Worse on Purpose

No, not all products need be premium.

But trading off a former reputation for premium quality whilst hollowing out the brand / actual goods ... is a pretty bright flag of red hue.

Looking through the list, I'm finding that the classifications and narratives for the cases I'm familiar with largely match my own experience, about 50 of the listed brands.

Principle exceptions are Keen and Merrell, both shoemakers. I've watched their products disintegrate before my eyes. Both had had good reputations. Keen, ironically, being my substitute for Teva when that brand went bad in the early aughts.

If anything, the rankings are generous. Though I don't see any marked "Approved" I'd disagree with.

I wouldn't need the site for these situations, just buy what looks good at Lowe's or Target and don't worry if the brand is worse than the 1980s.

Wonder how much money "Worse on Purpose" has been offered so far.

Tools are (can be) cheap.

An electric drill from Harbor Freight costs as much as breakfast from Dennys.

You going to pass it on to your kids? No. But maybe you don’t need to.

... and this kind of site gives you the ability to do some more research ...

Myself, I am of the "buy the cheapest tool" first and see if I use it... If I use it and it works, great - if it breaks or wears out - or I use it regularly and it is "sub-par", then I will replace with something I do more research on.

Except - the breakdown of that argument, is sometimes the cheap tool wastes your time and it's "poor quality" actually prevents you from developing the skill and experience of performing that task correctly.

I'd assume we can rent one in this era of renting.. everything.

I see Lodge is the first entry on their "approved" list: "The anchor of the entire counter-list." Everything I've heard from the cast iron nerds is that modern Lodge is crap because they switched to the cheaper sand casting process, which leaves a rough finish that is a PITA to season. Selling out to private equity is not a prerequisite to enshittification.

People didn't used to own so many clothes. Respective to income, clothing used to cost a lot more. As prices fell off a cliff, people's closets started overflowing.

It's been a long time since we've had a sense for how expensive clothing used to cost, and a "good" pair of boots (just as example) would be an enormous sticker shock to most people.

This might be more tolerable if you only owned a single hoodie (why would you need more than one?) and crucially if it lasted for many years.

I have a zip-up hoodie from Polo Ralph Lauren I got at Costco for $56. I wore it almost daily for many years and it still looks basically new. The only issue now is the zipper doesn’t stay up as much as it used to. It will slightly fall throughout the day, and I have to zip it back up if/when needed.

I ended up buying another one recently, from RL directly, I think it was around $150. Considering how well it held up to near daily wear for 6 years, it felt worth it. People still asked me if it was new. Other than the zipper falling a bit, there was only some minor wear on the cuff, that only the person wearing it would notice.

I’m assuming there is also some way I can just replace the zipper on my old one, but I didn’t look into it.

Assuming you wear it, and it holds up like my RL one did, the per wear price can actually end up being pretty low, maybe even less than a cheaper alternative that only lasts a season or two.

I have two American Giant hoodies. One was a gift. After around 10 months the zipper broke, so they sent me a new one.

I eventually repaired the zipper (and have done the same for the other since). They are high quality and have respectable service. I think they're worth the price. These are probably 7-8 years old now, so things could have changed since then.

Might’ve been one of the earlier entries. When I first purchased a zip up hoodie from American Giant 10ish years ago they were around $65.

The page is entirely AI-generated and each piece is written with the same silly thesis (things used to be better and then they ruined everything). I see why this works, but it's frankly disappointing to see so many smart people fall for it over and over again. There's no human on the other end of these essays that believes these things. They're not true and not meant to be true. Yes, they're what we want to hear, but that shouldn't be enough.

As to why it exists: when generation of content costs next to nothing, I think that question is harder to pin. The basic answer is "clicks".

The site lists "Approved" companies that have not been enshittified by private equity. What springs to mind for me are scissor manufacturers Ernest Wright and Whiteley. They maintained quality, relied on expert workers and aim to keep high quality staff for their career and hire people to learn manual skills.

The result of this is high prices and waitlists for many of their products, which is the exact opposite of what private equity and conglomerates want.

Another interesting example from the UK is Howies. They were bought by Timberland, which then in succession got bought by VF, a big US conglomerate. The Howies brand was small and insignificant globally so the management of Howies were allowed to buy the company back and it continues as a niche

Private equity companies exist in a range of sizes, some buying big multinational brands and others buying small local brands. It's a omnivorous predator and it's down to the owners of companies to resist the temptation of money.

FWIW, I was with you until the "Tax the rich" bit. Considering how many people the average "rich" person employs, they are generating plenty of tax revenue.

> This is not really worse on purpose. They made a product so good no one ever bought it again and they couldn't afford to keep making immortal products.

I don't understand how "their first product was too good, so they had to start making worse ones" isn't "worse on purpose". It seems like a paradigm case of "worse on purpose" to me. What am I missing?

This is a myth. Instant Pot was purchased by private equity parasites when it first became popular, and they quickly extracted all value and destroyed the company when they saw it wouldn't keep growing exponentially forever.

It's possible the company would have failed on its own, but we'll never know, and it wouldn't be because their product was too good. If that were the case then all the recommended alternatives in the Worse on Purpose article would also be out of business. This company looks pretty comparable, and has been making basically one thing very well for 100 years: https://www.allamerican1930.com/pages/about. How often do people need to buy a new high quality pressure canner? They seem to be making it work despite durable products in a relatively niche market.

I’d like to know what’s supposed to be bad about a late-model Instant Pot. We have one that’s at least ten years old, and we just bought a 3 quart one. AFAICT, it’s the same thing only smaller. Buttons seem the same, seals look to be the same spec. I’m not saying there isn’t an internal difference, but painting it with “owned by PE, bad!” without further information isn’t helpful.

Also, a lot of it makes no sense. Bonobos is listed as "Avoid" because it was bought out, not because the product was made worse in any way. Some entries have reasoning about avoiding because the product was made worse, but most are just "company was sold" or "owned by a conglomerate"

That isn't reason enough for me to avoid, maybe to watch for things, but not avoid. Wake me when a product is worse on purpose, like the title claims.

And it's just ai slopped text too. This is the reason ThermoWorks is "Approved"

> Independent and honest; manufacturing is English rather than American, which matters for framing but not for stewardship

What does that even mean? That says absolutely nothing.

Same with the reason lodge is approved:

> Family-owned, US-made, priced honestly. The anchor of the entire counter-list.

Says nothing besides the AI wrote everything, and likely claude.

There's been a stream of these posts on HN recently; all clickbait nostalgia slop, based on everything having been so much better in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=worseonpurpose.com

Though, to be fair, the author works at Palantir - so probably does have relevant experience with making things worse on purpose!

Methodology: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/methodology