Built to Break, a world constructed on unregulated capitalism.

Originally posted by phantomjack

Originally posted by Tranceopticalinclined
reply to post by Hopechest

 

Most wrenches are solid state items, casting would be the main issue I'd worry about, stanely makes a good wrench too.

Most items we buy are not made from solid state construction, nor are they as durable as even the cheapest made wrench you can find. Seems this Thread is being derailed for some reason, and cannot have an honest conversation as to why more cheaply made items are being allowed to be sold, yes people need to be able to sell their wares, but wares worth selling would be a main focus I'd hope.

Funny you say wrench, since I can mention something about tools and time.
For a while when I was younger, you'd buy a toolset and it would come in a metal sturdy box, now you buy a toolset most of the metal boxes are considered " High End " while the regular joe's toolset comes inside a plastic snapshut. Why the change, to cut on costs, but the price didn't drop, the quality did.

Time Changed Items, we seem to be full of items that require either a timed fix for a break it's designed to do, or it has an actual shelve life like food.

edit on 29-5-2013 by Tranceopticalinclined because: (no reason given)

How do you "derail" a thread after 4 posts between 3 users?

Nobody has derailed the thread and its very much on topic....very fascinating debate I must add.

People are arguing that there are no quality products made today and I am countering that there in fact are. They are just more expensive.

Look at the issue of firearms. I would argue that some of the best, highest quality firearms in US history are being produced today.

reply to post by Hopechest

So you don't think there were any cheaply made products in say the 1950's?

Everything sold was affordable and lasted forever?

My God....you people amaze me sometimes.

By the 1960's, planned obsolescence had slowly evolved into common place. Also known as "value engineering". However, there were still a large percentage of companies that refused to fall in place with this line of thought, and advertised their products as such. As one poster pointed out, Maytag used to be one of those companies.

By the 1970's, that list of rebellious companies got smaller and smaller, pushed out, bought out, etc... and to the point that we are now at: There are NONE left.

My god... you're lack of knowledge on the subject amazes me.

reply to post by Tranceopticalinclined


As an engineer, I’ll give you my two cents on this.

Take the humble bearing and automotive bushing for example. The trend in the past 30 years has been to provide sealed bearings and bushings for use in automobiles. The rationale was a sealed unit will perform for 15,000 hours with no maintenance and an unsealed unit may last forever but require service every 500 hours. When sealed units first entered the market, buyers had a choice: maintenance often or replacement occasionally. The market ultimately made the decision on this issue because consumers (both industrial and civilian) prefer no maintenance. People found, in this instance, that it is ultimately less expensive to replace rather than maintain (except in high cost or critical applications which usually don’t apply to consumers).

Do you want something that is “repairable” by the average person, or something compact and inexpensive? I hear people lament that they cannot work on their cars anymore, that with all the computers everything is designed to be replaced. That’s only partially true, take ignition systems. Once upon a time, ignition systems in cars were made up of distributors points and condensers, now they are all coil pack. Why, you might ask, did the automotive companies replace cheap repairable systems (points and condensers) with something that can only be replaced (coil packs). It goes back to the bearing/bushing analogy. Electronic ignition systems far outperform points & condenser systems which require maintenance every 10,000 miles and whose performance begins to degrade steadily from the instant they are installed and ultimately consumers decided electronic ignition was the way to go. Think it was something shoved down the publics throat? Ask anyone who owns a older collectable vehicle (like I do) whats the first thing they replace or upgrade and its always the ignition system.

Any piece of circuitry can be repaired with tools you find around your house. Does it take a bit of specialized knowledge, absolutely, but it can be done and components are cheap. More to the point though, mechanical systems require continual maintenance and electronic systems don’t. It’s a trade off, you don’t have to service the item as often but when you do its not a fix of a component but a replacement. As products become more complex, they rely on electronics to govern processes and functions that simply cannot be controlled any other way. Think you can design a robust control system for a sedan that can handle inputs from dozens of sensors, compute algorithms in milliseconds and respond to changing conditions instantly for less money than is currently done? Let me know when you do it.

Originally posted by CranialSponge
reply to post by Hopechest

 

So you don't think there were any cheaply made products in say the 1950's?

Everything sold was affordable and lasted forever?

My God....you people amaze me sometimes.

By the 1960's, planned obsolescence had slowly evolved into common place. Also known as "value engineering". However, there were still a large percentage of companies that refused to fall in place with this line of thought, and advertised their products as such. As one poster pointed out, Maytag used to be one of those companies.

By the 1970's, that list of rebellious companies got smaller and smaller, pushed out, bought out, etc... and to the point that we are now at: There are NONE left.

My god... you're lack of knowledge on the subject amazes me.

So there are no quality gun manufactures today that existed prior to 1970 still making good products?

Who is the one with a lack of knowledge again?

reply to post by SirMike


And that would be the point I was trying to make.

Our products are consumer driven and its not up to the company to provide long lasting products. It is there job to give the consumer what they want which is cheap.

reply to post by SirMike


This is why hubby is shopping around for a classic pre-1960's pickup truck.

