It doesn't really take into account that not all products are meant to be premium. Like it says to avoid Black & Decker because it's "Built to a price point, not a quality standard". Like we know, it's not the 1980s - sometimes you just need a cheap drill to mount a TV and then forget about until you move.
But trading off a former reputation for premium quality whilst hollowing out the brand / actual goods ... is a pretty bright flag of red hue.
Looking through the list, I'm finding that the classifications and narratives for the cases I'm familiar with largely match my own experience, about 50 of the listed brands.
Principle exceptions are Keen and Merrell, both shoemakers. I've watched their products disintegrate before my eyes. Both had had good reputations. Keen, ironically, being my substitute for Teva when that brand went bad in the early aughts.
If anything, the rankings are generous. Though I don't see any marked "Approved" I'd disagree with.
... and this kind of site gives you the ability to do some more research ...
Myself, I am of the "buy the cheapest tool" first and see if I use it... If I use it and it works, great - if it breaks or wears out - or I use it regularly and it is "sub-par", then I will replace with something I do more research on.
Except - the breakdown of that argument, is sometimes the cheap tool wastes your time and it's "poor quality" actually prevents you from developing the skill and experience of performing that task correctly.
I have a zip-up hoodie from Polo Ralph Lauren I got at Costco for $56. I wore it almost daily for many years and it still looks basically new. The only issue now is the zipper doesn’t stay up as much as it used to. It will slightly fall throughout the day, and I have to zip it back up if/when needed.
I ended up buying another one recently, from RL directly, I think it was around $150. Considering how well it held up to near daily wear for 6 years, it felt worth it. People still asked me if it was new. Other than the zipper falling a bit, there was only some minor wear on the cuff, that only the person wearing it would notice.
I’m assuming there is also some way I can just replace the zipper on my old one, but I didn’t look into it.
Assuming you wear it, and it holds up like my RL one did, the per wear price can actually end up being pretty low, maybe even less than a cheaper alternative that only lasts a season or two.
People didn't used to own so many clothes. Respective to income, clothing used to cost a lot more. As prices fell off a cliff, people's closets started overflowing.
It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people.
This might be more tolerable if you only owned a single hoodie (why would you need more than one?) and crucially if it lasted for many years.
> It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people.
Esp that example it's kinda triggering me a little, because someone I know can't shut up about it.
From my perspective, what they consider "a good pair of shoes" is what I'd consider a "durable pair of shoes", which is - to them - criteria which makes them good
While that's an acceptable view, it's subjective - not objective. And I wouldn't trade my running shoes for them, even if I have to buy them new every 2-3 years... And consider the running shoes better, because they do provide a more comfortable wearing experience - at the cost of longevity.
My last ones were "new balance m520" bought in March 2023 on sale for 40€ (size 47, always hard to find). (Non-sale price is usually around 160). I threw them away in June.
I totally agree with the premise. I do agree with the parent that this wouldn't be a "mainstream" price. The mainstream is a $15 hoodie. I also try to own fewer, nicer things while keeping the overall cost comparable (if not lower) than someone with a more shitty things.
I have two American Giant hoodies. One was a gift. After around 10 months the zipper broke, so they sent me a new one.
I eventually repaired the zipper (and have done the same for the other since). They are high quality and have respectable service. I think they're worth the price. These are probably 7-8 years old now, so things could have changed since then.
This site is absolute catnip for HN. Do we know what motivates the site? Long-term SEO content authority reputation building before pivoting to affiliate links?
The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but that shouldn't be enough.
As to why it exists: when generation of content costs next to nothing, I think that question is harder to pin. The basic answer is "clicks".
Could be a copy/paste error, or could be an LLM trying to cite its own work by just looking at a list of sources used and guessing which one the claim came from.
But how far behind? Is he writing the article or the prompt?
What struck most of all is the deep disconnect between author and authority. The tools one (tools are better than they've even been) stood out as a great example of this. People like to say things got worse, but it read like somebody asked a LLM to show how they got worse, ignoring all the ways in which they got better. A human who'd ever used tools would recognise the omission.
