[azza2110]

I'd happily pay 5x the price of the cheapest product available, if I knew I was getting a higher quality product with a longer lifetime.

However, I can never tell if this 5x premium actually gets me a better core product, or just gets me better branding, advertising, aesthetics, and/or superfluous features.

So I usually just buy the cheapest and hope for the best.

[ygra]

In Germany there's an independent organisation, Stiftung Warentest [−4], that anonymously buys various products in stores and tests them quite rigorously. Some may say perhaps a bit too well (including things like the manual, how easy it is to set up a large appliance, or whether toxic chemicals are used in parts that are handled), but overall they seem to do a very good job. Testing and scoring methodology is published as well. I trust them a lot more than Amazon or YouTube reviews or some random blog that got the product sent by its manufacturer.

[−4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest – the article also has a few pointers to international, similar organisations near the bottom.

[Gurgler]

There is a similar organization in the USA: Consumer Reports. It used to be a magazine, now I believe it's just a website. Entirely funded by subscription - and not advertisement or other sponsorship - they tackle entire categories of consumer goods in the USA, rigorously testing and ranking competing products across many metrics.

[Semaphor]

My issue with them is twofold: a) The "testing too much" part, specifically things like how well translated the manual is, for example. I don’t care. And b), it’s a blackbox. There are no real details for how they arrived at the rating of some subsection.

ETM [0] is subscription funded and their tests are far more detailed, and they even show the data (e. g. power usage curves for a toaster, measured air replacement curves for a fan, etc.).

[0]: https://etm-testmagazin.de/

[grog454]

Do they do tear-downs and rate the engineering? That's pretty much the only way to determine how likey something is to last without using it for ten years.

[Cthulhu_]

> I trust them a lot more than Amazon or YouTube reviews or some random blog that got the product sent by its manufacturer.

Yeah same, those reviews are either bought, or made on a whim by people who aren't critical of what they buy - especially if the company or seller goad them into reviewing with giveaways or whatever. There will be good reviews, but they will be buried in the thousand+ mediocre ones.

[drekipus]

We have the same in australia too, called choice magazine. https://www.choice.com.au/

[floydnoel]

Thanks for sharing, this is great information. I definitely think that independent testing organizations are important for quality so it’s always great to hear of more of them

[foobiekr]

In the US, the closest example is Consumer Reports ( https://www.consumerreports.org/ ); there actually are a lot of these orgs worldwide. It's pretty cool.

They often are somewhat marginal at the edges - e.g., for computers. But otherwise they are useful for consumer products.

[rahen]

It seems common all across Europe, maybe the whole western world.

Here for France: https://www.60millions-mag.com/tests-comparatifs

(I just laughed as I see they even review fries brands, and sex toys...)

[dopidopHN]

Same stuff in France : 60 million de consommateurs.

They also provide help to launch class action. ( that exists differently than a US class action )

[initplus]

This is the core issue that prevents reliable consumer products from becoming more widespread. Even if demand exists for more reliable consumer goods, consumers don't have the ability to actually evaluate reliability at the time of purchase.

Manufacturers can't justify producing a more reliable product at a higher price point, because there isn't really a way to get consumers to trust that it really is a more reliable product worthy of the price.

[ericd]

There is a way, it’s the reputation that builds over time and is associated with your brand. It’s why many people buy Toyota by default. It’s why we paid 5x the price for a Miele vacuum (which are awesome, by the way). It’s just that most people either can’t or just won’t pay a significant premium for it, so those products tend to be niche.

Of course, many execs look at brand value as something to be harvested for short term gains to the value of their options, but that’s a different problem.

[slowmovintarget]

It's not easy, but it can be done.

We found Miele for dishwashers. Zwilling for our toaster, JennAir for microwave...

We explicitly avoided "smart" anything. I shouldn't need to connect my refrigerator to wi-fi.

But we've watched the crap curve take hold on a bunch of product categories, especially U.S. brands. Hannah Anderson used to make good quality, reliable children's clothes that didn't wear out when you looked at them funny. Not any more. Other brands that used to make clothing that lasted 20+ years now makes thin garbage that might last a season. Many of these transitions were to "Made in China" manufacturing.

We went to replace a ten-year old electric coffee grinder and couldn't find one for less than $1700 that wasn't garbage. We switched to a hand grinder as the only reasonable alternative.

It is very frustrating to try to find things that will last. My parents bought one refrigerator, and it lasted for more than 30 years. Most of their stuff they were able to get once. Not every two or three years.

[lutorm]

I don't agree with that. There is a way to clearly signal that you're standing behind the quality of your products: offer an outstanding warranty.

If I was choosing between brand A and twice as expensive brand B, and brand B said "we trust that our stuff will last so we offer a 10-year, no questions asked warranty", I would go for B in a heartbeat. (As long as it was a brand with some history so I can trust they don't just go out of business.)

[krisoft]

> because there isn't really a way to get consumers to trust that it really is a more reliable product worthy of the price

That is what warranties are for. You say it is reliable? Put it in writing how long you think it will keep working and what will you owe the customer if it ain’t so.

[wizofaus]

Warranties? If you're gonna charge 3 times more for a product, then you should be able to offer a warranty that's much better than that for lower spec equivalents. Yet that rarely seems to happen.

[switchbak]

I think there's a growing level of knowledge in some niches that's leading to higher quality items in some circumstances.

