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.