> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price.

I argue you must evaluate against median purchasing power; it accounts for inflation and (lack of) wage increases.

Comments from your linked video:

> The problem with the “adjusted for inflation” argument is that it does not factor in buying power. The increase in wages has risen at out half the rate of inflation, so sure; $20 in 1975 would be $124 today, but the minimum wage in 1975 was $2.10 an hour as opposed to $7.25 today, giving you half the buying power you had 50 years ago.

> healthcare, housing, and education ... have increased by an insane margin leaving people with less money once that has been paid for (if at all).

> It's even worse when you consider that people are paying 45-55% of their monthly income on a house that cost 20x more than it would have in 1975. Your buying power is fucked from all sides.

> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.

And there's a perverse effect to that difficulty: even if you really want high quality, it can be so hard to be sure you're getting it that you give up and just by the cheapest thing, because at least then you know you're not getting taken advantage of (by buying crappy for premium prices).

Its also gotten harder to trust them to maintain that quality, too.

A product gets good reviews in Consumer Reports or the Wire Cutter or reddit, and the company making it knows they're gonna sell a ton of them, so they start cutting corners, or even start selling a slightly different product with the same model number.

Or you find a decent brand that makes good products, they get popular and grow and in come the MBAs with ideas on how to increase profits. Or they get bought by Private Equity and carry on only by brand momentum.

That's a worthwhile observation.

It's good that there are lower-quality alternatives available. It means that people who couldn't in the past afford something at all, are now more likely to have some path to getting it.

And even if you could afford the higher quality, you may not need it anyway. I've got a number of tools in my workshop that I'll probably use less than 10 times ever. I have no need of a high-quality product in these cases. I'd rather pay a fraction of that price to have something that'll survive the light duty that I put it to because I won't demand anything greater.

But you're right, when you do need the higher quality, it can be tough to differentiate.

Aren't all of your points already addressed in the article?

> Someone in the industry pushed back on an earlier version of this piece with a fair point: VF Corp's brands still operate with their own design teams and their own headquarters. The brands aren't literally merged. And the premium tiers within North Face and JanSport still use quality materials. The Summit Series from TNF still has Cordura. You can still find a JanSport with YKK zippers if you know where to look.

> All of that is true. But it actually makes the argument worse, not better.

(emphasis mine)

> The fact that VF Corp kept the premium tiers intact while degrading the entry-level and mid-range products means this was a deliberate segmentation strategy. They still make the good version. They just also sell a garbage version under the same trusted name, in the same stores, to the people who don't know the difference. The brand reputation built by decades of quality products is now being used to move cheap products to buyers who trust the logo.

> Walmart's JanSport and REI's JanSport are not the same bag. But they carry the same name, and that's the point. The name is doing the selling. The product doesn't have to.

Admittedly, they still equate higher price with quality, but it doesn't change much about the problem that economies of scale degenerate into market failure when there is no real competition anymore.

I watched some comparison videos like that, but the old product was always more expensive than what you'd tend to buy today.

Same seems to be true in that video you linked. And when you buy an equivalently-priced product today, it's better than it was 50 years ago. I only skipped through the video though.

The problem I have is that there's no easy way to go to an ecommerce marketplace and pick "I want to spend more for higher quality". You have to do your own external research.

> The Donut media guys

Actually the speeeed guys, now. They left because Donut went to shit after getting purchased by Private Equity. Surprise, surprise.

It is difficult and requires time investment.

I often searched BIFL sub-reddit to find things quality things and it did fail me in the past. After years of broken dishware created a weird collection, I followed the BIFL advice and bought Corelle glass dishes. Only three years later of daily heavy use and dishwasher all the dishes have degraded edge, which looks and feels just like chipped glass.

Looking through specialized forums helps sometimes, but then you are looking at Hermès dishware and doubting what are you paying for - quality or art.

> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also > gotten harder in many cases.

There was a brief window in time where price would be a useful signal. Among all cheap crap, good quality did cost but also deliver. Then someone figured they can leverage branding to sell crap for the price of good quality items, and now even if you're willing to spend money you can't be sure you're actually getting the good stuff.

