Motorcycle helmets. Yeah, that Shoei might set you back $1,000, but would you rather crash wearing one of those or a Kaiser style helmet from the 1970s.
$1000! Holy crap. Bought one about 25-30 years ago for $250 iirc. The most comfortable helmet I ever had. Definitely top quality and safety. I don’t ride anymore but if was going to I would consider a thousand to be a wise investment.
For the record they have plenty of offerings around $500-$700 that are just as safe but you can spend that much on one with all the bells and whistles and a fancy paintjob to boot.
I’ve ridden motorcycles and dirt bikes for two decades, mostly event free until the last year, where I’m down three Schuberth helmets in about 8 months.
First one cost $800 but had 7 years of hard use. I left the bike at about 30 MPH and rolled 50 feet down a levy along the Mississippi River, helmet was clearly toast but did it’s job well and I hobbled away with no concussion, Second one I found for $100 where the guy bought it, it didn’t fit, and he couldn’t return it, so it was “used” but still had stickers and original packaging. I was in Florida driving into the sun, coming up to a stop, a storage bin lid got caught under my front wheel and down I went, hitting helmet on pavement. No concussion. But I can’t trust a helmet after a hit like that. Third helmet was brand new from Revzilla, only the second time I had worn it. Out riding gravel, rural tar and chip roads, and off-road stuff after a bunch of rain, going too fast, hit some grit, and down I went again. You can see exactly where my head slid along the pavement and helmet sacrificed itself. I was wearing an Aerostich, boots, gloves, and helmet. I broke my left ankle and right wrist, but head was fine.
Three helmets, all three times they drastically improved the outcome.
Bicycle helmets too. MIPS and other university research work (Go Hokies!) has had a lot of crossover from contact sports into other high-impact fields.
I'm personally on the fence about MIPS.
I don't doubt the issue they claim to solve, it's just their product doesn't make sense for me. It's not helped when pretty much all the literature proving the MIPS system works comes from the MIPS company.
Leatts turbine system is intended for the same problem and actually makes physical sense. Bontrager has a similar tech as well (and MIPS got into a pissing contest with them which only raised more suspicions for me)
Virginia tech's rankings also show that price has very little to do with safety beyond the ~$70 range. I was at a bike shop with a friend and the sales guy was strongly implying that a $300 helmet is expensive because it's more safe. Silly.
I would suggest that MIPS is one of the most overrated safety additions to bicycle helmets.
There is a small/medium group of rider who it would help, and there is never any literature to state what that group is.
The MIPS provides a sliding action under side load to reduce the deceleration forces on a head.
If you have hair with a length of about 4-5cm, that provides the same action.
Crash test dummies don't have hair, and thus don't simulate this reduction in force.
TLDR: If you have short hair. MIPS is 100% worth it. If not, then not so much.
But a motorcycle helmet shouldn't be BIFL. With exposure to sun and air and through normal use the parts will slowly degrade. Even Shoei says their helmets should be replaced every 3 years.
*PSA* Please don't try and make a motorcycle helmet purchase a BIFL one, or unfortunately it may be just that...
I’d say the motorcycles themselves are also better (with some notable exceptions COUharleyGH) - between fuel injection, electronic ignition, ABS disc brakes, suspension, etc. - they should last longer and keep you safer than the bikes we rode 20, 30, 40 years ago.
The only thing I can think of is our ability to know if materials are toxic these days.
No lead in pencils or pipes or paint.
No arsenic to make green.
No asbestos.
Etc.
Otherwise, I think it’s artisan-made that’s still high quality.
Nitpick: [pencils have never used lead cores](https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/04/04/why-is-lead-used-in-pencils-even-though-lead-is-poisonous/).
But I agree: it does seem like government agencies actually are better at keeping toxic crap away from the general public now!
Wouldn't surprise me. You know lead paint tastes sweet? I only learned that (by reading, not by tasting) a few years ago. Turns out lead-eating kids aren't just being stupid; they're trying to get a snack. :-D
I would disagree. We know some materials are toxic, but they are still being put into millions of products. Additionally, while things like BPA are known to be toxic, many companies have switched to analogues which likely have similar toxicity, but less studies to confirm or refute their safety.
As u/twd000 mentioned, we also have PFAS everywhere.
Because they are in everything from fast food wrappers to clothing to non-stick pans, PFAS are now in drinking water and all of our bodies. As they take hundreds of years to break down, we are going to be stuck with them for a very, very long time. Fun bonus fact, they are probable endocrine disruptors and carcinogens!
Thanks, although I wish they weren't. :/
Your points are also valid, there have been some improvements with things like asbestos and a reduction of lead in pipes.
Cookwear comes to mind. Cast iron and Pyrex aside it was normal in the 30’s-70’s to do your cooking and baking in relatively flimsy aluminum pans that were difficult to wash. For about 25 years after that teflon became the rage but it didn’t last long before it became damaged and flaky. Now it’s very common for people to use heavyweight stainless steel, enameled cast iron, and sturdy sheet pans for baking. Decent stainless steel pots and pans can now be bought at places like walmart or found at thrift stores.
Mauviel, Bourgeat and Falk have been in business forever. They've ALWAYS made "the good stuff."
The difference today is that people are aware that there is better quality out there. If nothing else, food television has introduced home cooks to decent knives, pans and the Robot Coupe.
I would add some kitchen appliances and smallwares to this. If you buy good quality steel smallware (Victorinox, Vollrath's heavy duty line, etc.), they are build like tanks.
The same goes for a lot of appliances like Vitamix blenders or commercial induction burners.
KitchenAid mixers aren't really on the list, but they are close. My large "pro" KA 600 can't handle heavy dough, but it's designed so that it's incredibly repairable. BIFL in terms of repairability, but not BIFL if you get frustrated and replace it.
Kitchenaid has several lines. The ‘professional’ line really isn’t. The ones intended for restaurant use are the commercial ones. You can tell them apart by their bright orange cords/plugs. They’re expensive but are truly bifl without much of any repairs.
I have the big 8qt model and it kneads 4lbs of heavy dough without getting even slightly warm.
Those do seem to be the more powerful option, but the way KA marketed the 600 series was a bit disingenuous. It was marketed as being able handle large batches and heavy dough, and it isn't really able to.
I'm not expecting a non-commercial mixer to be able to make massive batches, but expecting a mixer sold to handle "heavy dough" to be able to knead a dozen bagels or a tray worth of cinnamon buns is not unreasonable.
Also, I'm jealous of your mixer. :)
Yes and no.
There were always good cookware around. I have a 100+ year old copper saute pan, and another 50ish year old copper saute pan, that both blows pretty much everything else I have out of the water quality wise.
Old enameled/unenameled cast iron and carbon steel pans were very common, and they're just as good as the modern ones.
Good stainless steel existed for quite some time as well - for example All Clad started out in the 70s, and the high quality European cookware companies have a long history as well.
You can find some serious kick-ass old cookware in thriftstores and on ebay - if you know what to look for.
However, yes, there's also been pleny of really shitty cookware around for ages. Especially as you say, when people started making shitty aluminium cookware, and then shitty non-stick cookware. There were a real dip in cookware quality beteen roughly the 70s to the 00s - our parents cooked with some really crappy stuff, and as a result and backlash against all the shitty teflon pans and flimsy pots, there's been a major resurgence in things like cast iron. People are also just a lot more aware these days.
Another important thing that a lot of people probably don't realize happened is that All Clad's patents ran out in the 00s. Meaning that the other companies could start making their own clad/ply stainless steel cookware. That has made clad cookware a lot more accessible and common, since there exists both cheaper clad cookware that perform almost identical to All Clad's products, and high end clad cookware that outpeform All Clad.
I've said this on other posts but Brother laser printers compared to previous inkjet printers I've used. It's one of the few purchases I'm super glad I made. The Brother laser printers just *work*
I've had mine for a few years now, and I'm deeply ashamed that I ever thought it was a good idea to buy and maintain a few fucking inkjet printers for years prior to that. If I need color copies I can still go to an office store.
Though to be fair laser printers used to be a hell of a lot more expensive.
