[HN Gopher] Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical
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Buy it for life: Durable, Quality, Practical
Author : emre
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-04-17 20:37 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.buyforlife.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.buyforlife.com)
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Thinkpad X200
|
| I clicked on Go to Shop, it leads to Amazon with a search for
| "thinkpad T series" and nothing related to the X200. Useless.
|
| https://www.buyforlife.com/products/185/thinkpad-x200
| golemiprague wrote:
| I can see why someone would like to buy a long lasting tools or
| pots and pans but for cloths or electronics it is just a waste of
| money. Fashion changes and electronics advance too rapidly, you
| don't want to get stuck with something for too long.
| thih9 wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558941
| dang wrote:
| Also these threads:
|
| _Show HN: I calculated the monthly cost of ownership for
| products_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26525183 -
| March 2021 (2 comments)
|
| _Show HN: Summarizing product reviews into simple bullet-point
| lists with GPT-3_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26224784 - Feb 2021 (41
| comments)
|
| _Review broken products instead of new ones_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810708 - Jan 2021 (121
| comments)
|
| _Show HN: Recurring reviews to track the whole lifecycle of a
| product_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558891 - Dec
| 2020 (61 comments)
| fnord77 wrote:
| no electronics products on that site offer a lifetime warranty.
|
| I'd argue there are almost no "buy it for life" electronics. Same
| with clothing except maybe outerwear.
| fnord77 wrote:
| Some cheapo Harbor Freight tools last a lifetime if you only use
| them a couple times a year. No sense in buying something very
| heavy duty when it won't see much duty.
|
| I feel like "buy it for life" is just a different kind of
| (hipster?) snobbery.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There are tools for weekend warriors, and then there's tools
| for the "professional" built for daily use.
|
| I often repeat the phrase "buy it nice, or buy it twice if not
| thrice". I've done the buy it cheap to get 'er done type of
| thing, and I've also bought the good item because it was going
| to make a shitty job that much easier.
| chakerb wrote:
| I genuinely dont understand the reason behind hijacking right-
| click (long press on phone). I'm using a slow internet, and I'm
| used to open multiple tabs so I can only wait for one and then go
| through all of them. So I'm eager to understand if this is done
| to stop people from copying from the site or there's another
| reason behind it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >So I'm eager to understand if this is done to stop people from
| copying from the site
|
| Disabling right-click for this purpose is like a lock on the
| front door to your house. It only keeps the honest person at
| bay. If I want to see the details of the site, there's no
| stopping DevTools. Hiding images div backgrounds or under click
| blocking divs is just a mere inconvenience. If the browser is
| displaying it, it can be gotten to in DevTools
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It's been an interesting evolution as I have aged to observe
| myself going from one end of the spectrum to the other (mainly,
| as I've accumulated more wealth).
|
| I'm now at the point where I crave quality at just about any cost
| because it's abundantly clear to me that buying crap is bad
| value. Many of the few high quality things I bought early on in
| life are still with me and I love them. But so is a huge amount
| of the garbage I bought earlier and I hate it.
|
| So where I used to go into shops and look at all the expensive
| items with scorn and think "what idiots must there be who buy all
| these things that are twice the price!", now I go in and actively
| try to find out "but is there an even more expensive one I could
| get with higher quality?"
| modeless wrote:
| Honestly I've gone in the other direction. Quality for its own
| sake is not a virtue; all that matters is whether the item
| meets the needs you have. An item that breaks and needs
| replacement is waste, but an item that is overbuilt and never
| used to its potential is a different kind of waste.
|
| I don't need the best tools in the world for my home toolbox. I
| use each tool maybe a couple of times a year and even the cheap
| ones don't break at that level of use. I bought a $250 RC car
| and a $10 one, and while the $250 one is awesome I've gotten
| more use out of the $10 one. Sometimes you need quality but
| sometimes you don't.
| hashkb wrote:
| That's fair. There is also a category (I'm thinking musical
| instruments, sports equipment, vim) that grows with you. You
| might miss out (or worse, quit guitar) because you were too
| cheap to ever figure out what you were missing.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| For me the issue is figuring out what is even quality. It feels
| like a lot of the time all options are meh or the feature set I
| want just doesn't exist.
| lupinglade wrote:
| It's not always the price too, often enough the higher quality
| item can be cheaper, just less of a fancy package maybe. A lot
| of companies blow all their budget on advertising and packaging
| instead of product quality and research. Knowledge is key.
| Especially be careful in stores like TJ Maxx, Home-sense and
| such -- lots of lowest quality fancy packaged junk to be had
| there.
| jack_pp wrote:
| One example I'm aware of is headphones. A while back everyone
| thought Beats are the best because they were expensive and
| had good marketing but really they were shit and you could
| get much better quality for less price
| colanderman wrote:
| At the same time, in keeping with the theme of the article
| -- spend the $75 for a good (i.e. well-regarded for your
| use case) pair of headphones if you enjoy music. It is
| absolutely night and day compared to $10 crap.
