It’s about price because consumers can’t measure by anything else.

Eg. I can’t tell which of two products is manufactured to higher standards, nor which one isn’t infested with formaldehyde.

Until consumers are able to determine those other factors then yes sadly it is all about price (and marketing).

Some Xiaomi products have not been imported to EU because they failed to obtain CE marks. And you'd never encounter a product that smells formaldehyde with an OEKO-TEX label.

But I agree the information is quite asymmetric. As a customer, I want to know a lot more about how products are made. And I want to be able to repair them and source replacement parts.

These guys will put lead in children's toys but would never be so unscrupulous as to put a fake label on the product? Or lie to obtain certification?

I think most people would agree that a promise without verification is no real promise.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-executes...

Not the kind of thing that builds trust.

My friend who works for them has a lot of interesting stories to tell. One story, she visited a local pub and asked for a dairy free ploughman's, the waiter asked if she would like butter on her bread. My friend waited for it to be added, then she put the whole meal, plate and all into a plastic bag and took it away for analysis. The pub got fined and another visit from trading standards.

I've heard stories like this before. It sounds a bit stupid on the part of Trading Standards (TS).

Waiter: "Do you want butter"

Customer/TS agent: "Yes, please"

Then the TS agent prosecutes you for putting butter on their food. Well why did they ask for butter. I mean, I realise that people are sometimes absolute idiots but I don't think you should prosecute restaurants for serving what you ask for.

A story in our local press was that the TS agent said "no peanuts for me as I have an allergy, I'll have the lamb bhuna, ..." and then they ordered a load of dishes - as you would for a family - and they included in their order "chicken satay". They specifically asked for it.

Guess what the restaurant did, they gave them what they asked for. And Trading Standards prosecuted them and made them out in the press to be evil.

Now to me it sounded like the person was ordering a bhuna with no nuts and a load of stuff for other people, if they're stupid enough to order a nut dish isn't that their own fault?

I don't know what's happened to personal responsibility but the expectation for businesses to coddle people has gone too far IMO.

/rant

Am I missing something important here? This sounds like a textbook example of soulless, arbitrary bureaucracy that benefits no one but bureaucrats and their enforcers.

Lack of training. Stupid people. I dunno. She's got a lot of stories. The animal neglect are the worst. The pub food ones are the amusing ones. She gets a lot of food poisoning from dodgy food.

I'm all for labels, safety, and verification enabling people to be informed, consenting adults.

But if you asked to have butter on your toast, as an informed consenting adult, you get butter on your toast, and it ain't anybody's fault but your own. And I'm a liberal socialist pinkie commie Canadian, not even a redneck gun-tottin' libertarian :D

There must be / I hope there is something I'm missing from the story...?

TüV and UL are more reliable, but they are still a minimum standard of safety, not a sign of quality.

(Now I'm expecting some Bitcoin "investor" to jump in with "blockchain all the certification marks!" as though that'd solve the problem of people not caring...)

'The Commission responded that it was unaware of the existence of any "Chinese Export" mark'

This legend has to stop. CE is a self declaration marking, and it's just people applying the CE marking when they have not respected the relevant standards.

Like all those EU-compliant logos on the 1TB SDXC cards that sell for €10? Totally legit.

Things are different when buying domestically at a retail store. Retailers have supply chain or import the products themselves. Importing and selling products that violate safety standards, or products that show safety marks like CE without authorization, is not in the retailers' best interest, since the Customs Agents will come down hard on them. As large monetary sanctions are the only effective way to deter corporations from breaking the rules, the fines/reparations are proportional to the volume of the illegitimate products sold.

Not to speak of the civil liability when some kid gets electrocuted thanks to the hazardous phone adapter your company imported.

In the stores, the produce isn't usually as neat and tidy and pretty as in the US - you might even find a few bad bits and pieces, but by and large, it tastes really good.

It helps that the food doesn't have to travel far from where it's grown. Sadly, the majority of the planet isn't as fortunate.

What I would like to see is a curated list of all common objects we use daily that have the properties I mentioned above: high quality, safety and repairability.

Places like r/bifl and manufactum.de are good starting points, but they are far from complete.

But they do pay attention to quality because their customers want that.

My favorite UK supermarket sells organic pine kernels from China, at a ridiculously high price. That's not local, nor pine kernels are typical produce from China. It's just seeking high margins.

