5 ms·
It's common to hear "handmade is higher quality", but is it always true? Automation with solid QA can be more reliable than humans, but a fraction of the cost.
by arnaudsm 4y ago
It's common to hear "handmade is higher quality", but is it always true?
Automation with solid QA can be more reliable than humans, but a fraction of the cost.
Mass production has a bad rap, but it's an art too, and can be done correctly.
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoInterestingly, higher quality was one of the selling points of mass-produced vs. hand-made items back in the day. “Machines are more consistent”. The “hand-made is better” myth sounds invented to justify higher prices for hand-crafted stuff and help keep some workers in business in the age of machines.
- solatic 4y agoYou're thinking of mass producers like Apple, which hit both high volume and high price points. Mass producers like Apple have enough revenue to pay for the higher quality standards within mass production. Championship chess sets, even if you could somehow produce them for $5/set, are not going to have the sales volume to justify the cost of the automation + solid QA.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago>Automation with solid QA can be more reliable than humans, but a fraction of the cost. I'm not sure where the line is drawn for 'handmade', but of course the best version of 'handmade' has the humans doing the complex parts to connect all the tools together. It's like QA on the front end.
- RHSeeger 4y agoThere's also the concept that the artifacts (imperfections) of being hand-made add value; much in the same way that people prefer vinyl because of it's imperfections. Having a master crafted _item_ vs a machine made one can be considered to add "quality/value", even if it's not as technically perfect.