Hacker News Reader

Comment by barelyauser | Hacker News Reader

Value blindness is the bane of my existence. Thin walled plastic everywhere. Things are difficult to clean because they are filled with grooves, because you need grooves and bends to make thin walled plastic stiffer. A very good criteria for quality and value is: how easy is it to clean? If it is hard then you probably are dealing with a low value disposable product. Consider porcelain, lasts forever, cleans beautifully and does not stain. Or spoons made with solid stainless steel. Spoons made with thin sheet steel often have bends and corners as to make the thin sheet stiffer. But then dirt accumulates on these corners.

View on HN

The cost of porcelain is similarly constrained by labor, energy cost, and space.

I learned a lot from a domestic slip-casting company as a kid. It taught me big heavy things are not economical to ship, and thus remain locally competitive in a global market even when competitors are 100% subsidized. Amazon shifted this calculus a bit, but is still constrained by energy/fuel costs.

The power of plastic is automated cycle times under 45 seconds, minimum infrastructure needs, and shipping weight. In a way, Tesla Giga Press technology leverages similar strategies for Aluminum parts.

That press you mentioned in an interesting example of the globalization of machine tools. Commissioned by an American company and made in Italy by a Hong Kong Chinese owned company, which now makes them in China.

There is no longer enough domestic infrastructure to fabricate complex equipment within a competitive budget.

It seems like domestic manufacturers weren’t able to compete on price or quality in the decades preceding the collapse of the industry either.

Hard to say really... if foreign labor is subsidized under communist strategic policy, than it is more of a loss-leader rather than rational competition.

Value blindness is often accepted in consumer markets, but can prove fatal in industrial or aerospace products. Hence the rules silly people try to work around to make more money. =)

>Consider porcelain, lasts forever,

This isn't true. Porcelain is brittle and delicate, and usually shatters when dropped. It's easily broken through normal handling. Just guessing, I imagine most new inexpensive porcelain dishware is purchased to replace broken stuff.

Sure, if you put it in a cabinet and never use it except for once-a-year special occasions, it might last a lifetime, but the stuff you use every day won't.

When my parents moved abroad, I inherited the bone porcelain set they got as a wedding gift (a Swedish Rörstrand set). It was used every day when I was a kid and it's used everyday now 40 years later by my kids. It's been dropped hundreds of times and there are maybe only one or two chips among all the plates and bowls.

Meanwhile all the cheap IKEA dishes I bought as a student always broke within a year of purchase.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com