Of course, living in the Bay Area I'm spoiled by the selection. It really is better than a lot of other areas. In contrast, Portland, in particular, stood out as having consistently mediocre produce available (and New York was surprisingly good even in the middle of winter).

Yes, exactly. US customers are selecting for the biggest/dollar with no blemishes, rather than the tastiest.

Yes, I think this is a typical brand lifecycle. Somewhat niche brand gets famous due to high quality and appealing image. Brand gets bought by big group, with a lot of expertise in distribution and marketing. Quality goes downhill, prices skyrocket. Brand eventually loses appeal.

The LVMH Group does this all the time. But arguably, they don't lower quality too much.

https://www.mieleusa.com/domestic/full-size-dishwashers-1532...

The auto open feature is fantastic, drys out your plastic ware.

For instance Whataburger uses fresh eggs and scrambles them on site. That’ll go by the wayside in favor of McDonald’s-style pre-made and pre-packaged eggs generating waste and lowering quality. But it’ll make the food easier to replicate nation wide creating shot term profits from growth until consumers have the predictable “I don’t see what all the hype is about” reaction, damaging or possibly destroying the brand.

But they evidently did maximize short term profit by selling the company.

When the standard price for a tshirt is something like $50, they don't need to worry about manufacturing price or cheaper competition. That's a different business entirely than primark selling $1 or $2 tshirts.

SO HYPED ABOUT THIS PRODUCT. CAN'T WAIT UNTIL IT'S RELEASED (5 stars)

(brand) hits it out of the park again! Thanks for the review model, paid trip to Hawaii, and sweet t-shirt, (brand). This makes all (other brands) obsolete! Hail Sony! (5 stars)

This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars)

(One year earlier on the previous model): This new model makes the old one look like trash. A new era has arrived (5 stars)

Used it for 5 minutes, I love it (5 stars)

I've never used it but (YT celebrity) said it's good (5 stars)

(paid spam review) (5 stars)

(review of another product) (5 stars)

Good and knowledgeable review that has an honest view of the strengths and weaknesses of the product. Might have a mix of broken English, bad production values, or be by a kid with a squeaky voice or someone who looks ugly: 3 stars

WAS HYPED ABOUT THIS BUT SICK OF WAITING (1 star)

Great five-star product but (random seller) sucks / was slow to ship it / wouldn't take my return! (1 star)

It broke when I dropped it out of an airplane (1 star)

How do I turn it on? (1 star)

(complaint about related but different model of same product) (1 star)

(review of another product) (1 star)

Out of stock! (1 star)

It seems like there is a viable business model underlying this, that shoulf translate to other product categories. The hard part is building an audience that trusts you.

They can, but it's obviously the biggest signal.

But let's not confuse the plight of the middle/upper middle class who can afford to start to invest in aspiration, and make other qualitative judgments about things like supply chain.

China+Wallmart have made entire categories of goods and services available to regular working people, at prices they can afford. The consumer surpluses have been vast.

However much we may not like all of the ugly bits that come along with that new reality (and there are many) - we often forget the immense surpluses they bring to quite a lot of people.

Most people don't have a lot of money and are very price sensitive, and being able to afford 'stuff' can in many cases improve their lives quite dramatically.

Anecdotally, I've been helping to create a physical product for mass consumption, and this has really hit home with me in our earlier trials and feedback from customers. Without getting into specifics, the 'simple' version of our product at $40 is accessible to most. The fancy version at $80 will be beyond the reach of most. Margins will be what they can be, but for the first time in my professional career, it dawned on my quite clearly all of these folks clamouring for our product for whom we would have to say 'no' to, because of price point: they are not going to be able to get the little bump in lifestyle. It was the weirdest bit of 'capitalist equality/opportunity' logic, but I really felt bad that we might have to tell all those folks that they 'can't have it'. All things equal, I want to make it as affordable as I can because that brings a lot of benefit to people.

So yes, after 20 years of this China-Wallmart global supply chain powerhouse ... maybe we should start to take stock of all of these externalities, but let's also not forget how much of the surpluses go to those who need it.

Now consider that there are still 4 billion people who are going to 'come online' into basic economic prosperity who are going to want and need 'stuff' to!

I hope we start to figure out plastics, waste, pollution, but we also want to make stuff accessible.

Neither can statisticians so that’s why I don’t put any trust in CPI numbers (“inflation”). They don’t even track amount sold (I.e. did the 355 ml pop become 340ml?) how are they going to track quality???

