Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose. Who Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?(worseonpurpose.com) |
Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose. Who Owns DeWalt, Craftsman, and Milwaukee?(worseonpurpose.com) |
I think what gets me most about both LLM-generated and LLM-inflected writing is the sheer laziness. You don't even have to hand-edit this stuff! Even feeding your spewed output through a slightly more human-sounding model (Palmyra Writer is halfway decent) is an improvement. Just don't take it straight out of the box.
> This isn't a tools story.
> The names change. The industries change. The strategy doesn’t.
The pattern
This isn't an insightful blog.
The names change. The topics change. The slop doesn’t.
>It's pretty easy to get the about the same quality, but it's hard to pay more.
Just figure out their OEM and buy a Williams brand screwdriver for example.
That said, for a professional mechanic, there's a lot of value in buying a tool which one can get warrantied the next time the tool truck makes its rounds.
If that’s what it take to draw attention to enshittification then, as the meme says, let them fight.
WFM. YMMV.
There is some value having a truck that delivers the items to do and does infield warranty but I don’t think it warrants a 4x cost.
I would imagine most mechanics would do well these days buying the premium cheap option, like Icon, and buy better when they know what they need and identify longevity issues. I could absolutely see certain air tools or power tools where you may buy brand but even then the Harbor Freights of the world have come a long way.
So market fit is driving both worse and better products at the same time. Cheap DIYers like me are buying the cheapest stuff we can find, and complaining that it's as cheap as its price. My neighbor the contractor buys the expensive stuff and finds that the quality at least somewhat reflects that.
Worse on purpose is my fault, because I'm the guy who bought a cheap Ryobi saw, instead of none at all. Plane flights are worse because I'm the guy who buys the cheapest ticket and tolerates the resulting discomforts, instead of staying home. You can see that through the lens of greed and exploitation, or as just a market evolving to supply consumer demand.
Buying a professional tool with tens of thousands of hours of potential runtime and 1000lb+ of torque is wasteful.
A Ryobi tool will realistically last for the many decades you need it for and do everything you ask of it.
Lower price points doesn't just mean something is junk. It can also be engineering efficiency.
Until you buy one of their lawn mowers and the SLA batteries die after a year...
A different durability requirement.
A Ryobi is not bad, if it fills your needs, but might not be enough for heavy use.
A more expensive “proper” set would be completely wasted on me.
What if I'm a professional who needs to use Milwuake/American Airlines if I plan to get my work done?
These feel like choices in the same way you can choose to pay your extortion fee to the mob or choose to pay your taxes.
I don’t see it as a problem that tools of different quality, specifications, and price are available in the market.
I wouldn’t want there to be only select 80% ground beef nor only A5 Wagyu beef for sale. Both have their place.
Wiha is a family-owned private company in Germany. Relies on self-funding and conservative growth using long-standing relationships with German banks rather than private equity. They manufacture in Germany, Vietnam, Switzerland, and a tiny plant in the US. Well known by electricians. Much better warranty.
Wera is also privately owned, by Bitburger Holding. They avoid debt financing and focus on high-volume production and advertising. Almost all of their manufacturing has left Germany, and is now Czech Republic and Thailand. Well known by auto mechanics. Limited warranty.
This is my favorite computer stuff screwdriver:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001552GH4
(just buy it)
The other Festool product I picked up is their track saw. Couldn't be happier with the results and the products are really well designed from an ergo/UX standpoint. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you could get just as good of results from a track saw at half the price as long as you use a great blade on it. I like them because they make working much more pleasant than my experience with some other tool brands.
Most of the rest of my tools are Dewalt. I settled on them as they have some of the best "prosumer" power tools in woodworking. Their job site table saw and their planer are some of the best available at their price point. Though I'm regretting buying into the battery system. I've seen times where my Dewalt impact couldn't deal with car bolts that a similar Milwaukee zipped right off. Works fine for woodworking though. I've largely replaced my Dewalt battery operated lawn tools with Ego.
Shout out to TTI for keeping Ryobi cheap, cheerful, and a good value. Not my cup of tea, but their stuff is reasonably fine for the price.
There are some exceptions in every product line, but the current crop of power tools are actually pretty good. If you know people in the trades they can tell you which specific products are best in each category because trades people are generally very good at sharing that info on social media with each other.
