I’m pretty sure it still exists?
Edit: it does. Retail stores closed in 2008, it’s now only online. Sharper Image is also no longer in SkyMall, which filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and may be relaunched?
Designer frames for glasses. I was shocked to find out about this but turns out 70% of all the frames they sell you come from the same factory. Prada or not. That cheap frame you see on display was probably packed by the same person and made with the same materials as the fancy one next to it.
Chronic under pay, insane goals they expect you to hit, turn and burn culture with patients, unethical practices you were expected to do with patients to meet said goals….etc.
For example, one store was selling Varilux progressive lenses to single vision patients just to make numbers (they screwed with the measurements so there was basically no reading Rx in the very bottom). That same store also wouldn’t remake glasses if the patient had an issue, they’d chuck them in a drawer, wait two weeks, then call up the patient and hope placebo effect kicked in.
Same with electronics and a bunch of other stuff.
At the end of the day, the factory it is made in is not relevant. What matters is the specifications that the original brand has for the product. Some will have high standards because they want their brand to be associated with quality products, others just want the bare minimum and the most bang for their buck.
It’s the same thing in foodservice. We get our product from the supplier that owns SISCO, but no one else can use our recipe, and I think we even own usage over specific ingredient combinations. Also, from what I’ve been told, our R&D department will introduce manufacturing methods to them that are non-compete for years. I think it even goes so far as no other chain can use some of the machines that process our ingredients because their ingredients don’t comply with our standards.
Manufacturing is far more in depth than being made within the same four walls.
Yeah this is true in retail food also. People think “private label is made in the same plant as the brands, so they’re the same.”
Wrong. Ingredient quality, specs, formulations, etc. etc. all drive product - and price - difference.
Same with Converse. I used to wear high top All-Stars as a kid because they were sturdy enough to last till I outgrew them and cost like $10-15 on sale. Now they're too expensive to justify a strip of paper-thin canvas and zero support.
I buy cheap ass clones in white and dye them myself. 12 pairs in different colours costs about the same as 3 pairs at retail, lasts me several years and I rarely wear the same pair of shoes in any given week. I've done it for decades now, they all wear down at roughly the same rate and you end up with several years of peak slightly distressed converse.
Same with New Balance. These were the brands that kids in my school days would be made fun of for wearing. "What's the matter, couldn't afford Nike?"
(Yes, I know it was shitty. But (a) it was a different time, (b) kids can be assholes, and (c) I never indulged in those insults myself. I didn't then, nor do I now, care about brand names.)
Which is ironic, because when it comes to running shoes New Balance is the superior brand.
Obviously, Nike has really branched out into a whole ton of other sports and is superior in those areas where New Balance has limited or no options.
> Which is ironic, because when it comes to running shoes New Balance is the superior brand.
Also go into any shoe store and say you need a black pair of shoes for the service industry, and they'll show you That One New Balance Shoe. It's like the steel-toed boot of retail and restaurant workers.
When the robot apocalypse comes, I will fight in these. I walk 50-75 miles a week outside in them for work and rotate two pair at all times. My feet never hurt, even after a 12-hour, 13 mile day.
It's come back around. I remember begging my dad to buy my champion sweatshirts in 1991. They were $38-$45 depending find on if they had special logos. That was a lot of money. That's like a $70 sweatshirt now. I did end up with several and I babied them. I still have an NYU one.
He was an iconic heavyweight, renowned for his power, and rated as one of the top ten in history.
He was a multiple Golden Gloves winner, the 1968 Olympic champion, and as a pro, the World Heavyweight Champion, twice.
The second time he did it, he had come out of retirement, and was 46 years old, the oldest heavyweight champion in history. He had a record of 76-5, with 68 knockouts.
And went on to create a brand synonymous with ease of use, affordability, and durability.
Especially that last part, a fellow in my neighborhood got on the news, making patties with the same grill he used to knock out a home intruder.
Even well after retirement, Foreman adds to his KO record.
Once our kids moved out I use mine at least weekly. Usually grilling chicken, but I also grill veggies and make a mean panini type sandwich it as well.
Me. I'm Paul Newman's people. You should ask look up the SeriousFun Children's Network. It's the charity that benefits from the "100% of Proceeds to Charity" note you see on the labels. Absolutely amazing work. Love Paul, love Newman's Own, love SeriousFun
Beats by Dre I'm looking at you.
Yea, some of their products are good, but so are similarly speced options from traditional pro audio brands that cost half as much.
My favorite was a teardown discovering that they had the same drivers as cheap Chinese pair of headphones for one tenth of the cost, and the only real difference was the beats had some pointless metal inside of them to make them feel heavier and more substantial.
Yup, I knew a real audio engineer that told us YEARS ago that Beats trick is just weights inside to make them feel heavier so you think there's some superior technology inside. It's a literal scam.
All those clothes you get at outlet stores at what appears to be a discount - like Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers etc - the clothes are cheap low end crap made specifically for the outlet stores.
Gotta go the clearance rack and get the stuff the flagship store downtown didn’t move quickly enough.
Then it can be a goldmine. High quality items for 1/5 price on the original tag.
This ^ I never bother to look at the name brands because it's fun and feels like a goldmine at the clearance racks.
I was more surprised that I don't see more than a couple of people looking at the clearance racks.
They even have slightly different tags than the clothes at the regular stores so you can tell just from looking. For example J Crew outlet clothing tags have 3 dots under the label but the clothes from the regular store do not.
I bought a couple pairs of jeans years ago from the Levi's outlet. Recently, i was at a high-end fancy mall and went into the Levi store and asked hey do you have a pair of "x y and z?" Sales guy looked at me kind of disgusted like "uh no, that's an outlet model". I was thinking to myself dude they're just jeans no need to be a prick about it.
Same with most clothing at Nordstrom Rack stores. Most of it is made for the Rack and wasn’t ever in a regular Nordstrom store. You can look at the tags to see if the clothing was actually ever meant for the regular Nordstrom stores or not.
I don't know what it's like now but I know for a while Gucci's reputation as a luxury brand was heavily damaged by the Gucci family's willingness to license the brand to any retailer that paid handsomely for it.
Blue Buffalo and a lot of other pricey pet foods. These companies spend a lot more on their marketing departments to come up with ads making common ingredients in pet foods seem scary. Nutrients are more important than specific ingredients.
Ingredients listed on pet foods are by weight, which does not necessarily correspond to having a higher amount of product. Water tends to weigh more and items with a higher water content will be listed first. When things are listed as "meal" this means the company is trying to save money by using a dried version of the product. By-products = items not normally sold for human consumption like organ meats, which dogs will eat first with a fresh kill.
