Backpacks got worse on purpose

Backpacks got worse on purpose(worseonpurpose.com)

432 points by 113 33 days ago | 386 comments

While I personally find this kind of thing extremely annoying, to me, the main problem is the _difficulty_ of determining quality. The Donut media guys did a (relatively unscientific) video comparing a whole bunch of products from the 50s to modern day across several price points. What they found was that the things that "looked" the same now were simultaneously worse and also much cheaper. They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price. It was just that the brands and names that used to be quality were now usually not as much.

So it is often the case that today, you can get something for cheaper than you ever could in the past (albeit not at a great quality), and if you are willing to pay higher prices (but often about the same as you would have paid in the past), you can still get good or even better quality.

The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.

edit: found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4C62HC1HSo

drBonkers 32 days ago | |

> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price.

I argue you must evaluate against median purchasing power; it accounts for inflation and (lack of) wage increases.

Comments from your linked video:

> The problem with the “adjusted for inflation” argument is that it does not factor in buying power. The increase in wages has risen at out half the rate of inflation, so sure; $20 in 1975 would be $124 today, but the minimum wage in 1975 was $2.10 an hour as opposed to $7.25 today, giving you half the buying power you had 50 years ago.

> healthcare, housing, and education ... have increased by an insane margin leaving people with less money once that has been paid for (if at all).

> It's even worse when you consider that people are paying 45-55% of their monthly income on a house that cost 20x more than it would have in 1975. Your buying power is fucked from all sides.

sophiabits 32 days ago | | |

Purchasing power is probably a better metric in a vacuum, but it's hard to analyze accurately

For example, the comment you're citing is claiming that because minimum wage has increased only 3x over the same period of time in which inflation has eroded the relative value of a dollar by 6x, that wages overall have increased at half the rate of inflation. But minimum wage is a measurement of a minimum, while inflation is a measurement of /average/ price increase so they can't be compared 1:1 in this way.

The housing argument also seems odd. In New Zealand (where I'm from -- I'm not familiar with the US' housing market, so the commenter could be right about that geo!) house prices have increased by far more than 20x since the 70s, but the houses available are of substantially higher quality due to improved regulations (e.g. all newer homes are subject to healthy homes rules which mandate insulation) so just comparing inflation-adjusted home prices vs income doesn't tell the full story

(Aside from that, a whole heap of items like food, electronics, transportation are all both far cheaper AND higher quality today than in the 70s)

nearbuy 32 days ago | | |

This isn't true for median purchasing power. You're looking at the federal minimum wage, not the median. Only about 1% of hourly workers earn $7.25 or less.

Median earnings were $48,070 in 1975, measured in 2024 dollars, and $51,370 in 2024.

Ajedi32 32 days ago | | |

Median purchasing power has increased by 12% since 1979 (data doesn't go back to 1975) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

vdqtp3 32 days ago | | |

I'm really frustrated by inflation numbers because there doesn't seem to be a metric that makes sense.

CPI ignores the reality people feel (and swaps in cheaper items that aren't necessarily on par with the original to keep the number lower), gold isn't really a 1:1 with purchasing power...there must be some sort of useful composite metric that merges multiple data points over time like rental/house prices, CPI market basket, dollar vs hard assets like gold to come up with a more accurate number.

mvdtnz 32 days ago | | |

Now do the same analysis but using median wage not minimum. YouTube comments are for entertainment purposes only.

Eisenstein 32 days ago | |

Akerlof famously wrote about this in 'The Market for Lemons'.

"Suppose buyers cannot distinguish between a high-quality car (a "peach") and a low-quality car (a "lemon"). Then they are only willing to pay a fixed price for a car that averages the value of a "peach" and "lemon" together (pavg). But sellers know whether they hold a peach or a lemon. Given the fixed price at which buyers will buy, sellers will sell only when they hold "lemons" (since plemon < pavg) and they will leave the market when they hold "peaches" (since ppeach > pavg). Eventually, as enough sellers of "peaches" leave the market, the average willingness-to-pay of buyers will decrease (since the average quality of cars on the market decreased), leading to even more sellers of high-quality cars to leave the market through a positive feedback loop. Thus the uninformed buyer's price creates an adverse selection problem that drives the high-quality cars from the market. Adverse selection is a market mechanism that can lead to a market collapse."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

psadauskas 32 days ago | |

Its also gotten harder to trust them to maintain that quality, too.

A product gets good reviews in Consumer Reports or the Wire Cutter or reddit, and the company making it knows they're gonna sell a ton of them, so they start cutting corners, or even start selling a slightly different product with the same model number.

Or you find a decent brand that makes good products, they get popular and grow and in come the MBAs with ideas on how to increase profits. Or they get bought by Private Equity and carry on only by brand momentum.

kqr 32 days ago | | |

> A product gets good reviews in Consumer Reports or the Wire Cutter or reddit, and the company making it knows they're gonna sell a ton of them, so they start cutting corners

I think this is true, but for far less malicious reasons. Favourable reviews lead to popularity, which increases production pressures, which makes it harder to source quality materials and maintain a quality process while satisfying demand.

I have heard of several indie makers who, faced with sudden popularity, have to make the tough choice of speeding up the process at reduced quality (and thus dissatisfy customers) or be unable to fill orders (and thus dissatisfy customers). Everyone handles it differently but it's not pleasant for anyone.

joshstrange 32 days ago | | |

Even for products without CR/WC-levels of traffic being thrown at them do this.

My parents had silverware they liked, 10-ish years later we had lost or chipped a handful of them and they bought replacements. They look identical and feel identical…. Except the new ones clearly used lighter (read: cheaper) materials and then put a weight inside the handle to make them feel the same. The problem is that the weight is not attached well and can become detached and start sliding around making the handle rattle when you turn/invert it.

Just so irritating to know that effectively every product/brand will do this in the end.

palmotea 32 days ago | |

> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also gotten harder in many cases.

And there's a perverse effect to that difficulty: even if you really want high quality, it can be so hard to be sure you're getting it that you give up and just by the cheapest thing, because at least then you know you're not getting taken advantage of (by buying crappy for premium prices).

cratermoon 32 days ago | | |

My rule is to never buy the cheapest thing, because to a point, you get what you pay for. But my other rule is not to spend extra for brand recognition or supposed higher quality. There's a middle range where you get reasonable value, better-than-crap stuff. Too low and you're buying junk, too high and you're overpaying, perhaps for brand or reputation, for something you can get elsewhere for less.

CWuestefeld 32 days ago | |

That's a worthwhile observation.

It's good that there are lower-quality alternatives available. It means that people who couldn't in the past afford something at all, are now more likely to have some path to getting it.

And even if you could afford the higher quality, you may not need it anyway. I've got a number of tools in my workshop that I'll probably use less than 10 times ever. I have no need of a high-quality product in these cases. I'd rather pay a fraction of that price to have something that'll survive the light duty that I put it to because I won't demand anything greater.

But you're right, when you do need the higher quality, it can be tough to differentiate.

bluGill 32 days ago | | |

> I've got a number of tools in my workshop that I'll probably use less than 10 times ever. I have no need of a high-quality product in these cases. I'd rather pay a fraction of that price to have something that'll survive the light duty that I put it to because I won't demand anything greater.

I've been burned too often with this thinking. All too often the cheap tool isn't just light duty so it breaks, it is not good enough to do the job at all. If the motor is too weak the tool won't do the job. If the wrench isn't precise enough it will round the bolt - this is worse than breaking: you can't fix the thing at all anymore with any quality of tool.

I don't need the best tools, but I need one that is enough quality to do the job, and the cheap tools generally fail.

eesmith 32 days ago | | |

There are a lot of products which are nowhere near my Pareto frontier, but for the most part I lack the information needed to make that judgement.

The result is that I, like others, spend too much on crappy products.

rangerelf 32 days ago | | |

The problem isn't the availability of lower quality versions of a high-quality product, it's the transformation of a formerly high-quality product into a shitty-quality version, meanwhile, maintaining the same price, or worse, a higher price, than the former high-quality version of itself.

The price tags on tools don't go down with time, but the quality of the tools certainly does.