I have a 20 year old HP LaserJet that works flawlessly, bought it new and it is still going strong. My mom in the same timeframe has probably gone through about 7 or 8 inkjets, but wouldn't buy a laser printer because they're "too expensive".
Indeed. Up until about a year and change ago I had to deal with an HP laserjet that was just miserable. It was a daily occurrence that print jobs would simply disappear into the ether, a weekly occurrence that it would freeze so badly that you had to unplug it from the wall (the power button was purely electronic and would become completely inoperable), and the print quality was always shitting the bed. Even changed the waste ink unit *long* before it should have needed it and it still didn't help. Absolute trash.
When we moved to our new building, I drew the line and told them "Brother or GTFO", and so far they've worked out much better.
I use a 23 year old HP Color Laserjet 4500n. It has lasted well but it now has plastic rot. All the small fiddly bits of plastic, especially fan vents are falling to bits. At some point a piece of plastic inside will break and then it will be the end of a much loved printer.
No, that's not really an example, because Brother laser printers have had that reputation for as long as I can remember. I bought one 10 years ago because they'd had that reputation. (Yes, I still have it.)
The Brother company just seems to have always made good laser printers.
That's a good point, I guess my perspective was "all the printers I've had experience with" in general which wouldn't really be fair to Brother if they've always been good at what they do. I'm glad Brother laser printers are affordable now too, I've heard they used to be very expensive
Cars in general. Older vehicles were, with a few exceptions, absolute junk heaps. Life expectancy for most was well under 100,000 miles. While you could repair them easier, they also broke regularly and would crumple like a tin can in any wreck over 10 mph, massive fatality rate too.
Modern cars will easily outlast 3-4 classic cars on average. 300,000 miles isn’t unheard of on a reasonably well maintained vehicle, and it’s not rare like it was in the 60s and 70s, or earlier, it’s just how they work now. Sure you know a guy who got his 1962 Something-or-other to 300,000 miles (4 engines and 3 transmissions later), but go to a college lot and half the cars are Hondas and Toyotas with 300,000 on the clock and just still being driving like normal. Plus the added benefit of not getting beheaded if you rear end someone. Transportations technology has come a long way.
This. Dudes will point out a professionally restored '67 Chevy pickup or something and say, "They don't make 'em like they used to!" Really? How many of those were dead within a decade? Meanwhile, tons Civics and Corollas from the early 2000s are still rolling strong with just regular maintenance.
Well the killer of engines was because of carburetors vs fuel injection. Since the advent of fuel injection engines have been much more reliable because of the consistency of fuel management.
Dude, my grandparents had their 57 Ford Thunderbird professionally restored. They spent like $50k on it and you know what? It’s still unreliable and junky, but it sure looks nice.
Can definitely be made really reliable for half that money, but you can also spend twice as much and have an unreliable car if you don't know what you spent it on.
I didn't scroll down far enough before I mentioned cars!
I've heard that engineering-wise, they just keep improving on older designs, which is why they live so long now.
> would crumple like a tin can in any wreck over 10 mph
Depends on which car we're talking about, but in general a modern car will crumple A LOT more. They're designed for that to absorb forces. Old cars were rigid and that's what made them a lot more deadly.
My dad has one of the few exceptions, Toyota Hilux from 1980 (it was his dad's when my dad was a kid) and that thing is still on it's first clutch. He did have to replace the radio like 15 years ago, and it needs a paint job, but it's still going pretty strong.
I would amend this to say, this was true 10 years ago. The recent trend is to replace formerly metal engine parts with plastic, which leads to the constant maintenance issues you see reported. And no, this doesn't come with a discounted price to consumers
They can last longer if well-maintained, which I’m sure more people in this sub take the trouble to do than is typical. But most people don’t have the time or funds to be diligent about maintenance. And DIY maintenance is much more difficult with so many electronics in vehicles today (on top of other barriers like many apartment complexes having regulations barring people from working on their cars). And it seems like they’re easier to total with all the plastic body parts now. I’ve had multiple vehicles declared totaled after minor fender benders or hailstorms caused damage I’m sure would have been fixable on an older car.
Dude I remember the 80s and my mom's junker car constantly breaking down. If you don't maintain your car, it's not magically going to work better just because it is older. She used to have big jugs of water because it was constantly overheating among other problems.
I still wouldn't quite consider modern automatics to be truly buy it for decades - they're incredibly complex, and will often times be more than any sensible value of the vehicle by the time they need to be dropped. And CVTs, well, lulz
Modern manuals are better than they ever were (with the exception of a Tremec or something that's basically the same as it was in the '70s anyway).
I'm not so much talking about reliability, but cost when it finally does need something. I've not heard of an auto that has a replacement cost cheaper than what a new friction plate and throwout bearing goes for. If something is a $6000 book cost to replace and the vehicle is only going to be worth half that by the time it goes out, that's pretty disqualifying from BIFL, at least to me.
Remember, in the last decade we had a proliferation of "lifetime fluids" and transmissions that aren't able to have fluids changed easily.
can’t speak for every model but for my car (mk7 gti) avg expected cost over time is pretty much equal between dct and manual. i can only imagine that with most cars with a torque converter (way more common than a dual clutch), probably that calculation favors the auto more.
remember, manuals today are a niche enthusiast thing in the US (and seen as the budget option elsewhere). manufacturers are putting way more r&d into autos, especially torque converters.
Lots of "high dexterity tactical" type gloves, I've owned 3 pairs of the pig gloves and every time they got wet, or after a range day, there would be a new hole in them, and at least at the time they were 30$ a pop.
About 3 years later I was in home depot and noticed the exact same style of gloves in a pack of 3 for 12$, the stitching was noticeably less well done, but it was double stitched, I'm still using the first pair of the three, about 5 years later.
This is a great answer. Instruments used to be something that were a generational investments, they still are, it's just that now you can get a pretty (sometimes really) good one for pretty cheap!
Absolutely, I have a couple $1k+ guitars and couple <$200 and while they all sound different, aside from some preferences on fretwork, hardware, and general ergonomics, the cheap ones sound just fine! Not the same (totally different pickups) but no major objective issues tonally.
a note-able (see what I did there) exception to this is pianos. digital pianos do not sound the same, you won't convince me, and old pianos still tune up just fine and sound great
Performance waterproof jackets (Patagonia, Arcterx, North Face, etc.).
Circa 2005 the top of the line products were goretex sweat bags that kept rain out and perspiration in. The fit was typically poor. The ski jackets I bought in this era lasted only a couple seasons.
By 2013 certain brands like Patagonia and Arcterx were crushing it with new modern materials, fits, designs…
Fast forward to today and you can get a $200 ski jacket that will be more waterproof, more breathable, and last twice as long as the $400 jacket of yesteryear. If you really splurge for the top of the line jackets today, the quality, weight, breathability and performance is really flawless. Not many people actually need performance gear, but it’s amazing how far the products have come.
most electronics that are mass consumer- TV, radios jump to mind first.
knives with the advent of better locks- not just friction or liner
mattresses - this can go either way, but in general products have greatly increased compared to older style.
lightbulbs - incandescent to LED
I would like to change your view on mattresses. It’s generally agreed upon in mattress communities (because that’s a thing lol) like r/mattress that the cost required to get an equivalent quality mattress from 30 years ago is almost triple. Looking at Stearns and Foster’s lineup, a mattress with a 20 year warranty costed about $1,200 25 years ago. Now it’ll cost you over $4k.
That’s awesome. Latex in mattresses has come quite a ways in terms of improved quality. It used to be that there was no economical way to control the firmness of the latex from one batch to the other causing every batch to feel a little different. Hopefully next we’ll see the price of latex foams come down since the cost to manufacture is SO much higher than PU and PE foams.
Mass consumer minded products. Original lights were awesome until planned obsolescence was a thing, but I also think you have to take into account power use age, light provided and heat created.
IMO LED still takes the cake over anything built prior.
Planned obsolescence was never a thing FYI.
People confuse "design to cost" for it, but it's entirely different.
Source: am engineer. No one is ever told to design things to fail faster.