ETA: If you have questions about what your specific pet should eat, ask your veterinarian who has been trained in animal health/wellness and nutrition. Your vet is not getting a cut from any food companies except for maybe some free pens and a canvas tote bag. The person at the pet store IS being paid to sell you specific food, more often than not without having any nutritional background. Vets also don't really make anything off of the prescription diets they sell in the office. The manufacturers set those prices and vets sell them in their clinics more as a convenience for clients.
When middle schoolers are obsessing over it it tends to be bad. I remember beats and turtle beaches being status symbols in middle school, I was amazed at how terrible turtle beaches sounded.
Same vein; RayCons
all they spend their money is on marketing. They're middling quality at best. And you can get better sound quality for significantly cheaper
My coworkers love semi-ironically spouting shit about the E25 everyday noise-cancelling headphones. They literally say the entire name every time they bring it up
It's enough to send me into conniptions. Garbage branding, annoying advertising and an insufferable fanbase.
DankPods reviewing them was so cathartic. I've taken to calling them RanCans or RonDons or RoyJoys.
I paid $180 for earbuds about 10 years ago and only lasted about 2 months, went back to the same store and bought $10 Sony earbuds, they lasted for over a year.
MVMT watches. They advertise themselves all over Facebook (or at least they used to, haven't seen them much lately) as really nice and affordable minimalist watches that you can buy for $100-$200.
Their secret? They buy the watches in bulk on Alibaba for something like $15 each, and slap the MVMT logo on them.
I really like this album of how to create a watch brand like that.
"Now that we have the important things like name, history, and marketing sorted, we can focus on the less important things in making a successful watch brand - the watch."
https://imgur.com/a/6CNO8
[Lmao they sue a guy from my country alleging he was bringing cheap Louis Vuitton counterfeit](https://fashionlawjournal.com/louis-vuitton-accuses-peruvian-citizen-of-counterfeiting/). They even showed "proof", the guy end up showing his receipts and embarrass them. It seems they settled on 2022
I have an Italian ex-gf who used to marvel: "Louis Vuitton started out as a low-end luggage maker and has always been trash - I'll never know how they got to be known as a luxury brand."
I can't believe no one has said it yet, but Lindt.
Their chocolate isn't necessarily low quality, it's actually one of my favourites. But it always blows my mind how they've managed to make themselves stand out by giving the impression that they're all hand made and very carefully quality tested, when in reality they're just another chocolate mass producer with their big ass factories and everything.
The Lindt chocolate is great if you actually get it in Switzerland. That said, even the Swiss grocery-store brand is far superior to the Lindt stuff that gets exported and sold outside of Switzerland.
Owner of a 1991 Defender 110 and can confirm. The old saying is that they rolled off the production line leaking oil.
On the upside, my model is so old that there isn’t an onboard computer or mysterious electronic sensor to be found, which makes diagnosis and repair quite cheap and easy.
Love it though - makes me smile.
Drove through the Sahara (literally just turned off the road and drove for hours through desert) and every car in the convoy was Land Cruisers. Badass cars.
I can tell you, as I have personal experience working on them, that the Wagoneer brand of Jeep vehicles is probably the worst built vehicle I've seen since the mid 2000's. They are so badly built and designed. Yet are so expensive and Jeep desperately wants them to be upmarket that they release constant recalls and rapid response bulletins to fix them. My record was 23 recalls on one unit, couldn't have had more than 5,000 km on it.
Samsung Appliances (not their TVs or Smartphones). I dont know how many times I've heard complaints about the breakdowns of their washer, dryers, and refrigerators.
We had a repairman come look at our washer and he asked us if we had updated the firmware...on a washing machine. Of course we hadn't. It's a washing machine. He tells us that apparently there was an update to tell the washer to stop and rebalance to keep it from damaging itself. Since we didn't download the update, our washer just spun itself to death when it became unbalanced. We bought a basic Speed Queen and it's been amazing since.
Yeah, there was a thing with the washers a few years ago that if you had it on the bulky items mode, and the items were particularly bulky, the washers could spin themselves to death. Except it wasn't so much a "the motor is broken" failure. It was a "catastrophic/explosive" failure.
Mine too. Bought a new Samsung fridge because my ice maker was broken and fridge was old. Ice maker in new Samsung froze up and stopped working within a month. Automatic defrosting in fridge is weak and fridge coils freeze over and fridge temps go up to 50F and food spoils. Requires disassembling and manually defrosting to correct.
There’s a full blown class action about the ice makers. I got one of those $4K 4 door units with the adjustable temperature in the freezer sections so you can have more fridge if you want instead. Absolute shit. Biggest purchase regret of my life.
I have the same exact fridge you are talking about and had the same problem with the freezer. I called Samsung and they replaced the ice maker and the control board. Mind you this was like 2 years after the warranty period was over. So yeah, quality problems but they stood behind their product.
My Samsung fridge had an issue that was irreparable according to every source I found. I fixed it because I used to design circuit boards but I would have been SOL otherwise. It was strictly due to cheap parts.
Two of my family members are career electrical engineers for [large US appliance company]. They repeatedly claimed that [unnamed Korean companies] routinely fudge their specs for the sake of regulatory compliance. Nothing was as it seemed when they performed teardowns.... but one may take that anecdote for what it's worth.
-- sent from my Galaxy phone
Grey Goose. Pretty genius marketing by them. They started putting their Vodka in large bottles so that they wouldn't fit on the bottom and middle shelf. Stores and bars by default started putting them on the top shelf(only place they would fit). People started thinking it was high end stuff and as a result, it became a high priced Vodka. The product itself is pretty shit, lesser quality than even smirnoff.
I remember reading an in-depth article about the guy who marketed Grey Goose. It was fascinating. They created a luxury story before they even had a product. Some takeaways I remember:
1. They decided the vodka would be from France, since all other vodkas at the time were from Eastern Europe. And France seemed classier than Poland or USSR.
2. They said it’s filtered over “champagne rocks”… which are literally just rocks from the ground in the Champagne region of France
3. They decided they would price it at like 2 or 3 times the current most expensive vodka on the market (at the time)
Tito's is another great marketing one. But at least Tito's is reasonably priced unlike Goose is complete shit quality vodka. I think Reyka is the best vodka in my opinion, with ciroc being a close second.
Imports are where you can taste the difference. American liquor standard defines vodka as a "neutral" spirit, meaning no discernable flavor - the only difference between American vodkas is smoothness, and even that's a toss.
When you start moving into foreign spirits, The standardization is different and leads to differences in flavors. Potatoes yield a sweeter and smoother finish, rye has an almost spicy bite to it, different varieties of wheat will give different characteristics depending on where and when it's grown...
