5 ms·

Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem w

Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with. This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.

jdbeast00 17y ago
Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  Actually, I must agree with the parent. While the iphone is really great and stuff, you can bet that everything that's not absolutely necessary and even a bit more has been engineered out of it, in the name of cost-efficiency. Otherwise it would be very expensive and unsuitable for mass production. Because it is a product of mass production, the iphone is definitely not a unique, luxury item even though it's very well designed and marketed as a high-endish phone. The average middle class consumer doesn't really have a lot of choice in this matter, there are differences in quality and price but middle class people can't really afford any product that hasn't been engineered for mass production.
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    This is an argument that has quite a bit of nuance to it. I'd argue that the iPhone is a luxury item for certain definitions of luxury, that in fact it is more luxurious than something like a diamond necklace if you use a utilitarian definition of luxury.
    - thwarted 17y ago
      For definitions of luxury where luxury equals utilitarian? This seems counterintuitive, can you give a better example? (not that I disagree).
      - zimbabwe 17y ago
        I guess what I was trying to say is that it depends on what you mean by luxury. I always viewed luxury as whatever took some annoyance off my mind, so having a phone/mp3 player/camera/clock/gaming combo that syncs quickly is a luxury to me. I also really like pretty things that act very responsive, which I consider a luxury since that's not strictly a part of usability. Keep in mind that I won't even wear a watch because I don't like dangly things, so I won't even pretend to understand what sorts of people go for the typical sorts of luxury item.
        thwarted 17y ago
        That's how I define luxury also. To solidify it a little, I'd say that a luxury is something that may or may not provide utility but that isn't a commodity. Once it becomes a commodity, it's not a luxury anymore. Consider the evolution of telephone features: 1 you can just dial a number, you keep a hardcopy list of phone numbers of common contacts 2 phones get the ability to show caller ID, just the number, not any associated name 3 as part of becoming portable, phones include a simple contact list showing names and numbers that you can select to dial 4 the contact list is used, along with caller ID functionality, to show the name of the caller 5 the contact list gets the ability to store address book style information also, which is not directly related to any other feature of the device (the phone). 6 the contact list is maintained portably outside the device, allowing integration with additional services 7 the phone gains the ability to communicate via IM 8 the contact list is used to store unified information for all contacts, IM and phone, and not have separate lists independently in each phone feature. At any earlier stage, the later stages seem like luxuries until the majority of devices have that feature; then it's not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. Who's going to buy a smart phone these days that doesn't have some kind of unified contact list? Not having it would be a major hindrance, but lack of hindrance, utility, doesn't make it a luxury or not. There's a pop culture definition of luxury, as you point out, like dangly watches, that serve no purpose other than to show off. That's the most baroque kind of luxury. There's also a more pragmatic, utilitarian luxury that is not absolute but changes based on the market and availability. Few people would consider the utility of an indoor outhouse to be a luxury, despite the fact that its main purpose is also served by an outdoor outhouse.
- jfoutz 17y ago
  It's worse than that. The cheapest thing possible from walmart is still better than average, and probably better than the best from 20 years ago. Plastic drinking cups now were anodized aluminum. 10 times the price, and make you crazy. Find a (new) t-shirt from 1989 and wash it 50 times. how much did that color change? how many holes are in it? Bet that walmart shirt is holding up fairly well. I'm not a walmart fan, Old stuff just sucks. It can be fascinating and intriguing and cool, but a difference engine looses to a pentium core 2 duo. You can go buy a car for $20k right now, that is faster, safer, and more fuel efficent than anything sold in the 1970's. time == tech. tech wins.
  - oconnor0 17y ago
    Eh, I have yet to have good luck & longevity with WalMart clothes. Edit: Not that I have examples from the 80s or 90s to compare with.
  - Tangurena 17y ago
    I find the opposite. Button up Shirts of mine that are 15-20 years old are still wearable, while shirts that are 5 years old end up frayed and torn.
jfoutz 17y ago
Pop culture disagrees. 22 years ago, Dark Helmet: Out of order? FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works! I'd bet when you think of old stuff, you think of a singer sewing machine or a '57 chevy, stuff that withstood the test of time. well the world was full of crap then too, most of it broke and got thrown away. My toys are more than 20 years old. they are cheap plastic. they aren't even painted, just a few sucky stickers. Our microwave when i was a kid would make parts of food smoke while leaving other parts frozen solid. Consumer electronics? i think timex made it's reputation by being a slightly less crappy watch. You name it. You can certainly find 1 example of a stellar product that lasts for years and years. There are hundreds of that products peers in the landfill.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Indeed. It's easy to think that things were manufactured better in the good old days (whenever that was) when anything that didn't survive is out of sight and therefore out of mind. While it's quite possible that several specific things were manufactured objectively better at some point in the past, basing judgments about the past solely on nostalgia and the few pieces that are still holding up well is not the foundation of a strong argument.
  - timr 17y ago
    Small problem with this logic: twenty-two years ago was 1987. It's not as if we weren't importing cheap crap from China by the truckload in the 1980s. If you want to make a valid comparison, the "good old days", for the purposes of this question, are probably before the 1960s. I'm not saying that there isn't some confirmation bias going on in the OP, but it's wrong to say that products were bad in 1987, and that therefore products aren't getting worse over a longer window of time.
    - ido 17y ago
      > It's not as if we weren't importing cheap crap from China by the truckload in the 1980s. It was a lot less so than it is today. My parents had a textile factory till the mid 90's - and that was still a relatively thriving industry at the 80's - as were a lot of other types of manufacturing. For example, a lot of computers were made in western countries where as today there is probably not much in your computer that wasn't made in south east Asia, and I can say that without knowing which computer brand you are using.