Buying not maybe the cheapest but the second cheapest is more expensive overall but unfortunately also more manageable.

I'd also recommend the Project Farm review of backpacks- https://youtu.be/cSm48oVCaWc?si=AbTyU9mzOJc5vfbR

I think this is a good analysis, and the topic is more nuanced than we might originally think. For me the modern problem is not that no quality products exist, but rather there is very little to actually help consumers understand when they're being fleeced by a luxury product which is no better than the "cheap" product. So many of these exist. They are "fancier" and have more feature, but do not actually have a better build quality or have better reliability.

The other big modern problem would be repair-ability. A lot of the old 1950s products might not be any better once you adjust for inflation but a LOT of them are significantly cheaper and easier to repair.

Yeah feels like the only way to find a quality product now is to find a good niche reviewer on YouTube and watch 5 hours of content.

Akerlof famously wrote about this in 'The Market for Lemons'.

"Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a low-quality car (a "lemon"). Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" (since plemon < pavg) and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches" (since ppeach > pavg). Eventually, as enough sellers of "peaches" leave the market, the average willingness-to-pay of buyers will decrease (since the average quality of cars on the market decreased), leading to even more sellers of high-quality cars to leave the market through a positive feedback loop. Thus the uninformed buyer's price creates an adverse selection problem that drives the high-quality cars from the market. Adverse selection is a market mechanism that can lead to a market collapse."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

Doesn't the problem of quality now being barely distinguishable mean that manufacturers would aim to fool consumers by setting high prices to low quality goods to mimic as high quality goods (which probably can't be cheap by definition)?

If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.

With some product categories there are independent testing laboratories that do a fairly good job of determining quality. The automotive industry comes to mind.

It seems it's a revealed preference that most people really don't care that much about quality, or there would exist a host of companies like Consumer Reports to meet the demand. Complaining on social media about enshittification and evil corporations does not put skin in the game.

I myself constantly complain about the atrocious quality of most consumer software products, but I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for a subscription to an independent testing report.

I think there are also 2 senses in which it's difficult to determine quality. The first sense is just that many things require expert attention, special tools, and or a lot of time to evaluate the quality. And for niche items, there might just not be a reputable reviewer out there. This is frustrating, but somewhat unavoidable.

The second sense is more insidious. Sometimes companies deliberately obfuscate the source and identity of products, making it difficult to even know if a product you saw a review of is the same product you'll get if you buy it now. I believe companies also do this simply to make price comparison impossible.

This is an abominable practice, and in my view should be extremely illegal. I'm very much a free market guy, but clearly labeling and identifying the products you sell should be a bare minimum requirement to gain access to any market.

> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price

This is what so many don't understand, especially among the youth / reddit crowd. They expect their $25 jeans to be equivalent quality to the $25 or even $100 jeans from 60 years ago, for some reason. There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.

There's also very few people who understand just how expensive things were back then, likely a result of having infinite cheap crap available. They don't know that in 1970, in today's money, a fridge was ~$4000, a burger and fries was $17, and a typical dress was $350. The only thing that has changed is that there are now options for cheap shitty things. You can still buy a very nice $4000 fridge if you want to.

I find that the cheaper option is often so much cheaper that buying several replacements is better than buying the better one. Ninja blenders vs Vitamix for example. Adding in the fact that I have no trusted evidence that Vitamix is actually better, I’d be fine replacing my Ninja every year vs amortizing the Vitamix over five or more years. And for the record my Ninja has been great so far.

I mean I get your argument but it feels like one should adjust for wage growth instead. One labor unit of value converts to a shittier backpack.

Perhaps it's gotten harder to determine by eye, but Google will still point you towards trustworthy brands in 2 minutes. The problem is people don't care or can't be bothered to Google.

There is a whole community of bag enthusiasts who intricately review backpacks. Packhacker etc. It's super easy to find reviews of most backpacks and plenty of video reviews detailing every feature on the bag - and even in some cases reviews after a few months of usage. Day one might feel great, but after a few trips you start noticing flaws.

I'd echo what one of the other commenters here said about AER and Cotopaxi. Although I have to say wearing my Cotopaxi Alppa 35l feels like a small child is trying to drag me to the floor compared to the comfort of having the AER straps on my back for the travel pack. I still love both though.