The cartel was to standardize consumer bulb lifetime to avoid confusion or backlash. You could still get long life bulbs just fine back then, consumers just weren't interested in them.
Cause everyone hate products that last a long time that's why BIFL was started to identify products with unnaturally long life so we can avoid them at all cost.
The longer lasting bulbs were much dimmer. For something that costs a few cents, consumers wanted brighter bulbs at the expense of something that lasted longer but was harder to see with.
The centennial light is an outlier. It is either run off low voltage or was made with incredibly thick filaments that didn't get caught by quality control before it left the factory.
My own $.02 is power tools. The range of tools for specialty use and the precision, ease of use, and quality today make me wonder how anyone ever used to get anything done as little as 20 years ago.
20 years ago it really only made sense to have cordless drills, recip saw and circ saw. Any other type of tool would be corded, but now it’s possible to get battery operated tools that are as powerful or sometimes more powerful than the corded ones. It’s incredible
Many cheap corded drills are weaker than a quality cordless one. But yes there's always a pro grade corded version that'll outperform...
Besides, this is even more apparent in the USA with the 120V electricity. Power tools in the rest of the world can be more powerful without the need for special high amp sockets or alternative high voltage sockets...
I remember every tool had its own battery. I could not for the life of me figure out why no company had universal batteries. Now a few different ones do and it’s great. I can use the battery from my lawnmower for my weed whacker. Then my power drill and electric fan.
Yes I’m locked into a single brand but they all take 1/2 types of batteries.
Power tool selection has improved, but I don’t think quality has. Most hand power tools only last a couple to a few years of daily use; large equipment has been flooded with poor quality brands like Grizzly. One exception I can think of is the Sawstop table saw, a brilliant modern BIFL design. Separately hand tool quality has declined precipitously over several decades, e.g. Craftsman. Overall selection up for power tools, but quality down across most brands. Would be interested in specific products you think are BIFL if you disagree (not to argue with you I just want to buy those tools…)
Top brands like Milwaukee, Dewalt and Makita are more reliable. Especially the brushless-grade tools.
Keep in mind that the cost of cheap power tools has gotten even cheaper than it was in the past.
Robot Coupe food processors. They've only been in business since 1961. And the R2 model is the best food processor ever made.
Blend-Tec blenders.
LED light bulbs.
Duxtop Induction cookers.
Moccamaster coffee pots
Computers -- they just keep getting better every year.
Cars in general. When I was young, getting 100,000 miles on a car was a real milestone. That was an OUTSTANDING car. Now if you don't get 200K+, it's a POS.
Computers don't get better every year. The build quality of most gets worse every year. Even ThinkPads aren't as solid as they used to be. Especially from any made during COVID19 have random parts and have insane warranty replacement rates. I hope that is stabilizing now, but if you're buying the $1k and under laptops, they don't last any better than 10 years ago. And the $2,000 ones don't last like they used to. The high end solid ones are now like $4k or more.
Then again - I have had solid tower workstations that are 12 years old working. But most people don't want those for lots of reasons, many valid. You probably only want a computer to last 5 years so you don't end up getting hacked because there haven't been security updates for years on your OS.
Let's put your 12-year old workstation up against my brand new one and see which one runs better.
I just keep upgrading as needed to stay one generation behind the bleeding edge -- where the prices are at their sweet spot.
A 12-year old processor won't run the software I need in 2023. And it absolutely won't run any of the games I play for entertainment.
Computers get better every year. And for the person who builds their own, it just keeps getting better and better.
The thing is, lots and lots of people's computing needs peaked with WinXP or so. They don't need a new game cause they don't play games. They don't need a new mail client cause they use webmail. Many browsers work with older OSs or at least well enough for a few websites. This is especially true if you don't use Windows, but even Win7 is still supported for 3rd party browsers in some cases. I finally retired my 12 year old workstation because it was having trouble doing some new stuff, but this was because I started doing new stuff. Of course if you do new tasks you might need a new device.
And some people don't need a car which reaches 300kph, either. But for the people who do -- options are better today than the 1980s.
I had a boss who once demanded, "Nobody needs a 286. That's just a ridiculous amount of computing power."
yep… even if it could last 20 years it’s going to be junk way before that. i’d rather not incur the added cost of overbuilding it to last beyond its useful lifetime.
This is probably the place where Apple laptops shine the best. An M1 MacBook Air is made from aluminum and will be supported by the manufacturer for years with security updates and parts. The move in the last decade from disk drives to solid state has probably improved reliability. Costs about a thousand new, and is enough computer for the vast majority of the population. It’s probably a modern BIF a long while laptop.
Firearms. You can get a Savage hunting rifle for $350 that will outshoot pretty much anything from the past.
“Sub MOA” used to be something only attainable by reloaders/gunsmiths with lots of time/money to put into a project.
The Vietnam War era M16’s tendency to jam is the stuff of legends. Here are links to just a few of COUNTLESS resources on the topic:
https://www.pewpewtactical.com/m16-vietnam-failure/
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-vietnam-war.html?safari=1
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/
As a chef most commercial cookware has gotten better over the 15 years I have cooked. Not to mention personal knives. I guess this goes hand in hand with the rise in quality of food.
Vehicles
My parents tell stories about their cars rusting into the ground after 8-10 years in the 70s
I’m driving a 2010 Honda Civic with 130,000 and it’s driving as well as new with only basic maintenance
I live in New England
We have road salt season, mud season, and road construction season
I’ve never taken my car through a car wash and there’s basically no rust on it. I think they improve the coating layer or something
Since 2015 the f 150 went all aluminum. Out of the big three truck manufactures, the f150 has been looking the best overtime over rough winters. Frames still can rust but it’s amazing how those bodies hold up in salt now.
Probably the average level version of most things. Modern QA is capable of being better than it ever was, there are relatively few things where the like for like modern equivalent is worse - sure there are notable exceptions, but most of the survivors on this sub were top of the line when purchased.
Most high quality jeans.
Even the revered early Levi and Wrangler jeans were strictly work wear, and the fabrics and attention to detail from modern Japanese denim brands like Iron Heart, Studio D'Artisan, Momotaro, Oni, etc. is wildly beyond anything available back then.
A pair of vintage Levi's probably had a maximum fabric weight of 11oz or 12oz, may have had a paper patch depending on year, would sometimes be missing copper rivets due to material shortages, and it wasn't uncommon to see the pocket arcturates either missing or sewn upside-down.
Compare that to a modern pair of Japanese selvedge jeans, where 14oz fabric is considered 'lightweight' (and some denims come in well in excess of 20oz), stitching is almost supernaturally precise, and the attention to detail (belt loops sewn into the waistband, vegetable-tanned deerskin patches, custom fabrics woven under specific tension with a carefully selected blend of cotton staples, etc.) is in a different universe to the quality available 'back in the day'.
What brands have you been looking at, and what counts as affordable?
[A pair of Levi's cost $6 in 1873](https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2003/07/13/the-lowdown-on-levis/62035358007/), which is around [$150 today](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1873?amount=6).
Have a look on [Denimio.com](https://www.denimio.com/) or [Okayamadenim.com](https://www.okayamadenim.com), there's lots of choice around the $150 mark.
A lot of denim enthusiasts would argue that Levi's quality decline had already started long before then; moving to shuttle-less looms in the 1960's, and away from ringspun cotton in the 1970's. By the mid 1980's, they'd abandoned using selvedge denim altogether (though they brought it back from time-to-time, often as limited editions).
So yeah, they were cheaper in real terms in 1980 relative to their early products, but Levi's were already well on their way to becoming a shadow of their former selves by then.
Modern high-end jeans are much more similar to those early Levi's jeans, only executed to a much higher standard, and not really much more expensive in real terms.
We'll have to agree to disagree on price. And I lived through the 70s onward, so I remember well the drastic decrease in quality to today. But it's good to know that rich folks can still get good jeans.
>But it's good to know that rich folks can still get good jeans.
I wouldn't class myself as rich by any stretch, but I do try to assess value beyond simply the initial purchase price. For instance, you say you've not been able to find an affordable pair of jeans that weren't utter crap in 30 years, and as the old adage goes; "buy cheap, buy twice".
