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Biggest unsolved problem I'm aware of is product discovery. Given an intention, I want to buy a thing, say a TV; finding an actual good product (according to w

Biggest unsolved problem I'm aware of is product discovery. Given an intention, I want to buy a thing, say a TV; finding an actual good product (according to whatever criteria) has gotten absurdly difficult due to a confluence of effects, including the closure of brick and mortar stores, the death of magazines, the rise of e-commerce market platforms, dropshipping, paid reviews, straight up scams, etc.

swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
All of the original product discovery avenues were bought and paid for by advertisers - magazines, news columns, tv ads. But in the past it was still useful. These days it’s still paid for by advertisers but now you’ve got dropshippers, scammers, cheap ali-baba goods, and almost no verification of quality or authenticity. Is the problem exacerbated accepting advertising money? Can it be solved by only accepting consumer money? Consumer reports is one of those.
eternityforest 3y ago
I have not noticed that. All I ever need to do is look at a the first few Google results and the big brands I already know, and read then one-star reviews on Amazon. They all have the same 4.9 star rating, but some will say "Feels cheap and plasticky", while others will say "Started smoking after a day". I've had a lot of bad results with anything niche and unusual, now I try to stick with really popular products that are so well known that someone would have told me if there was a problem. Power tools don't break. Flashlights charge with USB and are way brighter. The pasta can be whole wheat or made with chickpeas. Pretty much everything mass produced is pretty great at least for the buyer. I suppose I do hear a lot about simple hand tools and the like not being what they used to be though. It seems like most stuff people complain about is low tech stuff that has mostly need replaced by something high tech, causing everyone to forget how to make the simpler stuff, that often wss as much art as science to make.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  > bad results with anything niche and unusual In a way, this is exactly the problem. Product discovery for consumer items is pretty much solved. However, product discovery for niche industrial or scientific items is a difficult area. If you have tons of $$$, it's easy to find representatives for the big suppliers. However, for each of these large suppliers, there are 10 or 100 smaller or even "cottage industry" suppliers. The problem is how you find them in the first place, and how to gain confidence in the quality of what they offer.
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    With that I think a lot of it is knowing what's near impossible to mess up so you might as well buy the cheapest crap you can find, and what matters so much you should just pay for the big brands even if you have to make everything else crappier to afford it. It's all the same lottery of counterfeit chips, some product categories they have it figured out, some they don't. And a lot of the time, you can just design in such a way that it doesn't matter if the parts are quality. Like, yeah, if you make a lot, you will see a few failures in power conversion or handling parts. So use a USB supply they can swap. One or two switches are going to break most likely. So don't use a mechanical lid switch that's constantly held down, unless you make it swappable. Your 3D printed part might have varying quality, so design in such a way that it still works on a badly tuned printer. There's always that one part that you don't know which one to get and none look very good, but I see a lot of commercial products with lots of unnecessary unique niche parts that could have been a common standard thing.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  > The pasta can be whole wheat or made with chickpeas I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard nothing about complaints about Banza up to and including bugs in the packaging.

swagasaurus-rex 3y ago

All of the original product discovery avenues were bought and paid for by advertisers - magazines, news columns, tv ads. But in the past it was still useful. These days it’s still paid for by advertisers but now you’ve got dropshippers, scammers, cheap ali-baba goods, and almost no verification of quality or authenticity. Is the problem exacerbated accepting advertising money? Can it be solved by only accepting consumer money? Consumer reports is one of those.

eternityforest 3y ago

I have not noticed that. All I ever need to do is look at a the first few Google results and the big brands I already know, and read then one-star reviews on Amazon. They all have the same 4.9 star rating, but some will say "Feels cheap and plasticky", while others will say "Started smoking after a day". I've had a lot of bad results with anything niche and unusual, now I try to stick with really popular products that are so well known that someone would have told me if there was a problem. Power tools don't break. Flashlights charge with USB and are way brighter. The pasta can be whole wheat or made with chickpeas. Pretty much everything mass produced is pretty great at least for the buyer. I suppose I do hear a lot about simple hand tools and the like not being what they used to be though. It seems like most stuff people complain about is low tech stuff that has mostly need replaced by something high tech, causing everyone to forget how to make the simpler stuff, that often wss as much art as science to make.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
> bad results with anything niche and unusual In a way, this is exactly the problem. Product discovery for consumer items is pretty much solved. However, product discovery for niche industrial or scientific items is a difficult area. If you have tons of $$$, it's easy to find representatives for the big suppliers. However, for each of these large suppliers, there are 10 or 100 smaller or even "cottage industry" suppliers. The problem is how you find them in the first place, and how to gain confidence in the quality of what they offer.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  With that I think a lot of it is knowing what's near impossible to mess up so you might as well buy the cheapest crap you can find, and what matters so much you should just pay for the big brands even if you have to make everything else crappier to afford it. It's all the same lottery of counterfeit chips, some product categories they have it figured out, some they don't. And a lot of the time, you can just design in such a way that it doesn't matter if the parts are quality. Like, yeah, if you make a lot, you will see a few failures in power conversion or handling parts. So use a USB supply they can swap. One or two switches are going to break most likely. So don't use a mechanical lid switch that's constantly held down, unless you make it swappable. Your 3D printed part might have varying quality, so design in such a way that it still works on a badly tuned printer. There's always that one part that you don't know which one to get and none look very good, but I see a lot of commercial products with lots of unnecessary unique niche parts that could have been a common standard thing.
selimthegrim 3y ago
> The pasta can be whole wheat or made with chickpeas I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard nothing about complaints about Banza up to and including bugs in the packaging.