"After doing a tour in Facebook’s news trenches, almost all of them came to believe that they were there not to work, but to serve as training modules for Facebook’s algorithm." ha! aren't we all.
So.... They finally know what it feels like to be a blue collar worker whose job gets outsourced and sometimes are offered benefits contingent on training their offshore trainees.
Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more... But now that it affects them, oh my, this is bad now...
> Everyone was happy to have $30 jeans which could last one year over their $70 jeans made stateside which could last five years or more...
My only piece of designer clothes was a $160 pair of jeans that lasted for only 3 or so years. I concluded that from now on I should stick with buying $50 jeans which last me at least 2 years.
I see this as a fundamental problem of the unsustainability of our economy. The incentive of every corporation is to earn an increasing amount of money, and thus to move more things from resources to garbage as quickly as possible. "But all those jobs!!" is a stupid argument. Jobs aren't the goal. The goal should be getting resources to the right people, and sustainability for the long term.
I don't buy this planned obsolescence bs. I get that most markets aren't very free, but they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out. Companies are trying to make money today. They aren't thinking: "hey, let's put out a crappy product that will be worse than our competitors' so that people will have to buy more of our stuff in the future!"
Any company that did that wouldn't make it to tomorrow.
>they're free enough to ensure that superior products generally win out.
Doesn't this imply that the customer has enough information to determine which is the superior product? In reality, it's quite easy to dress up an inferior product with lots of marketing, and gain great success in the marketplace. Heck, look at Beats headphones. They're not superior in any way. Yet, by carefully crafting a marketing message, and putting massive amounts of money behind it, they've managed to get a fairly large share of the market.
The problem is that the consumer usually has no way to compare quality easily, and so all they have to go on is sticker price. As a result the incentive is for companies to reduce sticker price at the expense of quality.
If you ask a consumer whether they want a $500 product that lasts 10 years or a $200 product that lasts 2 years, they'll happily pay extra for the higher quality product. But that's not usually the choice they're presented with.
I think a solution to planned obsolescence would be to mandate prominent labelling of lifetime guarantees.
>The problem is that the consumer usually has no way to compare quality easily
That used to be true and is an example of information asymmetry in markets - classic example being the used car market [0]. It is much less so now, when was the last time you bought anything substantial without reading a review of it or checking the customer ratings?
>If you ask a consumer whether they want a $500 product that lasts 10 years or a $200 product that lasts 2 years, they'll happily pay extra for the higher quality product.
That's not necessarily true - value decisions are more complex than that. Depending on the market, those two price points may be in different segments based on (e.g.) disposable income. Sure, for Alice, who has $500 disposable income available for a particular purchase, this might be a no brainer, but for Bob with only $200, not so much. See also Vimes' boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness [1], hyperbolic discounting [2]
aninhumer pointed out the main flaw in this line of reasoning but it's not just the lack of long term data. Many companies change models frequently or make quiet design changes – e.g. the blender given a good reliability review changes a couple of years in to replace metal gears with plastic, which requires a teardown to see. If you go to Costco, Sam's Club, etc. count how many things have slightly different specs and model numbers than the ones you can find reviews for, etc. The last time we bought a washing machine, only one of the models which Consumer Reports had recommended a little over a year before was still offered for sale in our region – everything else had changed and most online reviews were just “we got it last week and it's great” comments which don't tell you anything about long-term experience.
In some cases, you can simply conclude that an entire brand is either unreliable or trustworthy (e.g. Apple doesn't sell Walmart edition devices which break within 18 months) but in most cases you have to do a lot more research to know what level you're getting.
> It is much less so now, when was the last time you bought anything substantial without reading a review of it or checking the customer ratings?
Besides the already mentioned point of reviews being made too soon to be able to reflect on product lifetime, keep in mind that easily available (e.g. on the shop site) on-line reviews are mostly bullshit anyway. It's mostly a mix of people being affiliated with producers or paid to endorse a product, with an occasional person which is too dumb to operate something correctly but quick to drop a 1-star rating with a nonsense explanation. To get any sensible reviews, you actually have to know some trustworthy reviewers - be it a site you follow or a friend you know. Either way, maintaining sources of trusted reviews requires some effort, so you won't be doing that for most of the product you buy anyway.
>when was the last time you bought anything substantial without reading a review of it or checking the customer ratings?
But reviews don't tend to judge product lifetime that well, because they're usually written within the first month a product comes out.
I think the only way you can get reliable information on lifetime is by forcing companies to provide it, and guarantee it. (Or put a big sticker on their product saying "0 years guaranteed")
>Depending on the market, those two price points may be in different segments based on (e.g.) disposable income.
I feel like I see a lot of reasonable sounding financing in the markets I'm thinking of, but perhaps I'm remembering times before 2008.
> They aren't thinking: "hey, let's put out a crappy product that will be worse than our competitors' so that people will have to buy more of our stuff in the future!"
Of course they're doing that. They get away with it, because a) everybody else is doing that too, and b) they know that throwing money at marketing has much better ROI than making a good product. A little bullshit can paper over many faults.
"Superior" is a subjective term. Superior in what sense?
Trump for example got tons of coverage. Is he "superior" to someone who may be more knowledgeable, skilled and would "make a better president" but got less coverage? The amount of advertisement, exposure, and just plain psychological manipulation matters.
Is sugary soda superior to healthy drinks? Is bottled water superior to tap water? So we as a society really need to throw away metric tons of non biogradable materials every minute?
Thinking that something wins out because it is "superior" is just confirming the free market ideology - whatever wins must be "superior" is a tautology which makes the word "superior" lose all meaning.
Yes, lots of crappy products beat products that performed better in practice, because of external and network effects.
But what we should be asking is about the correlation between a company's incentives and polluting the planet. In the main, they are pretty aligned, which is scary.
With regard to clothing, "fashion" has, unfortunately, trickled down to everyone. One can buy clothing which lasts, or boots which last. You can buy a 400 pair of boots which will take a beating for up to a decade of use, or you can buy a pair for $100 which will last you a season. Lots of people will balk at the 400 boots. Same with clothing. They'll buy the stuff made with short cotton fiber which begins fraying after a couple of washes --or you can buy the long fiber textiles which cost a lot more. Or wool... or white goods or pots and pans... etc.
Anyway, most people have adopted the fashion cycle --something that only wealthy people would import from the fashion capital du jour.
The problem is that neither me nor most other people know a first thing about quality aspects of materials or manufacturing of clothes/shoes, so we can't tell if the product will last long.
Companies don't merely produce products, they also produce culture. And in fact, that's mostly what they sell. CocaCola isn't going to put their product in white cans that say "sugar drink" on them are they? Nobody would buy it.
Of course. Buy buyers mainly see "cheap jeans!". They don't always think about quality, craftsmanship, etc. They've been primed for yearly changing fashion which enables cheap jeans made from sub par materials.