I'm all for tiering product lines, harbor freight is doing it right by offering their top-of-the-line in the Hercules brand, a "pretty good for non contractor" line with Bauer, and then there's lower tiers for one-offs. But if I look for, and buy, a Porter Cable tool, I'm buying it because I expect a certain performance and quality, but it's in fact a rug pull right now. That should be fraud.

II2II 32 days ago | | |

I agree that it is nice to have the option when you don't need the quality. It is also nice to have the option when you are trying something new and don't know if you want to invest in quality. Yet the article goes further than that. They are suggesting that companies are capturing a significant fraction of the market, so there is less pressure to produce quality goods. Whether this is resulting in lower quality goods overall, people are debating over. On the other hand, it does seem to be making it difficult to determine what goods are higher quality.

adgjlsfhk1 32 days ago | | |

> It's good that there are lower-quality alternatives available.

The problem is that there is no way for consumers to know whether they are getting the good version or the shit version. This creates a structural incentive to not produce good versions since consumers will assume that the good version is just an over-priced shit version (because the expensive version is often just an over-priced shit version)

tshaddox 32 days ago | | |

How much of the price reduction is directly attributable to externalities, for example the fact that to replace the lifetime of one expensive item there are going to be 10 cheap versions of the item tossed in the trash?

hombre_fatal 32 days ago | |

I watched some comparison videos like that, but the old product was always more expensive than what you'd tend to buy today.

Same seems to be true in that video you linked. And when you buy an equivalently-priced product today, it's better than it was 50 years ago. I only skipped through the video though.

The problem I have is that there's no easy way to go to an ecommerce marketplace and pick "I want to spend more for higher quality". You have to do your own external research.

bluGill 32 days ago | | |

That is what I miss the most from the old stores. I knew when I went to Sears I'd get a good enough thing. I could often find the exact same thing under a different name for less elsewhere if I looked (Sears made no secret that their house brands were someone else's product with the Sears name on it). I knew I could often find better if I looked. However I could trust that it was a good enough product for my needs and so only a few people had any reason to try elsewhere. (the above used to apply stores like J.C. Pennies, and Wards - though Wards was already failing when I was a kid)

Amazon has everything, but I don't want everything. I want someone to the comparisons for me so decide what is good enough. Reviews are worthless - even when not a scam (which many are), most people buy one and so they can only report it works they don't know how it compares to some other model that they didn't buy.

GolfPopper 32 days ago | | |

>there's no easy way to go to an ecommerce marketplace and pick "I want to spend more for higher quality".

It's not just that it's difficult for a purchaser to determine the balance between price and quality on a given product, that difficulty is deliberate. It goes well beyond the Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness[1]. Vast fortunes are extracted from a public who would make different (and arguably better) purchasing choices if they were not deceived by those who profit from the deception. It's become normalized, which does not change that the process of wealth transfer via deception (fraud under color of law) is destructive to law, society, and pretty much any sort of real public good.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

ToucanLoucan 32 days ago | | |

> The problem I have is that there's no easy way to go to an ecommerce marketplace and pick "I want to spend more for higher quality".

Not even isolated to ecommerce, really. This is everything now. The cars you shop for, half on the lot were made by a different OEM and are rebadged and sold by this one. Clothing is a fucking mess, both in terms of quality and sizing. Corporate consolidation is a ludicrously under-discussed issue and one of the bigger reasons everything just kind of sucks now.

It's one of the things that keeps me with Apple really, for all the warts, at least I know what I'm fucking buying.

dfxm12 32 days ago | | |

I think that's ok. I mean, I don't know how it could be trusted.

First, it's not an easy question to answer, especially for products with many qualities. For example, qualities of a kitchen knife: looks, ergonomics, steel type, ease of sharpening, edge retention, handle materials, grind, shape, thickness, weight, weight distribution, ease of maintenance, etc. Some qualities are opposed and some are subjective, so you can't "max out" a knife's qualities.

Second, even for unitask items, like a fire extinguisher, a store exists to make money. They'll always push you towards items with highest margins.

moolcool 32 days ago | |

> The Donut media guys

Actually the speeeed guys, now. They left because Donut went to shit after getting purchased by Private Equity. Surprise, surprise.

drob518 32 days ago | | |

There's some irony for you.

moritzwarhier 32 days ago | |

Aren't all of your points already addressed in the article?

> Someone in the industry pushed back on an earlier version of this piece with a fair point: VF Corp's brands still operate with their own design teams and their own headquarters. The brands aren't literally merged. And the premium tiers within North Face and JanSport still use quality materials. The Summit Series from TNF still has Cordura. You can still find a JanSport with YKK zippers if you know where to look.

> All of that is true. But it actually makes the argument worse, not better.

(emphasis mine)

> The fact that VF Corp kept the premium tiers intact while degrading the entry-level and mid-range products means this was a deliberate segmentation strategy. They still make the good version. They just also sell a garbage version under the same trusted name, in the same stores, to the people who don't know the difference. The brand reputation built by decades of quality products is now being used to move cheap products to buyers who trust the logo.

> Walmart's JanSport and REI's JanSport are not the same bag. But they carry the same name, and that's the point. The name is doing the selling. The product doesn't have to.

Admittedly, they still equate higher price with quality, but it doesn't change much about the problem that economies of scale degenerate into market failure when there is no real competition anymore.

yason 32 days ago | |

> The main issue is that _determining_ which products actually are quality has also > gotten harder in many cases.

There was a brief window in time where price would be a useful signal. Among all cheap crap, good quality did cost but also deliver. Then someone figured they can leverage branding to sell crap for the price of good quality items, and now even if you're willing to spend money you can't be sure you're actually getting the good stuff.

Buying not maybe the cheapest but the second cheapest is more expensive overall but unfortunately also more manageable.

peacebeard 32 days ago | |

Yeah feels like the only way to find a quality product now is to find a good niche reviewer on YouTube and watch 5 hours of content.

eudamoniac 32 days ago | |

> They also found that, if inflation adjusted, you get could, in most categories, the same or better quality for the same price

This is what so many don't understand, especially among the youth / reddit crowd. They expect their $25 jeans to be equivalent quality to the $25 or even $100 jeans from 60 years ago, for some reason. There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.

There's also very few people who understand just how expensive things were back then, likely a result of having infinite cheap crap available. They don't know that in 1970, in today's money, a fridge was ~$4000, a burger and fries was $17, and a typical dress was $350. The only thing that has changed is that there are now options for cheap shitty things. You can still buy a very nice $4000 fridge if you want to.

probably_wrong 32 days ago | | |

> There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.

But so many things did become cheaper and better: computers, availability and quality [1] of the music I can physically buy, the energy efficiency of modern fridges, the speed and safety of modern cars. Even my milk lasts impossibly long without spoiling.

If the replacement laptop battery I can buy today for ~$50 is leagues ahead of anything available in the 70s, then why aren't jeans and backpacks also miles ahead of what was available back then? No wonder the younger crowd is confused.

[1] Yes, CDs are objectively better than vinyl. Whether the audio mastering has kept up is a different topic.

eesmith 32 days ago | | |

"a burger and fries was $17"? That doesn't seem right.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/mcdonalds-old-photos/ shows a menu at McDonalds from the early 1970s. A hamburger and fries was $0.63 or (assuming 1970 and adjusting for inflation) $5.36 now. A quarter pounder and fries was $1.27, or $10.81 now. Add $0.15 or $0.20 for a soda ($1.28 or $1.70).

That's a lot less than $17. Add $1.28

To double check, in 1983 a hamburger and fries was $1.82 - https://archive.org/details/ucladailybruin92losa/page/n542/m... .

That corresponds to $6.03 now.

What sort of hamburger places were you thinking of that charged 3x the price of McDonald's, and do they only charge $17 now?

thaumasiotes 32 days ago | | |

> They don't know that in 1970, in today's money, a fridge was ~$4000, a burger and fries was $17, and a typical dress was $350.

The Internet Archive claims to have Sears Catalogues from many years including 1970. If we check out Spring/Summer 1970, we can see that they actually have the first 33 pages of a catalogue that prominently advertises "index begins on page 391".