jdbeast00 17y ago

Are you saying that products like the iphone are crap? Sure, you can buy the cheapest thing possible from walmart and save money, and sure, it'll break faster than a a higher-quality product. Its called choice. Even the high quality stuff coming out of china, like an iphone, is made much more inexpensively than we could make them in the states.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
DrJokepu 17y ago
Actually, I must agree with the parent. While the iphone is really great and stuff, you can bet that everything that's not absolutely necessary and even a bit more has been engineered out of it, in the name of cost-efficiency. Otherwise it would be very expensive and unsuitable for mass production. Because it is a product of mass production, the iphone is definitely not a unique, luxury item even though it's very well designed and marketed as a high-endish phone. The average middle class consumer doesn't really have a lot of choice in this matter, there are differences in quality and price but middle class people can't really afford any product that hasn't been engineered for mass production.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  This is an argument that has quite a bit of nuance to it. I'd argue that the iPhone is a luxury item for certain definitions of luxury, that in fact it is more luxurious than something like a diamond necklace if you use a utilitarian definition of luxury.
  - thwarted 17y ago
    For definitions of luxury where luxury equals utilitarian? This seems counterintuitive, can you give a better example? (not that I disagree).
    - zimbabwe 17y ago
      I guess what I was trying to say is that it depends on what you mean by luxury. I always viewed luxury as whatever took some annoyance off my mind, so having a phone/mp3 player/camera/clock/gaming combo that syncs quickly is a luxury to me. I also really like pretty things that act very responsive, which I consider a luxury since that's not strictly a part of usability. Keep in mind that I won't even wear a watch because I don't like dangly things, so I won't even pretend to understand what sorts of people go for the typical sorts of luxury item.
      - thwarted 17y ago
        That's how I define luxury also. To solidify it a little, I'd say that a luxury is something that may or may not provide utility but that isn't a commodity. Once it becomes a commodity, it's not a luxury anymore. Consider the evolution of telephone features: 1 you can just dial a number, you keep a hardcopy list of phone numbers of common contacts 2 phones get the ability to show caller ID, just the number, not any associated name 3 as part of becoming portable, phones include a simple contact list showing names and numbers that you can select to dial 4 the contact list is used, along with caller ID functionality, to show the name of the caller 5 the contact list gets the ability to store address book style information also, which is not directly related to any other feature of the device (the phone). 6 the contact list is maintained portably outside the device, allowing integration with additional services 7 the phone gains the ability to communicate via IM 8 the contact list is used to store unified information for all contacts, IM and phone, and not have separate lists independently in each phone feature. At any earlier stage, the later stages seem like luxuries until the majority of devices have that feature; then it's not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity. Who's going to buy a smart phone these days that doesn't have some kind of unified contact list? Not having it would be a major hindrance, but lack of hindrance, utility, doesn't make it a luxury or not. There's a pop culture definition of luxury, as you point out, like dangly watches, that serve no purpose other than to show off. That's the most baroque kind of luxury. There's also a more pragmatic, utilitarian luxury that is not absolute but changes based on the market and availability. Few people would consider the utility of an indoor outhouse to be a luxury, despite the fact that its main purpose is also served by an outdoor outhouse.
jfoutz 17y ago
It's worse than that. The cheapest thing possible from walmart is still better than average, and probably better than the best from 20 years ago. Plastic drinking cups now were anodized aluminum. 10 times the price, and make you crazy. Find a (new) t-shirt from 1989 and wash it 50 times. how much did that color change? how many holes are in it? Bet that walmart shirt is holding up fairly well. I'm not a walmart fan, Old stuff just sucks. It can be fascinating and intriguing and cool, but a difference engine looses to a pentium core 2 duo. You can go buy a car for $20k right now, that is faster, safer, and more fuel efficent than anything sold in the 1970's. time == tech. tech wins.
- oconnor0 17y ago
  Eh, I have yet to have good luck & longevity with WalMart clothes. Edit: Not that I have examples from the 80s or 90s to compare with.
- Tangurena 17y ago
  I find the opposite. Button up Shirts of mine that are 15-20 years old are still wearable, while shirts that are 5 years old end up frayed and torn.