| lupinglade wrote:
| This is mainly because Beats headphones are just terrible
| at any price and a perfect example of all their budget
| going on marketing. Other headphones in the same price
| range or even below can be very good.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| One thing I have found, is that buying stuff that is supposed to
| last for life, ends up making the possessions own me, instead of
| me own the possessions.
|
| Especially with kids, when I have disposable objects, I don't
| have to worry if they trash it, or get it dirty. I don't have to
| worry about losing it(I can order a replacement on Amazon that
| will be here in 2 days). With long-lasting products that are for
| life, I find I worry about cleaning them, organizing them, and
| protecting them.
|
| Maybe to total cost of ownership is less for the more durable
| product, but you only have to lose it once or damage it once for
| the savings to go away.
| lupinglade wrote:
| On the other hand, crappy knock-off products aren't going to be
| the right tool for most jobs and will fail when you need them
| most. The trick to not being owned by your posessions is to
| only own what you really, truly need.
|
| Further, buying low-quality throw-away type products ends up
| supporting the greedy, lazy low-quality manufacturers. We all
| end up with only junk for choice.
|
| And as @desine already commented: all this junk ends up in the
| landfills, oceans, etc.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Depends what you use them for.
|
| > The trick to not being owned by your things is to only own
| what you really, truly need.
|
| I don't think that is quite right. Let's say you need a
| button down shirt for work. So you only buy 5, custom
| tailored shirts out of high quality materials. You have
| bought a minimal amount, and you really do need those shirts.
|
| When you are eating, are you not worried about getting
| ketchup on your shirt. If kids come up to you, are you not
| worried about them getting your shirt dirty. Are you worried
| that your washer and dryer are being too harsh for your
| shirts.
|
| If on the other hand, you just get a bunch of ok shirts on
| Amazon or WalMart. You just throw them in the washer and
| dryer without thinking about it. You eat and play with your
| kids, knowing if your shirt gets dirty, stained, or ripped,
| it is not a big deal, you will just get another one.
|
| I think the true key to not having your possessions own you
| is easy replacability. If you can easily replace them, then
| you can use them without worrying about them.
| lupinglade wrote:
| Shirts are more of a disposable product, they normally
| don't last very long. So the difference between the cheap
| knock off and proper quality isn't that significant.
| Although you probably don't want to be wearing the cheapest
| alibaba shirt to an important business meeting.
| christiansakai wrote:
| I think this is just a mindset issue. Which is non issue.
| desine wrote:
| With no disrespect (especially with children, I know their
| destructive tendencies well enough), this sounds like a
| shunning of responsibility, and irks me. Our cheap, disposable
| consumer goods are ending up in landfills, our plastic waste
| has permeated every square inch of the earth, and we continue
| to justify these destructive habits.
|
| If you need something, you should care for it, you should
| maintain it, and you should commit to a certain level of care.
| Not caring about your possessions and seeing them as disposable
| validates the business models of shelling out crap quality
| products and the further destruction of our environment.
| [deleted]
| imiric wrote:
| I was about to post a similar comment, but you summed it up
| nicely.
|
| The landfill reality and the pollution they cause, especially
| from e-waste, is devastating:
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-
| truth-...
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| We should charge the disposal cost upfront at the point of
| purchase. I know it's political suicide but it would solve
| quite a few issues.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Maybe not so far-fetched. CA charges an ewaste recycling
| fee already when you purchase certain items.
| mavhc wrote:
| Tax everything the amount it costs to clean up the
| pollution it causes, from electricity to food. 2 side
| effects: people will make things that produce less
| pollution, and people will make cleaning up pollution
| cheaper
| fnord77 wrote:
| perhaps we all have too many possessions.
| m463 wrote:
| yeah, there should be some products where "buy it for life"
| might be... just don't buy one.
|
| Do you really need a cast iron frying pan? They seem to be
| over-represented in this category because they don't break. But
| iron in your diet is not that good for you if you're male
| because it accumulates.
|
| Another thing to be wary of is "buy this best stuff" lists are
| easy money, people will curate your lists for you, then you
| just link to amazon and hoarding behavior does the rest.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Reminds me of: "The things you own end up owning you."
| loldk wrote:
| One thing I have found, is that buying stuff that constantly
| breaks down and becomes useless, ends up making these
| posessions own me, instead of me own the posessions because I
| constantly have to reorder new ones.
