5 ms·

If you get out of the US bubble, the prices are simply insane fix a sofa: it's equivalent to a month's salary/stipend here in Asia. 200 bowls of noodle (if it'

If you get out of the US bubble, the prices are simply insane fix a sofa: it's equivalent to a month's salary/stipend here in Asia. 200 bowls of noodle (if it's a cheap noodle then it's more like 500) new sofa: "new leather sofas of the “not flat-packed sawdust and glue” variety quickly get into five figures" So like a year's worth of stipend/expenses Could be that just the US dollar is crazy - but until the economic disbalances of the world doesn't equilibrate (that's on a centenial scale), it's never going to make sense to fix a sofa "But I’d sure vote for a political party that convinced me it was trying to achieve that" The only way you can achieve this is by going full North Korea and self sufficient. There is no real upside to this fantasy

tmnvix 2y ago
A significant portion of the cost is labour, so if you translate that into a local non-US cost does it still seem absurd? I may have misunderstood your point, but I don't think it is a good argument for why running a business fixing things using local labour should be a fantasy. Aside from that, in my view a world where a sofa costs less than one weeks wages is the absurd and unsustainable one. We've adopted an attitude of being incredibly entitled to cheap tat and that needs to stop.
- contrarian1234 2y ago
  I think there are two issues that are going in parallel 1. fixing stuff As long as some dude on the other side of the world is willing to make a new sofa and send it to you for cheaper than it is to fix it locally, the idea of fixing it locally will just never take off. You can ban/limit international trade, but then you're just screwing over poor people on the other end of the world for a "feel good" kind of thing 2. not making cheap crap You can find some way to disincentivize making cheap stuff. Ban IKEA.. etc. But then you are just making life harder for the poor in your own country. That's cool you can afford a 5 figure quality sofa.. many people in the US won't be able to afford that. It just comes off as a bit heartless as well when rich programmer types deplore the quality of cheap things. There are the five figure sofas if you want. Go buy them - nobody is stopping you. You don't have to force everyone else into that price bracket though The two things aren't disconnected. But in the end it seems like rich people want to ban cheap things, so that they can have more local repair services for their expensive stuff
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate the bottom tier from the market. The issue isn't with that, but with the tendency for the market to hollow out, which results in there being no middle-tier products available at all. You have a variety of products ranging from literally shit to figuratively shit, then nothing, then high-end custom-made professional grade stuff you can't afford, and probably can't source unless you know someone who knows someone. Any business trying to do OK stuff for OK price is forced to either sink to the bottom-tier, or become a niche high-end brand. Or, in short: the problem isn't that I can buy cheap crap. The problem is that I cannot buy moderately expensive good stuff - there's only cheap shit, and moderately expensive shit pretending to be good (and then the good stuff I can't possibly afford).
  - rocqua 2y ago
    This is indeed hard to solve. But there is need for a solution. Not because I want a good couch for 4 figures, but because we should have more sustainable and goomd couches. Not just for reducing environmental impact, but also for improving quality of life and financials for all but the poorest, by letting them actually get long lasting furniture. Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer. Currently the best way to do that is hand-cut dovetails and only hardwoods. But there's quality to be had with modern solutions that are muuuch cheaper than the old methods.
    - acdha 2y ago
      > Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer. To be honest, IKEA isn’t the problem here. Their stuff is above average quality / longevity until you’re at least a couple levels up in the market. The last time we were looking for furniture, it was eye-opening to see how many companies are trying to charge 2-4 times more for IKEA or lower quality furniture, where something looked nice from across the showroom but if you looked closer it was all sawdust and cheap plastic components.
    - HenriTEL 2y ago
- wruza 2y ago
