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Ed Huntress Ed Huntress is offline
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Default Is our view of old engineering distorted by the products which survive?


"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...
Hi folks,

I apologise if the title is a bit of a mouthful. But I've been thinking
about this issue for some time, and would like to seek the opinion of
people here. You frequently hear people complain about the quality of
modern products and say things like "They don't make them like they used
to". But it has occurred to me that maybe older products look good today
because only the good products have stood the test of time, and the poor
products have been thrown away years ago. What do people think? Were
products better in general back in the fifties, say, or were there a
mixture of good and bad? I'd be interested to hear people's opinions, as
I'm not old enough to remember myself.

Best wishes,

Chris


No problem. Some people here are so old that we can't remember, either. g

It's a mixed bag. Cars are much better, and fishing reels are, too. But
wooden matches have gone to hell. Toasters today are complete crap compared
to the old ones.

What I think you'll find is that the quality of goods has risen or fallen to
match the consumers' expectations and desires, with a strong influence
coming from the fact that people don't really *want* things to last that
long anymore.

Now I'll get out of the way as the blizzard of messages sweeps into this
thread...

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Ed Huntress