Disappointing.

That said, a women's dress from those first 33 pages costs $11, or about $100 in today's money.

dfxm12 32 days ago | | |

There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.

It's less an implicit feeling, and more explicitly what's being marketed to us. Think about AI. It's being marketed that it will make everything better and cheaper. Computers before that. Machines before that. All kinds of things in between.

I don't doubt this is possible, especially if these technologies are properly democratized, but greed gets in the way, of course. No one wants to sell you just one fridge at a respectable mark up. These tools don't really go into making a better fridge, per se, but finding what you're willing to and how frequently you're willing to replace it and design planned obsolescence around that. They add subscription features. They want you to log into your fridge to track and sell your behavior, etc.

bluGill 32 days ago | | |

I bought some $100 jeans a few months ago, hoping they would be better than the $25 I used to buy 30 years ago. They are not better than the $25 jean I can buy elsewhere today.

parliament32 32 days ago | | |

> There seems to be some implicit feeling that everything ought to be getting better and cheaper than it used to be.

But don't we see this everywhere, all the time? Pull up any of the recent Claude Code threads about the product's declining quality and you'll see at least a handful of well-upvoted comments about how text generators are definitely going to get cheaper while simultaneously getting "better" over time.

_DeadFred_ 32 days ago | | |

Because this is the promise made to us by capitalism/capitalists. Efficient markets will drive down prices/improve quality. A rising tide lifts all boats.

It's kind of like China after Tiananmen where the promise is quality of life will go up in exchange for nobody talks/questions.

If capitalism can't deliver on it's promise (more and more people don't feel that it is) then we need to have a talk.

kimos 32 days ago | |

A subreddit or forum like this is a good resource:

https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/

But it turns every decision into an exhausting research and optimization project.

account42 25 days ago | | |

It's only a good resource until unscrupulous marketers catch up. Which probably already happened.

everdrive 32 days ago | |

I think this is a good analysis, and the topic is more nuanced than we might originally think. For me the modern problem is not that no quality products exist, but rather there is very little to actually help consumers understand when they're being fleeced by a luxury product which is no better than the "cheap" product. So many of these exist. They are "fancier" and have more feature, but do not actually have a better build quality or have better reliability.

The other big modern problem would be repair-ability. A lot of the old 1950s products might not be any better once you adjust for inflation but a LOT of them are significantly cheaper and easier to repair.

esalman 32 days ago | |

I'd also recommend the Project Farm review of backpacks- https://youtu.be/cSm48oVCaWc?si=AbTyU9mzOJc5vfbR

Gud 32 days ago | |

I often see this argument but I don’t buy it.

People used to study the items they were buying, not look at the brand.

You (probably) live in a hyper capitalistic society where many corporations promote their brands through lies and deception. That is a very strong filter already - avoid the (mostly American) transnational giant corporations and buy from companies that are mostly local and aren’t hyperscaling.

Sure the mainstream brands are shit but there are dozens, hundreds of brands for a fair price point that aren’t for every shitty corporation.

Don’t buy Levi’s, buy Nudies.

oxag3n 32 days ago | |

It is difficult and requires time investment.

I often searched BIFL sub-reddit to find things quality things and it did fail me in the past. After years of broken dishware created a weird collection, I followed the BIFL advice and bought Corelle glass dishes. Only three years later of daily heavy use and dishwasher all the dishes have degraded edge, which looks and feels just like chipped glass.

Looking through specialized forums helps sometimes, but then you are looking at Hermès dishware and doubting what are you paying for - quality or art.

m000 32 days ago | |

> So it is often the case that today, you can get something for cheaper than you ever could in the past (albeit not at a great quality), and if you are willing to pay higher prices (but often about the same as you would have paid in the past), you can still get good or even better quality.

But with the advent and advances of several decades, aren't you supposed to be able to get better quality for cheaper today?

idontwantthis 32 days ago | |

I find that the cheaper option is often so much cheaper that buying several replacements is better than buying the better one. Ninja blenders vs Vitamix for example. Adding in the fact that I have no trusted evidence that Vitamix is actually better, I’d be fine replacing my Ninja every year vs amortizing the Vitamix over five or more years. And for the record my Ninja has been great so far.

tristor 32 days ago | | |

> I find that the cheaper option is often so much cheaper that buying several replacements is better than buying the better one. Ninja blenders vs Vitamix for example. Adding in the fact that I have no trusted evidence that Vitamix is actually better, I’d be fine replacing my Ninja every year vs amortizing the Vitamix over five or more years. And for the record my Ninja has been great so far.

I understand this logic, but the flaw here is that you are only considering bare functionality, not quality of function. This comes up a lot in small appliances and things like power tools, but is especially relevant in the kitchen. It's not only that you can perform a task better with a better quality product, it's that the result of the task is better for you. What do I mean by that? Well most cheaper products heavily utilize plastics, and shed microplastics due to friction wear during operation, where-as better quality products typically have more metal and glass construction and are designed with more isolation between the result of the task and the machine performing it.

The attitude you have here is common, and not necessarily incorrect from one perspective, but it is driving things like fast fashion and the proliferation of plastic on plastic contact in food prep in home kitchens, two of the highest contributing factors to microplastics ingestion, which is a problem that has strong correlations to population-scale hormonal imbalances, as well as key growing diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Our society is literally contributing to killing ourselves in order to shave a few pennies per-unit off basic everyday tools and conveniences.

simplyluke 32 days ago | | |

I understand that logic, but as a counter, my time and frustration are worth something to me. I've actually owned both a Vitamix and a Ninja, and start basically every morning with a blended combo of protein/fruits/frozen greens, so it's a great example. A lot of the premium for me in a better product isn't just lasting longer and not throwing things away constantly, it's avoiding the frustration of using worse tools.

The vitamix has been thoughtless for me in 6 years of daily use other than sharpening the blade every so often and replacing the bearing for the blade once (both easily done by me at home). I wake up bleary eyed, throw my stuff in there, and let it eat for a minute while I get my coffee going. The ninja on the other hand did a consistently worse job, required me to remove it and shake the contents of the blender, and then randomly fried itself one day in a way that I had no chance at fixing and scrambled my breakfast plans for multiple days. What's daily frustration worth for a half decade of my life? At least to me, a lot more than the premium to get the better tool.

maxglute 32 days ago | |

How much of it is people lost skill to determine quality. When everyone did some mending, population had baseline ability to discern quality in clothing, and clothing companies less likely to pull shenanigans.

rizzom5000 32 days ago | |

With some product categories there are independent testing laboratories that do a fairly good job of determining quality. The automotive industry comes to mind.

It seems it's a revealed preference that most people really don't care that much about quality, or there would exist a host of companies like Consumer Reports to meet the demand. Complaining on social media about enshittification and evil corporations does not put skin in the game.

I myself constantly complain about the atrocious quality of most consumer software products, but I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay for a subscription to an independent testing report.

imcritic 32 days ago | |

Doesn't the problem of quality now being barely distinguishable mean that manufacturers would aim to fool consumers by setting high prices to low quality goods to mimic as high quality goods (which probably can't be cheap by definition)?

If that is so - the rest of your points become invalid.

bluefirebrand 32 days ago | | |

I personally think many clothing brands are doing this. You absolutely cannot assume higher price points mean higher quality anymore

tshaddox 32 days ago | |

I think there are also 2 senses in which it's difficult to determine quality. The first sense is just that many things require expert attention, special tools, and or a lot of time to evaluate the quality. And for niche items, there might just not be a reputable reviewer out there. This is frustrating, but somewhat unavoidable.

The second sense is more insidious. Sometimes companies deliberately obfuscate the source and identity of products, making it difficult to even know if a product you saw a review of is the same product you'll get if you buy it now. I believe companies also do this simply to make price comparison impossible.

This is an abominable practice, and in my view should be extremely illegal. I'm very much a free market guy, but clearly labeling and identifying the products you sell should be a bare minimum requirement to gain access to any market.

gaze 32 days ago | |

I mean I get your argument but it feels like one should adjust for wage growth instead. One labor unit of value converts to a shittier backpack.