When our other vehicles fail, and we know they will... we'll have old bessie to fall back to.

I love my old school handyman hubby to pieces.

Originally posted by CranialSponge
reply to post by Hopechest

 

So you don't think there were any cheaply made products in say the 1950's?

Everything sold was affordable and lasted forever?

My God....you people amaze me sometimes.

By the 1960's, planned obsolescence had slowly evolved into common place. Also known as "value engineering". However, there were still a large percentage of companies that refused to fall in place with this line of thought, and advertised their products as such. As one poster pointed out, Maytag used to be one of those companies.

By the 1970's, that list of rebellious companies got smaller and smaller, pushed out, bought out, etc... and to the point that we are now at: There are NONE left.

My god... you're lack of knowledge on the subject amazes me.

It had nothing to do with companies refusing to "fall in place", they simply didnt have the capability to design as tightly.

An example: Before the advent of simulation tools like FEA (finite element analysis) they had to make less accurate approximations of duty life of any particular component. An appliance manufacturer designing a support bracket for a motor used a larger design margin because he could not predict with great precision what they ultimate duty life of that bracket was so he used 10 gauge steel for it. Appling modern design tools allowed him to calculate the required strength with very high precision for a predetermined duty life (based on consumer feedback) and he now knows that 99.99% of those brackets will last a minimum of 7 years if he uses 14 gauge steel. Applying this methodology to hundreds of components he manufactures saves him materials and tooling (at the cost of extra engineering) saving him a few pennies, or even fractions of a penny on each of these items but that compounds for the 100,000’s of models a year he produces.

He knows that when a consumer looks at two similar items with similar capacities and features, the consumer almost always make their decision based on sale price. Because he has engineered his components more tightly he can offer a similar unit for less money. Companies that didn’t do this, by and large, went out of business.

reply to post by Hopechest

So there are no quality gun manufactures today that existed prior to 1970 still making good products?

Who is the one with a lack of knowledge again?

Guns ?

That's it ?

That's all you've got is guns ?

Now try that line of thinking with pliable everyday use products like a washing machine, or a hair dryer.

Guns are specialty items, thereby designating themselves into a completely different market all on its own.

But of course, you already know that. Thus proving that you're grasping at straws, in yet again, another desperate attempt to try to proclaim that "you get what you pay for" in an all-consuming generalized manner... even though you yourself are using a specialty item as your case in point.

Originally posted by CranialSponge
reply to post by Hopechest

 

So there are no quality gun manufactures today that existed prior to 1970 still making good products?

Who is the one with a lack of knowledge again?

Guns ?

That's it ?

That's all you've got is guns ?

Now try that line of thinking with pliable everyday use products like a washing machine, or a hair dryer.

Guns are specialty items, thereby designating themselves into a completely different market all on its own.

But of course, you already know that. Thus proving that you're grasping at straws, in yet again, another desperate attempt to try to proclaim that "you get what you pay for" in an all-consuming generalized manner... even though you yourself are using a specialty item as your case in point.

All I need is one example to invalidate your posts.

You set up the game, I'm just playing it.

You lose.

Originally posted by Hopechest
So there are no quality gun manufactures today that existed prior to 1970 still making good products?

Who is the one with a lack of knowledge again?

You dont even have to look at guns (which I love), look appliances:

Hamilton Beach 6 Speed Classic Stand Mixer 64650 - $29
KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red - $343

The KitchenAid will last 100 years with daily use and the Hamilton Beach 100 uses. The quality and durability is reflected in the price and you do get what you pay for.

FYI, that KitchenAid mixer cost about $100 in 1975, that's about $420 in 2012 dollars.

The OP is complaining that planned obsolescence is built into everything, thats just not the case. There are high quality "heirloom" quality consumer products but it costs money to make them (and it always has) and thats reflected in the price.

Originally posted by CranialSponge
By the 1970's, that list of rebellious companies got smaller and smaller, pushed out, bought out, etc... and to the point that we are now at: There are NONE left.

See the KitchenAid example above.

You want more? How many more?

Originally posted by SirMike

Originally posted by Hopechest
So there are no quality gun manufactures today that existed prior to 1970 still making good products?

Who is the one with a lack of knowledge again?

You dont even have to look at guns (which I love), look appliances:

Hamilton Beach 6 Speed Classic Stand Mixer 64650 - $29
KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red - $343

The KitchenAid will last 100 years with daily use and the Hamilton Beach 100 uses. The quality and durability is reflected in the price and you do get what you pay for.

FYI, that KitchenAid mixer cost about $100 in 1975, that's about $420 in 2012 dollars.

The OP is complaining that planned obsolescence is built into everything, thats just not the case. There are high quality "heirloom" quality consumer products but it costs money to make them (and it always has) and thats reflected in the price.

And that was my point.

I'm not saying there are no subpar products made today, because there are, but there are also high quality items available for a price.

That's where my earlier statement of "you get what you pay for" comes from. I'm sure we produce products today that far outlast products made in the 1950's as well as ones that do not.

It is not as cut and dry as the OP claims.

reply to post by SirMike

It had nothing to do with companies refusing to "fall in place", they simply didnt have the capability to design as tightly.