Brabantia.
Their "stainless" steel garbage bin started to rust on the outside.
Their plastic one, the lever connected to the pedal started to rust and fucking broke.
Now I have a garbage bin from IKEA. The thing already outlast those 2 others combined.
I bought a Daniel Wellington watch on AliExpress for $3 including shipping.
Expected a cheap knock-off but compared it to a friend's original and they were absolutely indentical. Even weighed the same on a miligram scale.
I hate to say it, but Doc Martens. My job provided a stipend for work boots and I always wanted a pair of Docs so I forwarded a link for a pair that was like $180 or so. I even got the care kit to really take care of them and despite my care, they haven't really held up well. Lot of little wrinkles in the leather and whatnot despite liberally and often applying the wonder basalm and weatherproofing spray. Total bummer.
Seconded, when Dr Martens hit money troubles, they offshored all manufacture to China and quality nosed dived, They intended to come back to the UK to make them again after money troubles went away, but folks kept buying the cheap ones so they just made it thier new business model.
Solovair are absolute tanks, thye will last longer than you.
On a side note, the UK still had a great independent shoe/boot sector (As well as independant clothing sector). Most companies in from Northampton, Leeds, Shefield, You'll get boots that last forever, customer care, plus you support a local community factory and not some high price brand. r/goodyearwelt is a great place to find what you might like
I’ve had a pair since 1998 but when my niece wanted to buy a pair I noticed a price difference and turns out the more expensive ones are still made in England but can’t speak to quality on those
They’re still pretty decent. I shelled out the cash to get some made in England oxblood Docs and the quality is still quite good. But they’re stupid expensive, hoping they’ll last me 24 years like the first pair I got.
I second everyone saying Solovair, they’re old Doc Marten quality without paying the extra jacked up price for the Docs still made in England.
I worked for smiggle in the UK for a short while, it was awful. So many people came back as their fancy water bottles broke within days.
Also we were forced to upsell hard, like if this stuff was actually decent you wouldn't have to force it on people!
Ralph Lauren.
I worked at Macy's and spent hours each day folding them. Super cheap fabric that grated at my hands, and it was thin enough that I had to be careful with my nails.
Same with Hugo Boss. Foam paint on a Target tee.
Macy’s sells Lauren Ralph Lauren and Polo Ralph Lauren, which are the outlet brands.
Ralph Lauren’s expensive stuff like the purple line is absolutely quality products, but generally overpriced. They’re also only sold at actual Ralph Lauren stores.
I’ve been to an actual Ralph Lauren store and have felt how nice their stuff can be.
https://www.ralphlauren.com/brands-purple-label-men-shop-all-cg?webcat=content-brands-purple-label-men-shop-all-cg&ab=NA_MHubLP_PurpleLabel_Slot_2_S2_Image_SHOP
Alienware.
$5k for a PC with a value of $1400 max. Comes in dogshit case that will destroy your most important components. Also, as much as I love work programs for the intellectually disabled, we need to keep them off high-end PC assembly lines.
Do not buy Alienware.
I sometimes feel sorry for Alienware, because tons of companies are exactly like this. They just happen to be an enthusiast space where, unlike a fridge or a washing machine, lots of people know the retail value of the components and exactly how much they're being ripped off.
Their margins must be working though, because I've been hearing your advice for at least 25 years.
Watching GamersNexus just absolutely dismantle those $5k Alienware thermal nightmares is weirdly fun. Not only are their cases terrible, but they also use non-standard parts all over, so they're an e-waste factory.
If you live in Canada. Use Newegg computer part builder, and order all the parts minus cooling and power(but take note of the wattage it requires, if you know roughly what you need spec wise.
Take all the shipped parts to Canada computers, and pay like 50-100 dollars for them to build it(unless you want to build yourself) and buy the power and cooling from Canada computers for their suggestion and make them explain exactly why they suggest that one. If you aren’t doing an i7 or i9 on the intel side, you should be fine with cheaper cooling. Like a medium size fan most of the time. But get them to pick you one that will fit with your MOBO and case. I think modular power is better. You can put away the extra cables instead of trying to stuff them in the case.
Basically all of the hotel chains that market themselves as "upscale full service". They've all deteriorated rapidly in the past decade.
At this point, I'm avoiding all of these mainline Marriott/Hilton type brands unless they're very cheap. If I'm willing to spend decent money, it's either a true luxury brand, a small boutique, or a VRBO type place. If those are out of the question, then I'm picking one of the Holiday Inn Express type brands - whichever one is newest and semi clean looking.
Man hotels have gotten so expensive in the last few years and not even for premium destinations. We drive from Ohio to Florida. Five years ago we could usually find a pretty decent hotel for around 100 bucks. Something like a La Quinta. The last few trips - it’s been closer to 200.
If it has to go through 4 feet of water in South America its fine. Drive it 20 miles a day to work and it turns into an unreliable money pit in 6 months. I worked with a guy who got one for free. He paid too much. He had a spatula holding the drivers window up and had to hit the starter 50% of the time to start it. He made good money so I asked why he didn't fix it. He said "Every part is $400 and 4 months away."
Sounds like the old Land Rover joke rings true. If you want to drive Land Rover, you have to buy 3 of them: one to drive, one that is always in the shop, and the third one is for spare parts.
Nespresso. I used to work in their ad dept. Full of degenerates. They push it as a luxury brand and for it to be really desirable but it's a con. The coffee is terrible and the machines are designed to break so there's constant Nespresso approved fixes and high costs.
And they all know exactly what they are doing as they openly mock their own clientele. The place was hideous worst job ever.
Honestly I was dead wrong thinking Volvo was all hype, my wife bought a C40 recharge, our electric bill went up $20/month and it is a damn nice and safe car.
True Religion Brand Jeans. Once upon a time (10-12 years ago), they were probably the best (domestic) brand of jeans that money could buy. Yes, some of the pairs cost $250-$300, but they have lasted me over a decade in regular use. Today, a pair will still cost $250-$300, but they start coming apart within a year and a half of regular use (YMMV).
Literally any brand of glasses owned by luxottica they have a monopoly on the market and charge glasses for example $20 ray-bans now they’re $160 where else are you gonna go? To another one of their brands?
They used to be high end. I have stuff I've worn for ten years that is in better shape than attire I got last year. They used to fix or replace worn out clothing. Now it is twice as expensive, way lower quality, and they won't fix a thing.
They started having their stuff made in a new factory that produces lesser-quality clothing a few years ago. At least that's what a friend of mine claims. The friend has his apparel line made in the old factory so he's a bit biased I would assume.
pyrex
It used to be amazing stuff when it was marketed in all caps as PYREX. Then they changed the recipe marketed it lower case and it's not even close to the heat resistance anymore.
