Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

> The average consumer wants this stuff. It sells. They want pizzaz over functionality and durability.

What is functionality though? What is pizzaz? When are they the same and when are they different?

E.g. the famous Emeco 1006 chair, which won a contract to supply the US Navy by being thrown out a window and not breaking. It became a design classic, and now sells for $600 each. It gained a kind of following, which is in part based on this history. But is that durability especially functional for your home or restaurant environment which isn't on a warship? Do you think you're going to use your chair as a hammer some days? Or is fetishizing something used by the military and extreme durability its own form of pizzaz?

https://www.dwr.com/kitchen-dining-chairs-benches/1006-navy-... https://www.emeco.net/variants/emeco-1006-navy-chair-brushed... https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/77-steps/

> But is that durability especially functional for your home or restaurant environment which isn't on a warship?

If I knew it would be handed down for generations of my descendants, then I absolutely want that durability. A tremendous amount of economic and environmental harm comes from unnecessary product acquisition churn over generations at the scales of populations we're currently dealing with. If I can equip my descendants (who are likely to at best propagate at barely replacement rate with current socioeconomic trends that seem resource and energy-bound and unlikely to change until fusion or similar energy breakthrough is made) with 50-80% of their material goods throughout the stages of their lives and eliminate their capex, that is a hell of an advantage of confer compared to previous generations' patterns.

Wanting to buy goods that last a lifetime or four seems like a good motivation, and I agree that it's harmful that we build crap that we fully expect to be thrown away in 5 years.

However ... there's plenty of solid hardwood furniture which can survive multiple generations of regular use, but which would not survive being pitched from an upper floor window. And arguably, depending on sourcing, wood has a better environmental footprint of aluminum, which involves open pit mines and energy-intensive refining.

I can't speak to the 1006, but my office chair is a mid-century Steelcase because I got tired of others breaking or losing wheels.

The functionality is making the owner feel superior to consumer who buy consumer grade products

It's apparently useful for police departments. Or so says every police show ever...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com