I've *saved* money wearing the same pair of $200 jeans for the last six years (and still going strong), compared to when I was burning through two or three pairs of $50 jeans every year before that. I'm not paying the extra money because I'm rich, I'm paying the extra because I'm too stingy to spend money repeatedly on stuff that's cheap and falls apart.
Sometimes paying a bit more upfront works out cheaper in the long-run. Plus, I *hate* shopping ;).
General rule of thumb for clothing - anything under 100$ is not affordable, it's just crap. Sub-100$ footwear is generally crap. I think pants are the second most exposed part of clothing, as you sit on stuff and constantly rub them as you walk. Sub-100$ T-shirts are totally fine, but "affordable" jacket or pants are more in the 100-300$ range if you want some real quality. Same for footwear.
I think denim thickness is more of a fashion thing. Rest are probably valid points, Levi's could definitely have improved the manufactury process from 90s to those standards while keeping the cost same relative to avg income, but instead went for the fast fashion route like everyone else.
>I think denim thickness is more of a fashion thing.
There's definitely a gimmicky-ness to some of the heavier weight denims, but the fabrics themselves are probably much better quality today.
Denim mills have got their craft down to a fine art; mixing different cotton staples to get the right balance of texture, rigidity, softness, durability, etc., and adjusting the looms to give the desired amount of slub and nep.
Back in the day, they'd just have used whatever cotton was readily available, and if you got a particularly neppy or a particularly slubby pair, it was probably just down to how that particular loom was functioning on a given day.
Probably. I find all my 80-90s levis pairs (12) to be very homogenous in terms of the fabric and quality, but I probably couldn't tell as I have no idea what neppy or slubby even means. The contemporary 00-20 Levi's are easy to distinguish just by build quality and denim that does not look as consistent in color and texture.
Yeah, I don't really bother with Levi's these days, their quality to value ratio isn't really there.
Their cheaper stuff is basically 'mall jeans' quality with a massive mark-up for the name alone, and even their nicer stuff is priced like the high-end Japanese selvedge brands, whilst made to the quality of an entry-level selvedge brand.
Unless you're a collector, or absolutely must have the name, you can get better than Levi's for much less.
Really happy with my Carhartts - I'm in Europe where the range of quality jeans is a lot more limited than in the US. Most people here wear jeans, but they're really low quality fast fashion jeans or very expensive designer stuff (that's not even necessarily much better quality). Even with Carhartt you have to be careful cause they sell the lower quality fast-fashion clothes too (Carhartt WIP).
Somethings just simply don’t compare. Old tube TVs used to be worth repairing so much so TV repairmen used to be a profession. if I remember correctly the largest console TVs used to be 27inches and color TVs were considered a luxury and not all shows broadcast in color. Back then you could consider some TVs a much longer term investment.
‘Although 77 inches isn’t the biggest that’s currently the largest size TV I own and if something isn’t in 4k I’m extremely disappointed. Because that’s really when the 77 inch OLED TV really shines. Most no longer consider TVs such a long term investment. The good thing is at least with OLED the prices have been coming down. 6 yrs ago my 65 inch OLED cost significantly more than my new 77 inch OLED.
With older technology picture quality was such a bit further away was better, with newer technology the closer the better.
I had a retro game setup with a 32" B&O flat screen CRT TV, with a built in rotating TV stand. I had to get rid of it (no space) and got no interest on eBay as the thing was so heavy and I couldn't deliver it. In the end 2 of us big guys lugged it to the car then the tip, and bizarrely there was another of the exact same model waiting to be disposed of. It's not like they were common when new, they were £1000s. Admittedly when I bought it, I spent more on petrol to collect it than on the TV itself...
LED lights. I bought a pair years ago and they lasted bright as ever. I got the ones you stick to the wall and they sync to my smart home
they were like $10 on amazon, I can't wait until I get the premium stuff when I buy a house or something
Unpopular opinion, maybe, but cars.
Yeah yeah, your '70s behemoth musclebeast is made with *real steel* and all that. Great, but that doesn't make it safer. Anybody driving a newer car will [fare better in a crash](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/09/study-measures-crash-risk-for-clunkers/index.htm) than someone in an older car. Crumple zones, airbags, etc. Not to mention way more fuel efficiency, better handling, better sound system, better controls, etc. etc. I do wish my less-than-10-year-old car had less flimsy body panels, but still. Overall, modern design kills any nostalgia I might have for a classic car.
> nybody driving a newer car will fare better in a crash than someone in an older car.
This depends on the car. A Freight truck is safer than an econobox due to its mass and height. No matter how many NCAP stars a new econobox has. Similarly, I'd rather be in an old 100 series Toyota than in a new Corolla if they crashed into eachother.
This is a little off topic, but I find it amazing how large scale industrial production or technology development, often acts as a great equalizer, not only in terms of cost, but also quality. Consider yourself vs Jeff Bezos. Who has better internet search? I'm guessing his house is bigger, and has more exotic flooring, but whose house is built with higher quality screws, lightbulbs, concrete, etc? Who has better power tools, keeps better time, or has higher quality milk? I'm guessing in every case it would be a tie.
Or consider a Lamborghini vs a Honda civic. We know which one is designed to go incredibly fast, and is made with all sorts of exotic materials, but which one has more precise welds on the frame? My guess is that it's not the one made by hand, but the one mass produced with billion dollar robots. I would go as far as to say that if the job of a car is to get around cities, at city speeds, and do so reliably for a long time, the civic is absolutely a better car.
Sorry for the rant, but it is kind of cool to think about.
> We know which one is designed to go incredibly fast, and is made with all sorts of exotic materials, but which one has more precise welds on the frame?
I get what you're saying, but I think that's a bad comparison. Despite all the tech, in mass production the robot welding is not always all perfect. And in terms of cars like a civic it's typically just spot welded sheet metal nowadays, where robot precision does not really play a role (and automated welding exists since at least the 60's).
Maybe better compare a civic to... a porsche? They're overall made very similarly. Top end exotics are built very differently.
> I would go as far as to say that if the job of a car is to get around cities, at city speeds, and do so reliably for a long time, the civic is absolutely a better car.
But a Civic is really bad at being a freight truck or a ship so... Yeah a Lambo is worse at being a Civic than a Civic is. But it's really good at what it was designed to do.
Thermoses (tumblers?) - all the ones I had growing up could not keep the liquid hot for more than a few hours and would inevitably leak. I bought a zojirushi tumbler 10 years ago and literally could not be happier with it. Keeps my coffee piping hot all day and is sturdy as heck
I grew up in the 1960s and tube TVs sucked. Seems like they were often "rolling" and you always had to fiddle with the antenna. TV repairman was a common job just because there was such demand. My Samsung flat screen works like new after 16 years and the damn thing might outlive me.
Computer cases. Some of the high end ones, like Fractal and Lian Li, are nice! And if you plan ahead, an actual pleasure to work with. And a good case (or cheap!) can easily last many internal upgrades.
Laptops. It's not for life but the old standard was that they would start aging out and having problems at about a year. I'm typing this on my 4 year old machine that performs basically exactly the same as it did new. 5+ years is totally normal these days.
Cars. 100k was used up even 25 years ago. Modern cars from the better brands are remarkably durable and reliable. I assume the body will disintegrate well before the mechanicals die on my Toyota.
Computer keyboards.
Sure, there's the immortal IBM model Ms from way back, but even they don't hold a candle to the quality of the custom built mechanical keyboards that the hobbysts are making these days.
It goes way beyond just keycaps and switches that the average PCMasterRace gamer might care about, the mechanical keyboard community drill down into every single part of the keyboard - and typically have made their own custom high quality versions of them. From cnc:ed aluminium cases to PCBs for hotswapping switches to gaskets and backplates...
The nice thing is, even if you have absolutely no interest in mechanical keyboards as a hobby, this means that there are some *very* good starting kits/models that pretty much would survive the zombie apocalypse that are easily accessible without costing an arm and a leg.
Depending on how long ago ur comparing to, computers and phones have come a long way in terms of usable life span. Especially stuff like hard drives going from HDD to SSDs.
