In a less capital-intensive industry, you'd see small competitors building higher quality goods for a premium price. You see this in, for instance, leather goods (where you can get very high quality leather wallets for under $100), clothing (much better goods available online for only slightly more than mass-market retail), etc. Small competitors don't care about planned obsolesence when they could only dream about capturing enough market share where planned obsolesence becomes necessary to keep profits growing every year.

But the capital barriers to entry for new cars and smartphones are way too high. Elon and Tesla were the last true upstart to even come close to a semi-affordable premium option, and they burned through billions in startup capital to get there.

If the government can't reduce the barriers to entry for Smith's Invisible Hand to naturally produce competitors, then the government needs to regulate the natural oligopoly.

I’m really surprised no one has come up with a reliable appliance brand. The old machines from decades ago are absurdly reliable, and not patented anymore. Also, most appliance technologies stagnated more than 17 years ago (front loader clothes washers are the only counter example that comes to mind).

There is still R&D to be done to update for modern manufacturing techniques, but an upstart that simply built old classic designs and added a 30-year warranty would do well. Bonus points for standardized dimensions (for easy replacement years from now).

You can get a commercial or industrial version of most appliances with relatively few features, and a focus on durability and ease of maintenance. One problem is commercial units are loud. The other is they are often slightly larger. For most users the cost alone means the residential versions are a better option.

I've wished for this myself. We replaced a refrigerator, and I thought "what a waste - 95% of the mass of that thing was non-moving parts that could've lasted centuries".

> There is still R&D to be done to update for modern manufacturing techniques, but an upstart that simply built old classic designs and added a 30-year warranty would do well. Bonus points for standardized dimensions (for easy replacement years from now).

Extra bonus points for publishing manuals and 3D printing plans for replacement parts and ensuring they remain available long term - eg, creating a web site and funding a foundation to keep it running + seeding torrents with the info.

> I’m really surprised no one has come up with a reliable appliance brand

Speed Queen has done this for Washers and Dryers. https://www.speedqueen.com/

I used to think the same thing, however looking at some recent reviews it appears as if Speed Queen has succumbed to the cost cutting movement. People are complaining that the latest machines no longer clean properly and are not up to the old standards. I don't know about the repair-ability of the machines but if they don't do the job they were built for then it doesn't really matter if you can fix it or not.

If you want reliability generally you want to go with the 'industrial' version - which may or may not be ideal for whatever you want to do.

Do you have any concrete examples of good quality clothing e-stores?

https://tripleaughtdesign.com, its tactical clothing that at one point was very similar to the stuff special forces guys were wearing. (They are selling more and more 'urban' friendly stuff these days). Most of it is made in America.

I haven't tried them yet, but I heard Outlier is this kind of company. Here's an interesting Wired article[0] about them.

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/outlier-tech-clothes/

At least for me personally, a $125 t-shirt does not tick the "only slightly more than mass-market retail" box. These are expensive clothes.

https://shop.outlier.nyc/shop/retail/shirts

The t-shirts do seem ridiculous, but they're famous for their pants, which are definitely in the same range as normal pants. A lot more than $20 at Wal-Mart, but less than many mall brands.

A regular t shirt might last 10 to 20 years, but a $125 might last generations as long as it doesnt get torn or stained.

In all seriousness though, how many people are really going to consider a t-shirt to be a family heirloom, that you _should_ pass down through the generations?

The handme downs are passed down through each generation of siblings, but unless you have space, or clothes are adult sized its probably gonna be donated.

Definately not heirlooms even at 125 bucks.

Do you have t-shirts you've been wearing regularly for 20 years? How old are you if you don't mind me asking?

Not the parent, but I have many t-shirts that are well over 10 years old. Some of them I wear regularly. A good quality fabric can definitely last decades, we're just getting unused to that and assume everything has to break down.

Im mid 20s, and I can still have tshirts from over 10 years ago. Rotate through them everday, in my experience brandname 10-20 dollar shirts, or kirkland 3 dollar shirts have held up.

Gustin makes good looking stuff, but the buying process is different in you fund a piece and when it gets funded they make it. Their fit is for stick figures though :\

Reading the article the thought occurred to me that "disposable" is probably more a factor fo cost + materials (and obviously related). By that I mean, if a thing is cheap and "plasticy" it really doesn't matter how beautifully designed it is — it will feel throwaway. Make the thing from aluminum, glass, magnesium, steel ... the price goes up (the durability goes up) but the value (both perceived and monetary of course) go up as well.

