Low Quality Junk Products and Planned Obsolescence
I'm getting pretty annoyed at the low quality of products. And I'm not talking about products from overseas that we have come to expect to be of the low-quality, such as products from China. I'm talking about products that are supposed to have a certain level of quality because of where they are made.
Source
Specifically, about a certain company that makes their glass products in the United States of America, touting that they've been making glass products for 110 years. It might be true that they been making glass products for 110 years, but the quality of the products has diminished. They might've had a name for themselves for over a century where they made good quality and long-lasting products, but things have changed in recent years.
I went to Canadian Tire yesterday to buy a shower filter to remove the chlorine in water. Yes, in Canada there is a store called Canadian Tire :)
I was looking around a few of the aisles and noticed some products made by Anchor. There was a good deal for a 3 piece set of glass measuring cups. I grabbed it.
In the next aisle I wanted to get some glass containers to use for food storage instead of some of the plastic I still have. Another good deal for an 8 piece set of round glass containers. I grabbed it too.
Then I went to another aisle and saw some cutting boards on sale. I was going to grab one that was a good deal, it seemed. But then I started thinking of reviews, and to check what other people had to say about the products.
Am I ever glad I did.
It turns out the cutting board there was on special was really crappy. People have purchased it, washed it a few times and it ended up cracking on them. I looked at the board and saw that it was made of rectangular pieces that seemed glued together. This definitely wasn't a quality board that I want to risk spending money on and having it break soon after.
I went back to the aisle for the glass containers, and saw another good deal for a 15 piece set of glass containers. I calculated which one was the better deal to buy. But then also wondered about the quality of the product, and checked out some reviews.
Most of the reviews were positive. One person said the "TrueSeal" covers were not that great as they started to break apart after a few months. So overall the review seemed okay. But I kept looking in Google and found reviews on Consumer Reports for the company. This is where I read how low-quality their glass is.
I wasn't buying an oven dish, but all of the glass products said they were oven safe. I wasn't planning on using them in the oven. The people who had bought a specific oven cooking container, have gotten a rotten deal. They would cook something in the oven and have the glass dish shatter into many small pieces, ending up with cuts and burns.
Some people even put only warm soup that had cooled after cooking, into a glass container for storage made by this company, and had it break into pieces as well.
I also read one review about the glass measuring cups that I was going to buy. This person said that they didn't even have anything in it, and all of a sudden they heard a loud noise and it turned out that their glass measuring cup had broken into pieces.
Even though I wasn't going to use these products in the oven, having products that shatter when warm liquid are poured into it, or that shatter on their own, is not something I want to spend money on or risk having happen to me.
Being satisfied with all the negative reviews on Consumer Reports, I went to check regular reviews about the glass measuring cups. So many people were saying that the red labeling on these glass measuring cups was junk, because after a few passes in the dishwasher the labeling was not readable, making the measuring cups useless as measuring cups.
After spending about an hour looking at products to buy, and looking at reviews of the products, I ended up buying nothing except for the original item I went into the store for, which was the shower filter.
I find it somewhat sad and deplorable that a company that's been around for 110 years, is now producing such horrible quality products that they break apart in conditions that they are not supposed to break in, and where the labeling they have on measuring cups gets erased so easily.
What has happened to the quality of manufacturing in the United States? I used to think something made in the United States carried a certain level of quality with it, but that isn't the case anymore. You might as well just buy something in China and get the same level of quality, and maybe you'll get an even better quality, who knows. Of course this doesn't apply to all products, but it sure does applied to this one company: Anchor.
I don't understand why the company would make such poor quality products. People in North America aren't going to just keep buying from your product after your product fails to provide adequate quality. They will go to another company for better quality.
Planned obsolescence doesn't work in the favor of a company doing it unless people don't have alternatives. If there are no alternatives, people keep going for the cheap product because that's all they can get. In the case of Canadian Tire, that appears to be the case. Anchor can keep making poor quality products that might or might not last because Canadian Tire is only carrying this company's glass measuring cups. I found another company for rectangular glass containers instead of the ground glass containers by Anchor, but I didn't research them yet to know if I actually want to buy them. There were a lot of Anchor products for glass kitchen ware though. It seemed pretty dominant at the store, which is unfortunate.