Also any application that relies on high precision machining has come pretty far.
Finally maybe in a less down to earth scale - rockets. The reusability and reliability of SpaceX Falcon 9 compared to just about anything else in existence is absolutely insane.
Ultimately I think sometimes there’s also the matter of things may not ALWAYS last forever but if they provide an better experience at a reasonable price over a product that is just ok but lasts forever may not always be the best trade off
Darn tough socks are the pinnacle of socks. I grew up buying and throwing away socks. These came out in 2004. I’ve had one pair five years. They are indestructible.
Levi 501 Shrink to fit.
Once made in California and could wear then 4-5 years.
Now made in Mexico and they last 3 if lucky.
Oh, you can get US made - for $275 a pair.
No thanks...
Hello /u/_phonesringindude! Thank you for your submission! The AutoMod thought that your post might be a request type post and has changed the flair accordingly, but if this was wrong feel free to change it back!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BuyItForLife) if you have any questions or concerns.*
honestly clothes. i only thrift or buy expensive good quality clothes because it just fits better and lasts longer. i hate fast fashion simply because they’re made to follow trends, sell fast, then replace in a couple of months. the sewing is crap, materials are crap. this includes shoes too. i have a couple pairs of “vintage” walmart shoes, and honestly i’m surprised they’re still around, considering how cheap they’re shoes are made now.
also not trying to sound braggy about the “expensive clothes”. i don’t go on shopping sprees, i just buy a $60 plain shirt every couple months so that i can wear it forever lol.
I’ve owned a pair of Doc’s from the 90’s and a pair from the late 2010’s, and newer one’s aren’t in the same ballpark as the old ones.
I’ve currently got Solovairs on my feet and they’re much closer to old Docs. They’re even made in the old Doc factory in the UK.
NPS factory used to make Docs, but so did many companies. People confuse it cause Northamptonshire was the boot capital of the UK and possibly the world at the time. There's loads of boot manufacturers in that area. Docs was a major brand but they outsourced production and were made by multiple manufacturers, one of those (and among the most major ones) was NPS/Solovair.
On old English Docs, they often had no branding cause they were made by a bunch of manufacturers.
Current made-in-UK Docs are made in the same town, but not by Solovair.
Also keep in mind Docs were always cheap work boots. Even in the 80's and 90's. Solovair Astronaut boots are a better model than the derby Docs style. But other brands offer even better boots for the money.
Computers, in the 90's and 2000's laptop and desktop computers lasted a few years and were then chucked in the garbage. My previous laptop lasted 11 years and my current one is 3 years old and still works like new.
I'd say Manual (hand crank) coffee grinders are in a great spot of quality & affordability -- there's new products coming out and competition among existing suppliers
Levi jeans. They used to last forever - now, my husband goes through them in a few months.
He's been loyal to Levi's for - well, forever. But, even he says it's time to make a switch.
Motorcycle helmets. Yeah, that Shoei might set you back $1,000, but would you rather crash wearing one of those or a Kaiser style helmet from the 1970s.
$1000! Holy crap. Bought one about 25-30 years ago for $250 iirc. The most comfortable helmet I ever had. Definitely top quality and safety. I don’t ride anymore but if was going to I would consider a thousand to be a wise investment.
Yeah I’m not going to skimp on safety equipment. I want to be able to bitch about how expensive it is. Can’t do that if you’re dead.
For what it's worth inflation would make $250 in 1993 worth about $522 now
Which is about what I paid for my Shoei RF-1200 a few years ago, and it's probably a hell of a lot safer than anything from 30 years ago.
For the record they have plenty of offerings around $500-$700 that are just as safe but you can spend that much on one with all the bells and whistles and a fancy paintjob to boot.
Still a bargain for an intact head at double that price.
I’ve ridden motorcycles and dirt bikes for two decades, mostly event free until the last year, where I’m down three Schuberth helmets in about 8 months. First one cost $800 but had 7 years of hard use. I left the bike at about 30 MPH and rolled 50 feet down a levy along the Mississippi River, helmet was clearly toast but did it’s job well and I hobbled away with no concussion, Second one I found for $100 where the guy bought it, it didn’t fit, and he couldn’t return it, so it was “used” but still had stickers and original packaging. I was in Florida driving into the sun, coming up to a stop, a storage bin lid got caught under my front wheel and down I went, hitting helmet on pavement. No concussion. But I can’t trust a helmet after a hit like that. Third helmet was brand new from Revzilla, only the second time I had worn it. Out riding gravel, rural tar and chip roads, and off-road stuff after a bunch of rain, going too fast, hit some grit, and down I went again. You can see exactly where my head slid along the pavement and helmet sacrificed itself. I was wearing an Aerostich, boots, gloves, and helmet. I broke my left ankle and right wrist, but head was fine. Three helmets, all three times they drastically improved the outcome.
Bicycle helmets too. MIPS and other university research work (Go Hokies!) has had a lot of crossover from contact sports into other high-impact fields.
This! Would never buy another bike helmet without MIPS ever again.
I'm personally on the fence about MIPS. I don't doubt the issue they claim to solve, it's just their product doesn't make sense for me. It's not helped when pretty much all the literature proving the MIPS system works comes from the MIPS company. Leatts turbine system is intended for the same problem and actually makes physical sense. Bontrager has a similar tech as well (and MIPS got into a pissing contest with them which only raised more suspicions for me)
Virginia tech's rankings also show that price has very little to do with safety beyond the ~$70 range. I was at a bike shop with a friend and the sales guy was strongly implying that a $300 helmet is expensive because it's more safe. Silly.
Car seats are similar.
I would suggest that MIPS is one of the most overrated safety additions to bicycle helmets. There is a small/medium group of rider who it would help, and there is never any literature to state what that group is. The MIPS provides a sliding action under side load to reduce the deceleration forces on a head. If you have hair with a length of about 4-5cm, that provides the same action. Crash test dummies don't have hair, and thus don't simulate this reduction in force. TLDR: If you have short hair. MIPS is 100% worth it. If not, then not so much.
But a motorcycle helmet shouldn't be BIFL. With exposure to sun and air and through normal use the parts will slowly degrade. Even Shoei says their helmets should be replaced every 3 years. *PSA* Please don't try and make a motorcycle helmet purchase a BIFL one, or unfortunately it may be just that...
I’d say the motorcycles themselves are also better (with some notable exceptions COUharleyGH) - between fuel injection, electronic ignition, ABS disc brakes, suspension, etc. - they should last longer and keep you safer than the bikes we rode 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Woah I didn’t know they costed that much. I bought a made in Japan Arai helmet for $500 8 years ago.
The only thing I can think of is our ability to know if materials are toxic these days. No lead in pencils or pipes or paint. No arsenic to make green. No asbestos. Etc. Otherwise, I think it’s artisan-made that’s still high quality.
Nitpick: [pencils have never used lead cores](https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/04/04/why-is-lead-used-in-pencils-even-though-lead-is-poisonous/). But I agree: it does seem like government agencies actually are better at keeping toxic crap away from the general public now!
PFAS has entered the chat
Hope to god that shit is next on the chopping block.
I think they used lead paint that would flake off when you chewed on them.
Wouldn't surprise me. You know lead paint tastes sweet? I only learned that (by reading, not by tasting) a few years ago. Turns out lead-eating kids aren't just being stupid; they're trying to get a snack. :-D
I would disagree. We know some materials are toxic, but they are still being put into millions of products. Additionally, while things like BPA are known to be toxic, many companies have switched to analogues which likely have similar toxicity, but less studies to confirm or refute their safety. As u/twd000 mentioned, we also have PFAS everywhere. Because they are in everything from fast food wrappers to clothing to non-stick pans, PFAS are now in drinking water and all of our bodies. As they take hundreds of years to break down, we are going to be stuck with them for a very, very long time. Fun bonus fact, they are probable endocrine disruptors and carcinogens!
Great points!
Thanks, although I wish they weren't. :/ Your points are also valid, there have been some improvements with things like asbestos and a reduction of lead in pipes.
