Item — HN Reader

it's because chinese goods are consistently good that anything bad is news. ironic isn't it

literally everything is made in china, if the quality is as bad as you say the world would have fallen apart.

It seems critical thinking is rare among news outrage these days. The same comments were said of Japanese products back in the day, "IP thieves", "shitty quality", and here we are decades later praising Japanese products. Its hilarious at this point.

3 comments

> literally everything is made in china, if the quality is as bad as you say the world would have fallen apart.

no not literally everything. and who’s not annoyed by shopping on amazon and having to weed through all the cheap chinese “solutions”? The only time you get something quality from China is if some other company outside China is commissioning them to build their stuff with high standards. the rest of Chinese “innovation” is seeing how cheap they can make something before it does literally fall apart.

You'll be surprised how much stuff is made from china in america. Just take a look around your restaurants.

I don't recall the Japanese being accused of poor quality. Just imitating rather than innovating. Many Japanese products like swords, knives, cameras, have been known for surprisingly high quality for a long time. Centuries in some cases.

I'd say Chinese manufacturing is a little cheaper and a lot lower quality, and generally the price difference is not remotely sufficient to make up for the loss in performance. You need a company in the middle who cares about their reputation to be safe buying it.

most people won't remember it because it's really long ago, just after world war 2

> I don't recall the Japanese being accused of poor quality.

It was a different time: https://www.nytimes.com/1952/01/13/archives/japanese-machine... "The Japanese flair for imitating, but not equaling, the manufactures of occidental nations has caught up with her machine-tool industry, ..." (1952)

First it was imitating, but not equaling, then it was imitating with equal quality but a little cheaper, and a few generations later nobody remembers that "Made in Japan" ever meant anything but high quality.

> literally everything is made in china, if the quality is as bad as you say the world would have fallen apart.

And that's why nowadays things like washing machines and refrigerators which used to last decades now break within the first year or two.

> The same comments were said of Japanese products back in the day, "IP thieves", "shitty quality", and here we are decades later praising Japanese products. Its hilarious at this point.

But these stereotypes lasted only for a decade tops! I have not seen the same commitment to quality that Japanese brands produced. I believe it is a cultural difference, Japanese take great pride in workmanship.

decade tops? it started from just after world war 2, and lasted until around the plaza accord.

Most people won't remember it because it's too long ago