The lunches I found at the French Bistro markets were bagettes with butter and a slice of meat and cheese. At McDonalds for the same price I could get a burger, fries and a coke. THAT is the market that McDonalds is taking down, not the sit-down lunch of Coq a Vin, etc.
People LIKE McDonalds, and when given a choice will often choose them. A big reason for this is that McDonalds is predictable and fast. You know what you will get, and you will get it quickly. It is sad that the French lifestyle is losing the long lunch, but it makes sense that McDonalds is winning in the battle to provide fast hot food.
Your statement would be correct if there was just one manufacturer. Then that manufacturer could largely dictate what would be made available to the public. This is often the case when a new type of product comes to the market for the first time - like the black model T Fords. Of course there are thousands of manufacturers.
It is actually very profitable to provide luxury goods to the luxury market. Price becomes a secondary consideration and the price of the product can have almost no relation to its “value.” Look at how much a work of art can sell for. Also check out the price of services at a spa.
On the other hand the “profit margin” of products that are commodities can become so razor thin that any bump in the economy can drive the manufacturer into bankruptcy.
The manufacturers all exist in the same economy, and the same society, and tend to have the same viewpoint. They tend to come to the same decisions. And in many cases, a single manufacturer owns the patent and can just sit on it.
Hmm - I can buy tools (say, a wrench) at multiple quality and price points (Snap-On at the top, Kobalt and Craftsman in the middle, noname at the bottom).
I can buy autos at every level of quality and price.
I can buy food at vastly different quality and price levels.
Tthe decisions that manufacturers make is which markets to pursue. Where is there growth potential, where does their product have an advantage, where can they only compete on price.
The only universal decision is to make as much money as possible with their investment. You can make a lot of money making small batch high quality bourbon, and then selling it at a very high price. Alternatively you can go for the mass market game of selling plastic jugs of cheap rotgut and make your money on volume.
The market allows for both Charles Shaw AND Joseph Phelps to make money, and allows for people to buy one / the other / or both.
Exactly. And if they decide to not pursue certain markets, there won’t be one. If it isn’t profitable, or perceived as such, there won’t be a market, no matter how high the demand is. As I said, products like the original corningware simply aren’t available anymore; not because they were bad products or because there was no demand, but because the manufacturers weren’t making money because the quality ( durability ) was too good.
Like it or not, the market isn’t some magic Utopian system that always leads to some sort of ideal result.
17 years. While that may seem like a long time, 17 years ago was 1990. Anything invented earlier than 1990 is not being sat on by one greedy corporation. That might be a long time in the software or pharmaceutical business, but I somehow don’t think it’s much of a factor in the fast food business.
One more thing to consider. In many parts of the world McDonalds and other American/Global fast food franchises aren’t cheap but expensive. People in China don’t go to KFC because it’s cheaper than the local noodle shop or chicken shop, it is much more expensive than the local noodle shop, or the local chicken shop. Why some people in China feel like consuming very expensive American fast food instead of the cheap local food is an interesting question, but it isn’t about price.
As for the contention that there are products you can’t buy anymore no matter how high the demand is, well, how high exactly is that demand? The argument that a producer can’t make money on their cheap high end product, but can on a low-end product that costs the same to manufacture is suspicious. Corning isn’t the only company in the world that makes dishes, and the patents on nylon and corningware have long since expired. And since cost to manufacture and sale price have only an indirect relationship, a company can market the high end product for a much higher price than the low end product, even if they cost the same to make. And I know plenty of computer products that are sold exactly this way. Only one product rolls off the assembly line, but some features on the items destined to be sold as “cheap” are deliberately disabled. So it costs the company MORE to produce the cheap items, since it takes an extra step to disable features.
There is a HUGE market for high-end cookware, and the relation between sale price and “quality” is often tenuous. Slap a $200 price tag on a pan and people assume it’s “high quality”. Slap a $50 tag on the same pan and suddenly it’s “low quality”. And companies will have multiple lines of cookware at multiple price points because they want to capture the high end market without sacrificing the low end market. I remember reading an article about a celebrity chef endorsed pan which was identical to the company’s usual pan, but CHEAPER. It makes a twisted sort of sense that the celebrity endorsed product would be cheaper than the “regular” product, because the snobs who want that high-end pan don’t think of themselves as the sort of people who would buy something with Emeril’s face plastered on it.
