Hopefully I’ve worded the question right.
I was once told (I could never verify if it was true) that a crocs company once almost went bankrupt after they made their crocs practically indestructible. Whilst the story was most likely bullshit, it makes me wonder: if a company can make a product that is practically indestructible, is it ethical for them not to make them indestructible, so people will buy more from them?
The way I look at it is, on one hand, I feel like they should make products to the highest quality if they can so that the consumer has to spend less money and that less is wasted, but at the same time if it leads to the company going bankrupt, what of the workers and their families? So I can’t decide, what do you think?
Just engineering something to be garbage for no other reason than so that people will buy more is unethical. That said, there are always trade offs and durability has to be weighed against other priorities.
For example, cars used to have much bigger bumpers which were expected to protect against damage in low speed impacts. Those went away because the requirements changed, the low speed crash test was out, and fuel efficiency requirements were in.
Or there’s incandescent bulbs. They were ubiquitous for over a century, and yet they were constantly burning out and changing them was just a fact of life. Manufacturers could have easily made a more robust filament so the bulb would last longer, but doing so would have dramatically decreased the output of the bulb.
Is it ethical for them to withhold performance to generate profit? CPUs and GPUs are limited in the range, to a certain large extent, by price discrimination.
Is it ethical for you as a consumer to buy low quality stuff that you know will break?
Hmm… never thought of that…
You may only have the power over your own purchase decisions, but hold on to what power you have.
But most times you don’t know it the first time.
If the companies were required to produce something of a particular durability the average cost would be lower and more accessible to all stratas of society; your ethical argument comes from a place of significant privilege.
Your argument comes from a position of everything is someone else’s fault you are powerless.
It may truly be the case for you. But most other people can make a difference for the better regardless of what the government or companies do.
Ok corpbro.
You can pay more to get better made things. Like most refrigerators are trash now, you can buy a commercial grade one and it will last like the one you had in the 70-80s but it costs $5,000+ easily and has nothing special about it.
is this engagement bait? the phrasing of this question answers itself.
No, I genuinely don’t know how I feel about it for the reasons I outlined in the post above. I’m simply asking people for their views to get a clearer idea of the bigger picture. Plus, if you read all of the comments here, some people do make interesting points on why it could be considered ethical, like affordability for example, points that I never even thought of.
it’s called engineered obsolescence, a concept driven by German auto industry post 2000 and the reason why they are all in financial trouble today. Specific example: they started using plastic engine parts with plastics that last a set number of heat cycles. They are designed to fail within a set time period. AUDI now uses plastic oil pans that cost as much as steel pan to make. BMWs are catching fire from pressurized fuel systems failing because the plastics are failing. They also move the timing chains to the back of the motor, so that when the chains fails, it will be too much labor to replace and the car is junked.
Tesla uses structural battery packs, so when the pack dies, the car dies. Similar concept to gluing phones together.
Imagine you went to a football game and bought a serving fries. They come in a little clay-lined paper dish. The clay lining in that dish resists small amounts of oil for about 30 minutes, but after that time is up, the oil will penetrate through, soaking the dish and possibly staining your clothes.
The manufacturer could’ve used a plastic lining instead. It’s more resistant for much longer, and is still food-safe at reasonable temperatures. Is the choice of clay over plastic unethical? Or is it reasonable to pick a cheaper, more recyclable material with the assumption that it won’t take most people a full 30 minutes to eat their fries?
Different things have different purposes and need to meet different standards. “Breakable” vs “durable” isn’t an objective measurement of quality.
I remember when the standard cup for those events was waxy paper, and the feeling of condensation coming off of the wax and making your fingers extra grippy.
Now most paper cups are lined with polyethylene, so they don’t leak but also can’t be recycled or composted properly.
There are companies that went broke by making their product indestructible, a notable example being the maker of the wildly popular Instant Pot. They made a product that just didn’t break. This is called planned obsolescence failure and has happened to other companies too.
That being said, making flimsy shit on purpose is shady at best.
Yeah it’s a right dilemma. Because on one hand, I feel like they should make products to the highest quality if they can so that the consumer has to spend less money, but at the same time if it leads to the company going bankrupt, what of the workers and their families?
It won’t in socialism. China is doing rather well, overall.
Are you implying that china is socialist?
China is socialist.
l’mao.
Lol is this french lmao?
It was a pun about Mao :)
The real reason was private equity
Private equity made things a lot worse. In 2019, Instant Brands was acquired by Cornell Capital and unceremoniously merged with Corelle Brands, a housewares company that includes Pyrex. An acquisition by a private equity firm brings certain expectations with it—namely: lots and lots of fast growth.
Right. Like I also hate capitalism as it exists today, but it is definitely possible to make a living making GOOD products. You just can’t make billions doing it. Even if the product was LITERALLY indestructible, people will lose them, plus they’re always making new people. It’s just a lot slower than if you make a shit product people have to keep replacing
agree 100%. It’s only impossible if you saturate the market, which means you’re a huge player.
The poor growth that private equity didn’t find attractive could have been due to lack of repeat purchases tho.
But it means that the company was doing fine for decades.
Corelle/Pyrex is its own story of going from the best product to “good enough”. Simple point, if you find yourself some old stuff of theirs, hang on to it because you can’t find anything comparable anymore. Same can probably be true of other old brands of products. I found an old Whirlpool dryer that I won’t ever let go of for the same reason. What will eventually fail on it I can either fix or buy a new, cheap part.
