6 ms·
Dupes took over the world
- bcraven 3mo agoWith decreasing quality of branded products, there's less to distinguish them from dupes. https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/ https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/
- morkalork 3mo agoCool website! Some examples I was aware of before: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/dr-martens https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/dr-martens https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/corningware https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/corningware
- dgellow 3mo agoI didn't know WMF got acquired and is doing some heavy restructuring. If the quality reduces that would be really sad to see https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/wmf https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/brands/wmf
- aitchnyu 3mo agoYup, need a new term like reputation hacking to use a good reputation to sell lower quality products or increase prices, sometimes from a new owner.
- RobotToaster 3mo agoIsn't this just another form of enshittification.
- Rebelgecko 3mo agoSports jerseys are funny- they've gotten to the point where the dupes are cheaper AND higher quality (eg embroidered instead of cheap iron-on patches)
- uxhacker 3mo agoBut as the Frankfurt School Famously said about the Mona Lisa that the copies make the original. In other words the copies give the original all the publicity to make it famous.
- coldtea 3mo agoThey said that, but it was already quite famous for centuries. As were other paintings, not copied, and not involved in some high publicity heist like it.
- uxhacker 3mo agoThat was exactly the point. The fame came from the number of copies of the painting. Some people say brands like Gucci became more famous because of the number copies made.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- secabeen 3mo agoThat's because Fanatics took over the jersey manufacture and cut the quality. Fanatics sucks in all sort of dimensions.
- coldtea 3mo agoI don't think it's uniquely Fanatics. All kinds of "luxury" brands have been dropping their quality standards for several decades now. And not for making some mass market cheaper products, but on their regular supposedly "luxury" lines.
- picofarad 3mo agoThey made a name over decades and now they're going to ride the name till the end of the company. I really do wonder if MBA == evil.
- matheusmoreira 3mo agoAmazing resource, thanks for posting it.
- throwaway219450 3mo agoSeems about the only kitchen things you can trust now are cast iron, carbon steel and sheet pans, because you can’t really do much to cheapen them in terms of materials except take them offshore (and most of the brands like Lodge are proudly domestic). After spending some time in culinary I started buying stuff from restaurant stores. It’s not always pretty but it tends to be a lot more practical. Glad Cambro is on there. I’ve also started to pick up ceramics from local makers as there are a lot of potters lurking around. Often the prices are good, certainly comparable to the luxury consumer brands like Wedgewood. Also we’re a Makita household, not because the usual options are insufficient for home use, but they’re one of the only independent power tool makers left. Most other hand tools I try and buy vintage/restored when I’m in Europe as they’re much cheaper than in the US. Point6 as a successor to IceBreaker I didn’t know about. There are very few good merino companies and apparently their conglomerate also owns Smartwool.
- everybodyknows 3mo ago> kitchen things Made in Japan: Gangy 300 can opener. No moving parts, just a handle of heavy stamped steel, with a stainless claw blade riveted on. Last opener I'll ever need. $12 online from the usual suspect.
- julian_t 3mo agoAnd copper pans. They need re-tinning every now and again, but they'll last forever.
- pir8life4me 3mo agoSad but true, but sometimes the brand itself is responsible for this as they cost optimize production and offshore their products. If the dupe market isn't doing it the wonks inside are busy selling off the brand name as fast as they can.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoSolvair now make the real Dr Martens (in the UK)! The high street brand that owns the name makes all theirs in the far East. Check out Solvair if you can find them, they are better quality.
- marcus_holmes 3mo agoThis is like a reverse-dupe situation. The people who actually made the boots (NPS, a co-op in the UK) never owned the brand [0]. Then in 2013, the brand was acquired by a PE company [1] who did what PE companies do and got cheap, nasty, versions of the boot made in East Asia. So the "dupe" non-branded version is actually the original, and much, much better quality than the branded official version of the product. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovair [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Martens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Martens
- DoneWithAllThat 3mo agoIt’s Solovair, not Solvair. Also if you want legit ones, including vintage, check out the UK Boot Company in Camden Town.
- julian_t 3mo agoThe British Boot Company (britboot.co.uk)
- DoneWithAllThat 3mo agoA correction to the correction! Thank you.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo agoOops. Thanks for the correction.
- brudgers 3mo agoFender makes dupes of its iconic instruments. If someone said, making dupes of Fender guitars is Fender's core business, I wouldn't argue.