Always, no. Sometimes, yes. In my experience what commonly happens is that the good quality “craftsman” products are still available, but the price goes up so that the price differential between crap and quality increases. Though there is often less expensive high quality mass produced product available as well.
Way back when, all furniture was handmade by craftsman. Because of this, there were lots of people in the handmade furniture business and handmade furniture was affordable - perhaps not to the extent that the average person could furnish a 3000 foot McMansion, but people had a nice dining table. Or a nice bedstead. Then industrialization hit - and while quality furniture is now affordable to more people, furniture handmade by craftsman is affordable to fewer. Now the quality of a Thomasville dining table may be objectively every bit as good as one that is handmade - and there may be fewer defects - although I have heirloom antique furniture - and I doubt anything I bought new will see two or three generations. And there is plenty of “furniture” out there that won’t last all four years of college.
“The original Corningware” didn’t work as well in microwaves, so this case is precisely opposite to your claim; in fact, the manufacturer was responding to what the customers wanted. The current Corningware is still of very high quality, anyway.
And of course, if you want high quality glass-ceramic cookware, you can still buy it. What makes you think you can’t?
I recently looked for new Pyroceram cookware and couldn’t find any. It was discontinued by the company, World Kitchen, that bought Corningware. Just because you can buy bits and pieces on eBay, doesn’t mean that it’s generally available.
The OP may be interested in Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, though he’ll find that Italians and the French are just as guilty as pushing their wares to the masses (Made in China Versace, anyone?)
You know, I’m still trying to understand the contention that ceramic baking dishes break a lot, and the manufacturers could make unbreakable ceramic dishes except they want the dishes to break so we’ll buy more of them.
And the thing is, I’ve never ever broken a ceramic baking dish, even the cheapest of them. I suppose if I made a habit of dropping them on cement floors they might break, but I’ve had the same dishes for…well, I guess for 20 years or so and I’ve never broken any of them.
So how’s that business model working out for Corningware? They made more fragile dishes hoping people would break them and buy more, did that work? I don’t think so. The people who claim they want that particular old Corningware, how many dishes do you break every decade? One? Two?
I largely agree with the point that if a market exists for luxury/quality goods it is filled. I do think, however, that non-luxury products intended for mass consumption have decreased in quality and craftsmanship considerably over the last 60 or so years. An anecdotal example of this, but I think an illustrative one, is my barber’s chair. My barber works in the same shop his dad started as an Italian immigrant in the 30’s, complete with its original chair. This chair is literally, a work of art. The footplate, for example, has the company’s name surrounded by floral patters die-cut out of a single steel plate. No modern barber chair is this ornate and decorative. People will argue, and I agree, that barber chairs don’t need to be this ornate and if it can be done cheaper it should be. Here’s the thing though, given that this barbershop was started by a poor immigrant, the high quality chair was probably about the same price, relatively, as the modern barber chair. That, IMHO, is where the real shame lies, not in the decline of the availability of luxury goods, but that what is considered basic middle of the road stuff is many times of vastly inferior quality and workmanship. And while not essential to our lives, I think we are poorer for it.
ralph124c, I’ve thought about this alot and it seems, given an optimum population, a town/city can provide both the mass produced low quality stuff and the high quality stuff too. In my town there are pizza places (all chains), fish and chips shops, about a dozen chinese restaurants and then Subway, McDonalds, and other food chains. However, there are several good quality restaurants in the town too with Indian, Chinese, Italian, Thai, Irish etc cuisine. They serve different markets. In a smaller town (my town has upwards of 40 maybe 50,000 people) though I could imagine that a chain might open up to the detriment of a locally owned quality establishment.
The main cinema in Dublin’s city centre (with a catchment population of over a million) is Cineworld. It has about 20 screens I think. As well as showing the latest Hollywood blockbuster cash-in sequels, it regularly screens Bollywood Films, Irish cinema, European cinema and Asian cinema. This cinema has the broadest appeal. You also get the smaller more pretentious arthouse places with world cinema and the suburban cineplexes with less variety.
Careful there, RickJay. You may want to get down off that high horse before you fall off.
