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Registered Member #2893
Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242
Thinking back upon all the old pictures of things and products/appliances I've encountered I noticed a trend. The newer the products are, the crappier they are.
For example, I have quite a few old radios, including ones from the 1960s. Some of the older ones are made with leather, real leather. You would never see that today.
Some of the larger radios I've seen from the 40s are made with hardwood, ones from the 50s and 60s are made with plywood, ones from the 80s and 90s are made with MDF, and the newest ones are plastic covered with wood decals. Wtf. The same can be said for TVs, and the quality of the components and circuit boards in them, as well as the materials used That old admiral TV I took apart was made with paneled sheets of wood.
Cars fit the scenario too, 99% of them have plastic interiors. In the past plastic in a car meant it was crap, but now it's the norm. Tupperware used to be made out of rather thick rubber-like plastic, now it is rather thin and flimsy, and the thicker stuff is nowhere near as tough as it used to be.
Buildings too. Old buildings had wonderful architecture with all sorts of carvings and designs, but now the "fancy ones" are simply glass and sheet metal. Houses used to be built from brick, while now most of them are just flake board, 2x4s and drywall with plastic siding. It's disappointing.
Older things are just built better. Why is this? Why aren't things quality made anymore?
Also, I was having a hard time putting this idea into words, so no grammar nazi remarks please.
Registered Member #2628
Joined: Fri Jan 15 2010, 12:23AM
Location:
Posts: 627
Thats what happenes when you combine lazyness and greed. You want to make the highest profit and get it done as cheap and as fast as possible, I think the main contibuting factor to that is also how our society is becoming a very disposable one, look around and see how new products become outdated and usually junked next month or so.
No one builds things to last and be relaible anymore, if you want quality either build it yourself or refurbish the old stuff.
Registered Member #543
Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992
Grenadier wrote ...
Thinking back upon all the old pictures of things and products/appliances I've encountered I noticed a trend. The newer the products are, the crappier they are.
For example, I have quite a few old radios, including ones from the 1960s. Some of the older ones are made with leather, real leather. You would never see that today.
Some of the larger radios I've seen from the 40s are made with hardwood, ones from the 50s and 60s are made with plywood, ones from the 80s and 90s are made with MDF, and the newest ones are plastic covered with wood decals. Wtf. The same can be said for TVs, and the quality of the components and circuit boards in them, as well as the materials used That old admiral TV I took apart was made with paneled sheets of wood.
Cars fit the scenario too, 99% of them have plastic interiors. In the past plastic in a car meant it was crap, but now it's the norm. Tupperware used to be made out of rather thick rubber-like plastic, now it is rather thin and flimsy, and the thicker stuff is nowhere near as tough as it used to be.
Buildings too. Old buildings had wonderful architecture with all sorts of carvings and designs, but now the "fancy ones" are simply glass and sheet metal. Houses used to be built from brick, while now most of them are just flake board, 2x4s and drywall with plastic siding. It's disappointing.
Older things are just built better. Why is this? Why aren't things quality made anymore?
Also, I was having a hard time putting this idea into words, so no grammar nazi remarks please.
The poor quality items produced by each generation quickly fail, and are discarded, so that only the higher quality items are passed down through time.
Plastics such as bakelite were used to produce cheap radios from the late 1920s on. Really nasty poor quality radio cases made of pressed fibre board coated with 'leatherette' and other plastics started to appear in the late 1940s.
Motor vehicle engines, aeroplanes, televisions and a thousand other things have never before been of such high quality and efficiency as they are now.
You should ask yourself what needs do beliefs in a Golden Age help to meet.
... not Russel! Registered Member #1
Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052
Grenadier wrote ...
Older things are just built better. Why is this? Why aren't things quality made anymore?
I think that's a valid observation, and it's tempting to point to corporate greed or some other simple cause, but really, it's fairly complex. Mary's explanation is quite true; one problem is that we are facing one hell of a selection bias. There are other things to consider, too. Have a look at this ad for a 1939 RCA Victrola:
It's a classic, it's well-built, and no doubt many are still around today. One of the reasons for that is that while the outer casing is durable, the internals are repairable -- tubes, capacitors, and other component fail over time. In today's money, that's a $2,000 radio. It was also a good investment -- it was a good long while before FM radio became more popular than AM radio, and also a good long while before people had a better way to own music than vinyl records.
