I walked by a health club today. I belonged to one of their locations about 15 years ago and at the time it seemed like an attractive, well-equipped place, and quite inexpensive, even though located in a high-end district. I won’t say the name of the place, except to mention that it’s also the the name of an expensive shoe and accessories brand. And oh yeah, and apparently in the world of P.G. Wodehouse it also meant approximately the same as “gosh darned”.
Fast forward to about two years ago. At that time I belonged to a much more expensive club, with better equipment, and towel service! They would give you a fresh workout towel every time you went in. And they would give you a fresh large towel for after your shower! Every time! No more lugging two towels to the gym. Additionally, there was decent soap provided, along with shaving cream, shampoo, and even disposable razors. It was sweet. But, wanting to cut expenses, I decided to try my old club again, seeing as they were advertising extremely modest dues.
I went back into the very same old location, and I was appalled. The equipment was adequate, but the locker room and bathroom was atrocious, about like what you’d find in a high school gym. After my first workout (I joined anyway), I was using a bathroom stall for a few minutes, and all the while, I heard one guy loudly threatening and shouting at somoene he thought he’d looked at him a little too long, or with a little too much interest. And the cardio area of the club was dark and depressing, like something out of a dystopic post-industrial future where everything is drab, dark, and nearly dead. In the end I decided that having weight machines wasn’t worth it when I could go walk a couple of miles and use my dumbbells at home.
It seems to me it really had gotten much worse. Or is it just that, as we go from young to middle aged we tend to expect more comfort? I loved living in the dorms at college, but now I don’t think I could tolerate sharing a room with anyone except my wife.
I think the reason we see brand name products and services declining in quality is the same reason we wonder why they dont make things like they used to back in the Middle Ages – we only pay attention to the good ones, and those are the ones likely to last. Mud and straw huts, and products that are crappy in the first place, don’t get our attention as much.
Well, I think it can be said that small appliances and gadgets have gone to hell in a handbasket lately. Thank the Chinese and our own greedy selves for that. They have a simple formula: make the stuff cheaper than anyone else can make it. They do that by cutting corners wherever possible. And we dimwit public will buy anything with a shiny cover on it that sorta works.
And bingo! Now two of three small battery powered clocks I buy is a dud. All I’m trying to do is get two that work and I’ve bought four so far. I’d be willing to pay extra for quality, but all that’s available around here are the $10 cheapies. Finally I took one of the duds apart and fixed it with some crazy glue. It’s working so far.
(Nice clockie wockie, keep ticking, you can do it…)
I’m from the Dark Ages. Used to be that buying Ridgid and Troy-Bilt products meant you were getting quality, long lasting products and not mediocre or worse throwaway consumer drek. Carhartt’s another one.
Not saying this is you, but I’ve heard people say that, but when there is a higher quality choice available, 99% of the time they say, “What? I can get one for $10 over (at another store, on the shelf below, whatever)”. Then they get the cheaper one, since the bottom line is the only thing that matters, and bitch that it breaks right away.
What annoys me the most about the quality bait and switch, is they go out of their way to make it LOOK like you think it should. Example: We bought some slide locks to keep our clever little monkey of a toddler inside our house. They were shiny and looked like brass. They were locks, I assumed they were brass. They aren’t. They both broke very quickly and we discovered that they were indeed, some sort of plastic.
I wish there was a truth in labeling law that covered things like that. For instance: Spray-bottle-that-sprays-more-than-four-times:$57. Something-that-looks-like-a-spray-bottle-but-does-not-spray: $3 That way, you know you are comparing apples to oranges.
I don’t know how much you have to spend to get a clock, a radio, a spray bottle, a lock or whatever else that actually works.
Positive Note: My husband is the Samsonite Gorilla of Everything. I bought him a pair of Dickie’s work pants from Wal-mart. Those suckers have held up amazingly. For my husband to have a pair of work pants that last over a year? It’s a miracle. So, good job Dickie’s. You still got it.
I’m a person who puts a lot of stock in good gear. I buy what is going to last and what is rugged enough to uphold my decidedly non-graceful ways, cost comes second to good quality, I’ll spend the extra bucks to get something that will last. I know that is a bit cliche but it’s true for me.
Case in Point: I have a North Face jacket that is nearly 20 years old. It’s been roughed up over the years but it is still in very good working condition. When I do wear it out I inevitably get a look from more than a few people on the condition of the coat. Some people ask if it’s a knock off because it doesn’t have the insignia emblazened on the back shoulder i.e. pre-consumerism-frenzy. Or at least, pre-marketing blitz to let everyone know what kind of coat you are wearing from the back…as if people care…Well, they do - unfortunately.
Well I have bought several North Face jackets since that old Extreme and I can say the quality has gone down. Their upper tier coats are grossly over priced for the chemical laden material you are getting. I just bought a “new” jacket that is supposedly not treated chemically and is more like neoprene than fabric. I like it, but we’ll have to see if will get through this ski season when I’m trashing about in the glades!
(Bolded portion) There more or less is, and you nailed it there. Not to be snarky, but you get what you pay for. If I’m paying $3 for a spray bottle, I presume it’s cheaply made, and I expect it to last a relatively short time. OTOH, I hate the spray bottles (usually filled with cleaner) that won’t spray when the bottle’s still half full – unless that’s the kind you’re talking about – then I empathize. But with a $3 spray bottle, I’m talking about the kind you buy empty and fill yourself.
Still not being snarky, but caveat emptor is still a good way to think.
As the peanut recall has proven, even paying extra doesn’t always get you a better product.
Kelloggs’ Keebler division put out 4 different brands of peanut butter cookie at 4 different prices and all of them used the same polluted peanut paste from the same low bidder.
OTOH, my wife has tried several store brands of Cream of Mushroom soup and only Campbell’s tastes right in any of her recipies.
I don’t eat boxed-dinner mac and cheese but the people in my family who do tell me that they wouldn’t have anything other than Kraft.
I think there’s a couple factors:
One is just that we humans are good at noticing things that are worse, while forgetting improvements. For at least the last three thousand years people have been complaining about how much worse things are than they used to be.
And, of course, as you’ve noticed individuals do tend to get used to more luxury, and going back to the exact same (less luxurious) situation now feels much much worse.
But there’s also a structural/marketing issue that makes quality decline: it’s very, very hard to convince consumers that what was once a mid-level or bargain brand is now much higher quality.
But if a formerly high-quality brand lowers its standards, it takes a while for customers to notice.
So for an established brand, improving quality doesn’t have much payoff, wheras spending less money on quality has immediate financial payoff, and little immediate damage. An enlightened manager with a long-term view might see the long-term damage, but not all managers have long-term views. And once that quality decline is in place, there’s usually no reason for even a long-view manager to get the former quality back. So you’d expect to see most brands decline in quality over time.
Sometimes - I haven’t bought the $57 spray bottle, but I have been known to buy the expensive mattress that didn’t hold up, the expensive vaccuum that was a piece of crap, expensive clothes that didn’t wear well, expensive furniture that didn’t keep its finish…paying more is no guarentee that the quality will be there - and because quality brands have gotten into creating mass market versions of themselves, you can’t depend on brand.
And my question is, how much is a reasonable price to pay for a spray bottle? And how do you distinguish it from a crap one, except for price?
The posts that discuss how the brands diminish, regardless of what you end up paying for them are exactly what I’m talking about. It is getting harder and harder to tell what is quality and what is crap. Especially when they purposefully design things to LOOK like they should, but aren’t really.
Bobby pins are another excellent example, I learned quickly that Goody’s are the only ones that work. The others look identical.