[HN Gopher] Most people don't care about quality
___________________________________________________________________
Most people don't care about quality
Author : ColinWright
Score : 228 points
Date : 2024-12-30 13:24 UTC (3 days ago)
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| userbinator wrote:
| They don't care about quality to the extent that it doesn't
| affect their lives.
| phkahler wrote:
| Everyone I've talked to agrees that Netfix is full of crap with
| some things worth watching. Some of that is because people have
| different taste, but even within their preferred "thing" they say
| the same.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I think the author is right, but it presents a great opportunity
| for people that appreciate quality over newness. Old stuff that
| is good- from media to cars to clothing is practically free, and
| the new stuff that is garbage quite expensive. There are so many
| excellent old movies and music you can never have time to explore
| it all in a lifetime.
|
| It's not just that people don't care about quality- it seems to
| me that they cannot tell at all, but insist on newness instead
| for some reason- perhaps hoping that it will make them appear
| discerning to others? Is there some other explanation I am
| unaware of?
| nradov wrote:
| Where can I find a quality old car for practically free?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Facebook marketplace or craigslist. $5k will net you
| something running with a solid motor and transmission. $500
| will get you a project that'll eat a year or two of nights
| and weekends.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I've regularly bought and sold good running 70s/80s/early 90s
| Volvos and Mercedes for under $1000 (and sometimes under
| $100) on Craigslist and at auto auctions- close to their
| scrap metal value, yet these are vehicles that will last a
| million miles with regular maintenance.
|
| Ironically, supply and demand can make something more
| reliable cheaper- these cars just don't die, so there is too
| much supply and little demand.
|
| For $8k you can get a ~20 year old Porsche or Audi with low
| mileage, that has been meticulously maintained, always stored
| indoors, and looks and drives like it did when new.
|
| Getting a good deal on a used car requires some mechanical
| knowledge to identify a car that is going to be reliable. I
| look for cars previously owned by mechanically savvy people
| that have already spent the money to mitigate any known
| design flaws or potential issues on that particular model.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| One point I wanted to add- an older car like this is fully
| depreciated, and will often increase in value if you manage
| to keep it in the same condition. Buying older cars-
| especially models with rarer desirable traits like a Turbo
| or manual transmission, I've often been able to drive them
| for years, and ultimately sell them with enough profit to
| recoup all of my purchase and parts costs.
|
| There's a somewhat tongue in cheek book "Porsche Boxster:
| The Practically Free Sportscar" that makes a pretty solid
| case that if you but the right model of car right at the
| age where the price is lowest, it can appreciate enough to
| virtually cancel out the full ownership costs. Although for
| the math to work out you need basically not consider the
| cost of a garage to keep it looking nice, or your time to
| maintain it yourself. Which is, I think a fair point if you
| consider the car a hobby, and get joy from taking care of
| it.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Some truth here, and you do see this in home construction. My
| parents horrific Formica & linoleum 80s kitchen and hardwood
| floors still looks the same as they did when I was a child.
|
| My new construction "luxury" condo had serious wear damage
| within 5 years. I'll have to gut the kitchen and replace my
| faux wood floors while my parents place remains indestructible.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| LOL at the "luxury" faux wood floors. I know the feeling, my
| previous condo was like that. The marketing is absurd these
| days.
|
| I learned the hard way that if luxury is in the name, it's
| not actually luxury.
| ergonaught wrote:
| This is basically the difference between creating art and
| creating commoditized product. The distinction and the
| unwillingness to acknowledge the distinction (even though it's
| made regardless) creates a lot of friction.
|
| The masses don't give a damn, and if all you're trying to do is
| extract maximum revenue as efficiently as possible, there is no
| reason to expend the additional resources (and incur the
| additional risks) of doing more than the necessary minimum.
|
| The artists/craftspeople have a vision and they care. Then the
| money arrives and none of that matters to the money.
|
| Examples are everywhere. Video game studios discover that they
| can make a billion with crap story so stop investing resources in
| story, only the people who care even notice, and there aren't
| enough of them to matter: they aren't the audience anymore. Etc.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| This connects quite well with another post discussed in the
| previous days here on hn, the age of average
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42405999
| bigiain wrote:
| > The masses don't give a damn
|
| More important, even people who _do_ give a damn, don't give a
| damn about everything. And even the things they do give a damn
| about, they don't give a damn about every time they "do that
| thing".
|
| I give a damn about music. I have a collection of about 3,000
| LPs, a few hundred 12" singles, and over 5,000 CDs. I love to
| draw the curtains and sit in my dark lounge room, power up my
| 80's vintage all analogue hifi, and critically listen to albums
| on vinyl - no distractions, focusing on the music and
| performance.
|
| But that's only maybe 1% of my music listening time. I spend a
| lot more time listening to music with my earbuds in while
| exercising or grocery shopping, or in the car. I spend way more
| time streaming music around the house while doing chores or
| cooking or reading. I have playlists of music without vocals
| that I listen to while doing work I need to be able to
| concentrate doing. Hell, I have Apple Music streaming right now
| while reading (and posting to HN.
|
| I _do_ care about music, but you'd need a decent private
| investigator to find out, it sure as hell isnt obvious to
| anyone that's not close to me. And even if you tracked my
| credit card bills you'd see way more streaming subscription
| spend than vinyl/cd purchases (which are mostly bought for cash
| at show merch desks these days).
|
| I find most people are passionate about _something_ in the
| "care about" sense here. I love it when I meet someone new or
| who I don't know well, and can get into a conversation about
| "their thing" - whether it's knitting, or building traditional
| Inuit canoes, or stage lighting for amateur theatre, or ultra
| light carbon and titanium bicycles, or building a plane, or
| sailing the north west passage, or setting a land speed record
| in some very specific class. All things I'm unlikely to ever
| even consider wanting to do, but which are fascinating to hear
| about from someone deeply involved in it.
|
| I think (or at least optimistically hope) that "the masses" do
| give a damn. About _something_. You just need to steer the
| conversation around a bit to find out what their thing is, and
| be curious and enthusiastic enough to get them talking about
| it. Its a wonderful thing when that happens, even if what you
| end up talking about is the drama in purchasing hand dyed yarn
| from that one woman in Germany on knitting forums, or the
| history and current land speed record in the 50cc streamlined
| motorcycle with gasoline fuel class, or what the recommended
| shotgun shells are for protection against polar bear attack.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| > This is basically the difference between creating art and
| creating commoditized product
|
| I came to say the same in essence.
|
| The author is using too many generalizations. I think his
| internal pendulum is swinging from extremes, missing the nuance
| in reality.
|
| Many people care about quality, and often they are
| sophisticated buyers and tastemakers. Those people, when they
| find quality, praise it to whomever will listen. Others, often
| not as discerning hear the praise and jump aboard due to the
| hype.
|
| Sure, there are people that can't really tell the difference,
| but they still have the year's hottest DSLR or whatever, and
| the experts are often the people that communicate what those
| are.
|
| I don't think that reality makes for a great blog post,
| however.
| mdgrech23 wrote:
| Since OP mentioned quality to me that's almost always
| synonymous and things like TDD and Agile which I view as a
| false prophet to quality.
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| Ask any Japanese mechanical pencil manufacturer: it is possible
| commoditize excellence via mastery through refinement and then
| uniformity by making zillions the same way.
| dijit wrote:
| There's a bunch of evidence that this isn't true.
|
| People seem to choose quality when they have an option. The rise
| of Apple is not because people are "sheep", it's because there is
| a quality level that apple products never go beneath- even if the
| design is stupid.
|
| People can forgive poor quality with innovation, or in the
| pursuit of pure art- but the more crappy things get the more you
| notice people gravitating towards higher quality items/content.
|
| The "issue" is when there's a total monopoly or an oligopoly that
| is racing to the bottom, which seems to happen quite often,
| because building high margin things tends to be more risky, and
| MBAs are risk averse.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think given enough time and experience where people can
| discover rock bottom dollars isn't working, they will gravitate
| towards higher perceived value per dollar.
|
| Apple won only after windows gave average home users a horrific
| bsod/virus/reboot hell of an existence for about 20 years.
| ronsor wrote:
| It's also good to remember that Macs weren't exactly that
| stable until Mac OS X.
| detourdog wrote:
| They were stable enough and the plug and play actually
| worked.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| And yet people kept buying windows and whining about it
| many versions of OS X later.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Even so, the more Windows machines I had back in the day,
| the less real work I got done. Something was always not
| working, with no obvious pattern. Most problems took work
| to fix.
|
| I learned not to install and uninstall things. Even if I
| needed to.
|
| The more Mac's I had, the more likely I ran into a problem
| as well. But it was usually just some glitch.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-tech
| family & friends windows machines for various critical
| ailments with great frequency until they all switched to
| Macs.
| Clubber wrote:
| >Some of us remember the 90s-00s era of debugging non-
| tech family & friends windows machines for various
| critical ailments with great frequency until they all
| switched to Macs.
|
| I second this. My mom switched to a iMac G4 and never
| needed me again, except that time she plugged the power
| strip into itself.
|
| It got to the point where I didn't want to tell people I
| worked with computers.
| detourdog wrote:
| During that 20 years experts dismissed Apple as dying and too
| risky windows was the smart investment just like VHS.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Mostly windows machines of comparable spec could be had for
| 10% less, but most importantly there were many OEMs willing
| to sell objectively bad underspecced machines that were
| 50-75% cheaper than the cheapest Mac. Remember the era when
| people had overheating laptops etc.
| detourdog wrote:
| Price comparing Macs and PCs has rarely been accurate.
| The experts I remember would hammer the price difference
| and say Apple was dying so the investment isn't worth it.
| devmor wrote:
| This is happening again now, with a new addition (well,
| resurgent) of insidious price cutting strategy: adware.
|
| Ed Zitron goes into it in a recent article rant here[1]
| (skip to the "direct example" section if you're not
| interested in the rest of the read) where he reviews the
| best selling laptop on Amazon, which is ridiculously
| cheap... at a devil's bargain.
|
| 1. https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/
| steveBK123 wrote:
| At this point it's like the old story about boots - too
| poor to afford cheap ones.
|
| Most people would be better served with a $600 Mac mini
| that will literally still be working & better in 5 years
| than in buying a $300 Amazon deal with 4GB ram which will
| run awful and die right outside warranty period. Maybe in
| a couple years apple will have prior year minis a little
| cheaper / refurbs available at $450-500ish too.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| $240 for that, huh.
|
| I just bought a $280 Acer laptop, still limited storage
| but better class, twice the ram, and with a CPU that
| actually has performance cores so it runs 2.5x-5x faster.
|
| It came with chromeOS, which is a limiting factor, but in
| this particular comparison it sounds like it's more of an
| upside than a downside.
| leptons wrote:
| How did Apple "win"? They have always been a fraction of the
| market share of desktop/laptop computers, and they are only
| popular on mobile in the US, worldwide Android is dominant
| with 72% of the market. If you mean money===success, then
| sure, they have money, but do you compare their money to all
| the companies making PCs and all the companies making Android
| phones in the world combined? Apple fans have 1 single
| company to choose from, but PC/Android fans have hundreds of
| options - I can get a PC or Android in hundreds of form
| factors, whatever I need but Apple only sells what Apple
| makes. Sounds to me like PC/Android fans are the real
| "winners".
|
| >Apple won only after windows gave average home users a
| horrific bsod/virus/reboot hell of an existence for about 20
| years.
|
| This hasn't been a thing for a very long time. I hear about
| as much about the spinning beach ball of death as I do BSOD.
| Apple is by no means perfect, or did you forget "you're
| holding it wrong".
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Everyone is a winner of their own story
| CamJN wrote:
| AAPL 3.785T > MSFT 3.134T. In the only measure that matters
| for American companies, Apple won.
| brightlancer wrote:
| That's a silly comparison: by that metric, Apple "won"
| against Saudi Aramco and Berkshire Hathaway, and
| Microsoft also "won" against them.
|
| Except that they aren't in the same business.
|
| On the desktop, Microsoft is still kicking Apple's ass.
| Even moreso for servers. The only place Apple "won" is on
| mobile, where Microsoft lost to _everybody_.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I can't find the exact stat right now with some light
| google, but I recall there was a stat that while Apple
| doesn't have majority of user base, they essentially have
| an outsized share of the profit due to the average sales
| price & associated profit margins.
|
| In Windows space, MSFT gets their license money, and then
| its a commodity race to the bottom by the hardware makers
| who need to pay AMD/Intel for chips, MSFT for a license,
| and compete with 100 no-names OEMs for every penny.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > The only place Apple "won" is on mobile
|
| They won on MP3 players.
|
| They won on music stores.
|
| They won on mobile.
|
| They won on laptops.
|
| They won on headphones.
|
| Etc.
|
| I'm not an Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination
| but it's immediately obvious that they've "won" more than
| just the mobile market.
| leptons wrote:
| >They won on MP3 players.
|
| Sure I guess if you're still living in 2010. Nobody uses
| an "mp3 player" anymore. Get with the times grampa.
| Everyone has a cellphone that plays MP3s today.
|
| > They won on music stores.
|
| Spotify is at 36% market share compared to Apple's 30% of
| the music streaming market.
|
| >They won on mobile.
|
| And Apple did not "win on mobile" - only in the US are
| they popular, _but globally Android has 72% market
| share_. Apple lost the mobile market to Android a long
| time ago.
|
| >They won on laptops.
|
| No, Apple did not "win on laptops", they are still at
| about 9% market share.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_co
| mpu...
|
| "As of the third quarter of 2020, HP was cited as the
| leading vendor for notebook computers closely followed by
| Lenovo, both with a share of 23.6% each. They were
| followed by Dell (13.7%), Apple (9.7%) and Acer (7.9%)."
|
| Nothing has really changed since 2020. Apple will always
| be a tiny portion of the personal computer and laptop
| market.
|
| >They won on headphones.
|
| huh? There are far better headphones than anything Apple
| makes. Are you talking about earbuds? There's a
| difference.
|
| No, Apple has not "won" on anything but having overpriced
| hardware. $3600 for a VR headset? Yeah, I guess they
| "won" most ridiculously overpriced hardware ever.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Apple has won for people who can afford quality. If a
| student has $400 for a laptop, it doesn't matter how much
| they appreciate quality, they can't afford the MacBook and
| will buy something cheaper.
|
| Anecdotally, I work in a coworking space with lots of
| businesses in Australia, and I'd say about 85% of people in
| the office space have MacBooks.
| leptons wrote:
| What quality? We had to sue Apple in a class action
| because the motherboard in our MBP (and many other
| people's) died _7 times_ and the 8th time it happened
| Apple wanted to charge us $1200 to replace it again. We
| had to sue them, but we won.
|
| > I'd say about 85% of people in the office space have
| MacBooks.
|
| That doesn't prove quality. All it proves is you are in
| an echo chamber. I've worked in lots of corporate
| environments that were all PC and some that were all
| Apple, and a few that were mixed. All it really depends
| on is if the company values appearances or functionality,
| and appearances are one of Apple's main value
| propositions.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Apple won only after windows...
|
| Apple won after Sony dropped the ball on HDD Walkmans and
| Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Blackberry failed to reject
| carrier bloatware.
|
| Macs are a side hustle for Apple, and MS is still the
| dominant player for desktop computing.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Apple has never "won" in the sense that Windows has always
| had _by far_ more installed desktops.
|
| Android also by far runs more phones than iOS.
|
| Apple "won" the wealthy Western market, which is all that has
| ever mattered to them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The iPhone especially in America is a unique case.
|
| Sure the average selling price of an iPhone is $500 more than
| an Android. But all of the major and even minor carriers either
| subsidize the phone or have no interest payment plans between
| 24-36 months. The price difference is negligible over 3 years.
|
| No other product is like that. Even today in the US, the Mac
| only has around 15% market share.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| > The iPhone especially in America is a unique case.
|
| iPhones have a >50% market share in Japan, Canada, and in a
| few European countries (Danmark, Sweden). The common point I
| see between all those is that they are high-income countries.
| tredre3 wrote:
| > Sure the average selling price of an iPhone is $500 more
| than an Android.
|
| The only honest way of comparing Android to iPhone pricing,
| in my opinion, is to compare flagships.
|
| The S24 and the Pixel 9 are the exact same price as the
| iPhone 16. The S24+ is more expensive than the iPhone 16 Pro.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And if you only talk about market share in the premium
| market, it's even more skewed to iOS.
|
| Google Pixel phones only make up 4% of the US market.
|
| https://chromeunboxed.com/google-pixel-phone-sales-see-
| their...
|
| And Samsung sells around 31 million S24 phones
|
| https://www.phonearena.com/news/samsung-2024-goal-sell-
| more-...
|
| Android users aren't buying high end phones for the most
| part
| dagmx wrote:
| While I agree with your larger point, I just wanted to point
| out some inaccuracies
|
| > Sure the average selling price of an iPhone is $500 more
| than an Android
|
| FWIW this is only true if you're not comparing within market
| segments.
|
| If you stick to the same market segment, then they're about
| on par with equivalent Android phones for price. They just
| don't have anything in the real budget categories.
|
| > The iPhone especially in America is a unique case
|
| The iPhone market share is relative to the premium phone
| market share of most locations. Which in turn is relative to
| the spending power of the populations.
|
| iPhones dominate the premium market share compared to
| Android. I'm actually curious what the Mac market share is
| when framed to just "premium devices, and non-gaming".
|
| I suspect, but cannot backup, that Macs do relatively well if
| constrained to that market. But most people who have premium
| computers do so for gaming, and the ones who want budget
| don't have a Mac to cater to them.
| x0x0 wrote:
| > _They just don't have anything in the real budget
| categories_
|
| Not sure what you define as budget categories, but apple
| sell the iphone se for $429 new on their site now. And you
| can get one through eg Tmobile for $250 or $50 + $10 a
| month for 24 months. Or the 64gb version for just that $10
| a month. So I think they do compete in the budget category?
