When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.
He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.
“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.
These “watchlist” ones do need reading before making up your mind, as the author puts them there for various reasons.
E.g I need a new tent so I’ve been looking at Decathlon and found it on the watchlist here.
#Decathlon
The world’s largest sports retailer. Twenty-plus house brands own the cheap-and-good quadrant, with 10-year warranties on some gear.
#Ownership
Founded by Michel Leclercq and majority-held by the Mulliez family alliance. No external investors, no debt structure. FY2025: EUR 20.7B in sales across 1,902 stores. A 2025 handover put Julien Leclercq in the chair and Javier Lopez in the CEO seat.
#Why Watchlist
Ownership is exemplary and the family reinvests rather than extracts. The problem is conduct: a February 2025 Disclose investigation tied Decathlon’s second-largest Chinese garment supplier to Uyghur labor-transfer programs and filmed a 12-year-old working on Decathlon polos. The company confirmed the supplier while denying the Xinjiang subsidiary link. Watchlist until credible remediation is published.
I’m not happy about this, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid both Chinese manufacturing (or even just Uyghur labor) AND American capital in this day and age. I can see why it’s on the watchlist and for anyone avoiding it, kudos to you for being stronger than I am, but what I’m reading is “no product quality issues mentioned, is not owned by a private equity firm, not American, not publicly traded”.
But I’m not pulling the trigger yet, so if anyone can suggest something that’s not US owned, is decent quality, and does NOT use uyghur labour or child labour, and is widely available in Europe, I’m all ears
Nah it’s just Capitalist Optimization™️
Late stage capitalism phase. Everything is owned by fewer and fewer companies, which have fewer and fewer regulations, and more and more influence. Politics lies in bed with them. Fascism is the current next step, which is trying to solidify this fusion of megacorps+government for a long time. With this comes fewer and fewer rights for consumers and citizens.
I think that we are now witnessing that capitalism has failed because it got too unregulated and companies grew too powerful. And this systemic collapse will cause a lot of tragedy until it’s replaced in the far future.
I think that we are now witnessing that capitalism has failed because it got too unregulated and companies grew too powerful.
In other words, capitalism has failed because it’s capitalism.
It’s everything. We’re in the end-stages of capitalism. The trope I always bring out it that my previous bank location had 13 teller stations that were ripped out (no computer) and two tellers with a long line.
This is the “We’ll give it and you’ll take it,” phase.
Company becomes successful with a reputation for quality ----> equity firm buys company ----> proceeds to cut any cost they think they can, starting with quality ----> people wise up and start avoiding brand ----> do it all again with the next company. They’ve been doing this for decades and they’ve gotten to most companies.
The old corporate raiders, now working under the name of private equity.
Also, fake plastic leather that will peel off in three years making a mess everywhere.
I don’t care about leather look. Just give me a nylon finish, or any other finish that will not peel off destroying the product. Though I suppose that’s the purpose, program obsolescence so you buy another.
In case you missed it in the article, or didn’t read it at all, here’s a direct link to the database: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/
Yeah their criteria for what’s good or bad seems to be very subjective. Some brands are bad because the product is diminished while others are bad not because of the product but because of a corporate structure or supply chain decisions.
For example Pyrex is avoid because in the US it’s no loner borosilicate just tempered soda glass—this is understandable, the product is objectively worse.
Hoka is also avoid not because the product is bad but because they don’t own their factories and don’t have long term manufacturing agreements.
This site seems more of a purity test for their vision of how companies should operate as opposed to an actual products are worse list. I think we all agree that private equity is generally bad but this site is basically just bashing any company they disagree with how they’re ran. Let the quality of the products dictate the rankings not subjective shifting criteria based on corporate structures.
If you don’t have factories or long term agreements your QA is stressed and there’s no guarantee what you’re getting as a buyer. From some subcomponent being inferior to quality differences between factory and b to all of this and worse…
While it’s not a guarantee of bad, it’s a risk, and it’s the company saying the build and outcome doesn’t matter.
This is one way enshitification works.
Bah I looked through that and I’d call it bogus. The site likes expensive yuppie brands and makes some weird calls. Avoid Ridgid power tools since they’ve gotten worse due to the TTI acquisition? Um no, there were no Rigid power tools before the acquisition–they only made hand tools. The power tool line has been TTI from the start. They have good and bad points like everything else but the manufacturer has always been TTI.
Klein (approved)? Maybe the company still has its original ownership but the tools have gotten worse according to user reports. They just stick their label on the usual imported stuff now.
Several other things like that.
That’s not what it says about Ridgid.
The Ridgid brand is owned by Emerson Electric, which licenses it to Techtronic Industries (TTI, parent of Milwaukee and Ryobi) for power tools. Emerson retains the plumbing tools (pipe wrenches, etc.) as its own line. Power tool Ridgid is effectively a licensing arrangement where the branding and the manufacturing are separated.
Why Avoid
Licensing arrangement, Home Depot exclusive, built to a price point. The Ridgid name carries plumbing heritage that the power tool products don’t inherit.
They don’t say the power tools got worse. They say that the power tools don’t have the quality that the hand tools were known for, because they’re just a licensing agreement to slap the name on price point built stuff rather than actually built by the same company.
They don’t ever say that Ridgid made power tools before TTI. They say the exact opposite.
I disagree with them about the quality of Ridgid power tools, because they’re great for the price and have a lifetime warranty.
It’s not just physical manufacturing quality. I feel like nothing is ever made or designed correctly anymore. I have no idea where Designers are being employed, because every website and product is made wrong. Nothing is ever easy to use, or explained well. Nothing ever uses words. Like Reel Big Fish said, Everything Sucks.
I wish I had more upvotes to give, you get one alone for the Reel Big Fish reference. But I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your comment. Enshittification has taken over the whole world, everything is made to be replaced, nothing is made to be repaired anymore. Interfaces are about capturing as much of your time as possible and collecting as much data as possible. You can’t own software anymore, just subscribe.
I can’t believe people are accepting all this. I’m a greybeard engineer/architect so I keep replacing services with my own, and we’re here on the fediverse to push back, but we’re in the minority. Something’s gonna break soon…
Time for corporations to create “premium” brands with same quality as before but at 10x the price. Once those get popular lower quality again and pocket the profits. When people start complaining about lower quality create new premium brands…
i first noticed this years ago when some soap company bought breyer’s ice cream.
breyer’s used to be one of the best, turned to shit overnight
turned to shit overnight
Literally? I guess it’s possible, but I’d have expected it to turn to soap instead.
Used to be ice cream, is now called something like “frozen dairy dessert”. Their strawberry ice cream used to be really great: milk, cream, sugar, egg, strawberry. That’s it. Now it’s a couple dozen weird ingredients that they can’t call ice cream, and it’s awful.
