less to grab it. I'm always honest like "The bearings seem a little wobbly to me, but if you want it, it's yours if you can show up and pick it up today"

quercusa 5y ago

Harbor Freight is there for you!

idiotsecant 5y ago

Sometimes the cost for a quality piece of gear is incremental though, so you buy a harbor freight thingamajig then it breaks so you buy the Milwaukee thingamajigfor twice the price, for a total of 300% of the cost of the original thing. You could have saved 30% in that case by just buying the good thing in the first place.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ipaddr 5y ago
You risk saving 100% to save 30%.
bbarn 5y ago
I'd argue then that the level of usage dictated a better one. Most people don't actually use tools to failure. I've owned edging tools, routers, sanders, even a small metal lathe from Harbor freight that have handled 10+ years of very occasional use just fine. If you're using things so much that they fail, yes, buy a more quality version. If it fails on the first use, Harbor freight happens to have a very generous return / exchange policy within the first 30 days.
- wyre 5y ago
  Harbor Freight also has lifetime warranties on many of their products.
munk-a 5y ago
Alternatively this thingamajig is so rarely used that you buy the harbor freight version and use it a few times a year. It becomes a life long tool and you save a fair bit of the price. The second time you buy a type of tool you definitely need to go for quality, the first time though, are you certain you're actually going to be constantly using that tool?
- aksss 5y ago
  The only exception to watch out for is when buying a crappy version of x will negatively color your new experiences with an activity. Tools meant for precision but the cheap versions are plastic rattle traps that get out of calibration/alignment from basic use can be extremely frustrating to someone just getting started in an activity. The user may throw their hands up and quit whereas a good quality tool would have made their new hobby more enjoyable/accessible (e.g. no, it’s not you, you’re just fighting a really crappy tool every step of the way). Again, tasks/activities that require repeatable precision come to mind here.

Terretta 5y ago

For a lot of people "cheapest tool first" is their goto (and not for the principled reason you shared). So eventually the cheapest tool makers get enough money to buy up the differentiated quality makers for their logo with enough branding power to price discriminate, and slap it on products from the same cheap factory line. Then, ugh.

aksss 5y ago
A lot of times the price differential is such that I can buy two or three of item x for the price of a single premium version. If you seldom use the tool and it isn’t getting handled a lot (transportation, etc), this is the way. You can replace the item and still come out ahead. There’s also that motto of “I’m too poor to buy it twice”, which comes into play when item y has a price like 75% of the premium version and/or you know the tool will have some rough travel and high demand, or time lost from outage isn’t acceptable. Then just spend the money on known-solid brands. Reviews are an area where I really value specialized forums more than social media or blogs or industry publications. In all cases with reviews even when no monetization involved, there can be a bandwagon mentality for brands and also people convincing themselves the high price they paid matters for something (even though it may not).

bbarn 5y ago

Harbor Freight's "low quality" tools will work for a great many average home owners doing some upgrading or light work. We absolutely fall into the trap of wanting the best thing ever, but how many people actually need the top of the line Milwaukee or Makita brand biscuit joiner for the 2 tables they ever make at 200$, vs the Harbor Freight one at 60 that you can probably find a coupon for to make it 45-50? On that note though, an even worse practice is when a brand achieves notoriety for quality and starts making "light" versions of their tools. One example of this before they went belly up was Craftsman making nearly identical looking "Sears" brand that weren't covered by the craftsman warranty. Bosch also did this with pimping out their brand name to extend to rather crappy home appliances here in the EU. Black and Decker was synonymous with reliability in the early 80s, and I still have some jigsaws and circular saws from my dad that work great from that era, but anything from them now is arguably worse than the cheapest things you can buy at Harbor Freight.

barrkel 5y ago
I'm sure a bunch of executives made nice bonuses selling the brand value down the river, though. It's an incentive problem. It's extremely difficult to get incentives aligned over a timeline longer than a few years that it might take for options or stock to vest or clawbacks to expire.
brewdad 5y ago
I managed to get a 48" flex bit stuck in my wall when I was running ethernet last summer. Since it was the last hole I needed and it only cost me $9 at Harbor Freight, I left it in the wall and called it good. The $90 bit from Home Depot probably would have meant removing a bunch of drywall and then having to patch it. The batteries on my ~20 year old Craftsman cordless drill are finally getting to the point where they won't hold a charge. I'll probably have to bite the bullet and wade into the mess of "brand-name" tools the next time I have a significant project.
- secabeen 5y ago
  For a replacement like that, it's probably worth watching for Father's Day and other sales. With cordless tools, you're really buying into a battery accessory system, and it's good to know what tools are available for the battery you select.

