How Did We End Up Getting Poor Quality Products?

Have you noticed that computers made in the U.S. 20 years ago lasted much longer than computers made in China 3 years ago? Computer part manufacturers regardless of where they are being manufactured ON PURPOSE do not make durable parts that last to force you to keep changing computers to generate more revenue.

A start-up bakery around the corner right after they opened up, had included 80% dark chocolate and plenty of fresh pecans in the recipe for your favorite chocolate pecan pie made with the best organic ingredients to attract your taste buds to this new bakery. However, as soon as they get a volume of customers lining up outside to buy their now famous chocolate pecan pie, they will start saving on chocolate and put milk chocolate in there, or only 50% dark chocolate and will put fewer pecans in there and will save on the size of the pie and on anything else they can possibly save on and will keep selling you the “famous chocolate pecan” but with lower quality ingredients!

Iphone and Samsung phones make sure you keep buying new versions of their phone every year or two by making the battery die faster, by constantly launching new apps that work better on a new version, by making previously functional phones “obsolete” and dysfunctional to force you to buy a new one.

Have you noticed that landline office telephone systems do not get that annoying static noise that the internet-based ones do? Landline phone systems are much more reliable because if the internet goes down, a landline phone system still works when the internet-based one is down.

Have you run into multiple issues with electronic equipment in your car that only the dealership can fix and charge you for, but your trusted mechanic can’t fix it because the dealership has special codes and parts, etc to make sure they prevent you from going to a cheaper mechanic? How come American-made cars break down more frequently than Japanese-made ones?  The automotive industry started cheating a long time ago, making sure cars are NOT made of durable materials and are stuffed with highly sensitive easy-to-break electronics.

To “sweeten” the poisonous pill, many big corporations claim that their poor quality product is “environmentally safe” – in fact they use that as a selling point to dupe woke consumers to opt for poor quality, but “green” products instead of good quality but “bad product” made with the use of environmentally “dirty” materials.

What about “environmentally conscious”  trash bags made of recycled materials  – how do you feel when these trash bags fall apart under the weight of your garbage and garbage spills on your hardwood floor as you are trying to take out the trash?

There is also the “ slave labor” hysteria – going back to the chocolate theme: in a chocolate department, whether it is in Whole Foods or other such stores, they sell you “fair trade” dark chocolate. These chocolate bars are smaller than normal ones, and cost more – if you press your fingers on the top of the package you will feel a void inside – they are selling you a tiny chocolate bar at the higher price to “help” some Tanzanian or Guatemalan farmers!  

You don’t even know whether those actual farmers exist, what share of those proceeds they actually get and how is it a fair trade if you are being screwed even if those hypothetical poor farmers benefit from this? It is not a fair trade – they or some intermediaries are taking advantage of you under the pretext of helping those farmers! Business and charity should never mix because when they do, someone inevitably gets screwed!

Teenagers line up at trendy stores to buy new-release running shoes, made with poor-quality materials and are not suitable for running – just suitable to show off for a few months and then be thrown away. Shoes used to be made to last, they required a certain level of craftsmanship and durability. Go to museums with 19th-century or even early 20th-century shoes and you can see the high quality, not to mention more elaborate design. Today’s shoes are made mostly with synthetic materials, are bad for your feet, and get ruined very quickly, especially everyday use shoes. 

Proceeding to new construction – any common sense contractor will tell you that a redwood house is better than a house built with plywood. Many “environmentally conscious” and cheaper materials that are being used in construction today are destined to disintegrate much sooner than their “ancient” counterparts and are more susceptible to termites, cracks, and the damaging effects of the elements. Look at those beautiful 19th-century mansions that were built to last for centuries and compare them to more modern houses that get leaks, cracks, roofs that only last 20 years, termites etc…

In the past products were higher quality, more durable, and at the same time reasonably priced.

Today, some manufacturers found a way to promote low-quality, expendable products at rock bottom prices, but most of them are promoting lower quality, less durable products at HIGHER prices under various pretexts – more features, newer versions, environmentally safer, ethically made, etc…  We, as consumers get cheated. Corporations are generating higher profits. The government is looking the other way.