CWuestefeld 32 days ago | | |

The other side of that coin is that someone whose units of labor demand less value can still get into the market.

fwipsy 32 days ago | |

Perhaps it's gotten harder to determine by eye, but Google will still point you towards trustworthy brands in 2 minutes. The problem is people don't care or can't be bothered to Google.

palmotea 32 days ago | | |

> Perhaps it's gotten harder to determine by eye, but Google will still point you towards trustworthy brands in 2 minutes.

One of the main points of the article is you cannot rely on the brand to determine quality. The marketers know how to exploit a reputation for quality and information asymmetries to push crappy goods, for instance:

> Walmart's JanSport and REI's JanSport are not the same bag. But they carry the same name, and that's the point. The name is doing the selling. The product doesn't have to.

And this:

> People who do get warranty replacements report receiving bags that are worse than the one they sent in. Thinner fabric. Cheaper hardware. You mailed back a 2016 JanSport and got a 2025 JanSport, and those are fundamentally different products.

When you Google, are you reading a rave review of a 2016 bag, when the 2026 model has been crapified? Is the bag you're looking at on Amazon the Walmart JanSport or the REI JanSport?

34679 32 days ago |

If you're looking for a backpack, I can't recommend Osprey enough. They are still a independent US company with a lifetime warranty they actually stand by. I had to call their customer service just last week after I ordered the wrong size bag. I was connected to an actual human immediately, and he sent me a prepaid return label, even though it was my fault and I was fully expecting to pay for return shipping myself. I own several of their bags and have never had a single issue with any of them.

furyofantares 32 days ago |

> I'll be writing about those next.

I doubt it, you didn't write about this! You prompted it and signed your name to it.

emtel 32 days ago |

I bought a north face backpack for college in 1998. It cost $60. It was an extravagant expense for me at the time and I felt horrible about it for weeks.

That backpack is currently at college with my son, who used it all through high school as well. It is by far the oldest and most durable daily-use object I’ve ever owned.

cortesoft 32 days ago |

As much as the result for consumers sucks, is this just a result of the quality backpack business not being a very profitable business to be in anymore?

The reason they were able to buy all those backpack brands is because each of those brands were not making much money running a backpack company selling quality at a reasonable price. The purchaser makes some money leeching value out of the brand reputation, but then that brand value falls because of the crappy product, and they sell the brand because they leeched all the value out of it.

This is only possible because you can’t make much money selling quality for a good price. Consumers will pick lower quality for the cheapest price every time.

ghighi7878 32 days ago |

> A $35 JanSport that dies in eighteen months: $23 per year. Add the shipping cost when you try the warranty. Add the replacement cost when the claim gets denied. Add your time.

> A $200 bag that lasts ten years: $20 per year. Already cheaper. At fifteen years, which the well-built ones consistently do, you're at $13 per year.

This ignores the money you would earn by not giving money upfront. A 23$ expense every year is cheaper than 200$ upfront over 10 years, because you will earn 15 euros over that 170 Euro first year if you put it in S&P500. And then 12 nect year and and 10 in third year and you are already ahead of the 200 Eurro bag. And you just dont spend time in warranty. Just throw it away dn buy next one for 35 Euros.

consumer451 32 days ago |

I spent way too much money on a Peak Design backpack. 4 years in, the zipper broke. They honored the lifetime warranty, and swapped me for a brand new one.

That was my first time ever dealing with such a high-end product and a lifetime warranty.

Just sharing because it was a good experience.

elwebmaster 32 days ago |

We always see consumers blamed for choosing price over quality. How about retailers taking the blame for dumbing down or removing product specs? If two items look identical but one costs more than the other how can consumer be blamed for choosing the cheaper ones? Especially in the age of LLMs, it you are building a quality product you need to include a spec sheet of what makes your product better than the competitor. Not dumbed down marketing speak like "lasts longer" but specific details justifying the premium, like "zippers made in Japan" or the stitching density, fabric specifics, etc. Consumers who care can use LLM to understand what it all means and make informed choice. But when the information is hidden consumer will choose the cheapest option.

thegrim33 32 days ago | |

Every backpack I've ever bought I was able to easily find all the relevant specifications I needed in order to choose a quality a pack. If you're looking at a pack which doesn't provide such specifications then that's an immediate giveaway that it's a low quality pack. It's not difficult, the average person really just does not care to do research. They instead just choose the cheapest one with the advertising that hooked them the best. But the information is there if you want it.

delichon 32 days ago |

I've got a story of this but backwards. I know a guy, a hiking guru, moderately famous for his backpacks. He's an ultralight long distance enthusiast who designs much of his own equipment. I went to his house for a weekend session with a few people to learn to make our own, and I'm still using the one I made. For a few years he made and sold them out of his living room. Then he sold his brand to an outfit that scaled it up into a decent business.

But the lightweight hiking guru made ultralight backpacks, with thin material and very minimal extras. It was designed to be light by a guy who could sew, so he was happy to fix it as needed on the trail. To him that was a feature not a bug. Meanwhile the company that bought the brand and design necessarily made it more robust, feature-full, and twice as heavy. They were pretty much forced to by the number of returns they were getting.

So now I treasure my old backpack that worseonpurpose would probably deplore, and keep it repaired so that I don't have to make another or go buy one that worseonpurpose would probably like better.

hayleox 32 days ago |

I wonder if there's an advertising law angle here. If a company sells multiple products in the same product category, they really shouldn't be allowed to have them branded so that they seem like multiple companies. The main name/logo on these products should be required to have something that makes it clear that they're all from the same company.

They can pick one of their backpack brands to keep (and eliminate/sell off the rest), or they can tack "VF" onto the front of each brand name, or something like that. A customer shouldn't have to dig into the fine print or do research to know whether two products are from the same manufacturer.

Anamon 31 days ago | |

Tough to define and enforce, though.

It reminds me of EIG (Endurance International Group), who at least at one point owned a large portion of major mainstream webhosts (including Arvixe, Bluehost, Hostgator, A Small Orange, Site5...). They "streamlined" them all into one big operation, with reliability and customer support going to shit for every host they bought. But they kept all the brands separate, so people kept bouncing from host to host, wondering why they were all so shit, not realising that they never actually switched providers.

harisenbon 32 days ago |

Whenever I buy something with a zipper I check that it’s YKK first.

If it isn’t, I know there’s a good chance they’re cheaping out on other places as well.

morsch 32 days ago | |

The YKK zipper on my North Face hard shell broke. Got it replaced under warranty. Half a year later, it broke again. Anecdotes, sure, but I'm now buying cheap jackets instead.

LinuxAmbulance 32 days ago | | |

As far as I can tell, YKK has quality tiers now where not all YKK zippers are created equal. Rather unfortunate.

nunez 32 days ago |

63% AI generated according to Pangram. Better than 100%; this makes me think that they wrote the copy manually then used an LLM to clean it up.

Anyway, VF also bought Timberland and, by proxy, Smartwool. They absolutely tanked both brands.

disqard 32 days ago | |

I was trying to figure out why this article got flagged. Thanks!

sureMan6 32 days ago |

This article is LLM written and unsourced so the entire thing could be a hallucination and there's no reason to trust any claim made in it, don't even read it

Eric_WVGG 32 days ago |

Speaking of “worse on purpose,” I immediately tried to subscribe to this site’s RSS feed — none. Unthinkable on any blogging platform for most of the past twenty years.

aendruk 32 days ago | |

Same experience. “No feed found.” I chuckled at the irony and closed the tab.

evolve2k 32 days ago |

Talk to any Aussie tech workers you know and chances are they or their friend has a Crumpler backpack. (No affiliation just a big fan).

Originally created by a bike courier who sick of bags breaking sewed a bag out of the toughest material he could get, marine canvas. To this day they make somewhat indestructible, well designed, trendy well loved bags.