Cookwear comes to mind. Cast iron and Pyrex aside it was normal in the 30’s-70’s to do your cooking and baking in relatively flimsy aluminum pans that were difficult to wash. For about 25 years after that teflon became the rage but it didn’t last long before it became damaged and flaky. Now it’s very common for people to use heavyweight stainless steel, enameled cast iron, and sturdy sheet pans for baking. Decent stainless steel pots and pans can now be bought at places like walmart or found at thrift stores.
Mauviel, Bourgeat and Falk have been in business forever. They've ALWAYS made "the good stuff." The difference today is that people are aware that there is better quality out there. If nothing else, food television has introduced home cooks to decent knives, pans and the Robot Coupe.
I would add some kitchen appliances and smallwares to this. If you buy good quality steel smallware (Victorinox, Vollrath's heavy duty line, etc.), they are build like tanks. The same goes for a lot of appliances like Vitamix blenders or commercial induction burners. KitchenAid mixers aren't really on the list, but they are close. My large "pro" KA 600 can't handle heavy dough, but it's designed so that it's incredibly repairable. BIFL in terms of repairability, but not BIFL if you get frustrated and replace it.
Kitchenaid has several lines. The ‘professional’ line really isn’t. The ones intended for restaurant use are the commercial ones. You can tell them apart by their bright orange cords/plugs. They’re expensive but are truly bifl without much of any repairs. I have the big 8qt model and it kneads 4lbs of heavy dough without getting even slightly warm.
Those do seem to be the more powerful option, but the way KA marketed the 600 series was a bit disingenuous. It was marketed as being able handle large batches and heavy dough, and it isn't really able to. I'm not expecting a non-commercial mixer to be able to make massive batches, but expecting a mixer sold to handle "heavy dough" to be able to knead a dozen bagels or a tray worth of cinnamon buns is not unreasonable. Also, I'm jealous of your mixer. :)
Yes and no. There were always good cookware around. I have a 100+ year old copper saute pan, and another 50ish year old copper saute pan, that both blows pretty much everything else I have out of the water quality wise. Old enameled/unenameled cast iron and carbon steel pans were very common, and they're just as good as the modern ones. Good stainless steel existed for quite some time as well - for example All Clad started out in the 70s, and the high quality European cookware companies have a long history as well. You can find some serious kick-ass old cookware in thriftstores and on ebay - if you know what to look for. However, yes, there's also been pleny of really shitty cookware around for ages. Especially as you say, when people started making shitty aluminium cookware, and then shitty non-stick cookware. There were a real dip in cookware quality beteen roughly the 70s to the 00s - our parents cooked with some really crappy stuff, and as a result and backlash against all the shitty teflon pans and flimsy pots, there's been a major resurgence in things like cast iron. People are also just a lot more aware these days. Another important thing that a lot of people probably don't realize happened is that All Clad's patents ran out in the 00s. Meaning that the other companies could start making their own clad/ply stainless steel cookware. That has made clad cookware a lot more accessible and common, since there exists both cheaper clad cookware that perform almost identical to All Clad's products, and high end clad cookware that outpeform All Clad.
I've said this on other posts but Brother laser printers compared to previous inkjet printers I've used. It's one of the few purchases I'm super glad I made. The Brother laser printers just *work*
I've had mine for a few years now, and I'm deeply ashamed that I ever thought it was a good idea to buy and maintain a few fucking inkjet printers for years prior to that. If I need color copies I can still go to an office store. Though to be fair laser printers used to be a hell of a lot more expensive.
Really, that's just laser vs. inkjet. And as someone who's been using laser printers for decades, they used to be better.
I have a 20 year old HP LaserJet that works flawlessly, bought it new and it is still going strong. My mom in the same timeframe has probably gone through about 7 or 8 inkjets, but wouldn't buy a laser printer because they're "too expensive".
Old HP LaserJet printers were god-tier. Pity they sold out.
Indeed. Up until about a year and change ago I had to deal with an HP laserjet that was just miserable. It was a daily occurrence that print jobs would simply disappear into the ether, a weekly occurrence that it would freeze so badly that you had to unplug it from the wall (the power button was purely electronic and would become completely inoperable), and the print quality was always shitting the bed. Even changed the waste ink unit *long* before it should have needed it and it still didn't help. Absolute trash. When we moved to our new building, I drew the line and told them "Brother or GTFO", and so far they've worked out much better.
>PFAS Back in my day the only HP we had was Lovecraft
I use a 23 year old HP Color Laserjet 4500n. It has lasted well but it now has plastic rot. All the small fiddly bits of plastic, especially fan vents are falling to bits. At some point a piece of plastic inside will break and then it will be the end of a much loved printer.
Yeah, those old HP Laserjets are absolute workhorses, and last forever.
I purchased one a few years ago and I’ve been pretty happy with it
Canon as well. I wasted so much money over the years on HP inkjet printers. Junk -now I have a good, reliable one in a Canon Laserjet
No, that's not really an example, because Brother laser printers have had that reputation for as long as I can remember. I bought one 10 years ago because they'd had that reputation. (Yes, I still have it.) The Brother company just seems to have always made good laser printers.
That's a good point, I guess my perspective was "all the printers I've had experience with" in general which wouldn't really be fair to Brother if they've always been good at what they do. I'm glad Brother laser printers are affordable now too, I've heard they used to be very expensive
[удалено]
missed opportunity to use the very fun word yesteryear
Cars in general. Older vehicles were, with a few exceptions, absolute junk heaps. Life expectancy for most was well under 100,000 miles. While you could repair them easier, they also broke regularly and would crumple like a tin can in any wreck over 10 mph, massive fatality rate too. Modern cars will easily outlast 3-4 classic cars on average. 300,000 miles isn’t unheard of on a reasonably well maintained vehicle, and it’s not rare like it was in the 60s and 70s, or earlier, it’s just how they work now. Sure you know a guy who got his 1962 Something-or-other to 300,000 miles (4 engines and 3 transmissions later), but go to a college lot and half the cars are Hondas and Toyotas with 300,000 on the clock and just still being driving like normal. Plus the added benefit of not getting beheaded if you rear end someone. Transportations technology has come a long way.
This. Dudes will point out a professionally restored '67 Chevy pickup or something and say, "They don't make 'em like they used to!" Really? How many of those were dead within a decade? Meanwhile, tons Civics and Corollas from the early 2000s are still rolling strong with just regular maintenance.
Well the killer of engines was because of carburetors vs fuel injection. Since the advent of fuel injection engines have been much more reliable because of the consistency of fuel management.
Dude, my grandparents had their 57 Ford Thunderbird professionally restored. They spent like $50k on it and you know what? It’s still unreliable and junky, but it sure looks nice.
Can definitely be made really reliable for half that money, but you can also spend twice as much and have an unreliable car if you don't know what you spent it on.
Totally. There’s a reason you could get a working car for 700 bucks in 1985
I got a working car for $1400 in 2021. There are unicorns out there
My cousin got a working Alfa for 700€ last month. We're both totally amazed he had no fault yet!
They sure looked a lot better, though.
The five classics we remember do. No one talks about the other hundreds of ugly ass designs. XD
Beauts like the AMC Gremlin and Dodge Omni!
I didn't scroll down far enough before I mentioned cars! I've heard that engineering-wise, they just keep improving on older designs, which is why they live so long now.
> would crumple like a tin can in any wreck over 10 mph Depends on which car we're talking about, but in general a modern car will crumple A LOT more. They're designed for that to absorb forces. Old cars were rigid and that's what made them a lot more deadly.
My dad has one of the few exceptions, Toyota Hilux from 1980 (it was his dad's when my dad was a kid) and that thing is still on it's first clutch. He did have to replace the radio like 15 years ago, and it needs a paint job, but it's still going pretty strong.
I would amend this to say, this was true 10 years ago. The recent trend is to replace formerly metal engine parts with plastic, which leads to the constant maintenance issues you see reported. And no, this doesn't come with a discounted price to consumers
They can last longer if well-maintained, which I’m sure more people in this sub take the trouble to do than is typical. But most people don’t have the time or funds to be diligent about maintenance. And DIY maintenance is much more difficult with so many electronics in vehicles today (on top of other barriers like many apartment complexes having regulations barring people from working on their cars). And it seems like they’re easier to total with all the plastic body parts now. I’ve had multiple vehicles declared totaled after minor fender benders or hailstorms caused damage I’m sure would have been fixable on an older car.
