# Stupidest product design you’ve experienced **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 25, 2023, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621 "2023-03-25T02:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 54
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1061 "2024-02-03T21:46:52Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Not a smoke detector, but a ceiling light… there’s a light in our stairwell, right where the stairs narrow into triangles as they turn 90 degrees. The light is a good 10 feet above it, I’m estimating. It burnt out a couple of months after we bought the house, but as we can’t figure out how to safely get to it it’s still not functional. It’s been over a decade, we are used to it. Assuming the existing bulb is a screw-in Type A incandescent bulb, something like [this](https://www.baycoproducts.com/collections/light-bulb-changers/products/lbc-100) would allow you to unscrew the bulb while remaining someplace safe. And then the same thing can be used to screw in the replacement bulb. And I would recommend using an LED bulb for the replacement, just to minimize how often you have to do this. [![](https://www.baycoproducts.com/cdn/shop/products/LBC-100_8b062551-916d-4ee8-874e-374e07b7ca0d.jpg) ](https://www.baycoproducts.com/cdn/shop/products/LBC-100_8b062551-916d-4ee8-874e-374e07b7ca0d.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1062 "2024-02-03T21:53:21Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > replaced all of the bulbs with LED ones which will basically never need replacing during our lifetime (we hope) Good luck with that. I’ve had to replace a number of LED bulbs already. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1063 "2024-02-03T23:55:22Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > …something like [this](https://www.baycoproducts.com/collections/light-bulb-changers/products/lbc-100) would allow you to unscrew the bulb while remaining someplace safe. Brilliant! Now, how do you remove the glass globe? 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1064 "2024-02-03T23:58:44Z")
Pellet gun? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1065 "2024-02-04T00:00:33Z")
That was my first thought also, but I hate picking up broken glass. And it would probably take out the bulb, rendering useless that magnificent tool! ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1066 "2024-02-04T00:05:04Z")
Get good ones. > **[A-Type LED Bulbs | Cree Lighting](https://www.creelighting.com/products/residential/general-purpose-bulbs/a-type-bulbs/)** > > Cree Lighting LED bulbs are engineered to work better and last longer. They feature beautiful light that provides exceptional color quality. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1067 "2024-02-04T00:16:29Z")
Hire a handyman? And that’s assuming that there _is_ a glass globe over the bulb. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1068 "2024-02-04T00:32:59Z")
Amazon has the exact same problem with listings. I want to find a cheap USB extension cord that’s 6 feet long so I search “Six Feet USB Extension Cord” price low to high. Now it gives me a bunch of two feet extension cords as the cheapest result because the product range INCLUDES six feet but it only takes into account the absolute cheapest cord to show up first which is always going to be less than six feet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1069 "2024-02-04T01:07:10Z")
And now I can’t remember what it was, but there was some item I was looking for that cost like $50, but there was some dinky accessory for it that cost $0.50, and the search results were dominated by the accessory. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1070 "2024-02-04T01:10:29Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Get good ones. That might be the problem. I’m broke, I buy cheap ones. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1071 "2024-02-04T01:20:16Z")
That sounds like a Vimes’ Boots situation. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1072 "2024-02-04T02:00:51Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Isn’t “ **special tool** needed” a recurring theme with German engineering? I always thought that was code for “German Engineer” 😏 > [@elbows](#): > > Who’s running this company? maybe the same troop of clowns that run aliexpress? … my pet-peeve there (car-analogy-ahead): there is a photo of a Lexus Luxury car for $20,000.- … you click on it and there are 10 types of cars in this listing, and of course the $20k is for the Toyota Yaris - not the Lexus (which costs $80k)… completely useless to find something in an orderly fashion. otoh: have you tried limiting a google search to Etsy? “_fabric site:www.etsy.com_” → and then when you get the results you go to “images” and have prices … > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Good luck with that. I’ve had to replace a number of LED bulbs already. Philips or Cree are your friends … for those hard to reach spots I go premium producer … also they tend to be nicer hues of light (irregardless of color temp → check for higher than 80 CRI) … those cheap chinese brands often make light that makes your living space look like a morgue or so …and fail way more often … ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1073 "2024-02-04T02:27:30Z")
I have to admit I’ve put very little effort into actually solving this problem over the past decade, but that’s an interesting (and somehow still a little terrifying) solution. I’ve thought that something like this must exist but I’ve never looked into it. There’s a separate light at both the top and bottom of these stairs so it really isn’t something we are bothered by unless we stop to think about it. The day I commit to fixing it I’ll remember this though! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1074 "2024-02-04T14:10:52Z")
