I can find high quality just fine, for the most part. It just doesn't mean the same thing. As an example, check out what most kitchens use, if you want a quality blender. And be willing to pay for it. And don't be shocked to find they have several so that they can spread the use out.
My view is seeing my friends and family fall into the trap that one quality thing will last forever. It has never worked that way. All things need maintenance. And all things that last do so in the ship of Theseus style.
Now, do we also have a problem of fully disposable things? Probably. Single vendor items will be worse at this. But I'm not convinced from evidence that it is actually worse today. So many of the "made to last" things were not used for their lifetime. Such that that is its own form of waste.
Yes, another example is clothing. I have no interest in buying high quality clothing that I have to spend time taking care of. I want whatever lasts longest, while still being able to throw in the washer and dryer on default settings without having to separate colors.
No, he's saying that products that are destined to be obsoleted quickly should not be built to last. If something is disposable, make it look disposable. Of course, that's not going to happen.
things that twenty, ten, five years ago were of high quality - same brand, update of same model - now you buy at a comparatively abysmal quality for a very similar price. It is today easy to find products which are cheap in manufacturing and expensive as a price tag.
This means that, in some way, people in some/many societies are tolerating quality degradation. And a decrease of alternatives is contributing. That, in some areas, it was once not necessary to spend time investigating which product was high or just decent quality (already the price could have been a good indicator), while now it is part of your task, shows that tolerance for low quality has increased. That is not for the 1 dollar item, but for whole range up to many figures.
And, a staggeringly increased inability to perceive degradation in general is evident today visiting some territories (and see what is tolerated now and was not before).
It varies. There is certainly a lot of single-use throwaway stuff. A lot of things that used to be made out of wood or metal are now plastic, and are so inexpensive that it is cheaper to throw away and buy new than to repair stuff. Most furniture now is composites, because they are way cheaper than real wood. You aren't going to hand any of this stuff down to your grandkids.
Other things are much better, though. Automobiles and Electronics are much better than they were 20 years ago.
>Low-quality products equals more landfill and less money in consumer's pockets overall. It also means a very small market for product re-use, such as buying second hand. I grew up with 20 year old appliances from a local thrift shop. Every appliance I buy now seems to have a 24 month shelf-life, with the liability of having to dispose of unrecyclable materials. I'm telling you, net negative.
Nice anecdote, maybe you're just abusive? I buy simple appliances from Walmart and they last fine. I have a $15 drip coffee maker that has probably made about 2000 pots of coffee now from them and it still works. I'm telling you, net positive.
No, I'm not talking about consumables at all. I really am speaking about durable goods!
I am not arguing for treating items "like shit". That's abuse, and while abuse of inanimate objects is hardly a mortal sin, I still don't like it, and I said as much in my original post.
What I am saying is, use your stuff, and don't sweat the normal wear and tear that comes with use. There is absolutely no such thing as a factory pristine set of tools that also gets used regularly. They get scratched and dinged and beaten up, and you can see it. They will also get cleaned and oiled and maintained generally, and you can see that too.
Some of the other replies here talk about treating stuff more gently than it needs, because... well, I don't really know why. This is something I've struggled with too, and as I've gotten older (not to mention worked in product development -- you see some things there!) this has gotten easier for me, and so my life has gotten easier. A few years ago I got a new stove, way too expensive, and way too bright and clean and shiny. Then I put a big ugly scratch right into the front of it, before ever cooking anything on it. My first reaction was horror -- I damaged it -- and then I relaxed: Now I don't have to worry about scratching it anymore, I can just _use_ it without worrying about that. And so I did, and I do! There's real freedom that comes from thinking this way.
By all means, take care of fragile things. But objects have a purpose to serve, best exemplified by tools. If a tool cannot serve its purpose because it's broken or inadequate, you replace it. And if that same tool cannot serve its purpose because you are too gentle and refuse to let it, you have to replace your attitude.
It doesn't have to be for cheap stuff aka textiles and other plasticky things. But for tech, modern electronics and so on it could go in another directions.
And maybe we stop using these cheap things anyway since they're garbage anyway. Perhaps it's time to re-start building things to last, or at least that's my wish...
I mean, if the objective would be to replace with exact 1-to-1 replacements, sure that's brittle. But someone listing "Levi's Jeans" may also be hard pressed to replace them with the exact brand when traveling in many countries (ignoring knockoffs and outside of major cities). If the objective were to replace the bag with good-enough locally available things, the listed items are all trivially substitutable for local items, outside the tech gear (which I'd consider a problem for anyone wanting to travel with expensive electronics regardless of their style, one bag or twenty bag).
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