The site may be slop and poorly made, but that doesn't invalidate that consumer products of a given quality tier are lower quality than they used to be. People like to see it confirmed because it matches their lived experience.
That's like saying "politicians are crooked, so every bad thing you can think of about politicians must be true". It doesn't and we shouldn't fall for it.
In fact, the one industry where enshittification is widely embraced is our own, so I guess maybe it's projection?... Most other goods and services are not deliberately designed to get worse over time. We're the masters of giving people something cool for free and then progressively worsening their experience until they're forced to pay.
Things like appliances don't get worse on purpose. They sometimes get worse as a combination of market pressures and regulations. Take fridges: you can buy a full-sized kitchen fridge for less than $600, that's kinda crazy? And yes, it probably won't last a lifetime, and they won't make it serviceable because it's not worth servicing given today's labor costs - if your bonded-and-certified repairman quotes you $500, you're going to toss it out either way.
I sure wasn't expecting to see multi-level-marketing company Cutco on the list of "Approved" vendors. I guess it depends on which moral failing you're monitoring.
I see Lodge is the first entry on their "approved" list: "The anchor of the entire counter-list." Everything I've heard from the cast iron nerds is that modern Lodge is crap because they switched to the cheaper sand casting process, which leaves a rough finish that is a PITA to season. Selling out to private equity is not a prerequisite to enshittification.
I wonder if there’s an inverse of this: brands that actually got better over time because they don’t have massive brand history to fall back on, or simply because they actually care.
The site lists "Approved" companies that have not been enshittified by private equity. What springs to mind for me are scissor manufacturers Ernest Wright and Whiteley. They maintained quality, relied on expert workers and aim to keep high quality staff for their career and hire people to learn manual skills.
The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.
Another interesting example from the UK is Howies. They were bought by Timberland, which then in succession got bought by VF, a big US conglomerate. The Howies brand was small and insignificant globally so the management of Howies were allowed to buy the company back and it continues as a niche
Private equity companies exist in a range of sizes, some buying big multinational brands and others buying small local brands. It's a omnivorous predator and it's down to the owners of companies to resist the temptation of money.
It's difficult to keep track over time, however. Brands will build up a reputation as being the one that's actually good for a particular product, and then for one reason or another reduce in quality while relying on their brand history. And it can take a long time for that word of mouth reputation to die off. The effect is bolstered by people who own older generations of the product citing longevity.
An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines. People in the know now look for *used* Speed Queen machines, but casual searches will still turn up the old reputation.
> An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines.
I should have figured when I noticed my local appliance store starting selling them. That was my plan for when the Samsung garbage that came with my house breaks. What's the quality machine now?
I'm not aware of one. And I suspect that Speed Queen is still better than the usual suspects. But they've shifted to some plastic parts, more electronics, that sort of thing.
Yeah it's quite interesting how most of the decline of great brands came as a result of ownership changes, not complacency on part of the owner/founder.
I've actually found AI a great resource for finding brands that offer great value for money by buying from obscure factories/brands with the same quality attributes as major brands, but without all the marketing spend and brand margin to subsidize.
This is actually a terrible use for AI, since it's going to regurgitate the marketing astroturfing on Reddit without showing you the source so you can see it's all bots.
It's not if you use it correctly. If you say "Find me good brands for X", then yes you'll get bad stuff.
I said something like:
"Identify [category]-making cluster regions in Europe (where I am), research the manufacturers/companies you find and see if they have online stores."
Once I had that list and found stuff I liked, I sent what I liked back to the AI and asked it to find me items of comparable build quality from better-known brands."
I did this latest step so that I could have a benchmark and to see if I was actually getting a better deal or if I could just buy from the big brand.
The trick was to specify the exact process I'd like to have run, but wouldn't take the time to do.
I ended up buying stuff directly from an obscure manufacturer's Shopify store for 1/3 the price I would've paid at a big brand. I think this could work in any product category where quality markers are somewhat objective and standardized.
I'm moderately sure that there's a part of private equity that would be content with a steady profit (at the right price). It's just not the part that you usually hear about.
The path to "get rich quick" is selling a lot of cheap junk for a high price. In order to make this work you need to constantly be on the lookout for a new scheme though as the money will run out on the old one fast.
