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For the tools that we use day-to-day and week-to-week, it should be impossible for us to not be a judge of quality. A have a tale of ladles... those pieces of k

For the tools that we use day-to-day and week-to-week, it should be impossible for us to not be a judge of quality. A have a tale of ladles... those pieces of kitchenware that we use to slop soup into our bowls. For years and years, I'd only had really horrible, shitty ladles. Those plastic-handled, plastic-everything-ed pieces of garbage that Walmart buys in volume for 3 cents each and sells for $12.99, you know the ones I'm talking about. With bizarro neon-green colors that are so flexible that you know there must be three dozen banned-in-the-United-States plasticizers in them. And if you could find one that's just plain stainless steel (with or without a nice wood handle), it was paper-thin steel, stamped into shape, that no one had ever bothered to grind/polish the burrs off the edge. Then, just a few weeks ago, my wife and I were checking out this tiny little Korean grocery store. And the owner apparently orders everything from some Korean supplier. He had several different sizes of ladels. Stainless, in what must be 3/16ths, all the edges soft and beveled. The shape was nice too, not something rough and rushed, but looking like someone who cared about design actually spent time on that. And the small one was like $3.89 and the large was $7-something. This did not come from a Chinese factory. Am I a world-renowned ladle expert? Do I have a PhD in ladelology? No. Hell, as a utensil, it's probably one that I only use twice a year. I couldn't design a die to make one of these, I couldn't tell you if the hydraulic press needed to be 50tons or 250tons, I'm not very knowledgeable at all about any detail that matters. I just care (some interesting psychology there... childhood trauma or something). I don't think anyone needs to be especially qualified to judge the quality of products that they do or will use. Everyday experience should suffice, and the only people who might not manage that are kids who have just recently graduated and mama's not doing their laundry for them anymore.

geodel 2y ago
For long time I used to think about crappy ladles and why steel ones in decent shapes not available in US stores. The kind that I had in India would last lifetime. Finally I found these kind of things in webstaurant store. Seems this kind of stuff is readily available in catering/ restaurant supply stores. Things mainstream stores sell is all inspired from Tv, media celebrity cooking etc. This stuff is more fragile but supposedly fancy looking. I now have stuff more practical, reliable and all steel (or at least part that touch food) from catering stores.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  You can buy a good ladle in a US retail store, you just have to pay $30+ for it: https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-stainless-steel-ladle/s406817 https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-stainless-st... For something that should last forever, $30 isn’t too bad. It’s basically impossible to get a quality product at a Target or Walmart type store.
  - datadrivenangel 2y ago
    Crate and Barrel is decidedly for the market segment of "more money than ability to discern quality and wants social status". The last time I went into one, they had $70 ice bucket tongs that looked amazing but had no teeth, which totally defeat the point of ice tongs.
palata 2y ago
I understand that you generally agree with me: people care about quality. > I don't think anyone needs to be especially qualified to judge the quality of products that they do or will use. In your example, though, what you have done is try multiple models over multiple years, while the use-case hasn't changed one bit. So you have found an example where you could actually test multiple products yourself, and then decide which one you like better. Many times it's not like that. If you buy a smartphone today, you can't test 4 different models for 2 months and then choose. So you will have to pick one. And in a couple years, when this one is not good enough, you will have to buy a new one. But everything will have evolved: websites will be even bulkier and slower to load, mobile apps will be more Javascript wrappers on top of cross-platform frameworks etc etc that made them faster to write, etc. So the new phone you will buy will not compare to the old one, because it won't live in the same world. Therefore you end up in the same situation: you need to buy a smartphone, you can test 4 different models for 2 months, and you don't know if the ones that are more expensive are better.
- lambertsimnel 2y ago
  > In your example, though, what you have done is try multiple models over multiple years, while the use-case hasn't changed one bit. So you have found an example where you could actually test multiple products yourself, and then decide which one you like better. Isn't it a bit puzzling that inferior ladles proliferate, though? You don't need to work in catering or have any particular training to recognise superior ladles, but it's more difficult to buy a ladle of reasonable quality than an inferior one. Why is that? I can think of a few possible reasons: 1) Because a sufficiently large proportion of buyers are too inexperienced to know better? Maybe they'll choose the high-quality option next time. This could explain buyers' behaviour - often including mine - but I don't think it explains the behaviour of retailers or manufacturers with brands to protect. 2) Because people pay so much more attention to big purchases than small ones? You might use a ladle quite frequently, and even an inferior one might last longer than a smartphone, so it might warrant some thought even though it's inexpensive. 3) Because too many buyers are poor? If I correctly understand the comment you're replying to, the inferior ladles were actually actually less expensive, but cost could contribute to other cases of buyers choosing worse value products. 4) Because people are suggestible, and the decision about which to buy is partly made for them? Maybe the inferior ladles are more expensive because of the resources put into putting them in front of so many buyers.