Also they have a lifetime warranty and repair policy that is very hard to beat. Maybe you’re not local, but you can tell these will be well made (and they really are)

https://www.crumpler.com/pages/repair

Not sure if they ship to the US. But worth a look if you are serious about excellent well made well design backpacks.

https://www.crumpler.com/collections/backpacks

I know so many Aussie tech folk who swear by the Crunpler Entity as their laptop bag of choice.

https://www.crumpler.com/products/entity?variant=44393825992...

LinuxAmbulance 32 days ago | |

I picked up a Crumpler Brazillion Dollar Home bag about a decade back to carry all my photography gear, as there were no other bags on the market that would allow you to pack a large format monorail camera in them.

That bag is built like a tank. Still ticking along, a little scuffed up, but zero issues. If you're carting around a few thousand dollars worth of delicate gear, it definitely offers some serious peace of mind.

hencq 32 days ago | |

I bought Crumpler messenger bag about 15 years ago (in San Francisco when they still had a store there). Can confirm it’s indestructible. I’m glad to hear they’ve kept up their standards to this day!

evolve2k 31 days ago | | |

Just had a look and seems that you can get a pretty decent range of pre-owned crumpler bags on eBay and similar. Worth a look.

BaguetteOps 32 days ago | |

Exactly, got one in 2015 in Melb and is still being used daily.

jauntywundrkind 32 days ago |

It's a fun thread here.

I feel like there's another component: that the consumer base has become so detached from making things in general. We are surrounded in ever more stuff, ever more material, but collectively are out of touch with making things, with material, and assemblage there-of.

Our culture's perspective is as critic, as shopper, as buyer. Sure few of us were expect shoemakers or backpack makers, but people around us were industrious, did provide labor to make goods that people around them bought. The cycle of production had been directly apparent.

This is low key one of the things I really had hope for for a while with 3d printers: that they opened up & exposed what is. That they would be a force to spread insight & to regard the little mechanisms and means of the world all around us. I think that's a little bit true, but it's pretty niche, and I expect most prints are for static parts; no movement or dynamic behavior. And it's somewhat the anti-process: crafter in a box. It's still amazing but barring major changes, I have over indexed.

It's also worth noting the role of DMCA anti-cirumvention laws in casting mankind out of ever coming to grasp with what makes up the world. The combined legal and technological destruction of any right to repair is really not just about repair: it's an obstruction to humans understanding the world around them. We cannot become savvy in the world when the government tells us that business's right to keep us from knowing the world outstrips any mankind-the-toolmaker / natural scientist role/title/god-bourne nature, that cutting us off from the universe & living in ignorance is a hard cast legal binding fact. I find this to be as fallen as it comes. How do we stay alive as the race we were when our laws unwind the fantastic graces of inquiry the gods saw fit to give us?

ButlerianJihad 32 days ago |

I swear by Swiss Gear nowadays. However, it's been several years since I purchased one. I don't know if they've maintained the same high quality.

But I had a Swiss Gear backpack that was fantastic, and it lasted me nearly a decade. It was originally purchased at a Target. It was versatile and I could take it anywhere. It had little grommets to pass-through earphone cords and such. It survived even through several washes in a washing machine.

Then at a thrift store, I found a Swiss Gear suitcase. It has wheels and a telescoping handle. It expands very nicely. I have it stored away and still haven't found occasion to use it.

I also picked up a Swiss Gear laptop bag with a "messenger bag" shoulder strap. These I found at Office Depot. It's really nice. It has a velcro fastener to secure the laptop itself. It has mesh pockets for all kinds of accessories. If I don't put in a laptop, it can carry documents, folders, or binders. It's been very durable.

MrDOS 32 days ago | |

I was gifted a Swiss Gear backpack when I went off to school (over fifteen years ago now). It was good – albeit very heavy – for the first two or three years. Then the soft surfaces started wearing through, the mesh water bottle pocket on the side wore through, and finally one of the straps snapped. I started trying to figure out how to make a claim against their legendary warranty process... and found that at that time (2013 or 2014), in Canada, their backpacks had at most a 1-year limited warranty. Nuts!

It does seem like Swiss Gear are now directly represented in Canada (rather than being represented by a third party, like they were a decade ago), and their backpacks now have a five-year warranty. But I guess my point is: if you don't live in the US, make sure that the things that a brand is famous for hold true in your region, too.

brushfoot 32 days ago | |

The Swiss Gear backpack I used daily in college in 2008 is sitting beside me right now. I've put it through its paces over the past 18 years. I jogged here in the rain this morning with it weighed down with my laptop and a water bottle and other things.

Minus some fraying at the base of the front pouch, it's as good as new. I've been very happy with it.

chuckadams 32 days ago |

Got me an Osprey ~12 years ago. Light as a feather, tough as nails. But it's not the kind of thing you can just sling over your shoulder like my old North Face bag (which was stolen). But yeah, the moral of the story is, as always, "If you want durable, don't buy it from Wal-Mart" (or Target, or Kohls, or Amazon)

Someone 32 days ago |

> A $35 JanSport that dies in eighteen months: $23 per year. […] A $200 bag that lasts ten years: $20 per year. Already cheaper.

If it is, it isn’t by much. The difference between $200 paid now versus 7 times $35 = $245 over a period of ten years is about 5 years of interest over $200. At 4% interest, that’s about $40.

bluGill 32 days ago | |

Don't forget to account for your time buying each new one and writing your name in it. If you don't replace soon enough also account for the lost value of things that fall out the holes.

Someone 30 days ago | | |

And for the fact that you may not need a backpack that lasts 10 years, or that you may want one that fits with whatever you prefer, e.g. matching what is in fashion over the years, or matching you growing older.

jrussino 32 days ago |

I heard advice from Adam Savage on the topic of cost-vs-quality that I've found to be quite useful. It was something along the lines of:

When you're first getting into a new craft/hobby and need a specific tool, get the cheapest one you can buy. When you're first starting out, you probably don't really know how to judge quality, and you don't have a good sense for what features/enhancements you actually need (not to mention, you may or may not know you're actually going to stick with the hobby at all).

By the time that first cheap one breaks, or you gain some experience/skill and hit your frustration limit with it, you'll have a much better understanding of what you want out of the tool and will be better position to pick out the "best" version to suit your needs.

dfee 32 days ago |

This rhymes. Recently, I took my iPhone 16 Pro in to swap out the screen (there was an ever growing dead spot, and they handled it free of charge). Unfortunately, the screen they replaced it with is much more fragile – hairline fractures within days. I know the replacement screen is of lesser structural quality, but I can't prove it. I've had iPhones since the day they debuted in 2007(?), and this moment connected the dots across years of screen replacements. The original is always much more durable.

But again, sadly I can't prove it.

rkomorn 32 days ago | |

My iPhone 16 Pro's screen got scratched/cracked within weeks of me getting it when none of my other iPhones (5 of them from the 3GS until the 13 mini) ever had any screen issues.

It's hard to not feel like the durability is decreasing.

ctoth 32 days ago |

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.

Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

krabat 32 days ago |

Boots. I have bought Italian-made boots for 23 years - the same brand and model. 1. pair the inner lining died, rest was fine-to worn for 7 years, including laces, 2. pair lasted 7 years, the inner lining held this time, laces too. 3. pair was smaller than indicated, I stood the pain for one winter, could not "grow them", 4. pair has laces die after 1 year, leather cracking after 2 years, rubber seal opening after 2 years and lace (metal) hooks straightening from tying the laces. And this is the company, who has always promised exchange of soles for 100$ - but THAT has never been an issue.

Metal hooks, lace-weave and thread, leather, glue - I wonder how much they save, but I have bought my last pair.

VIBRAM boots and soles.

oliwarner 32 days ago |

Thread counts and Denier are poor metrics for items that employ technical fabrics, seam glues and other modern improvements that legitimately lower these sorts of simple measurements. People don't want to buy the same heavyweight waxed backpacks their grandparents used.

There definitely are BOM- and manufacturing reduction movements in these mature products but backpacks honestly don't seem nearly as bad as (eg) walking boots.