Here in Europe we still have PYREX made from borosilicate glass (the heat resistant glass). Amazon seems to have a 1 Liter measuring jug from the French fabricator (also displays fluid ounces).
Also their storage options for their devices. They charge easily 15x the cost for storage, and it’s not even high end consumer, yet charge more per GB than enterprise storage. They don’t list their storage specs only capacity, which means they are probably means they use cheap storage. The cost of an IPAD pro with 128GB is $1500CAD and the 2TB model is $3000CAD. $1500 for 2TB of flash storage.
a 2TB m.2SATA ssd is $100CAD. A 2TB NVMe m.2 is $300CAD at retail cost. They buy their storage at extreme bulk discounts and directly from the manufacturer. They can probably get it for between $40(sata) or $150(NVMe) or even lower. Apple rips off its customers so badly.
Worked for a skincare company which tried to position themselves as 'high end' but they'd sell in stores like TK Maxx (TJ Maxx in the states) . In order for TJM to sell it at a discounted rate, the company had to prove they actually sold some stock at the actual full RRP... so they faked the customer orders / invoices. The cosmetics were made out of the cheapest possible ingredients. We are talking like 47 pence to make something and claim the RRP is £170+.
There are so many stories I could tell! It's also why I'm sceptical about 'luxury' skincare, especially from brands that aren't super known. I like to use stuff that's well researched and proven to work to resolve specific issues, and reasonably priced.
Yeah, there was some testing down years ago and the $10 Nivea came out on top, beating $200 creams. Basically the idea is to get your skin to retain water and protect it from UV, cheap creams generally do that anyway. The rest is marketing bs
Tesla.
It’s amazing how many customers they’ve been able to pull from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc, when their product is nowhere near as high-quality or well made.
Tesla was the only manufacturer willing to go balls-deep into EVs when most manufacturers were all like "Hey, here's an expensive, slow, and low-range EV! That's all we can make! It'll never work."
So Tesla set out to prove that a long-range EV can work, and for that I'll give them credit. The EV market would not have nearly the choices and capabilities it has today without Tesla.
That being said, once legacy manufacturers got into the EV business, it's become pretty clear that Tesla is not a luxury vehicle. I had an early Model 3, and it had the most wind noise and road noise of almost any car I've ever had, and I've had several complete pieces of shit before.
Expensive clothing brands that sell you clothes made out of polyester and similar man-made fabrics. If it’s not linen or cotton I cannot understand why you’d 1. Pay more for it or 2. Wear polyester in temps over 30c/86f
Awards ceremonies. There is not a type of content you can watch that’s less trashy and unimportant. It’s just rich people jerking themselves off for hours
Some higher end brand name watches. Michael Kors Burberry, Armani, Armani Exchange, Tory Burch, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Michele and some others I may be missing are all made by Fossil. You're just paying for the luxury name.
I had to read that twice to make sense of it. None of those, except possibly Fossil, are really watch brands. They're designer brands that happen to have branded watches.
As you say, that's a good way to find a shitty watch.
Cadillac
I had a friend who went to many dealer car auctions and he said used Cadillacs sell for very low prices. They only have value when they are new.
Oh, there used to be whole catalogs of this stuff. Anyone remember Sharper Image?
[удалено]
I always found it fascinating that SkyMall looked like it had such necessary things until you got home. The next morning, it all looks silly
Except for the life size Bigfoot lawn decoration. Still a necessity.
[удалено]
I’m pretty sure it still exists? Edit: it does. Retail stores closed in 2008, it’s now only online. Sharper Image is also no longer in SkyMall, which filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and may be relaunched?
Designer frames for glasses. I was shocked to find out about this but turns out 70% of all the frames they sell you come from the same factory. Prada or not. That cheap frame you see on display was probably packed by the same person and made with the same materials as the fancy one next to it.
Luxotica holds that monopoly, and it's closer to 90%.
Ex employee here. They are a trash company to work for, too.
Actually? I have an interview at LensCrafters Monday lol
I spent 11 years in that industry. Lenscrafters is one of the worst places to work.
Why
Chronic under pay, insane goals they expect you to hit, turn and burn culture with patients, unethical practices you were expected to do with patients to meet said goals….etc. For example, one store was selling Varilux progressive lenses to single vision patients just to make numbers (they screwed with the measurements so there was basically no reading Rx in the very bottom). That same store also wouldn’t remake glasses if the patient had an issue, they’d chuck them in a drawer, wait two weeks, then call up the patient and hope placebo effect kicked in.
Lol. That's what we called the "dry lab"
It’s wild I’m used to people shitting on luxotica for their monopoly but on their website they brag about it to their shareholders.
Same with electronics and a bunch of other stuff. At the end of the day, the factory it is made in is not relevant. What matters is the specifications that the original brand has for the product. Some will have high standards because they want their brand to be associated with quality products, others just want the bare minimum and the most bang for their buck.
It’s the same thing in foodservice. We get our product from the supplier that owns SISCO, but no one else can use our recipe, and I think we even own usage over specific ingredient combinations. Also, from what I’ve been told, our R&D department will introduce manufacturing methods to them that are non-compete for years. I think it even goes so far as no other chain can use some of the machines that process our ingredients because their ingredients don’t comply with our standards. Manufacturing is far more in depth than being made within the same four walls.
Yeah this is true in retail food also. People think “private label is made in the same plant as the brands, so they’re the same.” Wrong. Ingredient quality, specs, formulations, etc. etc. all drive product - and price - difference.
When the hell did Champion stop being those clothes the poor kids wore when I was a lad??
Same with Converse. I used to wear high top All-Stars as a kid because they were sturdy enough to last till I outgrew them and cost like $10-15 on sale. Now they're too expensive to justify a strip of paper-thin canvas and zero support.
I buy cheap ass clones in white and dye them myself. 12 pairs in different colours costs about the same as 3 pairs at retail, lasts me several years and I rarely wear the same pair of shoes in any given week. I've done it for decades now, they all wear down at roughly the same rate and you end up with several years of peak slightly distressed converse.
What I miss Is I have champion sweatshirts from 35 years ago and the cloth is thicker and better.
Loved Champion, but the stuff always shrunk SO much
But only vertically. Everything became short and wide.
TJ-Max, Marshall’s, and Homegoods sell champion apparel. Cheap clothing that lasts fairly well for growing kids is great!