The get rich not quick as quick (and perhaps not quite as rich) it make a good quality product with consistent margins as you earn a reputation.
>The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.
The corporate ownership is interesting. I generally don’t buy brands. They just get my first attention.
What sucks about brands is the marketing that drowns out the signals from other brands making them impossible to find or discover. Come to think of it, that’s sort of like everything else these days. (The Corruptor in Chief being a skilled practitioner). It’s why ChatAi is so effective over google search. The latter pushes the most discussed or linked or read (whatever the Google ranking algorithm is doing these days to put crap content at the top).
Yeah not sure. Barbour for example has a few good models that are produced in England. The rest is from China and not up to standard. Well known, but this page just lists it as "approved". Same for carhartt actually.
I understand vibe coding a website if you only care about putting out the info but this is sloppenheimer levels of garbage. It reeks of stunted, far up its own ass Claude-isms everywhere and none of the prose is remotely readable without wanting to running headbutt a wall. Seriously, "Private Equity" was too long so you decided to write "Ownership Type: PE-owned"? I despise ai writing so much and shame on you.
I have a hard time with the Instant Pot case. If you have their first generation product, you never have to buy another one. This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products. It's really hard to get the customers to pay a premium for something that will last for 50 years but hasn't proven the ability to do so yet.
Not really sure how to solve this particular dilemma. I think Apple brushes up against it with the quality of their products too. I know of people who still use iPhones with a single digit in the model name. I am still on my M1 MBP.
> This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products.
I don't understand how "their first product was too good, so they had to start making worse ones" isn't "worse on purpose". It seems like a paradigm case of "worse on purpose" to me. What am I missing?
This is a myth. Instant Pot was purchased by private equity parasites when it first became popular, and they quickly extracted all value and destroyed the company when they saw it wouldn't keep growing exponentially forever.
It's possible the company would have failed on its own, but we'll never know, and it wouldn't be because their product was too good. If that were the case then all the recommended alternatives in the Worse on Purpose article would also be out of business. This company looks pretty comparable, and has been making basically one thing very well for 100 years: https://www.allamerican1930.com/pages/about. How often do people need to buy a new high quality pressure canner? They seem to be making it work despite durable products in a relatively niche market.
I’d like to know what’s supposed to be bad about a late-model Instant Pot. We have one that’s at least ten years old, and we just bought a 3 quart one. AFAICT, it’s the same thing only smaller. Buttons seem the same, seals look to be the same spec. I’m not saying there isn’t an internal difference, but painting it with “owned by PE, bad!” without further information isn’t helpful.
I’m surprised to see Cutco as approved. I’ve never used their knives, I only know them as the brand that tricks young people into selling their stuff through misleading job postings. It always seemed like a scummy business, which always makes me assume low quality.
In a K shaped economy, there is no success in making quality goods at reasonable prices. There’s no middle class to buy them. You can make luxury goods for wealthy customers who do not care about price, or you can make absolute garbage to sell to the masses in bulk.
If you want to bring back quality goods and services, end wealth inequality. Tax the rich.
FWIW, I was with you until the "Tax the rich" bit.
Considering how many people the average "rich" person employs, they are generating plenty of tax revenue.
Not quite sure how you got that out of my comment, but no.
In the US at least, those classified as poor have a very low tax burden, in many cases they pay $0, or close to $0 in federal taxes after standard deductions.
US taxes are wildly regressive. Last time Elon's taxes came up, I calculated that he pays taxes at about 1% the rate that I do (and most of us here do). Crazy!
I think "Tax the rich" is the wrong slogan. What we need is to incentivize sharing the progress we are making in terms of productivity widely instead of all the benefits going to a few. For example some people are talking about giving company shares to all workers. This would align the incentives for all workers in the company to do better and then benefiting instead of just the top few percent.
I wonder if this could be achieved by changing the tax code.
The moment tax policy goes into a wonky side alley it can be bought and paid for. Frontal assault is the only strategy that can possibly work for this one.
Geez, the rich already take credit for the things their employees do...and now you want to give them credit for the taxes their employees paid too! Wild!