| cableshaft wrote:
| The phones also last a long time, being very durable and
| getting updates for a quite a while, so you can buy an older
| refurbished iPhone and save quite a bit of money.
|
| I only just upgraded a year ago from an iPhone 7 I had owned
| for about 4 years and bought refurbished for under $300 (that
| still worked fine, I just wanted to start developing mobile
| apps again and needed something with the newest iOS) to a
| refurbished iPhone 12 for $250, and it feels plenty modern to
| me. It still has the latest iOS version on it as well.
| kube-system wrote:
| I think most people choose _value_ , which might mean that
| sometimes quality plays a factor, but rarely means it is the
| sole factor.
| dijit wrote:
| It feels like a cheap shot to bring up the mechanical
| keyboard situation that is close to the hearts of most
| techies - but sometimes "value" can mean... quality.
|
| Sometimes it's not just about longevity, it's about how the
| product feels. This is _especially_ true when it comes to our
| online content and- as adults- we have less time as we have
| children. Meaning quality is more important than quantity.
| kube-system wrote:
| Quality is almost always _a component_ of "value", but
| competing with other priorities, e.g. cost.
|
| I think mechanical keyboards _are_ a good example here, but
| maybe not in the way you were expecting. You may note that
| most PC sales are laptops these days, and nearly all of
| them eschew mechanical keyboards in favor of other
| priorities. And also, most desktops still ship with
| membrane keyboards, and only a tiny fraction of users
| replace them with a mechanical keyboard -- as you say,
| "techies". It's a niche preference that "most people" (from
| the title) do not find value in.
| brightlancer wrote:
| > Meaning quality is more important than quantity.
|
| It's not a binary choice.
|
| Price is a non-linear factor here: "quality" may be
| prohibitively expensive as a single purchase, even if it is
| less expensive over X years than re-buying a cheaper item
| every year.
|
| In the US, shopping trends are clear that many people
| (perhaps most) value quantity very highly, to the point
| that they will sacrifice "quality" which is loosely defined
| and more subjective. IME this also ties into Americans
| being very price conscious.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| I've tried mechanical keyboards a few times. Wasn't a fan.
| Didn't like how they felt or the noise they made The idea
| that they're automatically better seems very odd to me.
| dijit wrote:
| They cost a lot, and the main reason is the quality of
| the components.
|
| They definitely are "better", as in they're a pure luxury
| good that serves no purpose outside of being a higher
| quality product.
|
| There's really no value that a mechanical keyboard that
| can give you that a standard chiclet keyboard doesn't
| give you, yet, it's a quite large industry with many
| disparate manufacturers and standards and so-forth.
| devmor wrote:
| > There's really no value that a mechanical keyboard that
| can give you that a standard chiclet keyboard doesn't
| give you
|
| There absolutely is, if you spend all day typing. Chiclet
| keyboards give poor tactile feedback that for many, leads
| to more typing mistakes. There is also value in the
| "pleasantness" of the experience - it's hard to quantify,
| but if it feels better to use something then you are
| certainly getting value from it (for another example, a
| cheap and uncomfortable vs expensive and comfortable
| chair).
|
| I don't know what percentage of mechanical keyboard users
| this is, since there are certainly many that view it as a
| hobby or collector's interest, but I am one of the other
| side that use them exclusively because they make typing
| easier and more comfortable.
| mixdup wrote:
| Apple doesn't have 100% market share and the title is "most
| people"
|
| The fact that Android has a larger market share, and Apple has
| a larger share of revenue and profit actually goes to show that
| the larger mass market doesn't care about quality _as much_ as
| price
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| I absolutely care about quality and I choose Android.
|
| The fact that different people choose different qualities
| should surprise nobody.
|
| (Some people are obviously price constrained out of the Apple
| price bracket, but there are also plenty of people who
| actively prefer Android)
| croes wrote:
| >it's because there is a quality level that apple products
| never go beneath- even if the design is stupid.
|
| There's a bunch of evidence that this is also not true.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| This is a pretty mainstream behavior that is maybe particularly
| prevalent in America. Though I think it's abated elsewhere more
| by regulation than consumer preferences.
|
| People will generally pick the cheapest/worst version of things
| if it's more accessible/convenient or if the ability to discern
| value per dollar is difficult. In those situations people
| generally decide less dollars / fast is best.
|
| I think this is why the "middle" is hallowing out for most
| product segments. The masses want bad/easy/cheap and the 1% want
| exclusivity/highbrow.
| nradov wrote:
| For some product segments, the economics of software
| development and mass production have completely eliminated the
| high end. The classic example is in smartphones: you can spend
| around $1000 for an Apple iPhone 16 or Samsung Galaxy S24 but
| there's literally nothing else more exclusive or higher quality
| available. I can't get a better phone at any price.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Completely true in some segments and you can see apple even
| tried the 1%er watch thing with the ceramic editions. They
| did keep the Hermes straps around, so it's really just veblen
| good accessorizing now.
|
| On the other hand there's the old line about how America is
| great because the minimum wage worker and CEO both drink the
| same Coke.
|
| Nowadays food has stratified far more and you're more likely
| to have the bottom end drinking discount label house brand
| soda while the 1% doesn't even drink Coke but instead some
| artisanal small batch thing you've never heard of for $5/can.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I'm not sure what you'd be looking for in a better phone.
| They're bounded by current CPU, battery, and screen
| technology, and flagship phones are pretty close to the best
| that's possible. Unless you literally want a gold bezel.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I guess one could also argue that actually Apple has
| diversified into so many SKUs that there is indeed a high
| end. HN/techie crowd is always buying the latest and
| greatest version Pro/Pro Max or whatever every year or
| two,.. but look at the phones your parents/in-laws are
| using.
|
| Apple will happily sell you current year - 1, current year
| - 2, or the infrequently updated SE model. Mass market is
| the people buying those and holding them for 3..4..5+
| years. We often go out with friends who are teachers and
| one had the iPhone 11 she apologized takes bad photos so
| please take group photos with ours, while the other had the
| 13ish with error messages popping up about his free iCloud
| being full. My FIL uses a hand-me-down iPhone Xs for
| banking because he doesn't trust his Android security, etc.
| jollyllama wrote:
| It's easy to imagine better - you would get the contruction
| worker phone features - extreme durability, quick swappable
| batteries, standard charging dock - with the high-end
| camera and other specs of the iphone. You could even
| imagine hot-swappable batteries, perhaps.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Apple has the lead here because majority of their
| competitors are takers / assemblers of off the shelf
| components.
|
| Whereas Apple is more vertically integrated and driving
| supplier component designs multiple years out.
|
| Leading edge vs trailing edge basically.
| izacus wrote:
| Those ARE high end. What are you talking about? :D
| nradov wrote:
| No, they're really not high end (at least not in developed
| countries). Any upper-middle class person can afford the
| best smartphone on the market. There is no meaningful
| exclusivity. It's not like with luxury cars where there are
| _real_ high end products available that are completely out
| of reach.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think electronics stand out as an area where veblen
| goods don't really exist. Partially this is due to scale
| vs bespoke artisanal works.
|
| That is the differentiation between a 50k vs 200k vs 1M
| car is often the hand crafted mechanical and luxury
| touches. Often the core platform of these vehicles is
| even shared in the case of the VW group and its various
| halo brands. The things that make a luxury car better are
| not mass produced.
|
| One cannot hand craft an artisanal CPU better than
| Apple/Arm designs in a TSMC fab, nor a screen better than
| Sharp/Samsung, nor a cellular modem better than
| Apple/Qualcomm, etc. The things that make electronics
| better are the result of billions worth of R&D/infra with
| the intention of producing tens of millions to billions
| of devices.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| I think you only start caring about quality once you have
| sufficient depth of experience in the subject that you actually
| care about.
|
| Example would be audiophiles - most people can't hear the
| differences that they trained themselves to hear. Also an
| illustration that training yourself to prefer quality is an
| expensive choice. :)
|
| My personal thing is high CRI LED lights - most people don't
| notice the difference but the flat-looking 80% CRI lights that
| are installed everywhere really bug me.
| nradov wrote:
| Audiophiles can't hear the difference either. They usually fail
| blind A/B tests.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Everything can be taken to extremes but up to a point you can
| definitely hear the difference - e.g. MP3 vs FLAC, quality vs
| budget headphones etc. I never wanted to go any deeper than
| that for fear of escalating costs!
| leeoniya wrote:
| lol we made same comment at same time :D
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| Most be true then :)
| leeoniya wrote:
| eh, it's a spectrum.
|
| i would not call myself an audiophile, per se, but i can hear
| the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and Opus 96kbps. same
| with $10 ear buds vs $150 iems, or my laptop's shitty 3.5mm
| stereo jack and a $30 usb dac.
|
| once you get into stuff like $1K iems or dacs it's mostly
| bullshit (aside from brand/aesthetics, and things unrelated
| to audio fidelity). same with anyone claiming they can hear a
| difference between FLAC and Opus 160; trust me, you can't.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| With all products there are diminishing returns and there
| are connoisseurs who thrive on pushing past those and
| straight into veblen land.
|
| Wine is similar. Most can tell a $5 bottle from a $20
| bottle but $100 or $1000 is unlikely to be as discernible.
| Even the alleged experts fail blind tests. Some can even
| confuse some reds & whites in true blind tests.
| leeoniya wrote:
| https://thevinylfactory.com/news/japanese-audiophiles-
| person...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Japanese dudes are just built different.
| brightlancer wrote:
| > same with $10 ear buds vs $150 iems
|
| Are there $150 pairs which are better than every $10 or $20
| pair? Sure.
|
| But there are plenty of $150 headphones which have the same
| quality as a $10 pair of earbuds. People overpay for brand
| names, for trendy styles, for good marketing/ branding,
| etc. Price _alone_ is not an indicator of quality.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > i would not call myself an audiophile, per se, but i can
| hear the difference between a 128kbps MP3 and Opus 96kbps.
|
| That's not the question, everyone can. The question is
| whether you can tell the difference between a 320kb/s, or
| even a 192kb/s mp3 and a flac. People might say they can,
| but they'll fail when you test them.
|
| > same with $10 ear buds vs $150 iems
|
| When luxury earbuds became a fad, every major company
| pulled their high quality cheap ones off the market, and
| marked everything up. It caused me to panic because I loved
| a cheap ($15) Sony line that I would usually have to
| replace yearly, and when I went to replace them, they were
| gone. _Every_ cheap good earbud was gone. I managed to find
| a case of the Sonys on Ebay shipped from Mexico, and have
| only gone through half the case since. I can compare, so I
| know how good (not $1K good, but _good_ ) they were. Most
| people can't.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > That's not the question, everyone can. The question is
| whether you can tell the difference between a 320kb/s, or
| even a 192kb/s mp3 and a flac. People might say they can,
| but they'll fail when you test them.
|
| you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell a 320
| apart from flac, except on some specially-crafted killer
| samples. a well-encoded 192 is often near transparent,
| but much more dependent on the genre / sample. pre-opus,
| 256 VBR was my go-to.
|
| > that I would usually have to replace yearly
|
| this is a foreign concept to me; i usually buy stuff
| that's designed to last, and dont mind paying for it.
| blauditore wrote:
| I put some effort to choose high-CRI light sources at home, but
| I have to say the difference is not very notable in many
| everyday situations, only when doing specific things (e.g.
| playing a board game where colors matter). What irritates me
| more are badly dimmed LEDs, i.e. too low frequency, causing a
| visual "stuttering" effect on moving things, espcially
| reflective objects.
|
| But generally, I agree.
| gbuk2013 wrote:
| I'm in charge of the laundry at home and I tell you it for
| sure helps me tell apart my wife's dark blue tights from her
| black ones when I'm sorting things into piles. :)
| CamJN wrote:
| Perhaps like me you are somewhat blue/black colour blind.
| It's apparently a deficiency in rods in your eyes.
| bsder wrote:
| The problem isn't that people don't want quality. The problem is
| that people can't find quality _a priori_.
|
| Sure, I can tell the quality once the thing is in my hand.
| However, that's far, far too late.
|
| I was willing to pay more for my Chevy Volt, but GM discontinued
| it anyway. I'm willing to pay more for soap without perfume and
| chemicals, but Proctor and Gamble discontinued their scentless,
| antibioticless Ivory Hand Soap and then changed the formula on
| Ivory Bar soap. etc.
|
| I'm willing to pay double for a better plumber, but I can't find
| him. I'm willing to pay someone double ot triple the amount of
| money for some bespoke clothing, but I can't find him. etc.
|
| If I can find the thing I want, I _buy_ it. A lot of it. But I
| can 't find it.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Some of it is this.
|
| I often buy things I suspect are low quality. Why? I can't
| really figure out what is or isn't low quality, so I am
| basically purchasing the cheapest raffle ticket so the cost of
| being wrong is minimal.
|
| Same with a lot of services. I often cheap out and DIY. Might I
| screw up? Absolutely. But family experience with trades has
| shown that they are also a crapshoot outside a few
| certifications. Breaking a few locks or light fixtures is
| cheaper than screwing up once on a locksmith or handyman.
| timewizard wrote:
| People want to maximize the value they receive in exchange for
| the money _and time_ they've spent. Quality is one metric which
| often fully captures this ideal.
|
| You're willing to spend more time and effort to get a product
| that you perceive as being a higher quality provided you can
| find it. You're willing to pay more for a better plumber but
| you realize it takes quite a bit of time and experience to
| identify that plumber.
|
| Life is filled with these compromises. Attempting to understand
| the notion of "quality" through Netflix's offering is unlikely
| to reveal anything pertinent. For precisely the same reasons
| that bad plumbers exist and still get enough custom to support
| themselves.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >Sure, I can tell the quality once the thing is in my hand.
| However, that's far, far too late.
|
| True, and I believe that at some point in the past products
| came with a relatively generous return window.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| This only discusses the difference between professional and non-
| professional users, but forgets the amateur side : it will not
| take long before an amateur becomes picky about their hobby.
|
| Also, picking the "crappy" choice because it's the safe choice in
| a social context is yet another matter... (the quality there is
| one of helping socialization !)
| dvrp wrote:
| Apple exists.
| cyberax wrote:
| Since when Apple is "quality"?
|
| They are a _perception_ of quality.
| samatman wrote:
| Since 2001.
|
| Although the iMac was pretty good too. But let's go with
| 2001.
| pockmarked19 wrote:
| Title is patently false. The first part of the article boils down
| to "most people aren't pedants". The second part is mostly
| irrelevant because the Netflix pivot to "casual viewing" _is a
| bid to enter a new market_. Their viewership (and stock) would
| immediately tank if they switched exclusively to "casual
| viewing". TFA acknowledges this when elevating ABBA against
| something "no one has ever heard of". The insinuation is that
| popularity equates to quality whereas the opposite is true.
|
| It just takes time.
|
| Contrary to popular rhetoric, people are neither as dumb nor as
| smart as you might think.
|
| > Fashionistas decry the homogeneity of modern dress. Most of us
| think jeans and a t-shirt are basically fine.
|
| Again, most people are neither pedants nor purists.
|
| I think that's the actual point TFA makes, but they chose an
| inflammatory title.
| levocardia wrote:
| Agreed, article is totally wrong. Read any Amazon review for a
| cheap household product and you'd conclude that people have
| outrageously high expectations of quality.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I would be interested in knowing if any of those people
| change their behaviour though. What people say is irrelevant.
| Do they actually buy differently?
| kube-system wrote:
| Regardless of whether or not your point is right -- I don't
| think Amazon reviews are a good yardstick for this. Product
| reviews are a tiny but noisy minority, who may or may not
| even act in line with their grievances. (i.e. some people
| just like to complain) A better metric would be return rates
| and/or sales figures.
| what wrote:
| That's not people having a high bar for quality. That's
| Amazon being absolutely flooded with low quality products to
| the point you can't find anything of even decent quality.
| naniwaduni wrote:
| The average cheap household product on Amazon is, in fact,
| Fine.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| If by outrageously high you mean standard expectations from a
| generation ago I'd be more inclined to agree. I expect to get
| a minimum of 15 years of service out of a major appliance and
| really they should last indefinitely with repair and
| maintenance being a viable option. I expect tools to be made
| well from the correct materials, properly heat treated where
| applicable, and for them to withstand at least a decade of
| borderline abuse, generations under nominal household
| workloads. I expect any item of furniture I purchase to
| permanently resolve whatever issue that item of furniture
| resolves. I shouldn't have to replace a bookshelf in my
| lifetime.
|
| The thing is all of these expectations have been casually met
| with retail goods within living memory. Dude says nobody
| cares about quality, I'd counter with there are a few
| generations rattling around that haven't encountered it often
| enough in life to come to expect it.
| photonthug wrote:
| > all of these expectations have been casually met with
| retail goods within living memory .. there are a few
| generations rattling around that haven't encountered it
| often enough in life to come to expect it.
|
| It's worse than that, because even for those who are old
| enough memory can be short and it's hard to viscerally
| understand that things were different some 10 or 15 years
| ago. It would be interesting to see a stress-test for a
| contemporary low end bookshelf from Walmart vs an older
| one, and to see a "hours of labor required for purchase"
| breakdown, but I'm pretty sure I know what it would look
| like.
|
| People are aware that things like planned obsolescence
| happen, but underestimate how common it is, and are less
| aware that premium offerings where you pay extra for extra
| quality are also just a scam. I buy commercial products for
| everything I can hoping that classic capitalism is still
| working as intended, because maybe in more B2B transactions
| which are often high volume, companies are still somewhat
| afraid of losing a customer while they run their race to
| the bottom. But the relationship between consumers and
| corporations has drastically changed to be almost
| ridiculously adversarial, and increasingly you can't opt
| out by doing your research, or buying once-trusted brands,
| or spending extra money.
|
| From coffee-makers to mouse traps, almost everything sucks,
| even after you give up on Amazon. And since we're here, the
| old saying "build a better mousetrap and the world will
| beat a path to your door" also seems hilariously naive and
| dated. Today you'd start with a marketing department and a
| few bribes to setup exclusive government and municipal
| distribution contracts if you were serious, and then make
| the worst possible trap you could get away with. With 8
| billion people and a world-wide market, what kind of idiot
| would care about customers returning? A startup would
| invent the perfect thing in a day, then sell it to Big
| MouseTrap who would squash it, increase ad budgets, and
| push substandard mouse technology even harder.
|
| While we're all getting used to the treadmill of buy,
| break, and buy again as if this were just normal, let's
| take a moment to contemplate the old man yelling at the
| clouds. It's not _always_ for his benefit only, but
| sometimes truly an effort to educate the public about
| something they are missing.
| crote wrote:
| It does make me wonder why we aren't really seeing
| "guaranteed quality" brands pop up. There's an
| increasingly large market of consumers who are tired of
| getting screwed over by literally every single product
| they buy. Surely there must be a way to run a viable
| business which is 10-20% more expensive than its
| competition, but which _isn 't_ complete crap and willing
| to back that up with things like extended warranty?
