I mean, that's kind of what I'm saying. It's hard for local stores to find consumer goods that aren't junk quality. Portland, Oregon where I live does have one of the better local economies for well sourced / locally produced stuff, e.g. we still have glass manufacturers, make a lot of shoes, and anything made out of wood, pretty much all your furnishings and most of your food you can buy from local makers and growers. And there are small shops that are still sort of affordable where you can get quality stuff. But if you want to buy a can opener, yeah, you can either go spend $100 at William Sonoma for one made out of titanium, or go buy one at Kroger that'll break in a day. Shit outta luck.

[Edit] I feel like here's a good place to sing the praises of my made-in-America, wool and cotton non-offgassing mattress. https://joybeds.com ...I think I was order #700 or something, and I feel like they're not getting the love they deserve. I'm in no way associated with this company but talking about finding quality goods and buying locally, it was really hard to even find this company, and felt like I was taking a big risk buying it online from a manufacturer with so few sales. We need more of this.

Regarding your last remark, and circling back to the main article: now the review market and culture is broken as well. Even when legitimate companies come on line, it's difficult to know about them because they don't get reviewed, and if they do, you never know if there's some financial conflict of interest, or if the reviews are legitimate, or what. If they do get reviewed, there's no follow-through to see if quality has improved or declined, etc.

It's remarkable how, when information is so much more accessible, it's become useless by deception and fraud.

It's especially sad in that it affects companies trying to establish a foothold by providing good business.

This, exactly. The massive flood of fake online reviews, not to mention the broken weighting systems that enhance the effect by grading products on a curve, has created a situation that's stacked against legitimate businesses. Not only are scammers filling their own products with fake positive reviews, they're also spamming real businesses with negative ones.

One of the weirdest things that happened to me this year: I received a book from Amazon I hadn't ordered. It was addressed to me at my house, apparently printed off an Amazon press in Poland, but listed by a "company" in Vietnam. It was called "Daily Business Plan" or something, with a generic stock photo on the cover. Inside, every page was the same - blank except for lined horizontal rules and the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. There were no dates, no year, no page numbers. No bibliographic page. I let Amazon know about it. I can only assume that the seller was trying some kind of scam to write "verified buyer" reviews for themselves...

That's their point; it's no longer possible to source reliable products for the mom-and-pop stores.