Yes it is. I think you're on to something here.
There is a specific Hilti tool that allows concrete anchors to be shot in without powder, which lets us work in occupied spaces during regular hours instead of on double time, it’s $1,000 but pays for itself in a day: https://www.hilti.com/c/CLS_POWER_TOOLS_7125/CLS_DIRECT_FAST...
All power tools anre engineered for the bathtub curve. My guys like Milwaukee because the Makita portaband (metal bandsaw for cutting conduit) has a crappy tensioner and the blade falls off every 10 cuts. I’d rather pay someone not to keep putting a blade back on. I have no special love for Milwaukee, but one of the fundamental electrician power tools being that much more reliable makes buying into the whole line worth it.
It’s not always about the cost of the tool itself, but minimizing downtime when labor costs over $100/hr
Interchangeable batteries got really good and made every set of tools a platform. More importantly, there are only a handful of sources to get batteries from. For all these companies to differentiate and compete they needed to insert their products into wide lines of platforms.
Though people are starting to figure out that there are only a couple different batteries and so a cheap adapter means you don't need to buy all the same anymore.
Cordless tools were a niche product, they could barely run an hour and they didn't have 1/10th the power a corded tool does. Things like cordless angle grinders didn't even exist because there was no way to get the required power to drive them.
You also have the advent of brushless tools recently which drive even more power to cordless tools. Smaller, lighter, more power and longer runtime. You put a cheap 18v Ryobi driver against an all metal housing Craftsman corded from the 80s, that cheap plastic Ryobi will outclass that Craftsman every time.
Some brands have risen and fallen. What's happened to Porter Cable is a shame. But conversely, how completely competitive a brand like Ryobi has gotten is also a near miracle. It's a great time for power tools!
> Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or saying how great an article is.
https://www.youtube.com/c/projectfarm
One of the best review channels for products in this area. I moved from DeWalt to Milwaukee for most of my daily drivers about six years ago and have been very happy with them, but for things I will rarely use I tend to go with whatever Harbor Freight is selling. If I break it then it's time to upgrade.
How can we convince business owners to take this path? It seems in a future everything will be owned by a few megacorps and crappyfied.
Professional builders, craftsman and people who care about their art care about these things.
The people that these companies are selling to (Home Depot “weekend warriors”) do not care about these things which is why they continue to sell despite the alternative existing at a higher price point
And even most entry-level professionals these days are using whatever they can get. I went to a yard sale in Manassas Virginia which is very blue-collar and mostly people working on houses and mowing lawns and things and somebody was selling all of their DeWalt tools because they just bought a new set for cheaper than they could’ve bought a really solid tool.
Pseudo related is I really enjoy well designed lifestyle DIY tool brands like HOTO, started with slick electric screw drivers for building PCs, and now pretty DIY kits that's nice to look at on small projects.
I'm not saying this site doesn't speak some truths, but previous on this topic have been so thin, and ignore battery, motor and materials improvements that they totally undercut a real discussion on tool quality and value. If you actually want to talk tools, find a DIY/woodworking group.
Buy cheap and if you use it enough that it breaks, buy expensive the second time.
The "high quality ones" that have their own R&D and manufacturing, are very expensive and out of reach for a lot of people.
They mentioned Eye Wear is next, I think the author can guess where that is going. No reason to doubt the same will happen to that industry too.
And that's the rub. PE is all about short term ROI at any price. Their business model doesn't take product superiority or brand loyalty into account. If a widget can be made cheaper, you do it, damn the collateral damage.
> If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it
Dang, feel free to let me know if this is an inappropriate use of flagging.
Pretty smart business idea as I imagine people love ragebait about why products aren't as good as they used to be.
It was far from perfect — the backpack was not so comfortable and a bit heavy, and it was expensive. Still, the market was obviously growing and is currently booming, and DeWalt should have been a leader.
Instead they never followed up, and they gave everyone who bought one a giant “screw you” by discontinuing the batteries. And left the market wide open for new players and the big gas landscape tool companies (Stihl, Husqvarna) to step in.
Attention executives: when you lead the market in a growing category, you need to invest in it!
So when your reputation is big you can slack on the product. Or is that naive? Is it the natural progression for all products?
Like in that movie Brasil. The food is awful but the illustration of the food is wonderful.