In power tools for instance, there's a number of YouTube channels that do high quality testing. In some cases some identified faults appear to have caught the eye of the manufacturer. Hopefully over time this feedback loop will result in higher quality products that still hit their price target.

[gnicholas]

I've had a blendtec blender for nearly a decade, and recently the gasket at the bottom started leaking. When I looked up pricing for replacing the container, I found it was nearly half the cost of the whole unit.

The motor doesn't sound as good these days, so I considered replacing the whole thing. Fortunately after I wiggled the gasket it seemed to stop leaking!

[sgtnoodle]

That gasket melted on mine after 1.5 years. I bought an Alterna-jar to replace it. It's a third-party jar with a significantly more robust bearing block.

[cudgy]

Get a Vitamix. 5x the price and seems to last forever. In fact, there are even very old (decades old) used Vitamix’s on eBay that are still running and usually just need a new canister.

[Ma8ee]

But that only says anything about the units that were sold decades ago. It's very common that quality brands with very good reputation are bought by some investors, and then they start selling the same crap as everyone else, but to the premium price that their brand and reputation allow them to. And it works surprisingly long before the new crap they sell destroys their reputation. (I know nothing about Vitamix, they may still be great.)

[rlaabs]

Modern Vitamix benders (roughly within the last 8 years) have the same declining quality issues.

Newer models are typically much lighter. This means they now have far less internal material to reduce noise. I can't use mine without ear protection since it's about chainsaw level of noise. The reduced weight means I also need to hold onto it during use otherwise it will vibrate itself off the counter.

The company seems to be most interested in selling smoothie recipe subscriptions for their blender companion phone app. Aside from subscription selling the app is pretty much useless -- who wants a phone app to remotely control a blender?

[xahrepap]

For Christmas we replaced my moms vitamix. She had her last one for well over 20 years.

We’ve had ours for 8 years and it works like new and doesn’t smell like the motor is burning out like so many cheap blenders do.

[hansvm]

I can second this motion. I've used a lot of blender-like products of various advertised levels of quality, and Vitamix is the only thing I've seen that can take massive levels of abuse for ages.

[christophilus]

I can’t speak to the quality of the new ones, but mine is a decade old and still going strong.

[slowmovintarget]

Breville seemed to be the better one to go with, but that was a while ago, too.

[jghn]

Worse yet, even some of the traditional "expensive, but built like a tank" companies are starting to shift to being "better branding, advertising" from your list.

[lutorm]

When investors put short-term profit ahead of long term brand viability...

[sneak]

Blendtec, KitchenAid

[ConceptJunkie]

Is it more sturdy and long-lasting? Or does it just have wifi capabilities that put your computer network at risk for no increase in value whatsoever?

[palijer]

This is why I love the genre of teardown videos on YouTube. There is a while world of engineering minded folks tearing down basically everything on YouTube, and saying "what a piece of crap" or "such a brilliant engineered design"

[xnx]

For 5x price, you can probably get commercial grade.

[yourapostasy]

> However, I can never tell if this 5x premium actually gets me a better core product, or just gets me better branding, advertising, aesthetics, and/or superfluous features.

For a wide range of consumables and gear that hackers of the physical world would probably like, check out Project Farm, protoolreviews, ToolGuyd, and of course AvE on YouTube.

For kitchen gear, check out America's Test Kitchen.

I hang out in r/bifl but it isn't as good as it used to be for my personal tastes, as there isn't as much of an emphasis on repairability as I'd prefer.

I wish there was a trend of someone like AvE doing a teardown of junk-quality consumer gear, then by replacing certain parts like bad capacitors, plastic gears, etc., turning it into much higher-quality equipment, and open-sourcing those small parts' design and manufacturing specs.

One hack I employ is I go straight to the servicing departments and find the service technicians, and lately I only go to commercial B2B offerings. They are usually more than happy to tell you which manufacturers and product lines are easiest to diagnose and service (and whether that conjunction of characteristics leads to reliability), have a reliable supply of parts, maintain that parts supply the longest, and have retained all those characteristics the most years. It is no more than a 10-15 minute conversation most service technicians are happy to have.

They will be especially happy to talk with you if you ask them how you can plan to accommodate their service visits more pleasant and efficient to work in. HVAC techs in particular will trade around site porn of customers who planned ahead, put in a proper-sized and sited pad easy to roll up to with all their equipment in their work van, with provisions for ample shade that doesn't obstruct the equipment airflow. They will <squee> over that more than tween girls over the heartthrob du jour.

Then I talk up staff at businesses who have to use the equipment every day to find out the most annoying aspects of using that equipment to determine whether I can put up with those idiosyncracies myself.

There are some manufacturers I will absolutely not even consider in the US for some equipment, for example. Samsung refrigerators; they are not designed to last past the warranty, not designed to be easily diagnosed and serviced, and their parts supply network reflects that. There are some categories of equipment I have absolute requirements no matter where I am in the world. Rigging gear where a failure puts life and safety at risk I will outright refuse to purchase and use from anywhere but Japan, Germany, and the US from long-standing manufacturers making it in those nations. I will pay the price to import it to where I am and wait for as long as it takes to get through customs. I'm beginning to stop using Amazon and switching to direct from manufacturer, distributors, or retailers listed on the manufacturer's web site; the SKU commingling issue has gotten out of hand, and Amazon's poor inventory control has robbed whatever unique value proposition their logistics arm painstakingly built up.