Yep, and you see a similar thing with government spending and presumption of waste.
Sure, government spending can be wasteful. But it's also generally going into the economy. It's buying stuff from companies who use the revenue to pay their employees and supply chains. It's paying government employees who spend their pay on places to live, food to eat, entertainment, etc. Some folks act like that money disappears. Waste or not, governments aren't generally hoarding cash, they're spending it.
Also, a lot of it makes no sense. Bonobos is listed as "Avoid" because it was bought out, not because the product was made worse in any way. Some entries have reasoning about avoiding because the product was made worse, but most are just "company was sold" or "owned by a conglomerate"
That isn't reason enough for me to avoid, maybe to watch for things, but not avoid. Wake me when a product is worse on purpose, like the title claims.
And it's just ai slopped text too. This is the reason ThermoWorks is "Approved"
> Independent and honest; manufacturing is English rather than American, which matters for framing but not for stewardship
What does that even mean? That says absolutely nothing.
Same with the reason lodge is approved:
> Family-owned, US-made, priced honestly. The anchor of the entire counter-list.
Says nothing besides the AI wrote everything, and likely claude.
Completely doesn't answer the AI question, nor the "who's paying for this" question. Because presumably it's not a hobbyist buying every tool, mattress, and boot in the world annually.
Can you imagine being a top guy at Palantir in "AI Strategy" and this is your big move? Shows zero creativity, quality of work, just slop. I would quit if I had to work for this guy as my boss. We have better engineers who can use, productize, and monetize AI.
EDIT: wait this guy is non-tech. It actually tracks a lot more now. Not as a knock against non-tech people using AI, just that I would have been very disappointed in Palantir if they had a top AI engineer create something like this after leaving. You would assume they are more judicious about the markers they look for in hiring, but for a more salesy, soft skills role, a product like this makes perfect sense and isn't unimpressive.
Site is hard to use and navigate and make sense of, because of all the ai slop. If the creators spent more effort tuning the language and UI it would be more usable. Right now, not usable for me.
It doesn't really take into account that not all products are meant to be premium. Like it says to avoid Black & Decker because it's "Built to a price point, not a quality standard". Like we know, it's not the 1980s - sometimes you just need a cheap drill to mount a TV and then forget about until you move.
No, not all products need be premium.
But trading off a former reputation for premium quality whilst hollowing out the brand / actual goods ... is a pretty bright flag of red hue.
Looking through the list, I'm finding that the classifications and narratives for the cases I'm familiar with largely match my own experience, about 50 of the listed brands.
Principle exceptions are Keen and Merrell, both shoemakers. I've watched their products disintegrate before my eyes. Both had had good reputations. Keen, ironically, being my substitute for Teva when that brand went bad in the early aughts.
If anything, the rankings are generous. Though I don't see any marked "Approved" I'd disagree with.
I wouldn't need the site for these situations, just buy what looks good at Lowe's or Target and don't worry if the brand is worse than the 1980s.
Wonder how much money "Worse on Purpose" has been offered so far.
I'd assume we can rent one in this era of renting.. everything.
... and this kind of site gives you the ability to do some more research ...
Myself, I am of the "buy the cheapest tool" first and see if I use it... If I use it and it works, great - if it breaks or wears out - or I use it regularly and it is "sub-par", then I will replace with something I do more research on.
Except - the breakdown of that argument, is sometimes the cheap tool wastes your time and it's "poor quality" actually prevents you from developing the skill and experience of performing that task correctly.
Tools are (can be) cheap.
An electric drill from Harbor Freight costs as much as breakfast from Dennys.
You going to pass it on to your kids? No. But maybe you don’t need to.
Man, I clicked on "American Giant", which the website says is known for "Quality US-made staples at mainstream prices".
Then I see how much a zip-up hoodie costs: $168.
I guess I'm not in the mainstream anymore, yikes.
I have a zip-up hoodie from Polo Ralph Lauren I got at Costco for $56. I wore it almost daily for many years and it still looks basically new. The only issue now is the zipper doesn’t stay up as much as it used to. It will slightly fall throughout the day, and I have to zip it back up if/when needed.