While Apple (as an example) try to tempt their customers each year with something new and new-featured, I'm not actually aware of people tossing out their old iPhones (or MacBooks for that matter) even if they do in fact spring for the latest. Instead they seem to get handed down or repurposed (media center, man-cave, etc.).

I don't feel the same way about my $150 plastic Chromebook.

The retina MacBook Pro is by far my favorite machine. I remember for many weeks, being delighted every time I saw it, which isn't an experience I've had with any other kind of laptop.

I also tried an iPhone for a while, but couldn't get the hang of iOS. The physical device itself, though, was great, not just visually, but the tactile experience is spot on. I wish I lived in a world where Apple made Android phones.

>I also tried an iPhone for a while, but couldn't get the hang of iOS.

Huh? It's a much more designed and coherent experience than Android.

It really isn't. My girlfriend is a committed iOS user, I'm not. She recently got a new iPhone. Her apps and info transferred over through iCloud, kind of (certainly wasn't as smooth as setting up a new Android device, but it mostly worked), but she couldn't sign into email through Apple's app. There was no setting in the app itself to manage accounts. So we went to the settings app, searched for the email app entry, no dice. Eventually through trial and error, we discovered some obscure entry in the settings app to manage accounts. It makes no sense at all. Literally none. Why not just manage email accounts through the email app? In the Gmail app, want to add a Hotmail account, it's in the fucking Gmail app's settings, where it makes sense. Not in some god forbidden obscure entry 4 layers deep in the OS settings app. No, it's in the email app, where is the first place every sane person would assume.

>So we went to the settings app, searched for the email app entry, no dice. Eventually through trial and error, we discovered some obscure entry in the settings app to manage accounts. It makes no sense at all. Literally none.

It makes a lot of sense. iOS uses your Gmail credentials for more than just mail (it can also sync contacts, calendar items, and notes to your Google account). So it makes sense to not have it within the Mail app.

Besides, it's not "4 layers deep". It's directly under a top level Preferences heading called "Accounts & Passwords" in Preferences, which should be the first place to look for, well, Preferences.

Third, you could find it also by just typing "accounts", "gmail" etc on Spotlight search. Again, just a click away.

If that's the sort of "problem" iOS has, it's pretty solid.

It's funny but one of my first contact points with iOS (after owning a 3gs some years back) was when I tried to fix the mail settings for a friend and I had the exact same problem described here.

After finding out that you have to add the account via settings it kinda makes sense, but the first thought is: you have an email account, you have an email app, of course you add the account in the app, why would it be anywhere else? The account and the app could not possibly be more directly related to each other. If you already know how accounts are managed in iOS you will think this is fine, but it is absolutely not intuitive, let alone easy to understand for people who do not know about sso and shared accounts.

A top level settings item called “Passwords and Accounts” is obscure?

And if you type "Mail" in the search field in settings, "Add Mail Account" is the 5th search result. It's not that hard.

Why wouldn't you manage email accounts through the email app? It makes enough sense that it's what all other email apps do...

Because “email” accounts aren’t actually email accounts. They typically include Notes, Contacts, Calendars, and many other associated pieces of functionality that span multiple independent apps, and you don’t want to have to log in 4 different times.

Fine, but an item in the email settings that says "Manage Accounts" that links to the appropriate section of the Settings app would go a long way.

The "Mail" menu item in "Settings" is immediately below "Passwords & Accounts".

On an Android phone you don't have to re-log in. You can share accounts across apps. Accounts are also in the settings. You can still manage your email accounts through the emails apps however, and the makers of most apps allow you to manage your account in the app itself, even if the login spans multiple apps. It just makes no sense to not have it in the app at all.

Sharing accounts across apps also works on iOS, FWIW. Most Google-branded apps will offer a “Continue as _____” button on the first open if you’ve signed in to another one of their apps.

That's not the issue. The issue is the lack of account management in the Apple email app itself. For example, let's say you're using mail to manage a Gmail account and Outlook account. You can't simply manage those accounts from the email app. Odds are you don't have an Outlook login across multiple apps on an iPhone (fuck MS), so why can't you access it from the app itself?

Anyhow, this is becoming circular. I guess if you've used an iOS device forever you get used to its quirks, but it makes no damn sense if you use other OSes. Gmail, you can manage accounts within the app. Apple's app, you can't. Makes no sense.

> Odds are you don't have an Outlook login across multiple apps on an iPhone (fuck MS), so why can't you access it from the app itself?