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Baseless speculation on my part: investment is going to
| be tricky to acquire when you're talking about what
| amounts to a lifestyle business with monster capital
| requirements to get off the ground. Tooling up for
| manufacturing isn't cheap, and making shit doesn't offer
| the kinds of returns that investors find attractive?
| photonthug wrote:
| Because consumers have been conditioned to expect that
| extended warranties are just another layer of scam, maybe
| to extract consumer data, maybe just to get a slightly
| higher price. I think if you see these then you have to
| assume they are unenforceable anyway due to some fine
| print, and you risk finding this out after spending way
| too much time navigating terrible robot phone systems and
| similar harassment.
|
| In a lot of contexts, consumers will never be able to
| trust products/manufacturers again. What can work though
| is if stores/distributors provide the warranty though,
| because unlike consumers, they may still have some power.
| massysett wrote:
| There are plenty of these: Toyota, Honda, Apple, Maglite,
| Duracell, Energizer, Gilette, Tide, Pampers, Visa, Lay's,
| Coca Cola. Before you laugh at the last ones, consider
| how amazing it is that you can go into a grocery store
| and buy a bag of chips and it will always taste exactly
| like the last one, or that you can walk into a store with
| a piece of plastic and in less than a second pay for
| things with it.
| nicknow wrote:
| Isn't this what Anker has largely done. In a world of
| might be good/might be crap cables, chargers, batteries,
| etc. You can always select the Anker variety on Amazon.
| It'll cost you a bit more than whatever random product,
| but you know they are reliable. It's priced much cheaper
| than an OEM (Apple, Google, Samsung, etc.) accessory but
| is more reliable (quality wise) than no-name accessories.
| homebrewer wrote:
| Anker has a known quality problem with most of their
| over-ear headphones that they have ignored for many years
| now. Here's an example:
|
| https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/anker/soundcore
| -sp...
|
| > When storing our unit, we noticed that the yokes didn't
| allow the ear cups to lay flat on the table. It also
| seems like pressing them down puts pressure on the yokes,
| which can mean that this part may get damaged over time
| if you're constantly folding and unfolding them to store
| in their carrying case. While our unit hasn't had issues,
| there are reports (for example, here and here) that the
| hinges and headband can crack.
|
| You will find countless reports of hinges breaking after
| a few months of light use about every model that came out
| in the last 5-10 years, yet nothing has been done to fix
| it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would assume Anker chargers and cables are high
| quality, and simultaneously assume anything else of
| theirs is low quality and just a way to
| disproportionately profit off of the brand's reputation.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > There's an increasingly large market of consumers who
| are tired of getting screwed over by literally every
| single product they buy.
|
| That number isn't increasing, it is constantly dropping,
| which is how we got where we are. Boiled frogs, and
| Overton Windows, etc.
|
| And once you've kept the quality of something low for
| about 20 years, you start having people enter the market
| who have never known the quality to be high.
|
| The perception that the number of dissatisfied people is
| rising comes from a bunch of people getting old and
| comparing new stuff to 30 year old stuff, and being loud
| about it. And when we were young, old people were yelling
| about the quality of dishes, furniture, books, buildings
| etc. And we just accepted the crappy stuff because it was
| all that was available.
|
| We buy the crappy stuff now, too, because the people who
| make the good stuff mark it up like crazy; the good stuff
| takes tooling and expertise that is now hard to locate
| and even recognize if you aren't familiar with it. Good
| stuff ends up being low competition in small markets of
| knowledgeable people who probably already own the best
| stuff that they _rarely_ have to replace, and who are
| more likely to be brand loyal (although not blindly.)
| When we have to buy the crappy stuff, we complain about
| it online.
|
| > Surely there must be a way to run a viable business
| which is 10-20% more expensive than its competition, but
| which isn't complete crap and willing to back that up
| with things like extended warranty?
|
| So I say that there's no reason for those people not to
| mark it up 100-200%, because they're not going to sell
| any more than if they only mark it up 10-20%. They're not
| going to throw money away, at least not forever. Somebody
| smart is going to get in there and mark it up and/or
| lower the quality and drain the value of the brand (a
| brand that they can hedge with smart marketing.)
| badpun wrote:
| For many people, that's Apple. You pay a premium, but the
| product will not shitty in many ways that the competition
| can be. Sure, they drop the ball from time to time (see
| the MBP keyboard fiasco c.a. 7 years ago), but at least
| they try.
| x0x0 wrote:
| > _Surely there must be a way to run a viable business
| which is 10-20% more expensive than its competition_
|
| I think the bottom feeders have driven the cost of
| garbage down so far that it's no longer a 10-20% price
| premium to get trustworthy things.
|
| eg grinders. You could (I have a 15+ year old one that
| has been repaired multiple times as gears have worn out,
| that withstands 3-6x daily uses) sell a very long-lived
| coffee grinder (Baratza) for $200. You can buy a piece of
| crap for $40. Unsurprisingly, that piece of crap is
| completely unrepairable and doesn't even do a good job of
| grinding... but it's cheap.
| wat10000 wrote:
| People care a lot about this sort of quality. Nobody want a
| refrigerator that dies in five years.
|
| But what can you do about it? It's not like these things
| are labeled with a honest assessment of their realistic
| lifespan. Reviews? That only gives you an early snapshot.
| That might catch the worst of the trash but it won't
| distinguish between a lifespan of 5 years or 50 years.
| Reputation? Everyone knows how often companies go for
| short-term thinking and chasing next quarter's profits.
| Just because they made stuff to last ten years ago doesn't
| mean they don't make crap today.
|
| So what do you do? Buy the cheapest one and it might be
| crap? Or spend more and it might still be crap?
| buildsjets wrote:
| Most people don't write Amazon reviews. Only picky, whiny,
| complainey people take the time to write Amazon reviews. Or
| leave Hackernews comments.
| d0mine wrote:
| Seems a bit self-critical of you to believe that ;)
| emptiestplace wrote:
| Excellent joke explanation!
| snakeyjake wrote:
| If the article was wrong, those reviews wouldn't even exist
| because people would never assume that the HOODOOVOODOO-brand
| product that's 1/4th the price of something that's not named
| by a passphrase generator is any good due to a basic
| understanding of how the world works.
|
| And Darn Tough would have a monopoly on socks.
|
| People only care about cost. The #1 irrefutable indicator of
| this is airline ticket prices: if Airline A charges $117 for
| a ticket and Airline B charges $110 but will also kick you in
| the nuts and nickel-and-dime you for everything to the point
| that it actually costs more in the end than Airline A...
|
| ...people will choose Airline B every time.
|
| The vast majority of people will search for a flight, sort by
| price, and buy the cheapest ticket no matter what.
| prmph wrote:
| The fact that people choose the cheapest of something does
| not mean they don't care about quality. It just means that,
| in that specific market, the pain of a lower quality
| product is not enough to affect their purchasing decisions
| much.
|
| To prove this, imagine if airline A & B had similar very
| cheap prices (and the attendant poor service that comes
| with it), but airline B has slightly (and noticeably)
| better service than airline A. Most people will choose
| airline B.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >It just means that, in that specific market, the pain of
| a lower quality product is not enough to affect their
| purchasing decisions much.
|
| That, what you just wrote, your own words, not my, but
| your, assertion, literally and explicitly means that
| people don't care about quality.
|
| >but airline B has slightly (and noticeably) better
| service than airline A. Most people will choose airline
| B.
|
| This is demonstrably false and every airline that has
| tried has either failed or been subsidized by their
| national government. (Signed, a former Continental
| Airlines devotee.)
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Plenty of people will never, ever, fly RyanAir. And
| plenty of people choose an airline based on the airline's
| loyalty rewards program which gives them a higher-quality
| product (earlier boarding, more leg room, easier changes
| to flights). It's quite routine among people who travel a
| lot.
|
| If no one ever cared about airline quality, there would
| be no first-class or even economy plus class. And yet
| basically every airline has them.
|
| Yes, airplane travellers are incredibly price conscious--
| that's the nature of a near-commodity market. But nearly
| every single flight has a significant fraction of
| travelers who have paid more for a higher-quality
| product.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >If no one ever cared about airline quality, there would
| be no first-class or even economy plus class. And yet
| basically every airline has them.
|
| I consider 95% of all people in a population to be the
| "close enough please shut the fuck up about it and be
| reasonable for once in your god damned life" threshold
| where "everybody" becomes an acceptable descriptor.
|
| What percentage of people will ever, in their entire
| lives, fly first class?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Are we pretending their sentence ends at the word first-
| class then, so it's as if you're countering their
| argument when you actually aren't?
|
| https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/airlines-
| increasing-p... Key number "53 premium seats per flight"
|
| https://i0.wp.com/crankyflier.com/wp-
| content/uploads/image-8...
| prmph wrote:
| So if A & B are have the same (low) price, and B is
| higher quality, you would still choose A?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Start an airline that offers $1 cheaper tickets but they
| kick you in the groin, you'll make bank.
|
| Start an airline that offers $1 cheaper tickets but they
| crash once a month, you'll go out of business before you
| can say "but FAA regulations make that impossible anyway."
|
| People care deeply about airline quality on the axis of how
| good they are at keeping you alive. They don't care so much
| about amenities. That's not "don't care about quality,"
| that's "don't care about a specific notion of quality that
| you believe everyone should care about."
| Spivak wrote:
| This post is really funny to see written by an engineer, an
| entire profession dedicated to the art of measuring precisely
| the lowest quality we can use while still accomplishing the
| task.
|
| Having discerning taste is a vice not a virtue. I actively try
| to limit the number of areas where my taste is ruined by high
| quality because it makes me noticeably worse off. My life isn't
| better for experiencing better quality, it's worse for the
| other 99% of the time.
|
| Now I _have_ to buy the name brand which is more expensive, now
| I 'm focused on all the schlock-y writing of the latest Marvel
| movie I'm at with my friends instead of enjoying it, now I
| can't unsee the damn keming or blurry fonts on everyone's
| computer but mine. Don't be the hi-fi nerd whose ears will be
| put through a cheese grater any time you hear music through
| cheap speakers for the rest of your life. Ignorance really is
| bliss.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Does knowledge of good things necessarily make bad things
| painful? I have cheap earbuds for listening to podcasts or
| walking around and listening to music, and then some ok
| HIFIMAN headphones on some midrange dac/amp. Maybe I've been
| too mobile lately, but I find that I get enough time on the
| earbuds to provide a frame of reference that lets me really
| enjoy the headphones. It is a nice little experience once in
| a while; to put the headphones on and really notice the
| difference.
|
| It is possible I haven't gotten far enough into the
| audiophile "hobby" to achieve miserableness. But, I wonder if
| it is enough to save yourself by staying grounded in a more
| reasonable frame of reference.
| furyofantares wrote:
| > My life isn't better for experiencing better quality, it's
| worse for the other 99% of the time.
|
| IMO it is possible (and I believe I have done it with effort)
| to achieve a high level of appreciation for popular, common,
| basic, what have you things, while also having a high level
| of appreciation for high quality things.
|
| I completely agree that being unable to enjoy things is a
| negative, and if lots of people can enjoy a thing you might
| be better off working out how to also enjoy it. But you can
| do both.
| palata wrote:
| The problem being that if you truly enjoy something, you will
| end up becoming better at noticing quality.
|
| Learning to understand music so that you can show off in
| society is (IMHO) stupid because you ruin your ability to
| enjoy "average" music. But if you really enjoy music, you're
| doomed to improve your understanding of it and start becoming
| more critical regarding "poor" music, however popular it is.
| nogridbag wrote:
| I think it's both. I never switched on 120hz refresh rate on
| my phone because 60hz never bothered me. I also know, if I
| switch to 120hz I won't be able to view 60hz phones anymore
| without it bothering me!
|
| But there's some things where buying higher quality
| definitely offers a much better experience. Everything from
| soap dispensers to vacuum machines - higher quality ones will
| save time, look better, last longer, be easier to maintain,
| etc. Cheap ones will break, be a hassle to use, etc. As I'm
| writing this though, maybe this is actually in agreement with
| your post. Those quality issues are frustrating "for me". And
| one might assume needing to replace 5 out of 6 soap
| dispensers after 3mo-2yrs would be universally frustrating
| for all people. But perhaps that's not the case and people
| simply aren't bothered by these things.
| badpun wrote:
| > now I'm focused on all the schlock-y writing of the latest
| Marvel movie I'm at with my friends instead of enjoying it
|
| Not enjoying crappy Marvel movies any more is a feature not a
| bug, it means you're growing as a human being.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| What is the motivation of emulating an ascetic lifestyle by
| consuming low quality goods? It sounds like you're doing it
| to save money rather than reduce total consumption, but for
| what greater purpose?
| Freedom2 wrote:
| > most people aren't pedants
|
| They should come visit HackerNews once in a while :D
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Ooof. Also god I miss n-gate.
| exceptione wrote:
| >> Most of us think jeans and a t-shirt are basically fine
|
| They are, but with one caveat: you need to have the right
| figure to pull it off. An important role of the suit is to hide
| loss of physique. That is why in general the youth can wear
| jeans and t-shirts, and older people often cannot.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| No one is hiding their loss of physique with a suit. You can
| see it in most people's faces, and the 1990s era suits where
| one could have hid abdominal fat have long been out of style.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I must be dense, what is TFA? I thought it was the blogger, but
| it looks like his name is Terence Eden. I feel like I'm missing
| something obvious.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| The effing Article (TFA)
| registeredcorn wrote:
| Ah, thanks. That was one of my lesser guesses, but it's
| always hard to tell. I try not to assume swearing if I'm
| not 100% sure.
| pockmarked19 wrote:
| TFA is HN parlance to refer to the article. It's not
| really profane, some people expand it to "the fine
| article", but in my usage it has meaning independent of
| its expansion, akin to how lol does not actually refer to
| laughing out loud.
| zmj wrote:
| "the fucking article"
| groovetandon wrote:
| I think quality and art are two different things, quality is
| craftsmanship employed in solving a problem and art is a form of
| creative expression.
|
| Even for Netflix, sure the content on Netflix may be for casual
| watching but from a product design perspective I feel it is far
| superior to prime, max and disney. I strongly believe that I keep
| paying for netflix because of this, it is the easiest place for
| me to watch and reduces all friction in the entertainment
| experience.
|
| Quality matters but it needs to be more holistic - the world
| doesn't care for your pixel perfection but solving the need - in
| this case casual entertainment.
| theendisney wrote:
| Great article in how it enrages the reader. Im not even kidding.
| Not caring is irrelevant, not noticing the difference is
| irrelevant too. You notice how their photos are stunning then
| argue your crappy shots are some how equal. lol
|
| A big test in the 90s showed that if pages load instantly
| visitors click around. For each tiny fraction of delay beyond the
| limit the clicking very gradually declines. Non of the visitors
| has a concious experience where they click only 3 in stead of 4
| over 75ms extra delay.
|
| The article describes what is wrong with capitalism most
| poetically. The only measure of success is consuming. I wish we
| could think of a hotswapable replacement but it wouldnt be as
| proffitable so it cant work.
|
| Grasshopper pizza it is then
| dgreensp wrote:
| By this article's own standards, I can't really fault it for
| jumping to half-assed conclusions, as long as a casual reader
| might not notice or care. I'm not being glib. Devaluing quality
| is a choice, and if it's fashionable to say it's fine that
| everything's being enshittified (because then we can feel smart,
| rather than disappointed), I'd rather it wasn't.
|
| The flaw is in extrapolating from the fact that different
| situations require different levels of craftsmanship or attention
| to aesthetics, standards, etc--and something fancier or more
| meticulously or expertly made, like a meal from a Michelin star
| restaurant, might not even be more enjoyed by the particular
| person who experiences it--to make the point that the things only
| professionals and those versed in their field know to do, which a
| layperson might not even notice, don't really matter.
|
| The reality is, whether we enjoy the products and services and
| experiences that come our way or not is largely due to design
| decisions beyond what we can consciously attend to and
| appreciate. It's all those little details.
|
| There is a limit to how low-quality content can be, and it's
| actively being explored with the help of AI.
|
| One of the effects of capitalism in the US used to be that
| companies were trying to make higher-quality things for less,
| because of competition. The strategy now, by the big players, is
| to just sort of swallow everything up, and then as quality gets
| lower and prices get higher, consumers feel compelled to just
| roll with it, because the shift is happening everywhere all at
| once. In corporations' ideal world, there is no social contract,
| no real market forces, the consumer has no leverage, the
| corporation puts in as little effort as possible, and the
| consumer pays as much as possible, and still buys the thing,
| because what else are they going to do.
|
| You can put ice cream in front of someone and they'll eat it, so
| let's just all eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
| omoikane wrote:
| This reminds me of another article, not exactly on the topic of
| "people don't care", but more "people can't tell":
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41311135 - We don't know how
| bad most things are nor precisely how they're bad (2024-08-21,
| 310 comments)
| aprilfoo wrote:
| "Most people" is not something easy to grasp: can we even know if
| we belong to this group?
|
| Beside, i'm not sure if this idea of necessarily mediocre
| majority is actually relevant. Take competitive businesses,
| sports, or even arts: any edge over the rest can make a big
| difference.
| bulatb wrote:
| "Quality" is what we call the difference between what we like and
| what's objectively successful, not a property of any object. It's
| the name we give to one of many ways we confuse "is" and "ought."
|
| There's nothing we can say about a thing with "quality" we
| couldn't also say by tediously listing every single property it
| has. The only thing that only "quality" can add is information
| about what the speaker thinks is good.
|
| In other words, it's purely an opinion. If most people don't have
| strong opinions on most products, which seems true, then quality
| is null for most pairs of person and product--so "most people
| don't care about quality."
