Ask HN: Anyone else tired of brands discontinuing your favorite everyday items?
2 I assume this isn't only my problem. I've heard many stories about people not being able to buy the same shoes, T-shirt, perfume, or jacket again.
3 I understand why manufacturers do this. I have no questions for them. What matters more to me here is us — customers, or simply people. And I started wondering: what could be done to support a customer's choice for years?
4 This is where I want to bring concepts from software and hardware engineering into the clothing industry — LTS and APIs. What if we freeze the standard and support it? We already have things like SATA or CPU sockets. Why not build a similar concept for clothing? Then the API at the point of contact with the customer is divided into a physically immutable part (color, material, design) and a flexible part (logistics, ingredients). Let's start with the simplest base — a T-shirt. Why not give it LTS support? The idea is that the exact same T-shirt could be sold for 1, 5, or 20 years.
5 Where does my logic break down? What am I overlooking? Are there any similar projects? And would you become a customer of such a company?
Thanks.
43 comments
[ 0.34 ms ] story [ 7.4 ms ] threadSizing chaos (pudding.cool)
827 points by zdw 5 months ago | 435 comments
It's not about discontinuing items but about the industry incentives that seemingly go against logic making it impossible for most women to find fitting clothes.
Quotes:
"While there are no universal sizing standards, an organization called ASTM International regularly releases informal guidelines." "There are no regulations or universal sizing standards. Instead each brand is incentivized to make up its own. When size guides change — and they’re always changing — brands are not obligated to disclose updates."
It doesn't explain why every couple of years I have another four or six pairs of yet another set of socks, from the same company, but with enough variation that now I have multiple different generations of CK socks that aren't pairable.
I believe the engineers and artisians who make the clothes you wear are also pushing the boundaries of fabric, patterns and cuts to feed an ever-famished audience looking for the 'next thing'.
Besides, they read the room - you no longer fit in those same sizes anymore!
My project is not about an audience that is looking for "the next new thing". I am researching if there are people who care about preserving a choice they already made and not spending their resources on searching for a replacement.
About sizes I agree. A person changes with age. I think this can be considered in the size range. After some time a customer takes another size, but the item remains the same in material, color, and style.
One bizarre one, i find when i find some foodstuff i like, the shop will eventually discontinue it, it seems almost personal…
I guess they do it to appeal to their biggest customers - people who can't resist buying way more shoes than they need. But it does seem weird for some brands that aren't exactly fashion houses, e.g. Ecco, to do it.
It must cost them a fair bit of money too. I wonder how much cheaper you could make shoes if you only designed one set and then fired all of your designers...
My solution is to just buy a few pairs when I find shoes I really like. Reduces the problem at least.
Also I've started buying Levi's jeans - really expensive but at least they have some styles that don't change.
(1) Clothing manufacturing is a lot more complicated than sockets
(2) Generally products aren't discontinued because they're popular. So what you're describing is a lot of cost, for products that a lot of people don't care about.
(3) Even if someone did write up a spec for a t-shirt—what would you do with it?
(4) The need for standards is a lot more important for things like sockets which have multiple ends, and need to ensure that both sides work consistently, than for things like a piece of clothing where there's a single wearer at a time.
However, I do find promise in one aspect of your idea: an infinite archival catalogue of items-that-once-were. Then, you can link to things like, as others have mentioned, eBay listings where you can still find the "originals.'
You're in a room of software developers who keep breaking and changing everyone's "favorite everyday" workflows, every time a piece of software is changed.
Even something as dumb as changing a design language is the same thing as a brand discontinuing your favorite every day item. Why did my UX have to get ugly for no reason? Why can't I go back? people cry out.
What do we do to support peoples' choice of software over the longterm when they can't choose to 'roll back'?
Your favorite T-shirt is still available for sale. It's just got a giant black box strapped to the back of it called AI. The t-shirt companies said that's good for you so you have to wear it now.
Nothing lasts forever: be it websites you visit, your favorite food and the recipes and ingredients used, the clothes you wear or even the people and living things around you.
You can only delay the inevitable, but with perishable goods or clothing that will break over time? Buy more! Like those shoes? Pants? That special hoodie? Buy a few of them.
Not only will you have backups of that awesome item you love in case something bad happens, the wear and tear will also take longer as you are not using that same item over and over again.
Good luck out there and stay safe!
These are all "semi-durable" items that get a lot of wear and tear and inevitably need to be replaced every year or two. There really are definite quality differences, and you don't want cheap and nasty, but there's also no point overpaying because anything you get will need replacement in the not too distant future, and it's not like any of these items are status symbols.
There are often a lot of marketing hijinks in this space, like "Ralph Lauren" bedding or "Nautica" towels or whatever, where it is clear that the brand is just licensed by some no-name bedding company for product differentiation, instead of developing their own brand known for quality.
There are (very few) brands that mostly stick to a good, pretty consistent middle-market level of quality/consistency. e.g. people have mentioned Levis for jeans, LL Bean is pretty good for bedding & clothing and basically have a modest range pretty consistent / high quality stuff for shirts, trousers, etc. Crate & Barrel, Marimekko, etc. are also good usually.
I do sometimes wonder if a website/store/brand for consistently good, go-to staples could work. Something like Muji or Uniqlo, or costco "kirkland", or "amazon basics", where the store/house brand is consistently good over time, and there are few other options. I imagine it would be hard to really offer the same consistency over time with shifting supply chains/manufacturers etc, but you could try, or where that's not possible have some "transition"/"upgrade path" like our old model A sucks are no longer available, the closest new options are B, which is slightly thicker, or C, which is slightly longer.
Alternatively, there's NYT wirecutter or Consumer Reports and such that basically just tell you the right few options and cut through all the gimicky chaff.
I guess this is basically what we lost when department stores went away - a curated, modest selection of go-to items at your price point has now been replaced with millions of options, 98% of which are awful.
This is very close to what I want to build — basic items that don't change after 1, 5, or 20 years. The same material, color, and style. I can't solve this problem for every item on the planet. I'm starting with a T-shirt. )
Company develops product A with a crack team of developers, cutting edge stuff. Product is shipped, so the star developers go off to another project or are put in lousy roles and leave. Product doesn't change for a few years and is in maintenance mode.
When time comes to crank out a new version, those hotshot developers are gone and the new crew doesn't quite get it - they want to change the tool-chain from X to Y, remove that overly complex (but very useful) feature, radically change the UX, incorporate AI, etc. New version is mostly compatible but way different.
Seen that happen all too often.
Nobody in the commercial space is going to follow step 4. It inhibits growth and innovation and increasing profit margins. LTS support would cost a lot of money and my guess is that would not gain enough traction to make it profitable for them. Otherwise, they'd already be doing all of this. I mean, it's talked about constantly in commercial circles.
Do you have any links or examples where I can read about this? This is the first time I've heard about it.
Thank you.
Put another way, don't you think companies have considered this? It's a rather obvious idea. So, assuming it's been considered, why don't they do it?
Spoiler: it's probably not economically viable based on the current consumer client, which is "buy cheap, throw away when broken, repeat". It's pretty sad how quickly the US has gone from repairable to throw-away products all while proclaiming concern for the environment.
I want to test this idea with a T-shirt.