The Worse On Purpose article on power tools follows a similar tack. Offshore manufacturing, corporate consolidation and cheaper processes don't actually make the overall picture worse when we have affordable tools packing modern lithium batteries and brushless neodymium motors.

kstrauser 32 days ago |

I gritted my teeth and bought a GoRuck GR1 a year ago. If it fell into a volcano, which is what it might take to destroy it, I’d buy another one. It’s still possible to find “buy it for life” backpacks but be prepared for eye-watering price tags.

busterarm 32 days ago | |

Seriously, I've had my GR1 since 2013 and it's still flawless. It replaced my bike messenger bags (Chrome, Mission Workshop).

It's been through sand, mud, dust and just shakes the abuse off like nothing.

I do wish half the time though that I'd bought a 40L GR2 though.

kstrauser 32 days ago | | |

Yep. I like that the care instructions are literally to hose it off in the back yard and let it dry. This thing will outlive me.

But I main got it because I’m a relatively large guy with broad shoulders and other bags pinched my neck. I was given a Timbuk2 pack from work that I otherwise liked, but the straps were too close together. I could either wear it high on my back and have them mash my neck all day, or low on my back wear it’s much harder to carry weight.

(Side note to everyone: wear your backpack as high as possible when it’s even moderately loaded. When I see someone on BART with a huge backpack slung down by their hips, my back aches sympathetically. You want the heaviest load up between your shoulders.)

Edit: I also keep glancing at the 40L GR2, but it's just FOMO. Great bags, but huge. I don't want to schlep something that size to the office, and definitely not on some of the trails we hike.

itbeho 32 days ago | | |

Another very satisfied GR1 owner here. It has outlasted all my previous packs. I'd lean towards the 26l GR2 if I were looking now.

lizardking 32 days ago | |

I used my employer's fitness stipend to buy a GoRuck GR2, and I have no regrets. There is just a level of build quality that I desperately wish I could find in the other fitness and travel items I buy.

kstrauser 32 days ago | | |

Same here. I love it. I completely get the cost criticisms: for the price it should be amazing. And yet, it is. I also wish I could level up my other purchases in the same way.

nslsm 32 days ago |

This is some damn irritating writing. This writing irritates me more than a broken backpack seam would.

Sharlin 32 days ago | |

The trend of making articles out of sequences of pithy three-word soundbites rather than proper sentences is infuriating. It's super LLMy, yes, but it feels like even human-written content is like that these days.

darkwater 32 days ago | |

Pure LLM, and it's a shame. The message and the content they are trying to pass are good and should be read by everybody out there. But god, the LLM writing, it feels like an Apple PR applied to a critique of capitalism.

Cider9986 32 days ago | |

I am highly confident this article was AI generated

kgkgklf 32 days ago |

Similar thing happened to the Linus Tech Tips backpack, it was supposed to have double bottoms, but chinese suppliers cheaped out. This is a very common chinese trick where they try to get away with something cheaper than specified. This is actually even expected when ordering stuff in large quantities from china, the supplier is guessing what parts they can cheap out on without anyone noticing, it’s not even considered fraud, but a kind of optimization.

runjake 32 days ago |

I tend to find a relatively reliable model of something and stick with it.

I've noticed, without exception, across clothing, backpacks, and appliances that the next iteration is more cheaply made:

- Thinner fabrics

- Less stitching

- And on appliances and other tools, more plastic parts where they used to be metal.

My latest <LredactedG> washer has a newly plastic mounting bracket that appears designed to fail within a decade due to vibration. Even the metal backing is thinner that the previous generation.

readingnews 32 days ago |

On the flip side, a really good bag, and these have lasted so long I can not recall when I purchased them, are really expensive [https://www.tombihn.com/].

What is really irritating is that sometimes we see the same thing within a single brand (we have a garbage entry-level item and a top tier item which is good).

egypturnash 32 days ago | |

guess who has a new owner and is starting to make some of their bags overseas

https://www.tombihn.com/blogs/main/fall-2025-factory-update-...

threetonesun 32 days ago | |

Tom Bihn sold recently, and doesn't do everything in the US any more. Also I don't know that they were ever "expensive" so much as priced to reflect the economic reality of being made in America and (from what I've read), treating their employees well.

__mharrison__ 32 days ago |

Make sure your bag has YKK zippers (if it has zippers).

I used to sell outdoor equipment. If a brand cheaps out on zippers, I wouldn't trust it.

I really like my Patagonia Black hole mini MLC. Awesome access. Fits under an airplane seat. Generous laptop padding. Excellent zippers. Water bottle pocket. Lovely warranty (Patagonia store nearby often gives new product when I try to get product repaired).

is_true 32 days ago | |

I have a columbia backpack i bought like 20 years ago that doesnt have a ykk zipper but it's still in perfect condition, i've abused it a lot and the only thing broken is a rubber thingy it has for the headphones cable to go through.

sccxy 32 days ago | |

I've got quite expensive ski jacket with 4 YKK zippers.

3 of 4 zippers are broken after few years of usage.

pushcx 32 days ago | | |

This is a little late for your nice jacket, but a lot of zipper damage comes from dirt getting into the teeth and then the zip grinds everything up. Outdoors shops sell a zipper lubricant to keep the dirt from sticking.

__mharrison__ 32 days ago | | |

I have multiple ski jackets and ski a couple times a week. No broken YKK zippers.

Do you know a better zipper?

ericpauley 32 days ago | |

I've been using the same Patagonia Black Hole backpack for nearly a decade, every day include bike commutes (and crashes). The longevity is frustrating at this point because I'd really like a larger one but can't bring myself to switch until this one fails (which may be never).

I don't see how it could be a surprise to anyone paying attention that a JanSport backpack doesn't deliver on quality. Perhaps there's more to the story but I got to the second AI slop one-liner and gave up.

Sharlin 32 days ago |

If you're looking for a backpack that can survive just about anything, and don't mind a "tactical" look, check out Savotta:

https://www.savotta.fi/collections/backpacks

They're expensive, but last a lifetime or more.

cirelli94 32 days ago | |

I'd like to try one of them, it's on my list whenever I'll need a new backpack!

Jaygles 32 days ago |

Product labels should prominently display the parent corporation. Whatever is the top of the chain of ownership.

Anamon 31 days ago |

I suspect there may also be a strong "it's what people want" aspect to this.

Why do smartphones barely outlive their warranty period? Check the statistics on how long most people keep their phone before voluntarily replacing it, and it makes a lot more sense. Why invest in the premium components and workmanship to make your phone last 5 years, if 95% of your customers will not use it for more than 18 months? (These numbers are made up, but from what I remember, the reality is not far off from that).

I could totally believe a similar thing being at play for backpacks, jackets, shoes, etc. where the people who keep their stuff long enough to even notice it falling apart are a maybe vocal, but small minority.

CoolThings 32 days ago |

Seven years ago I bought a Jansport backpack for 50 usd, for daily use. After a year, its zipper broke. Shipping it to Jansport required to pay 15 usd for shipping. So instead, I bought in Walmart a generic backpack for 15 usd, that I still use seven years later. Never bought Jansport again.

peacebeard 32 days ago | |

Curious if the generic one had YKK zippers and the Jansport did not, since people frequently emphasize their value.

egypturnash 32 days ago |

I'm waiting for this to happen to Tom Bihn's bags now that they have new owners who're starting to outsource the smaller bags to Vietnam instead of sewing them in-house in Seattle. Luckily for me, I've got what I need from them and expect it to last for quite some time

xingped 32 days ago | |

I didn't know about this and that's extremely disappointing. I already bought one bag from them but I guess I doubt I will be buying another.

egypturnash 32 days ago | | |

They're still making a lot of things in the US, there's a list on this blog post from last fall (https://www.tombihn.com/blogs/main/fall-2025-factory-update-...). The "materials and transparency" section of each bag's page tells you where it's made. But the process has begun and you should probably grab anything you've been coveting before that list grows.

PaulDavisThe1st 32 days ago |

While I would not disagree with many of the points made in TFA, I think this is a bad example to demonstrate the problem the author is trying to address.

Why? Over the last twenty years, many high end backpack designs have moved towards lighter weight materials and construction, because of trends in the world of backpacking.

This means that even in the high end segment of the market, comparing packs to ones from decades ago can be misleading - they are working with different design goals.

