12 ms·

I was thinking about examples of where things got worse over time. They include some common appliances that use water, due to water use regulations. No reason m

by bko 2y ago

I was thinking about examples of where things got worse over time. They include some common appliances that use water, due to water use regulations. No reason my dishwasher should take over 2 hours to run. But then there's other things like food delivery. I used to deliver pizzas in the early 2000s. I would get paid $4/hour (later bumped to $5 per hour) $1/delivery (pass through to customer) + tips I had good days / times where I was pretty much always busy and made around $20/hour by the end. So delivery cost the customer $1 + tip (usually ~$3), cost the business maybe $40 a night (~2.5 drivers for 3 hours), and I made out pretty well. I can't compare exactly but I feel like today the business pays more, the customer pays more, the drivers get paid less and it's all subsidized by investors to boot. Am I totally wrong on this? But I feel like delivery got so much worse and I don't know where the money is going.

mym1990 2y ago
Not sure about price comparisons but what I can say is that many experiences feel worse. Paying 50-60$ for 3 tacos to be delivered, going out to basically any restaurant, pricing models on almost any subscription service(Adobe good example). It’s led me to learn to DIY as much as possible, making my own fun and experiences so to say.
- fijiaarone 2y ago
  Why bother paying for tacos to be delivered when you can blend the soybean & canola oils yourself and stir in salt, msg, corn syrup, and food dyes yourself and drink it as an emulsified slurry that tastes the same as every restaurant?
- jfengel 2y ago
  The price of a delivery is going to be proportional to the distance, not the cost of the food. The delivery is the same overhead whether it's three tacos or a five course gourmet dinner for eight people.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    It really isn't these days. Ordering tacos down the street has the exact same extra costs as me ordering Burger King across town. Same "service fee", same delivery fee, driver isn't tipped more or less (just the expected % of your order).
  - mym1990 2y ago
    Eh, I technically pay 0 in delivery fees due to uber one or whatever but the fees somehow pile up anyways…the menu price of an item somehow doubles or triples I kid you not by the time I check out.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Yet these companies add a few dollars to each item and then make shipping cheap - for presumably the same reasons Amazon does.
rurp 2y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing appliances getting worse across the board. I don't buy enough of them to really know if the trend holds overall but the correlation is pretty much perfect between how new an appliance is and how much I hate it. For example the controls on my new LG washer and dryer are incredible bad. They've made it hard to impossible to just set the run level manually to push you into set programs for bedding or whatever. But they never work right! We've given up on using those programs entirely because they are terrible. The main culprits I've seen are cheaping out on quality, replacing traditional controls with touch screens or "AI" magic buttons, and squeezing in more monetization streams or adding gimmicky features that actively make the product worse. Maybe things will turn around someday. There are a few rays of hope, like the touchscreen fad in cars gradually losing its luster, but it seems like we've been on the wrong path for a long time and I'm not sure it will ever correct.
- throwing_away 2y ago
  I'm also a software engineer and recently got new LG washer and dryer. I have not yet figured out how to manually change the settings, as the buttons don't do anything when you press them. I leave it on "normal" and it seems fine, and surely there is a way to activate those buttons, but I haven't found it. I could probably install the app on my android device and use it to connect them to wifi, where I could presumably configure them. Instead, however, I am looking at electronics-free diesel trucks.
  - theendisney 2y ago
    Maybe a washer can be made without electricity. Have a tank of cold compressed air and use a blow torch to heat it and make new compressed air.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      Look up the Wonderwash. It basically looks like a small propane tank on an axle that you manually spin to wash your cloths. It works surprisingly well for washing cloths without electricity.
marcosdumay 2y ago
> Am I totally wrong on this? You are probably getting more, and the difference more than goes entirely into rent. Real state is destroying the world's economy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- totalkikedeath 2y ago
  [dead]
nradov 2y ago
Donald Trump made appliance water use regulations an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. Of course his opponents mocked him for it, and it probably was a little silly, but the messaging was effective in getting voters fired up about government overreach. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-allies-call-trump-senile-after-rant-about-washing-machines/ar-BB1oOav4?ocid=iehpm https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-allies-call-tr...
maxsilver 2y ago
> I can't compare exactly but I feel like today the business pays more, the customer pays more, the drivers get paid less and it's all subsidized by investors to boot. Am I totally wrong on this? It is exactly that! Food delivery is an excellent example of 'things just got worse'. In 2019, 'delivery' was a specialty a restaurant would have to focus on to offer. Pizza places (Papa Johns, Pizza Hut, etc) and other specific delivery-focused restaurants (such as Panera Bread, Jimmy Johns, or your local Chinese restaurant) would have actual W2 employees who did delivery driving, as part of their job. The restaurant would want deliveries to go well (for both the customer, as well as the driver), so would make sure their own staff had reasonable access to food, some light training, and would ensure they could deliver it somewhat well. (They would reject orders too far away, they wouldn't serve food that wouldn't survive a delivery trip well, etc) In post-COVID 2025, "every" restaurant offers delivery, but almost no restaurant still employs their own delivery drivers (locally, Jimmy Johns might be the only one left). Everyone else just outsourced to DoorDash. DoorDash drivers are employees who are 'legally-not-employees' (1099 employees), so they no longer have any direct access to the restaurants, and they can't train well for any specific service, because they might have to visit any-of-50 restaurants on any given day, all of which have entirely different procedures (even if they are the same brand or chain). Restaurants have zero incentive to ensure deliveries go well (the drivers aren't their employees, so they no longer care about turnover, and customers have to use DoorDash or Uber Eats or equivalent, because almost every restaurant uses it, so there's no downside to a DoorDash delivery going bad). Prices to consumers are double-to-higher than what they were in 2019, depending on the restaurant. Wages are down, employment security is entirely eliminated. Quality and service have tanked. Presumably, investors make slightly more money off of all of this?
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  Probably not the investors, but the Private Equity managers always win
  - kccqzy 2y ago
    There are plenty of other businesses wrecked by Private Equity but DoorDash isn't one of them. It's publicly traded.
woah 2y ago
The money is going to the driver's rent.
gmac 2y ago
> They include some common appliances that use water, due to water use regulations. No reason my dishwasher should take over 2 hours to run I don't think this is a great example, because saving water (and thus the energy needed to heat the water) is both a social good and a private good. Your new dishwasher program might take longer because, for example, (a) it's more efficient to soak residues than keep blasting away at them, but it takes longer and (b) if you alternate between shooting water at the the top and bottom drawers (but not both at once) then you can get away with using half the water, in twice the time. Most dishwashers have an 'express' programme that uses more water and energy to finish faster, so if that matters you can still have it. If it doesn't matter to you (e.g. because you're running the dishwasher overnight, or while you're at work), you and everyone else benefits from the greater efficiency. So I think this is an unambiguous improvement. :) The average quality of appliances is a separate question. Anecdotally, I finally had to replace a 22-year-old Neff dishwasher. I got a new Bosch one (same firm, different logo), and have been pleasantly surprised that the new model is still made in Germany, seems pretty solid, washes well, and is guaranteed for 5 years.
immibis 2y ago
AFAIK the reason that newer dishwashers (new more than a decade ago) take a 2 hour cycle is that it's a more efficient cycle in both energy and water, but not in time.

