[lm28469]

> We would need a way of incentivising re-use, and of incentivising companies to make things re-usable.

That's what happened pre 50s. My mother still uses the sewing machine my grandma was using and it was made in my country, not in buttfuck nowhere SE asia.

As it turns out making long lasting products isn't the most profitable thing so we shifted to producing to the least reliable standards people would still accept

[lotsofpulp]

People shifted to buying the cheapest products available.

[OJFord]

No, far cheaper products became available.

[lotsofpulp]

Obviously, if people are buying them. The point is if consumers prefer cheaper, lower quality products, then how is a business offering more expensive, higher quality products supposed to survive?

[OJFord]

My point is that the cost of the cheapest got lower, due to industrialisation & globalisation, rather than a shift in habits as people started to think 'actually sod this expensive stuff that lasts a life time, gimme cheap & disposable'.

[lotsofpulp]

Oh, I see what you mean. But I think people do choose to cheap and disposable for things they think they won't need. The rule of thumb for household tools is you go to harbor freight and buy the cheapest thing, and only go higher end if and when it breaks or can't do the job. Similar with electronics that keep changing or furniture if you keep moving.

I myself don't see any value to furniture of better quality than IKEA, since my kids won't want it, and I don't gain any utility of getting something of higher quality.

There's also probably some confluence with people's buying power stagnating forcing them to buy cheaper goods.