geodel 2y ago

For long time I used to think about crappy ladles and why steel ones in decent shapes not available in US stores. The kind that I had in India would last lifetime. Finally I found these kind of things in webstaurant store. Seems this kind of stuff is readily available in catering/ restaurant supply stores. Things mainstream stores sell is all inspired from Tv, media celebrity cooking etc. This stuff is more fragile but supposedly fancy looking. I now have stuff more practical, reliable and all steel (or at least part that touch food) from catering stores.

quickthrowman 2y ago
You can buy a good ladle in a US retail store, you just have to pay $30+ for it: https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-stainless-steel-ladle/s406817 https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-stainless-st... For something that should last forever, $30 isn’t too bad. It’s basically impossible to get a quality product at a Target or Walmart type store.
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Crate and Barrel is decidedly for the market segment of "more money than ability to discern quality and wants social status". The last time I went into one, they had $70 ice bucket tongs that looked amazing but had no teeth, which totally defeat the point of ice tongs.

palata 2y ago

I understand that you generally agree with me: people care about quality. > I don't think anyone needs to be especially qualified to judge the quality of products that they do or will use. In your example, though, what you have done is try multiple models over multiple years, while the use-case hasn't changed one bit. So you have found an example where you could actually test multiple products yourself, and then decide which one you like better. Many times it's not like that. If you buy a smartphone today, you can't test 4 different models for 2 months and then choose. So you will have to pick one. And in a couple years, when this one is not good enough, you will have to buy a new one. But everything will have evolved: websites will be even bulkier and slower to load, mobile apps will be more Javascript wrappers on top of cross-platform frameworks etc etc that made them faster to write, etc. So the new phone you will buy will not compare to the old one, because it won't live in the same world. Therefore you end up in the same situation: you need to buy a smartphone, you can test 4 different models for 2 months, and you don't know if the ones that are more expensive are better.

lambertsimnel 2y ago
> In your example, though, what you have done is try multiple models over multiple years, while the use-case hasn't changed one bit. So you have found an example where you could actually test multiple products yourself, and then decide which one you like better. Isn't it a bit puzzling that inferior ladles proliferate, though? You don't need to work in catering or have any particular training to recognise superior ladles, but it's more difficult to buy a ladle of reasonable quality than an inferior one. Why is that? I can think of a few possible reasons: 1) Because a sufficiently large proportion of buyers are too inexperienced to know better? Maybe they'll choose the high-quality option next time. This could explain buyers' behaviour - often including mine - but I don't think it explains the behaviour of retailers or manufacturers with brands to protect. 2) Because people pay so much more attention to big purchases than small ones? You might use a ladle quite frequently, and even an inferior one might last longer than a smartphone, so it might warrant some thought even though it's inexpensive. 3) Because too many buyers are poor? If I correctly understand the comment you're replying to, the inferior ladles were actually actually less expensive, but cost could contribute to other cases of buyers choosing worse value products. 4) Because people are suggestible, and the decision about which to buy is partly made for them? Maybe the inferior ladles are more expensive because of the resources put into putting them in front of so many buyers.