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Maybe for someone who prefers to buy made in Japan over made in China. A made in Europe sticker would definitely appeal to me more than a made in China. At leas

Maybe for someone who prefers to buy made in Japan over made in China. A made in Europe sticker would definitely appeal to me more than a made in China. At least on products that are not mass produced from established brands.

deaddodo 3y ago
I couldn't care less where my item is produced. It just so happens that a large variety of high-end products are produced at a higher level of quality (and cost, generally) in the West (including S Korea and Japan); but if someone introduced me to a Nigerian, Mexican, Thai, etc product that surpassed my current choice, I would switch in an instant. I don't understand caring at all about the source, unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it (such as blood diamonds, for instance).
- zaphirplane 3y ago
  Most people don’t buy 500 cars or 390 tv. It’s just about reputation and isn’t branding a reputation. Cars made in foo are good, tv made is bar have bad QA
- rvnx 3y ago
  Privacy laws are different depending on the country of the publisher of the software. Generally European countries provide the best protections and the fact it is published in Japan may imply that the US laws don’t apply there (and be a + or not)
- pil0u 3y ago
  Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home. Other people care about work conditions for the produced items they buy, namely not manufactured by children, for which country origin could be an indicator.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    > unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it
  - Xeamek 3y ago
    >Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home Which is pretty dumb thing to care about, since these journeys have minimal carbon footprint, compared to something like local delivery
    - alwyn 3y ago
      Can you elaborate on the minimal carbon footprint in this context?
- thefounder 3y ago
  How can you evaluate the quality of a product that was not built yet?
userbinator 3y ago
I definitely have a preference for made in America, but that really only applies to physical products since there are strong associations with reputation and quality; the "country of origin" of software is far less well-defined in general, especially in the case of OSS.
- rvnx 3y ago
  It is only partially true now. It was very true before, but more like 10 years ago. For example, Apple, one main reason they chose to produce a lot of the phone in China was because of infrastructure and skills that people have, and not costs anymore. China (in particular when you see markets like Yiwu!) has an impressive ability to produce all type of quality and grade of products.
- OmarAssadi 3y ago
  It's sort of strange to me how many Americans seem to share the same sentiment when my experience has often been the total opposite. China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in. For example, sure, an LG/Samsung/Sony OLED will be way nicer in terms of picture quality than any Hisense on the market. But the cheapest OLED on BestBuy right now is a last-gen, clearance 46" LG that costs almost ~$700; if you want a 50"+ model, be prepared to spend $1,000 minimum. On the other hand, the 75" U6H I got for $600 was better than any comparable non-OLED offering by non-Chinese companies until you got into the $1,000-1,200+ price range. Midea is another good example; sure, Bosch, Miele, and Zojirushi often have much nicer luxury products, but if you're a middle/working-class person who doesn't want to or can't spend $300+ on a rice cooker, it'll be hard to beat--unless you get lucky like me and find the one weird guy in your town who happened to be moving cities and selling off all his appliances, including some perfect-condition JDM Zojirushi with an inverter for $100 (and also happen to have a Japanese friend you can annoy to help you figure out what all the Kanji menus do). Same can be said for handset manufacturers like Xiaomi, etc. And a lot of audio gear as well; $100-200 Russian Oktava microphones easily punch several hundred to several thousand dollars above their class, Chinese brands dominate the mid-range IEM market, and Chinese headphone brands like HiFiMan are difficult to beat in any price bracket -- first paycheck I got, I spent $1,600 on Sennheiser HD 800 S because I wanted the HD 800 as a kid, but realistically, $300 HiFiMan Sundaras will get you almost there for over a thousand less. Personally, every "made in America" thing I've bought that wasn't manufactured before like 1990 either fell apart and/or was ridiculously expensive compared to things made elsewhere. My association of made in America is either: A. Truly craftsman, low-volume, specialized products that have an inherently high price tag B. More commonly, low-quality, over-priced junk that survives only because of nationalism or protectionism alone

deaddodo 3y ago

I couldn't care less where my item is produced. It just so happens that a large variety of high-end products are produced at a higher level of quality (and cost, generally) in the West (including S Korea and Japan); but if someone introduced me to a Nigerian, Mexican, Thai, etc product that surpassed my current choice, I would switch in an instant. I don't understand caring at all about the source, unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it (such as blood diamonds, for instance).

