I think even more accurate is that quality/longevity and price are almost completely decoupled.
Spending more doesn’t guarantee higher quality it mostly gets you exceptional graphic design and deftly nested packaging that makes you feel good when you open it.
But it’s not like all the cheap stuff is better. A Rolex is an incredible engineering marvel and is in fact very high quality and durable. So are Festool tools, and so on.
But like so is G-shock and a random and difficult to pin down subset of Harbor Freight.
The broader point is that none of this really makes a fucking difference most of the discussion is just people preening about their choices instead of admitting it’s mostly a roll of the dice.
And the old stuff wasn’t “better” it was just different. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s garages were full of shoddy junk from the 50’s and 60’s. That stuff is just all gone right now.
Price seems to be based a lot more on marketing and brand saturation than quality. And quality brands get bought up all the time and the new company will coast on the brand while outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder.
And you can't trust reviews with affiliate marketing around.
So pretty much the only thing to do to identify quality is to experiment or share info with people you trust.
I've wasted a ton of money on shitty products on the way to identifying quality products.
I'm not even railing against status. I bought a pair of Alan Edmonds specifically for job interviews to signal status but I wear LL Bean shoes and Crocs the rest of the time.
Also, there's other factors besides just durability and status. There's aesthetics, variable utility, ease of replacement, warranty availability, price, etc.
I hate shopping so I think alot about this haha
> Yeah completely agree that price is decoupled from quality nowadays
In the world of physic tools, price and quality are highly coupled.
To your other points, I honestly think fashion is very rewarding and healthy so long as you are focused on making yourself look good to you. And I agree, some fashion conformity is unavoidable. Especially depending upon your career field.
Ive never felt like I was in a more skeezy situation than mattress shopping.
It’s taken my wife and I years to slowly get pieces that will last the rest of our life.
But it's fundamentally worse at being a timepiece than a digital watch synchronized to an NTP time server.
If you're thinking about EMPs or something: well, I'd consider extremely accurate timekeeping to be the least of your concerns if no electronics work anymore...
However, that ignores the cost of maintaining a nice pair of shoes (both money and time) as one needs to clean, polish, and resole every so often.
You might want shoes in two or three colors/styles, which would make the Crocs last 2-3x longer, same for the other shoes, but are you really going to want the same expensive shoes in 30 years?
I think the higher end stuff that retains value and requires less maintenance might be a better example, like if someone is good at buying watches they could get a Rolex that appreciates in value and ends up costing them nothing vs a series of cheaper watches. Or compare to a $500 Apple Watch you replace every couple years. I don’t wear watches, though, and I’m not good at buying or selling them.
Really, I think there are some expensive, durable goods that last longer and are cheaper you might think, but still more expensive once you take into account the maintenance and time value of money. But nice stuff is nice to have, and it’s helpful that you don’t have to replace it so often.
Their overhead on purchases is low AND their returns are high.
This is the core of the “secret” to wearing high quality shoes at a low cost. Buy good used shoes and get them resoled as necessary. E.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/1jhp8o/a...
But I think your point is generally true, though I'm not convinced it is very responsive to this specific article. I didn't get much preachiness from this article, but maybe it was there, or maybe you are familiar with this person's other writing, I dunno.
My take is that "minimalism" is indeed often a status game as you say, but that it also has good insights for the rest of us who aren't interested in those games, but do feel this sense of having too much junk cluttering up our lives.
I'm far from a "true" minimalist, but reading stuff like this over the years has totally impacted my thinking. When thinking about buying things now, I do think about whether I could spend a little more for something I'll be able to use a lot more. Or even ignoring price differences either way, I just evaluate things from this perspective of durability. And I think that's good.
A better comparison is to look at, for instance, Johnston and Murphy vs. Alden. Then you get a more fair comparison. For instance, one has welted soles and so they can be replaced without changing out the upper. Those soles are leather and provide excellent comfort. One uses full grain leather uppers, one does not. Everyone doesn’t need those, but if you’re someone who is wearing dress shoes to the office every day, it may be worth the benefit. You also don’t have to worry about replacing the shoe every year (though you do have to maintain it).
So we need to stop acting like we have great wisdom for "Paying more for quality" when in reality status and fashion had as much to do with the purchase as well.
Maybe compare backpack, or suits, or something along those lines.
Its pretty much the perfect example imo
Like the rest of my life I could wear either Alden or crocs....and I do.
You pick one extreme edge case.
I’ve never found shoes that meet all those criteria. I’ve actually never found any shoes, ever, that were even durable or had usable arch support. So cheap + not embarrassing is pretty much the bar to cross
But I learned recently that crocks have amazing arch support!
They also make my cheap slip on shoes last much longer.
I've had the same wallet for 10 years. It cost me $16 and was made from recycled leather scraps (thanks, Phil's wallets!). I plan to use it at least another 10 years. Will the $115 wallet pushed in this article really last 7x longer than my scrap wallet? I doubt it.
If I'd like my clothes made and sourced ethically, or if I want to support a local business that makes leather goods rather than buying mass-produced ones from somewhere else -- I wouldn't say those scenarios are motivated by prestige, but by valuing people and the work they do. It's a bit unfortunate that some things like that are considered a luxury these days.
Those always were a luxury. Before mass production most people just couldn't afford to have things as we do nowadays.
But I don't think this article is about them.
The smart middle class family buys the best they can afford given their budget, but the less-smart family buys the cheapest they can find and will probably live to regret it. Articles like this try to encourage the first approach.
100% agree about the Corolla though.
These repairs, while likely less wasteful than full-on recycling, have costs attributed to them. It costs to produce the goods required to repair. These goods often aren't super sustainable products either. With these factors in mind, is the comparison equal? Can we absolutely stand by the idea that paying for $500 leather boots will be better for the environment and you for 10 years?