jfoutz 17y ago

Pop culture disagrees. 22 years ago, Dark Helmet: Out of order? FUCK! Even in the future, nothing works! I'd bet when you think of old stuff, you think of a singer sewing machine or a '57 chevy, stuff that withstood the test of time. well the world was full of crap then too, most of it broke and got thrown away. My toys are more than 20 years old. they are cheap plastic. they aren't even painted, just a few sucky stickers. Our microwave when i was a kid would make parts of food smoke while leaving other parts frozen solid. Consumer electronics? i think timex made it's reputation by being a slightly less crappy watch. You name it. You can certainly find 1 example of a stellar product that lasts for years and years. There are hundreds of that products peers in the landfill.

silentbicycle 17y ago
Indeed. It's easy to think that things were manufactured better in the good old days (whenever that was) when anything that didn't survive is out of sight and therefore out of mind. While it's quite possible that several specific things were manufactured objectively better at some point in the past, basing judgments about the past solely on nostalgia and the few pieces that are still holding up well is not the foundation of a strong argument.
- timr 17y ago
  Small problem with this logic: twenty-two years ago was 1987. It's not as if we weren't importing cheap crap from China by the truckload in the 1980s. If you want to make a valid comparison, the "good old days", for the purposes of this question, are probably before the 1960s. I'm not saying that there isn't some confirmation bias going on in the OP, but it's wrong to say that products were bad in 1987, and that therefore products aren't getting worse over a longer window of time.
  - ido 17y ago
    > It's not as if we weren't importing cheap crap from China by the truckload in the 1980s. It was a lot less so than it is today. My parents had a textile factory till the mid 90's - and that was still a relatively thriving industry at the 80's - as were a lot of other types of manufacturing. For example, a lot of computers were made in western countries where as today there is probably not much in your computer that wasn't made in south east Asia, and I can say that without knowing which computer brand you are using.