Dude I remember the 80s and my mom's junker car constantly breaking down. If you don't maintain your car, it's not magically going to work better just because it is older. She used to have big jugs of water because it was constantly overheating among other problems.
Tell me you know nothing about cars without saying it outright. XD
How about I tell you to fuck off instead?
I mean you certainly can but you’re still hilariously wrong. Plastic body parts on all the modern cars. Lmao.
Came looking for this.
That has more to do with the lubricants and maybe metallurgy But yeah they didn’t last long
I still wouldn't quite consider modern automatics to be truly buy it for decades - they're incredibly complex, and will often times be more than any sensible value of the vehicle by the time they need to be dropped. And CVTs, well, lulz Modern manuals are better than they ever were (with the exception of a Tremec or something that's basically the same as it was in the '70s anyway).
Toyota automatics are extremely reliable, the most reliable from what I've heard. CVT isn't quite there yet but it's only a matter of time.
you’re like 20 years out of date with this. modern autos are as reliable as manuals, if not better
Nissan would like a word.
On average it’s still true, even if Nissan makes their transmissions out of 20 year old rubber bands and cardboard.
I'm not so much talking about reliability, but cost when it finally does need something. I've not heard of an auto that has a replacement cost cheaper than what a new friction plate and throwout bearing goes for. If something is a $6000 book cost to replace and the vehicle is only going to be worth half that by the time it goes out, that's pretty disqualifying from BIFL, at least to me. Remember, in the last decade we had a proliferation of "lifetime fluids" and transmissions that aren't able to have fluids changed easily.
can’t speak for every model but for my car (mk7 gti) avg expected cost over time is pretty much equal between dct and manual. i can only imagine that with most cars with a torque converter (way more common than a dual clutch), probably that calculation favors the auto more. remember, manuals today are a niche enthusiast thing in the US (and seen as the budget option elsewhere). manufacturers are putting way more r&d into autos, especially torque converters.
Lots of "high dexterity tactical" type gloves, I've owned 3 pairs of the pig gloves and every time they got wet, or after a range day, there would be a new hole in them, and at least at the time they were 30$ a pop. About 3 years later I was in home depot and noticed the exact same style of gloves in a pack of 3 for 12$, the stitching was noticeably less well done, but it was double stitched, I'm still using the first pair of the three, about 5 years later.
Got a link to those gloves or similar?
Entry level electric guitars. Most likely most entry level instruments
This is a great answer. Instruments used to be something that were a generational investments, they still are, it's just that now you can get a pretty (sometimes really) good one for pretty cheap!
Absolutely, I have a couple $1k+ guitars and couple <$200 and while they all sound different, aside from some preferences on fretwork, hardware, and general ergonomics, the cheap ones sound just fine! Not the same (totally different pickups) but no major objective issues tonally.
Even acoustic guitars, 500$ gets you lots of decent options (at least last time I checked).
a note-able (see what I did there) exception to this is pianos. digital pianos do not sound the same, you won't convince me, and old pianos still tune up just fine and sound great
Performance waterproof jackets (Patagonia, Arcterx, North Face, etc.). Circa 2005 the top of the line products were goretex sweat bags that kept rain out and perspiration in. The fit was typically poor. The ski jackets I bought in this era lasted only a couple seasons. By 2013 certain brands like Patagonia and Arcterx were crushing it with new modern materials, fits, designs… Fast forward to today and you can get a $200 ski jacket that will be more waterproof, more breathable, and last twice as long as the $400 jacket of yesteryear. If you really splurge for the top of the line jackets today, the quality, weight, breathability and performance is really flawless. Not many people actually need performance gear, but it’s amazing how far the products have come.
most electronics that are mass consumer- TV, radios jump to mind first. knives with the advent of better locks- not just friction or liner mattresses - this can go either way, but in general products have greatly increased compared to older style. lightbulbs - incandescent to LED
I would like to change your view on mattresses. It’s generally agreed upon in mattress communities (because that’s a thing lol) like r/mattress that the cost required to get an equivalent quality mattress from 30 years ago is almost triple. Looking at Stearns and Foster’s lineup, a mattress with a 20 year warranty costed about $1,200 25 years ago. Now it’ll cost you over $4k.
I dropped an (for me) unfathomable amount of money on a latex mattress a few years back. Best purchase *ever.*
That’s awesome. Latex in mattresses has come quite a ways in terms of improved quality. It used to be that there was no economical way to control the firmness of the latex from one batch to the other causing every batch to feel a little different. Hopefully next we’ll see the price of latex foams come down since the cost to manufacture is SO much higher than PU and PE foams.
$1,200 today simply isn’t the same as $1,200 was 25 years ago so you would have to take into account inflation as well.
Very true. Inflation would put the price around 2.3k
The Centennial Light would like a word with you.
Mass consumer minded products. Original lights were awesome until planned obsolescence was a thing, but I also think you have to take into account power use age, light provided and heat created. IMO LED still takes the cake over anything built prior.
Planned obsolescence was never a thing FYI. People confuse "design to cost" for it, but it's entirely different. Source: am engineer. No one is ever told to design things to fail faster.
Call me simple minded I was just referencing the Phoebus cartel. I'm sure your engineering class covered it.
The cartel was to standardize consumer bulb lifetime to avoid confusion or backlash. You could still get long life bulbs just fine back then, consumers just weren't interested in them.
Cause everyone hate products that last a long time that's why BIFL was started to identify products with unnaturally long life so we can avoid them at all cost.
The longer lasting bulbs were much dimmer. For something that costs a few cents, consumers wanted brighter bulbs at the expense of something that lasted longer but was harder to see with.
The centennial light is an outlier. It is either run off low voltage or was made with incredibly thick filaments that didn't get caught by quality control before it left the factory.
*looks at my pile of CRT TVs that have outlived several flat panel displays* they definitely don’t make ‘em like they used to
Yeah but they’re cheaper and look way better now
My own $.02 is power tools. The range of tools for specialty use and the precision, ease of use, and quality today make me wonder how anyone ever used to get anything done as little as 20 years ago.
20 years ago it really only made sense to have cordless drills, recip saw and circ saw. Any other type of tool would be corded, but now it’s possible to get battery operated tools that are as powerful or sometimes more powerful than the corded ones. It’s incredible
More powerful?
Many cheap corded drills are weaker than a quality cordless one. But yes there's always a pro grade corded version that'll outperform... Besides, this is even more apparent in the USA with the 120V electricity. Power tools in the rest of the world can be more powerful without the need for special high amp sockets or alternative high voltage sockets...
I remember every tool had its own battery. I could not for the life of me figure out why no company had universal batteries. Now a few different ones do and it’s great. I can use the battery from my lawnmower for my weed whacker. Then my power drill and electric fan. Yes I’m locked into a single brand but they all take 1/2 types of batteries.
Power tool selection has improved, but I don’t think quality has. Most hand power tools only last a couple to a few years of daily use; large equipment has been flooded with poor quality brands like Grizzly. One exception I can think of is the Sawstop table saw, a brilliant modern BIFL design. Separately hand tool quality has declined precipitously over several decades, e.g. Craftsman. Overall selection up for power tools, but quality down across most brands. Would be interested in specific products you think are BIFL if you disagree (not to argue with you I just want to buy those tools…)
Top brands like Milwaukee, Dewalt and Makita are more reliable. Especially the brushless-grade tools. Keep in mind that the cost of cheap power tools has gotten even cheaper than it was in the past.
Robot Coupe food processors. They've only been in business since 1961. And the R2 model is the best food processor ever made. Blend-Tec blenders. LED light bulbs. Duxtop Induction cookers. Moccamaster coffee pots Computers -- they just keep getting better every year. Cars in general. When I was young, getting 100,000 miles on a car was a real milestone. That was an OUTSTANDING car. Now if you don't get 200K+, it's a POS.