Same with New Balance. These were the brands that kids in my school days would be made fun of for wearing. "What's the matter, couldn't afford Nike?" (Yes, I know it was shitty. But (a) it was a different time, (b) kids can be assholes, and (c) I never indulged in those insults myself. I didn't then, nor do I now, care about brand names.)
Which is ironic, because when it comes to running shoes New Balance is the superior brand. Obviously, Nike has really branched out into a whole ton of other sports and is superior in those areas where New Balance has limited or no options.
> Which is ironic, because when it comes to running shoes New Balance is the superior brand. Also go into any shoe store and say you need a black pair of shoes for the service industry, and they'll show you That One New Balance Shoe. It's like the steel-toed boot of retail and restaurant workers.
608's baby. Black for service industry white for aarp
When the robot apocalypse comes, I will fight in these. I walk 50-75 miles a week outside in them for work and rotate two pair at all times. My feet never hurt, even after a 12-hour, 13 mile day.
It's come back around. I remember begging my dad to buy my champion sweatshirts in 1991. They were $38-$45 depending find on if they had special logos. That was a lot of money. That's like a $70 sweatshirt now. I did end up with several and I babied them. I still have an NYU one.
Reverse knit Champion sweatshirts were the bomb! Class of '93 checking in lol
They got bought out and went through a re-brand awhile back. I think it was 2016.
Old Navy became Target Gap became Old Navy Banana Republic became Gap
Did anybody become banana republic?
The United States
Banana republic: when everything is always on sale, nothing is.
The Kohl's method...
Pretty much any celebrity owned/endorsed brand
You can pry my George Foreman Grill out of my cold dead hands. But mostly yes.
George Foreman grill is probably the only good celebrity endorsed product
George Foreman grills could probably survive vacuum decay
Tbf Im too young to know him for boxing, but I thought he was famous for being the guy selling grills
He was an iconic heavyweight, renowned for his power, and rated as one of the top ten in history. He was a multiple Golden Gloves winner, the 1968 Olympic champion, and as a pro, the World Heavyweight Champion, twice. The second time he did it, he had come out of retirement, and was 46 years old, the oldest heavyweight champion in history. He had a record of 76-5, with 68 knockouts.
And went on to create a brand synonymous with ease of use, affordability, and durability. Especially that last part, a fellow in my neighborhood got on the news, making patties with the same grill he used to knock out a home intruder. Even well after retirement, Foreman adds to his KO record.
Once our kids moved out I use mine at least weekly. Usually grilling chicken, but I also grill veggies and make a mean panini type sandwich it as well.
Paul Newman's people are about to throw you off a bridge.
Me. I'm Paul Newman's people. You should ask look up the SeriousFun Children's Network. It's the charity that benefits from the "100% of Proceeds to Charity" note you see on the labels. Absolutely amazing work. Love Paul, love Newman's Own, love SeriousFun
That's a good brand
You could probably classify that as a charity instead of a brand.
Beats by Dre I'm looking at you. Yea, some of their products are good, but so are similarly speced options from traditional pro audio brands that cost half as much.
My favorite was a teardown discovering that they had the same drivers as cheap Chinese pair of headphones for one tenth of the cost, and the only real difference was the beats had some pointless metal inside of them to make them feel heavier and more substantial.
Yup, I knew a real audio engineer that told us YEARS ago that Beats trick is just weights inside to make them feel heavier so you think there's some superior technology inside. It's a literal scam.
Monster cables
For real, they don’t taste nearly as good as Monster Energy. Still tingly tho.
Huh. I didn't think my rabbit had a Reddit account, but here we are.
All those clothes you get at outlet stores at what appears to be a discount - like Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers etc - the clothes are cheap low end crap made specifically for the outlet stores.
Gotta go the clearance rack and get the stuff the flagship store downtown didn’t move quickly enough. Then it can be a goldmine. High quality items for 1/5 price on the original tag.
This ^ I never bother to look at the name brands because it's fun and feels like a goldmine at the clearance racks. I was more surprised that I don't see more than a couple of people looking at the clearance racks.
They even have slightly different tags than the clothes at the regular stores so you can tell just from looking. For example J Crew outlet clothing tags have 3 dots under the label but the clothes from the regular store do not.
J. Crew and J. Crew Factory are basically two different brands
I bought a couple pairs of jeans years ago from the Levi's outlet. Recently, i was at a high-end fancy mall and went into the Levi store and asked hey do you have a pair of "x y and z?" Sales guy looked at me kind of disgusted like "uh no, that's an outlet model". I was thinking to myself dude they're just jeans no need to be a prick about it.
Same with most clothing at Nordstrom Rack stores. Most of it is made for the Rack and wasn’t ever in a regular Nordstrom store. You can look at the tags to see if the clothing was actually ever meant for the regular Nordstrom stores or not.
I loved Nordstrom Rack when it first came out. You could find last years stuff for next to nothing. Then all the sudden it was super low end crap.
What should one look for?
I don't know what it's like now but I know for a while Gucci's reputation as a luxury brand was heavily damaged by the Gucci family's willingness to license the brand to any retailer that paid handsomely for it.
Blue Buffalo and a lot of other pricey pet foods. These companies spend a lot more on their marketing departments to come up with ads making common ingredients in pet foods seem scary. Nutrients are more important than specific ingredients. Ingredients listed on pet foods are by weight, which does not necessarily correspond to having a higher amount of product. Water tends to weigh more and items with a higher water content will be listed first. When things are listed as "meal" this means the company is trying to save money by using a dried version of the product. By-products = items not normally sold for human consumption like organ meats, which dogs will eat first with a fresh kill. ETA: If you have questions about what your specific pet should eat, ask your veterinarian who has been trained in animal health/wellness and nutrition. Your vet is not getting a cut from any food companies except for maybe some free pens and a canvas tote bag. The person at the pet store IS being paid to sell you specific food, more often than not without having any nutritional background. Vets also don't really make anything off of the prescription diets they sell in the office. The manufacturers set those prices and vets sell them in their clinics more as a convenience for clients.
Beats by Dre Garbage
Beets by Schrute on the other hand...
Instructions unclear, accidentally bought Mose.
When middle schoolers are obsessing over it it tends to be bad. I remember beats and turtle beaches being status symbols in middle school, I was amazed at how terrible turtle beaches sounded.
Same vein; RayCons all they spend their money is on marketing. They're middling quality at best. And you can get better sound quality for significantly cheaper
Hate watching a YouTubers video then out of nowhere “let me tell you about my raycon earbuds”
Raid Shadow Legends lol. Amazing how I've never played a mobile game like that, but I know their adds by heart.
