I am okay with these big American corporations getting bought out, for their products to be reamed out, for the brand to be discarded, only to exist as a brand in a private-equity backed holding company.
This is because other companies come along to fill the niche occupied by the established brands. Since they can't cheapen the products any more than the behemoths can, they need to innovate and evolve.
As for the backpack product, I wish the likes of Eastpak and whatnot would just die, since they have not innovated in a very long time.
I swear by Swiss Gear nowadays. However, it's been several years since I purchased one. I don't know if they've maintained the same high quality.
But I had a Swiss Gear backpack that was fantastic, and it lasted me nearly a decade. It was originally purchased at a Target. It was versatile and I could take it anywhere. It had little grommets to pass-through earphone cords and such. It survived even through several washes in a washing machine.
Then at a thrift store, I found a Swiss Gear suitcase. It has wheels and a telescoping handle. It expands very nicely. I have it stored away and still haven't found occasion to use it.
I also picked up a Swiss Gear laptop bag with a "messenger bag" shoulder strap. These I found at Office Depot. It's really nice. It has a velcro fastener to secure the laptop itself. It has mesh pockets for all kinds of accessories. If I don't put in a laptop, it can carry documents, folders, or binders. It's been very durable.
The Swiss Gear backpack I used daily in college in 2008 is sitting beside me right now. I've put it through its paces over the past 18 years. I jogged here in the rain this morning with it weighed down with my laptop and a water bottle and other things.
Minus some fraying at the base of the front pouch, it's as good as new. I've been very happy with it.
I bought a north face backpack for college in 1998. It cost $60. It was an extravagant expense for me at the time and I felt horrible about it for weeks.
That backpack is currently at college with my son, who used it all through high school as well. It is by far the oldest and most durable daily-use object I’ve ever owned.
Yeah, I went to work for a law firm when I was 22, and I bought myself a 3/4 length cashmere-wool overcoat, and it was $750, and my parents thought it was ridiculous to spend that.
I'm 48 and not only do I still have it, it still looks like new, with no real care taken of it - wear it, put it away. The only issue I had was the liner in one arm pit started to unstitch a couple of inches, and a tailor took care of it in 20 minutes for $10 a decade ago.
I spent way too much money on a Peak Design backpack. 4 years in, the zipper broke. They honored the lifetime warranty, and swapped me for a brand new one.
That was my first time ever dealing with such a high-end product and a lifetime warranty.
Hah, around the time of COVID, I was in SF renewing my Australian passport. Went into the Peak Design store, and was talking about my V1 Backpack, and the employee there was basically intimating that [my extremely trivial issue], if it somehowwww got just a little worse, would be covered by their lifetime warranty and also, just FYI, since we're out of stock on them, I'd get a V2 instead.
+1 for Peak Design. I have yet to use the warranty, but the thing still looks new after lots and lots of travel, shoving under seats, tossed into train and bus overhead bins. The only real wear is the corners of the metal clip for the flap. Expensive, but in this case, you get what you pay for.
The enshittification of all things. It’s happening in the service industry, too. A lot of contractors like roofing and plumbing are being absorbed into private equity megacorps.
As much as the result for consumers sucks, is this just a result of the quality backpack business not being a very profitable business to be in anymore?
The reason they were able to buy all those backpack brands is because each of those brands were not making much money running a backpack company selling quality at a reasonable price. The purchaser makes some money leeching value out of the brand reputation, but then that brand value falls because of the crappy product, and they sell the brand because they leeched all the value out of it.
This is only possible because you can’t make much money selling quality for a good price. Consumers will pick lower quality for the cheapest price every time.
Capitalism ends up being owned by single companies across goods families. Private equity buys, strips, and bankrupts. Materials are engineered to fail near the end of their warranty. Companies lie about details hard to identify or prove. Companies use historical goodwill to loot the current landscape.
Well, guess what... since its all just plastic, the 2 posts that provide the downward force when turning get sheared off when you fucking use the thing.
We ended up going to an antique/flea market and found a all-metal juicer. It fucking works. And it likely will for the next 50 years.