zaphirplane 3y ago
Most people don’t buy 500 cars or 390 tv. It’s just about reputation and isn’t branding a reputation. Cars made in foo are good, tv made is bar have bad QA
rvnx 3y ago
Privacy laws are different depending on the country of the publisher of the software. Generally European countries provide the best protections and the fact it is published in Japan may imply that the US laws don’t apply there (and be a + or not)
pil0u 3y ago
Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home. Other people care about work conditions for the produced items they buy, namely not manufactured by children, for which country origin could be an indicator.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  > unless there is some fundamental moral hangup with it
- Xeamek 3y ago
  >Some people care about items not travelling twice the globe before landing home Which is pretty dumb thing to care about, since these journeys have minimal carbon footprint, compared to something like local delivery
  - alwyn 3y ago
    Can you elaborate on the minimal carbon footprint in this context?
thefounder 3y ago
How can you evaluate the quality of a product that was not built yet?

userbinator 3y ago

I definitely have a preference for made in America, but that really only applies to physical products since there are strong associations with reputation and quality; the "country of origin" of software is far less well-defined in general, especially in the case of OSS.

rvnx 3y ago
It is only partially true now. It was very true before, but more like 10 years ago. For example, Apple, one main reason they chose to produce a lot of the phone in China was because of infrastructure and skills that people have, and not costs anymore. China (in particular when you see markets like Yiwu!) has an impressive ability to produce all type of quality and grade of products.
OmarAssadi 3y ago
It's sort of strange to me how many Americans seem to share the same sentiment when my experience has often been the total opposite. China has some of the best factories, supply chains, and collaboration in the world. And while yes, of course, loads of intentionally cheap, low-quality goods are churned out regularly, many Chinese companies also make really solid products, often even the best products until you reach a certain ultra-luxury price bracket that they simply aren't trying to compete in. For example, sure, an LG/Samsung/Sony OLED will be way nicer in terms of picture quality than any Hisense on the market. But the cheapest OLED on BestBuy right now is a last-gen, clearance 46" LG that costs almost ~$700; if you want a 50"+ model, be prepared to spend $1,000 minimum. On the other hand, the 75" U6H I got for $600 was better than any comparable non-OLED offering by non-Chinese companies until you got into the $1,000-1,200+ price range. Midea is another good example; sure, Bosch, Miele, and Zojirushi often have much nicer luxury products, but if you're a middle/working-class person who doesn't want to or can't spend $300+ on a rice cooker, it'll be hard to beat--unless you get lucky like me and find the one weird guy in your town who happened to be moving cities and selling off all his appliances, including some perfect-condition JDM Zojirushi with an inverter for $100 (and also happen to have a Japanese friend you can annoy to help you figure out what all the Kanji menus do). Same can be said for handset manufacturers like Xiaomi, etc. And a lot of audio gear as well; $100-200 Russian Oktava microphones easily punch several hundred to several thousand dollars above their class, Chinese brands dominate the mid-range IEM market, and Chinese headphone brands like HiFiMan are difficult to beat in any price bracket -- first paycheck I got, I spent $1,600 on Sennheiser HD 800 S because I wanted the HD 800 as a kid, but realistically, $300 HiFiMan Sundaras will get you almost there for over a thousand less. Personally, every "made in America" thing I've bought that wasn't manufactured before like 1990 either fell apart and/or was ridiculously expensive compared to things made elsewhere. My association of made in America is either: A. Truly craftsman, low-volume, specialized products that have an inherently high price tag B. More commonly, low-quality, over-priced junk that survives only because of nationalism or protectionism alone