  Labor costs don’t rise tenfold with proper wood though. It’s the same wooden board they have to cut and mount. US wood-based markets are notoriously ridiculous.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    No, but perhaps labor drops tenfold with switching from proper wood to glue mixed with toilet paper. You throw sheets of that pulp on a machine that laminates them, then throw that on a CNC cutter, add a bag with some screws and glue, a sheet with instructions, and ship the complete flat-pack piece of furniture to customer. Not much human labor involved, and it scales well.
    - wruza 2y ago
      Yeah, but you can do exactly that with proper wood too. As far as I understand, there's no reasonably priced option like this in US. Feels like this either-or extremity is a learned coping strategy for something going wrong with wood at US end. And with matresses, and table tops. That something's going wrong at the other ends is well-known, but it doesn't have to correlate 100% with the problem.
moffkalast 2y ago
Along the same line it's always interesting to see Americans discuss mattress prices, it's always like "yeah best pay 4-6k at least and they're swapping the names and reviews so there's no way to tell if you're getting a quality product regardless" meanwhile I paid like 250 euros for a locally made memory foam mattress that's a dream (ha) to sleep on. Post-socialist countries still have an absolute shit ton of these lifestyle businesses or even medium sized firms instead of monopolist megacorps which results in a very competitive market and has turned out to be quite an upside for the end consumer.
- switch007 2y ago
  I feel the same when they talk about renovations. "thank god the kitchen only came to $45k", "the bathroom remodel was only $30k", "the new fence was $20k, not too bad". I know the have bigger spaces but... damn.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Though home renovation costs are mostly about local labor costs for tradesmen. I suppose I could spend an ungodly amount in a kitchen on super-premium appliances but more likely the bulk of the cost is masons, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, the local shop putting together the cabinets/counters/etc. You can also save a lot of money by being selective as opposed to hiring someone to do a complete makeover.
wazoox 2y ago
The problem is that you're talking of massively freeloading social an environmental costs of humongous size onto other people and places. Sure, "flatpack sawdust and glue" furniture made by slave labour while destroying rainforests and dumping toxic waste is cheap for you and right now... But that can't last and won't last.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Sofa manufacture is not what's destroying rainforests or dumping toxic waste. And "flatpack sawdust" is better for the environment, actually -- where do you think all those leftover wood scraps would be going if they weren't mixed with glue and used productively? If you want to be using solid pieces of wood in everything, that's a lot more trees you're going to have to cut down.
  - wazoox 2y ago
    My late grandmother had some pieces of furniture that were between 300 and 400 year old. We need less stuff and particularly less new stuff. A 400 year-old wardrobe ("armoire normande") is exactly as good as any new one to store your clothes, has much more character, and may still be just as good in the centuries to come.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      That's wonderful if you only move a few times in your whole life, and always have space in your bedroom for a wardrobe, and like the style. It's impossible if you move apartments every couple/few years, the bedrooms come with closets and there's no good place to put the wardrobe and you don't need it anyways because you have closets, and sure it has "character" but it looks completely out of place because it's the wrong character. If you want to preserve antique furniture and are able to, then more power to you. There are lots of antique furniture enthusiasts. But I don't want an antique wardrobe any more than I want to wear a high-collared four-button men's sack suit from 1885.
xwowsersx 2y ago
> but until the economic disbalances of the world doesn't equilibrate (that's on a centenial scale), it's never going to make sense to fix a sofa Could you elaborate? I'm not quite understanding your point, and I may be misinterpreting the sentence.
marcinzm 2y ago
The median household income in the US is $76k ($57k post taxes). Germany is $54k ($34k post taxes). China is $13k. Even compared to Europe the amount of money for spending a US household gets is almost twice as much. There's more expenses due to a lack of a social net however those aren't constant over time unlike taxes. One year you spend $5k for medical bills and the next you spend $5k on a new Sofa.
rcpt 2y ago
Yeah but sounds like this guy has owned a house in Canada for the past 25 years
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tmnvix 2y ago