I ended up buying another one recently, from RL directly, I think it was around $150. Considering how well it held up to near daily wear for 6 years, it felt worth it. People still asked me if it was new. Other than the zipper falling a bit, there was only some minor wear on the cuff, that only the person wearing it would notice.
I’m assuming there is also some way I can just replace the zipper on my old one, but I didn’t look into it.
Assuming you wear it, and it holds up like my RL one did, the per wear price can actually end up being pretty low, maybe even less than a cheaper alternative that only lasts a season or two.
People didn't used to own so many clothes. Respective to income, clothing used to cost a lot more. As prices fell off a cliff, people's closets started overflowing.
It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people.
This might be more tolerable if you only owned a single hoodie (why would you need more than one?) and crucially if it lasted for many years.
> It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people.
Esp that example it's kinda triggering me a little, because someone I know can't shut up about it.
From my perspective, what they consider "a good pair of shoes" is what I'd consider a "durable pair of shoes", which is - to them - criteria which makes them good
While that's an acceptable view, it's subjective - not objective. And I wouldn't trade my running shoes for them, even if I have to buy them new every 2-3 years... And consider the running shoes better, because they do provide a more comfortable wearing experience - at the cost of longevity.
What running shoes are you buying that last 2-3 years?
My last ones were "new balance m520" bought in March 2023 on sale for 40€ (size 47, always hard to find). (Non-sale price is usually around 160). I threw them away in June.
I totally agree with the premise. I do agree with the parent that this wouldn't be a "mainstream" price. The mainstream is a $15 hoodie. I also try to own fewer, nicer things while keeping the overall cost comparable (if not lower) than someone with a more shitty things.
I have two American Giant hoodies. One was a gift. After around 10 months the zipper broke, so they sent me a new one.
I eventually repaired the zipper (and have done the same for the other since). They are high quality and have respectable service. I think they're worth the price. These are probably 7-8 years old now, so things could have changed since then.
Might’ve been one of the earlier entries. When I first purchased a zip up hoodie from American Giant 10ish years ago they were around $65.
This site is absolute catnip for HN. Do we know what motivates the site? Long-term SEO content authority reputation building before pivoting to affiliate links?
The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but that shouldn't be enough.
As to why it exists: when generation of content costs next to nothing, I think that question is harder to pin. The basic answer is "clicks".
This page [0] didn't read as very AI-generated to me. However, it had an interesting link:
> within days of closing a Cornell partner on the new board emailed the CEO to ask, "Is there fraud going on???"
(Italicised part is the link) linking to [1].
When I search that page, I cannot find the word 'fraud' let alone anything like that quote.
It's highly suspicious when a linked claim does not support the claim.
[0]: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-...
[1]: https://fortune.com/2024/11/19/crock-pot-explosion-cornell-c...
That probably comes from this article: https://www.mckoolsmith.com/assets/htmldocuments/2024%2011%2....
Could be a copy/paste error, or could be an LLM trying to cite its own work by just looking at a list of sources used and guessing which one the claim came from.
> There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things.
Keyana Sapp is the writer behind it: https://www.worseonpurpose.com/authors/keyana-sapp
But how far behind? Is he writing the article or the prompt?
What struck most of all is the deep disconnect between author and authority. The tools one (tools are better than they've even been) stood out as a great example of this. People like to say things got worse, but it read like somebody asked a LLM to show how they got worse, ignoring all the ways in which they got better. A human who'd ever used tools would recognise the omission.
> They're not true and not meant to be true.
The two companies I looked up were accurately described, according to my own experience with them.
The site may be slop and poorly made, but that doesn't invalidate that consumer products of a given quality tier are lower quality than they used to be. People like to see it confirmed because it matches their lived experience.
That's like saying "politicians are crooked, so every bad thing you can think of about politicians must be true". It doesn't and we shouldn't fall for it.
In fact, the one industry where enshittification is widely embraced is our own, so I guess maybe it's projection?... Most other goods and services are not deliberately designed to get worse over time. We're the masters of giving people something cool for free and then progressively worsening their experience until they're forced to pay.