+1 to that and I'll also add Cotopaxi and AER (quite expensive but built like a tank) to the list.

My year-ish old backpack gave out so I recently committed to extensively researching and buying a new set of travel + tech bags that will last me basically forever, and I've been very happy with my purchases from these brands.

I'll add that I've had a very positive experience with a Projekt Gravy backpack since we're dropping favorite products. Excellent quality and I've been using this thing daily since 2021.

I have an Osprey backpacking pack that's about 10 years old. I had a squirrel chew through the zipper on the removable pouch. I sent it off to Osprey to be repaired and they sent me a brand new pouch.

My favorite bags I've had are from Mystery Ranch, but they're from before the Yeti acquisition, and I haven't tried any since, so I don't know how quality has held up. I do know they've eliminated a ton of their catalog.

If you live in Switzerland and vibe with their brand, Freitag bags totally rock and never die.

Osprey USED to be good, but their quality has been on a sharp decline for the past decade.

The Farpoint is a case in point. I have an older one where the mini-backpack actually zipped onto the bigger one, and had a proper lifting handle integrated for lifting when it's lying flat (among other niceties). I accidentally left butter in it, and the smell was so bad that no amount of cleaning would expunge it. I just bought another one.

Absolute SHIT quality compared to my old one, the mini backpack now buckled rather pathetically to the big one, and no more solid handles (except the top one). Structural integrity is WEAK.

Needless to say I spent a LOT of time and effort cleaning up my old Farpoint, which I'm now using again. The "new" one? Sitting in storage along with the rest of my buyer's remorse.

I had a buckle that was broken on one of my backpacks. Sent a message to Osprey and they sent a replacement buckle. I was quite impressed.

Nice counterexample, forgot this brand even exists.

I missed this but now that you point it out, seems plausible.

Pretty ironic on an article about quality products being replaced by cheaper ones.

Keyana Sapp is the "author"

Good to know they hire that kind of incompetence at Palantir. It makes them less effective.

Yep, I’d rather read the prompt.

The slow realization this whole article was AI prompted was such a disappointment to me. I'm fascinated by the subject matter, and it seems like the person who prompted it is aware of specifics at least... But I also don't want to feed myself LLM-induced pollution that might make it into my own writing or thinking patterns.

Realized pretty quickly too. Then when I saw the related posts at the bottom being very recent sealed it for me.

How can you tell?

Maybe the next expose on worseonpurpose.com will be blogging

A cheap backpack ended up being the most expensive backpack I have ever owned.

In 2004 I was very young and all my income came from summer jobs, so I got a backpack from Walmart. It was one of their nicer models, had a lot of features and looked pretty good. IIRC it cost $20. I had worked all summer to save for an MP3 player, and 2 months after getting that backpack I getting off a bus, when I realized there was already a hole in the bottom of the bag. My MP3 player (a creative zen micro) had slipped out of the bag, and someone had already picked up my MP3 player and walked away with it. Adjusted for inflation I spent over $500 on that MP3 player. Even as an avid backpacker, I have not spent that much on fairly nice packs.

In 2007 I splurged and paid $100 for a backpack from Deuter, and I also felt a lot of guilt as that was a huge amount of money for me at the time for something like a backpack. It's been nearly 20 years, it's not just that the backpack is still working, it still functions virtually like new. None of the seams are stretching, even though it's been through incredible overstuffing and abuse. All of the zippers are smooth as silk, and even the cushioning on the straps and airflow offsets on the back are still supple and supportive.

I bought a north face backpack 4 years ago. Looks brand new.

How much does it weight? 6 pounds?

Good lightweight backpacks are not that durable. I have 12 years old 1.5 pound osprey, still in use, but age really shows.

Yeah, I went to work for a law firm when I was 22, and I bought myself a 3/4 length cashmere-wool overcoat, and it was $750, and my parents thought it was ridiculous to spend that.

I'm 48 and not only do I still have it, it still looks like new, with no real care taken of it - wear it, put it away. The only issue I had was the liner in one arm pit started to unstitch a couple of inches, and a tailor took care of it in 20 minutes for $10 a decade ago.