None of this eliminates the points about cheaper materials and construction at the lower end of the market, but it does make things a bit more complex than they need to be if a different example was used to illustrate all this.

oasisbob 32 days ago |

The irony of composing this article about industrial sameness with an LLM is too much.

lan321 32 days ago |

Since we're all shilling our favourite backpacks:

I've been using an Ikea Varldens for the past 6-8 years. Very efficient for my use case (2 work laptops, groceries, travel luggage, documents and earbud case, tools). It has a couple of nice small compartments and a single large one so it's very light for the size and material. Until now the only thing that's annoyed me was the long straps when riding a motorcycle, so I ran cable ties through the loops to stop them from slapping my hands and sides. It's seen quite a bit of abuse and it's still intact. It's even practically waterproof.

qup 32 days ago | |

I'll jump in: I was stuck in layover many years ago and bought a Topo Designs backpack -- Google says it's a 30L Apex Global travel bag.

I use it every week, it shows no signs of degradation over approximately a decade. Huge beefy zippers, tons of pockets and organization for those who are into that.

I paid like $200, but seems like they're cheaper now. Hopefully not because of the reasons in the article. At the time, I believe they were a small company from the state my layover was in--maybe Colorado.

operatingthetan 32 days ago | | |

I have a topo pack too, very high quality and the design seems timeless to me.

dividefuel 32 days ago |

I firmly believe that many goods like this fall into a cycle.

Existing products are cheaply made and poor quality, so a new company emerges producing a higher quality product. Eventually word gets out and their sales blow up. But to keep their profits going up, they begin to coast and cut corners. Fast forward a decade or two, and now they're the ones making low quality gear, leaving the market open for a new high quality brand.

In short, high quality leads to recognition and growth, and then cutting corners leads to profit.

justinhj 32 days ago |

Anecdotally this rings true with me. I have a 15 year old (at least) Samsonite backpack. It has zero signs of wear and has been on many trips, jammed under my feet in economy or on a dirty train floor. It was relatively expensive at the time at about $120.

It was looking a bit sad and dusty so I upgraded to a fancier looking Bellroy that cost twice as much. When it arrived I instantly knew it was going back. It felt cheap, it looked cheap, and the compartment layout did not feel at all utilitarian.

chromacity 32 days ago |

This is yet another instance of a weirdly specific domain that pops up and starts posting seemingly LLM-generated articles that follow a single pattern - in this case, how "they" made everything worse. We had a similar instance few days ago with smarterarticles.co.uk, and many others before that.

I get that this says something we might believe, but I don't think it's a good use of our time to engage with engineered nerd-bait that probably wasn't produced in good faith.

lowbloodsugar 32 days ago |

The issue here isn’t quality or market segmentation. The issue here is a de facto monopoly and the illusion of competition. Ok there’s also the issue of well known brand names now being entirely different companies and entirely different manufacturers.

I just bought an Eddie Bauer fleece. I own three, well four. The fourth is going straight back. It is garbage. Eddie Bauer is one of the brands that got bought and now rents out the label.

cheschire 32 days ago |

Meanwhile my LTT commuter backpack, while expensive, did not get worse on purpose. It’s so good I’ve considered getting their full size backpack as well.

lkramer 32 days ago |

There are so many examples of this. Processed food, sweets and so on. Cadbury, Toblerone, etc live on the brand recognition, but have come objectively worse over the years. Often they are owned by the same mega corp that have a strategy of milking the brands for as long as possible.

It's bait and switch on global, organised scale and it's almost impossible to fight except on an individual level.

tristor 32 days ago |

> The brand reputation built by decades of quality products is now being used to move cheap products to buyers who trust the logo.

This is private equity in a nutshell, really. This is what every single PE leveraged buyout ultimately ends up doing. Take a beloved brand, or better yet (in this case) a group of related beloved brands, cut costs, and reap the profit margins until the brand dies.

duxup 32 days ago |

JanSport was always a budget-ish / not great brand from what I remember. I used them, but high quality was never their thing.

OkayPhysicist 32 days ago | |

Their lifetime warranty used to be taken extremely seriously, and I really don't know what lifetime they were referring to. I had an old external frame pack that was my grandfather's back when my father was a Boy Scout. That pack outlived its buyer, and I was still using at Philmont where they had the same model as a museum piece. One of the zippers broke, and the back mesh was disintegrating, and pretty much as a joke we made a warranty claim. They honored that, circa 2012 or so.

Their schoolbags were pretty great in the 2000s, too. Withstood some serious abuse, though their zippers were notably on the decline. But that was covered by warranty, so it was fine. By the mid 2010's, they were in full decline, and that's about when I stopped recommending their stuff.

PaulDavisThe1st 32 days ago | |

Absolutely not the case. Back in the days of exterior frame packs, Jansport was likely one of the best brands anywhere in the world. Incredibly well designed and made.

OTOH, I haven't thought of Jansport as a go-to brand for a serious backpack in 30+ years ...

wan23 32 days ago | |

When I was a kid everyone knew that JanSport was the one to get if you actually wanted your bag to survive. Absolutely one of those things where you'd spend more replacing the cheaper bags over and over compared to buying the JanSport once.

parineum 32 days ago |

> The sense that you were choosing between competitors was a fiction that VF Corp had no incentive to correct.

I can't speak for everyone else but this isn't what I'm doing when I compare two backpacks. I'm comparing two different backpacks for their features and design. I don't really consider the brand name attached or care who owns it.

vscode-rest 32 days ago |

My strategy with pretty much everything I can is to deeply research to find any Made In USA variant of whatever it is I’m trying to purchase, and buy whatever that is regardless of price. I’ve never had that fail me.

For backpacks, my Waterfield pack has held up fantastically across several years of regularly absolutely stuffing it with gear for my work travel.

phendrenad2 32 days ago |

This is why brand loyalty or even brand recognition is stupid in the 21st century. Everything is made in the same factories anyway, so buying the Amazon item with a brand name like "FOOTHSYMPYZT" or whatever is the way to get exactly what you want. Just set the price point to whatever Amazon recommends and multiply it by 1.5 or 2.

vivzkestrel 32 days ago |

- dont see a contact page on your website at all and your archive has only 3 posts https://www.worseonpurpose.com/

- here is an idea for the next post: AAA gaming got worse on purpose. Dont forget to mention anti consumer practices by EA and Ubisoft when you are at it

nazgulnarsil 32 days ago |

This should be called what it is: Brand Fracking

Trust will be arbitraged until there are few information asymmetries to exploit.

drob518 32 days ago |

Basically, all the old brands that had great quality were killed by private equity and have become skin suits worn by low-cost imitators trying to squeeze another penny out of customers. There are still good brands, but they are increasingly niche and you certainly pay a large premium for them.

erikig 32 days ago |

Unpopular take here but I'm really ok with this.

The sale of the high quality brand allows the original entrepreneurs to exit their business to someone that thinks they can run it more efficiently. The decline in quality allows for innovative upstarts to try new things.

JMiao 32 days ago | |

nah, you've described it objectively. maybe should add pollution from over production and consumption of shit gear.

vondur 32 days ago |

I've been buying my bags from Timbuk2. High quality, I had a messenger bag that I gave away after 10 years and it was in great condition. I have a backpack and messenger bag for them. They are also designed to protect laptops/tablets really well.

parliament32 32 days ago | |

I'm still daily-ing a Timbuk2 from a decade ago and it looks fantastic, no issues whatsoever.

eYrKEC2 32 days ago |

I tried to use the Teton 65L to ruck. Just put a 50 lbs bag of wheat in there.

Shoulder strap failed on insert to main pack after six 1-hour rucks . Got a replacement. Zipper failed at bottom on another one.

Wanted to increase load to 100 lbs, but gonna have to go with a different brand.

maerF0x0 32 days ago |

    The math that makes this intentional

    Price of a bag divided by years it actually lasts. That's your cost per year.

    A $35 JanSport that dies in eighteen months: $23 per year. Add the shipping cost 
    when you try the warranty. Add the replacement cost when the claim gets denied.
    Add your time.