- calvinmorrison 3mo agoThere's an ongoing lawsuit with another guitar maker who essentially is claimng something like the fender guitar body is basically independently / evolutionarily the only good body style and that there's a convergence and so it's like trying to patent the shape of a saxophone or violin
- jrochkind1 3mo agoIt's interesting you used both saxophone and violin as your examples, as they are very different historically. Violins are basically ancient and evolved gradually over huge time spans, yes. But saxophones -- invented by a guy named Adolph Sax and patented in France in 1846! It really was a kind of new thing, combining aspects of brass and woodwind instruments in ways that hadn't been done before. I think it's fair to say he invented it as a new instrument. (What legal protection that should get how is another story, I don't know that I like patents honestly). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone Sax was really mad about manufacturers reverse engineering and copying his saxophone without a license and tried suing them etc, for the period before his patent expired, but it was still being copied a lot -- it was a new thing people were excited about. Once the patent expired, it was definitely a free for all.
- Dylan16807 3mo agoEither way if it's functional then at most you get 20 years of protection. What's shared in both cases is that you can't trademark the shape.
- xorcist 3mo ago> Violins are basically ancient and evolved gradually over huge time spans, Hey! I understand your point and you are completely right about violins and saxophones being completely different, but it is simply not right to use the word "ancient" with violins. We know pretty much exactly how and when the violin evolved. If you found a viola or another instrument from the 1500s you would perhaps say that it's violin-like, but it's clearly not a violin. The Stradivarius is from the 1600s, the modern concert form is from the 1800s. Any which way it is far from being ancient. A better example of ancient instruments is the flute and the drum. They are truly ancient, have existed in many cultures, and we do not know when they were first built.
- 4ndrewl 3mo agoFor the vast majority of human existence 'dupe culture' was the norm. So far this is just a tiny 200 year abberation.
- inigyou 3mo agoThe centralisation is abnormal. Used to have one blacksmith in each village making clone horseshoes and earning a living. Now there's one company in South Korea that makes all the world's horseshoes and earns a million livings while each village has minus one living. And the guy who invented the horseshoe is sleeping under a bridge.
- nine_k 3mo agoCentralization offers efficiency gains, else it won't happen. Your imaginary company in South Korea likely makes a million horseshoes employing only 1000 people, and the horseshoes are good quality, and the price is like 5% of the price of a handcrafted horseshoe. Many more people can afford horseshoes as a result.
- Joker_vD 3mo agoBut think of the jobs! There used to be a million people involved in horseshoe-making, now there is only a thousand, and the rest of that million now has to do something else! And since there is literally nothing else for them to do, they'll have to die out :( The most bizarre thing about the economical systems is that there indeed were cases where former workers of the industries that collapsed/disappeared indeed went the way of the dodo.
- nine_k 3mo agoIt depends on the speed of change though. If a million-strong industry collapses overnight, it can lead to really painful social disturbances. If it winds down in 10 years, the transition can be much more smooth. BTW see also https://www.edge.org/conversation/gin-television-and-cognitive-surplus https://www.edge.org/conversation/gin-television-and-cogniti...
- cjs_ac 3mo ago> When Deckers, the company behind fleece-lined UGG boots, recently took Quince to court over its lookalike boots, it tried to bar Quince from referencing “dupe culture” at trial. > The bid failed, confirming that “dupes” and “dupe culture” — a commercial ecosystem built around providing consumers cheaper alternatives to name-brand products — are cultural phenomena here to stay. > The trial focused on whether Quince’s shearling boots that really, really look like UGGs violated the existing patent for the design. And in a twist, the jury ruled that yes, Quince had copied the UGG design — but the patent over the UGG boot should not have been issued in the first place because the design was too generic to protect. The ruling opened the door for Quince and any other brand to make a similar-looking boot, opening up a new frontier for “dupe culture.” UGG itself is a company that operates by abusing intellectual property laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugg_boots_trademark_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugg_boots_trademark_dispute
- OJFord 3mo agoSeems wild to me they would be still suing to protect that patent in 2026 (or 'recently') – cheap Primark clones seemed to be the standard footwear of (female) teens & pre-teens in the 00s. (And they absolutely called them 'UGGs'.) That ship has long since sailed.
- superfrank 3mo agoFashion trends tend to be roughly on a 20 year cycle. Uggs are back in fashion with GenZ https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/what-to-wear/a69924640/how-to-style-ugg-boots-in-2026/ https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/what-to-wear/a69924640/how-t... https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/how-to-style-ugg-boots https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/how-to-style-ugg-boots
- RobotToaster 3mo agoCame here to say this. Deckers UGGs are cheap Chinese knockoffs of the Australian original.
