5 ms·

My cynical ass assumes it's because they know goddamn well no one under 60 years old has $4,000 to spend on a properly made sofa, irrespective of desire or tast

My cynical ass assumes it's because they know goddamn well no one under 60 years old has $4,000 to spend on a properly made sofa, irrespective of desire or taste. I make six figures and I certainly don't. My furniture is all cheap particle board shit because I can't afford anything nicer because I'm spending all my money on a mortgage, food, gas, and student loans. I don't think it's a matter so much of nobody wanting to make good quality products so much as all the companies that did do that and priced their products accordingly are running out of customers, because we're all getting strip-mined by the rest of life's expenses going up all the goddamn time. I would love nothing more than a gorgeous, well made sofa that will last me a solid chunk of my remaining life, but where the fuck am I getting the money for it? It's the boots theory of economics applied to everything. I'll spend $7,000 on sofas before I die and still have a sore ass.

corford 3y ago
Gary Stevenson agrees with your assumption. If you haven't already, you should check out some of his work and recent book on this. TL;dr: your cynical take is correct.
noduerme 3y ago
You say it yourself. Why spend $7k on couches over a lifetime when you can spend $4k on one that lasts forever? If you can only scrape together $1k a year for a new piece of garbage, maybe you should sit on milk crates til you can scrape together $4k. Maybe the fact that no one thinks this way anymore explains why everyone complains their six-figure income is constantly eaten up by replacing cheap shit.
- verall 3y ago
  It doesn't help that in 2024 a $4k sofa is probably crap and you need to spend like $12k+ for something that lasts 100+years
  - ErigmolCt 3y ago
    Yeah, agree a $4k sofa is likely of poor quality nowadays
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  Hear me out: what if we reversed the various societal changes made since the Reagan era so people make enough money to afford the things they need and want like every generation before mine did, instead of just normalizing this notion that you need to eat shit for years on end so you can have the privilege of nice things? And that would have knock on effects for huge societal issues like climate change. Imagine how much cheap shit wouldn't need to be made if so many people weren't deliberately kept on the edge of poverty so as to foster consumption practices that make stock prices go up?
  - noduerme 3y ago
    I'd argue that reversing those changes would require a grass-roots effort to stop consuming so much cheap garbage. If people bought American and demanded high quality products, American manufacturing would benefit. But also - I think the 1950s-80s were a complete abberation in which working middle class people could afford a better lifestyle every year. Not "every generation before" ours could afford a house and two cars on a factory income with a pension. Really only one generation got that, and it was mostly due to winning a world war that left us the world's only major supplier of everything, able to project military power and gobble up all the cheap oil and raw materials. Previous generations had no such thing. My grandfather grew up without indoor plumbing. He also worked 12 hours a day. He couldn't afford a modest house until his late 30s, which was after the war. Go further back and look at the stock bubbles and robber barons of the 19th Century. The wealth and pay distribution we have now is closer to historical norms than anything in the 1960s was. The major difference is our baseline quality of life is higher in the sense that everyone can afford a cheap couch (if they want one). I have to think economically like my grandparents, not like my parents. People like my grandparents built this country by saving and sacrificing their comforts. People like my parents, boomers, got an incredibly easy ride. Now their kids expect it to be that easy. But cheap money can't go on forever, and it's cheap money and a two-car suburban family lifestyle that did all the environmental damage of the mid 20th Century that we're still trying to slow down or reverse. tl;dr saving and buying the better couch is a more effective means of changing the status quo than complaining that everything is harder for our generation.
    - 3y ago
- codemac 3y ago
  There's probably a financial argument here related to the same money invested, but we all know folks aren't investing in the difference - they're buying more and other junk.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>no one under 60 years old has $4,000 to spend on a properly made sofa, irrespective of desire or taste. I make six figures and I certainly don't. I do and did, but I live alone. I'm guessing you're supporting a family? of course, cost of living is also a huge factor. A $4000 couch is pretty much $4000 everywhere. But someone in SF vs. the Southwest (both making 6 figures) have very different rent and general life expenses.

corford 3y ago

Gary Stevenson agrees with your assumption. If you haven't already, you should check out some of his work and recent book on this. TL;dr: your cynical take is correct.

noduerme 3y ago

You say it yourself. Why spend $7k on couches over a lifetime when you can spend $4k on one that lasts forever? If you can only scrape together $1k a year for a new piece of garbage, maybe you should sit on milk crates til you can scrape together $4k. Maybe the fact that no one thinks this way anymore explains why everyone complains their six-figure income is constantly eaten up by replacing cheap shit.

verall 3y ago
It doesn't help that in 2024 a $4k sofa is probably crap and you need to spend like $12k+ for something that lasts 100+years
- ErigmolCt 3y ago
  Yeah, agree a $4k sofa is likely of poor quality nowadays
ToucanLoucan 3y ago
Hear me out: what if we reversed the various societal changes made since the Reagan era so people make enough money to afford the things they need and want like every generation before mine did, instead of just normalizing this notion that you need to eat shit for years on end so you can have the privilege of nice things? And that would have knock on effects for huge societal issues like climate change. Imagine how much cheap shit wouldn't need to be made if so many people weren't deliberately kept on the edge of poverty so as to foster consumption practices that make stock prices go up?
- noduerme 3y ago
  I'd argue that reversing those changes would require a grass-roots effort to stop consuming so much cheap garbage. If people bought American and demanded high quality products, American manufacturing would benefit. But also - I think the 1950s-80s were a complete abberation in which working middle class people could afford a better lifestyle every year. Not "every generation before" ours could afford a house and two cars on a factory income with a pension. Really only one generation got that, and it was mostly due to winning a world war that left us the world's only major supplier of everything, able to project military power and gobble up all the cheap oil and raw materials. Previous generations had no such thing. My grandfather grew up without indoor plumbing. He also worked 12 hours a day. He couldn't afford a modest house until his late 30s, which was after the war. Go further back and look at the stock bubbles and robber barons of the 19th Century. The wealth and pay distribution we have now is closer to historical norms than anything in the 1960s was. The major difference is our baseline quality of life is higher in the sense that everyone can afford a cheap couch (if they want one). I have to think economically like my grandparents, not like my parents. People like my grandparents built this country by saving and sacrificing their comforts. People like my parents, boomers, got an incredibly easy ride. Now their kids expect it to be that easy. But cheap money can't go on forever, and it's cheap money and a two-car suburban family lifestyle that did all the environmental damage of the mid 20th Century that we're still trying to slow down or reverse. tl;dr saving and buying the better couch is a more effective means of changing the status quo than complaining that everything is harder for our generation.
  - 3y ago
codemac 3y ago
There's probably a financial argument here related to the same money invested, but we all know folks aren't investing in the difference - they're buying more and other junk.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>no one under 60 years old has $4,000 to spend on a properly made sofa, irrespective of desire or taste. I make six figures and I certainly don't. I do and did, but I live alone. I'm guessing you're supporting a family? of course, cost of living is also a huge factor. A $4000 couch is pretty much $4000 everywhere. But someone in SF vs. the Southwest (both making 6 figures) have very different rent and general life expenses.