Today's technology is changing much more rapidly. 30 years ago, a decent sound system didn't need an S/PDIF input. 20 years ago, a decent sound system didn't need to be able to play CD-Rs. 10 years ago, a decent sound system didn't need an iPod dock. Today's decent sound systems don't need to be able to decode HD Radio signals. At the same time, consumers would balk at the idea of paying $2,000 for a midrange sound system the size of a mini-fridge. Something has to give, and as it turns out, those things are durable hardwood cases, beefy circuits that could easily handle several times their nominal load, and easily serviceable parts.
Same basic problem carries over to cars. The 1951 Studebaker Land Cruiser was well-built, and many are around today. It also didn't have seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, a comfortable suspension, power steering, air conditioning, or the ability to go many thousands of miles between major service intervals. Would anyone be willing to pay $18,000 in today's money for such a car, in exchange for knowing that it will probably last a while if properly maintained?
Old houses tend to be a bit more solid, it's true. They're also far more expensive to heat and cool, and much more prone to mildew, mold, and rot. Very old houses often have very nasty surprises waiting, like lath-and-plaster walls, aluminum and/or knob-and-tube wiring, balloon construction, and insulation consisting of newspaper. These were all acceptable construction techniques at one point, but are universally understood today to be terrible practices. No prizes for guessing how well old houses tend to fare in keeping occupants alive in case of fire. And again, the really shoddily built ones aren't around anymore; they either burned down or fell down. 50 years from now, people will probably be building houses out of simulated lumber made from recycled paper fibers or something like that, and yearning for the good old 2000's era houses, with their real lumber walls, quaint ethernet wiring, and windows that feel cool or warm to the touch depending on outside conditions. Few will mention that 2050 homes are much cheaper to heat/cool, are much less likely to catch fire, and have a fraction of the maintenance costs of a building from 2000.
Registered Member #1875
Joined: Sun Dec 21 2008, 06:36PM
Location:
Posts: 635
Also, the consumer is to blame, as well. People generally opt for the cheaper option, not always considering longevity of the product, so the logical action on the manufacturer's part is to make things cheaper. As more people get the cheaper thing then they phase out the old ones.
You can still get things made nicely, but you'll have to order it custom, and people don't do that for the same reason manufacturers don't make them nice to begin with: cost.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
+1 on Proud Mary's hypothesis. Throwaway products have always existed, but oddly enough, they got thrown away. People only preserve the good stuff, hence the rose-tinted rear view mirror.
The same applies to the "dumbing down" of culture. It's always been dumb, but nobody remembers the drivel of 50, 100 or 200 years ago, because nobody thought it was worth preserving. There have always been great legions of stupid people, but they failed to leave any mark on history. We only remember people who did exceptional things.
Sometimes I wonder what artifacts of ours, physical and cultural, will be remembered this way in another 50, 100 or 200 years time. Apart from the obvious stuff like nuclear waste dumps and the enormous cattle ranch where the Amazon rainforest used to be.
Registered Member #33
Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 01:31PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 971
Steve McConner wrote ...
The same applies to the "dumbing down" of culture. It's always been dumb, but nobody remembers the drivel of 50, 100 or 200 years ago, because nobody thought it was worth preserving. There have always been great legions of stupid people, but they failed to leave any mark on history. We only remember people who did exceptional things.
It works like this with music too, that's why it can often seem like music was much better in the past.
Registered Member #1886
Joined: Sun Dec 28 2008, 02:55AM
Location:
Posts: 73
A lot of stuff nowadays is intentionally built crappy knowing that it will fail in 5-10 years and the customer will need to buy a replacement. Also people don't normally repair their appliances anymore and they just throw the old one away/buy a new one. What's the point of making a really high quality work of art television if the customer will just throw it away 10 years down the road when something burns out in the circuitry?
If you want quality lasting audio equipment then tubes are where it's at. Also you get the pride from assembling and troubleshooting stuff yourself. Compare this work of art Vs Generic SS amp
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
I like tube amps too, and have built 4, but I feel duty-bound to point out that the quality of tubes is decreasing all the time, and they are wear items. You may have to throw those amps out 10 years down the road when you can't get decent tubes any more.
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Decreasing quality