Capitalism itself is the scam. It was sold to us of "innovation, innovation, innovation!" And its just "worsening, extraction, destruction".
> The sense that you were choosing between competitors was a fiction that VF Corp had no incentive to correct.
I can't speak for everyone else but this isn't what I'm doing when I compare two backpacks. I'm comparing two different backpacks for their features and design. I don't really consider the brand name attached or care who owns it.
On the flip side, a really good bag, and these have lasted so long I can not recall when I purchased them, are really expensive [https://www.tombihn.com/].
What is really irritating is that sometimes we see the same thing within a single brand (we have a garbage entry-level item and a top tier item which is good).
I gritted my teeth and bought a GoRuck GR1 a year ago. If it fell into a volcano, which is what it might take to destroy it, I’d buy another one. It’s still possible to find “buy it for life” backpacks but be prepared for eye-watering price tags.
I used my employer's fitness stipend to buy a GoRuck GR2, and I have no regrets. There is just a level of build quality that I desperately wish I could find in the other fitness and travel items I buy.
I'm waiting for this to happen to Tom Bihn's bags now that they have new owners who're starting to outsource the smaller bags to Vietnam instead of sewing them in-house in Seattle. Luckily for me, I've got what I need from them and expect it to last for quite some time
Private equity, and computers, optimized all the profits which drove profit quality down. We all have lower quality products to enrich a few finance individuals
The term "allow" implies that some entity called "we" exists, and has the capacity to exercise control over over unrelated third-parties' ability to engage in organized activity. No such entity exists, nor has such capacity.
The YKK zipper on my North Face hard shell broke. Got it replaced under warranty. Half a year later, it broke again. Anecdotes, sure, but I'm now buying cheap jackets instead.
Got me an Osprey ~12 years ago. Light as a feather, tough as nails. But it's not the kind of thing you can just sling over your shoulder like my old North Face bag (which was stolen). But yeah, the moral of the story is, as always, "If you want durable, don't buy it from Wal-Mart" (or Target, or Kohls, or Amazon)
While I personally find this kind of thing extremely annoying, to me, the main problem is the _difficulty_ of determining quality. The Donut media guys did a (relatively unscientific) video comparing a whole bunch of products from the 50s to modern day across several price points. What they found was that the things that "looked" the same now were simultaneously worse and also much cheaper. They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price. It was just that the brands and names that used to be quality were now usually not as much.
So it is often the case that today, you can get something for cheaper than you ever could in the past (albeit not at a great quality), and if you are willing to pay higher prices (but often about the same as you would have paid in the past), you can still get good or even better quality.
The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.
> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price.
I argue you must evaluate against median purchasing power; it accounts for inflation and (lack of) wage increases.
Comments from your linked video:
> The problem with the “adjusted for inflation” argument is that it does not factor in buying power. The increase in wages has risen at out half the rate of inflation, so sure; $20 in 1975 would be $124 today, but the minimum wage in 1975 was $2.10 an hour as opposed to $7.25 today, giving you half the buying power you had 50 years ago.
> healthcare, housing, and education ... have increased by an insane margin leaving people with less money once that has been paid for (if at all).
> It's even worse when you consider that people are paying 45-55% of their monthly income on a house that cost 20x more than it would have in 1975. Your buying power is fucked from all sides.
> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.
And there's a perverse effect to that difficulty: even if you really want high quality, it can be so hard to be sure you're getting it that you give up and just by the cheapest thing, because at least then you know you're not getting taken advantage of (by buying crappy for premium prices).
I find that the cheaper option is often so much cheaper that buying several replacements is better than buying the better one. Ninja blenders vs Vitamix for example. Adding in the fact that I have no trusted evidence that Vitamix is actually better, I’d be fine replacing my Ninja every year vs amortizing the Vitamix over five or more years. And for the record my Ninja has been great so far.
With some product categories there are independent testing laboratories that do a fairly good job of determining quality. The automotive industry comes to mind.
It seems it's a revealed preference that most people really don't care that much about quality, or there would exist a host of companies like Consumer Reports to meet the demand. Complaining on social media about enshittification and evil corporations does not put skin in the game.
