I built an online database for the best "Buy It For Life" products | Hacker News Reader

I built an online database for the best "Buy It For Life" products

bifl.xyz

18 pointstejitopia29 comments

> Have questions about getting your product featured on BIFL? reach out to our team!

So there's an advertise link and plan already...

Good on the author for putting something out in the world. I'd love a site like this to exist with data I can trust. I think this is missing the mark on the execution side a bit.

To start, there are only 8 items. They all appear to be stuff the author personally likes with no research or other quantifying data to back up these recommendations. In fact, there are more categories than items?

It takes upwards of 10 seconds for data to load from the server. With only 8 records (apparently) to pull, I think something might be off there.

Good luck on this idea and I hope it evolves into something great.

The website is supposed to be crowdsourced. I want users to create accounts and upload their own products that they trust. The only products on the site right now are the ones I've been able to co-sign myself. My mum even added some products on the site that she's found to be super reliable.

I don't really want to just pull data from some third party and flood the website with products I or other people haven't actually recommended

Put yourself in the shoes of someone arriving at your website for the first time. What reason do they have for signing up an account and adding products to your database? A product like this needs an incentive, a hook.

Sometimes that incentive is financial. Sometimes it’s prestige through points, votes or badges. Sometimes it’s power through moderation rights. What’s yours?

Just wondering if I could bring this up for discussion but is Buy it for Life a good consumer philosophy in the first place?

Intuitively it sounds like it is — what can be bad about high quality products that last forever that in turn creates less waste?

But I have lots of BIFL goods that I’ve enjoyed once or twice but never used again. Some got obsolete, unfashionable and almost all are overbuilt to some extent so they last a long time. Others are in a drawer because my interests shifted (like my very high quality immersion circulator for my sous vide phase). They were also much pricier to start with. There’s also an unintended consequence almost — like EDC people buying way more EDC stuff that they can EDC so they can optimize for EDC.

What would happen if we were the buy the right quality for the right use case at the right time and buy as little as possible?

BIFL optimizes for quality and longevity but those aren’t always things that are important. Optimization always trades something off and having a narrow objective doesn’t always work. I guess you can always resell.

Perhaps repair over replace might be a better concept. Since your right and ironically things like this only make people want to buy more stuff when people probably already have exactly what they need. Yesterday I realised I was wearing a crappy shirt that was over seven years old and it was still holding up great. Thanks for your comment you got me thinking about repositioning this!

I hate how many options we have when making purchasing decisions. I'd rather buy a few things that last a lifetime instead of hundreds of garbage products that need to be replaced every 6 months.

Which is why I built:

https://bifl.xyz

A simple website where users can submit and vote on the best BIFL products in a range of categories.

Help me build out the site by either commenting a product I should add to the database or by submitting a product yourself here

Can you provide some clarity on the "Advertise" link? How do you determine what gets featured? How do users know that products on this site are actually durable and not just products that paid to be placed?

A trustworthy BIFL database would be extremely valuable for consumers, but an untrustworthy one would be even more valuable for advertisers. I'd be concerned about the sourcing no matter what, but it's doubly concerning that one of three links on the front page suggests that people could pay to get featured.

The website is an MVP for a bigger idea I've been wanting to build.

Data is supposed to be sourced from the users who submit and vote on products they find durable and trustworthy.

The advertising section at the bottom is simply a placeholder. I plan on monetising mostly from affiliate links. However when there is an advertisement that would be disclosed.

I look at this like the product hunt for buy it for life products.

BTW, there is also a subreddit called r/BuyItForLife, looks like this is inspired by that subreddit.

I personally like the idea of the subreddit, though unfortunately it seems to be pretty USA-centric. There are brands that just doesn't exist in my country, personally.

Also, there seems to be advertisement? Personally it's better for website like this to stay away from advertisement... almost defeats the purpose

The best thing about Reddit bifl subreddit is it hasn’t been infiltrated by companies or marketers.

How do you know that? I honestly find it hard to trust any product related reviews I read online anymore.

Right, I was gunna say this website might be a nice temporary oasis that is too small potatoes for digital marketers and we might actually get a decent signal to noise ratio if it doesn't get too big.

Yeah that’s usually how it goes. I also try to find dedicated forums on specific stuff and try to get a sense from there- but even that is pretty hit or miss.

I feel the exact opposite, BIFL very much feels like it’s been taken over by ads and corporate sponsors. Most of the recommendations are from ppl who either just bought the thing or for brand that are less than 20 years old.

IME, most subs are infiltrated with marketers either large brands or for the sub’s niche. I stopped using Reddit after the whole API thing, but for the last 3-4 years it’s felt like nearly every media(video/pic) post was doing some form of product placement, even the comments of various innocuous threads would have some top commenter mentioning casually a certain brand or product.

This web site blocks copying. Why??

This is also my first product I've built thats gotten genuine feedback from users.

I know it isn't perfect right now, but it's a start.

If there is anything you would want changed what would that be?

I think it's an interesting concept, but by nature, it can't be trusted any more than Amazon reviews can. I'm certain the intentions are good (giving the benefit of the doubt) but it won't be long before it's completely flooded with the typical mass produced garbage.

I hate to be a cynic, I really do, but the site already shows signs of low quality submissions. Case in point:

   Subaru Liberty
   About

   The best thing about the Subaru Liberty is its reliablity and the fact that the car seems to outlast others. I had one for 12 years and it just kept going. We did a lot of Kms in this and I think we probably got another 10 years out of it.

   Brand Subaru

   Highlight Feature The Car that keeps on going!

   Price $22,000.00

   Submitted by Kara W

The entry is AU specific without being marked so, and the "review" is anecdotal at best.

Maybe I've missed the point, and if that's the case, I sincerely apologize. Best of luck.

Thank you this is great feedback.

Also Ray-Ban for $220, another Kara submission. Bad price to quality ratio.

That’s my mum who submitted that. She was submitting from the perspective of stylistically timeless goods. The wayfarer is a staple pair of glasses that never goes out of fashion

I would suspect that in a case like Reddit's /r/buyItForLife/, other users who are interested in the topic will point out issues. Maybe the same thing could work here.

Doesn't show any product on my Android Firefox setup. Even get a 404 when navigating to 'all'.

I appreciate seeing posts like this on HN that showcase simple yet practical life tips.

Well it seems more like an advertisement from the creator.

You definitely have a point. The author’s motive is either to showcase products they use and are passionate enough about to highlight their longevity, or an attempt at a revenue stream. It could possibly be both, but realistically one motive should overpower the other.

Is the logo based on Costco's, or only coincidence?

Yeah it is

Broken on mobile

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