HUH?? This is exactly why Accounts are a global setting.

What you are describing it literally EXACTLY HOW IT WORKS on iOS. Set it up once and it will work in Mail and Calendar

Historically on built-in iOS apps settings go in the Settings app. With that pattern in mind, it makes no sense to have settings in the app itself because the user would be looking in the Settings app.

I'm very reluctant to give up my 2014 MacBook Pro Retina. I've used it every day for 5+ years, and it still has the original battery. The only reason why I've been checking out recent models is that I don't want to lose the headphone jack.

That's because more expensive goods tend to be repurposed or recycle more. Take for example, a car is way more likely to be recycled for scrap metal than a bike because there's more value.

Same for apple goods which tend to depreciate in value slower than a generic brand PC or Android phone.

I agree, large corporations tend to design their products for early self-destruction. There are exceptions, for example Seiko makes very good watches, but it's a good rule of thumb.

However, if you research carefully you can often find a long-lasting high-quality product from a smaller company. For example: Unicomp keyboards,the Docter Monocular, Kaweco pens, the Fisher "bullet" space pen, saddlebackleather, Beyerdynamic and Grado earphones. Despite all the marketing hype, you can sometimes still sometimes spot when a company takes real pride in their products.

What bothers me that it's hard to find good consumer electronics, though. That market seems to be flooded with crap.

I was mostly thinking about things like consumer electronics, tools, appliances, etc. when it comes to this. Items that have to be built by larger companies rather than ones that can be built at a more "craft" scale where the companies developing them aren't beholden to investors trying to maximize their return.

> Beyerdynamic and Grado earphones

it makes me really sad that these companies (and sennheiser) are not more well known. I get that not everyone can be an audio enthusiast, but what kills me is that people will actually spend more money on skullcandy or beats and never know how badly they are getting shafted.

What's more depressing is that most people can't tell the difference, so it doesn't matter to many. It does to me. But I've let people Liston to my Grados and say "meh, my EarPods are good enough".

I guess that comes down to "because my EarPods came free with my phone; they're a high-enough quality experience for free" as opposed to having to actually go out of their way to research and pay for audiophile stuff.

I mean, most people are listening to pop music, heavily-crunched podcasts, and 32 kbps audiobooks; there aren't any subtle nuances they're missing that are worth spending money for.

Even when people do go for things like AirPods instead of some nice, high-quality Grados as you own, you have to weigh up the complete difference in experience outside of audio quality, so that if people do happen to drop money on headphones that aren't to your taste, you still understand that their preferences are different to yours.

Except Beats, those are rubbish. ;-)

If there's somebody to point the finger at for consumerism and short lived products is the consumers themselves, nobody cares for a product repairability or durability or quality they just want flashy stuff and the latest gadget and of course at the lowest price.

I'm not so sure I point the finger at consumers entirely. We have been trained by marketing teams to desire the latest and greatest to keep up with those around us.

Just look at the massive price increases for flagships in the smartphone industry, but people are still buying them since they have been convinced that they are still acceptable value. The problem I have with this in particular is that Android smartphones have incredibly poor update support, so there is built in obsolescence to convince users to upgrade every 2 years even though a device from 2014 is still plenty for most people today.

I buy solely Android flagships these days (and we just shelled out for one for my wife), and I'll tell you why. I've been burned multiple times by mid-range Android phones - both personally (old LG smartphone) and indirectly (family buying mid-range smartphones). It's not worth the daily frustration of living with a device that constantly lags, hangs at random times, making it difficult to use with the standard suite of apps (mail, maps, social media) and sometimes making it difficult to answer a call. This is death by thousand cuts, it really takes a toll on your psyche - particularly if you use your phone a lot.

Buying a flagship is pretty much a guarantee that you won't have to suffer through this, and will have a device that's reliable for years. I used my Galaxy S4 for years (replaced broken screen two times, and broken camera once; had luck of doing that when I was in Shenzhen, so it wasn't even expensive). When I switched, the device was still better in use than a new mid-range phone, so I gave it to a family member, who used it until it died of mechanical damage. I'm on S7 now, and it still doesn't show signs of age - and I expect it to live and perform for couple more years still.

Flagships may seem overpriced, though if you calculate in their longevity and mostly-frustration-less experience over whole lifetime, I'm not sure if the price is really that bad. So I prefer to save up for one, instead of going for mid-range phones that magically tend to start breaking after couple months of use (P8 Lite, I'm looking at you).