Worse on Purpose

pizzaiolo

This goes well with https://consumerrights.wiki

FinnLobsien

I wonder if there’s an inverse of this: brands that actually got better over time because they don’t have massive brand history to fall back on, or simply because they actually care.

M95D

Suggestion: sort/filter by location (EU/US/etc.).

fwip

As far as I can tell, this is a site for an LLM to vomit out the same basic article with different specific products each time.

RamblingCTO

Yeah not sure. Barbour for example has a few good models that are produced in England. The rest is from China and not up to standard. Well known, but this page just lists it as "approved". Same for carhartt actually.

bob1029

I have a hard time with the Instant Pot case. If you have their first generation product, you never have to buy another one. This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products. It's really hard to get the customers to pay a premium for something that will last for 50 years but hasn't proven the ability to do so yet. Not really sure how to solve this particular dilemma. I think Apple brushes up against it with the quality of their products too. I know of people who still use iPhones with a single digit in the model name. I am still on my M1 MBP.

Apreche

In a K shaped economy, there is no success in making quality goods at reasonable prices. There’s no middle class to buy them. You can make luxury goods for wealthy customers who do not care about price, or you can make absolute garbage to sell to the masses in bulk. If you want to bring back quality goods and services, end wealth inequality. Tax the rich.

dvh

Recently Texas instruments changed internals of NE5532 opamp. Several key parameters are worse. Completely changed input stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ZmmZ67SMY

al_borland

I’m surprised to see Cutco as approved. I’ve never used their knives, I only know them as the brand that tricks young people into selling their stuff through misleading job postings. It always seemed like a scummy business, which always makes me assume low quality.

LastTrain

No entry for Sonos, the poster boy of enshitification?

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] Worse on Purpose discussion 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019647

jackb4040

It doesn't really take into account that not all products are meant to be premium. Like it says to avoid Black & Decker because it's "Built to a price point, not a quality standard". Like we know, it's not the 1980s - sometimes you just need a cheap drill to mount a TV and then forget about until you move.

xnx

This site is absolute catnip for HN. Do we know what motivates the site? Long-term SEO content authority reputation building before pivoting to affiliate links?

lastofthemojito

Man, I clicked on "American Giant", which the website says is known for "Quality US-made staples at mainstream prices". Then I see how much a zip-up hoodie costs: $168. I guess I'm not in the mainstream anymore, yikes.

AdmiralAsshat

I sure wasn't expecting to see multi-level-marketing company Cutco on the list of "Approved" vendors. I guess it depends on which moral failing you're monitoring.

jiveturkey

How is Snap-On approved and Proto is on the watchlist? Proto >> Snap-On IMHO. Both in raw quality and in value. And while Craftsman may have changed significantly even before Sears' demise, there are still some excellent tool lines within the brand.

mannanj

Site is hard to use and navigate and make sense of, because of all the ai slop. If the creators spent more effort tuning the language and UI it would be more usable. Right now, not usable for me.

deepburner

I understand vibe coding a website if you only care about putting out the info but this is sloppenheimer levels of garbage. It reeks of stunted, far up its own ass Claude-isms everywhere and none of the prose is remotely readable without wanting to running headbutt a wall. Seriously, "Private Equity" was too long so you decided to write "Ownership Type: PE-owned"? I despise ai writing so much and shame on you.