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Best Idea: companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap on the market naturally go out of business because people freely choose to no longer purcha

Best Idea: companies that inflict unreliable & high-maintenance crap on the market naturally go out of business because people freely choose to no longer purchase their unreliable and high-maintenance crap.

Y_Y 3y ago
So you're proposing to change the people. I can't imagine that's easier than changing the law, even if I agree with you that the free market should solve the problem.
- dimitrios1 3y ago
  From what I understand (could be wrong): McDonalds forces their franchises to buy these Taylor ice cream machines, and despite the high cost and frequency oof repairs, McDonalds franchisees continue to own and operate McDonalds meaning that despite the troubles, it is still worth it. If the ice cream machine caused a big of an issue, McDonalds would see less franchisees, and discern from their research that the machine was an issue, and change brands. Again, it starts with the customer. If people really are that pissed off McDonalds ice cream machines are seemingly always broken, then they should stop going to McDonalds, and then the feedback loop will start from there. It's not like there isn't ample other options (Wendys, Burger King, etc). That tells me that this "problem" is really overblown, and while McDonalds customers really would prefer to have the option to reliably order ice cream, it does not deter them significantly enough from consuming McDonalds, and doing something like simply purchasing their ice cream from a different location. If McDonalds wants to recoup that income, then they will, again, prioritize that initiative, and work on improving the ice cream machine, but again, that juice does not seem worth the squeeze.
  - sahila 3y ago
    You’re making it out to be far simpler than reality. McDonald’s is more than just an ice cream place, they sell Big Macs, fries, a clean place with wifi, and cheap coffee. It would have to be the sum of those worse off than a competitor. A bad ice cream machine could just mean sub optimal profits / experience.
    - dimitrios1 3y ago
      I don't know many, if any, fast food places in America that don't have wifi, coffee, fries, and try to keep their restaurant clean (Calling McDonalds clean is debatable). Taco Bell? Even they have Nacho Fries and coffee.
      - sahila 3y ago
        Is your belief what makes a McDonald's a McDonald's just its ice cream machine, an d that's its unique selling point compared to its peers?
robocat 3y ago
Perfectly spherical economic thinking. How many times do you see friends buying unreliable rubbish? I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and they were predictably complaining about the high maintenance costs of their VW. Another friend was spending huge amounts every year on their very good looking Jeep. Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good. Even specialists can't be expected to judge correctly. Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help. Plenty of the "solutions" suggested here cause other harms or are gameable or otherwise unworkable.
- dimitrios1 3y ago
  > Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good Indiviuals do not have to understand the fractals of complexity inherent in what it took to make a finished product to know if the finished product is good quality or not. Let's just say for the sake of argument I do not understand 1/10th of what goes into HVAC systems, or what it takes to make them. I don't understand supply chain and part sourcing. I don't understand the engineering schematics that underpin the design of the control board that runs my given HVAC unit, therefore, have no expert knowledge of HVAC systems. But what I do know, as an end user / consumer is, if you sell me a Lennox, its most likely going to be a piece of shit, and therefore I do not want a Lennox HVAC system.
- throw10920 3y ago
  I don't think the GP's solution is really that unreasonable - it's just that there's something missing. Like you said: > Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good. I think the idea that individual consumers can individually exhaustively assess the value of their goods is not really reasonable. However, I think it's reasonable to believe you can construct a system where a large number of consumers, enthusiasts, and experts pool their knowledge together in order to much more accurately assess product quality. For instance, if we could conduct wide-scale long-term surveys of the reliability of large appliances, e.g. by requiring that appliance technicians log service visits for an appliance into a database (that could be run by a non-profit), then that would significantly increase pressure on manufacturers to build robust products. After all, if the cheap $2k fridge is listed in the appliance database as having a lifetime one-third of that of the $5k fridge nearby, far more consumers will opt to buy the latter, because now they actually know that there's an advantage to buying that one. Also, consumer testing labs like Consumer Reports and ConsumerLabs do some expert testing of products, which is better than nothing. I think that the problem is information asymmetry - companies know how bad the products that they're selling are, and consumers don't. The free market system only works if buyers have "good enough" information to make a rational decision (although that's a necessary, not a sufficient, condition), and we're not in that state right now. > Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help. I agree - it's far harder for the government to legislate vague things like "appliances must be built well" then something like "appliance lifetime and service visits must be logged into a registry".
xkcd-sucks 3y ago
For every "free market" there is an equal and opposite "can remain irrational longer than you can wait" it seems