The government only cares when someone is “not paying “ them a “fair share” in taxes (even though it is bureaucrats who decide what is “fair” and what is not based on purely political considerations! However, the Government is not in a hurry to stop mergers of already monopolistic companies or set high standards for the durability and quality of consumer products. There is some merit to Europeans banning GMO foods in their markets and limiting the monopolistic power of certain companies. 

Boeing with doors falling off mid-flight and Max jets dropping out of the sky because of malfunctioning computers probably would not survive the competition with Airbus and multiple other foreign plane manufacturers if Boeing were not shielded from competition by protectionist U.S. laws. Why should there only be Boeing producing all the planes in the U.S.? Why not break it up into 10 much smaller companies and create competition for a much higher quality plane?

Instead of abusing taxpayers with income redistribution schemes, the Government should use its power to set high-quality standards for consumer products forcing those who cheat out of business. High-quality products will cost more to the consumers, but they will last longer allowing them to save in the long run. In addition, the government should not support unions and should relax labor standards allowing manufacturers to bring the costs of manufacturing down and bring industries back to America to use local labor at the same cost as foreign labor minus tariffs!  We also have millions of undocumented migrants who would gladly work for minimum wage producing the same high-quality products at much cheaper costs to the manufacturer than the local unionized and spoiled labor force!

We should also not overlook consumer power.

As consumers, we will start getting better quality products when we change our mindset that today is focused on constantly getting new things at the cheapest imaginable price and when we no longer reward expandability.  We as consumers have the power to stop buying expandable products and reward manufacturers of more durable higher quality products – and penalize those who cheat by boycotting their products.

It’s already happening: many U.S. consumers prefer to buy more durable and reliable Japanese cars, some even sued Apple for battery scams (Batterygate 2017) and we are moving away from processed foods to organic natural foods even if they are more expensive.

This is a very positive development that should continue. 

Generally, we should keep in mind that focusing on expendability is near-sighted – it’s too focused on the present without thinking about the future and consequences. It is this expendability mentality that caused U.S. consumers to incur huge credit card debt – “Let me buy something I crave right now and I will think about how to pay for it later”. The elimination of cash use contributed to this mentality – when consumers paid with cash, they had to calculate precisely how much they could afford to spend. They would literally run out of money for basic needs if they overspent. However, banks made it “easy” for consumers with credit card addiction and consumerism – consumers got hooked on the ability to pay later and became extremely irresponsible spenders. Of course, this is very profitable for the banks, but disastrous for consumers.

Conscious reduction of credit card use and expansion of cash transactions will bring more discipline and responsibility into consumer behavior empowering consumers against both corporations and government that seek to control us through the use of digital transactions.

Sadly, the expendability of the products in a consumerist society translated into the expendability of people too!

It is no secret, that relationships lasted much longer in the past, and 50-year-long marriages were more common before than now. Dating was designed to test drive your future life partner whereas today it focuses on a fleeting sense of pleasure and break up is immediate upon expiration of intense pleasure. People nowadays treat each other as products and not even as durable products but more like expendable ones – if I have no longer a use for you, I stop socializing with you. This extends to all relationships – not just dating, but friendships, employment, and everything else. There is no such thing as loyalty to your employer, employees have resumes reflecting job change every 8-9 months rather than 10 years of continuous employment at the same place. Consumerist attitudes to life in general seemingly guaranteed immediate gratification and lack of sacrifice due to commitment, but we lost depth in relationships, a sense of stability, and peace of mind.

We have a responsibility to ourselves as consumers to exercise good judgment when buying things, to question the motives of manufacturers and corporations that are trying to cheat us and to motivate the government to increase the quality standards for consumer goods while decreasing the costs of production for the manufacturers. This is how we could start seeing better quality and more durable products. Maybe if we start getting better quality products and learn how to appreciate them, we will also start appreciating the value of higher quality and/or long-term relationships with others including dating scenes, marriages, friendships, and employment.

Expendability mindset could have started the low quality in everything epidemic so wouldn’t it be fair that the demise of this expendability mindset brings about the return of high quality and durability in everything?