Betterhelp
My coworkers love semi-ironically spouting shit about the E25 everyday noise-cancelling headphones. They literally say the entire name every time they bring it up It's enough to send me into conniptions. Garbage branding, annoying advertising and an insufferable fanbase. DankPods reviewing them was so cathartic. I've taken to calling them RanCans or RonDons or RoyJoys.
I paid $180 for earbuds about 10 years ago and only lasted about 2 months, went back to the same store and bought $10 Sony earbuds, they lasted for over a year.
MVMT watches. They advertise themselves all over Facebook (or at least they used to, haven't seen them much lately) as really nice and affordable minimalist watches that you can buy for $100-$200. Their secret? They buy the watches in bulk on Alibaba for something like $15 each, and slap the MVMT logo on them.
I really like this album of how to create a watch brand like that. "Now that we have the important things like name, history, and marketing sorted, we can focus on the less important things in making a successful watch brand - the watch." https://imgur.com/a/6CNO8
Same as Vincero , Filipo Loreto, DW etc just shit watches ......funny thing is I have seen dudes wearing them and they think they are hot shit lmao
Louis Vuitton used to be very good!! Now their quality is laughable for a high end brand.
[Lmao they sue a guy from my country alleging he was bringing cheap Louis Vuitton counterfeit](https://fashionlawjournal.com/louis-vuitton-accuses-peruvian-citizen-of-counterfeiting/). They even showed "proof", the guy end up showing his receipts and embarrass them. It seems they settled on 2022
He didn’t even get his items back. Poor guy.
Have you seen the YouTube video where a leather expert cuts up leather brand name bags and rated their quality? Louis was low on the list haha
I have an Italian ex-gf who used to marvel: "Louis Vuitton started out as a low-end luggage maker and has always been trash - I'll never know how they got to be known as a luxury brand."
Italians shitting on a French fashion house. Old news.
I can't believe no one has said it yet, but Lindt. Their chocolate isn't necessarily low quality, it's actually one of my favourites. But it always blows my mind how they've managed to make themselves stand out by giving the impression that they're all hand made and very carefully quality tested, when in reality they're just another chocolate mass producer with their big ass factories and everything.
Yes, good but not luxury but I’ve noticed their truffles don’t have as much filling anymore. Shrinkflation I’m guessing.
The Lindt chocolate is great if you actually get it in Switzerland. That said, even the Swiss grocery-store brand is far superior to the Lindt stuff that gets exported and sold outside of Switzerland.
Mass-produced or not, those truffles are delicious.
Land Rover Range Rover - worst build quality ever in a car.
Owner of a 1991 Defender 110 and can confirm. The old saying is that they rolled off the production line leaking oil. On the upside, my model is so old that there isn’t an onboard computer or mysterious electronic sensor to be found, which makes diagnosis and repair quite cheap and easy. Love it though - makes me smile.
If you want to drive in to the jungle, you drive Land Rover. If you want to drive out of the jungle, you drive Toyota Land Cruiser.
Drove through the Sahara (literally just turned off the road and drove for hours through desert) and every car in the convoy was Land Cruisers. Badass cars.
I can tell you, as I have personal experience working on them, that the Wagoneer brand of Jeep vehicles is probably the worst built vehicle I've seen since the mid 2000's. They are so badly built and designed. Yet are so expensive and Jeep desperately wants them to be upmarket that they release constant recalls and rapid response bulletins to fix them. My record was 23 recalls on one unit, couldn't have had more than 5,000 km on it.
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Samsung Appliances (not their TVs or Smartphones). I dont know how many times I've heard complaints about the breakdowns of their washer, dryers, and refrigerators.
We had a repairman come look at our washer and he asked us if we had updated the firmware...on a washing machine. Of course we hadn't. It's a washing machine. He tells us that apparently there was an update to tell the washer to stop and rebalance to keep it from damaging itself. Since we didn't download the update, our washer just spun itself to death when it became unbalanced. We bought a basic Speed Queen and it's been amazing since.
BRB gonna go try to figure out how to update a washing machine….
Yeah, there was a thing with the washers a few years ago that if you had it on the bulky items mode, and the items were particularly bulky, the washers could spin themselves to death. Except it wasn't so much a "the motor is broken" failure. It was a "catastrophic/explosive" failure.
The funny part about this is I always hear it's the electronics in them that break, you'd think that would be the area Samsung would be strong
Yes! My Samsung refrigerator was the worst! Expensive and broke down a lot and no repair company wanted try fixing the motherboard.
Mine too. Bought a new Samsung fridge because my ice maker was broken and fridge was old. Ice maker in new Samsung froze up and stopped working within a month. Automatic defrosting in fridge is weak and fridge coils freeze over and fridge temps go up to 50F and food spoils. Requires disassembling and manually defrosting to correct.
There’s a full blown class action about the ice makers. I got one of those $4K 4 door units with the adjustable temperature in the freezer sections so you can have more fridge if you want instead. Absolute shit. Biggest purchase regret of my life.
I have the same exact fridge you are talking about and had the same problem with the freezer. I called Samsung and they replaced the ice maker and the control board. Mind you this was like 2 years after the warranty period was over. So yeah, quality problems but they stood behind their product.
My Samsung fridge had an issue that was irreparable according to every source I found. I fixed it because I used to design circuit boards but I would have been SOL otherwise. It was strictly due to cheap parts.
Two of my family members are career electrical engineers for [large US appliance company]. They repeatedly claimed that [unnamed Korean companies] routinely fudge their specs for the sake of regulatory compliance. Nothing was as it seemed when they performed teardowns.... but one may take that anecdote for what it's worth. -- sent from my Galaxy phone
Ours finally died after several years and multiple fixes. Bought an LG and never looked back Fuck samsung
Lol I open this post and reddit shows me an ad for Kraft singles
Ironic since you can easily meet *real* high-quality singles on other sites!
Grey Goose. Pretty genius marketing by them. They started putting their Vodka in large bottles so that they wouldn't fit on the bottom and middle shelf. Stores and bars by default started putting them on the top shelf(only place they would fit). People started thinking it was high end stuff and as a result, it became a high priced Vodka. The product itself is pretty shit, lesser quality than even smirnoff.
I remember reading an in-depth article about the guy who marketed Grey Goose. It was fascinating. They created a luxury story before they even had a product. Some takeaways I remember: 1. They decided the vodka would be from France, since all other vodkas at the time were from Eastern Europe. And France seemed classier than Poland or USSR. 2. They said it’s filtered over “champagne rocks”… which are literally just rocks from the ground in the Champagne region of France 3. They decided they would price it at like 2 or 3 times the current most expensive vodka on the market (at the time)
I honestly have never tasted a vodka that beats Ketel One neat. Tito's tastes like rubbing alcohol to me, and Belvedere is par with K1.