version_five 5y ago

Just an aside as a former carpenter: Battery powered hand tool systems are a big cost now, especially that brushless motor have got so good. Its important to think about them as a system, like will replacement batteries still exist in 2 years, can more tools work with the same battery, etc. That makes it harder to try something and see how good it is. I agree with you re many tools though. For tools I'd recommend talking to someone who works with them daily to get a real opinion, and wouldn't trust anything I read

aksss 5y ago
Batteries are a point of vendor lock-in and forced obsolescence. Not saying modern tech isn’t great, but young me who spent all that money tooling up with cordless has changed to older me who honestly prefers corded or hosed (or even ICE) tools when the application allows for it, not just for the longevity of the tool but the power (amps/psi), lighter weight, and availability of service (no issues with charging, temperature problems, etc) during a job.
cgriswald 5y ago
Can anyone explain why such systems are so seemingly successful? I find it surprising. It seems great to create vendor lock-in, but they also change the form factor frequently enough that you have to replace your entire system in order to benefit from it being a system anyway; at which point you might change vendors. It feels like the first vendor that stops changing form factor wins; but they all still keep changing them. My best guess is that by doing this they can raise margins on some items by making them lower quality or by charging more than they could otherwise get away with. If a brand has a great tool X, you might buy their lousy tool Y just to be able to use the same chargers and batteries. For me, anyway, as a non-carpenter, I just end up with an annoying bespoke set of chargers and batteries.
- bluGill 5y ago
  The major brands do not change formats often. The store brands do change formats though. By Milwaukee or Dewalt and you will have tools and parts for many years, or even Ryobi if you want to save a penny. (There are others, just the 3 that come to mind). The thing about their system is the whole only works so long as they keep you locked in. Once you make a choice you are locked into that choice and won't be looking at alternatives - but if they change batteries you suddenly are faced with the loss of your entire investment and so you are likely to look at the competition and might buy something else. That makes changing battery formats less attractive to the big brands trying to get people who buy a lot of tools. The store brands have a different motivation: they know you won't be buying them again anyway, so they don't care. Changing formats means they can come up with some tiny reason the new one is better and try to sell the next customer on how their new battery is better. If you are not a buying a lot of tools your plan isn't bad, just throw away the tools when the batteries die in 10 years. The tiny reasons some battery is better - over 10 years might add up to something slightly better than before anyway.

mindslight 5y ago

In the days of Amazon (aka Aliexpress) that advice has to become more nuanced though. You still need a baseline of fitness-for-purpose rather than one-click buying a GENSYM Cordless Drill and thinking it might possibly suffice. And the traditional go-to of (brick and mortar curated) Harbor Fright has become somewhat expensive thanks to Trump's inflation, as well as increasing margins due to popularity (see also: Monoprice). There's also just quality of life. As a DIYer I'm not particularly concerned about wearing out tools. But still I might want to pay more for better ergonomics, ecosystem compatibility, power, tolerances, or other non-longevity qualities, rather than being stuck with an adequate but suboptimal tool that gets the job done while bothering me.

Geezus-42 5y ago

Buy the one from Harbor Freight, return it when it breaks.

dustymcp 5y ago

This is how my sad thought me to buy tools just seems insane to go expensive cause best every time..

ineedasername 5y ago

This is why (in the US) I buy what I can from Harbor Freight. Unless it's something that can have critical safety issues if things go bad.

reeddavid 5y ago

I've noticed a problem when I try to buy tools (especially automotive tools): The only tools available locally are cheap and crappy. I know they are crappy because half the reviews state that it didn't even work once. But I can't pay more to get a higher quality version of the tool, because the store doesn't even bother stocking a higher quality version. If I plan ahead, I can shop online and find a quality tool. But what I really want is the option to buy a quality tool during a weekend project.