[roel_v]

That sucks. I have both and the ones with the pressure relieve valve are a pain in the ass to clean. You have to pull out the rubber inner thingy, you can't get a towel inside the hole that thingy goes into, and in general the rubber thing gets lost easily. I wish Thermos would send me a few of those 8 million stoppers, I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :(

[edwcross]

> I promise I won't be a dumbass with them

That's not very empathic of fellow people who might just have mistakenly forgotten food in the container.

It's not like they were intentionally using this for brewing some illegal substance or misusing it in a way specifically forbidden in the manual or obviously unsafe (e.g. removing a magnetron and all of its protections from a microwave to make pretty wood carvings).

[sebastiennight]

> removing a magnetron and all of its protections from a microwave to make pretty wood carvings

In case anybody's wondering, as I did:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/60/41/116041120bb6e701bd47...

If you ask me, that's how the protomolecule got out

[brazzy]

> I'll promise I won't be a dumbass with them :(

Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them?

[roel_v]

If I buy a lawn mower, I don't expect anyone to guarantee with absolute certainty that there will never be a person who thinks 'hey maybe I can just stick my hand in there to unclog it' and gets their fingers chopped off. Probably a wrong analogy but I can't even be bothered to think it through, of course fermenting food causes things to explode, how is that even remotely the fault of the manufacturer? I loathe the times we live in where everything needs to be padded and cushioned because heavens forbid we start expecting people to think for a second. I mean, the valve requires a crevice where all sorts of things can grow (I've seen them, I've cleaned these things after they were left in a school bag throughout two weeks of school holidays with food in them), I'm not going to complain that it would somehow be Thermos' fault if one of my kids got sick off something getting stuck in there. At some point, there is such a thing as 'personal responsibility'.

[collingreen]

I get your take that people should take the responsibility for things they are doing.

Without arguing your point there are a couple more things to consider from the perspective of the company and the society at large.

From the company perspective, if their product gets a bad reputation the sales will be worse. This could even extend beyond the one product. It doesn't matter if it is fair or nuanced at all. Even if everyone is a moron, investing in protecting the morons from themselves could be a good business decision.

From the society perspective, there is a positive-for-business intent in forcing a baseline for consumer safety and satisfaction. Threading that needle is of course hard but it makes it easier for a free market of consumer products to exist as a whole if the consumers can offload some of the investigation required before committing to something. The idea is that in a 100% buyer beware situation there is less buying overall and the market can't be big and as full of options because the cost/risk of buying isn't worth the end goal. You can make the counter argument that the trust should be part of the brand value but it might enable new companies and new products more effectively (making more good options in a free market) to reduce the consumer risk of purchasing their products.

Additionally, if everyone is doing the same prerequisite research (is this safe before I buy), it makes sense to consolidate this step either through curation/certification groups (the people who care fund it themselves - makes sense for specific preference choices [eg "plant based", "cruelty free"] or niches [eg "gluten free", "non gmo"]) or regulation (everyone funds it collectively - makes sense for broad application like "will I get food poisoning" and "am I risking being maimed").

Beyond personal purchases there's also society wide implications worth preventing for things like if a million cars exploded or if 10% of profession X and profession Y ended up losing fingers.

Like I said, not arguing with you about if people are dumb and if companies should be required to pay to deal with that, just pointing out there are other reasons a system might be in place beyond just a patronizing nanny state situation.

[pibaker]

Forget about other people. Let anyone who hasn't ever let food expire under his own watch open the first thermos.

[cucumber3732842]

>Can you also guarantee with absolute certainty that you'll never forget them anywhere another person who's unaware of the contents or the danger could find them?

Why does he need to do that?

We're talking about a product that lightly injured ~20 people for ~8mil units sold and seriously injured ~3.

Should be be keeping his champagne in a protective enclosure?

[sebastiennight]

If you have younger kids, or software engineers, around, you definitely should keep your champagne in a protective enclosure.

[fuzzfactor]

I've seen Champagne disappear faster off the shelf more so around MBA's who are celebrating accomplishments having dubious value, compared to engineers who have actually achieved remarkable milestones ;)

[sebastiennight]

Fair point :)

[myself248]

I wonder if they track how many people are sickened by the difficult-to-clean valve, because I bet it's a lot more than 3.

Luckily I got one of the valveless models, and you bet your ass I'm keeping it. Maybe I'll stick an "open away from face" label on top or something, but I'm not about to go increasing my risk of food contamination.

[dlcarrier]

There's not really any way to make anything containing hot pressurized foods safe from people pointing it at their face. Either you get the lid in your face or you get steam in your face. The poor hygiene the vent creates is just an added bonus.

I'd rather they slap a warning on it, like everything else that you can't safely point at your face.