Things like appliances don't get worse on purpose. They sometimes get worse as a combination of market pressures and regulations. Take fridges: you can buy a full-sized kitchen fridge for less than $600, that's kinda crazy? And yes, it probably won't last a lifetime, and they won't make it serviceable because it's not worth servicing given today's labor costs - if your bonded-and-certified repairman quotes you $500, you're going to toss it out either way.
But they do get worse, and somebody decided to worsen them, and that website tracks these changes.
I sure wasn't expecting to see multi-level-marketing company Cutco on the list of "Approved" vendors. I guess it depends on which moral failing you're monitoring.
I see Lodge is the first entry on their "approved" list: "The anchor of the entire counter-list." Everything I've heard from the cast iron nerds is that modern Lodge is crap because they switched to the cheaper sand casting process, which leaves a rough finish that is a PITA to season. Selling out to private equity is not a prerequisite to enshittification.
I wonder if there’s an inverse of this: brands that actually got better over time because they don’t have massive brand history to fall back on, or simply because they actually care.
The site lists "Approved" companies that have not been enshittified by private equity. What springs to mind for me are scissor manufacturers Ernest Wright and Whiteley. They maintained quality, relied on expert workers and aim to keep high quality staff for their career and hire people to learn manual skills.
The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.
Another interesting example from the UK is Howies. They were bought by Timberland, which then in succession got bought by VF, a big US conglomerate. The Howies brand was small and insignificant globally so the management of Howies were allowed to buy the company back and it continues as a niche
Private equity companies exist in a range of sizes, some buying big multinational brands and others buying small local brands. It's a omnivorous predator and it's down to the owners of companies to resist the temptation of money.
It's difficult to keep track over time, however. Brands will build up a reputation as being the one that's actually good for a particular product, and then for one reason or another reduce in quality while relying on their brand history. And it can take a long time for that word of mouth reputation to die off. The effect is bolstered by people who own older generations of the product citing longevity.
An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines. People in the know now look for *used* Speed Queen machines, but casual searches will still turn up the old reputation.
> An example that comes to mind is Speed Queen for laundry machines.
I should have figured when I noticed my local appliance store starting selling them. That was my plan for when the Samsung garbage that came with my house breaks. What's the quality machine now?
I'm not aware of one. And I suspect that Speed Queen is still better than the usual suspects. But they've shifted to some plastic parts, more electronics, that sort of thing.
Yeah it's quite interesting how most of the decline of great brands came as a result of ownership changes, not complacency on part of the owner/founder.
I've actually found AI a great resource for finding brands that offer great value for money by buying from obscure factories/brands with the same quality attributes as major brands, but without all the marketing spend and brand margin to subsidize.
This is actually a terrible use for AI, since it's going to regurgitate the marketing astroturfing on Reddit without showing you the source so you can see it's all bots.
It's not if you use it correctly. If you say "Find me good brands for X", then yes you'll get bad stuff.
I said something like:
"Identify [category]-making cluster regions in Europe (where I am), research the manufacturers/companies you find and see if they have online stores."
Once I had that list and found stuff I liked, I sent what I liked back to the AI and asked it to find me items of comparable build quality from better-known brands."
I did this latest step so that I could have a benchmark and to see if I was actually getting a better deal or if I could just buy from the big brand.
The trick was to specify the exact process I'd like to have run, but wouldn't take the time to do.
I ended up buying stuff directly from an obscure manufacturer's Shopify store for 1/3 the price I would've paid at a big brand. I think this could work in any product category where quality markers are somewhat objective and standardized.
Why would private equity not want high prices and a wait list? That's guaranteed future sales at high margin. Sounds pretty good to me...
That’s the downside of requiring infinite (in the sense of “never-ending”) growth, and not being content “just” with profit.
I'm moderately sure that there's a part of private equity that would be content with a steady profit (at the right price). It's just not the part that you usually hear about.
The path to "get rich quick" is selling a lot of cheap junk for a high price. In order to make this work you need to constantly be on the lookout for a new scheme though as the money will run out on the old one fast.