The company that made instant pot actually went bankrupt because it was acquired by private equity via leveraged buyout.
What you’re telling is the story the evil assholes that profit from that kind of thing want you to believe.
Huh
private equity could have slashed the product due to poor growth (due to ppl not buying repeatedly).
I agree it’s what evil assholes want us to believe, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a false claim.
Oh honey
Bless their little heart.
This is why capitalism is stupid at its core. It doesn’t promote anything good. It only promotes greed and enriching the top. Make the shittiest product you possibly can that people will buy, buy out every other maker of product, repopulate the sector with fake brands to give people illusion of choice.
Oldest trick in the book. And literally not 1 person I know can see through this trickery.
In capitalism making a long lasting good product is not viable at all, it makes no sense. Who gives a shit if your great grandkid is still using your oven 60 years later, the shareholders dont benefit then. Out of business. Its an idiotic system kept alive only by propaganda.
Won’t any one think of the shareholders!!
this is a failure of consumerism, materialism and greed. not capitalism.
Those are all byproducts of unregulated capitalism.
also true
Dont get me wrong, humans are just shit, and I think any system is going to eventually fail because assholes get in power. But more places could at least try a mixed capitalism/socialist approach like we have seen works in Norway/Denmark (at least I think thats how they aporoach it)
Those are all byproducts of
unregulatedcapitalism.
“True capitalism has never been tried” heeheehee :p
lolol
It would be so easy to fix, too.
the longer your shit lasts, the more your line goes up
That’s a toughie. Go broke with morals or get rich being unethical.
If you started a business and was faced with the same situation, what do you think you would do? Personally, I think I would focus on the money over time
What’s your opinion then?
I’m not sure tbh. That’s kind of why I asked the question, and hopefully other’s views may shed light on this ‘issue’
Morals don’t put dinner on the table.
That’s not to say they’re not important, but that business is important too.
So where do you stand on the debate then? Do you believe there’s a ‘trade off’, so to speak?
Genuinely, I don’t really think this is an ethical or moral issue.
With that said, the first thing that jumps out to me is the question intimates that there may be a duty to manufacture “less breakable” products. I’m assuming that’s to protect the money spent by the consumer. If it is, then that’s pretty weird.
Think about all the waste that cheap products create. I can buy a cheap pair of work boots twice a year or a good pair every 2/3 years. I believe it’s unethical for preying on the poor while also creating more waste.
True that waste is also a factor in this.
“Low
endmargin, high volume” markets.The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness.
Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Haha the first thing I thought of. The finest literary example of representing economics with boots!
I just paid about $200 (including taxes and shipping) for a pair of leather work sneakers that should last about a year, if I take good care of them, but sketchers usually break down inside about 3 months of wear. I didn’t want to spend it, because gestures at everything, but I had to make the hard decision.
To be fair, a year is pretty pathetic performance even for work books unless you step on landmines for living.
This is why God designed knees the way he did. He secretly hates humans and wants us to have an expiration date.
Here’s a canonical example. The East Germans made a drinking glass that didn’t break. They produced 120 million of them. Then, capitalism happened and now we don’t have unbreakable glasses any more.
I am just curious to know who disliked your comment?? BTW,thanks for telling about this product, I will buy it.
No idea. Did someone dislike it? Not many capitalists here so it’s surprising.
Yes, particularly if you’re the company creating the “In case of emergency, break glass” boxes.
If everyone built them at the highest quality, then every product would be at the highest price point.
Each reduction in quality makes that product available to more people who couldn’t afford it otherwise.
Eventually, the only way to put the product in everybody’s hands is to make it so cheap that it only works once, if you’re lucky.
The highest price points for many items are luxury brands that sell for hundreds to thousands of times the actual cost of manufacture.
Eventually, the only way to put the product in everybody’s hands is to make it so cheap that it only works once, if you’re lucky.
And yet everybody (or close enough) in the world today has a smartphone that generally will last at least a year or two. (Set aside countries that are screwed up because of their govt, that’s another issue entirely). There are lots of things that could be supplied to every person on earth if capitalism wasn’t fucked.
Smartphones last way longer than that if you’re not using them to break rocks or losing them.
Not the point I was trying to make, I was just being conservative with an average lifetime.
Cell phones should last a decade, and could.
Agreed. Mine generally last at least 5 years, usually more.
lower quality products are not always cheaper to produce.
Can you provide an example please?
sneakers of all kinds. the materials and manufacture is essentially the same. its all marketing bs.
Samsung washing machines. Even if it’s top-of-the-line they’ll still sabotage it by using the spider arm as the sacrificial anode so that it breaks just out of warranty. Doesn’t matter if you paid $2000 for it; it’s still shit.
If everyone built them at the highest quality, then every product would be at the highest price point
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even think of that point. Thanks for sharing, interesting perspective.
Not too long ago, TVs were so expensive that most people rented them.
This might depend on where you live? I don’t remember seeing any sort of rental TV services in any area I’ve lived in or any advertisements for such. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking for one, but I also haven’t heard of this as a common thing.
It’s also untrue, see my other statement.
In many cases, especially technology and machinery, extra effort is put into making sure they break down on time, just out of warranty. They’d be arguably cheaper without that extra effort.
Short, sweet and to the point. I like it. I also like more detailed answers also.
Edit: I clearly also like overusing the word also, also.