You're missing one very important point.

Companies were forced to fall in line or go out of business because inflation gave them no choice. Inflation caused companies to tighten the purse strings in order to stay competitive with what customers could or couldn't afford to buy.

Inflation, not customer demand, and not corporate evil-doing, started the ball rolling.

This evolved into an overall mentality with both companies and the consumer, and not voluntarily, I might add. It became a sick-cycle carousel by default brought on by... yeah, you guessed it... those that control the ebb and flow of the economy.

The banksters.

Originally posted by SirMike

Originally posted by CranialSponge
By the 1970's, that list of rebellious companies got smaller and smaller, pushed out, bought out, etc... and to the point that we are now at: There are NONE left.

See the KitchenAid example above.

You want more? How many more?

Pretty sure kitchen aid is made by Whirlpool as well. So much for quality. I want to add to my other post that I worked on the line with the higher end products. I always wondered how many people actually realize that most of the brands out there are produced by a few companies using many different brand names. In my experience this has a dramatic effect on quality.

reply to post by SirMike

You dont even have to look at guns (which I love), look appliances:

Hamilton Beach 6 Speed Classic Stand Mixer 64650 - $29
KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Mixer, Empire Red - $343

Companies can do that for a small specialty line product that sells to the fractional niche market.

But point me to, as an example, a washing machine that falls into that category and I'll run out and buy it tomorrow.

They don't exist.

Or are you guys saying that the few specialty line small-scale items make up for the rest of the crap large-scale products that consumers have no choice but to purchase because there lacks anything else to choose from due to the fact that they just doesn't exist... no matter what price you're willing to pay ?

Or should we be using the KitchenAid mixer to wash our clothes with and keep our foods refrigerated ?

My point is, damn near any product you purchase, you literally have no choice in opting to pay a higher price with a guarantee that it's going to last 100 years.

The choices aren't out there anymore for just about everything now. Fancy computerized gadgetry or not.

It's become the exception to the rule instead of the other way around.

And you guys are perfectly okay with that ??
Because I sure as hell am not... and I'm one of those customers that's willing to invest the funds to "get what I pay for". The damn stuff just doesn't exist.

Economic controls (ie: inflation) has killed all functionality in the way we live our lives.

reply to post by Hopechest

All I need is one example to invalidate your posts.

No. It doesn't.
You're failing at reading comprehension again, Hopechest.

You set up the game, I'm just playing it.

No. I didn't.
You're failing at circular semantics again, Hopechest.

You lose.

No. I haven't.
You're failing at logistical game playing again, Hopechest.

O my... So many things to respond to... i should written down a list to keep track..

It appears the engineer in the room with all the fancy speaking has indeed pointed out that the manufactures can now make cheaper products that do not last as long so they will be cheaper, and has foreced other companies to do the same or be runout of business. That sounds a little like forcing them to "fall in line" to me. If you read the post that are dedicated to proving the idea of cheap replaceable products wrong they end proving it correct in a not so easy way.

Im glad tools were brought up. I have many of my grandads and great grandads tools that i still use to this day. And sad to say his craftsman ratchet has outlasted my new one, which is broken and his still works like a champ.

There was a time when a company put there name on quality products and a brand meant something. Today not so much, just like everyone has been saying the desire for a company to make something last is not there. it is a sad time we live in to see our products degraded so much as to a cheap product of old is better than a expensive product of new.

reply to post by Tranceopticalinclined


Great thread OP.

I don't know about solutions, because it would require a fundamental shift in the purpose of an economy (rather then make as much money as you can, free up as much time as you can by permanently solvings problems through teamwork and innovation).

But I would like to add that the lightbulbs in Edison's home still work today....the ones we buy in the store are the perfect practical example of what you were addressing in the OP, an inferrior product designed to break to create continual demand for future sales.

God Bless,

reply to post by Tranceopticalinclined


If you know a company is practicing these types of manufacturing methods i.e. special tools, poor quality, no interchangeable parts, limited lifetime, and malicious business practices then do not buy their products. If you want this type of practices to end quit giving them money and they will no longer be in business. What is wrong with this model? I guess you want the government to regulate your toilet, your light bulb, your refrigerator, your automobile? OH! They already do! So now you have companies having to spend millions in order to meet current and future requirements placed on them by governments that somehow have become experts in everything made, grown, used, consumed, and invented. It is amazing that we believe the government has all these great experts when they cannot even secure our most top secret weapons system costing us trillions of dollars because for some reason the computers this information resides on it accessible to the internet. What intelligent government employee thought that idea up? We are told in government paid for commercials to protect our private information, not to use credit card on the internet, not to put personal information in emails but these idiots put our most secret weapons on a computer that has access to the internet. The very same people that everyone feels should regulate where, when and how you take a crap. Give me a break. Free enterprise, and capitalism it the most natural method for market correction without incompetency and corruption. That is the bottom line.

reply to post by Tranceopticalinclined


That's called planed obsolescence my friend. They have a whole business planned around it. Despicable.

The light bulb conspiracy