I myself constantly complain about the atrocious quality of most consumer software products, but I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for a subscription to an independent testing report.
Doesn't the problem of quality now being barely distinguishable mean that manufacturers would aim to fool consumers by setting high prices to low quality goods to mimic as high quality goods (which probably can't be cheap by definition)?
If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.
I think this is a good analysis, and the topic is more nuanced than we might originally think. For me the modern problem is not that no quality products exist, but rather there is very little to actually help consumers understand when they're being fleeced by a luxury product which is no better than the "cheap" product. So many of these exist. They are "fancier" and have more feature, but do not actually have a better build quality or have better reliability.
The other big modern problem would be repair-ability. A lot of the old 1950s products might not be any better once you adjust for inflation but a LOT of them are significantly cheaper and easier to repair.
I think there are also 2 senses in which it's difficult to determine quality. The first sense is just that many things require expert attention, special tools, and or a lot of time to evaluate the quality. And for niche items, there might just not be a reputable reviewer out there. This is frustrating, but somewhat unavoidable.
The second sense is more insidious. Sometimes companies deliberately obfuscate the source and identity of products, making it difficult to even know if a product you saw a review of is the same product you'll get if you buy it now. I believe companies also do this simply to make price comparison impossible.
This is an abominable practice, and in my view should be extremely illegal. I'm very much a free market guy, but clearly labeling and identifying the products you sell should be a bare minimum requirement to gain access to any market.
> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also
> gotten harder in many cases.
There was a brief window in time where price would be a useful signal. Among all cheap crap, good quality did cost but also deliver. Then someone figured they can leverage branding to sell crap for the price of good quality items, and now even if you're willing to spend money you can't be sure you're actually getting the good stuff.
Buying not maybe the cheapest but the second cheapest is more expensive overall but unfortunately also more manageable.
Aren't all of your points already addressed in the article?
> Someone in the industry pushed back on an earlier version of this piece with a fair point: VF Corp's brands still operate with their own design teams and their own headquarters. The brands aren't literally merged. And the premium tiers within North Face and JanSport still use quality materials. The Summit Series from TNF still has Cordura. You can still find a JanSport with YKK zippers if you know where to look.
> All of that is true. But it actually makes the argument worse, not better.
(emphasis mine)
> The fact that VF Corp kept the premium tiers intact while degrading the entry-level and mid-range products means this was a deliberate segmentation strategy. They still make the good version. They just also sell a garbage version under the same trusted name, in the same stores, to the people who don't know the difference. The brand reputation built by decades of quality products is now being used to move cheap products to buyers who trust the logo.
> Walmart's JanSport and REI's JanSport are not the same bag. But they carry the same name, and that's the point. The name is doing the selling. The product doesn't have to.
Admittedly, they still equate higher price with quality, but it doesn't change much about the problem that economies of scale degenerate into market failure when there is no real competition anymore.
I often searched BIFL sub-reddit to find things quality things and it did fail me in the past. After years of broken dishware created a weird collection, I followed the BIFL advice and bought Corelle glass dishes. Only three years later of daily heavy use and dishwasher all the dishes have degraded edge, which looks and feels just like chipped glass.
Looking through specialized forums helps sometimes, but then you are looking at Hermès dishware and doubting what are you paying for - quality or art.
People used to study the items they were buying, not look at the brand.
You (probably) live in a hyper capitalistic society where many corporations promote their brands through lies and deception. That is a very strong filter already - avoid the (mostly American) transnational giant corporations and buy from companies that are mostly local and aren’t hyperscaling.
Sure the mainstream brands are shit but there are dozens, hundreds of brands for a fair price point that aren’t for every shitty corporation.
How much of it is people lost skill to determine quality. When everyone did some mending, population had baseline ability to discern quality in clothing, and clothing companies less likely to pull shenanigans.
> So it is often the case that today, you can get something for cheaper than you ever could in the past (albeit not at a great quality), and if you are willing to pay higher prices (but often about the same as you would have paid in the past), you can still get good or even better quality.
But with the advent and advances of several decades, aren't you supposed to be able to get better quality for cheaper today?