|
| Especially with kids, when I have a long lasting products, I
| don't have to worry about coughing up a ton of money over the
| course of a few months or years just to keep replacing them,
| and I don't have to worry if they trash it, or get it dirty
| because I know it's covered. I also don't have to worry about
| losing it because me and my family are responsible and rarely
| lose things, mostly because the higher quality and warm fuzzy
| feelings we get from spending money with a moral company, we
| tend to all value the things we own much more. As such my kids
| tend to clean, organize, and protect them without needing as
| much discipline, and our friends and house guests also respect
| us more because we take good care of ourselves and our
| investments.
|
| So not only is the total cost of ownership less for our more
| durable, reliable products, but we also all feel very secure
| and happy about the small purchases we make because they
| provide so many benefits it feels more like an investment in
| our world and each other. However, when it comes to disposable
| and poorly made products we lose all of that before we even buy
| the product.
|
| p.s. we also don't have to spend nearly as much time shopping
| or searching for good products because we can place a
| reasonable amount of trust in the companies we are familiar
| with, and whose products are tested and kid/spouse approved.
|
| p.s.s. it feels amazing knowing we aren't enabling immoral
| businesses and their employees, who would turn around and lobby
| against important rights such as the right to repair our own
| belongings.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| Some of the product listings are not great. I see non stick
| skillets that I know won't last than a year or two with moderate
| use. Otherwise I like the concept.
| darksaints wrote:
| I'm an avid user of carbon steel pans, but I bought one of the
| hexclad pans just to try it out. It's actually really nice.
| I've used it about 50% of the time for over a year now, and it
| has held up really well. It's not as pretty as it was brand
| new, but it is still non-stick and there is no noticeable
| degradation.
| bushbaba wrote:
| It's always amazed me that high carbon steel / cast iron /
| stainless steel pans aren't more commonly used.
|
| You literally are buying it for life. They cook the food way
| better. And a small amount of oil is all that's needed for eggs
| and other non stick applications
| colanderman wrote:
| I tried a cast iron skillet and could not for the life of me
| get it to heat evenly. I'm talking like French toast burnt
| near the middle and uncooked at the edges.
|
| Stainless steel triple-ply (copper + aluminum) pans though
| have been fantastic. Even heating and nothing sticks with a
| bit of oil.
|
| I haven't figured out how to cook pancakes on them yet
| though, without relying on the Leidenfrost effect, at which
| point they just kinda burn and don't cook right.
| lupinglade wrote:
| They cook the best too - a good carbon steel pan is worth its
| weight in gold. Non-stick is utter garbage in comparison -
| and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the
| coating.
|
| Food cooked on carbon steel or iron tastes so much better.
| float4 wrote:
| > and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the
| coating
|
| There are actually ceramic non-stick pans, in which case
| you'd be eating sand if I understand the concept correctly.
| lupinglade wrote:
| Non-stick pans do not last. The ceramic coating option is
| terrible and everything will stick to it with a vengeance
| within about 6-8 months or so if you use it regularly -
| our experience with Cuisinart.
| genericone wrote:
| Non-stick pans require a bit of care as well. The trick
| is to ensure no sudden temperature changes to the pan,
| which will differentially expand/contract the cooking
| surface. Differential expansion/contraction between the
| top and bottom surface will crack the non-stick coating
| in no time ( think expansion cracks in concrete and
| sidewalks ).
|
| What that usually comes down to is to let your non-stick
| pan cool to room temperature before you run water over
| it, even if you like seeing all that steam. Also, you
| weren't expecting to sear meat with your nonstick anyway
| so don't slap a massive cold slab of meat on your unoiled
| non-stick either.
| wander_homer wrote:
| We got two ceramic coated pans 6 years ago and they're
| almost as good as new even though we used one of them for
| almost every cooked meal and the other like at least once
| every week. They're a pleasure to work with and I
| wouldn't want to miss them.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > and you're cooking on plastic and eating pieces of the
| coating.
|
| And with cast iron, you are cooking in random organic
| polymers and eating them. The patina of cast iron pans is
| random organic chemicals.
| lupinglade wrote:
| I've not seen our cast iron or carbon steel pans flaking
| off into food like I have seen with Teflon. I doubt there
| is much of anything harmful coming off during cooking --
| not any more harmful than the cooked food itself likely.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| I've bought into the cast iron hype a few years ago, and I
| have found it a little overhyped. There are several reasons
| why cast iron is not a common component of the average
| kitchen today. Here are mine:
|
| - The non-stickiness of cast iron has probably been best in
| class in its age. Today, we have Teflon. Teflon is so non-
| stick we have trouble having it stick to the pan when making
| pans. My understanding is that nothing, especially nothing
| you're likely to have in your kitchen, beats Teflon, ever.
| (Kenji Lopez-Alt a well known chef and/or food scientist
| alongside being a cast iron fan, also attests to this:
| https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/the-truth-about-cast-
| iro...)