Define that the quality of products has gone down overall? Did you used to trust products made in North America, like the United States? Have you seen the quality of products from a company you used to trust go down in recent years? Do you find planned obsolescence is getting larger in scope?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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If you knew all about planned obsolescence you would be truly horrified. They make everything to last only a certain time. They pay engineers tons of money to make it so.
Here we get into what i call the toaster problem.
Lets say that i made a toaster that would last 100 years. Because, damnit, toasters should easily last that long, and i like to make a quality product.
So, you start out, and no one has a toaster. You can sell as many toaster as you can make. The demand for toasters in america is almost 100 million. But, thanks to manufacturing and automation, you can make 100 million in just a few years. Now, everyone has a toaster and all that equipment for building toasters sits idle. The entire toaster industry needs to be dismantled and sold as junk.
What do you do if you were into toaster manufacturing?
They are making cheap products not because they want to have never ending market, but because 10 other manufacturers are making it at the same price. And people tend to buy cheap things. Would you buy toaster with 100 year warranty if it costs 20x more than cheap brand? No, you would think to your self: this cheap one has 12 month warranty, most probably will last a little bit longer and after that I can buy another of newer design. Same goes everywhere you look.
That is definitely a factor, but you do not pay an engineer to make something as flimsy as possible but still have it last longer than the warranty. Instead, you would pay an engineer to design it to be less costly.
Since i know of engineers paid to do the first part, well then i cannot agree with your conclusion.
I bet these engineers are working not in the toster industry. In some other areas like TVs, mobiles, computers and their parts, home electronics, its a must to limit their life because you as a manufacturer would have heavy losses because of legacy product support (spare parts stocking, legacy support staff, extending licences, upgrading software to be compatible with current things).
Medical and industry products on the other hand are long lasting, but their cost does not end with initial high price - it includes regular OEM part replacements, manufacturer calibrations, OEM consumables, upgrades and etc. at the same high price, which covers legacy support costs for manufacturer.
Quality products are not meant to be in certain areas... it seems. We need robots to make everything, and be in abundance instead of scarcity, then we won't have to worry about not making money to survice :P
We should also start building many "Wall-e" bots too :)
The price of quality went exponential. You can't expect to get a deal on quality. As only small fraction of people chooses quality over price manufacturing volumes of quality products are small and thus item prices are high, compared to competition.
Yeah, but the store should offer a quality product then lol. I only had this one manufacturer for glass measure cups... :/
Most companies who has laid foundation for donkey years feels the consumers cannot do without their products even if the quality is not the same over time. They believe their name is a brand that everyone wants to associate with.
Customer review on products is the only way to get the best in the market
I have tested quite few products from the US and it was good. Like you said, it varies on the product.
Yeah, it should have been good, but this company just shot themselves int he foot...
PO was begun by American auto makers... the plan of course to get people to buy a car every 2 years. Then in the 70's the Japanese entered the American auto market and BOOM!
Well you don't need to buy a car every two years for any manufacturer...
Wow... that @krnel is why I always read reviews. I believe the group consensus trumps whatever the manufacturer touts. Great post! Here's to better quality because people are waaaaay smarter than they're giving us credit for. 😁
hehe, yeah, always check reviews. Some people might to be good for valid reviews, as I've seenw ith some reviews on pans... but it's always a good idea.
I think the old adage applies, "you get what you pay for". I've always bought Pyrex brand glass containers whether for storage or the oven and they seem to last forever. Even the rubberized lids. I believe their stuff is made in the U.S.
Pyrex, cool. I have some big ones for oven dishes too ;)
I like to buy my stuff from Goodwill (cooking stuff) and the flea market.
Good way to go :)
For everyone outside America Goodwill is basically a thrift store, 2nd hand shop, best stuff on earth there.
BTW why did you pick that profile pic?
Look my these companies are just lowering down their reputation by producing the low-quality product, They will vanish.
They are harming themselves.
A person like you and me will never buy anything From these shit companies.
No we shouldn't. But many people will, just because it's cheap... :/
The best insentive for a company to make quality is if they stay the owner of the product. For instance by renting out the product. This especially works with for instance lights in big companies. Phillips stays the owner and therefore needs to make lightbulbs that last as long as possible.
If you are brave in criticizing a particular product, obviously I will choose you as a steam witness. because I am sure, your heart is very good and would help us later if there are obstacles in this steemit and until kepda real world later.
thanks for the information, although I am not here to buy the product you mean.