We always see consumers blamed for choosing price over quality. How about retailers taking the blame for dumbing down or removing product specs? If two items look identical but one costs more than the other how can consumer be blamed for choosing the cheaper ones? Especially in the age of LLMs, it you are building a quality product you need to include a spec sheet of what makes your product better than the competitor. Not dumbed down marketing speak like "lasts longer" but specific details justifying the premium, like "zippers made in Japan" or the stitching density, fabric specifics, etc. Consumers who care can use LLM to understand what it all means and make informed choice. But when the information is hidden consumer will choose the cheapest option.
135 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 90.5 ms ] threadThis is because other companies come along to fill the niche occupied by the established brands. Since they can't cheapen the products any more than the behemoths can, they need to innovate and evolve.
As for the backpack product, I wish the likes of Eastpak and whatnot would just die, since they have not innovated in a very long time.
But I had a Swiss Gear backpack that was fantastic, and it lasted me nearly a decade. It was originally purchased at a Target. It was versatile and I could take it anywhere. It had little grommets to pass-through earphone cords and such. It survived even through several washes in a washing machine.
Then at a thrift store, I found a Swiss Gear suitcase. It has wheels and a telescoping handle. It expands very nicely. I have it stored away and still haven't found occasion to use it.
I also picked up a Swiss Gear laptop bag with a "messenger bag" shoulder strap. These I found at Office Depot. It's really nice. It has a velcro fastener to secure the laptop itself. It has mesh pockets for all kinds of accessories. If I don't put in a laptop, it can carry documents, folders, or binders. It's been very durable.
Minus some fraying at the base of the front pouch, it's as good as new. I've been very happy with it.
That backpack is currently at college with my son, who used it all through high school as well. It is by far the oldest and most durable daily-use object I’ve ever owned.
I'm 48 and not only do I still have it, it still looks like new, with no real care taken of it - wear it, put it away. The only issue I had was the liner in one arm pit started to unstitch a couple of inches, and a tailor took care of it in 20 minutes for $10 a decade ago.
That was my first time ever dealing with such a high-end product and a lifetime warranty.
Just sharing because it was a good experience.
I love their camera straps and clips too, everything just works nicely together.
https://www.savotta.fi/collections/backpacks
They're expensive, but last a lifetime or more.
I doubt it, you didn't write about this! You prompted it and signed your name to it.
The reason they were able to buy all those backpack brands is because each of those brands were not making much money running a backpack company selling quality at a reasonable price. The purchaser makes some money leeching value out of the brand reputation, but then that brand value falls because of the crappy product, and they sell the brand because they leeched all the value out of it.
This is only possible because you can’t make much money selling quality for a good price. Consumers will pick lower quality for the cheapest price every time.
Capitalism ends up being owned by single companies across goods families. Private equity buys, strips, and bankrupts. Materials are engineered to fail near the end of their warranty. Companies lie about details hard to identify or prove. Companies use historical goodwill to loot the current landscape.
Take for example, a citrus squeezer. We needed what I thought was a decent juicer. https://us.josephjoseph.com/products/helix-citrus-juicer-yel...
Well, guess what... since its all just plastic, the 2 posts that provide the downward force when turning get sheared off when you fucking use the thing.
We ended up going to an antique/flea market and found a all-metal juicer. It fucking works. And it likely will for the next 50 years.
Capitalism itself is the scam. It was sold to us of "innovation, innovation, innovation!" And its just "worsening, extraction, destruction".
I can't speak for everyone else but this isn't what I'm doing when I compare two backpacks. I'm comparing two different backpacks for their features and design. I don't really consider the brand name attached or care who owns it.
What is really irritating is that sometimes we see the same thing within a single brand (we have a garbage entry-level item and a top tier item which is good).
PE at work.
If it isn’t, I know there’s a good chance they’re cheaping out on other places as well.
So it is often the case that today, you can get something for cheaper than you ever could in the past (albeit not at a great quality), and if you are willing to pay higher prices (but often about the same as you would have paid in the past), you can still get good or even better quality.
The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.
edit: found the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo
I argue you must evaluate against median purchasing power; it accounts for inflation and (lack of) wage increases.