I’ve learned to search google first. It will give you the amazon listing you’re wishing you could find. Usually as the top result. Saves me sooo much time! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1075 "2024-02-04T16:30:26Z")
I have to figure that Amazon’s search results are deliberately broken for some reason. They return all sorts of garbage that’s either tangentially related or just similar, and gum up the utility of your search. For example, by my way of thinking, if I search for “Proraso aftershave balm”, that would be either a string search for that full string (“Proraso aftershave balm”), or it would be a search for items that have all three of the words in some combination. So I’d get either the set of items where the description, tags, or title has the exact string “Proraso aftershave balm”, or I’d get the set of items that have the word “Proraso”, _and_ the word “Aftershave”, _and_ the word “Balm” somewhere in there. What I _shouldn’t_ get is an “OR” operation, which is what Amazon seems to do a lot of the time. I’ll get all sorts of other Proraso items, all sorts of other aftershave items, and all sorts of “balms” listed in the returned results, with the most likely matches (i.e. all three words) listed first. But not always- sometimes there’s more on the second or third page. It’s frustrating as hell- if I’m searching for a T25 Torx screwdriver, I don’t want or need flathead, Philips, Robertson screwdrivers listed, and nor do I need T10 Torx, T30 Torx, or any other size. _Maybe_ I might like to see sets that include T25 Torx drivers, but that’s a big maybe. Amazon will show you all that and some more nonsensical stuff besides. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1076 "2024-02-04T19:25:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > if I search for “Proraso aftershave balm A lot of what you are getting are products that paid Amazon to be shown when someone is searching for “Proraso” or “aftershave” or “balm” or “aftershave balm” or etc. Supposedly this is the first two pages or so of results. This has the nice side effect of requiring Proraso to pay Amazon to boost their product in search results _for their product_. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1077 "2024-02-04T19:48:23Z")
Enshittification at work for sure. It’s no longer about letting me find and buy the product I want, it’s about prying more money out of the vendor to provide better search results. I don’t have a problem with vendors paying more to put their results at the top of searches, but I do have a problem with them wanting their results at the top of tangentially related searches- if I’m looking for Proraso aftershave balm, I don’t want someone else’s aftershave balm, nor do I want Proraso Beard Balm to show up either. They just lower the signal to noise ratio on the search and make it frustrating, rather than make it easier to find what I’m looking for and buy it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1078 "2024-02-04T20:08:32Z")
As an experiment, I tried searching Amazon just now for Proraso aftershave balm (with my browser in incognito mode, so my past history wouldn’t affect the results). Most of the first 20 or so results that came up were either **Proraso After Shave Balm** or **Proraso After Shave Lotion** , but some of these were marked as “Sponsored,” which may well mean that Prosaro paid Amazon, as @echoreply suggested. After this came a bunch of less exact matches (like after shave balm that wasn’t Proraso, and Proraso products that weren’t aftershave balm). Some of these were “Sponsored” and some were not. I have no problem with Amazon returning these other partial matches _after_ the more exact matches. If Amazon had limited the results to only exact matches, I might not have gotten anything, since the product is listed as “After Shave” (two words) instead of “Aftershave.” And I’m sure plenty of Amazon customers search for what they want without knowing the exact correct words. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1079 "2024-02-04T20:39:44Z")
The funniest search result I ever had was back in the AltaVista days. There was a piece of software we used for research, and I was maybe thinking of getting a copy of it myself. So I searched for it, to see if they had a website selling it. The AltaVista search itself returned zero results… but the banner ad above the “We’re sorry, we couldn’t find any results” page was for the exact thing I was looking for. (it turned out that an individual license would have cost thousands of dollars, so I didn’t buy it anyway) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2024, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621/1080 "2024-02-04T22:11:49Z")
Right there in the third row, I start seeing shave cream, beard balm, and something called exfoliating beard paste and facial scrub. And aftershave splash/lotion, but not balm shows up in the _third_ result. even if it’s sponsored. Granted all are Proraso brand, but by the end of the first page, I’m getting returns that aren’t Proraso, aren’t aftershave, and aren’t balm. Something like Van Der Hagen Shaving Soap has no place being returned for that search on the first page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=53) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-product-design-you-ve-experienced/981621.md?page=55)