I think Ikea is great. Sure, the cheaper stuff consists of veneered particle board at best. But they (at least used to) use thicker veneers, often include relatively high quality hardware, and make some products that are just completely solid (stainless kitchen gear, simple but serviceable pine furniture, standing desks, some bedding).
What gets to me are places like West Elm and similar companies. Mid-Century design, but it's the same veneered particle board as the much cheaper Ikea stuff, and costs far more.
But somewhat ironically their steel kitchenware is competitive with catering equipment. It may not be as well designed for maximum functionality and storage packing efficiency, but costs about the same or even less than comparable Vogue gear. Over the years I've spotted an increasing number of street food vendors using Ikea bowls and trays, so the price and availability advantage appears to be real.
The cubical storage units are pretty solid and practical.
On the other hand the IKEA wardrobe I have is falling to pieces.
> What gets to me are places like West Elm and similar companies. Mid-Century design, but it's the same veneered particle board as the much cheaper Ikea stuff, and costs far more.
Somewhat similar to what I was thinking. In the UK John Lewis sell (or used to) sell bookshelves very similar to a Billy (in construction and appearance depending on the veneer) at three times the price.
If you do, then the unglued joints decay and it becomes wobblier and wobblier.
And, to extend the analogy, I'm sure Google's AI results will be perfectly serviceable for some people in some situations.
But for my wife's odd, non-standard, situation I had to build it myself. And for some people's odd, non-standard, situation they'll need to construct (or find) a bespoke information service that matches their needs. That will probably cost them more and the joinery won't be as neat.
Also my expensive boots didn’t last a lifetime, last time I went to get them resoled I was told they had deteriorated too far.
(I do have it screwed into the wall as it’s been recalled for tipovers.)
I guess the change (and recalls) are a result of lawsuits from that same dresser.
Please don't misunderstand: my point is not "AI is good."
It is problematic in many ways. My point is that I think the "AI versus actually doing cool human-crafted stuff" split is... a misguided, maybe even harmful, mental model of a more complicated reality.
Personally, I don’t believe that would be the case. Jevon’s paradox mixed with the natural tendency to exploit others. One could argue that technology -in general- didn’t really save people time by itself, it’s regulation - a social construct, and I am counting both cultural and legal enforcement of them as well- that did. Just look at how workers in countries without your European-style protections fare. Wikipedia’s article on the Chinese 996 [1] has a nice map for deaths due to long working hours by country, notice the dominant colours for each quadrant of this (projected) globe.
Pre industrialised societies’ labourers were limited by daylight and travel distance. The modern availability and abundance of artificial lighting, mechanised transportation, and telecommunication means their grand kids are expected to -and often do- toil every waking moment.
But the way society is structured now? We still live in feudalism, just uplifted to modern levels of ”comfort” (if you take of your western glasses and look at the whole world. There are still people living in medieval conditions today in some places in the world).
The way it’s going it’s only going to make rich people richer, and give them more power to control this system and perpetuate it. I don’t see that drastically changing anytime soon, unless we do something about it on a societal level.
People that push for AI are not interested in making your life better.
This made me think of a fascinating exception to this
Luxury-brand cars usually get turned over every couple years so as to avoid their inevitable maintenance cliff
The really rich people that I know of drive 10-year-old beaten-up Land Rovers, though.
I think there's a nouveau-riche slice of folks who buy "luxury" cars thinking that they confer status. There are brands like this in every industry, that adopt all the pointers of "luxury" except actual quality.
Maybe it's the Scots-Irish in him, but my father was always one to go for the luxury stuff, but still seek out the good quality stuff at as good a price as he can manage and fix it up if it were broken. He knows how to keep a Cadillac Eldorado on the road for 20 years or more, so of course he's going to spring for the fancy if a used one turns up at a good price. In the 80s he bought a small mansion that was in a quasi-dilapidated state but had been standing since the opening years of the 20th century. We renovated it inside and out, and today it's on the National Register of Historic Places (though my parents no longer live there).
