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> Most people who aren't in AI sees plain as day how everything AI touches is turning into the digital equivalent of flimsy IKEA furniture. I really love this

> Most people who aren't in AI sees plain as day how everything AI touches is turning into the digital equivalent of flimsy IKEA furniture. I really love this comparison. Everyone bitches about Ikea, but at the end of the day unless you're rich as fuck then "buying new furniture" means either Ikea or some other shop that adopted exactly the same business model, because we all know that the price/quality ratio is unbeatable. Ikea furniture can easily outlive you as long as you pick the correct product for your use case. "I put my fat ass on a dining table that's explicitly marketed for light distributed load and it broke in half, boo-hoo Ikea bad" like no shit, if you need a table you can stand on then choose one with extra support beams, Ikea has these too. "But if you disassemble and reassemble Ikea it falls apart" okay cool but the cost of transporting old furniture to your new house is often higher than just buying new furniture anyway. Not to mention that the chances that your old furniture will match your new house are pretty much zero. This translates to engineers not being able to grasp the concept of "good enough" where end user doesn't care about quality improvements beyond certain threshold. Cue the audiophiles remaining perplexed to this day why nobody uses 24-bit FLAC.

tactlesscamel 6mo ago
I feel this is written from the mindset, "all objects within a set must be obtained at once." Or, perhapse, "nothing lasts anyway, so there's no reason to bother." Quality has its cost. A quality dining table could only have the potential to be sold to every room one might place a dining table, exactly one time. IKEA might sell that same dining table to the same room every year. IKEA is destined for the landfill; quality can outlive a bloodline. Sales of quality must sustain all those employed for the process accordingly. - Sure, some TLC is required, but IKEA can't even get wet. Quality also provides additional benefits. They are not only a functional object, but a wealth of sentiment and memories for the home. They are also a symbol to the pride one takes in their craft, and a silhouette of their creator's experience and deserved reputation. IKEA is for parties and showrooms/staging. Quality is for comfort and places of importance. My heart aches, that the notion of buying prefabricated trash to use in the interim of its journey, is better than searching individually for items that will bring character and meaning—as well as, functional superiority—over the course of a lifetime. This equates to software bragging about how great its algorythm adjusted the color of a Submit button to improve deliverability on a website masquerading as a web app that could have been written in HTML and CSS without the button at all.
- anal_reactor 6mo ago
  Cool, if you're rich you can do that. Mere mortals have to make a decision "do I buy a luxury dining table or do I send my child to college" and it's understandable that choosing between these two isn't exactly straightforward.
  - marginalia_nu 6mo ago
    Thing is that quality furniture can be bought second hand, since they last so long. At least you used to be able to, when they still made that stuff. Going the IKEA route you'll end up re-buying the same furniture over and over in ever crappier quality. Once you add that to the equation, it suddenly isn't quite as cheap anymore.
    - anal_reactor 6mo ago
      > can be bought second hand I tried. It's a major PITA, and transport costs alone make the whole endeavor not economically viable, so I backed off. A friend of mine bought some renovated old wardrobe and I helped him move it from the hall to the bedroom and this resulted in me for the first time ever seeing him have a heated, emotional argument with his wife. Finally, your pink bathroom from 50's just isn't fashionable. Trust me on this one. Give your cabinets to someone who can skillfully paint them (which costs money obviously). > Going the IKEA route you'll end up re-buying the same furniture over and over in ever crappier quality. I've never had Ikea furniture randomly fail on me, and I haven't heard of this happening in my social circle. Again, don't sit on a god damn Linnmon table. It's for everyday use items only. If you need something sturdier, choose a different product.
  - tactlesscamel 5mo ago
    I emplore you to discover the difference between quality and luxury. YOU can make a better quality table than IKEA with a few 1x2s, plywood, nails, a hammer, and a hand saw.

tactlesscamel 6mo ago

I feel this is written from the mindset, "all objects within a set must be obtained at once." Or, perhapse, "nothing lasts anyway, so there's no reason to bother." Quality has its cost. A quality dining table could only have the potential to be sold to every room one might place a dining table, exactly one time. IKEA might sell that same dining table to the same room every year. IKEA is destined for the landfill; quality can outlive a bloodline. Sales of quality must sustain all those employed for the process accordingly. - Sure, some TLC is required, but IKEA can't even get wet. Quality also provides additional benefits. They are not only a functional object, but a wealth of sentiment and memories for the home. They are also a symbol to the pride one takes in their craft, and a silhouette of their creator's experience and deserved reputation. IKEA is for parties and showrooms/staging. Quality is for comfort and places of importance. My heart aches, that the notion of buying prefabricated trash to use in the interim of its journey, is better than searching individually for items that will bring character and meaning—as well as, functional superiority—over the course of a lifetime. This equates to software bragging about how great its algorythm adjusted the color of a Submit button to improve deliverability on a website masquerading as a web app that could have been written in HTML and CSS without the button at all.

anal_reactor 6mo ago
Cool, if you're rich you can do that. Mere mortals have to make a decision "do I buy a luxury dining table or do I send my child to college" and it's understandable that choosing between these two isn't exactly straightforward.
- marginalia_nu 6mo ago
  Thing is that quality furniture can be bought second hand, since they last so long. At least you used to be able to, when they still made that stuff. Going the IKEA route you'll end up re-buying the same furniture over and over in ever crappier quality. Once you add that to the equation, it suddenly isn't quite as cheap anymore.
  - anal_reactor 6mo ago
    > can be bought second hand I tried. It's a major PITA, and transport costs alone make the whole endeavor not economically viable, so I backed off. A friend of mine bought some renovated old wardrobe and I helped him move it from the hall to the bedroom and this resulted in me for the first time ever seeing him have a heated, emotional argument with his wife. Finally, your pink bathroom from 50's just isn't fashionable. Trust me on this one. Give your cabinets to someone who can skillfully paint them (which costs money obviously). > Going the IKEA route you'll end up re-buying the same furniture over and over in ever crappier quality. I've never had Ikea furniture randomly fail on me, and I haven't heard of this happening in my social circle. Again, don't sit on a god damn Linnmon table. It's for everyday use items only. If you need something sturdier, choose a different product.
- tactlesscamel 5mo ago
  I emplore you to discover the difference between quality and luxury. YOU can make a better quality table than IKEA with a few 1x2s, plywood, nails, a hammer, and a hand saw.