[ticoombs]

> In the latest round, they selected eight products sold by Shein, including children's shoes, leather bags and a belt and found several to contain high amounts of phthalates – chemicals used to soften plastics. One pair of shoes contained 428 times the permitted levels of phthalates – the highest observed so far during the Seoul inspections – and three bags had amounts as high as 153 times the limit, the city government said.

That's not great.

>So far, Seoul authorities have said they have inspected 93 products and found that almost half of them contained toxic substances. These items include children's watches and coloring pencils.

Shien's now on the blacklist as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't want anything like that around kids...

[elefanten]

We’re decades into the pattern. I continue to be stunned that anyone is surprised by Chinese product anymore.

Here’s a rule that will not serve you poorly for the indeterminate future: avoid it all costs whenever and wherever you can. It’s never steered me wrong, the discounts were never worth it.

[wenc]

> We’re decades into the pattern. I continue to be stunned that anyone is surprised by Chinese product anymore.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it is "narrative based" thinking. This type of thinking typically associates a country's manufacturing with low quality products based on news and stories, but not a truth-seeking mental model.

In my opinion, a better mental model is this: Chinese manufacturing is a system. It a capitalistic system that can manufacture at any level of quality and price point. It is also libertarian in that there are fewer rules/regulations.

Quality is often proportional to price point, and many of the products on Chinese e-commerce sites are manufacture-on-demand (often low lead times) at very low price points. What kind of quality can you expect for $3-$4?

On the other hand, if you are willing to pay for high-end manufacturing that is highly compliant with standards, you will get the level of quality you expect. Apple seems to have no problem with the quality of Chinese manufacturing.

The system will produce what people are willing to pay for.

[Jimmc414]

It’s not just Chinese products. In the US we’ve got the agency tasked with protecting consumers so thoroughly captured that they are forging test results to protect the companies polluting our environment.[0] This is a much deeper and more systemic problem.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/28/...