|
| - I've found that it does go against some of my (potentially
| hypochondriac) cleaning tendencies. Essentially, you can wash
| it and I think you can use soft soaps, but you can't really
| actually scrub it with a hard sponge if you want to get the
| food out fully. It seems that the carbonisation of food and
| polymerisation of oil in a layer cake is in fact the thing
| gives the cast iron its nonstick properties. To someone used
| to the convivial shine of stainless steel, that's a tough
| pill to swallow.
|
| Cast iron is cool, and I'm sure it has its uses, but as
| someone who only dabbles in kitchen stuff, I've found it very
| inconvenient and frustrating to use.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| You can wash with soap and water and your favorite sponge.
| It's fine and will make your cast iron much more pleasant
| to use.
|
| If you really need nonstick (frying eggs, basically),
| that's what you have to use, but cast iron and carbon steel
| are incredibly versatile and a better buy if you're space-
| limited than nonstick
| greedo wrote:
| I learned a really handy trick for cleaning my cast iron.
| Heat the pan pretty hot (like the temp you'd use for
| searing a steak). Run your tap water as hot as the faucet
| will deliver, then (carefully) fill your cast iron pan with
| the hot water. It will boil off 99% of the gunk in the pan,
| and you can clean it out with a wet sponge.
| lupinglade wrote:
| Properly seasoned it will be as non-stick as Teflon or
| better. Especially carbon steel, which is also lighter -
| the main down side of cast iron is weight. Teflon flakes
| are much worse for you than a bit of iron ever will be (not
| really an issue in these amounts).
| chaostheory wrote:
| I agree with you. It looks like it made it onto the site
| because it has a lifetime warranty. Still, I'm not keen on
| eating flakes of PFAS aka Teflon as these types of products
| wear out
| darksaints wrote:
| The hexclad pans do not use teflon. And you're expected to
| season them...the non-stick nature is actually very similar
| to carbon steel.
| soneil wrote:
| I was surprised to spot apple's "magic mouse" there too. I'm
| fairly close to an apple fanboy, but even I'd admit non-
| replaceable batteries isn't compatible with "buy it for life"
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| I like BIFL-type items for some categories of products, but not
| others.
|
| Some of the recommended items are great. I love high-quality
| skillets, knives, rice cookers, etc.
|
| For other items, I've seen an overly high focus on "specs" in the
| BIFL community, where the durability comes at the price of being
| uncomfortable and bulky. With shoes, it would be using X leather
| here, using Y sole stitching there, etc. By comparison, I want
| light-weight shoes with soft / no heel counter, that weigh less
| than the recommended leather bricks. The bloody blisters I got
| from "quality construction" forced me to figure out what I
| personally need in a shoe.
| ilovecaching wrote:
| Instead of BFL, I only buy products that I'm ok with getting
| destroyed or products I have a laid out upgrade plan for.
| Example: All of my pants are Levi's 501s. I can get them for
| 50-60 bucks, which is nothing. They last a really long time, but
| they're not made in America nor do they have a lifetime warranty.
| BUT I don't have to worry about spilling stuff on my pants or
| going through the tedious process of filing warranty claims every
| time a button breaks. I just get on the app and order a new pair.
|
| What's more important to me is narrowing down the list of brands
| I buy from so I spend less time thinking about shopping and more
| time being productive.
| JohnCohorn wrote:
| It hurts me a little to see "50-60 bucks" for jeans referred to
| as nothing. I now grudgingly buy similar $50-60 Levis or Eddie
| Bauers because my wife likes them better than jeans that cost
| half as much. Looks some common basic jeans at Walmart are
| still ~$15 which is amazing since that's what I remember paying
| for them like 15 years ago.
| dehrmann wrote:
| You should see how much made in America Levi's cost.
| mikestew wrote:
| You'll be buying them used, because they're no longer made:
|
| https://www.heddels.com/2019/09/levis-no-longer-
| producing-50...
| dehrmann wrote:
| There's always Lot 1.
| aphextron wrote:
| I had a pair of White Oak 501's. and honestly they were
| inferior to just about every other pair of Levi's I've
| owned. The denim was rough and coarse, and they ripped
| fairly quick.
| wyager wrote:
| One really nice thing about safety-critical activities is that
| the equipment tends to be made to extremely high standards and
| usually lasts a very long time.
|
| If you buy equipment for climbing, shooting, scuba diving, etc.
| you can reasonably expect that it's made to a very exacting
| standard (almost certainly in the US, Japan, or Europe) and will
| last many years (with well-defined consumable components and
| maintenance requirements).
| jeffbee wrote:
| You probably just have a decent budget for guns and haven't
| seen the dodgy ones. The market is flooded with garbage that I
| would not even consider firing.
| artificial wrote:
| Is this the Reddit board turned site or a separate venture?
| emre wrote:
| Separate venture (I'm not affiliated, just really like it)
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