HanSolo wrote on 2022-04-14, 01:39:Yes, that 'someone' is called 'customer'. Everybody who buys the cheaper/noname/chinese rip-off should take a long look in the m […]
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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-14, 00:57:
Well, that's why it's called a race to the bottom. Someone in capitalism will always be even more depraved and void of a general sense of honor and decency if they can lower cost somehow. Then all others are forced to do the same, repeat. Also known as a prisoner's dilemma.
Yes, that 'someone' is called 'customer'. Everybody who buys the cheaper/noname/chinese rip-off should take a long look in the mirror when searching for that 'someone'.
It's the same story all the time: people buy cheap and then they complain that everything goes south.
(Of course, I'm also one of those who bought cheap disks back then)
some of those people have a choice between cheap but available or not available at all
it's easier to hold onto high standards and deride 'capitalism' for diluting the quality of products when you can afford the better ones
Floppy discs, as an example, became cheaper mostly as a result of mass production lowering unit price rather than a loss of functionality. I.e. an earlier more expensive floppy disk stored x, a later cheaper floppy disk also stored x
whether they both still stored x 5 years after they were bought is another matter, most people neither expected nor cared about that in later mass production years
i don't like the lowering of quality either (in so far as this does actually happen alongside mass production), but i do accept that it makes a product available to more people who want to do something right there and then and for whom the cheap product works
When a cheap poor product fails after a short while the customer may not care, but its a pollution nightmare. Overall i would prefer quality and longevity, but I accept what that would mean in terms of limited affordability for lots of people