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Nah. Borrow your grandfather's 50 year old screwdriver after
| having been afflicted by a set from <insert big box hardware
| store here> and tell me more about how quality isn't an
| intrinsic property.
| bulatb wrote:
| "Doesn't break" and "actually turns screws" are obviously
| properties of certain screwdrivers, which maybe you don't get
| with modern ones. I didn't need to say the screwdriver is
| "quality" to say that. I just had to say what's true.
|
| The only thing I'd add by saying "quality" is that I think a
| screwdriver that "doesn't break" and "actually turns screws"
| is good, which only tells you something about me. If I'd be
| happy with a different one that breaks and won't turn screws,
| I simply wouldn't call the old one "quality" and nothing
| about either one would change.
|
| You might think it's weird if I don't care about a basic
| thing like whether it turns screws, but maybe I just want a
| cheap, simple prop for a movie. Maybe it's about a guy whose
| tools don't work. Maybe I just want the crappy plastic part
| because it's perfect for some art I'm making. Maybe I bet
| someone I could break it with a hammer.
|
| All that information about me could change what's fit for me
| to buy, but none of it would change what's true about the
| product.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Try what I told you, I get the impression you'll learn
| something in the process.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > "Doesn't break" and "actually turns screws" are obviously
| properties of certain screwdrivers, which maybe you don't
| get with modern ones. I didn't need to say the screwdriver
| is "quality" to say that. I just had to say what's true.
|
| When talking about the "quality" of an items intrinsic
| properties, it's not about what the person feels, some may
| wrongly use it in that way, but when using "quality" to
| describe a screwdriver, then that conveys that it is a
| device that "Doesn't break" and "actually turns screws".
| That is not my opinion, it is a fact; it continues to do
| the exact thing it is suppose to do without issue. I
| shouldn't have to specify that this device drives screws
| and doesn't break after one use to someone who knows what a
| screwdriver is. And who would probably find it
| condescending or patronizing. Saying it's "quality" is a
| short hand for all the things. If you had no idea what this
| device is for, then the extra explanation would probably be
| welcomed and saying "quality" would mean next to nothing to
| that person. Same for other tangible items; but for things
| like "quality" of life that is very much opinionated. If
| you want to avoid the short hand that's fine too, but that
| doesn't mean everyone who says something is "quality" is
| coming from a place of emotion.
|
| And if you only want a prop, then you are not buying a
| driver of screws, you are specifically buying a prop--
| that's a different item, even if it is the same device.
| jonahx wrote:
| > There's nothing we can say about a thing with "quality" we
| couldn't also say by tediously listing every single property it
| has. The only thing that only "quality" can add is information
| about what the speaker thinks is good.
|
| In most fields (film, painting, music, etc), there are
| standards -- agreed upon to varying degrees, sometimes almost
| unanimously, sometimes with only a plurality -- based on
| objective or almost-objective criteria. In other words, there
| are "measurable" criteria that expert or even merely good
| practitioners can agree on. In these cases the word "quality"
| is often used as a shorthand for possessing these kinds of
| properties. In this sense, ascribing quality is functionally
| different from a mere opinion, linguistically and technically.
|
| Of course, you can argue that all those experts have no
| priority over anyone else's opinion -- nevertheless, the usage
| distinction remains. In addition, I think that point of view is
| either trivially true (because sure, no we can't ask God to
| tell us who's right) or meaningless (because there _are_ many
| differences between experts and non-experts, even if you have
| contempt for expertise).
| bulatb wrote:
| Absolutely, "quality" can often be descriptive shorthand for
| a set of traits. It's also, independently, always a normative
| judgement. I think mixing them is where the disagreement up
| and down this thread is coming from.
|
| Someone says, "Good cars are fast" and someone says, "Good
| cars have heated seats," and then the second person says
| "That car you like must not be fast because it isn't good
| because the seats aren't heated."
|
| Mixing "is" and "ought" like that can be convenient, and
| separating them is usually pedantic, but the shorthand only
| makes a mess as soon as anybody starts debating.
| brightlancer wrote:
| > In most fields (film, painting, music, etc), there are
| standards -- agreed upon to varying degrees, sometimes almost
| unanimously, sometimes with only a plurality -- based on
| objective or almost-objective criteria. In other words, there
| are "measurable" criteria that expert or even merely good
| practitioners can agree on. In these cases the word "quality"
| is often used as a shorthand for possessing these kinds of
| properties. In this sense, ascribing quality is functionally
| different from a mere opinion, linguistically and
| technically.
|
| Could that be selection bias, where people who think X is
| "quality" promote other people who agree and push down those
| who disagree?
|
| At that point, it may be true Agree X has found something
| objective and measurable, but they're using circular
| reasoning: these metrics are important because they show
| "quality", and we know it is "quality" because of those
| metrics.
| jonahx wrote:
| It's true as I noted there is no final god-like arbiter.
| But that is not really an interesting observation imo.
| Taking that perspective to its logical conclusion we end up
| in a world where values are utterly flat and relativist,
| and the only thing we can say is that we can't say anything
| about anything.
|
| It's also true the selection-bias you described exists, in
| some cases to the point of collective delusion. But note
| how I can say that and you can immediately think of cases
| that fit and cases that don't...
|
| On balance there is something real and (despite my first
| sentence) I want to say "objective" in most cases of
| expertise. In practice everyone lives as if that were true,
| even if they are arguing otherwise.
|
| Regardless, even if you want to make the most contrarian,
| relativist case possible, the phenomenon of expertise
| (simply viewed as a social pattern) does exist and governs
| nearly every domain where people talk about "quality".
| elisharobinson wrote:
| What is quality
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uAfUOfSY-S0&t=685s&pp=2AGtBZAC...
|
| Please learn
| est wrote:
| Most people can't afford quality. Regardless of outcomes of pixel
| perfect or loudness wars, often we don't have a choice. We just
| have to deal with it.
| zghst wrote:
| This article is hard to consume, though it's a shame that many
| websites are broken, mobile unfriendly.
| kodt wrote:
| Seems like the author doesn't care about quality.
| Summerbud wrote:
| I am glad to read this article which poke around the idea of
| "Pixel Perfection", for me that is indeed time-wasted, and I
| don't know why there are lots of company keeps saying they want
| this kind of "Perfection".
|
| But I do believe people care quality, what they did is comparing
| the quality with price, Netflix is a bad example since it's so
| cheap (compared to seeing movie or a show in theater). The viewer
| saw a bad movie they will just think, oh well, I don't care.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Pixel Perfection is for the designer so they can claim credit
| and shed blame to the implementation.
| incognito124 wrote:
| Perhaps related?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41311135
| FpUser wrote:
| Correction. Most people don't care about quality where that
| quality does not matter. And if it does not matter then the
| original statement is plainly false
| Timwi wrote:
| The article makes a mistake conflating accessibility issues with
| pedantry. Keyboard navigability isn't just a "nice to have"; it's
| something that makes the difference between usable and unusable
| for a minority of users. Now imagine you're such a user and
| you're told to stop being such a pedant and you should learn to
| be content with lower quality software. It's downright offensive.
| It's like telling a deaf person to "just listen properly".
| EGreg wrote:
| Actually people care about perception, both to themselves and
| showing off to others.
|
| They don't care about edge cases or innards.
|
| Steve Jobs famously still focused on them anyway.
| puppycodes wrote:
| The misunderstanding is economic.
|
| People care about quality. Few can afford it.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Duh.
| satisfice wrote:
| Quality is value to some person (who matters). This formula is a
| high quality definition of quality (to me). With this definition
| I can think and see straight about this subject.
|
| "Most people don't care about quality" therefore is a way of
| saying "any standard of quality I find interesting and can bring
| to mind right now seems to be held by a minority of people."
|
| This is interesting to me only in the sense that it implies a
| lack of rigor and imagination on the part of the writer, as well
| as the diversity of tastes among people at large.
|
| Surely it is easy to tell if most people care about quality in
| video: just show them randomly generated images (literally white
| noise) and see if they prefer that to images that seem to tell
| some kind of story.
|
| The author probably means that almost no one invests in quality
| past a certain point that is good enough to fulfill a purpose
| they have in mind, and that the demandingness of human purposes
| decays according to some sort of power law.
|
| (this message edited twice because I am especially fussy about
| typos)
| keybored wrote:
| Nothing like some "what the hoi polloi thinks" slop to finish off
| the year.
| kazinator wrote:
| I recently got me a second hand Garmin GPS, decade old. Oh, the
| software issues that detract from an utmost quality that is well
| within the reach of the hardware!
|
| - Latest map from 2024 wants to send me the wrong way down a one
| way street, which has been that way for something like a decade
| now.
|
| - When I delete the one-way street segment, giving a start and
| end point, in the disallowed direction, _it deletes both
| directions_ of the segment. Like, have a checkbox for that: [ ]
| delete both directions? Or something.
|
| - Only two voices available for English, only one of which says
| street names. A 2004 Magellan Roadmate I once had featured more
| voices.
|
| - The pronunciations are horrible. It wants to say "Pinetree" as
| "PEE-nuh-tree", would you believe it. Just about every other
| street name of Anglo-Saxon origin is mispronounced, sometimes
| even when it is a single dictionary word.
|
| - When it can't find satellites (e.g. inside concrete parkade) it
| puts up a pointless dialog box about whether to continue
| searching. If you stupidly take the bait and click "no", it
| disables satellite searching, switching to some GPS emulation
| mode for indoor use. You are not told about this until after
| saying "No", but at least you are told. What you're not told is
| how to enable it again. You have to go several levels into the
| right config menu to uncheck this. Jaw-droppingly moronic dark UI
| pattern.
|
| - Search is bjorked, When you select a subcategory like shopping,
| there is a multi-second lag between the characters of your search
| term, though there is no progressive search going on; no results
| are being refined on the screen as you type: you will not see a
| result until you submit the search term. If you don't select a
| category and just search globally, there is no lag. They messed
| up the priority between the UI and background activity. The
| number one priority is appearing responsive to the user, even if
| it takes cycles away from the background activity---which it
| actually won't, or not significantly!
|
| - Doesn't speak the acuteness of turns: like "slight right turn"
| or "hard left turn". The much older Magellan unit I had did this.
| And it had a dedicated button for repeating the last instruction.
|
| - Volume control onscreen only, buried in menus, making it unsafe
| to just fiddle with the volume while driving. Old Magellan had
| buttons for this.
|
| - I hate the tone-deaf CLAW-midder pronunciation of kilometer;
| why don't these things have an option to say KEE-low-meeder? You
| know, like kilogram, kilobyte, kilopascal, kilohertz, kilovolt
| ... which are never CLAW-grum, CLAW-bite, CLAW-pascull, CLAW-
| hurts and CLAW-vuhlt!!! You can escape from this grating assault
| on the ears by switching to Japanese.
|
| This stuff happens because a product is good enough. People
| accept it, it sells, and so it's BGAF: beyond giving a F.
|
| On the positive: the build quality of the thing is good: it's a
| solid piece of hardware. The suction cup is tenacious, and arm
| assembly is solid. The thing doesn't shake whatsoever, even if
| hovering off the dashboard, yet the ball joint is easy to detach.
| Screen is large, decently bright and sharp with good resolution.
| Using a USB-based cable is a boon. Instead of the car adapter
| cable provided with the unit, I use its alternative USB cable
| used for upgrades, plugged into the Type A jack of generic USB
| charger. That charger has two more Type C ports for charging
| phones. Yay! The unit's built-in battery means it never reboots
| for engine starts. It has a 15 second auto shut-down for when the
| power is cut to the USB port. All good.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| But the ones that do did drive producers decisions . Then they
| learned they can defeat the free market by dividing and
| conquering the cattle. So now, if you do not haggle and look you
| horribly overpay. Used to be that you moved in the protective
| shadow of others.
| exabrial wrote:
| This is absolutely false. Everyone expects quality, but most have
| given up hope and accept shit instead; if it's going to break,
| you might as well not spend a lot.
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| The fallacy many people fall for is that low quality impression
| and cheaper and good value do not necessarily all correlate
| positively. Instead, can we not strive for excellence in all
| things as a matter of pride?
| exabrial wrote:
| > Instead, can we not strive for excellence in all things as
| a matter of pride?
|
| well spoken.
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| _Sigh_ Rhetorically: What 's the point of pride or doing anything
| in life if you're not going to try to make something (eventually,
| objectively) excellent?
| pessimizer wrote:
| People get offended because they like to think of themselves as
| moral, protestant beings divinely motivated to strive for
| perfection in their work. It isn't that some people don't care,
| it's just that unmotivated "caring" is arbitrarily distributed.
| This shop may be filled with passionate people trying to channel
| the Universe's principle, and the shop next door may be filled
| with people who actively hate what they do, and who they do it
| for, even though they're not going anywhere. This decade your
| industry may be full of passionate people, and the next decade
| you can't find a single person who cares. That sort of stuff is
| wildly dependent on propaganda and people making myths about
| themselves and what they do. And on how much everybody is making.
|
| What's important are people's lifestyles, what they really want
| to enjoy, and how that will be impeded or aided by the product.
| The product is not a goal _in itself_ except to fetishists (and
| they 're enjoying their fetish.) People want to be happy. The
| system surrounding them determines their relationship to the
| product, because it determines how the product can improve their
| odds/ability to enjoy themselves, at least over a different
| product, or a different process.
|
| This is the countervailing force to "premature optimization is
| the root of all evil." Most people have no reason to care very
| much about polishing what they're doing, because they're doing it
| for is to draw a salary, not to create a perfect thing. If you're
| not going to need it for long, if it's likely to fail, if it has
| no competition and people will have to use it even if it's bad,
| if it's the third in a very successful, hyped series and looks
| enough like the last two but came in a lot cheaper, if you
| personally already have your next four jobs lined up, if your
| manager just needs to deliver quickly and will be able to hand
| maintenance off to someone else, if what you're replacing is
| garbage, if the thing is already sold.
|
| Most people aren't literally interested (as in owning an
| interest, not some speculation about people's internal states) in
| caring at all, because something is an improvement over nothing.
| The people who care are the people who have to pay to maintain
| something, sometimes, and only when it costs them money. If
| they're just writing the checks on behalf of someone else, they
| may even be perversely motivated to want bigger checks, because
| when that check gets small, the job of the person who writes it
| is getting endangered.
|
| All the way down the the shifting mass _(the people who have no
| standards in music are a different though maybe overlapping set
| than the people who have no standards in cars)_ of the majority
| consumer with very few standards, often enforced by a market that
| has connived to offer them very few options. Even worse, all
| marketing is designed to attach an image to the actual product:
| it is often having to try and convince you that something that is
| mediocre, and that _you 've already experienced_, is luxury. If
| you've invested in mediocre luxury, you have to pretend that it
| was worth it, at least not to feel dumb like you've made a bad
| investment, or to grab some worth out of the thing as a Veblen
| good.
|
| Why I said it's the countervailing force to the premature
| optimization cliche is not an original thought, but if you don't
| prematurely optimize, you're probably never going to get a chance
| to optimize, because too many people will find it _useful enough_
| half-broken. So if you 're the one that's going to be stuck with
| it, or take the (financial) blame for problems with it, push back
| and prematurely optimize as much as you have time to do (but
| watch that time, if it's software I always double my guess of how
| long something's going to take.)
|
| Otherwise, you should really also not be caring about quality.
| It's a means, not an end.
| extropian wrote:
| Most people do care about quality. There are so few things of
| great quality that most have to remain content with the available
| options.
|
| Like in the article, anyone watching Netflix's badly written
| shows have probably watched all the great ones there - and there
| are not a lot of great ones to go through in most niches.
| palata wrote:
| First, there is a huge difference between art and engineering
| that the author completely misses.
|
| Because most people are not competent to judge the quality of two
| similar product does not mean they don't care about quality. They
| just usually can't tell, so they go for the cheaper (which has a
| higher probability of being worse). And it drives the prices
| down, and the quality with it. Or it reinforces monopolies,
| because only those who already produce at scale can produce
| better quality at lower price.
|
| But if there was a way to correctly tell people: "look, this
| smartphone is 20% more expensive, but it will last twice as long
| and it will be more convenient for you in ways you can't
| understand right now", _nobody_ would go for the worse quality,
| right? The problem is not that people _don 't care_ about
| quality, it's that _they are not competent_ to judge it and
| marketing does the rest.
|
| Then the article talks a lot about art. Interestingly, the author
| says "I'm pride to not understand art, but let me still explain
| to you how it works". And then proves it by giving contradictory
| examples like "people don't care about quality, they will just
| listen to ABBA or go to the Louvre". You have to _not understand_
| ABBA or what 's in the Louvre to think like that.
|
| So here is my rant: it's okay to be proud to not be knowledgeable
| about stuff. But then don't be surprised if people notice that
| you have no clue if you write about it.
|
| (Yes, I noticed the irony of writing a pedant comment about a
| mediocre article that prides itself in being mediocre and
| criticises pedantry :-) ).
| maxerickson wrote:
| Economics has the idea of expressed preferences.
|
| So for instance, with that framework, if you choose the cheaper
| item instead of the inconvenience of understanding the
| tradeoffs between the items, you obviously care less about
| quality than price and convenience.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Yes, but that's because the cost of evaluating the quality is
| very high, often infeasibly so.
|
| (Seriously, it's pretty difficult. Read reviews? They can
| give some idea, but it's rare that they do any rigourous
| testing, and they can be corrupted. Have a brand or specific
| model that you like and has a good reputation? How do you
| know they haven't started to cash in on that by cutting
| quality but still charging the same prices?)
| dotancohen wrote:
| This is where Project Farm provides its value. Consumer
| Reports ostensibly once filled a similar niche.
|
| But building trust in brands like Project Farm or Consumer
| Reports suffers from the same bootstrap problem.
| palata wrote:
| You would be right if it was possible to estimate the quality
| of the items.
|
| But it generally is mostly impossible. Of course you can read
| about the products, you can read reviews, and then you can
| build some kind of belief around that. "From what I read, and
| assuming that the company doesn't bankrupt suddenly, and
| assuming that they won't deploy an update that erases all my
| data, I _believe_ that this one is better ". But that's a
| belief: you don't know anything about the hardware that is
| inside (other than a list of a few high-level components you
| think you understand, maybe) or about the software that is
| running inside.
| graemep wrote:
| IMO that is economists trying to argue that the market is
| working when the market is actually failing.
|
| If people would like to be informed of the tradeoffs but do
| not have the information the end result is not optimal.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> But if there was a way to correctly tell people: "look,
| this smartphone is 20% more expensive, but it will last twice
| as long and it will be more convenient for you in ways you
| can't understand right now", nobody would go for the worse
| quality, right?_
|
| Wrong. Most of the population is limited by cash flow so that
| extra 20% they get to spend on food today is worth more than
| the quality of the phone a year from now. That's a problem for
| tomorrow, hunger is felt now.
|
| That's why most people choose the cheap option, not some
| inability to evaluate quality.
| rcxdude wrote:
| I think this is less common than you would assume. Yes, there
| is a 'poor tax' on low quality items that are more expensive
| in the long run, but also people have gotten burned enough
| times paying more for an item that still turned out to be
| crap, so it's hard to justify taking the risk on such an
| investment.
| mirsadm wrote:
| I think this is true as well. Paying more does not mean
| higher quality. There are a few brands which seem to
| release quality products consistently (Apple etc) that
| paying more is justified but for many others it is just not
| worth it.
| palata wrote:
| > Paying more does not mean higher quality.
|
| Exactly! It is actually hard to estimate the quality of a
| product. And when you can't, most of the time you go for
| the cheaper one (unless money doesn't matter much for
| you).
