I make my own furniture. I am absolutely not a carpenter. But I hate Ikea furniture - it's made of shitty, flimsy, materials, and its design priorities are all based on cost and ease of transport, not on being great furniture that will last years and be an actual asset to the home.

This is an analogy, obviously. Ikea has been innovative, and it does provide a useful service for people; if you just moved into a new place and need to furnish it as quickly and cheaply as possible, then off to Ikea you go. But it's still shitty furniture.

My furniture doesn't look great, sometimes. My joinery is not perfect. I don't have all the tools I need to do this properly. But the design goals for each are what we need to live our lives. My wife has a stupidly high bed in her office, piled mattresses so she can spread them out if we have many visitors. I made her a bedside table that matches that height. It's a complete one-off; I won't make another that size, and we probably won't need it if we move house.

My point is that we already have this split in other areas of our lives; the Vimes Theory of boots (rich people buy boots that last generations, poor people buy boots every year). Ikea furniture. Buying a mass-produced crockery from a big store, or buying hand-made crockery from a local potter. We're just adding information and code to this split.

> the Vimes Theory of boots (rich people buy boots that last generations, poor people buy boots every year)

This made me think of a fascinating exception to this

Luxury-brand cars usually get turned over every couple years so as to avoid their inevitable maintenance cliff

I’m not a furniture maker, but I have a rather close connection to the industry. I used to hate ikea furniture. In fact I hated almost all modern furniture that mass market, that wasn’t high end. I was a huge proponent of vintage furniture ( and still am), but I have really come around on ikea. They sure still make some crap, but they also make some genuinely innovative pieces that can last if you treat them with a basic level of care. I’d specifically call out / praise a few of their beds with built in drawer solutions. A few good desks too. They also have other mostly solid wood products too. It really depends. Just my $0.02.

I want to buy you a CMOT Dibbler Sausage for the Vimes reference. Perfect metaphor for this situation. His point was that it was the cheap boots that keep people poor, so that makes me think artist and artisan patronage will be an even bigger thing in years to come.

Do you think that AI could actually free up time in your life in other areas, so that you could spend more time doing the things you love like making furniture? Or maybe help you directly in your furniture-making, by perhaps helping you to research things?

Please don't misunderstand: my point is not "AI is good."

It is problematic in many ways. My point is that I think the "AI versus actually doing cool human-crafted stuff" split is... a misguided, maybe even harmful, mental model of a more complicated reality.

Ikea has long existed before the Internet and over capitalization.

I have several Ikea pieces in my home, and I've had some for over a decade. If you build Ikea stuff properly, are selective in what you purchase, and use wood glue when constructing, then it lasts as long as anything else really.

Their flat packed designs are actually innovative. People can outfit an entire room by using a Honda Fit to transport.