- t0mpr1c3 3mo ago
- thunderbong 3mo agohttps://archive.is/JCEan https://archive.is/JCEan
- mschuster91 3mo agoAin't no one got the money to afford the real thing, and influencers keep throwing the real thing into our faces.
- dance2die 3mo agoI started buying dupe frags recently given how ridiculous frag price has become.
- sdevonoes 3mo agoI remember buying a Nike Tshirt in the early 2000s: good quality, and still looking decent today. Nowadays most of the Nike/Adidas/etc stuff is very low quality fabric and not necessarily cheap (at least in Western Europe)
- tennisflyi 3mo agoIt’s not cheaper fabric. It’s “better” - lighter, stronger, recycled
- callmeal 3mo agoIt's cheaper for the manufacturer. Not necessarily for the consumer.
- pfdietz 3mo agoStyle seems to me to be one of those things that shouldn't have IP. Oh no, what happens if it isn't protected? Society spends less money on parasitic fashion?
- coldtea 3mo agoThe real dupes are people without money to burn buying the originals at 10 and 20 times the cost, due to marketing convincing them goods made with the same materials, in similar (or even the same) factories, and often using sweatshop like labor, are somehow hand-crafted objects of luxury.
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- SwuduSusuwu 3mo ago[dead]
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- zkmon 3mo ago"Dupe" might need to be more specific. What is copied? Is it design, brand name, quality, parts or functionality? What is not to be copied? and why? Dupe might affect the seller, but customer doesn't care much. In the past, people had to go by brand name as an assurance of quality. We have other means now. Reviews from other buyers, detailed specifications, return policies - all reduced the moat of branding. People can now buy any brand that has specifications they want, use reviews for quality assurance and it's easy to return the product if required. Brand is not playing the same role it used to.
- Arainach 3mo agoWe have nothing of the sort. Reviews are bought and manipulated at scale. Dupe brands come and go month to month. Very few of the electronics I've bought on Amazon in the last 8 years are still for sale, but for most of them there are current listings with the same pictures and a "different" brand name. Most reviews that aren't fake are useless and written within the first few days of ownership anyway .
- marysol5 3mo agoAlso Amazon very intentionally structures it's business to allow these activities to happen. Like stock mixing.
- marcus_holmes 3mo ago> In the past, people had to go by brand name as an assurance of quality. We have other means now. Yeah, brand reputation doesn't work as a guide to quality any more. But I don't think we have any other means of reliably identifying quality yet.
- JimsonYang 3mo ago> what is not being copied and why? Most counterfeits goods skimp on manufacturing quality. Like instead of very detailed stitching with intricate design they might just skip that altogether. For instance one of the easiest ways to identify dupes is if the brand name and design on a bag 'flows' to the other side. Obv counterfeits dont really care because they want to save money For counterfeit goods that are so high quality 1) they would only show pictures of it, not the real thing and 2) only cost like 1/3 of the brand price. Aka that $600 bag would still cost $200 if it had identical quality. This is all based on what business owners told me from when I visited counterfeit markets in China
- maguay 3mo agoAnd then you have Swatch, making cheaper versions of the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch, as almost a licensed dupe (though since both are owned by the same parent company, it's almost more of an iPhone SE to an iPhone Pro comparison, in a way).
- superxpro12 3mo agoThis kind of leaves out the biggest question imo which is that of quality. Usually, dupe's sacrifice quality for price. The fact that a market exists for this at all indicates a strong consumer acceptance of lower quality items. I do wonder, if the "premium" option were to never exist, would these "dupes" even exist in the first place as they seem to enjoy an "implied" quality that the premium option pays for, whilst cannibalizing sales.
- jack1243star 3mo ago>> Usually, dupe's sacrifice quality for price. The fact that a market exists for this at all indicates a strong consumer acceptance of lower quality items. I think it is the other way around, too many brands lowered their quality enough that general consumers no longer believe (or perceive) the "premium" options to be worth it. Might as well gamble and get the cheapest option that does not hurt the wallet too much, when high-quality is so rare these days.
- account42 3mo agoI don't think its a given that knock offs sacrifice quality rather than markup for their lower prices.
- efitz 3mo agoI asked my wife once, how to tell whether a fashion accessory is a knock-off. She said: “look at the woman”.
- sandspar 3mo agoWhen a signal becomes worthless, look for one that's harder to fake.
- tonyedgecombe 3mo agoThere is a whole world of signalling that many of us are completely oblivious to.
- dominotw 3mo agosounds like some racist stuff.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- xnx 3mo agoUnfortunately, reviews from publishers and forums tend to be so superficial and/or astroturfed that it's very difficult to judge quality without handling/using item directly.