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Getting the cheapest product always means worse quality.
| The biggest jump in cost/benefit is between the cheapest
| product and the second cheapest. So if you only care
| about price, you should always get the second cheapest
| product, which will almost guarantee at least 50% better
| quality than the cheapest. After that, the ratio is
| diminishing.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Getting the cheapest product always means worse
| quality.
|
| Not true. New entrants to markets often will price to
| undercut markets (see Uber and Airbnb in their early
| days). Also loss leaders are a very much a thing.
|
| Over time markets do typically stabilize and this could
| be true.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The cheapest accommodation will usually not be listed on
| AirBnB or Booking, because of severe short-comings
| meaning the platform won't do business with them for any
| price.
|
| As for Uber, I guess you're right in many regions. But
| there's a plethora of Uber competitors around the world,
| offering a worse experience for a cheaper price.
|
| In 100% of cases, the cheapest product you can find will
| be of significantly worse quality than the second
| cheapest product, without bringing much savings. The rest
| is edge cases.
|
| As you pointed out, I'm talking about reasonably mature
| markets.
| MoreMoore wrote:
| A significant number of people have enough money that they
| can decide between options that cost less or more. Otherwise
| we wouldn't have $2000 phones or TVs that range from
| $500-100.000. If the number of people with sufficient budget
| to choose between options was so small that we can ignore it
| in this discussion, no manufacturer would bother with market
| segmentation.
|
| However, they do bother, so it's wrong to just assume
| baseline that most people just care about the cheapest option
| because that's all they can afford and that we shouldn't
| bother.
|
| Many of us strive to get the best possible deal within a
| budget which satisfies our preferences and delivers a certain
| amount of quality. The fact that most of us don't have an
| unlimited budget makes it all the more important to us and
| this discussion that manufacturers can skimp on quality in a
| way that's unrecognisable to 99% of the market until a
| certain amount of time has passed. This has other
| consequences than just "it's cheaper but it's shitter and we
| don't know how much shittier". It allows utter bullshit like
| "I bought this $200 Xbox controller and the bumper broke
| after 3 months and I got it replaced twice and now the
| replacement is broken again after another 2 months". And all
| we can do is shrug because that's just what modern
| manufacturing is like. Skimping on everything while setting a
| price point as high as they can get away with using
| marketing.
| palata wrote:
| > Most of the population is limited by cash flow so that
| extra 20% they get to spend on food today is worth more than
| the quality of the phone a year from now.
|
| Most of the population in the US has an iPhone. If you were
| right, they would most definitely have a cheaper phone.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Because they are on contract. Your point does not refute
| the earlier, it is a cashflow issue. Most people buy phones
| on contract and pay X per month over Y months rather than
| paying X*Y total upfront.
| palata wrote:
| And getting an iPhone on contract is cheaper than getting
| a cheaper Android on contract?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| They are around the same price. Given that, most people
| opt to use an iPhone, for reasons more cultural than
| quality wise (blue vs green bubble, network effects, apps
| they want to use, etc), given that high end Androids have
| similar quality levels.
| palata wrote:
| So when I ask if the iPhone are more expensive than
| Android, your answer is "given that they go for iPhone or
| high end Androids, they are the same price"? It means
| that some contracts are cheaper, for cheaper Androids,
| right?
|
| Not sure I understand.
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| On average, the people I know to have expensive phones and
| very big TVs are a lot poorer than the people with cheaper
| phones. The former eat domino's pizzas. There's a lot more
| psychological effect at play than just price and amount of
| food in the table.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Lots of the population isn't paying up-front for their phone,
| and the monthly fee on a longer lasting phone would be lower
| in a competitive market.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| For the tools that we use day-to-day and week-to-week, it
| should be impossible for us to not be a judge of quality. A
| have a tale of ladles... those pieces of kitchenware that we
| use to slop soup into our bowls. For years and years, I'd only
| had really horrible, shitty ladles. Those plastic-handled,
| plastic-everything-ed pieces of garbage that Walmart buys in
| volume for 3 cents each and sells for $12.99, you know the ones
| I'm talking about. With bizarro neon-green colors that are so
| flexible that you know there must be three dozen banned-in-the-
| United-States plasticizers in them.
|
| And if you could find one that's just plain stainless steel
| (with or without a nice wood handle), it was paper-thin steel,
| stamped into shape, that no one had ever bothered to
| grind/polish the burrs off the edge.
|
| Then, just a few weeks ago, my wife and I were checking out
| this tiny little Korean grocery store. And the owner apparently
| orders everything from some Korean supplier. He had several
| different sizes of ladels. Stainless, in what must be 3/16ths,
| all the edges soft and beveled. The shape was nice too, not
| something rough and rushed, but looking like someone who cared
| about design actually spent time on that. And the small one was
| like $3.89 and the large was $7-something. This did not come
| from a Chinese factory.
|
| Am I a world-renowned ladle expert? Do I have a PhD in
| ladelology? No. Hell, as a utensil, it's probably one that I
| only use twice a year. I couldn't design a die to make one of
| these, I couldn't tell you if the hydraulic press needed to be
| 50tons or 250tons, I'm not very knowledgeable at all about any
| detail that matters. I just care (some interesting psychology
| there... childhood trauma or something).
|
| I don't think anyone needs to be especially qualified to judge
| the quality of products that they do or will use. Everyday
| experience should suffice, and the only people who might not
| manage that are kids who have just recently graduated and
| mama's not doing their laundry for them anymore.
| geodel wrote:
| For long time I used to think about crappy ladles and why
| steel ones in decent shapes not available in US stores. The
| kind that I had in India would last lifetime. Finally I found
| these kind of things in webstaurant store. Seems this kind of
| stuff is readily available in catering/ restaurant supply
| stores. Things mainstream stores sell is all inspired from
| Tv, media celebrity cooking etc. This stuff is more fragile
| but supposedly fancy looking. I now have stuff more
| practical, reliable and all steel (or at least part that
| touch food) from catering stores.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| You can buy a good ladle in a US retail store, you just
| have to pay $30+ for it:
| https://www.crateandbarrel.com/crate-and-barrel-stainless-
| st...
|
| For something that should last forever, $30 isn't too bad.
|
| It's basically impossible to get a quality product at a
| Target or Walmart type store.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| Crate and Barrel is decidedly for the market segment of
| "more money than ability to discern quality and wants
| social status". The last time I went into one, they had
| $70 ice bucket tongs that looked amazing but had no
| teeth, which totally defeat the point of ice tongs.
| palata wrote:
| I understand that you generally agree with me: people care
| about quality.
|
| > I don't think anyone needs to be especially qualified to
| judge the quality of products that they do or will use.
|
| In your example, though, what you have done is try multiple
| models over multiple years, while the use-case hasn't changed
| one bit. So you have found an example where you could
| actually test multiple products yourself, and then decide
| which one you like better.
|
| Many times it's not like that. If you buy a smartphone today,
| you can't test 4 different models for 2 months and then
| choose. So you will have to pick one. And in a couple years,
| when this one is not good enough, you will have to buy a new
| one. But everything will have evolved: websites will be even
| bulkier and slower to load, mobile apps will be more
| Javascript wrappers on top of cross-platform frameworks etc
| etc that made them faster to write, etc. So the new phone you
| will buy will not compare to the old one, because it won't
| live in the same world.
|
| Therefore you end up in the same situation: you need to buy a
| smartphone, you can test 4 different models for 2 months, and
| you don't know if the ones that are more expensive are
| better.
| lambertsimnel wrote:
| > In your example, though, what you have done is try
| multiple models over multiple years, while the use-case
| hasn't changed one bit. So you have found an example where
| you could actually test multiple products yourself, and
| then decide which one you like better.
|
| Isn't it a bit puzzling that inferior ladles proliferate,
| though? You don't need to work in catering or have any
| particular training to recognise superior ladles, but it's
| more difficult to buy a ladle of reasonable quality than an
| inferior one. Why is that? I can think of a few possible
| reasons:
|
| 1) Because a sufficiently large proportion of buyers are
| too inexperienced to know better? Maybe they'll choose the
| high-quality option next time. This could explain buyers'
| behaviour - often including mine - but I don't think it
| explains the behaviour of retailers or manufacturers with
| brands to protect.
|
| 2) Because people pay so much more attention to big
| purchases than small ones? You might use a ladle quite
| frequently, and even an inferior one might last longer than
| a smartphone, so it might warrant some thought even though
| it's inexpensive.
|
| 3) Because too many buyers are poor? If I correctly
| understand the comment you're replying to, the inferior
| ladles were actually actually less expensive, but cost
| could contribute to other cases of buyers choosing worse
| value products.
|
| 4) Because people are suggestible, and the decision about
| which to buy is partly made for them? Maybe the inferior
| ladles are more expensive because of the resources put into
| putting them in front of so many buyers.
| palata wrote:
| I think that for cheap stuff, people don't think too
| much. They will buy what they found. But if they find a
| choice of 3 ladles and can know which one is better
| quality, then the quality will matter.
|
| It's just that they won't spend 2 years finding a Korean
| store. And for manufacturers, it seems like they make
| more profit by just building worse quality in the first
| place.
|
| And that's another point: people _do care_ about quality.
| Manufacturers _do not_. Manufacturers care about profit.
| And economists believe that both align perfectly, for
| some reason I don 't get.
| nox101 wrote:
| > "look, this smartphone is 20% more expensive, but it will
| last twice as long and it will be more convenient for you in
| ways you can't understand right now"
|
| That is not the proposition. A Motorola Moto G Play is $110 no
| contract. The cheapest iPhone is $429. It's is not 20% more,
| it's 4x more. My sister got a Moto G Play this summer. She's
| perfectly happy with it. She's got a family of 5 so $550 for 5
| phones is quite a deal compared to $2145 for 5 phones.
|
| The Moto G Play also has a micro-SD slot so she can take it to
| 512gb for $40.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The phones market is completely distorted by several kinds of
| anti-competitive and purposeful social-engineering forces.
|
| For a start, it's not a given that the Moto G Play has a
| lower quality than the iPhone. If the market was competitive,
| there would be comparable alternatives on every dimension,
| but it isn't, and those can't be compared.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| To answer this question properly she would have to use both
| and then make a judgement, no?
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| That is not the proposition. For $15/month savings her child
| will be ostracized at school because of the blue message box.
| Is it worth it?
|
| Phones have outsized influence on our lives. A phone costs
| 1/10 as much as a car per month, but we spend more time with
| them, and most younger people today would rather give up
| their car than their phone.
|
| Better screen quality will more than pay itself in optics
| prescriptions later in life. Batter quality photos you take
| today will stay with you for the remainder of our life, and
| past it. Longer battery life would mean avoiding a lot of
| unpleasant situations.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > For $15/month savings her child will be ostracized at
| school because of the blue message box
|
| FWIW I have teenage kids, and nothing like this has ever
| happened in their lives.
| copperx wrote:
| It seems to me like you are an expert on rationalizing
| expensive purchases. If that's unconscious, I think it
| would be good for you to bring it to conscious awareness.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| While I disagree with your first paragraph, the other two
| are spot on. When comparing prices of tech products, people
| focus too much on the percentage difference, while the
| dollar difference is not that significant. Depending on the
| person making the purchase. Anybody who can afford a car
| could easily afford the most expensive smart phone for
| sale.
| palata wrote:
| I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
|
| I made an example to explain what would happen if consumers
| had a way to know, _for sure_ , the quality of a product.
|
| I didn't mean for you to take my example, try to find
| smartphone models that may match and then come back to me
| saying "your example is wrong because I can't find those
| models in real life". The whole point of my example was to
| share an idea, not to sell a smartphone.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > A Motorola Moto G Play is $110 no contract. The cheapest
| iPhone is $429. It's is not 20% more, it's 4x more.
|
| But this is the market failure.
|
| If you ask a normal person why they should care about having
| a phone with drivers in the mainline kernel tree, they don't
| even know what you're asking. But the answer is, because then
| it can keep running the latest version of stock Android
| indefinitely, instead of being forced to buy a new phone over
| and over.
|
| At which point a 20% difference in the hardware price will be
| relevant, because if you want to keep the phone a long time
| you'll want the one with 16GB of RAM instead of 4GB -- which
| is fine because RAM is under $1/GB.
|
| But since the average phone customer doesn't know this, the
| phone they want isn't even available and their choices are
| the cheap phone which will be out of support in less than a
| year or the one that costs four times as much up front and
| will still be out of support before they otherwise actually
| need a new phone.
| cbhl wrote:
| A "normal person" is a Starbucks barista making $38k/year
| (roughly 2000 hours at $19/hour).
|
| That person doesn't spend 3 days' wages for "mainline
| kernel drivers" -- either they buy the iPhone because it's
| a status symbol, or they use the Android OS that shipped
| with the device for three years until the screen is cracked
| and the battery stops charging. To them security patches
| are just an inconvenience.
|
| I don't think "if only people had the right information
| they'd spend money on the right things" is the right thesis
| -- I think it's more "why is everyone so poor? how do we
| make it so that more people can afford our wares?"
|
| My impression (citation needed) is that globally folks have
| been worse off the last few years and so the median Android
| device spec was actually going down.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > either they buy the iPhone because it's a status
| symbol, or they use the Android OS that shipped with the
| device for three years until the screen is cracked and
| the battery stops charging.
|
| That's also exactly the point. Why is it hard or
| expensive to repair the device? Would they have purposely
| chosen a phone they have to throw away like trash and
| then pay more than a hundred dollars for a new one if
| they could get one where a new battery is $15 and can be
| replaced like they do the batteries in their TV remote?
|
| > My impression (citation needed) is that globally folks
| have been worse off the last few years and so the median
| Android device spec was actually going down.
|
| Or people have realized that they only use their phone
| for maps and texting and they don't need a flagship if
| they're just going to throw it in the trash in two years
| anyway.
| braza wrote:
| > The problem is not that people don't care about quality, it's
| that they are not competent to judge it and marketing does the
| rest.
|
| I disagree with this.
|
| Just a small background: I was around in some of the cultures
| that value quality (e.g. Switzerland, Germany (in some
| aspects), Nordic countries, etc.), and the biggest issues that
| I have with the modern concept of quality are 1) quality is not
| property anymore but instead is something that "someone needs
| to tell you 'cause you're not capable to see for yourself" and
| it gives not only a lot of avenue for status signaling but as
| mechanism that I call "veil of sophistication and exclusivity,"
| and 2) due to the economies of scale, lack of education in
| terms of taste (aesthetics), and due to the number 1) most of
| the quality industry became a pervasive mechanism to place huge
| premiums that does not match with the marginal utility.
|
| One simple example that I can think of is about the car
| industry, specifically the German auto industry for luxury
| cars.
|
| With the new competitors from China and the US, several people
| are perceiving that, in relative terms, those new competitors
| are bringing more perceived and felt quality in comparison with
| the European brands.
|
| Some editions of Mercedes you pay more than 100K in a car with
| a lot of plastic in its finishing, very dubious vehicle
| dynamics (if you're outside of the nice german/european roads)
| or if you need to operate in the 40% vehicle performance, awful
| spare parts coverage outside of Europe, and way inefficient
| (due to sandbagging and green washing) engines in terms of
| performance x value.