The get rich not quick as quick (and perhaps not quite as rich) it make a good quality product with consistent margins as you earn a reputation.
>The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.
Sounds like the opposite of what buyers want.
Buyers are diverse. PE are not.
The corporate ownership is interesting. I generally don’t buy brands. They just get my first attention.
What sucks about brands is the marketing that drowns out the signals from other brands making them impossible to find or discover. Come to think of it, that’s sort of like everything else these days. (The Corruptor in Chief being a skilled practitioner). It’s why ChatAi is so effective over google search. The latter pushes the most discussed or linked or read (whatever the Google ranking algorithm is doing these days to put crap content at the top).
Suggestion: sort/filter by location (EU/US/etc.).
Recently Texas instruments changed internals of NE5532 opamp. Several key parameters are worse. Completely changed input stage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ZmmZ67SMY
Yeah not sure. Barbour for example has a few good models that are produced in England. The rest is from China and not up to standard. Well known, but this page just lists it as "approved". Same for carhartt actually.
I understand vibe coding a website if you only care about putting out the info but this is sloppenheimer levels of garbage. It reeks of stunted, far up its own ass Claude-isms everywhere and none of the prose is remotely readable without wanting to running headbutt a wall. Seriously, "Private Equity" was too long so you decided to write "Ownership Type: PE-owned"? I despise ai writing so much and shame on you.
I have a hard time with the Instant Pot case. If you have their first generation product, you never have to buy another one. This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products. It's really hard to get the customers to pay a premium for something that will last for 50 years but hasn't proven the ability to do so yet.
Not really sure how to solve this particular dilemma. I think Apple brushes up against it with the quality of their products too. I know of people who still use iPhones with a single digit in the model name. I am still on my M1 MBP.
> This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products.
I don't understand how "their first product was too good, so they had to start making worse ones" isn't "worse on purpose". It seems like a paradigm case of "worse on purpose" to me. What am I missing?
This is a myth. Instant Pot was purchased by private equity parasites when it first became popular, and they quickly extracted all value and destroyed the company when they saw it wouldn't keep growing exponentially forever.
It's possible the company would have failed on its own, but we'll never know, and it wouldn't be because their product was too good. If that were the case then all the recommended alternatives in the Worse on Purpose article would also be out of business. This company looks pretty comparable, and has been making basically one thing very well for 100 years: https://www.allamerican1930.com/pages/about. How often do people need to buy a new high quality pressure canner? They seem to be making it work despite durable products in a relatively niche market.
I’d like to know what’s supposed to be bad about a late-model Instant Pot. We have one that’s at least ten years old, and we just bought a 3 quart one. AFAICT, it’s the same thing only smaller. Buttons seem the same, seals look to be the same spec. I’m not saying there isn’t an internal difference, but painting it with “owned by PE, bad!” without further information isn’t helpful.
This goes well with https://consumerrights.wiki
I’m surprised to see Cutco as approved. I’ve never used their knives, I only know them as the brand that tricks young people into selling their stuff through misleading job postings. It always seemed like a scummy business, which always makes me assume low quality.
In a K shaped economy, there is no success in making quality goods at reasonable prices. There’s no middle class to buy them. You can make luxury goods for wealthy customers who do not care about price, or you can make absolute garbage to sell to the masses in bulk.
If you want to bring back quality goods and services, end wealth inequality. Tax the rich.
FWIW, I was with you until the "Tax the rich" bit. Considering how many people the average "rich" person employs, they are generating plenty of tax revenue.
So you are saying - make the poor pay taxes for the rich?
Not quite sure how you got that out of my comment, but no. In the US at least, those classified as poor have a very low tax burden, in many cases they pay $0, or close to $0 in federal taxes after standard deductions.
US taxes are wildly regressive. Last time Elon's taxes came up, I calculated that he pays taxes at about 1% the rate that I do (and most of us here do). Crazy!
You said the rich already generate tax revenue by creating jobs, but now you are saying those job holders hardly pay any taxes at all?
I think "Tax the rich" is the wrong slogan. What we need is to incentivize sharing the progress we are making in terms of productivity widely instead of all the benefits going to a few. For example some people are talking about giving company shares to all workers. This would align the incentives for all workers in the company to do better and then benefiting instead of just the top few percent.