I feel twitter suffers the same problems. Who is genuine? Who has unbiased knowledge? Who can tell me the truth about a product? Can I know your credentials online without knowing your name? ((Imagine twitter posts being flagged "This person has no qualifications and has failed a basic maths exam")) -- idea - online exams with my results cryptographically signed.

Block-chain seemed to offer some sort of solution. Maybe if we had trusted manufacturers of components, then these components could be tracked (along with pollution, carbon miles, labour policies, etc) all logged in the block chain. A bit like "fair trade" but for other items. Easily checked using your phone/bar-code before purchasing.

I concur on both fronts.

Might I suggest you check out thrift or second hand stores?

I have a collection of old aluminum cased power tools made in the mid 20th century in North America, and I think the most I paid for any one of them was $12 CAD.

They look amazing.

You can take them apart quickly and easily if you need to re-grease them.

You can re-wind the motor if you somehow manage to short it out.

They don't need a warranty, as they have proven themselves over the past 50+ years already.

Etc.

We've made a LOT of quality products over the years, many of which make their way into thrift stores sooner or later.

Paying 10% of what something would cost brand new, and getting quality that is typically 10x greater than the brand new version is a steal imho.

I will admit that my drill has had the grounding pin cut out of it's once-3-pronged plug.

Apparently it was common for contractors to cut it out as many of the houses they were working in didn't have grounding sockets.

I've only used it a couple of times, after checking it over mechanically inside, so I'm not too worried about it.

The beautiful thing about old power tools however is that replacing the power cord is as easy removing 4 easily accessed screws in the outer cover, removing the cover, then removing 3 further easily accessed screws that connect the plug to the electrical system of the drill.

Which as you remind us, I should probably do sooner than later.

Thanks for the story, and thankfully you still have an arm to type with!

Especially so with newer Chinese made products actually adding lead weights inside their cheap plastic cases to make their cheap products feel as though they were cut from a heavier cloth.

Some rules of thumb that I have when it comes to buying old power tools are:

Does it look like something your grandfather might have owned?

Is it of all metal construction? If not, are the plastics of a high enough density to make them almost as indestructible as metal?

Does it plug directly into the wall? And does it work?

If you can answer those questions in the affirmative when it comes to any power tool, chances are it is of good quality.

The best way by far imho however is just to get out there and start looking.

After a few months, you'll begin to notice lots and lots of exactly the same items showing up in the same shelving sections.

The same kettles, the same breadmakers, the same drills, the same table lamps, most all of them having been made in the past 20 years and currently knocking on death's door.

Once you've seen enough of that crap, when a quality item displays itself in front of you, you'll know it's a great deal and snap it up with excitement.

I love thrifting.

Good luck out there!

Plenty of items that I have purchased and been unhappy with personally have found their way back to thrift stores.

I try to donate primarily to the more local actual charities that do a lot of good in my community like the salvation army, but I have no problem donating to for profit thrift stores either as I am in them often and I can see the great things that they're doing for a very large number of less wealthy people.

As for finding thrift store items in general, you can find some great things in need of minor tlc, especially hand tools. I tend to use my battery powered told for most things these days that are have tools so plugged tools aren't my forte but I still have a drill I bought ages ago that's lasted me numerous projects and years without failing. It's kind of remarkable how well built some tools are.

That is absolutely a great concern to me, but the fact remains that there are at least 10 homeless shelters and soup kitchens in my area funded completely by the salvation army.

While savers et al might be more supportive of the LGBT community, salvation army is literally putting a roof over hundreds of heads who call my city home every night, which is why I choose to support them.

Carbon Fiber is lighter, ok, so call that the high-end one. But in reality, their durability is lousy -- in addition to being mostly-ruined by a crash, they do deteriorate over time. I know this first-hand as a colleague repairs carbon fiber frames [imagine lots of epoxy and carbon wraps], so I see a huge gamut of failures. Most of the frames coming in are probably 2-8 years old? Will be interesting to see how they 'wear' in the 10-20+ timeframe.

This, in comparison to steel frames, which have fantastic crash resistance (one of my frame's toptube has a huge dent in in for years no problem, and, another friend, a racer, finished a multi-day stage race with the headtube angle crunched-in after rear-ending a car early in the race). Also, provided they're rust-proof'd the frames last decades and can be repaired, modified.