First day of my college freshman year, I purchased a Targus backpack for the heavy ass gaming laptop I had back then. I still use it decades later. It has carried stuff inside it for tens of thousands of miles, seen lots of abuse, weathered all sorts of conditions, and is still in really good shape. Not a single tear. Every compartment, every feature works the way it did on day of purchase. I'm honestly amazed every time I use it.

Or put another way, we need to compare the net present value.

The more expensive choice now is an investment into not buying future bags, and the future returns on that investment should be discounted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounting

You need to consider usage patterns as you evaluate the cost/quality value curve, though. $35 for a Jansport for a school kid who will brutalize their pack regardless is probably a much better value than a $130 Osprey that is objectively superior but which a teenager would still brutalize to death in 1-2 years of daily school use.

Fwiw, my elementary kid is on year 3 with her Lands End pack (which is way crappier than the Lands End / Eddie Bauer / LL Bean school packs from the 80s-00s), and my two older kids use Osprey Nebula packs in high school -- both also on year three. The Osprey packs are terrific, but would be overkill for a younger kid, and we purchased them mostly because our kids bike to school and needed something that would comfortable carry 20+ lbs of crap.

It also ignores the fact that your backpack needs change.

At various points in my life I've needed:

- A huge backpack, then a small one

- Water bottle holders weren't important, then they were

- Straps I could tighten to hold a yoga mat weren't important, then they were

- A laptop slot wasn't important, then it was critical

Plus my preference in color has changed, as well as my aesthetic preferences.

Paying $200 for a backpack would be insane when I'll have different needs in a few years anyways. I buy cheap-ish backpacks, I've never had a zipper or seam fail on me before I needed to buy a new one for a different reason anyways. Or it was just stolen/lost.

My general life philosophy is to buy the cheapest thing that meets my needs generally, replace as necessary (since I often need to replace/upgrade for functional reasons anyways), and buy a very few expensive high-quality items that I know are actually worth it. Like a mid-tier espresso machine, a good leather jacket, quality boots, a decent home speaker, and... I'm honestly struggling to think of anything else.

Terry Pratchett wrote an excellent metaphor for this concept: https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots...

The bigger issue for me is these business models prey on the poor and overworked. There are a lot of people who can’t buy a $200 backpack because they need that money for food, but they still need a backpack, only have time to grab something at Wal-Mart, and they get stuck in poverty product churn.

It’s like regressive taxation but carried out by capitalists.

It's much more likely to be a result of the modern drive for companies to keep growing. This leads to a need to maximize profit endlessly, which in turn leads to cutting corners as much as you think you can get away with, or just ballooning prices. And this problem goes up and down the supply chain, of course - even if you want to run a non-growth business manufacturing quality backpacks, if your suppliers want to run growth businesses, they will eat up your margins and force your hand.

This obsession with ever increasing revenue is a major source of our worse and worse consumer economy.

In theory, competition is what prevents this. If these small companies can sell products that provide more value then consumers buy the alternative.

I think the problem today is that it's extremely difficult to tell when you're buying quality or a brand. If there's a 40$ and a 100$ backpack, often the 100$ version does not actually have meaningfully improved quality - just better marketing.

The same goes for tons of products - brands nowadays are something companies build while they're young and relentlessly smash into the ground as they age because the value you're destroying isn't obvious. Shareholders get good results, and objectively it's probably the correct financial decisions for the company - doesn't make it any less shit.

Absolutely this. I am sure there are recorded cases where companies have gone out of their way to make things break early but I think it’s more times than not simply that cost matters and consumers are the voters and for the majority cheap wins. The average consumer is not very thoughtful and will opt to buy the cheaper good. For sure there are many economic constraints and not everyone has the luxury of buying quality but that’s not always the issues.

This comes up a lot with washing machines and I sympathize with parts of it, why not standardize control boards more or other components in the machine but one of the biggest issues is simply the cost of labor in places like the US is high enough that it’s hard to make it cost effective to repair.

Agreed. You can also say that they are better engineered for most use, nowadays. With the adage that anyone can build a bridge that doesn't fall over, an engineering team is needed to build one that has the minimum resources to stay up.