I wonder if this could be achieved by changing the tax code.
The moment tax policy goes into a wonky side alley it can be bought and paid for. Frontal assault is the only strategy that can possibly work for this one.
It'll trickle down this time for sure.
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a leather boot? I'm thinking brk here might just be able to tell us the answer!
Geez, the rich already take credit for the things their employees do...and now you want to give them credit for the taxes their employees paid too! Wild!
It's kind of weird. There is a lot of propaganda that says
* rich people spending money==great investment into the economy and we need to give them more so they make the economy even better
* poor people spending money==mindless consumption, it's a bad idea to give them money because they are wasting it anyways
Yep, and you see a similar thing with government spending and presumption of waste.
Sure, government spending can be wasteful. But it's also generally going into the economy. It's buying stuff from companies who use the revenue to pay their employees and supply chains. It's paying government employees who spend their pay on places to live, food to eat, entertainment, etc. Some folks act like that money disappears. Waste or not, governments aren't generally hoarding cash, they're spending it.
The problem is that a lot of the money doesn't go towards the people/causes it was intended to go but into the pockets of well connected middlemen.
How is Snap-On approved and Proto is on the watchlist?
Proto >> Snap-On IMHO. Both in raw quality and in value.
And while Craftsman may have changed significantly even before Sears' demise, there are still some excellent tool lines within the brand.
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Worse on Purpose discussion 4 days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019647
As far as I can tell, this is a site for an LLM to vomit out the same basic article with different specific products each time.
Also, a lot of it makes no sense. Bonobos is listed as "Avoid" because it was bought out, not because the product was made worse in any way. Some entries have reasoning about avoiding because the product was made worse, but most are just "company was sold" or "owned by a conglomerate"
That isn't reason enough for me to avoid, maybe to watch for things, but not avoid. Wake me when a product is worse on purpose, like the title claims.
And it's just ai slopped text too. This is the reason ThermoWorks is "Approved"
> Independent and honest; manufacturing is English rather than American, which matters for framing but not for stewardship
What does that even mean? That says absolutely nothing.
Same with the reason lodge is approved:
> Family-owned, US-made, priced honestly. The anchor of the entire counter-list.
Says nothing besides the AI wrote everything, and likely claude.
There's been a stream of these posts on HN recently; all clickbait nostalgia slop, based on everything having been so much better in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=worseonpurpose.com
Though, to be fair, the author works at Palantir - so probably does have relevant experience with making things worse on purpose!
Methodology: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/methodology
WorseOnPurpose methodology page does not answer the question: is it claude vomit or not? Are the articles written partially or totally by AI?
Here is the creator's X profile: https://x.com/keyanasapp
Keyana Sapp appears to be an AI enthusiast generating AI content for worseonpurpose.com, which their twitter profile neither denies nor confirms.
Completely doesn't answer the AI question, nor the "who's paying for this" question. Because presumably it's not a hobbyist buying every tool, mattress, and boot in the world annually.
Nobody is buying these things to review them, it's just a guy that works in "AI Strategy" in Palantir that has a lot of money to spend on LLM tokens.
I thought you were just throwing this out there but no:
https://imgur.com/a/NW0Y21i
wow
Can you imagine being a top guy at Palantir in "AI Strategy" and this is your big move? Shows zero creativity, quality of work, just slop. I would quit if I had to work for this guy as my boss. We have better engineers who can use, productize, and monetize AI.
EDIT: wait this guy is non-tech. It actually tracks a lot more now. Not as a knock against non-tech people using AI, just that I would have been very disappointed in Palantir if they had a top AI engineer create something like this after leaving. You would assume they are more judicious about the markers they look for in hiring, but for a more salesy, soft skills role, a product like this makes perfect sense and isn't unimpressive.
Thank you, and now I'm flagging the OP
No entry for Sonos, the poster boy of enshitification?
Site is hard to use and navigate and make sense of, because of all the ai slop. If the creators spent more effort tuning the language and UI it would be more usable. Right now, not usable for me.
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