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Comment by josho | Hacker News Reader

This is a good test. If we truly are a capitalist economy then we’ll see competition enter and new products that sell quality offerings.

My prediction is that won’t happen. There’s been too much consolidation and efficiencies through scale that it’s impossible for a company to get founded to sell a toilet paper that’s not 20% thinner or any of the other examples mentioned.

On the upside at least companies are cheating us out of our money only and no longer selling us products that will kill us due to safety or poisoning issues. That’s progress.

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The quality products already exist, I'm guessing you aren't buying them because you want a cheaper option.

Some product categories seem to have the middle of the market (quality wise) hollow out and disappear, so all you've got left is the low-end crap and high-end pricy versions, with no middle-range left.

One example: try to buy a nice metal or leather band for an Apple Watch. There's the low-end ones, which are 4$ on alibaba re-sold on Amazon for 12$. There's the X00$ Apple-made first party ones, and that's it. Nobody's making a really nice ~45$ leather band without the Apple name (that's obviously not just the cheap alibaba ones with a better marketing site).

Nomad? I don't like them but they are mid market priced.

Heck, even the Apple one is not a top of the line hand made one, which you could get on Etsy or custom made by a local haberdashery.

Or anywhere close to one used in $5k+ plain watches.

The market has to value quality offerings enough to pay for it. There are already more expensive quality options, but most people prefer cheaper but good enough.

The market requires an educated consumer. The article made it clear that these product changes are occurring unannounced.

So of course I’m going to buy the cheaper 1000 sheet 2-ply toilet paper because according to the specs they are the same product, just one is cheaper. Toilet paper isn’t sold by weight to consumers. Even sheet sizes can be different between brands. And now 2-ply is no longer a meaningful attribute.

Unannounced, but not unnoticed. The article is about how consumers are complaining about the changes, with many saying they will switch to different brands, as you would predict.

I mean, nobody who cares about quality toilet paper was using Scott in the first place. There are many options that market themselves as being higher quality, but more expensive.

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