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0 pointssarchertech2y ago0 comments

Which company is this? I’ve heard this referred to as “reputation mining”.

You buy a company with a good reputation, cut quality drastically, and profit for the decade or so it takes until everyone realizes the brand sucks now.

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yomlica82y ago

It is all over the place. The worst part is when you realize reputation is always a trailing indicator the only rational action seems to be to buy the cheapest one and use the saved money for the replacement. Basically, optimize your life around rapid disposal and replacement which makes extra trash and takes extra time versus just having a good quality item you can rely on.

My mower recently started to rust out and I dread buying a replacement. Aside from cheaply replacing poorly designed wheels fairly often I was 100% with this mower. But I can't buy it again because the march forward with redesigns means it is no longer made. Is the new one better? General life experience says, probably not.

hnick2y ago

I had this conversation with someone online. "X makes great cars! I bought one 15 years ago and it's been rock solid!" Yeah, well 15 years is a long time. The car you buy that was made this year could be a piece of crap. Who even knows? No one will know for at least the next 5 years. You just have to roll the dice and hope they care about the reputation - and check if the badge has been sold.

I also consider a few products disposable like that, but it's generally cheaper things. Non-stick pans are one of those, they work until they don't and I'm not going to baby them.

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yomlica82y ago

hnick2y ago

I also consider a few products disposable like that, but it's generally cheaper things. Non-stick pans are one of those, they work until they don't and I'm not going to baby them.

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