Then the Craftsman brand downshifted its production quality to compete in price and their reliability fell through the floor. Now my family will skip over Craftsman entirely even if it's competitive in price, since the breach of perceived trust soured them on the brand so completely.
Sad to see them as an empty house brand now. Just like GE appliances, all that’s left is a sticker.
I bought a brand new ~$900 GE dishwasher last year (for a non-intended purpose) and needed to take it apart - for reasons.
IMO, the engineering in this thing was just marvelous. It was almost entirely tool-free click/snap fittings for full disassembly and reassembly. The parts were good quality molded, stamped or machined. It was clearly a master class in balancing competing trade-offs (price, assembly labor, reliability, noise, power, efficiency, etc). The simplicity of the thing was really remarkable.
Water falls into the side at whatever rate your tap delivers, and when a pressure sensor in the reservoir indicates enough volume to start, the thing begins. It does this a few times, pumping, re-pumping, heating and replacing that reservoir depending on the selected cycle, but overall, the thing is just incredibly simple and (hopefully, somewhat?) reliable.
It’s hard to tell these days whether you’re buying a product from a brand you trust or from a company that bought the brand you trust.
Though, having said that, I recently bought a Bosch refrigerator because Bosch is still Bosch and I trusted Bosch.
But the refrigerator is crap, broken on arrival and it took 5 phone calls and 3 weeks to get service.
There's still plenty of nuance in these rebadging situations. It's also hard to tell without following a lot of business news whether the new owner just bought "the stickers" or bought all the original factories or bought some complicated deal in between.
While I was pleased with this particular purchase, my ability to trust any brand in general has been diminishing with age and each new betrayal of that trust.
I have a growing heuristic that is (at least in part) inversely related to number of employees and the time a company has been publicly traded.
Crap like that is why companies have walked away from consumer-biased warranty policies. LLBean had to change theirs as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ll-bean-changed-its-retu...
Example: I once returned a board that I had cut in half. It was window trim with a shaped profile, and I had previously purchased and installed some of the same SKU before. When I went to install my freshly cut board next to the first ones, it was a little too obvious that it was from a different batch or manufacturer with a slightly different profile.
If they offer the warranty on drill bits, then there's nothing wrong with using the warranty on drill bits. It's not being a bad customer.
Could be. Maybe it snapped?
Oh, I agree - I've snapped dozens as well due to misuse.
But it is not inconceivable that a bit snapped due to manufacturing defect (I just don't know how the store can tell the difference).
it's crazy how the loss in quality begets them increased profits in nthe short term, but costs them their entire business in the long term.
the high quality products can be the loss leaders, and they can just commoditize the compliments.
why would you reduce the size of bread, when you can just sell me overpriced peanut butter, jams, and spreads to come along with it?
a good lesson in trust and social psychology. when trust is built, people throw their money at you.
And everyone is pulling the same shit.
Dutch : Vertrouwen komt te voet en gaat te paard ( Thorbecke )
https://thalein.medium.com/trust-arrives-on-foot-and-leaves-...
> people and organisations alike tend to be judged by the worst thing they do
It wasn't too long ago that the leadership of companies was often fairly stable. Now you see people rotating through every couple of years, rarely having to face the fallout of their bad decisions.
While much of the rest of the industry is moving to subscriptions or jacking prices, Cockos has kept their prices extremely low and push new releases consistently.
If we all thought this way, certainly there'd be no incentive for anyone to do the right thing at all? A good track record should be rewarded, up until the point when it stops. You shouldn't trust any company indefinitely, but there are a few that you can trust "for now".
> If we all thought this way, certainly there'd be no incentive for anyone to do the right thing at all? A good track record should be rewarded, up until the point when it stops. You shouldn't trust any company indefinitely, but there are a few that you can trust "for now".
They are doing "right thing" now so later when they dominate market they will be able to squeeze you like a lemon. Scorpion and a frog situation. It's just in their nature.
I'll note companies seem genuinely okay with being on lists of the most hated brands since America.
Perhaps a poll of the employees, or an association of customers, ought to figure somewhere.
An other strategy would be to place a financial value on "trust". That should be too hard, since brands already have financial value tied to them.
There are some nice examples of founding members going above and beyond to maintain their control, which may not look like it from the get go. Ubisoft comes to mind. I may not like some of their games, but I really appreciate the efforts of the Guillemot brothers.
I can't imagine Daimler-Benz as it is now being led by the 3rd grandson of the original founder for instance. It would be a miracle if that person was well suited for directing a multi-national car manufacturer. Same way Microsoft wouldn't be the same if Bill Gates' son was at the helm.
(Meaning: the first generation starts off poor, is self made, hands over to the second generation which is less dynamic, which hands over to the third who wreck it and end up poor clog wearers again)
You'll have some Louis XIV sometimes, and many Louis XVI the rest of the time, with sprinkles of Charles II in the mix to spice it up.
A security architect at a Bank offered a very pithy version of this to me: "People hate banks, but they trust us. Best not lose their trust."
The point he was making was that this old, established company's biggest asset was its brand, and its brand identity was just "trust" (they made professional products, and others could undercut them, but pros would always return to buy from them because they knew they would get what they paid for).
It's the kind of attitude I think every toolmaker (software or otherwise) should keep in mind. Professionals value trust more than they do dollars in their pocket, and the companies with the best reputation and longevity understand that.
But also that company was privately owned by a family, and their name is still over the front door. I think that when the execs answer to people whose name is synonymous with the products and culture of the organization, avoiding short term profit motivated garbage strategy is part of your MO.