I think that's a nice story to highlight, being able to do things well and preserving that knowledge
While there can be benefits for mass producing things, what actually is produced is going to be limited by what techniques are conducive to automation. So the techniques that are hard to automate are lost from the market of provided goods and then human capital for it also gets lost (can't think of any concrete examples off the top of my head, but maybe the techniques for some elements of clothing that are now only found in couture/custom pieces). Another related idea is how there are much fewer color variations in manufactured goods now, simply because it simplifies the mass manufacturing process.
Maybe how clothes used to come with a decent margin on the hems so you could alter them, but now they don't?
You seem to have misspelled "Honda". ;-)
EVs have the charging requirement, so it’s a lifestyle / home setup adjustment. Plus, other trade-offs like being way heavier due to the battery, and higher risk of being totaled if the battery pack is even slightly damaged.
Slight aside: I only recently learned how much easier it is to total an EV. A small accident can be fine for a gas car, but for an EV, if it does anything to the battery, and requires replacing the battery or going deep inside to try and figure out what’s wrong with it, it’s just not worth it anymore, and gets declared totaled by the insurance company. Not great! Felt it was worth including in my expected cost calculation for whether or not to get an EV.
And regular cars haven’t gotten MPG improvements in years.
So I have a good impression of the hybrid technologies they’ve developed! Though their electrification strategy seems completely different. Toyota/Lexus I think are in the hybrid lineup still. Whereas Honda went full electrification and shut down a lot of production so as to refit their factories. I believe one of the reasons that Honda sales plummeted recently, since they had just ramped down production.
Maybe that technology will be lost someday, I wonder how well-documented it is and if it’d be easy to ramp back up
I have seen/heard this a lot lately, but all the Ikea furniture I have ever had has been great. Among others, had a chair that was good for like 11 years lol
Chairs should last generations. A chair lasting 11 years is not exemplary. A chair falling apart after a few years should be the exception, and a bad thing at that.
Again, Vimes Theory: rich folks inherit furniture that their grandparents bought, and maybe need to get it re-upholstered once in their lifetime. Poor folks have to pay for new furniture every few years because it falls apart.
One of my friends has a kitchen table her great grandmother owned.
Neither of us (or our parents) are rich, but good, well made furniture used to be an investment. Now most furniture is disposable.
IDK, this feels to me more like an aspiration or desire about what furniture quality should generally be, and not really a description of what most furniture is actually like.
> rich folks inherit furniture that their grandparents bought, and maybe need to get it re-upholstered once in their lifetime.
I get that this is beside the point, but IDK why anyone would want their grandparents' furniture, aside from maybe a few choice really nice, antique-ish things. If I was "rich", I would rather buy my own furniture for the most part...
All my grandparents' furniture is properly jointed and made of good wood.
I have several Ikea pieces in my home, and I've had some for over a decade. If you build Ikea stuff properly, are selective in what you purchase, and use wood glue when constructing, then it lasts as long as anything else really.
Their flat packed designs are actually innovative. People can outfit an entire room by using a Honda Fit to transport.
And, of course, their bedside cabinets are the wrong size for my wife's bed, so I'd have to make one anyway.
And this is just an analogy; if you like Ikea-style Google Search, then great for you. I pay for Kagi because that Ikea-style Google Search doesn't work for me.
This is an analogy, obviously. Ikea has been innovative, and it does provide a useful service for people; if you just moved into a new place and need to furnish it as quickly and cheaply as possible, then off to Ikea you go. But it's still shitty furniture.
My furniture doesn't look great, sometimes. My joinery is not perfect. I don't have all the tools I need to do this properly. But the design goals for each are what we need to live our lives. My wife has a stupidly high bed in her office, piled mattresses so she can spread them out if we have many visitors. I made her a bedside table that matches that height. It's a complete one-off; I won't make another that size, and we probably won't need it if we move house.
My point is that we already have this split in other areas of our lives; the Vimes Theory of boots (rich people buy boots that last generations, poor people buy boots every year). Ikea furniture. Buying a mass-produced crockery from a big store, or buying hand-made crockery from a local potter. We're just adding information and code to this split.