[dopylitty]

Brands aren't perfect either. For example Volvo had a reputation for making great safe cars. The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests.

The same is true of Arc'teryx, Jaguar, and many other well known brands that have been sold off to companies with terrible reputations for quality.

Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality would be to vote for politicians who support strong regulations and a strong regulatory apparatus.

[jniedrauer]

> The same is true of Arc'teryx

Can you expound on this? The same parent company (Amer Sports) also owns Salomon/Atomic and several other well regarded brands. I wasn't aware that something had changed recently. Are you talking about the Anta Sports buyout? People use these brands for life-critical applications in the backcountry, so this is certainly concerning to hear.

[KirillPanov]

I've totally noticed this.

I bought two Delta Lt Zip microfleeces from them in 2018. They were expensive (over $100 each) but incredibly high quality, fit me like a glove, still wearable today after umpteen washes.

In early 2020 I ordered another one -- exact same product name, exact same brand, same size, shipped-from-and-sold-by "Arc'Teryx". It was like wearing a garbage bag; the proportions were all wrong, like it was tailored for an obese person my height. Lower quality material and all sorts of silly zippers and patches tacked onto it in weird unnecessary places.

Something went seriously down the drain in terms of quality with them in the interim. I'd probably bought over $1,000 worth of clothes from them up through 2018, all of it was first rate. Since 2020 I haven't bought anything else from them.

[solarkraft]

> The brand is now owned by a company with a reputation for making cars that disintegrate and obliterate the occupants in crash tests.

In China. From what I've heard the products are also still completely on the same level because it's not like Geely just started selling their cars with the Volvo brand, but they keep the company doing what it's good at.

A counter-example is the German car brand Opel that was recently sold from GM to french PSA. Because the car manufacturer attached to the brand was already largely dismantled all Opel cars are now PSA models - which is rather well known by people who care and also affects the brand.

[gnufied]

I am not sure but volvo's cars are still pretty well rated and relied upon - https://www.caranddriver.com/volvo/xc90 . Jaguar is now owned by a Indian company and Volvo is owned by a chinese company but I haven't heard anyone claim drop in their quality.

Can you point out specific examples of how changing ownership has affected quality of their cars?

[sgerenser]

Others have already commented on Volvo, but when has Jaguar ever had a reputation for quality?

[rendall]

> Ultimately the only way to guarantee quality would be to vote for politicians who support strong regulations and a strong regulatory apparatus.

Speaking as a socialist-leaning libertarian, I'mma have to take a hard disagree on this. Let the companies have a mix of terrible quality and great quality as they wish, and let the market itself decide which products and companies succeed or fail

Let a private company, say, Consumer Reports or Vegan International, give their imprimatures to quality.

A government, in this specific case of toy drones, is a bit heavy-handed, in my opinion. Would "quality specs" work? Would they be subject to political whims? Would a connected company be able to overwhelm the governmental department dedicated to the quality control of toy drones?

Edit: I promise, despite the proximity of "socialist" to "libertarian" in my preamble, this is not an ideological stance. If you have a better idea, I will change my mind! I'm fine with a downvote, but don't just smash it because you disagree. Tell us why :)

[username90]

There is a reason you aren't afraid of getting poisoned when you eat at restaurants, and it isn't because every restaurant owner cares about poisoning you but because the government have made the common practices which led to food poisoning illegal.

[rendall]

Here is an upvote for engaging.

Kind of a non-sequitur, no? I was talking about toy drones.

[com2kid]

> Kind of a non-sequitur, no? I was talking about toy drones.

Batteries are regulated, as is the type of paint used in kids toys.

Even with regulation companies still try to sneak in lead paint(!) and batteries occasionally burst into flame.

No regulation would mean parents would have to carry around lead paint test kits...

Review sites cannot keep up with the deluge of brands, and some aspects of product quality, such as longevity, are impossible for reviewers to adequately test in a reasonable amount of time. (A review that certifies a dish washer model last sold 10 years ago will indeed last 10 years isn't of much use!)

And in regards to a comment below, those toy drones likely charge with USB!

[rendall]

People keep bringing up batteries, paint, USB, restaurants. We were talking about toy drones. Focus, people

[com2kid]

Toy drones have paint, batteries, and a USB port.

Toy drones are literally painted plastic, some spinning painted plastic, a battery, a USB port, a micro-controller, and some motors.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Now append some eco to your leanings and see that this sort of free market experimentation isn't sustainable, if you don't want to end under the great garbage avalanche like in the movie "Idiocracy". Or be filled with microplastics, which contain endocrine disruptors, which are not good for anyone/thing.

[baq]

yeah it'd make sense if you disregard externalities.

i sure don't want the usb charger market to sort itself out by the metric of which products burn my house down faster.

[rendall]

The discussion was toy drones, not USBs.

[baq]

does it make any difference to my point?

[rendall]

The assertion I responded to was that the only way to ensure "quality" was to support government regulation. I disagreed. Using the heavy hand of government to be sure that these toys don't break within a day is overkill. I suggested an alternative

Rather than argue against that specific point, people began arguing against another easier point: that government regulation protects us from dangerous things

While true, it's a distracting non-sequitur. Argue against what I said, not against a stupider argument that I did not say