by bko 2y ago

mym1990 2y ago

Not sure about price comparisons but what I can say is that many experiences feel worse. Paying 50-60$ for 3 tacos to be delivered, going out to basically any restaurant, pricing models on almost any subscription service(Adobe good example). It’s led me to learn to DIY as much as possible, making my own fun and experiences so to say.

fijiaarone 2y ago
Why bother paying for tacos to be delivered when you can blend the soybean & canola oils yourself and stir in salt, msg, corn syrup, and food dyes yourself and drink it as an emulsified slurry that tastes the same as every restaurant?
jfengel 2y ago
The price of a delivery is going to be proportional to the distance, not the cost of the food. The delivery is the same overhead whether it's three tacos or a five course gourmet dinner for eight people.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  It really isn't these days. Ordering tacos down the street has the exact same extra costs as me ordering Burger King across town. Same "service fee", same delivery fee, driver isn't tipped more or less (just the expected % of your order).
- mym1990 2y ago
  Eh, I technically pay 0 in delivery fees due to uber one or whatever but the fees somehow pile up anyways…the menu price of an item somehow doubles or triples I kid you not by the time I check out.
- immibis 2y ago
  Yet these companies add a few dollars to each item and then make shipping cheap - for presumably the same reasons Amazon does.

rurp 2y ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing appliances getting worse across the board. I don't buy enough of them to really know if the trend holds overall but the correlation is pretty much perfect between how new an appliance is and how much I hate it. For example the controls on my new LG washer and dryer are incredible bad. They've made it hard to impossible to just set the run level manually to push you into set programs for bedding or whatever. But they never work right! We've given up on using those programs entirely because they are terrible. The main culprits I've seen are cheaping out on quality, replacing traditional controls with touch screens or "AI" magic buttons, and squeezing in more monetization streams or adding gimmicky features that actively make the product worse. Maybe things will turn around someday. There are a few rays of hope, like the touchscreen fad in cars gradually losing its luster, but it seems like we've been on the wrong path for a long time and I'm not sure it will ever correct.

