My dad likes to tell me how when he was a kid, "Made in Japan" meant "this is garbage." When I was a kid "Made in China" meant, "this is garbage."

▲ alistairSH 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Japan, Korea, and others.

The "problem" with China is they have a massive economy built on building to a price, no matter how low the price may be. They're perfectly capable of creating high-end electronics like iPhones and disposable crap that sells for pennies on Amazon or Ali.

There doesn't seem to be the same cohesive brand-building/reputation-buidling effort that we saw with Japanese and Korean companies in the 80s-00s+. Granted, Amazon/Ali didn't exist, and the market for "$1 junk" wasn't the same. No easy answers (if it's even a thing that needs solved).

	▲	crote 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The main problem for me is that the different price categories don't all make it to the West. I don't mind getting the $1 crap version when I am paying $1 for it, and often I would happily pay $10 for the not-complete-crap version. But when those items arrive on Amazon the $1 crap gets sold for $9, and the $10 is completely absent because people think it is a ripoff compared to the "$9" one.
	▲	gosub100 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Another problem I've heard is there is absolutely no legal protection. If you outsource your manufacturing to Shenzhen, you get what you get and there is no suing them later.

▲ vidarh 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Made in Germany" started as a trade protection measure in the UK in 1887...

Labelling requirements have a long history of backfiring.

▲ aembleton 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a scene from Back to the Future, where 1955 doc notices that one of the failed circuits says Made in Japan. Marty then points out that all the best stuff is made in Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1QcjsjjtRc

▲ snapcaster 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Weren't japanese cars basically better than american ones from the jump?

▲ pwg 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, during the 70's and part of the early 80's they were terrible quality.

But what the Japanese makers did was they analyzed the failures and rolled the findings back into the manufacturing line so that they continuously improved the product. After quite some time at this, they took the "quality built" mantle for themselves.

My father, mid to late 70's, worked as an auto-mechanic for a local Datsun dealer (Datsun is the company we know today as Nissan). Datsun corporate wanted every failed part on every car repaired returned to them for analysis as to why it failed. The other Japanese brands all did the same.

▲ Waterluvian 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The thing I love about the Japanese automotive story is that their success was earned. It wasn't some story of regulatory capture or protectionism or blitzscaling, etc. They built an auto industry over generations and raised the quality line for everyone.

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toyg 5 hours ago | parent [-]

This came with a price, though. Japanese workers were squeezed extremely hard, entire generations of kids barely had any relationship with their fathers. A lot of those practices were then exported to other countries under the guise of toyotism.

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Waterluvian 5 hours ago | parent [-]

That's true. This isn't meant to be a "whataboutism" but I think that's something we see every time a nation industrializes. And then there's a critical point that's hit, and we invent weekends and a healthy middle class. Not sure if Japan ever realized that second part as much (I honestly don't know)? And China seems to be grappling with some 12/6 thing, though I've heard they have an interesting middle class story.

Really out of my realm of expertise here, but I think there's something interesting going on here with how some economies evolved out of the "toil and suffer" phase while others don't?

	▲	toyg 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We cannot really go there without opening a big can of politics, but I would be wary to consider this or that change fundamentally inevitable. Marx thought he could see the future, but most of his predictions did not come to pass. Humans are messy.

▲ chrisweekly 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've often heard Toyota cited as the Japanese manufacturing exemplar, with their "kaizen" (constant improvement) approach.

▲ nobody9999 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

From the Freebsd fortune file:

   Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada
   Ltd.  of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan.
   The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 
   percent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time).

   The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in
   plastic.  The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5
   percent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them
   separately."
  -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail

▲ Waterluvian 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Japanese cars from 1945-1970 were pretty bad. It took a while.

▲ 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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