|
| I can go on and on bringing several examples of this "Premium
| Scalping" in a lot of products: Beer, Wine, Fashion Industry,
| Watches, etc.
| prmph wrote:
| I'm not sure how you are disagreeing with the comment you are
| replying to.
|
| > With the new competitors from China and the US, several
| people are perceiving that, in relative terms, those new
| competitors are bringing more perceived and felt quality in
| comparison with the European brands.
|
| So you agree that when people can actually perceive quality,
| they car about it, right
| dnate wrote:
| Didn't you just prove their point / agree with your post? The
| German car pricing example fits right in the "people can't
| judge quality adequately and marketing does the rest"
| narrative:
|
| People buy overpriced cars that are not actually high
| quality.
|
| or
|
| You/marketing are telling me about how these chinese cars are
| higher quality and I should by them. While most people have
| no Idea whether "green engines" are good or bad. I could take
| your word for it and believe that they are inefficient. But
| that sounds bogus given that efficiency is a cornerstone of
| "green".
| palata wrote:
| It feels like we are not talking about the same thing. I
| totally agree with you regarding "luxury". Buying a luxury
| Swiss watch can be somewhere between status signaling or art;
| you don't need a luxury Swiss watch to get sufficient time
| precision.
|
| But I was talking about quality: how does one compare two
| laptops costing respectively 400$ and 800$? It regularly
| happens to me that friends ask help choosing a laptop.
| Sometimes they blindly trust me when I say "in your
| situation, I would buy that". Often though, they're more like
| "okay but you like computers so of course you would want a
| 'rolls-royce', but for me I think the cheaper one will be
| enough". Where actually my opinion was that both are not good
| enough _for me_ , but the cheaper one is a piece of crap _for
| everybody_ and the less cheap one is good enough _for this
| particular friend_.
|
| The thing is, I can't blame them for not knowing how to
| compare two laptops. And the one thing they understand is
| price: they see two laptops that _look similar_ , and one of
| them is half the price. The _assume_ similar quality and
| therefore go for the cheaper.
|
| Again, it's not that they don't care about quality, it's that
| they fail to estimate it.
| redviperpt wrote:
| I'm not sure computers are a good example, there are
| objective tests that can be made to compare two computers,
| or at least numbers to point at to explain to your friends
| why one is better than the other.
| palata wrote:
| Are you sure? Before buying the laptop, which test can
| you (or some reviewer) run that will say if the keyboard
| will start having issues after 6 months or if the lid
| will break after 10?
|
| When you look at the numbers (I presume you mean the
| number of CPUs, their frequency, the amount of RAM, etc),
| on the paper they all have something similar. How do you
| know if one has higher-quality RAM than the other?
|
| There are lines of products (like macbooks or thinkpads)
| where you can check the quality of earlier models, but
| macbooks and thinkpads are on the higher end. My friends
| who want Windows don't go for thinkpads...
| vel0city wrote:
| I agree with this. For a lot of people where midrange-ish
| kind of specs more than fulfil their compute needs, the
| spec list practically doesn't matter. So long as they
| tick some basic numbers it'll be fine. With their needs a
| gig of RAM is a gig of RAM for the most part.
|
| But that's not really the thing with the laptop
| recommendation question. It then comes down to how good
| of a hinge on the screen. How much flex does the body
| have when you actually hold it and use it. How janky are
| the ports. Does the trackpad and keyboard feel terrible
| to use? Do you feel like you risk cracking it in half
| tossing it in a backpack and carrying it across town?
| These are things where there aren't necessarily hard
| benchmarks and can be difficult to ascertain by just
| looking at listing photos.
|
| Outside of some things like Thinkpads and Macbooks I
| often have a difficult time making real laptop
| recommendations without actually going to the store and
| holding the machine or hearing a trusted(ish) reviewer
| comment on the relative build qualities. It can be pretty
| easy to tell case rigidity when its in your hands. You
| can tell if a hinge feels like crap or not moving the
| screen a few times.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Where are the objective tests between touchpads, which is
| one of the most important ergonomic aspects of computer
| usage, and where MacBooks have been way ahead of
| competition for about two decades? Just the touchpad adds
| $200 value to a MacBook compared to other laptops.
| gspencley wrote:
| Agreed. This is the part of the article that I really took
| issue with:
|
| > You may take pride in your craft, but the majority of people
| physically cannot notice the difference between good and bad
| design. Not even subconsciously.
|
| Particularly the "not even subconsciously" part thrown in at
| the end. Because, if this were true, then YouTube creators
| would not pour an insane amount of effort into the THUMBNAILS
| of their videos. Marketing talent would not study human
| psychology and do A/B tests to figure out why certain ads sell
| products and others don't.
|
| There is so much theory and study behind design, attraction,
| pattern recognition, contrast and standing out from the crowd
| that even though the average person doesn't necessarily notice
| how these strings are being tugged on, it doesn't mean that
| they aren't having an influence .
|
| And I don't even mean to this to say "we're all sheep being
| brainwashed by corporations." That's actually far from my
| point. My point is that attention to quality affects the user
| experience regardless of whether the user can recognize or
| articulate WHY.
|
| In a photograph, and think about YouTube thumbnails as a good
| working example, the "mise en scene" is critical for supporting
| the clarity of the message. There's a reason that the majority
| of thumbnails contain pictures of peoples' faces: the human
| brain is distracted by faces... so if you're trying to pull
| attention to your thumbnail, it's a good method. Why are these
| faces usually obnoxious? Because the facial expression also
| communicates the tone of the content and how the viewer is
| intended to feel about it. The ALL CAPS sections in titles and
| captions, while annoying, also has a purpose: to highlight key
| words that describe the promise of the video.
|
| All of this speaks to the quality of design. And users might
| not know why they prefer certain designs over others. Why
| certain websites sell products and others don't. Why certain
| videos and articles get clicked on while others don't. That
| doesn't mean that, therefore, "most people don't care about
| quality." It means that, like you said, most people don't have
| the relevant domain expertise necessary to be able to judge why
| the quality of one design "feels" better than the quality of
| another.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| > > You may take pride in your craft, but the majority of
| people physically cannot notice the difference between good
| and bad design. Not even subconsciously.
|
| > Particularly the "not even subconsciously" part thrown in
| at the end.
|
| It's a bit of a tautology: people don't _notice_ things that
| are targeted to guide them subconsciously. I don 't know if
| that's the point the author was making; either way, it was
| kind of weak.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >Particularly the "not even subconsciously" part thrown in at
| the end. Because, if this were true, then YouTube creators
| would not pour an insane amount of effort into the THUMBNAILS
| of their videos. Marketing talent would not study human
| psychology and do A/B tests to figure out why certain ads
| sell products and others don't. ...
|
| >There is so much theory and study behind design, attraction,
| pattern recognition, contrast and standing out from the crowd
| that even though the average person doesn't necessarily
| notice how these strings are being tugged on, it doesn't mean
| that they aren't having an influence .
|
| I think that is the point he was trying to make. Marketers
| have done all that study to completely destroy the ability of
| "the majority of people physically cannot notice the
| difference between good and bad design. Not even
| subconsciously." Having destroyed the ability to tell shit
| from shinola, they are now free to sell shit at shinola
| prices.
| palata wrote:
| > Marketers have done all that study to completely destroy
| the ability of ...
|
| Yes, they abuse whatever mean we have of judging quality to
| sell us their product. But that's not the point the article
| is trying to make, I think. That's my point: people care
| about quality. It's just that it's generally very hard to
| estimate the quality. And on top of that marketers are paid
| to make it harder.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You're confusing marketing of a product (and the quality of
| the design of the marketing) for design of the product
| itself. The articles is claiming that most people will not
| notice, even subconsciously, if, say, a laptop is well
| designed (say, whether it has a robust body, whether the
| keyboards clack, whether the function buttons and inputs are
| placed in usable places).
|
| This is completely orthogonal to whether the marketing
| campaign for said laptop is well made and hits certain
| conscious or unconscious buttons to make you want the laptop.
|
| Now, I don't agree with the author, but the reasons are
| completely different. I would say that differences in design
| that end users don't notice are not relevant. Any design
| school that holds that one design is better and another is
| worse where the end users of those products wouldn't notice
| the difference is, by definition, a form of snobbery and a
| bad school of design.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > nobody would go for the worse quality, right?
|
| Some people would, some people wouldn't. Informing people is
| still important (and something that has been actively destroyed
| basically everywhere, for decades), so people can make the best
| choice for their situation.
|
| Also, some people won't make the best choice for their
| situation. That's also ok for most choices.
| palata wrote:
| Sure, but that's not quite what I meant.
|
| I meant "if you could provably show them". Of course, if I
| tell you "this one is 20% more expensive but it will last
| twice as long", you have no reason to trust me. But that's a
| problem of trust, not a problem of how much _you_ care about
| quality.
|
| If quality provably means it's cheaper (because it will last
| twice as long), then it's completely irrational to buy the
| lower-quality, more expensive one. The whole idea is that
| people don't have a way to know about the quality _for sure_
| in advance, so they can 't take the decision based on that.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > If quality provably means it's cheaper (because it will
| last twice as long), then it's completely irrational to buy
| the lower-quality, more expensive one.
|
| No, it's not "completely irrational", and also not
| everybody acts rationally.
|
| People exist in all kinds of contexts and situations. You
| won't be able to predict what the best option is for every
| single person.
| palata wrote:
| It's a thought experiment. I am telling you: "What if,
| for this person, in this context and situation, we could
| know _for sure_ what is the best option? Would that
| person go for the best option or not? " and you answer
| "it's not possible, you cannot know".
|
| You are right: we cannot know (that's the reason for the
| debate), but that's beside the point. The point is that
| in my opinion, if people could know _for sure_ about the
| quality when they make their choice, then quality would
| matter to them.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I think their point was that it can still be rational to
| buy the item that is 20% cheaper but will break in 50% of
| the time. Additionally, lots of people will choose to buy
| the worse option because they like it's branding or
| whatever other irrational reason.
| pb060 wrote:
| Serious question: how do you understand ABBA? Because I
| consider music listening a journey and songs that I dislike now
| might be my favorite ones in the future. But I really don't
| know how it could lead me to like ABBA.
| grajaganDev wrote:
| Those women's voices are incredible.
| palata wrote:
| Is it ABBA in particular, or do you not like the style in
| general?
|
| Because there is a difference between quality and preference.
| You can totally dislike the Mona Lisa, but in its style, it
| would be very hard to say that it is not high quality
| painting.
|
| And that brings me to another point that I think goes against
| the philosophy of the featured article: music is _acquired
| taste_ , if I can say. We generally don't like music we don't
| understand. Some styles are easier to get (maybe because the
| music is just easier, or because it's broadcasted everywhere
| you go), some are harder. I like a lot of different styles of
| music (from classical to metal through rap, pop and jazz,
| etc). But in each of those styles, I did not immediately like
| everything. Of course there is good and bad quality, that's
| one thing. But the other axis is what I could understand of
| the style.
|
| In rap, I started with very melodic songs, and then I started
| to get the rhythm and flow, and then downright the culture
| and the meaning of what they would say. I still don't like
| everything, but vastly more than I used to.
|
| In jazz, I liked big bands and "soft" stuff like this until I
| started studying jazz. I forced myself to listen to jazz
| styles I really did not enjoy, up to free jazz. I regularly
| listened to good quality songs (I had to trust my music
| professor about the quality, of course) in those styles for a
| few months. And after a while (and I can't say precisely when
| it happened), I started enjoying some of those, until I could
| enjoy songs in all of them. Again, I don't like _everything_
| , but by learning and getting used to new styles, I got to
| enjoy them as well.
|
| Of course, in doing all that effort, I improved my musical
| expertise. So I am now more critical about quality, which I
| feel like I compensate by being more open to very different
| styles. By voluntarily staying ignorant, I doubt the author
| enjoys all styles of music. So maybe they don't ruin the low-
| quality music of the style they are used to, but on the other
| hand they miss the high quality music in all the styles they
| are not used to :-).
| tsimionescu wrote:
| ABBA is one of the most iconic and beloved pop groups in
| history, whose songs are still enjoyed by a good chunk of the
| planet, 40+ years since they were first released. I'm not
| sure why it's baffling that you too could find something to
| enjoy about them, when so many people clearly have and still
| do.
| dqft wrote:
| This is the most natural thing I've found here in a long long
| time.
| graemep wrote:
| I agree. I have made a lot of recent purchases of things for
| which I would be willing to pay a premium for something better
| (e.g. more durable washing machine) but where I settled for
| cheap and not obviously bad because I do not know how to verify
| the more expensive option is actually higher quality.
|
| > And then proves it by giving contradictory examples like
| "people don't care about quality, they will just listen to ABBA
| or go to the Louvre".
|
| True. IMO what is in the Louvre _is_ of higher quality than
| anything you are likely to find in "some little art gallery
| showcasing new artists". Is the article seriously arguing that
| it is probable that some little gallery will have works better
| than the Mona Lisa?
| indigoabstract wrote:
| I'm not sure if quality is objective or subjective,
| especially when referring to art.
|
| I read this anecdote somewhere:
|
| A visitor to the Louvre in Paris viewed the renowned Mona
| Lisa and stated loudly: "That painting is nothing special. I
| am unimpressed." A curator who was standing nearby said:
| "Sir, the painting is not on trial. You are."
|
| Could have said the same thing about "Starry Night".
| palata wrote:
| Not sure why you are being downvoted here...
|
| But yeah, defining "quality" may be difficult for art.
| Maybe rather for contemporary art, though. I think we tend
| to have some kind of consensus for older art?
|
| Then for instance in cinema, I think it's pretty objective.
| It doesn't have to be related to how popular the movie is,
| though.
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Yes, it's puzzling to me how posterity can tell if
| something has the quality to stand the test of time, but
| we, the contemporaries, cannot.
|
| Though it seems that eventually, remarkable work does
| find its way up, even if the authors might not be around
| to enjoy the belated appraisal.
|
| And in that case, what more can one do but do the work
| and hope for the best?
| ben_w wrote:
| > A visitor to the Louvre in Paris viewed the renowned Mona
| Lisa and stated loudly: "That painting is nothing special.
| I am unimpressed." A curator who was standing nearby said:
| "Sir, the painting is not on trial. You are."
|
| I wonder, is the quote trying to say something about
| pretentious audiences, or about pretentious curators?
|
| The Mona Lisa is famous in no small part because it was
| stolen. Its fame gave it appeal, as did its out-of-
| copyright status that allowed so many derivatives. Now, I'm
| not saying "it's terrible", just "it's overrated" and
| "standards have risen".
|
| People speak of Lisa del Giocondo's "enigmatic expression":
| I see simply a neutral, resting face, there is no enigma
| for me.
|
| The composition? No, the background has some of the flaws
| used today to identify AI generated images: Look at the
| waterline on the right, just below her eye-line, that's at
| an angle, and contradicts the elements on the other side of
| her head.
|
| This isn't to diss Leonardo, he and his peers had to invent
| a lot from first principles, and that's much more difficult
| than learning the same techniques from others; but at the
| same time, the fact that we don't need to invent it all
| from scratch and we can learn from others, means that it's
| much easier to get to a higher quality standard today --
| and the corollary, if you want to be seen as a genius on
| the level of Leonardo, the bar is much higher than "do what
| Leonardo did with the Mona Lisa".
|
| I prefer the version in Prado, Madrid: https://commons.wiki
| media.org/wiki/File:Gioconda_(copia_del_...
|
| (Now one I will say "it's terrible", to the horror of those
| that love it, is Der Kuss by Klimt: the woman's head is at
| such an angle it seems to have been disconnected from her
| body, rotated 90deg, and reattached at the ear).
| indigoabstract wrote:
| Possibly both, I guess we're not the first ones to wonder
| why it's so famous. She isn't even a good looking lady,
| but obviously the painting must have something going for
| it, or some other painting would take its place.
|
| I would put Starry Night in that place if it were my
| decision to make. But it's not.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >nobody would go for the worse quality, right?
|
| people who cannot afford to go for the better quality would, in
| fact where Smart phones are concerned I think it is commonly
| considered that for most metrics iPhone is better and people
| often buy Android because they cannot afford iPhone (of course
| except for specific subsets of HN who will not buy Apple for
| various social/cultural reasons)
| palata wrote:
| > I think it is commonly considered that for most metrics
| iPhone is better
|
| I would debate that.
|
| One thing is that iPhone is _one_ , whereas Android is
| _thousands_. It 's easier to trust an iPhone than a random
| Android phone. But there are certainly really good Android
| phones that are cheaper than iPhones. It's just hard to
| estimate the quality, again.
| flawn wrote:
| I know you are not probably part of this group - but can we
| stop just comparing Android to iPhones? There are Android
| Devices which are in a lot of metrics way better than an
| iPhone and vice versa a lot of iPhones better than a big set
| of Android devices. But still, depending on different factory
| like price, ecosystem, habit etc., people go for one or
| another. It's not 2010, where iOS has been the only
| (relatively) mature OS.
|
| Really not an Android Fanboy, and had devices from both
| worlds but this one thing is bugging me out as it is just a
| blatant product of Apple's "our devices are better because
| our name is on it" marketing - and it's bugging me out.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| He also completely misses the point here:
|
| > Audiophiles complain about MP3 compression and crappy
| headphones. Most of us just want to listen to our tunes, not
| listen to the equipment.
|
| I won't even bother. It's not possible to discuss with people
| having such bogus opinions.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sadly, I have to agree with him.
|
| I still do my best, though. I just know that it's like pissing a
| dark pair of pants: No one notices, but you get a warm feeling
| from it.
|
| As long as I am prepared to deal with no one being willing to pay
| for Quality (solved, by not being paid for my work), and people
| completely disregarding -even complaining about- the things that
| I consider "my finest work", then I'll be OK.
|
| I write UX that "doesn't stand out." It "just does what it's
| supposed to do," without flash. When someone uses my apps, they
| don't see cute little "Look at how cool this is" animations, or
| whatnot. There is likely to be an animation, but it will just be
| a quick one, there to smooth a transition, not to please the
| user. etc.
