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There is Chinese junk, German junk, and American junk. But not all of those countries are into junk production exclusively. I've received goods from a China sta

by dsign 1y ago

There is Chinese junk, German junk, and American junk. But not all of those countries are into junk production exclusively. I've received goods from a China startup with are much higher quality than goods from a Germany company which is over one hundred years old. The question is what's the West doing to uppe their game, and right now it seems that our side is fundamentally incompatible with the sort of things China is doing, and then we resort to blaming them for whatever we can.

ieeamo 1y ago
There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.
rvnx 1y ago
The real question is why people buy such products, and the answer is because the quality for that specific price point is decent. When you buy Anker for example, you are buying, pure China products, but still a very good choice. Many US companies choose to manufacture in China because the tooling is more advanced than in other countries + scalability is high. If you buy a 2 USD dress don’t expect it to be super high-quality but at the same time the price is reasonable for that.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  And often when I am charged 5x or 10x for something here I have no idea if the manufacturing price was 2x or 3x and thus higher quality with better QC and so on. Or does that money just go to bunch of middle-men and to bottom line of the local seller.
- fakedang 1y ago
  Also the factory that produces the $2000 luxury dress is often the same one producing the $2 Temu version. The former has a specific yarn, strict QC, lifecycle audits, the works. The latter uses the cheapest available yarn, no QC and crappy packaging.
- blub 1y ago
  Pure China products with Western QC on top and somebody to sue when things go wrong. Turns out this matters. But it’s still better to buy made in EU/USA.
- RealStickman_ 1y ago
  My favourite example is cables. I can either buy a Chinese-made product locally, or get a similar quality for a tenth the price on Aliexpress.
blub 1y ago
China has very many start-ups and one man shows shipping utter junk. Germany and the US are not even in the same league. The companies in those countries tend to follow the local laws because they know there are consequences. Good luck getting compensation when that product from AJDHJk sets your house on fire or makes you sick. In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level. You can see how this goes wrong with Anker’s recent recall, where they got blindsided by their supplier and now have to do a recall because their portable batteries can cause fires.
- dsign 1y ago
  I won't deny your point, but I think we are missing something. China's economy has more cutthroat competition than at least where I live. As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. And those brands still manage to beat domestic ones in price, often with higher quality. My point being, QC and legislation alone can account for the price difference; there has to be other economic factors at play. Also, I recently watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 , which may be smoke and mirrors and have me slightly biased. Also, my iphone is made in China.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. The thing is, there are three ways to survive as a company. The one way is establishing a brand like Ecoflow, DJI, Anker, and do what you suggest. The second one is to produce directly for some large Western brand (either as contract manufacturer or ODM). The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume. There can't be that many companies making and selling PL259 adapters as there are "brands" on Amazon selling them, after all.
    - rob74 1y ago
potato3732842 1y ago
It's not that China is into junk production exclusively as your dishonest straw man claims. It's that china can make an overwhelming amount of it. The weird shipping situation subsidized the flow of junk from China to the US. It subsided everything else too but everything else didn't necessarily benefit as much from the subsidy so the junk is what really changes in volume based on the nickels and dimes of it.
- dsign 1y ago
  Dishonest strawman? I sincerely understood the post implied China produces only junk, which I thought was an unfair statement. My apologies. In a second read, now I understand that the post implies that China produces lots of junk that then they magically teleport to the doorstep of unwilling Americans, who then snare on the junk and fall when they are trying to leave their houses to buy American-made high quality goods, thus thwarting the good business and good intentions of that economy /s. Look, I'm okay if people want to have their government impose on them what they should buy and they should not, on the principle that national capital should get a bigger slice of the pie. But if you are going to allow the government to decide that for everybody, you may as well not stop there and let the government decide on other matters, like healthcare, education, and economic incentives for society.

by dsign 1y ago

ieeamo 1y ago

There are specific regulations that exist and are enforced in Germany (2009/48/EC) and the US (CPSC), that also exist in China (e.g. GB 6675) but enforcement is relatively weak, especially for cheap toys from small manufacturers that end up in the hands of children.

rvnx 1y ago

The real question is why people buy such products, and the answer is because the quality for that specific price point is decent. When you buy Anker for example, you are buying, pure China products, but still a very good choice. Many US companies choose to manufacture in China because the tooling is more advanced than in other countries + scalability is high. If you buy a 2 USD dress don’t expect it to be super high-quality but at the same time the price is reasonable for that.

Ekaros 1y ago
And often when I am charged 5x or 10x for something here I have no idea if the manufacturing price was 2x or 3x and thus higher quality with better QC and so on. Or does that money just go to bunch of middle-men and to bottom line of the local seller.
fakedang 1y ago
Also the factory that produces the $2000 luxury dress is often the same one producing the $2 Temu version. The former has a specific yarn, strict QC, lifecycle audits, the works. The latter uses the cheapest available yarn, no QC and crappy packaging.
blub 1y ago
Pure China products with Western QC on top and somebody to sue when things go wrong. Turns out this matters. But it’s still better to buy made in EU/USA.
RealStickman_ 1y ago
My favourite example is cables. I can either buy a Chinese-made product locally, or get a similar quality for a tenth the price on Aliexpress.

blub 1y ago

China has very many start-ups and one man shows shipping utter junk. Germany and the US are not even in the same league. The companies in those countries tend to follow the local laws because they know there are consequences. Good luck getting compensation when that product from AJDHJk sets your house on fire or makes you sick. In consumer products, the German and US brands do indeed manufacture in China, but then do their QC and supervision to get to an acceptable level. You can see how this goes wrong with Anker’s recent recall, where they got blindsided by their supplier and now have to do a recall because their portable batteries can cause fires.

dsign 1y ago
I won't deny your point, but I think we are missing something. China's economy has more cutthroat competition than at least where I live. As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. And those brands still manage to beat domestic ones in price, often with higher quality. My point being, QC and legislation alone can account for the price difference; there has to be other economic factors at play. Also, I recently watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2TfbN3v8h8 , which may be smoke and mirrors and have me slightly biased. Also, my iphone is made in China.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > As such, strict QC is a must for any brand there that wants to survive and have a presence in the West, of which there are quite a few. The thing is, there are three ways to survive as a company. The one way is establishing a brand like Ecoflow, DJI, Anker, and do what you suggest. The second one is to produce directly for some large Western brand (either as contract manufacturer or ODM). The final way is to just flood the Western markets with cheap garbage and alphabet-soup brands, and make up the lower margins in sales volume. There can't be that many companies making and selling PL259 adapters as there are "brands" on Amazon selling them, after all.
  - rob74 1y ago

potato3732842 1y ago

It's not that China is into junk production exclusively as your dishonest straw man claims. It's that china can make an overwhelming amount of it. The weird shipping situation subsidized the flow of junk from China to the US. It subsided everything else too but everything else didn't necessarily benefit as much from the subsidy so the junk is what really changes in volume based on the nickels and dimes of it.

dsign 1y ago
Dishonest strawman? I sincerely understood the post implied China produces only junk, which I thought was an unfair statement. My apologies. In a second read, now I understand that the post implies that China produces lots of junk that then they magically teleport to the doorstep of unwilling Americans, who then snare on the junk and fall when they are trying to leave their houses to buy American-made high quality goods, thus thwarting the good business and good intentions of that economy /s. Look, I'm okay if people want to have their government impose on them what they should buy and they should not, on the principle that national capital should get a bigger slice of the pie. But if you are going to allow the government to decide that for everybody, you may as well not stop there and let the government decide on other matters, like healthcare, education, and economic incentives for society.