I was not (and am not) whining about “good old days.” In fact, I’m not whining at all. I think my post was considerably calmer and at least as well-reasoned as yours.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: step ladders. There used to be very few options available. They tended to be made from wood with metal reinforcements. I had my old one for close to 30 years. I went to buy a new short stepladder (just three steps) and found that the local hardware store stocked them in three grades (all made from plastic and metal). I bought the highest-grade (“professional”) product, and the first time I used it, the bottom step bent. I was carrying a heavy box, so the total of me+box was around 325 pounds. I read the label and found that the weight rating was 300. This was the HIGHEST-GRADE 3-step ladder they had in stock!
There are still good scissors being made, but they’re hard to find because stores only stock the cheap ones. In six years owning my bookstore, we’ve broken about three, and two have become hopelessly dull. I used scissors in my last business, and had the same pair for 10 years.
In general, consumer electronics are throw-aways. Repair costs more than replacement, so they’re manufactured as cheap as possible. When that plastic knob snaps off, just buy another one. There are really good stereo systems and so forth available for the few who care, but they’re tough to find.
This is not nostalgia for some possibly-mythical “good old days.” My point is that stores only have a limited amount of space on their shelves, and they fill it with whatever sells the best. These days, people in general look for low prices rather than high quality, so that’s what’s out there.
No, escargot is what they call a Big Mac in France. Ignore anything you’ve heard about it being snails or anything awful like that- that’s just anti-French propaganda If you order the escargot in a French restaurant, you’ll be sure to get a nice, familiar Big Mac, just like you’d get at home.
This is too specific to be on topic, but you can get better stepladders at industrial supply stores, and you’ll often pay less, strange as that might sound. I know it seems counterintuitive, but it’s true, in large part because industrial customers are much more price sensitive than consumers. If being a quality auditor has taught me anything, it’s that you need to find industrial supply stores and shop there as often as possible, rather than Home Depot.
And speaking as a guy with some safety experience as well, stepladders for home use really should have limited weight capacities. It’s not safe to have heavy loads on a stepladder. But now I’m preaching.
That’s a perfectly good point, but it’s very different from the OP’s question, which is whether low quality products drive out better quality products. What you’re describing is market segmentation; the good products are all still in the market, they’re just not being sold in the same place and the crap (in some cases.)
You may prefer a croque monseur to Le Big Mac, however if the bistro isn’t doing enough business to stay open, why should it? The McDonalds doesn’t “drive out” the local restaurant. There’s no reason they can’t exist side by side if the demand is there.
I was watching a show about French winemaking when I was in Germany (it was the only thing in English). They basically had the same complaint that they couldn’t compete with the large industrial vinyards. The problem was that their wine really wasn’t very good anyway. Didn’t matter. Their argument was basically that they had been making wine for 200 years and someone should pay for them to continue doing so, even if no one wanted their wine.
They are also cheap as hell and they rarely break. Not to mention that they become obsolescent in a few years. I have a Panasonic 32" CRT tube TV set I bought for $700 back in 1997. It lasted me for 10 years without requiring a single repair. I just bought a Panasonic 50" plasma HDTV that weights like half as much. What am I supposed to do with the old TV? It’s outdated technology. I can maybe sell it for $50 if I’m lucky assuming they would come and pick it up. Heck, I’d be lucky if I didn’t have to pay someone just to haul it away and dispose of it.
I don’t WANT by consumer electronics to be the monolithic monstrosities my grandparents had in their living rooms.
Your barber chair not withstanding, I think you would have a hard time finding a mass produced product from 1947 that is superior to it’s 2007 equivalent.
And actually, my friends aunt payed us to move her crap which apparently included an old vintage barber chair. You wouldn’t be praising it’s superior quality if you had to lug that shit up 5 flights of stairs.
Fact of the matter is that you and I would not be able to afford all the hand crafted items from days of yore. But you can still find high quality items today if you want to look for it (and pay for it). My GF dragged me almost to Deleware to buy some hand made quality dresser. It doesn’t quite go with the cheap $100 laminated particleboard dresser barelky held together with nails and glue that I use, but it looks nice.
If you order the escargot in a French restaurant, you’ll be sure to get a nice, familiar Big Mac, just like you’d get at home.