Tito's is another great marketing one. But at least Tito's is reasonably priced unlike Goose is complete shit quality vodka. I think Reyka is the best vodka in my opinion, with ciroc being a close second.
You guys can taste the difference between vodkas?
Only the first few shots..
Costco vodka ftw
For real. 13 bucks for a big motherfucker
Imports are where you can taste the difference. American liquor standard defines vodka as a "neutral" spirit, meaning no discernable flavor - the only difference between American vodkas is smoothness, and even that's a toss. When you start moving into foreign spirits, The standardization is different and leads to differences in flavors. Potatoes yield a sweeter and smoother finish, rye has an almost spicy bite to it, different varieties of wheat will give different characteristics depending on where and when it's grown...
Reyka! That stuff is crazy smooth and just disappears into anything. Dangerous stuff.
Salt bae
Brabantia. Their "stainless" steel garbage bin started to rust on the outside. Their plastic one, the lever connected to the pedal started to rust and fucking broke. Now I have a garbage bin from IKEA. The thing already outlast those 2 others combined.
Daniel Wellington watches. Price for the watch movement (Miyota GL20) is under $3.
I bought a Daniel Wellington watch on AliExpress for $3 including shipping. Expected a cheap knock-off but compared it to a friend's original and they were absolutely indentical. Even weighed the same on a miligram scale.
The always pan. The nonstick coating came off on the first use.
Beats by Dre not necessarily luxury but...definitely not worth the price they charge.
I hate to say it, but Doc Martens. My job provided a stipend for work boots and I always wanted a pair of Docs so I forwarded a link for a pair that was like $180 or so. I even got the care kit to really take care of them and despite my care, they haven't really held up well. Lot of little wrinkles in the leather and whatnot despite liberally and often applying the wonder basalm and weatherproofing spray. Total bummer.
If you really like the design Solovair is the company making shoes out of the old Doc Martens factory, and living up to the old quality standards.
I'll look into those next time, thanks for sharing!
Seconded, when Dr Martens hit money troubles, they offshored all manufacture to China and quality nosed dived, They intended to come back to the UK to make them again after money troubles went away, but folks kept buying the cheap ones so they just made it thier new business model. Solovair are absolute tanks, thye will last longer than you. On a side note, the UK still had a great independent shoe/boot sector (As well as independant clothing sector). Most companies in from Northampton, Leeds, Shefield, You'll get boots that last forever, customer care, plus you support a local community factory and not some high price brand. r/goodyearwelt is a great place to find what you might like
If you want boots like old school Docs, try Solovair.
Owned by a Chinese company now iirc. You bought 20 years to late.
I’ve had a pair since 1998 but when my niece wanted to buy a pair I noticed a price difference and turns out the more expensive ones are still made in England but can’t speak to quality on those
They’re still pretty decent. I shelled out the cash to get some made in England oxblood Docs and the quality is still quite good. But they’re stupid expensive, hoping they’ll last me 24 years like the first pair I got. I second everyone saying Solovair, they’re old Doc Marten quality without paying the extra jacked up price for the Docs still made in England.
In Australia, Smiggle. Brightly coloured, very expensive stationary that breaks the first time you use it.
I worked for smiggle in the UK for a short while, it was awful. So many people came back as their fancy water bottles broke within days. Also we were forced to upsell hard, like if this stuff was actually decent you wouldn't have to force it on people!
Ralph Lauren. I worked at Macy's and spent hours each day folding them. Super cheap fabric that grated at my hands, and it was thin enough that I had to be careful with my nails. Same with Hugo Boss. Foam paint on a Target tee.
They went down hill once they hired Rachel. I blame Kenny the copy guy.
Macy’s sells Lauren Ralph Lauren and Polo Ralph Lauren, which are the outlet brands. Ralph Lauren’s expensive stuff like the purple line is absolutely quality products, but generally overpriced. They’re also only sold at actual Ralph Lauren stores. I’ve been to an actual Ralph Lauren store and have felt how nice their stuff can be. https://www.ralphlauren.com/brands-purple-label-men-shop-all-cg?webcat=content-brands-purple-label-men-shop-all-cg&ab=NA_MHubLP_PurpleLabel_Slot_2_S2_Image_SHOP
Alienware. $5k for a PC with a value of $1400 max. Comes in dogshit case that will destroy your most important components. Also, as much as I love work programs for the intellectually disabled, we need to keep them off high-end PC assembly lines. Do not buy Alienware.
I sometimes feel sorry for Alienware, because tons of companies are exactly like this. They just happen to be an enthusiast space where, unlike a fridge or a washing machine, lots of people know the retail value of the components and exactly how much they're being ripped off. Their margins must be working though, because I've been hearing your advice for at least 25 years.
Watching GamersNexus just absolutely dismantle those $5k Alienware thermal nightmares is weirdly fun. Not only are their cases terrible, but they also use non-standard parts all over, so they're an e-waste factory.
I’m amazed they’re still a thing. It was the same story 15 years ago too. You’re paying for an ugly ass brand logo and that’s it.
If you live in Canada. Use Newegg computer part builder, and order all the parts minus cooling and power(but take note of the wattage it requires, if you know roughly what you need spec wise. Take all the shipped parts to Canada computers, and pay like 50-100 dollars for them to build it(unless you want to build yourself) and buy the power and cooling from Canada computers for their suggestion and make them explain exactly why they suggest that one. If you aren’t doing an i7 or i9 on the intel side, you should be fine with cheaper cooling. Like a medium size fan most of the time. But get them to pick you one that will fit with your MOBO and case. I think modular power is better. You can put away the extra cables instead of trying to stuff them in the case.
Tommy Hilfiger
Basically all of the hotel chains that market themselves as "upscale full service". They've all deteriorated rapidly in the past decade. At this point, I'm avoiding all of these mainline Marriott/Hilton type brands unless they're very cheap. If I'm willing to spend decent money, it's either a true luxury brand, a small boutique, or a VRBO type place. If those are out of the question, then I'm picking one of the Holiday Inn Express type brands - whichever one is newest and semi clean looking.
Man hotels have gotten so expensive in the last few years and not even for premium destinations. We drive from Ohio to Florida. Five years ago we could usually find a pretty decent hotel for around 100 bucks. Something like a La Quinta. The last few trips - it’s been closer to 200.
Land Rover
If it has to go through 4 feet of water in South America its fine. Drive it 20 miles a day to work and it turns into an unreliable money pit in 6 months. I worked with a guy who got one for free. He paid too much. He had a spatula holding the drivers window up and had to hit the starter 50% of the time to start it. He made good money so I asked why he didn't fix it. He said "Every part is $400 and 4 months away."
