4 ms·

That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? I would say yes, at least in some cases. High-q

That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? I would say yes, at least in some cases. High-quality, direct-to-consumer brands are great. I rely on purchasing guides for many of my buys and those point me to brands whose primary attribute is quality (or cost effectiveness) instead of marketing or historic adoption. That's great for me and great for the company! But many people haven't adapted to ecommerce like that. I think that will change as people learn to have more suspicion and place more of their trust in neutral third parties (historically how you made purchases when everything was local and your community gossiped about which places were good and bad). Yeah, there will be issues when those third parties turn out not to be trustworthy (like Yelp), but I think overall the ability to make well-informed purchasing decisions has never been higher. People are just slow to change their habits for this new world.

thrance 2y ago
I really don't believe people will be able to adapt to navigating a system that is designed (and constantly redesigned) to make them buy cheap garbage. Young people are not much more tech-literate than their elders.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? Not really, as the gradient points towards those companies cheapening out or folding. After all, under information asymmetry, companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those selling mid-quality goods for mid-level price honestly. > I rely on purchasing guides for many of my buys and those point me to brands whose primary attribute is quality (or cost effectiveness) instead of marketing or historic adoption. That's great for me and great for the company! That's assuming any of those guides aren't paid advertisements, which I believe most are. Even Wirecutter is questionable nowadays. And that's before considering that manufacturers do stuff like giving first high-quality batch of products to reviewers, and then, couple months down the line, swapping components and process for cheaper, low-quality ones, but retaining the SKU.
- FridgeSeal 2y ago
  > companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those… 100%, and to make matters worse - the consequences don’t even matter to them. They don’t care if people find out, because all they have to do is outlast that medium price/quality point business and they’ve won, and once they’ve won, it’s game over, that middle section isn’t coming back anytime soon.
downWidOutaFite 2y ago
Nope. Marketers always spam, buy or copy any “neutral third party” to death.
izacus 2y ago
With increasing size of corporations (which buyout competition to create market monopolies) the market economy is turning into a centralized economy, isn't it? Just instead of an entity called "political party" it's being directed by board of directors of said corporations. And they're very effective at lobbying further to decrease chances of market competition as well. So the system you're describing is not actually happening to the extent we need in the wild, we're drifting away from market economies to centralized economies.

thrance 2y ago

I really don't believe people will be able to adapt to navigating a system that is designed (and constantly redesigned) to make them buy cheap garbage. Young people are not much more tech-literate than their elders.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> That leaves a market gap and then a better company can fill it, unlike centralized economies. Is that happening? Not really, as the gradient points towards those companies cheapening out or folding. After all, under information asymmetry, companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those selling mid-quality goods for mid-level price honestly. > I rely on purchasing guides for many of my buys and those point me to brands whose primary attribute is quality (or cost effectiveness) instead of marketing or historic adoption. That's great for me and great for the company! That's assuming any of those guides aren't paid advertisements, which I believe most are. Even Wirecutter is questionable nowadays. And that's before considering that manufacturers do stuff like giving first high-quality batch of products to reviewers, and then, couple months down the line, swapping components and process for cheaper, low-quality ones, but retaining the SKU.

FridgeSeal 2y ago
> companies that sell low-quality crap for mid-level price and lie about their product quality outcompete those… 100%, and to make matters worse - the consequences don’t even matter to them. They don’t care if people find out, because all they have to do is outlast that medium price/quality point business and they’ve won, and once they’ve won, it’s game over, that middle section isn’t coming back anytime soon.

downWidOutaFite 2y ago

Nope. Marketers always spam, buy or copy any “neutral third party” to death.

izacus 2y ago

With increasing size of corporations (which buyout competition to create market monopolies) the market economy is turning into a centralized economy, isn't it? Just instead of an entity called "political party" it's being directed by board of directors of said corporations. And they're very effective at lobbying further to decrease chances of market competition as well. So the system you're describing is not actually happening to the extent we need in the wild, we're drifting away from market economies to centralized economies.