Ask Lemmy

The real reason was private equity

Private equity made things a lot worse. In 2019, Instant Brands was acquired by Cornell Capital and unceremoniously merged with Corelle Brands, a housewares company that includes Pyrex. An acquisition by a private equity firm brings certain expectations with it—namely: lots and lots of fast growth.

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/instant-pot-bankrupt

The company that made instant pot actually went bankrupt because it was acquired by private equity via leveraged buyout.

What you're telling is the story the evil assholes that profit from that kind of thing want you to believe.

This is why capitalism is stupid at its core. It doesn't promote anything good. It only promotes greed and enriching the top. Make the shittiest product you possibly can that people will buy, buy out every other maker of product, repopulate the sector with fake brands to give people illusion of choice.

Oldest trick in the book. And literally not 1 person I know can see through this trickery.

In capitalism making a long lasting good product is not viable at all, it makes no sense. Who gives a shit if your great grandkid is still using your oven 60 years later, the shareholders dont benefit then. Out of business. Its an idiotic system kept alive only by propaganda.

Yeah it’s a right dilemma. Because on one hand, I feel like they should make products to the highest quality if they can so that the consumer has to spend less money, but at the same time if it leads to the company going bankrupt, what of the workers and their families?

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

True that waste is also a factor in this.

lower quality products are not always cheaper to produce.

The highest price points for many items are luxury brands that sell for hundreds to thousands of times the actual cost of manufacture.

Eventually, the only way to put the product in everybody's hands is to make it so cheap that it only works once, if you're lucky.

And yet everybody (or close enough) in the world today has a smartphone that generally will last at least a year or two. (Set aside countries that are screwed up because of their govt, that's another issue entirely). There are lots of things that could be supplied to every person on earth if capitalism wasn't fucked.

If everyone built them at the highest quality, then every product would be at the highest price point

I’ll be honest, I didn’t even think of that point. Thanks for sharing, interesting perspective.

Short, sweet and to the point. I like it. I also like more detailed answers also.

Edit: I clearly also like overusing the word also, also.

I was thinking about getting better quality shorts this year, but I’ve got a two year old. I decided I’ll get old navy shorts for 2 more years, because the risk of getting a stain I can’t remove on them is pretty high still

I’m not sure tbh. That’s kind of why I asked the question, and hopefully other’s views may shed light on this ‘issue’

What’s your opinion then?