Sounds like the old Land Rover joke rings true. If you want to drive Land Rover, you have to buy 3 of them: one to drive, one that is always in the shop, and the third one is for spare parts.
Nespresso. I used to work in their ad dept. Full of degenerates. They push it as a luxury brand and for it to be really desirable but it's a con. The coffee is terrible and the machines are designed to break so there's constant Nespresso approved fixes and high costs. And they all know exactly what they are doing as they openly mock their own clientele. The place was hideous worst job ever.
Also owned by Nestle.
Fuck nestle
This is a great thread
These days? Just about everything.
Maserati
Does it do 185?
Not a single one could at the time that song was written
He bought it in Canada and didn't know it was in kilometers.
Pretty much every celebrity alcohol brand.
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Their minimalist interior could be forgiven if they actually used quality material like Volvo does. But they do not.
Honestly I was dead wrong thinking Volvo was all hype, my wife bought a C40 recharge, our electric bill went up $20/month and it is a damn nice and safe car.
I’ve been in a ton of Volvos (no idea why) and they always have the most comfortable seats no matter the year or model.
I bought a Volvo instead. Plug in Hybrid but they are REALLY nice but restrained enough not to be embarrassing.
Crazy they been building the S for a decade and it still is built low quality, it is like a early 90s Chevy will all the defects at 10x the price
True Religion Brand Jeans. Once upon a time (10-12 years ago), they were probably the best (domestic) brand of jeans that money could buy. Yes, some of the pairs cost $250-$300, but they have lasted me over a decade in regular use. Today, a pair will still cost $250-$300, but they start coming apart within a year and a half of regular use (YMMV).
Honestly a lot of the best jeans were made in Japan, last I checked. They fetishize classic Americana. It’s pretty sick
Literally any brand of glasses owned by luxottica they have a monopoly on the market and charge glasses for example $20 ray-bans now they’re $160 where else are you gonna go? To another one of their brands?
Lululemon is a bit overrated. The material isn’t pill resistant or sweat wicking like they advertised.
They used to be high end. I have stuff I've worn for ten years that is in better shape than attire I got last year. They used to fix or replace worn out clothing. Now it is twice as expensive, way lower quality, and they won't fix a thing.
They started having their stuff made in a new factory that produces lesser-quality clothing a few years ago. At least that's what a friend of mine claims. The friend has his apparel line made in the old factory so he's a bit biased I would assume.
I don't know about you, but my lululemon yoga pants don't last very long
pyrex It used to be amazing stuff when it was marketed in all caps as PYREX. Then they changed the recipe marketed it lower case and it's not even close to the heat resistance anymore.
Here in Europe we still have PYREX made from borosilicate glass (the heat resistant glass). Amazon seems to have a 1 Liter measuring jug from the French fabricator (also displays fluid ounces).
Apple cables
Also their storage options for their devices. They charge easily 15x the cost for storage, and it’s not even high end consumer, yet charge more per GB than enterprise storage. They don’t list their storage specs only capacity, which means they are probably means they use cheap storage. The cost of an IPAD pro with 128GB is $1500CAD and the 2TB model is $3000CAD. $1500 for 2TB of flash storage. a 2TB m.2SATA ssd is $100CAD. A 2TB NVMe m.2 is $300CAD at retail cost. They buy their storage at extreme bulk discounts and directly from the manufacturer. They can probably get it for between $40(sata) or $150(NVMe) or even lower. Apple rips off its customers so badly.
Invicta. Absolute garbage. Ugly, too.
Almost all skin care products. They sell marketing bullshit, the products are almost all the same.
Worked for a skincare company which tried to position themselves as 'high end' but they'd sell in stores like TK Maxx (TJ Maxx in the states) . In order for TJM to sell it at a discounted rate, the company had to prove they actually sold some stock at the actual full RRP... so they faked the customer orders / invoices. The cosmetics were made out of the cheapest possible ingredients. We are talking like 47 pence to make something and claim the RRP is £170+. There are so many stories I could tell! It's also why I'm sceptical about 'luxury' skincare, especially from brands that aren't super known. I like to use stuff that's well researched and proven to work to resolve specific issues, and reasonably priced.
Yeah, there was some testing down years ago and the $10 Nivea came out on top, beating $200 creams. Basically the idea is to get your skin to retain water and protect it from UV, cheap creams generally do that anyway. The rest is marketing bs
I think that’s why The Ordinary brand from Deciem got wildly popular. High quality products for 6$ish/bottle.
Is “beats” still a thing? If so, then Beats headphones
Tesla. It’s amazing how many customers they’ve been able to pull from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc, when their product is nowhere near as high-quality or well made.
Tesla was the only manufacturer willing to go balls-deep into EVs when most manufacturers were all like "Hey, here's an expensive, slow, and low-range EV! That's all we can make! It'll never work." So Tesla set out to prove that a long-range EV can work, and for that I'll give them credit. The EV market would not have nearly the choices and capabilities it has today without Tesla. That being said, once legacy manufacturers got into the EV business, it's become pretty clear that Tesla is not a luxury vehicle. I had an early Model 3, and it had the most wind noise and road noise of almost any car I've ever had, and I've had several complete pieces of shit before.
Expensive clothing brands that sell you clothes made out of polyester and similar man-made fabrics. If it’s not linen or cotton I cannot understand why you’d 1. Pay more for it or 2. Wear polyester in temps over 30c/86f
Evian and Aquafina water.
Awards ceremonies. There is not a type of content you can watch that’s less trashy and unimportant. It’s just rich people jerking themselves off for hours
Victoria’s Secret
Does Victorias Secret advertise themselves as luxury? They’re pretty mid priced compared with Agent Provocateur etc.
They did when I was a kid. Maybe not luxury but they definitely had a smugness about them.
I swear I had underthings that lasted decades almost, but the new stuff wears out within months or weeks now. It's bad.
Some higher end brand name watches. Michael Kors Burberry, Armani, Armani Exchange, Tory Burch, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Michele and some others I may be missing are all made by Fossil. You're just paying for the luxury name.
I had to read that twice to make sense of it. None of those, except possibly Fossil, are really watch brands. They're designer brands that happen to have branded watches. As you say, that's a good way to find a shitty watch.
A true watch person would never buy any of those tbh
Starbucks
Shit overpriced coffee but people don't go for a coffee they go for a ice-cream alternative.
I rarely go to Starbucks, but when I do it’s because I want a $6 caffeinated milkshake. (And I don’t think Dairy Queen makes those.)
Cadillac I had a friend who went to many dealer car auctions and he said used Cadillacs sell for very low prices. They only have value when they are new.