throwing_away 2y ago
I'm also a software engineer and recently got new LG washer and dryer. I have not yet figured out how to manually change the settings, as the buttons don't do anything when you press them. I leave it on "normal" and it seems fine, and surely there is a way to activate those buttons, but I haven't found it. I could probably install the app on my android device and use it to connect them to wifi, where I could presumably configure them. Instead, however, I am looking at electronics-free diesel trucks.
- theendisney 2y ago
  Maybe a washer can be made without electricity. Have a tank of cold compressed air and use a blow torch to heat it and make new compressed air.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Look up the Wonderwash. It basically looks like a small propane tank on an axle that you manually spin to wash your cloths. It works surprisingly well for washing cloths without electricity.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> Am I totally wrong on this? You are probably getting more, and the difference more than goes entirely into rent. Real state is destroying the world's economy.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
totalkikedeath 2y ago
[dead]

nradov 2y ago

Donald Trump made appliance water use regulations an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. Of course his opponents mocked him for it, and it probably was a little silly, but the messaging was effective in getting voters fired up about government overreach. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-allies-call-trump-senile-after-rant-about-washing-machines/ar-BB1oOav4?ocid=iehpm https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-allies-call-tr...

maxsilver 2y ago

> I can't compare exactly but I feel like today the business pays more, the customer pays more, the drivers get paid less and it's all subsidized by investors to boot. Am I totally wrong on this? It is exactly that! Food delivery is an excellent example of 'things just got worse'. In 2019, 'delivery' was a specialty a restaurant would have to focus on to offer. Pizza places (Papa Johns, Pizza Hut, etc) and other specific delivery-focused restaurants (such as Panera Bread, Jimmy Johns, or your local Chinese restaurant) would have actual W2 employees who did delivery driving, as part of their job. The restaurant would want deliveries to go well (for both the customer, as well as the driver), so would make sure their own staff had reasonable access to food, some light training, and would ensure they could deliver it somewhat well. (They would reject orders too far away, they wouldn't serve food that wouldn't survive a delivery trip well, etc) In post-COVID 2025, "every" restaurant offers delivery, but almost no restaurant still employs their own delivery drivers (locally, Jimmy Johns might be the only one left). Everyone else just outsourced to DoorDash. DoorDash drivers are employees who are 'legally-not-employees' (1099 employees), so they no longer have any direct access to the restaurants, and they can't train well for any specific service, because they might have to visit any-of-50 restaurants on any given day, all of which have entirely different procedures (even if they are the same brand or chain). Restaurants have zero incentive to ensure deliveries go well (the drivers aren't their employees, so they no longer care about turnover, and customers have to use DoorDash or Uber Eats or equivalent, because almost every restaurant uses it, so there's no downside to a DoorDash delivery going bad). Prices to consumers are double-to-higher than what they were in 2019, depending on the restaurant. Wages are down, employment security is entirely eliminated. Quality and service have tanked. Presumably, investors make slightly more money off of all of this?

jimnotgym 2y ago
Probably not the investors, but the Private Equity managers always win
- kccqzy 2y ago
  There are plenty of other businesses wrecked by Private Equity but DoorDash isn't one of them. It's publicly traded.

woah 2y ago

The money is going to the driver's rent.

gmac 2y ago

> They include some common appliances that use water, due to water use regulations. No reason my dishwasher should take over 2 hours to run I don't think this is a great example, because saving water (and thus the energy needed to heat the water) is both a social good and a private good. Your new dishwasher program might take longer because, for example, (a) it's more efficient to soak residues than keep blasting away at them, but it takes longer and (b) if you alternate between shooting water at the the top and bottom drawers (but not both at once) then you can get away with using half the water, in twice the time. Most dishwashers have an 'express' programme that uses more water and energy to finish faster, so if that matters you can still have it. If it doesn't matter to you (e.g. because you're running the dishwasher overnight, or while you're at work), you and everyone else benefits from the greater efficiency. So I think this is an unambiguous improvement. :) The average quality of appliances is a separate question. Anecdotally, I finally had to replace a 22-year-old Neff dishwasher. I got a new Bosch one (same firm, different logo), and have been pleasantly surprised that the new model is still made in Germany, seems pretty solid, washes well, and is guaranteed for 5 years.

immibis 2y ago

AFAIK the reason that newer dishwashers (new more than a decade ago) take a 2 hour cycle is that it's a more efficient cycle in both energy and water, but not in time.