Looking through old Sears catalogs and seeing the prizes on older game shows, I think some of our memory is selective. Even in photos and SD video you can see the terrible build quality on many consumer products from those earlier times. This seems to be especially true for furniture and exercise equipment. When you convert into current dollars, this low quality junk often is more expensive than what is available today. There's plenty of junk being sold today too and paying more doesn't guarantee quality but the notion that it's more difficult to find quality today than in the past doesn't seem universal. We have plenty of items that survived earlier eras and are examples of durability but the landfills are full of junk that we don't see.
The idea behind the article is not that everyone is making junk these days. The idea is that we often have no way to find out which products and services are junk and which are good quality. How are you going to find a contractor to remodel your bathroom? How will you even know if they did a good job?
In the Jungle, regarding the experience of immigrants in the early 1900s, Upton Sinclair writes, "If they paid higher prices, they might get frills and fanciness, or be cheated; but genuine quality they could not obtain for love nor money."
In other words, 90% of everything is crap, both then and now. And thanks to Lindy's Law, you're usually better off buying something old than something new. But that's not how most people think :(
In personal experience things were more crappy then than now. The explaining factor could be that production techniques have evolved as a whole, and less manual steps harmonizes the quality of cheap goods.
To take IKEA as an example, their table were really bad 20 years ago, and the only option was to either buy from another flatpack company, that was often worse (assembly would need like 50 screws for a single table...wtf), or a hand made "old fashion" table that would last a lifetime but cost 10 times more. Current IKEA tables will last a lifetime for the same price as the crap from 20 years ago.
Another example is French and Italian cars. They were really bad decades ago, reliability issues were only compensated by the ease to repair and cheap local maintenance. But industrial process are so much better now that production quality and reliability is at a level way above what would be expected for cars of roughly the same production cost.
IKEA at least was, the last time I shopped there, willing to sell at different levels of build quality. Some products cut every corner possible in the name of cost, but also passed a noticeable portion of that savings to the consumer. Others used some slightly better materials in places where the results mattered with predictably good results. As long as the consumer made an informed choice the result was as desired.
IKEA always have had a range of different quality products. You could buy cheap stuff that didn't last or you could more expensive stuff that last 20 or 30 years ago as well as today.
Ikea is a bad example in IMO. I moved countries 3 times in the last 10 years and bought many of the same exact Ikea items all 3 times. The quality went down each time. Things that were previously metal became plastic. Things that were previously reenforced in 4 positions were now only 3. etc....
Also, several of the more sturdy things they had they no longer sell and what they have now in the same category are vastly less sturdy.
I agree though, they do still have some good, quality, sturdy kitchen tables and a few pretty good sturdy sofas.
> Thus, the Lindy effect proposes the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, it is also likely to have a longer remaining life expectancy.
Makes sense!
I was also thinking there's a related rule - something worth buying used has proven itself to not be crap.
Another way to look for non crap, is to check the used value of something. E.g. check swappa. If people are still paying a lot for an item after it is used, usually a good sign. If they are not and you still want it, get it used and save a ton.
Another good way, check how much insurance costs. e.g. How much is that extended warranty going to cost on one car vs another. How much is home owners insurance in one neighborhood vs another. Insurance companies that make mistakes here go out of business.
Especially for older 'thing' you might be looking for. If it is at all collectable, the price will be higher, regardless of quality.
Ice cream makers are one thing I have found that for. White Mountain made a really high quality product, but the used market is obscene, because people collect them apparently (at least in my part of the country).
People still try to sell their used crap. So how do you define if something is worth buying used ? For some people everything is worth buying used, even crap
It’s standard practice to reduce safety margins when build quality increases. If you think in terms of expected lifespan, when the company has little control over how long things last and wants a minimum of say 1 year then some fail at 1 year and some fail after 20. As their process improves the minimum stays the same, but maximum lifespan decreases.
"Value Engineering" - make the same thing, but at half the cost, eventually you get chip bags filled with air and reduced by 1.5 oz margins until the profit matches what's needed.