A significant portion of the cost is labour, so if you translate that into a local non-US cost does it still seem absurd? I may have misunderstood your point, but I don't think it is a good argument for why running a business fixing things using local labour should be a fantasy. Aside from that, in my view a world where a sofa costs less than one weeks wages is the absurd and unsustainable one. We've adopted an attitude of being incredibly entitled to cheap tat and that needs to stop.

contrarian1234 2y ago
I think there are two issues that are going in parallel 1. fixing stuff As long as some dude on the other side of the world is willing to make a new sofa and send it to you for cheaper than it is to fix it locally, the idea of fixing it locally will just never take off. You can ban/limit international trade, but then you're just screwing over poor people on the other end of the world for a "feel good" kind of thing 2. not making cheap crap You can find some way to disincentivize making cheap stuff. Ban IKEA.. etc. But then you are just making life harder for the poor in your own country. That's cool you can afford a 5 figure quality sofa.. many people in the US won't be able to afford that. It just comes off as a bit heartless as well when rich programmer types deplore the quality of cheap things. There are the five figure sofas if you want. Go buy them - nobody is stopping you. You don't have to force everyone else into that price bracket though The two things aren't disconnected. But in the end it seems like rich people want to ban cheap things, so that they can have more local repair services for their expensive stuff
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  The goal isn't necessarily to eliminate the bottom tier from the market. The issue isn't with that, but with the tendency for the market to hollow out, which results in there being no middle-tier products available at all. You have a variety of products ranging from literally shit to figuratively shit, then nothing, then high-end custom-made professional grade stuff you can't afford, and probably can't source unless you know someone who knows someone. Any business trying to do OK stuff for OK price is forced to either sink to the bottom-tier, or become a niche high-end brand. Or, in short: the problem isn't that I can buy cheap crap. The problem is that I cannot buy moderately expensive good stuff - there's only cheap shit, and moderately expensive shit pretending to be good (and then the good stuff I can't possibly afford).
- rocqua 2y ago
  This is indeed hard to solve. But there is need for a solution. Not because I want a good couch for 4 figures, but because we should have more sustainable and goomd couches. Not just for reducing environmental impact, but also for improving quality of life and financials for all but the poorest, by letting them actually get long lasting furniture. Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer. Currently the best way to do that is hand-cut dovetails and only hardwoods. But there's quality to be had with modern solutions that are muuuch cheaper than the old methods.
  - acdha 2y ago
    > Currently anyone who would produce that needs to compete with IKEA, and somehow needs to convince customers that their furniture will last longer. To be honest, IKEA isn’t the problem here. Their stuff is above average quality / longevity until you’re at least a couple levels up in the market. The last time we were looking for furniture, it was eye-opening to see how many companies are trying to charge 2-4 times more for IKEA or lower quality furniture, where something looked nice from across the showroom but if you looked closer it was all sawdust and cheap plastic components.
  - HenriTEL 2y ago
wruza 2y ago
Labor costs don’t rise tenfold with proper wood though. It’s the same wooden board they have to cut and mount. US wood-based markets are notoriously ridiculous.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  No, but perhaps labor drops tenfold with switching from proper wood to glue mixed with toilet paper. You throw sheets of that pulp on a machine that laminates them, then throw that on a CNC cutter, add a bag with some screws and glue, a sheet with instructions, and ship the complete flat-pack piece of furniture to customer. Not much human labor involved, and it scales well.
  - wruza 2y ago
    Yeah, but you can do exactly that with proper wood too. As far as I understand, there's no reasonably priced option like this in US. Feels like this either-or extremity is a learned coping strategy for something going wrong with wood at US end. And with matresses, and table tops. That something's going wrong at the other ends is well-known, but it doesn't have to correlate 100% with the problem.

moffkalast 2y ago

Along the same line it's always interesting to see Americans discuss mattress prices, it's always like "yeah best pay 4-6k at least and they're swapping the names and reviews so there's no way to tell if you're getting a quality product regardless" meanwhile I paid like 250 euros for a locally made memory foam mattress that's a dream (ha) to sleep on. Post-socialist countries still have an absolute shit ton of these lifestyle businesses or even medium sized firms instead of monopolist megacorps which results in a very competitive market and has turned out to be quite an upside for the end consumer.

switch007 2y ago
I feel the same when they talk about renovations. "thank god the kitchen only came to $45k", "the bathroom remodel was only $30k", "the new fence was $20k, not too bad". I know the have bigger spaces but... damn.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Though home renovation costs are mostly about local labor costs for tradesmen. I suppose I could spend an ungodly amount in a kitchen on super-premium appliances but more likely the bulk of the cost is masons, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, the local shop putting together the cabinets/counters/etc. You can also save a lot of money by being selective as opposed to hiring someone to do a complete makeover.

wazoox 2y ago

The problem is that you're talking of massively freeloading social an environmental costs of humongous size onto other people and places. Sure, "flatpack sawdust and glue" furniture made by slave labour while destroying rainforests and dumping toxic waste is cheap for you and right now... But that can't last and won't last.

crazygringo 2y ago
Sofa manufacture is not what's destroying rainforests or dumping toxic waste. And "flatpack sawdust" is better for the environment, actually -- where do you think all those leftover wood scraps would be going if they weren't mixed with glue and used productively? If you want to be using solid pieces of wood in everything, that's a lot more trees you're going to have to cut down.
- wazoox 2y ago
  My late grandmother had some pieces of furniture that were between 300 and 400 year old. We need less stuff and particularly less new stuff. A 400 year-old wardrobe ("armoire normande") is exactly as good as any new one to store your clothes, has much more character, and may still be just as good in the centuries to come.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    That's wonderful if you only move a few times in your whole life, and always have space in your bedroom for a wardrobe, and like the style. It's impossible if you move apartments every couple/few years, the bedrooms come with closets and there's no good place to put the wardrobe and you don't need it anyways because you have closets, and sure it has "character" but it looks completely out of place because it's the wrong character. If you want to preserve antique furniture and are able to, then more power to you. There are lots of antique furniture enthusiasts. But I don't want an antique wardrobe any more than I want to wear a high-collared four-button men's sack suit from 1885.

xwowsersx 2y ago

> but until the economic disbalances of the world doesn't equilibrate (that's on a centenial scale), it's never going to make sense to fix a sofa Could you elaborate? I'm not quite understanding your point, and I may be misinterpreting the sentence.

marcinzm 2y ago

The median household income in the US is $76k ($57k post taxes). Germany is $54k ($34k post taxes). China is $13k. Even compared to Europe the amount of money for spending a US household gets is almost twice as much. There's more expenses due to a lack of a social net however those aren't constant over time unlike taxes. One year you spend $5k for medical bills and the next you spend $5k on a new Sofa.

rcpt 2y ago

Yeah but sounds like this guy has owned a house in Canada for the past 25 years

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]