In particular, how durable do people think backpacks need to be? If you are going through them particularly quickly, maybe you are over loading compared to what they were designed for?

That's the end result of capitalism squeezing all disposable income from the people. Wage suppression, rent-seeking subscriptions, shrinkflation. When people barely have enough money to survive, they can't afford to buy things!

Every backpack I've ever bought I was able to easily find all the relevant specifications I needed in order to choose a quality a pack. If you're looking at a pack which doesn't provide such specifications then that's an immediate giveaway that it's a low quality pack. It's not difficult, the average person really just does not care to do research. They instead just choose the cheapest one with the advertising that hooked them the best. But the information is there if you want it.

I love mine too, I have the messenger bag and the backpack. Both are in near perfect condition after years of use, commuting and travelling.

I love their camera straps and clips too, everything just works nicely together.

Gonna echo that I love my Peak Design backpack. Only backpack I’ve ever owned that delighted me so much I told others and showed it off.

The design is a little dorky, especially now that every techbro in SF has one, but my god that thing has pockets and little details in all the right places. Been using mine for years and looks almost new.

One downside of high quality gear: Velomacchi (motorcycle bags/backpacks) seems to have gone out of business. Been using their stuff for almost 10 years. Feels indestructible, works great, but I’m never getting a replacement and I guess any warranty lasts only as long as the company …

+1 for Peak Design. I have yet to use the warranty, but the thing still looks new after lots and lots of travel, shoving under seats, tossed into train and bus overhead bins. The only real wear is the corners of the metal clip for the flap. Expensive, but in this case, you get what you pay for.

Hah, around the time of COVID, I was in SF renewing my Australian passport. Went into the Peak Design store, and was talking about my V1 Backpack, and the employee there was basically intimating that [my extremely trivial issue], if it somehowwww got just a little worse, would be covered by their lifetime warranty and also, just FYI, since we're out of stock on them, I'd get a V2 instead.

Yep. Ultralight hikers are industrious and good maintainers. They take pride in lightweight bags and making them or acquiring them. Those hikers will deal with a defect on the trail or after they get to port and expect to do so with their pack.

Your average backpack consumer is a different breed. Cosmetic designs, logos, colors, and generic pockets are key marketing traits of consumer backpacks and small rips or tears are seen as reasons to replace the backpack.

I agree. I don't really get worseonpurpose's argument here.

I have two proper backpacks, an old UK made Karimor Jaguar from the late 80s and an OMM Classic 32 I bought recently. Although the Jag is pretty good shape considering its age it's the OMM that I reach for now.

The OMM is actually modern take on an old Karimor design from 1973 but if you take all the removable bits off it comes in at around 380g. That's almost 1.5Kg lighter than my old backpack. For short weekend trips that's a massive saving.

I seem to remember a story about Atom Packs and Aiguille Alpine. Aiguille make really tough packs for mountain rescue teams to throw equipment in. Atom Packs was founded to use slightly less robust but lighter materials for through hikers by a lad who did his apprenticeship Aiguille.

I think their merit in both approaches and I like the trade offs depending on use cases.

EDIT: I've just noticed that Aiguille now do "light" weight versions of their packs in 420D nylon. What I like about that is they are actually cheaper instead of charging a premium for thinner materials (hand made prices but still).

The YKK zipper on my North Face hard shell broke. Got it replaced under warranty. Half a year later, it broke again. Anecdotes, sure, but I'm now buying cheap jackets instead.

I was trying to figure out why this article got flagged. Thanks!

I picked up a Crumpler Brazillion Dollar Home bag about a decade back to carry all my photography gear, as there were no other bags on the market that would allow you to pack a large format monorail camera in them.

That bag is built like a tank. Still ticking along, a little scuffed up, but zero issues. If you're carting around a few thousand dollars worth of delicate gear, it definitely offers some serious peace of mind.

I bought Crumpler messenger bag about 15 years ago (in San Francisco when they still had a store there). Can confirm it’s indestructible. I’m glad to hear they’ve kept up their standards to this day!

Same experience. “No feed found.” I chuckled at the irony and closed the tab.

