Is it only ornamental? And why are they usually webbed feet (or at least they are in my experience)?
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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I 100% guarantee that kind of company would lose customers doing that. Other kinds do add more and more stuff. Compare modern smartphones and cars to older ones.
For all it's flaws, the present economy is actually very good at making exactly what people want to buy.
Don't take this personally, but that's bullshit.
Look at cars and phones as an example. Manufacturers decide what the customers want and then push it on us. No one asked for a phone that doesn't have a replaceable battery, doesn't have a headphone jack, has microbezels, is covered in glass so if you drop it you have to buy a new one, or you have to buy a case to wrap it in. No one asked for a car that is sending all of your data to the manufacturer, has a huge-ass touch screen that can't be customized in any way, has features that don't work while the car is in motion, lets your insurance company know when you accelerate too quickly, and plays ads when you are at a stoplight.
I've been looking at getting a new washer and even those are terrible and require connecting the appliance to a wireless network and installing an app on your phone to get full functionality.
There are VERY few manufacturers of anything out there that actually give a shit about what the consumer really wants, and instead will provide the minimum needed to get the consumer to buy while providing the maximum return for investors.
Consumers are far more cost conscious than they say. A lot of consumers will go for a cheaper product rather than pay more for certain options.
It is the reason why most planes aren't first class only. The majority of flyers would rather have a cheaper ticket than leg room.
Okay, so this got long, but only because you made so many separate points.
Pretty much necessary for waterproofing, makes the design a bit simpler, and most people DGAF about e-waste.
All aesthetic features that are popular, even if people aren't aware of where the wow comes from exactly.
The headphone jack is the only forced example here.
You're not the customer, and most people have no problem with being the product. Which is really dumb of them, but true.
It's still a new enough trend that I'm not sure where it sits, but it does come with the advantage of displaying whatever menus you want really directly.
Liability, I assume.
Again, you're not the customer.
Ditto. Most consumers either don't know/care or actually like whatever shitty "smart" feature. And aren't tracking their cybersecurity very closely.
In a nutshell:
I don't want to create an entire thread arguing because I believe that you value your viewpoints as much as I value mine, but I think this might be the main area where our viewpoints diverge because when I'm buying something, then yes, I am the customer. And when I buy something then my expectation is that I will then own that something and I will do with it as I please.
Yeah. That wasn't a normative statement, just a descriptive one. We should be the customer, we just economically aren't. I bet you and me buy the same kind of stuff.
The points I was arguing against in OP are that everything is built worse than it used to be, and that it's because some group can just decide so unilaterally for personal gain. Some stuff is worse, some stuff is better, but it's true that regulations haven't kept pace with technology this century.
Nothing you typed is true. Bob Robertson is right about every point. And I will piggyback off of him and continue to prove him right and you wrong if necessary.
Nothing is being produced for the consumer anymore. We are the Mark. I broke a little plastic gear for turning the chute on my snowblower and cannot buy a 30¢ chunk of replacement plastic. They told us the internet being recategorized as a luxury service instead of a utility service would improve service. It’s gone up in price 5-10x in the fifteen years since, Sucka. Everything is trying to transition you to a subscription service so you will own nothing and be happy, Sucka. Stop carrying water as a useful idiot, Sucka.
That's not really a fair rubric. If they add unnecessary stuff it's bloat, if they don't it's cynical cost cutting.
If you were buying your own Chipotle 20 years ago I assume you know what I mean about old cars with manual everything and maybe a radio. The economy cars of the 20th century aren't even around for me to experience anymore, because they literally fell apart!
I'm still driving mine and would be very reluctant to swap it for a modern enshittified car. I sometimes think of homebrewing my next car (DIY EV conversion of an older ICE car) rather than put up with any manufacturer's offerings. Who knows.
Good for you. What model?
I'd love it if I ever got the opportunity to experience one. It was kind of a significant thing for a while.
What about it?
All I said is that they build what people will buy. Sometimes, people are short-sighted about what they buy. And maybe more importantly, landfilling is totally free in most cities, and externalities are not something markets handle well. That's also why we're making one-use containers out of our most permanent materials.
People absolutely did that stuff way back when, too. Incandescent lightbulbs are a debated but famous example.
They had to literally turn off Edison's incandescent bulb. That was before planned obsolescence (see Vance Packard's The Waste Makers) https://www.remodelormove.com/is-the-original-edison-bulb-still-working/
Yeah, exactly. The early ones lasted a really long time. The debate is about how necessary making them shorter lived was exactly. It definitely happened though, and definitely did so before any of us were born.
There's probably an even older example, but commercial history before 1850 is pretty niche.
Eh, it was a bit too detailed honestly. I doubt that was deliberate, though, and I did respond in full.
Musk is an outlier. He also bought Twitter and basically put it through a woodchipper, including getting rid of the very well-recognised brand and executing a domain transition that left it semi-broken for months. Most CEOs and most boards have some semblance of sanity.
That sounds completely sane, if cynical. Back in the day your salami had rats in it. Now software is the sausage you don't want to see made.
Regulation is an option, right? And in the EU they're actually doing it. Because the consumers are dumb, not because someone has a free money bug, let alone one that's leading to some kind of Platonic inevitable decay of society, which is kind of what feels like the picture being pushed here.