Y_Y 3y ago

So you're proposing to change the people. I can't imagine that's easier than changing the law, even if I agree with you that the free market should solve the problem.

dimitrios1 3y ago
From what I understand (could be wrong): McDonalds forces their franchises to buy these Taylor ice cream machines, and despite the high cost and frequency oof repairs, McDonalds franchisees continue to own and operate McDonalds meaning that despite the troubles, it is still worth it. If the ice cream machine caused a big of an issue, McDonalds would see less franchisees, and discern from their research that the machine was an issue, and change brands. Again, it starts with the customer. If people really are that pissed off McDonalds ice cream machines are seemingly always broken, then they should stop going to McDonalds, and then the feedback loop will start from there. It's not like there isn't ample other options (Wendys, Burger King, etc). That tells me that this "problem" is really overblown, and while McDonalds customers really would prefer to have the option to reliably order ice cream, it does not deter them significantly enough from consuming McDonalds, and doing something like simply purchasing their ice cream from a different location. If McDonalds wants to recoup that income, then they will, again, prioritize that initiative, and work on improving the ice cream machine, but again, that juice does not seem worth the squeeze.
- sahila 3y ago
  You’re making it out to be far simpler than reality. McDonald’s is more than just an ice cream place, they sell Big Macs, fries, a clean place with wifi, and cheap coffee. It would have to be the sum of those worse off than a competitor. A bad ice cream machine could just mean sub optimal profits / experience.
  - dimitrios1 3y ago
    I don't know many, if any, fast food places in America that don't have wifi, coffee, fries, and try to keep their restaurant clean (Calling McDonalds clean is debatable). Taco Bell? Even they have Nacho Fries and coffee.
    - sahila 3y ago
      Is your belief what makes a McDonald's a McDonald's just its ice cream machine, an d that's its unique selling point compared to its peers?

robocat 3y ago

Perfectly spherical economic thinking. How many times do you see friends buying unreliable rubbish? I was talking with an acquaintance the other day and they were predictably complaining about the high maintenance costs of their VW. Another friend was spending huge amounts every year on their very good looking Jeep. Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good. Even specialists can't be expected to judge correctly. Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help. Plenty of the "solutions" suggested here cause other harms or are gameable or otherwise unworkable.

dimitrios1 3y ago
> Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good Indiviuals do not have to understand the fractals of complexity inherent in what it took to make a finished product to know if the finished product is good quality or not. Let's just say for the sake of argument I do not understand 1/10th of what goes into HVAC systems, or what it takes to make them. I don't understand supply chain and part sourcing. I don't understand the engineering schematics that underpin the design of the control board that runs my given HVAC unit, therefore, have no expert knowledge of HVAC systems. But what I do know, as an end user / consumer is, if you sell me a Lennox, its most likely going to be a piece of shit, and therefore I do not want a Lennox HVAC system.
throw10920 3y ago
I don't think the GP's solution is really that unreasonable - it's just that there's something missing. Like you said: > Modern goods are fractally complex: individuals can't be expected to become experts in all the disciplines required to judge the quality of a good. I think the idea that individual consumers can individually exhaustively assess the value of their goods is not really reasonable. However, I think it's reasonable to believe you can construct a system where a large number of consumers, enthusiasts, and experts pool their knowledge together in order to much more accurately assess product quality. For instance, if we could conduct wide-scale long-term surveys of the reliability of large appliances, e.g. by requiring that appliance technicians log service visits for an appliance into a database (that could be run by a non-profit), then that would significantly increase pressure on manufacturers to build robust products. After all, if the cheap $2k fridge is listed in the appliance database as having a lifetime one-third of that of the $5k fridge nearby, far more consumers will opt to buy the latter, because now they actually know that there's an advantage to buying that one. Also, consumer testing labs like Consumer Reports and ConsumerLabs do some expert testing of products, which is better than nothing. I think that the problem is information asymmetry - companies know how bad the products that they're selling are, and consumers don't. The free market system only works if buyers have "good enough" information to make a rational decision (although that's a necessary, not a sufficient, condition), and we're not in that state right now. > Government interference in purchase decisions is a big hammer. It is hard to imagine policies that would actually help. I agree - it's far harder for the government to legislate vague things like "appliances must be built well" then something like "appliance lifetime and service visits must be logged into a registry".

xkcd-sucks 3y ago

For every "free market" there is an equal and opposite "can remain irrational longer than you can wait" it seems