Which is why when making these comparisons we should really get into the nitty gritty details, otherwise we're just handwaving a bunch of things and making assumptions to justify our position. By doing so, we'll be able to make better choices with proper information rather than shifting the burden of environmental impact elsewhere (to a repair shop or shoe makers, etc).
Note, this is not a defense of crocs vs leather boots. The product categories are just throwaway examples.
Fun way to think about it (borrowed from James May): A Toyota Corolla is higher quality than a Rolls Royce. Because Toyota makes 10,000,000 vehicles per year. Rolls makes only 6,000. Meaning Toyota is better at making cars just by virtue of having 4 orders of magnitude more practice.
They’re just better cars, made to more exacting standards with higher quality materials and better engineering and features.
And Toyota consistently ranks higher.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/most-reliable-and-least-reliab...
Unless you think the word quality is just fully synonymous with reliability (in which case a paper airplane beats an F-18) then my point stands.
Quality is famously subjective, that's why you'll never see it ranked in a way that everyone can agree on the way you can with reliability which is actually measurable.
But reliability is one of the markers that most people would use to judge quality. And we generally expect aircraft to go where we want them to without catastrophic failure, so I would think that an F18 is more reliable than a paper plane.
Assuming my paper airplane never goes into the shop it’s going to outrank the F-18.
Ain’t a better plane though.
Say I wanted a low-cost, lightweight, hand-propelled aircraft capable of flying short distances indoors that I could fold up and put in my pocket afterwards? Which would be the "better" plane then?
In practice, it just meant Chevy often cheaped out on the water pump and you got water pump failures after the warranty expired.
Corolla designers are highly constrained by cost.
In fact you could save more money by wrapping your feet in used burlap sacks. Just need to be creative.
I settled on some classic Vans after a deep internet dive signaled that they’re the most popular among homeless people for being durable and comfortable without being too expensive. They look fine, and I have a lot of freedom regarding when to replace them. I’m very happy with the decision actually. As an added benefit, they’re a welcome donation to the homeless if I don’t completely wear them out (which is basically impossible).
$500 sounds about right to me for the leather equivalent of the Vans. By the time you’ve accounted for durability and comfort without sacrificing appearances (and done it such that they can be attractively resoled) you’ll spend around that much.
I don’t have a wardrobe to match leather shoes, but the logic holds here if I did. You don’t have to be rich to daily drive a single pair of nice shoes, and the author’s tone didn’t strike me as snobbish or smug.
It’s just a different attitude. Lots of more expensive clothing gets you added features, better style, and better comfort than Kirkland. Expensive athleisure brands like Lululemon and Alo, for example, have pockets in better places and are more attractive than their Kirkland equivalents. The directly equivalent spending on the two makes for a smaller wardrobe that gets worn more often. If you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, have a quick discussion with it about fashion. Its training is not among content from the rich but rather the internet at large, and even it will tell you that fewer nicer fashion choices make a better wardrobe than more less expensive pieces.
https://www.vans.com/en-us/shoes-c00081/sk8-hi-canvas-shoe-p...
My anecdata and your anecdata disagree.
They need shoe reliability studies like they have with cars.
Small shoe makers get a good reputation for quality then can’t keep up with demand and sell or partner with huge fashion companies which cut costs and offshore manufacturing while keeping the price high.
Enshitification for shoes I guess.
But your comparisons don't factor in total cost of ownership and usage, and in fact many quality brands you do pay up for quality and better cost of ownership.
I can wear crocs at home. I would look disrespectful wearing them to a funeral. I can wear Alden anywhere though I might be overdressed for many occassions.
Aldens can be resoled and repaired and can last decades, the cost-per-wear can be very low. And many models of Aldens can be sold for a pretty penny (as an example these https://www.ebay.com/itm/394665864763 still go for nearly $300 even after years of wear). So if you bought Aldens new for $500 and wore for a decade and sold for $300 your cost per wear would be lower than that of the crocs. You would also be doing better for the environment by reusing the clothing and requiring less total material for your feet over a lifetime.
This also applies to a very few select watchmakers (and in fact increase in value). A Rolex or Patek Philippe has essentially beat inflation and would be considered a smart investment that made you money even while you wear it. A G-Shock would not offer similar returns.
Actually a lot of quality clothing can be like this. I thrifted a Tom Ford shirt for $40, wore it for a decade to weddings and funerals, and then sold it for $150. Certain makers are heavily discounted on second hand but retain their value. Borrelli shirts are some of the best on the planet. Would I pay retail? No. But you can buy them, wear them, and sell them second hand and pay virtually 0 to wear them over time.
Furniture is one where I've yet to find cheaper furniture paying off. A lot of particleboard furniture is awful. And it's all over Wayfair. The stuff I've had passed down or that I've bought that's lasted decades are all from North Carolina furniture makers. Not all of that stuff is expensive or high status but it is well made.
Expensive things are not always bad. Oftentimes the price is not justified. But it's not exclusive.
Resoling a pair of Alden's is easily 100 to 200 bucks whether to do it through the factory or through a cobbler. So no savings there.
a pair of Crocs is 50 bucks and that's one of the highest quality pairs of shoes you'll buy for the price. you could buy 10 pairs of Crocs for a $500 pair of Alden's so even if the crocs only lasted a year, it would take a decade to recoup the investment on the Alden's.
but the crocs don't have the same status that Alan Edmonds or Alden does.
Same thing with the G-Shock watch versus a Rolex.
If you really want quality look at what middle class people are doing. Crocs, Kirkland, G-Shock, Corolla etc.
All this stuff is top quality but rich people wouldn't be caught dead in them.