I don't get it either. In my eyes, they are an example of how good engineering combined with scale makes our lives better.
Their stuff is exactly as good as it needs to be. If you were to cut it up and look inside, you'd be shocked how cheap the materials are (big parts of the LACK are literally made of cardboard), but in my experience, you don't notice this in everyday use, and that's the really important part. That's good engineering vs. the medieval approach of just throwing a lot of wood at it until it's definitely enough.
Combine it with scale, and the result is me being able to furnish my entire apartment for the price that I'd pay for a single piece of "quality" furniture. My desk (where I shelled out for the slightly more expensive "higher quality" version with a 25? year warranty) and kitchen countertop look like new despite heavy use.
Will everything survive a move? Maybe not. That's why I plan to sell to the next tenant what they want to keep, from the rest dump (recycling or waste-to-energy, not landfill) whatever breaks, is not practical to dis- and reassemble, or doesn't fit the new apartment, and then buy new IKEA furniture that actually fits (and have it delivered and assembled by IKEA for probably not much more than the cost of moving "good" furniture).
Their stuff is exactly as good as it needs to be. If you were to cut it up and look inside, you'd be shocked how cheap the materials are (big parts of the LACK are literally made of cardboard), but in my experience, you don't notice this in everyday use, and that's the really important part. That's good engineering vs. the medieval approach of just throwing a lot of wood at it until it's definitely enough.
Combine it with scale, and the result is me being able to furnish my entire apartment for the price that I'd pay for a single piece of "quality" furniture. My desk (where I shelled out for the slightly more expensive "higher quality" version with a 25? year warranty) and kitchen countertop look like new despite heavy use.
Will everything survive a move? Maybe not. That's why I plan to sell to the next tenant what they want to keep, from the rest dump (recycling or waste-to-energy, not landfill) whatever breaks, is not practical to dis- and reassemble, or doesn't fit the new apartment, and then buy new IKEA furniture that actually fits (and have it delivered and assembled by IKEA for probably not much more than the cost of moving "good" furniture).