I've been to ?a? ?the? Giant factory in Taiwan seeing them manufacture steel frames -- it was amazingly simple and primitive and mass-scale factory way out from Taipei, in the countryside.

I suppose another win for carbon is it enables lots of weird/cool frame shapes. There are shaped steel and aluminum tubes, but nothing like the options in carbon.

I think the weight advantage of carbon is lower than you'd expect -- high-end cromoly-steel frames are made from suprisingly thin tubing that is very sound.

Anyway, I am clearly a fan of steel frames and more randonneur-style riding. If I was into triathlons or time trials, I'd probably reply differently. And I also increasingly dislike throwaway culture and I don't believe these carbon frames hold up in the longterm.

Is there anywhere like that already? I'm in New Zealand but I'd like to hear about international examples even if I couldn't shop there.

Battery is not glued, and most components are serviceable.

Actually I have emacs running on Android as well. I don't really use it often - but it works fine. Maybe if I bought a little Bluetooth keyboard I would play around with it more.

All my writing and personal-things -machines go offline, permanently, before I'd write anything, and they stay offline forever.

There's another company out of the US called Grant Stone who makes shoes in China. They are some of the best constructed leather shoes I've ever seen. Lots of people compare them to Aldens, which are double the price.

Given that, what's surprising is Solar panels are the exception. Push bikes are a great example. I'm pretty sure there are more electric push bikes in China, possibly more than the rest of the world put together. All are designed and built in China. So you would expect with that much volume and competition the best ebikes would come out of China. But that's not what has happened: Chinese designed ebikes are crap.

There was a Australian documentary about China and the Chinese mentality called "Two men in China". One of the presenters was previously Australia's Chief Scientist. It's both hugely entertaining and very informative if you can find it. Anyway, they presented a typical Chinese house. It as small and cramped by Australian standards, but everything was shiny and modern. Only there was a problem: the cupboard doors were falling off. Apparently this generally happens after about 6 months. Doors fall off, carpet comes up, roofs leak, electronics breaks, LED lights that should last 50,000 hours died after 500. No one seemed overly upset by this turn of events. No one was demanding someone come back and fix it. It was just accepted.

The difference then between the solar panels and the ebikes isn't the capability of the designed or the manufacturers. Of all things, it's the difference of the consumer. Where the Western consumer pushes back hard when their solar panels don't work (and by push back I mean law suites, legislation, and ultimately people going to jail) the Chinese consumer allows the manufacturers to get away delivering crap and lying about it. Who would have thought discerning customers were a key ingredient in making a great manufacturing nation?

Any plans on making this list publicly available?

This is the problem, but not how you are stating it. If CEO's didn't make 300x the lowest paid employee, and "shareholders didn't demand" exponential growth quarter after quarter, then the price to be 'Not made in China' would be reasonable.

Fix these problems then the damages caused by seeking "cheapest possible AND cheaper" would be non-existant.

*NB: I am a shareholder. I want my investment to MATCH inflation not magically exceed it. If everybody stops being so greedy this is possible. (I wouldn't need to buy shares if my company and government didn't fuck up Retirement Benefits.)

I don't _like_ that fact that global economies and inexpensive shipping have made arbitrage of inequity a real business profit driver. But the reality is that a bunch of people in China are prepared to work in factories making widgets for less money than anybody in Australia - and moving shipping containers full of widgets is _way_ less expensive than the difference.

Problem is that we, as evolved creatures in a world of scarcity, are hoarders by... nature. Greed is just a morally misguided way of hoarding. So, waiting for people to stop being greedy is much more difficult than just making the right moral choices.

Is a person struggling to make rent in New York or San Francisco or Sydney being "greedy" when they demand more pay than workers with equivalent skills in rural China or Vietnam or Bangladesh or Rawanda?

Global economies mean that while some things stay rooted in local pricing (like the food and shelter at the top of Maslow's hierarchy), while other things can be _way_ more valuable if you stuff them in a shipping container and send them to the docks of Oakland or New Jersey...

If I can house and feed my family for $US10/month in Rawanda, and my neighbours can only afford to pay me 30c for my widgets, but they can sell for $100 in San Francisco, of _course_ I'll jam 100,000 of them into a container and pay $5,000 to send them there...

That'll keep working great for the Rwandan guy - up until his kids decide they want iPhones and cars and university degrees, and the costs of their expectations increase until they cannot afford a manufacturing-based economy to fund them either...