My iPhone 16 Pro's screen got scratched/cracked within weeks of me getting it when none of my other iPhones (5 of them from the 3GS until the 13 mini) ever had any screen issues.

It's hard to not feel like the durability is decreasing.

Don't forget to account for your time buying each new one and writing your name in it. If you don't replace soon enough also account for the lost value of things that fall out the holes.

I was gifted a Swiss Gear backpack when I went off to school (over fifteen years ago now). It was good – albeit very heavy – for the first two or three years. Then the soft surfaces started wearing through, the mesh water bottle pocket on the side wore through, and finally one of the straps snapped. I started trying to figure out how to make a claim against their legendary warranty process... and found that at that time (2013 or 2014), in Canada, their backpacks had at most a 1-year limited warranty. Nuts!

It does seem like Swiss Gear are now directly represented in Canada (rather than being represented by a third party, like they were a decade ago), and their backpacks now have a five-year warranty. But I guess my point is: if you don't live in the US, make sure that the things that a brand is famous for hold true in your region, too.

The Swiss Gear backpack I used daily in college in 2008 is sitting beside me right now. I've put it through its paces over the past 18 years. I jogged here in the rain this morning with it weighed down with my laptop and a water bottle and other things.

Minus some fraying at the base of the front pouch, it's as good as new. I've been very happy with it.

Curious if the generic one had YKK zippers and the Jansport did not, since people frequently emphasize their value.

I used my employer's fitness stipend to buy a GoRuck GR2, and I have no regrets. There is just a level of build quality that I desperately wish I could find in the other fitness and travel items I buy.

Seriously, I've had my GR1 since 2013 and it's still flawless. It replaced my bike messenger bags (Chrome, Mission Workshop).

It's been through sand, mud, dust and just shakes the abuse off like nothing.

I do wish half the time though that I'd bought a 40L GR2 though.

I have a columbia backpack i bought like 20 years ago that doesnt have a ykk zipper but it's still in perfect condition, i've abused it a lot and the only thing broken is a rubber thingy it has for the headphones cable to go through.

I've been using the same Patagonia Black Hole backpack for nearly a decade, every day include bike commutes (and crashes). The longevity is frustrating at this point because I'd really like a larger one but can't bring myself to switch until this one fails (which may be never).

I don't see how it could be a surprise to anyone paying attention that a JanSport backpack doesn't deliver on quality. Perhaps there's more to the story but I got to the second AI slop one-liner and gave up.

I've got quite expensive ski jacket with 4 YKK zippers.

3 of 4 zippers are broken after few years of usage.

guess who has a new owner and is starting to make some of their bags overseas

https://www.tombihn.com/blogs/main/fall-2025-factory-update-...

Tom Bihn sold recently, and doesn't do everything in the US any more. Also I don't know that they were ever "expensive" so much as priced to reflect the economic reality of being made in America and (from what I've read), treating their employees well.

I didn't know about this and that's extremely disappointing. I already bought one bag from them but I guess I doubt I will be buying another.

I'll jump in: I was stuck in layover many years ago and bought a Topo Designs backpack -- Google says it's a 30L Apex Global travel bag.

I use it every week, it shows no signs of degradation over approximately a decade. Huge beefy zippers, tons of pockets and organization for those who are into that.

I paid like $200, but seems like they're cheaper now. Hopefully not because of the reasons in the article. At the time, I believe they were a small company from the state my layover was in--maybe Colorado.

I'm still daily-ing a Timbuk2 from a decade ago and it looks fantastic, no issues whatsoever.

nah, you've described it objectively. maybe should add pollution from over production and consumption of shit gear.

Their lifetime warranty used to be taken extremely seriously, and I really don't know what lifetime they were referring to. I had an old external frame pack that was my grandfather's back when my father was a Boy Scout. That pack outlived its buyer, and I was still using at Philmont where they had the same model as a museum piece. One of the zippers broke, and the back mesh was disintegrating, and pretty much as a joke we made a warranty claim. They honored that, circa 2012 or so.

Their schoolbags were pretty great in the 2000s, too. Withstood some serious abuse, though their zippers were notably on the decline. But that was covered by warranty, so it was fine. By the mid 2010's, they were in full decline, and that's about when I stopped recommending their stuff.