    A $200 bag that lasts ten years: $20 per year. Already cheaper. At fifteen years,
    which the well-built ones consistently do, you're at $13 per year.

As much as people gripe about subscriptions, people forget there's an equivalent internal subscription rate to every product with a lifespan. And beyond that there's the opportunity cost of a large outlay with a FUD component around the longevity. Humans are, as far as i understand, hard-wired for irrational choices around shortermism vs long term bets, you basically have to externalize your thinking to accomplish better. (This could be by writing down your thoughts and then analyzing them externally as a critic, or by passing it off to an AI, etc).

The $25 bag compared to the $200 bag, has $175 worth of free cash flow for other (potentially unexpected) purchases, can be replaced when trends/use case changes (or it gets dirty, or lost...), the capital could be invested in the market to generate ~$1 a month of passive income, and as far as the human can tell it's roughly the same. Basically all the thoughts of a JIT marketplace but on the personal scale...

zombot 31 days ago |

Haven't you heard? Worse is better.

ethagnawl 32 days ago |

As the saying goes, being poor is expensive.

ChoGGi 32 days ago |

Thank goodness for Project Farm on YouTube

TYPE_FASTER 32 days ago |

Osprey backpacks have worked well for me.

mancerayder 32 days ago |

This feels like the Arcteryx Hoodie situation. I've had a couple of them for going close to 5 or 8 years. I mistreat them - throwing them around, washing them normally in a machine, etc. Absolutely bullet proof with very mild pilling. When I went to buy the exact same thing, the newer models cost the same thing or more, but the reviews all complained that the product has changed, that it pills after a few months, etc.

The same thing happened to me with t shirt and other clothing brands.

Now if I buy something good, I'm rebuying multiple of it even if it's unneeded since apparently we live under the Law of Enshittification of Everything.

bob1029 32 days ago |

I think this is more of a case of the product getting worse incidentally. Contrast with leaders who are actually making things worse on purpose. Apparently, for no other reason than to be ugly and mean about it. I've been on this earth long enough to discover that monsters are real.

Windows 11 comes to mind as an example of something actually being made worse on purpose. Making it impossible to associate the original notepad.exe with text files is certainly not linked with business outcomes in any direct way. This seems to be purely about antagonizing the user base as much as possible. The only theory I can arrive at is that there is a secret cortisol harvesting scheme that results in better financial outcomes for Microsoft.

It helps to differentiate these cases. I don't like capitalism taken to the extreme, but the other thing is significantly worse. Intent makes all the difference. Engineered to suck vs sucks because it wasn't engineered are two completely different levels of evil.

jdelman 32 days ago |

Pangram says this article is about 50% AI generated, including the opening several paragraphs.

benced 32 days ago |

The melodrama of this article really rubs me the wrong way, especially when some of the brands they mention do still make good backpacks (like The North Face). The author acknowledges that with "it's a deliberate segmentation" strategy... which is just another way of saying that they make stuff at all price points.

queenkjuul 32 days ago |

> From a shareholder's perspective, the bag that falls apart is the better product.

As long as we collectively decide to keep living in a society dictated by shareholders, this shit will just keep getting worse and worse and worse...

brainzap 32 days ago |

its the normal cycle of sports gear

whalesalad 32 days ago |

The enshittification of all things. It’s happening in the service industry, too. A lot of contractors like roofing and plumbing are being absorbed into private equity megacorps.

chinathrow 32 days ago |

> This is the pattern. Acquisition. Cost optimization. Quality decline. Warranty narrowing. Brand equity extraction. And eventually, divestiture.

PE at work.

fellowniusmonk 32 days ago |

Just because I don't want them to go out of business. I bought a backpack goruck gr1 26l nearly 10 years ago in Feb of 2017.

I was a consulting and traveling heavily for many years and a digital nomad for others. I've carried that bag everywhere, it is good as new, I can hold a week of clothes in it, I recently got a vacuum pouch for winter thermals so that applies even for ski trips now. Its design lets me fill it up, zip it almost totally shut then compress it down to fit toiletries at the very top.

As much abuse as I've put it through it is still perfect. If moths or something don't get to it it may actually outlive me at this point I see so little wear.

Frankly I wish I could offer companies that make stuff that lasts forever a subscription fee or something to keep them using the same build quality, I mean cheap fast fashion/manf/etc seems to exert massive economic pressure to enshittify everything.

zackmorris 32 days ago |

Friendly reminder that antitrust enforcement and deregulation are incompatible

dijit 32 days ago |

Wait until you hear about glasses!

josefritzishere 32 days ago |

I hate this so much.

cybercatgurrl 32 days ago |

Global enshittification is the end goal of capitalism.

nekusar 32 days ago |

Its EVERYTHING that has gotten worse, on purpose.

Capitalism ends up being owned by single companies across goods families. Private equity buys, strips, and bankrupts. Materials are engineered to fail near the end of their warranty. Companies lie about details hard to identify or prove. Companies use historical goodwill to loot the current landscape.

Take for example, a citrus squeezer. We needed what I thought was a decent juicer. https://us.josephjoseph.com/products/helix-citrus-juicer-yel...

Well, guess what... since its all just plastic, the 2 posts that provide the downward force when turning get sheared off when you fucking use the thing.

We ended up going to an antique/flea market and found a all-metal juicer. It fucking works. And it likely will for the next 50 years.

Capitalism itself is the scam. It was sold to us of "innovation, innovation, innovation!" And its just "worsening, extraction, destruction".

_fat_santa 32 days ago | |

> Its EVERYTHING

I would argue not everything, just the things we remember. Those brands got popular, got sold and enshittified.

We remember these brands fondly (personally I had a JanSport bag all through elementary school) and that's why it sucks that they suck now but what we forget is now is there are 1000X more brands to choose from, some from megacorps trying to cut corners at every step. Some from small shops that genuinely want to make a great product.

The problem is visibility. Those good brands you have to go look for, you can't just go to WalMart or Target like in the early 2000's and expect to get a quality product. All the quality products now live on small websites scattered across the internet.

nekusar 32 days ago | | |

Dont gaslight me.

I remember even 26 years ago, stuff you bought was better crafted and could get parts to repair.

Now? Its non-replacable batteries. Ultrasonic welded casing (destroy-open only). Glues, glops of glues. Plastic/nylon gears instead of metal. Thinner/worse materials. Scams online everywhere (like the legitimate company XYZZY). Every online corporate presence whores it names out to fly-by-nights.

If I want to buy durable goods, its mostly not even for sale. Or I end up having to buy from Europe, or a boutique dealer in the States... that is if you can find them.

And even the boutique dealers like Tom Bihn sold out, and is now making their bags in some sweatshop shithole with lowering and lowering standards.

llmslave 32 days ago |

Private equity, and computers, optimized all the profits which drove profit quality down. We all have lower quality products to enrich a few finance individuals

is_true 32 days ago | |

Optimization is gonna kill us all in the end.

infecto 32 days ago | |

Or more likely consumers vote with their dollar and cost matters over quality. PE is just a bad scape goat, there are obvious outliers but largely companies make products that consumers want.

tsimionescu 32 days ago | | |

Companies are incentivized to sell the worse, most expensive version of a product that they can convince someone to buy. Many companies sell with huge margins, meaning there is significant slack to allow quality to increase for the current price point - there just isn't enough competition to matter. Many manufacturing companies also have complex supply chains, making this problem worse as everyone along the chain tries to maximize their own margin.

It's not at all rare for a company to sell a quality product at a low margin for some years, building up a reputation, and then start decreasing quality to increase profitability once the quality branding is established.

panarchy 32 days ago | | |

Or more likely consumers aren't paid enough to buy quality.

Theodores 33 days ago |

I am okay with these big American corporations getting bought out, for their products to be reamed out, for the brand to be discarded, only to exist as a brand in a private-equity backed holding company.

This is because other companies come along to fill the niche occupied by the established brands. Since they can't cheapen the products any more than the behemoths can, they need to innovate and evolve.

As for the backpack product, I wish the likes of Eastpak and whatnot would just die, since they have not innovated in a very long time.