|
| People like my apps, but they don't _rave_ about them.
|
| The reason that I know it's working, is because they are
| constantly using the apps. Many "eye candy" apps get used a
| bunch, for a little while, then folks get sick of the flash, and
| stop using them.
|
| But no one would be willing to pay for this. I just made a
| release, that incorporated some major-league changes, with very
| little indication in the UI[0]. It took a couple of weeks of
| testing, and fixing small bugs, but many folks would have shipped
| right away, and the app would probably still be used.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42563473
| prmph wrote:
| People do care about quality; it's just that there is wide
| variation between people's ability to notice, and care about,
| quality. To put it simply, for a particular work, the amount of
| people who would notice it's quality and care about that, is
| small, but not zero.
|
| I do notice that the more people have experience with a field,
| the more they appreciate simple things that work well. As in,
| their taste matures. Most people on this site do appreciate web
| design that is free of clutter of gaudy flashy animations and
| ads, etc.
|
| Some people just don't have a sense of taste, and their
| appreciation for quality might never mature. Also, even when a
| person appreciates quality, it is not the case that they value
| it so much in a particular instance that hey would pay more for
| it. But, in specific instances, yes, they will demand, and
| maybe pay for, quality
| tow21 wrote:
| Otherwise pointless pedantry, but in line with the "nobody cares
| about quality" ...
|
| "the _hoi polloi_ " grates every time I read it. " _hoi polloi_ "
| literally means " _the many_ ", so this is an awkward pleonasm,
| "the _the many_ ", amounting to a lack of quality in a piece of
| writing.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Working in offshoring projects has taught me this as well, as
| long as the solution kind of works, it is good enough.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Wouldn't Apple be already bankrupt if that was true?
| alexfromapex wrote:
| My hypothesis is the lack of quality is being driven by our
| quantitative and empirical obsessions. It's more difficult, if
| not impossible in some cases, to accurately quantify qualitative
| outputs. But I think if enough research was done, it would show
| that quality is an ultimate driver of success in many domains.
| It's a sad state of affairs that starts at the top, where
| governments are mostly driven by things like GDP.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| But a few do. And if you put extra care into the taking and
| selection of photos that you publish in what remains of the
| social media scene for me (small Whatsapp groups and Strava) and
| _one_ person notices and comments favourably, that makes it all
| worthwhile. As feedback to a a creator. Of course, if this was
| about money and you could produce two crappy things that earn
| $1.50 for the effort of producing one good thing that earns $1...
| do the math.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Such a dire outlook. There is a huge chasm between Domino's and
| great pizza, and between great movies and Netflix assembly-line
| productions. A _lot_ of people care enough to land somewhere in
| between, not at the lowest common denominator. There is room for
| both pop culture and art.
|
| The comment on the photography is also clearly misguided: people
| might not be able to explain why, but the vast majority will
| _feel_ that the more professional picture is pleasing /better in
| some way.
|
| My take: people "don't care about the details" when it's beyond
| understanding, but the _outcomes_ are still materially different
| and meaningful at a subconscious level. Ask anyone on the street
| to name a movie Elvis was in... meanwhile [insert your favorite
| movies here] still show up in popular vote even decades after
| going out of fashion. Selling mediocre products might be more
| lucrative, but not everything is about money.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I'm going to apply this to an unpopular opinion on web
| development, just as one example:
|
| Most users don't care about your SPA.
|
| I have built every app as a MPA with page transitions for a
| nice fade. I have had multiple complements on how it's so fast.
| Nobody, not one person, among 8000 users, has complained about
| the page reloading.
|
| This is just one example where I think the article is accurate:
| engineers tend to overshoot the mark on metrics nobody cares
| about, or try to improve "experiences" that nobody cares about,
| or rationalize complexity forgetting that even Amazon doesn't
| bother with an SPA.
| graemep wrote:
| I think your last para is spot on. There are dimensions of
| quality people care about, and dimensions they do not.
|
| Websites are a good example. The article says a designer will
| notice jank. I usually do not care about the design: I want
| the content, and I care a but about usability (in a limited
| way - e.g. things that are hard to find annoy me).
|
| Websites and UIs in general are often made worse by people
| whose measure of quality is aesthetics rather than usability
| - there have been multiple HN discussions about articles on
| this topic.
|
| Different people may care about different ones (e.g. one
| person might want a high performance car, another a
| comfortable one).
|
| I found the bit about actors accents amusing. American
| attempts at British accents are always annoying, and it even
| happens with British actors in American produced things
| having weird or wrong accents. It is sloppy but its rarely
| puts me off something I like otherwise. Dealing with other
| countries and cultures is often done sloppily. Indiana Jones
| and the Temple of Doom is a good example too to anyone who
| recognises the language people in one village are speaking
| which is spoken a very long way (certainly well over a
| thousand miles) from where it is set.
|
| As for SPAs, I do not think preferring MPAs is an unpopular
| opinion on HN.
| nottorp wrote:
| > I found the bit about actors accents amusing. [...] It is
| sloppy but its rarely puts me off something I like
| otherwise.
|
| From a non native english speaker's point of view it's even
| more amusing. Why should I care that the accent is from the
| wrong borough of one of the anglo-saxon countries? They all
| sound like english to me...
|
| > Websites and UIs in general are often made worse by
| people whose measure of quality is aesthetics rather than
| usability
|
| Let's take this opportunity to remind them designers that
| there are things like contrast and readability, and marking
| items that can be interacted with as items that can be
| interacted with...
| graemep wrote:
| > They all sound like english to me...
|
| it just sounds wrong if you know the difference. Imagine
| you are watching something like that and a character
| shows up supposedly speaking your native language, but
| actually speaking another language that sounds vaguely
| similar.
|
| > Let's take this opportunity to remind them designers
| that there are things like contrast and readability,
|
| Many years ago I worked for a website aimed at people of,
| or approaching retirement age. The designers initially
| used small grey text on a white background.
| nemo44x wrote:
| When I lived in NYC I had access to great pizza and I would
| take advantage of this. But there were times when I wanted
| Dominos (usually a hangover or similar state of mind/body) and
| I'd just order it because it's a totally different thing. I
| don't even know if I'd call it pizza (their pan pizza, etc)
| per-se but rather a simulacrum of pizza that was engineered to
| stimulate very primitive impulses in my brain.
|
| Every now and then being trashy is nice.
| bluedino wrote:
| I know I didn't go to the right places but all the pizza I
| had in NYC was either bad, or bad and expensive. So while
| there is good pizza there, there's also a ton of bad pizza
| where I would have rather had <chain pizza> because at least
| I know what I was gettting.
|
| Now the bagels on the other hand...do bad bagels even exist
| there?
| datavirtue wrote:
| This is the reality. A lot of NYC style pizzerias have
| opened in Cincinnati lately. They are spot on but it is not
| good pizza. The dough was designed to be eaten while
| walking the streets. Therein lies the root of all the
| compromises to quality. All the pizzaiolos are paranoid
| that you are going to try to eat it luke warm and
| practically beg you to heat it up before eating. Some
| include instructions sheets with every pizza. Ugh.
|
| Grandmas are actually decent if they manage to ferment the
| dough long enough. I have bit into my share of 24hr dough.
| Not recommended.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Quality affords power. The author of the article is in effect
| asking those who strive for quality to relinquish power.
| crabbone wrote:
| Nah. You misunderstood OP about photography. There's a level in
| photography, as is in many other fields, where it's good enough
| to be used in print or on the Web without it being a major
| disaster. Anything beyond that will only speak to professional
| photographers, and not to all of them at that.
|
| In other words: yes, there's a bar you need to pass, but it's
| low. Anything beyond that is not accessible to the general
| public, it will never know the difference. There are very few
| areas of expertise where anyone can easily measure / understand
| the quality. In most areas the only way to know is to rely on
| experts, subconsciousness isn't going to help you there, just
| like you wouldn't be able to divine the composition of the
| concrete with which the house was built prior to it possibly
| collapsing (if the concrete was low quality) without knowing
| how to use the tools necessary to measure that (subconscious
| level isn't going to help you here).
|
| Even for professionals, testing for quality is very hard
| because of how many factors come into play, and how to weight
| those factors against each other, and often the impossibility
| or expense associated with testing. It's beyond naive to think
| that subconsciousness will somehow solve this problem...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| > In other words: yes, there's a bar you need to pass, but
| it's low.
|
| Except in some odd cases like datings apps where this bar is
| in orbit or has left the solar system entirely - see my other
| comment for details
| canes123456 wrote:
| Everything in the first post are very obvious errors that
| anyone can avoid if they think about it for a few minutes.
| You can take decent photos with a phone either by learning
| a bit or just by accident with enough attempts.
|
| The issue with dating apps has more to do with women being
| able to be incredibly picky. Better photos let's a average
| looking guy get a chance. The top 1-5% that all women want
| to match with don't need to bother with this at all.
| crabbone wrote:
| Maybe OP didn't describe the intricacies of photography
| well enough, but I had to take photography in an art
| college... but I have a better story to tell.
|
| So, my father is a somewhat famous persona in the world
| of animation. When I was little, he used to take me to
| the festivals. And that being the time when movies were
| distributed on film, in anti-tank mine shaped
| containers... the editing was done with glue and
| scissors.
|
| We were friends with the editor who usually worked with
| him on his films. I remember leaving the screening with
| her once, and she was talking to my dad, and in
| excitement she said: "Oh, had you seen the cuts? Such an
| amazing job!" And by that she meant the few frames
| between shots that the editors used to leave for their
| own navigation and other conveniences in the film they
| edited. Like, you may remember random letters and
| geometric shapes flashing for a split second on the
| screen? -- She was super excited to see _that!_ Not the
| movie itself.
|
| When it comes to photographs: you need to speak the
| language. Same things done deliberately or accidentally
| will mean different things. Overexposure? -- perhaps done
| deliberately for dramatic effect, or perhaps just an
| accident. Choosing a more grainy film over a finer one?
| -- Maybe just a lens with not enough light, or maybe the
| author was going for a special feeling of an older
| photographs. The main character in the portrait not in
| focus? -- you cannot tell if that's intentional or not,
| unless you can tell why.
|
| There was a fashion movement in fashion where high-end
| clothes were photographed with extremely bright flash
| mounted on the camera (as opposed to more typical studio
| setting with diffused light from multiple sources). An
| artistic adaptation of amateur style. Go figure! It was
| hip like 20 years ago. But, to read it, you need to know
| the history. You need to know that it was the style at
| the time, and through that lens you can look at it and
| find other things the author had to tell you (whereas w/o
| the background you might just dismiss it as poorly lit
| picture).
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I've spent most of my software career in the Medical Devices
| industry. One point that stands out to me is when a previous
| employer released an instrument and Marketing focused on its
| high quality, only to find out that customers (large
| hospitals and medical labs) didn't care about quality.
|
| Made no sense: it's a medical instrument. Who doesn't care
| about quality?
|
| Well, digging deeper, they found that the customers simply
| assumed that by virtue of being FDA approved, pretty much
| everything had a similar quality level (pro-tip: no!) so us
| providing them with White Papers attesting to high quality
| didn't move the needle on their purchase decisions.
|
| Yeah, there's a bar and often it's much lower than you think
| it is.
| krisoft wrote:
| > pretty much everything had a similar quality level (pro-
| tip: no!)
|
| But presumably they all had adequate quality level. As in
| they all met strict requirements.
|
| > so us providing them with White Papers attesting to high
| quality didn't move the needle on their purchase decisions.
|
| This is not that surprising to me. How does quality
| translate to profit is always the question. Sometimes there
| is a direct relationship (better quality requires less
| maintenance, or the number of adverse events is lover) but
| sometimes it doesn't.
|
| Imagine if you are a company CEO and I come to you
| proposing that I can supply the same computers your workers
| already use but with a solid gold case instead of the
| aluminium one. I could even provide you with white papers
| saying that the new solid gold cases are much much more
| resistant to corrosion. And that is true. Gold in that
| sense is better than aluminium. Higher quality! Would you
| buy my laptops? Does that sound like a good deal? I don't
| think you would, unless you have significant laptop case
| corrosion problems.
| awkward wrote:
| The problem is that all of the qualia that can only bee seen
| and articulated by a professional practitioner aren't
| necessarily stacked in a heap. It's more of a Jenga tower of
| mutually reinforcing practices. Maybe some of the blocks lost
| to cost cutting weren't load bearing, but as each one comes
| out the structure gets more fragile.
|
| There's the lure towards disruption and cutting the right
| thing to win big. Everyone already knows that strategy
| though, and the market is full of different stratifications
| of disruption - streamers disrupt the networks, creator
| economy sites disrupt the streamers, short form socials
| disrupt the creators. Any new thing needs a real reason to
| exist in that ecosystem beyond just being worse.
| crabbone wrote:
| I'm talking from a perspective of someone working with QA
| in my day job. And I do have to answer questions about the
| quality. Like, "did the quality of the product increase in
| the last release?" or "is our quality higher than the
| competition?" or "will this drop in quality be acceptable
| for the majority of our customers?"
|
| And, really, every time I'm called to answer questions like
| these, I know full well that no matter how much time I
| spend analyzing the test results, coverage, test
| strategies, dissecting JIRA etc. my answers will be based
| on little more than a guess (and no, it's not the
| subconsciousness, it just means that I'll be probably
| wrong!)
|
| I wish I could just "let it go" and observe the gestalt of
| the product and say lgtm! (or not). Just because my
| subconsciousness told me it's so. :)
|
| No, it's not like Jenga. It doesn't reinforce each other.
| There's always a possibility to drill down to details,
| which makes the discussion and comparison easy (or easier),
| but the more complex the thing I'm trying to assess the
| quality of, the worse it gets.
|
| Is ZFS better than Ext4?
|
| Is MariaDB good enough, or should we switch to a more "high
| quality" PostgreSQL? How about Oracle?
|
| Is Python 3.13 objectively better than Python 3.10?
|
| What about Ethernet vs IB?
|
| Answering any of these questions would get experts twisted
| in a knot of endless arguments precisely because quality is
| very hard to assess. It has too many faces, too many
| metrics...
| jimmaswell wrote:
| A weird case on photography is dating. Apparently absolutely
| flawless professional-grade photos are entirely mandatory for
| men, and heavy depth of field is a hard requirement.
|
| It comes off as total nonsense to me. Smartphone pictures of
| people look great to me and depth of field isn't something I
| give a shit about on a dating profile, in fact in any picture
| I'd prefer to be able to check out the background details. But
| I apparently live on a different planet from the people judging
| these photos. Even as a bi person I can't empathize at all with
| these fellow androphiles who apparently vomit and convulse at
| the sight of an unblurred background in a profile picture.
|
| Alas, from the evidence, you need to be a highly skilled
| photographer with expensive equipment and perfect photos to get
| responses on those apps: https://killyourinnerloser.com/why-
| your-tinder-pictures-suck...
| https://killyourinnerloser.com/inspiration/
|
| So it's one case where the fine details absolutely matter to
| outcome, even if the women on the other end may have a hard
| time articulating what's better about one photo than another.
|
| (God, being a man with a dating profile is so exhausting -
| where has our species gone that something like this guide with
| millions of words is required for men to be successful? Wasn't
| there a time they could just be themselves? I'm eternally
| grateful I don't have to play that game anymore now that I'm in
| a great relationship.)