Absolutely not the case. Back in the days of exterior frame packs, Jansport was likely one of the best brands anywhere in the world. Incredibly well designed and made.

OTOH, I haven't thought of Jansport as a go-to brand for a serious backpack in 30+ years ...

When I was a kid everyone knew that JanSport was the one to get if you actually wanted your bag to survive. Absolutely one of those things where you'd spend more replacing the cheaper bags over and over compared to buying the JanSport once.

The problem is that there is a deliberate lack of information that clearly distinguishes the "technically a product" category from the "someone put effort into this" category. Price doesn't do it, brand doesn't do it, name recognition doesn't do it because companies are constantly enshittifying existing products, too.

Chicago School assholes backed by the conservative/"pro-business" think tanks that boomed in the post-war era managed to place some judges and influence some lawmakers to completely break our anti-trust enforcement in the '70s, by shifting from a standard of "enormous corporations may be assumed harmful" to "specific harm that's very expensive to prove must be demonstrated", all but entirely eliminating anti-trust action.

The term "allow" implies that some entity called "we" exists, and has the capacity to exercise control over over unrelated third-parties' ability to engage in organized activity. No such entity exists, nor has such capacity.

Google “Capitalism”

The trend of making articles out of sequences of pithy three-word soundbites rather than proper sentences is infuriating. It's super LLMy, yes, but it feels like even human-written content is like that these days.

I am highly confident this article was AI generated

Pure LLM, and it's a shame. The message and the content they are trying to pass are good and should be read by everybody out there. But god, the LLM writing, it feels like an Apple PR applied to a critique of capitalism.

First thing that entered my mind while reading this. I have been saying this to my familiy for some time now. Never mind the price point; those unknown brands are really quite good. I still have my bag from Ali from 6+ years ago.

> Its EVERYTHING

I would argue not everything, just the things we remember. Those brands got popular, got sold and enshittified.

We remember these brands fondly (personally I had a JanSport bag all through elementary school) and that's why it sucks that they suck now but what we forget is now is there are 1000X more brands to choose from, some from megacorps trying to cut corners at every step. Some from small shops that genuinely want to make a great product.

The problem is visibility. Those good brands you have to go look for, you can't just go to WalMart or Target like in the early 2000's and expect to get a quality product. All the quality products now live on small websites scattered across the internet.

I don't disagree in principle. But, as a consumer, this makes purchasing a bit more complicated. BITD, I could just buy an EastPak or JanSport and be fairly sure it was a good bag. Not much thought or analysis required. Today, I have to dig through 100s of brands I've never heard, with most of their ad budget spent on influencers who maybe can't be trusted. It's not a recipe for a healthy market.

The issue is it reduces information availability to customers: if a customer finds a brand that produces high quality products that they know from experience they can trust, that trust can't propagate forward in time because the incentive it to abuse it for short-term profit, which is a net negative overall because the customer needs to find the new high quality product on the market, something that costs time and comes with risks itself. It's a market inefficiency.

Why would you be ok with that?

These brands earned the consumers' esteem because decades ago their products pushed the envelope in the respective markets. By having their product quality severely degraded, this also lowers the bar for the niche brands. They no longer need to push the envelop to get a competitive advantage. They just need to replicate what was already possible. I.e. no real innovation is happening any more.

Also, for every 2 niche brands that are trying to get it right, you will get 1 that is sketchy: send designs to the cheapest manufactury in China, hire a few influencers to post on instagram, and you're done. Basically capitalizing on the misperception that "niche == better".

So, we are left as consumers to have to dilligently research every purchase, just to get the quality that was the standard a few years back. There's nothing to enjoy here.

Not to mention that at the bottom, this is just another manifestation of "fast fashion" and "planned obsolescence".

That's idiotic. As a consumer I'd prefer the same company to keep making the same good products forever. I don't have time to research which of the new brands is just as good.

If other companies come along to fill the niche then how is it that the likes of Eastpak and whatnot have not died?

Optimization is gonna kill us all in the end.

Or more likely consumers vote with their dollar and cost matters over quality. PE is just a bad scape goat, there are obvious outliers but largely companies make products that consumers want.