The problem is MBAs see an unpriced asset of the commons and burn it down to get temporarily, one time ahead.
Anyway, I'm glad to see an article claiming that Makita has still resisted enshittification.
I started with Ryobi and burned out a drill using it to hog out a 3" mortise with a 2.5" forstner bit (far beyond any reasonable use case for a drill), and upgraded to DeWalt. All of my other Ryobi pieces (circular saw, reciprocating, jigsaw, lights, non-orbital sander) work great, and I've never said to my tool "You'd be able to do this if you were a DeWalt, ya piece of shit!"
The more important thing to do once you start on one brand, and have a bunch of their batteries, is simply wait until the big sales come. All the brands have ridiculous, stock-dumping deals to move volume at least once or twice a year, and that's when it almost becomes buy-one-get-one-free.
Where I avoid the Ryobi brand is in consumables: bits, blades, and such. That's where the cheapness is most obvious. Bits wear more quickly, blades go dull faster. Milwaukee and DeWalt stuff lasts longer, but this is where you go for specialty names like Diablo that are even better. My Ryobi circular saw with Diablo blade is a tank.
- hasn’t enshitifed
- makes quality tools that last
- much more repairable (saving you even more in the long term)
- single company, not a conglomerate, no weird vc influence.
For most tools you won’t need upgrades, just build out your collection as you go.
What boggles the mind is that, at this point, corded gets dunked on by battery-run tools in power output. Corded is limited to the 1500W one can safely pull fromn the wall, but cordless can have higher output. Normally one might assume it'd be a distinction without a difference, but things like table or chop saws can be hungry.
They show action shots of people wearing them kayaking or at the beach but I'd be so worried about dropping them in the river or scratching the lenses with sand that I'd never take them those places. $300 is more than I paid for my kayak, LOL. Probably more expensive than entire sets of clothes I might wear while doing those activities, or at least right around the same price.
It remind me of the quote from Blaise Pascale:
"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."
— source: https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/02/03/270680304/this-...
The idea that you need expertise and experience to produce something efficient and refined that fit perfectly the need that it fulfills.
Building a forever bridge would be challenging, especially for 5bn yrs in when the sun expands.
Definitely doesn't run as long as when it was new but does enough.
For those of you getting a lawn mower, don't get the cheapest one you can. A 13" wide blade is uh gunna take nearly double the passes a 20" wide blade will.
A tool that doesn't break but does smell like a refinery or damages nearby electronics when used, gets strangely hot or inexplicably changes shape when idle, etc. should still be replaced.
- Makita 9.6V drill which I've had 4 of (first I stupidly sold in an estate sale, second my son claimed, third I gifted to my daughter, current is an NOS from eBay which I'm planning on keeping/using for forever) --- my son later bought into the newer Makita 18V line and uses them extensively for his backstage theater work, as well as a stick vacuum w/ a cyclone which he uses to clean his apartment. (Finally broke down and bought some Dremel battery powered tools (apparently they use the same 12V batteries as Bosch tools) --- debating on expanding on that....)
- Festool CT Midi vacuum --- purchased in a noise-induced migraine-fueled rage, this is quiet and works perfectly as dust collection for my CNC machines
- Mafell FM 1000 WS --- a quick change spindle/milling motor, the engineering on this brings a smile to my face whenever I use it
Buy once, cry once --- the quality will remain long after the sting of the initial high price is forgotten.
For hand tools, consider Bridge City Tool Works and Blue Spruce Tools, or Mitutoyo, or Starrett, or buying vintage.
I use one of these for household floors: quiet, powerful, rolls easily.
I got the drill back a little while later entirely repaired, the bent drill bit included in the return package, and I was charged absolutely nothing for any of it because I guess I was still under warranty and I didn't realize it. It was a fantastic customer service interaction and absolutely increased my loyalty to the company.
...and that's leaving aside the quality of their tools. In my experience they are incredibly rugged--among other things, for a week-long landscaping project I used that same drill with a gigantic bit to dig holes in frozen dirt, and it powered through it without issues. Great tools and a solid company.
I can't tell if that's good or bad /s
Maybe this is like the toupee fallacy, and we only pay attention to the ones with this kind of strip mining approach, and we don't see the majority where they run the businesses to maximize ROI in the long run?