Comments from your linked video:
> The problem with the “adjusted for inflation” argument is that it does not factor in buying power. The increase in wages has risen at out half the rate of inflation, so sure; $20 in 1975 would be $124 today, but the minimum wage in 1975 was $2.10 an hour as opposed to $7.25 today, giving you half the buying power you had 50 years ago.
> healthcare, housing, and education ... have increased by an insane margin leaving people with less money once that has been paid for (if at all).
> It's even worse when you consider that people are paying 45-55% of their monthly income on a house that cost 20x more than it would have in 1975. Your buying power is fucked from all sides.
And there's a perverse effect to that difficulty: even if you really want high quality, it can be so hard to be sure you're getting it that you give up and just by the cheapest thing, because at least then you know you're not getting taken advantage of (by buying crappy for premium prices).
It seems it's a revealed preference that most people really don't care that much about quality, or there would exist a host of companies like Consumer Reports to meet the demand. Complaining on social media about enshittification and evil corporations does not put skin in the game.
I myself constantly complain about the atrocious quality of most consumer software products, but I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for a subscription to an independent testing report.
Actually the speeeed guys, now. They left because Donut went to shit after getting purchased by Private Equity. Surprise, surprise.
If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.
The other big modern problem would be repair-ability. A lot of the old 1950s products might not be any better once you adjust for inflation but a LOT of them are significantly cheaper and easier to repair.
The second sense is more insidious. Sometimes companies deliberately obfuscate the source and identity of products, making it difficult to even know if a product you saw a review of is the same product you'll get if you buy it now. I believe companies also do this simply to make price comparison impossible.
This is an abominable practice, and in my view should be extremely illegal. I'm very much a free market guy, but clearly labeling and identifying the products you sell should be a bare minimum requirement to gain access to any market.
There was a brief window in time where price would be a useful signal. Among all cheap crap, good quality did cost but also deliver. Then someone figured they can leverage branding to sell crap for the price of good quality items, and now even if you're willing to spend money you can't be sure you're actually getting the good stuff.
Buying not maybe the cheapest but the second cheapest is more expensive overall but unfortunately also more manageable.
> Someone in the industry pushed back on an earlier version of this piece with a fair point: VF Corp's brands still operate with their own design teams and their own headquarters. The brands aren't literally merged. And the premium tiers within North Face and JanSport still use quality materials. The Summit Series from TNF still has Cordura. You can still find a JanSport with YKK zippers if you know where to look.
> All of that is true. But it actually makes the argument worse, not better.
(emphasis mine)
> The fact that VF Corp kept the premium tiers intact while degrading the entry-level and mid-range products means this was a deliberate segmentation strategy. They still make the good version. They just also sell a garbage version under the same trusted name, in the same stores, to the people who don't know the difference. The brand reputation built by decades of quality products is now being used to move cheap products to buyers who trust the logo.
> Walmart's JanSport and REI's JanSport are not the same bag. But they carry the same name, and that's the point. The name is doing the selling. The product doesn't have to.
Admittedly, they still equate higher price with quality, but it doesn't change much about the problem that economies of scale degenerate into market failure when there is no real competition anymore.
I often searched BIFL sub-reddit to find things quality things and it did fail me in the past. After years of broken dishware created a weird collection, I followed the BIFL advice and bought Corelle glass dishes. Only three years later of daily heavy use and dishwasher all the dishes have degraded edge, which looks and feels just like chipped glass.
Looking through specialized forums helps sometimes, but then you are looking at Hermès dishware and doubting what are you paying for - quality or art.
People used to study the items they were buying, not look at the brand.
You (probably) live in a hyper capitalistic society where many corporations promote their brands through lies and deception. That is a very strong filter already - avoid the (mostly American) transnational giant corporations and buy from companies that are mostly local and aren’t hyperscaling.
Sure the mainstream brands are shit but there are dozens, hundreds of brands for a fair price point that aren’t for every shitty corporation.
Don’t buy Levi’s, buy Nudies.
But with the advent and advances of several decades, aren't you supposed to be able to get better quality for cheaper today?
https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/
But it turns every decision into an exhausting research and optimization project.