Worse on Purpose
ledger.worseonpurpose.com54 points by bookofjoe 2 hours ago
54 points by bookofjoe 2 hours ago
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.
Suggestion: sort/filter by location (EU/US/etc.).
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 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.
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.
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...
>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.
Recently Texas instruments changed internals of NE5532 opamp. Several key parameters are worse. Completely changed input stage.
No entry for Sonos, the poster boy of enshitification?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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