Comment by gnarbarian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnarbarian | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

we have a big cultural problem. our current economy is great at optimizing for low cost mass produced items that last 6 months and then get thrown in the dump.

a pair of shoes that lasts years isn't as profitable as a pair sold every 6 months. a coat or car that can be repaired is one less customer shopping for a new one. engineers design cars they don't have to work on or repair, and will never drive.

in a healthy economy new entrants who introduce more competitive products that push us towards some impossible limit for utility and value over the lifetime of the product would be more successful. but that's not happening.

maintainable products that last are out there (fewer every year) but people don't buy them.

I have a pair of 5 year old redwing boots that feel fantastic amd look great.

I have a 1986 Toyota pickup I can repair myself that runs like the devil was chasing it. (new Toyotas are a disgrace)

I don't know how to fix it beyond getting people to really value and embrace these concepts of simplicity, maintainability and longevity, over convenience, trendy, flashy, and novelty.

even weirder, if you ask people they will tell you they value maintainability and longevity. Something is perverting the market to drive people towards cheap bullshit. I believe this is concentration of power in cartels of companies that control the markets.

we have (accidentally?) erected a finely tuned machine that pushes markets towards cartels who sacrifice domestic craftsmanship and utility for mass produced crap while both creating and sponsoring the role models our culture idolizes. this is a feedback loop that will eventually become so inefficient that it will collapse.

thanks for coming to my TED talk please read shop class as soulcraft: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261332-shop-class-as-so...

Lost me at cars. Cars used to be horrible. They’ve never been better.

I'm not sure. I was joking with a friend recently, telling him that he should have asked the seller in the salon for a real car, not his Mercedes that talks and turns on some settings that annoy him and he turns off again and again at every engine start. My mute and semi-dumb Citroen is a better car on that metric.

Cars have never been more reliable and safer, however "better" is a woefully underspecified and subjective thing.

Things I don't like about modern cars: they all look the same, crappy capacitive controls and touchscreens inside the car, constant tracking mandated by law, much harder to work on the car if you are a car enthusiast.

To me, a classic car from the 80s, or even early 90s is a far nicer vehicle to be in and drive, and provides a far better subjective experience, both in and out of the car, so in a sense, modern cars are "worse" for me.

> constant tracking mandated by law

I hate this. What is the year that this started?

YMMV (heh) depending on make and model, but as a rough guide, mid 2010s is when cellular modems and automotive telemetry started to become commonplace

The good news is that generation uses obsolete cellular modems that thanks to the 3G sunset can no longer connect to current networks.

As a kid from that era, I disagree.

> To me, a classic car from the 80s, or even early 90s is a far nicer vehicle to be in and drive, and provides a far better subjective experience, both in and out of the car, so in a sense, modern cars are "worse" for me.

Just to get this point out of the way: I believe that you are talking about enthuiast cars and not the the Oldsmobile, Taurus, and Chevy Calvaliers I rode around in as a kid.

If you are talking about a "fun-looking car", and you miss the 3-series from the 90's vs those today, buy a mini cooper. That's basically what they are now.

If you want to give up safety, reliability, affordabilty, and fuel efficency, you can still buy a 911. Move up the price range and you can buy Lambos and Masseratis.

Modern cars are safer in a crash and much more efficient. However the experience of sitting inside one, the everyday experience of using one is worse in nearly every single respect except for how much you pay at the gas station. And crash safety is the sort of advantage you hope to never experience.

> I have a pair of 5 year old redwing boots...

Ha! I have a 45 year old pair of Red Wing Pecos boots that's been resoled twice. Now just use them for yard work, though.

Have you gotten your Redwings resoled? Assuming you live in a 1st world country, how much did that cost? How much did you pay for the pair of Redwings?

Goodyear welted soles are expensive. You can buy 6 pairs of workboots from Walmart or hiking shoes from Decathlon at the same price. Resoling welted shoes cost more than double compared to going to buying a new pair of cheap Timberlands on discount.

What is this junk? I can't think of any I have bought or needed in many years?

Isn't the onus just as much on us as consumers?

> engineers design cars they don't have to work on or repair, and will never drive.

Because that's what they're told to do. Very few engineers revel in making worse products for business reasons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com