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| It has always historically been that significant portion of
| males don't find a mate and there is a small percentage who
| get many, just because of the status, hierarchy, etc. So men
| have always needed to outcompete each other. With so little
| material in dating apps to compete with, these details will
| matter so much. Having professional photos also implies a lot
| of desirable qualities about you, like you had money and
| wisdom to do that in the first place.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| It's weird because when I see super polished professional
| photos on a dating profile, I feel like I'm looking at a
| stock photo or an advertisement, not a genuine person on my
| level. I don't even find those pictures inherently
| pleasing, if anything I have an urge to skip over them
| immediately in the same way I've been subconsciously
| trained to skip over ads on a website without adblock.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| What about product photos?
| buran77 wrote:
| > from the evidence, you need to be a highly skilled
| photographer with expensive equipment and perfect photos to
| get responses on those apps
|
| I don't know, I'm not in the market... But if you want to
| learn what it takes to "score a date", going to a website
| called "killyourinnerloser" where a guy describes how he has
| all the sex and threesomes and foursomes and knows how to
| please all women, posts a bunch of erotic/pornographic
| material, and literally asks for $1 to change your life is
| very much like going to an actual porn site to learn what it
| takes to satisfy a woman.
|
| Not showing your dirty dishes or toilet in the background,
| and not taking pictures in the dark is common sense. No need
| for macho photographer to tell you how to sex the ladies.
|
| But let me put your mind at ease further. I needed a chuckle
| and read the mistakes to avoid, together with his own fine
| example of nine winning pics. In no particular order:
|
| - Don't wear the same clothes in multiple pics. Proceeds to
| wear the exact same sweatshirt and gold chain in no less than
| four pics in different settings, even restaurant and gym
| because it's his "everywhere" sweatshirt. Then wears the
| exact same overall outfit in another two pictures. Then the
| same cap in two pictures.
|
| - Don't be too far away or bad angle. Posts a picture with
| his back to the camera in which he is ~1-2% of the whole
| frame.
|
| - No staged or stiff pose and definitely no static posture.
| Posts three pics with the exact same blank and stiff facial
| expression and static posture. All but one picture look
| extremely staged poses.
| adamc wrote:
| My take is that the differences matter according to purpose. If
| I'm eating a Big Mac to avoid being hangry, the fact that it
| isn't a gourmet experience may not matter to me.
|
| If I'm putting on a movie as a distraction to have sound in the
| background -- perhaps I am only half-watching it as I do other
| things -- I may not care that isn't all that good. I might not
| notice subtle characteristics anyway.
|
| There are levels of quality -- e.g., level 0 of the hamburger
| might be ending hunger -- and how much they matter depends on
| your purpose. If I'm looking for a movie to inspire me or make
| me think, that's different from playing something in the
| background as I clean the apartment. Etc.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| How often do you flush the coolant in your car? How often do
| you jack it up and check for play in your ball joints? How
| often do you clean your Refrigerator Coils? How often do you
| clean your exhaust fans in your home? Do you seal any grout
| every year? Do you test your GFI outlets monthly like
| recommended? When was the last time you Lubricate Garage door
| springs and tracks? You drain your water heater yearly and
| remove sediment, right?
|
| These are basic life tasks that everyone can and should do as a
| basic functional adult adulting 'properly' and 'correctly' with
| best outcomes more important than finding/eating good pizza,
| but probably don't. People just can't sweat all of the details
| of daily life, and they definitely can't for basic daily
| sustenance nor entertainment, and that is OK and actually a
| good thing.
|
| Talladega Nights is extremely mediocre no matter how it's
| ranked/placed. Elvis movies weren't meant to be remembered 60
| years later, they were meant to give people a happy afternoon
| in the moment, and by their success at the box office it looks
| they did that. A fleeting moment of happiness doesn't need to
| be a 60 year artifact. It can be just a fleeting moment of
| happiness. (But the fact you are talking about them 60 years
| later actually kinda says something, doesn't it?)
|
| Domino's is better than the majority of rich people ate
| throughout history ate. It's delicious. The fact that there is
| something more delicious doesn't change that. It's hot and
| comforting and comes right to my door quickly and consistently
| in a way I can afford. I'm not going to enjoy it less just
| because... something else exists. Something else ALWAYS exists.
| It's a bajillion times better than a bowl of oatmeal which is
| the other staple food I can have for the same effort.
|
| Spotify/Netflix's algorithmic generated music/shows are better
| than the majority of entertainment throughout history. See
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyLsO6LpLSI
|
| Temu mass produced textiles washed and cleaned before each use
| are better than the 'we'll just brush it a bit and it's clean'
| fancy, worn all winter for 10 years with just some brushing,
| wool suit 'custom tailored' to fit a now much changed body.
|
| Take a breath and appreciate rather than critic. The world is
| AMAZING. Anyone can be a critic. It's the easiest and least
| regarded job in the world. Ever had a QA department that
| thought their job was to be critics instead of do actual QA?
| They were always the worst/most useless/annoying QA department
| when it came to actual good software. This whole Netflix hate
| thing is the same. If Netflix did somehow turn into an art
| house it would SUCK at it's intended purpose. We need fleeting
| moments of entertainment as much as we need 60 year relic
| films.
| donatj wrote:
| A frustration I have about the current crop of shows and movies
| generally, but with exceptions, is that so often things seem to
| just largely happen for no reason other than the writer thought
| it would be fun/interesting. They lack causality, and I find it
| so boring.
|
| Instead of "this is happening _because_ this happened, " I feel
| like a lot of modern media is just "this happened _and then_ this
| happened ".
|
| It's the Minions formula, and it's showing up everywhere.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > "this happened and then this happened"
|
| Honestly, this sounds like the formula so many comedies in the
| 1980s took. A series of vignettes that are loosely connected by
| some thread of a story that's secondary to the hijinks and then
| a brief semi-dramatic scene in the last act and a happy
| resolution. It's a pretty tried and true formula and I think it
| works because the audience doesn't have to think much or pay
| attention the entire time.
| jerf wrote:
| In a 2:15 video (that's 2 minutes, not two hours), half of
| which is just setup, Matt Stone and Trey Parker talk about this
| in the context of writing South Park.
|
| One of the reasons I hold modern Hollywood in open contempt
| right now is that so much of their output fails this basic
| test, at scale. Not only is Hollywood largely not writing at a
| Writing 101 level, they're not writing at a first _day_ of
| Writing 101 level. It is so sad seeing all the other
| professionals in the industry get utterly crippled by writers
| hired for every reason other than whether they can tell even a
| _competent_ story, let alone a good one.
| timerol wrote:
| The ending really missed an opportunity, as "Casual Eating" is a
| silly term to coin when the rise of the "fast casual" restaurant
| has already happened
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Most people don't agree about which _qualities_ are worth caring
| about. "Quality" as a generic term, is mostly meaningless. It's
| a word for people who can't shake the habit of thinking in terms
| of values and quantities to mean "a measure of approval from
| whoever matters right now".
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| IMO the _good-enough_ has won. (as in "90% of everything is
| crap".. good-enough crap). At least within ~~capitalistic
| something-for-money setup.
|
| if one pulls the money from the equation, some thing _may_
| change. But don 't hold your breath.
| blfr wrote:
| People will accept low quality shockingly often (to me at least)
| but even when they have little experience, complete laymen will
| be able to tell well-written software, solid ux, nice suit, good
| skiing form, etc from their lower quality versions, especially
| side-by-side.
|
| On the other end, there are enthusiasts of virtually anything
| and, with the Internet, you can find them and bask in their
| wisdom or outright use their expertise. You can boot Linux, have
| world-class coffee in any large city, find an old-school tailor,
| import the nichest of niche gadgets.
|
| It is the worst of times, it is the best of times.
| nedrocks wrote:
| Catering to the masses is indicative of catering to system 1
| thinking. System 1 thinking is extraordinarily cheap compared to
| system 2. When a movie has good cover art, an alluring trailer
| and one name you've heard of before, it is good enough so long as
| you don't engage system 2 thinking. The same can be said for your
| domino's argument - picking a good pizza place takes a lot of
| thought: deep dish vs new york style, delivery vs pick up, price
| point, etc. Domino's is just there, in-app, and cheap.
|
| System 2 thinking compounds. Once you've really tried great
| pizza, studied film, felt good product design, drank good wine,
| and so on it is hard to go back. Even when operating in system 1,
| after you know what makes things good, you can just feel the lack
| of quality. This is what some people use to term "snobishness"
| because it can lead to turning one's nose up at something that's
| good enough to the untrained eye.
|
| The minimum bar for is a great measure for society's system 2
| quotient. The more deep thought, focus, and experienced a culture
| is, the higher the quality bar is. For instance, as a community
| becomes wealthier there are more shake shakes rather than burger
| kings because with more money people have more free time to
| experience good foods, leading to a system 1 preference for a
| higher quality bar. I'd love to see how this plays out over
| different communities and cultures.
| bluepizza wrote:
| My understanding was that System 1/System 2 thinking is
| unproven conjecture[1] that can't even be replicated[2]. It
| would be unwise to analyse behaviour using this framework.
|
| 1: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/a-hovercraft-
| full-... 2: https://replicationindex.com/2016/01/31/a-revised-
| introducti...
| nedrocks wrote:
| I don't want to argue the basis of system 1/system 2 as
| described in [1], because the point I'm taking away is more
| about whether they interoperate at times of decision making.
| The point I'm making is system 2 is a far more costly
| (effortful in the article) mechanism of decision making.
|
| The point I'm making is, as an organism we avoid utilizing
| higher-effort or higher-cost actions when unnecessary. An
| untrained lower-cost (IR1 in the article or System 1 in my
| definition) decision will result in not caring about quality.
| A trained lower-cost decision will utilize heuristics to bias
| for higher quality.
| bluepizza wrote:
| The point of the links I've shared is that there is no such
| thing as System 1/2, and decision effort/cost is not a
| factor.
| nedrocks wrote:
| Respectfully, I don't think you took away the correct
| implications. Specifically in the implications section of
| [1]:
|
| "The key to effective intuitive decision making, though,
| is to learn to better calibrate one's confidence in the
| intuitive response (i.e., to develop more refined meta-
| thinking skills) and to be willing to expand search
| strategies in lower confidence situations or based on
| novel information."
|
| and
|
| "Relatedly, it also means we should stop assuming that
| more conscious and effortful decision-making is
| necessarily better than more heuristically-driven
| intuitive decision-making."
|
| I would say that while the article makes very interesting
| objections to the S1/S2 thinking framework, its
| objections are that they are far more intertwined as
| measured. However, the article still very clearly agrees
| that S1 is lower cost than S2.
| bluepizza wrote:
| > most notably that many of the properties attributed to
| System 1 and System 2 don't actually line up with the
| evidence, that dual-process theories are largely
| unfalsifiable, and that most of the claimed support for
| them is "confirmation bias at work"
|
| The article absolutely does not agree that S1 is lower
| cost than S2, as the article does not agree that S2
| exists at all.
| nedrocks wrote:
| I see so this may be semantics then as the article agrees
| with intuitive decision making. I think I understand
| where we're saying the same things. I will consider
| replacing my terminology in the future, thank you!
| mentalgear wrote:
| I wouldn't say they don't care in general, but everyone care for
| something different depending on subject matter & time. That
| being said, you should know and build for your target audience.
| deeg wrote:
| The rise of craft foods--e.g craft beer and cheese--seems to
| prove this essay wrong.
| ndileas wrote:
| The continual popularity of Kraft cheese may bolster the
| argument.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Most people may not, but that doesn't really matter.
|
| You should care about quality because shipping things that make
| the best of the time and skills you have then is a great feeling.
| It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough that you feel
| like you gave it a good shot. This bootstraps a positive feedback
| loop of wanting to incrementally improve that, or do even better
| next time.
|
| One thing I've realized as I've been learning front-end design is
| that most websites aren't actually that visually pleasing or even
| necessarily well-designed. They're just okay enough that it
| doesn't get in your way. That's quite a low bar to cross!
|
| I'll also die on the hill that people can tell when care and
| attention was put into things they use. They may not be able to
| consciously perceive it, but it's there, and it builds trust,
| which is essential if you're trying to convert a visitor to a
| paying user.
| rsyring wrote:
| >They're just okay enough that it doesn't get in your way.
| That's quite a low bar to cross!
|
| I so wish that were true. I feel like I'm regularly fighting
| "good enough" sites that get in my way. Or worse, dark patterns
| that are deliberately making it hard for me to complete a task.
| nottorp wrote:
| For everything TFA mentions there is a (possibly small) niche
| that does care about it.
|
| Do you want to cancerously grow until you have the market
| monopoly? Then go for the lowest common denominator, Netflix and
| Disney style.
|
| Do you want to do <random item or item set from TFA>? See what
| production budget your chosen niche will sustain and stay within
| it.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| I feel like this is effectively the opposite of the long tail
| argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
| t0bia_s wrote:
| I was not able to finish reading this text. Webdesign is such a
| mess.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > In it, the author (correctly and fairly) skewers Netflix's
| model of producing huge amounts of low-quality content for an
| undiscerning audience.
|
| I think somebody forgot about the before-times, before streaming
| giants were producing many critically acclaimed TV shows.
|
| I like to spelunk old media, because I get to learn things about
| culture which I did not appreciate when I was young. I also have
| a HDHomerun tuner wired up to JellyFin so I still peruse
| broadcast TV in addition to watching some old broadcast TV shows.
|
| Most TV shows have _always_ been profoundly crappy in the very
| same way Netflix shows are. We forgot for a hot minute, because
| the streaming giants were competing with each other for prestige
| TV shows to drive subscription growth. It feels like to me this
| is a trend which is getting walked back after some major mergers.
| mathattack wrote:
| Springsteen memorialized this with 57 channels (and nothing
| on.)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/57_Channels_(And_Nothin%27_O...
| RajT88 wrote:
| Heh:
|
| > The title may be a reference to cable television, which
| carries more channels than terrestrial television.
|
| DTV these days is in that ballpark for channels - I think I
| get about 63. And I'm a good ~40 miles out from a major city.
| There's probably more if you're closer to the city.
| deeperlearning wrote:
| I've logged in after 10 years to express my disagreement with
| this misguided and shallow post.
|
| 1. Taste is trainable, and far more malleable than the author
| believes. Good examples of this include "unclassifiable" films
| such as Parasite, which reached immense global success with both
| critical and popular audiences, and stood out precisely because
| it was so different, along with a remarkable depth in its
| craftsmanship (a given).
|
| 2. Overconfidence in hermeneutics. For one, little details are
| critical and are precisely the mark of superior craftsmanship (or
| shoddy work if they are neglected). You can see this in the
| dialogue around detecting AI-generated images. A cool example is
| the 4-second crowd scene in Miyazaki's The Wind Rises (2013),
| which took an entire year to animate.
|
| 3. A superficial and overreaching view of art. You can see this
| both in the way they discuss artistic value (external activity
| and metrics), and also their limited artistic vocabulary (the
| Louvre as a whole, Elvis, Abba). What about Edo period Japanese
| painting? What about Abbasid architecture? What about that
| simulated black hole in Intellerstar (to give a technological
| example)?
|
| This kind of technological slop drives distrust with other
| industries (especially creative ones), rather than the productive
| and empowering dialogue we should be having. I hope we can do
| better on HN, and that for his own sake, the author gains some
| faith in art again.
| wat10000 wrote:
| People get confused because quality is multi-dimensional and most
| people only see the dimension they care about.
|
| X always buys BMWs because he thinks their design and driving
| dynamics are unmatched. They can't understand why people settle
| for less.
|
| Y buys Toyotas because they're reliable. They think X is crazy
| for buying something that's going to cost so much to maintain and
| repair.
|
| They're both high quality products, but in different ways. X
| prioritizing design and driving feel over reliability doesn't
| mean they don't care about quality, same for Y. They just care
| about different things.
|
| The Netflix thing is a perfect example. We see those guidelines
| and think, this is a recipe for low-quality trash. And if you're
| looking for something to devote your full attention to for an
| hour, you're probably right. But it's plainly not meant for that.
| In the context of its purpose, it can be high quality. If it's
| meant to be on in the background while you do stuff, it should be
| judged on that basis. And if you're looking for something else,
| go find it.
|
| It gets mixed up in social signaling too. Judging a movie's
| quality by acting skill and subtle, meaningful scripts is seen as
| high class. Judging it by special effects or having famous actors
| is low class. That gets interpreted as the latter not caring
| about quality, but nothing makes those qualities inherently less
| worthy.
|
| It's funny, judging food by its ingredients is seen as high
| class. "The cream was sourced from grass-fed cows on our partner
| farm in Wherever." High quality! But don't try it with a movie.
| "This movie has Elvis in it." Low class, you don't care about
| quality!
|
| Most people care about quality. They may not agree with your
| specific, personal idea of exactly which dimensions of quality
| are important.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Your actor/media production example is not reflective of my
| reality. There are actors that convey a higher "class" movie,
| and there are actors that convey a lower "class" movie, and
| they are constantly in flux.
|
| If Elvis isn't a good actor, or someone like Dwayne Johnson or
| Vin Diesel keeps making movies with the type of acting that is
| considered lower "class", then they set that expectation.
|
| But you put Meryl Streep or Robert DeNiro or Denzel Washington
| etc in a movie, and people will judge it is a higher "class"
| movie.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I was thinking of actors who are only there because of their
| fame, not talent, like Elvis.
|
| But there's a whole spectrum, for sure, depending on why you
| want to see that actor. If it's because they give realistic,
| subtle performances, that's high class, you care about
| quality. If it's because of their physical prowess, that
| seems to be so-so. If it's because of their physical beauty,
| low class, bad movie viewer, you don't care about quality.
| Which amuses me, because being aesthetically pleasing is a
| huge part of high class quality in other things.
| barnabee wrote:
| Like most of us, I'll take a bit of trash from time to time, but
| I really do find the old adage "quality, not quantity" to be
| true, for me at least, most of the time.
|
| Generally, though, I'm happy to be the kind of person who makes
| things with qualities "most people" don't care about, and I'm
| happy to be the kind of person who cares about, pays [more] for,
| and compliments people on those qualities in the things I
| consume.
|
| There are more _great_ TV shows and movies than I will ever
| watch.
|
| There are (far!) more _great_ books than I will ever read.
|
| Using thoughtfully designed and well-made tools and gadgets is
| much more satisfying and often works out better, too.
|
| etc...
| ben_w wrote:
| I've been thinking about this in many times over the years.
|
| First time, around 20 years ago now, at university: they gave us
| preparatory interviews, I had written "Committed to quality" on
| my CV, and I was therfore asked to explain my understanding of
| "quality".
|
| They didn't like what I said.
|
| They gave an example of a fancy sports car: high quality, right?
| But if you want to just go down a hill quickly, you may genuinely
| prefer a go-kart and be worse off for having a high-end roadster.
|
| More recently, architecture patterns. We software developers love
| them so much we keep inventing more of them like they are poems.
| Users don't care, and can't tell.
|
| Multi-platform UI frameworks, those have been around for ages of
| course. Never quite as good as native, but that doesn't matter
| because we get given a single Figma design that's shared between
| iOS and Android and it only passes QA if we ignore all the native
| stuff anyway.
|
| I would say that it's not that people don't care about quality,
| but rather it's that the qualities we care about are the very
| obvious in-your-face issues we know how to spot. Conversely, in
| cases where we don't know what a mistake even looks like, _of
| course_ we can 't judge things for such mistakes.
|
| I've just bought a house and the roof had a leak (true story). I
| noticed that, when it happened. Quality really matters at times,
| it's just hard to judge. And what matters to normal people isn't
| what matters to professionals -- I assume the builders have
| opinions about which tools are the right ones for their jobs,
| that I'm as oblivious about as they would be about VIPER vs MVC.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Define quality.
|
| Most people don't care about the quality of things they consider
| disposable. Someone watching Netflix shows may care about the
| quality of their food. Someone who likes pizza hut pizza may
| still enjoy a Kubrick movie.
| numpad0 wrote:
| This reads like a giant self deception to steer himself away from
| _skill issue_ criticism. The subtext boils down to "I hate pros
| getting paid for what I don't understand".
|
| Devil's in the details. Whether the pros are aligned with profit,
| that's a different issue, but subtleties you never care to
| acknowledge... they're real.
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