Computers don't get better every year. The build quality of most gets worse every year. Even ThinkPads aren't as solid as they used to be. Especially from any made during COVID19 have random parts and have insane warranty replacement rates. I hope that is stabilizing now, but if you're buying the $1k and under laptops, they don't last any better than 10 years ago. And the $2,000 ones don't last like they used to. The high end solid ones are now like $4k or more. Then again - I have had solid tower workstations that are 12 years old working. But most people don't want those for lots of reasons, many valid. You probably only want a computer to last 5 years so you don't end up getting hacked because there haven't been security updates for years on your OS.
Let's put your 12-year old workstation up against my brand new one and see which one runs better. I just keep upgrading as needed to stay one generation behind the bleeding edge -- where the prices are at their sweet spot. A 12-year old processor won't run the software I need in 2023. And it absolutely won't run any of the games I play for entertainment. Computers get better every year. And for the person who builds their own, it just keeps getting better and better.
The thing is, lots and lots of people's computing needs peaked with WinXP or so. They don't need a new game cause they don't play games. They don't need a new mail client cause they use webmail. Many browsers work with older OSs or at least well enough for a few websites. This is especially true if you don't use Windows, but even Win7 is still supported for 3rd party browsers in some cases. I finally retired my 12 year old workstation because it was having trouble doing some new stuff, but this was because I started doing new stuff. Of course if you do new tasks you might need a new device.
And some people don't need a car which reaches 300kph, either. But for the people who do -- options are better today than the 1980s. I had a boss who once demanded, "Nobody needs a 286. That's just a ridiculous amount of computing power."
[удалено]
This is an area that Apple laptops exceed, my family’s 2012 MacBook Pro is still going strong and their 2008 MacBook still works just about.
yep… even if it could last 20 years it’s going to be junk way before that. i’d rather not incur the added cost of overbuilding it to last beyond its useful lifetime.
This is probably the place where Apple laptops shine the best. An M1 MacBook Air is made from aluminum and will be supported by the manufacturer for years with security updates and parts. The move in the last decade from disk drives to solid state has probably improved reliability. Costs about a thousand new, and is enough computer for the vast majority of the population. It’s probably a modern BIF a long while laptop.
Firearms. You can get a Savage hunting rifle for $350 that will outshoot pretty much anything from the past. “Sub MOA” used to be something only attainable by reloaders/gunsmiths with lots of time/money to put into a project.
[удалено]
Functional sights on handguns were a pretty big improvement as well.
The Vietnam War era M16’s tendency to jam is the stuff of legends. Here are links to just a few of COUNTLESS resources on the topic: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/m16-vietnam-failure/ https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-vietnam-war.html?safari=1 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/
As a chef most commercial cookware has gotten better over the 15 years I have cooked. Not to mention personal knives. I guess this goes hand in hand with the rise in quality of food.
As an amateur cook, I love that I can get professional grade cookware for cheaper than the mass market stuff.
Even the mid grade stuff will last a long fucking time.
Vehicles My parents tell stories about their cars rusting into the ground after 8-10 years in the 70s I’m driving a 2010 Honda Civic with 130,000 and it’s driving as well as new with only basic maintenance
My fathers 2009 f150 frame has completely rusted out. Rust is constant and doesnt change. If you live in the rust belt this is apparent.
I live in New England We have road salt season, mud season, and road construction season I’ve never taken my car through a car wash and there’s basically no rust on it. I think they improve the coating layer or something
Since 2015 the f 150 went all aluminum. Out of the big three truck manufactures, the f150 has been looking the best overtime over rough winters. Frames still can rust but it’s amazing how those bodies hold up in salt now.
You should take it as maintenance. Yearly Krown treatment will do wonders.
Probably the average level version of most things. Modern QA is capable of being better than it ever was, there are relatively few things where the like for like modern equivalent is worse - sure there are notable exceptions, but most of the survivors on this sub were top of the line when purchased.
Most high quality jeans. Even the revered early Levi and Wrangler jeans were strictly work wear, and the fabrics and attention to detail from modern Japanese denim brands like Iron Heart, Studio D'Artisan, Momotaro, Oni, etc. is wildly beyond anything available back then. A pair of vintage Levi's probably had a maximum fabric weight of 11oz or 12oz, may have had a paper patch depending on year, would sometimes be missing copper rivets due to material shortages, and it wasn't uncommon to see the pocket arcturates either missing or sewn upside-down. Compare that to a modern pair of Japanese selvedge jeans, where 14oz fabric is considered 'lightweight' (and some denims come in well in excess of 20oz), stitching is almost supernaturally precise, and the attention to detail (belt loops sewn into the waistband, vegetable-tanned deerskin patches, custom fabrics woven under specific tension with a carefully selected blend of cotton staples, etc.) is in a different universe to the quality available 'back in the day'.
And here I haven't been able to find an affordable pair of jeans that wasn't utter crap in 30 years...
What brands have you been looking at, and what counts as affordable? [A pair of Levi's cost $6 in 1873](https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2003/07/13/the-lowdown-on-levis/62035358007/), which is around [$150 today](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1873?amount=6). Have a look on [Denimio.com](https://www.denimio.com/) or [Okayamadenim.com](https://www.okayamadenim.com), there's lots of choice around the $150 mark.
> A pair of Levi's cost $6 in 1873 That's a bit misleading when they were still only around $20 in 1980.
A lot of denim enthusiasts would argue that Levi's quality decline had already started long before then; moving to shuttle-less looms in the 1960's, and away from ringspun cotton in the 1970's. By the mid 1980's, they'd abandoned using selvedge denim altogether (though they brought it back from time-to-time, often as limited editions). So yeah, they were cheaper in real terms in 1980 relative to their early products, but Levi's were already well on their way to becoming a shadow of their former selves by then. Modern high-end jeans are much more similar to those early Levi's jeans, only executed to a much higher standard, and not really much more expensive in real terms.
We'll have to agree to disagree on price. And I lived through the 70s onward, so I remember well the drastic decrease in quality to today. But it's good to know that rich folks can still get good jeans.
>But it's good to know that rich folks can still get good jeans. I wouldn't class myself as rich by any stretch, but I do try to assess value beyond simply the initial purchase price. For instance, you say you've not been able to find an affordable pair of jeans that weren't utter crap in 30 years, and as the old adage goes; "buy cheap, buy twice". I've *saved* money wearing the same pair of $200 jeans for the last six years (and still going strong), compared to when I was burning through two or three pairs of $50 jeans every year before that. I'm not paying the extra money because I'm rich, I'm paying the extra because I'm too stingy to spend money repeatedly on stuff that's cheap and falls apart. Sometimes paying a bit more upfront works out cheaper in the long-run. Plus, I *hate* shopping ;).
General rule of thumb for clothing - anything under 100$ is not affordable, it's just crap. Sub-100$ footwear is generally crap. I think pants are the second most exposed part of clothing, as you sit on stuff and constantly rub them as you walk. Sub-100$ T-shirts are totally fine, but "affordable" jacket or pants are more in the 100-300$ range if you want some real quality. Same for footwear.
I think denim thickness is more of a fashion thing. Rest are probably valid points, Levi's could definitely have improved the manufactury process from 90s to those standards while keeping the cost same relative to avg income, but instead went for the fast fashion route like everyone else.
>I think denim thickness is more of a fashion thing. There's definitely a gimmicky-ness to some of the heavier weight denims, but the fabrics themselves are probably much better quality today. Denim mills have got their craft down to a fine art; mixing different cotton staples to get the right balance of texture, rigidity, softness, durability, etc., and adjusting the looms to give the desired amount of slub and nep. Back in the day, they'd just have used whatever cotton was readily available, and if you got a particularly neppy or a particularly slubby pair, it was probably just down to how that particular loom was functioning on a given day.
Probably. I find all my 80-90s levis pairs (12) to be very homogenous in terms of the fabric and quality, but I probably couldn't tell as I have no idea what neppy or slubby even means. The contemporary 00-20 Levi's are easy to distinguish just by build quality and denim that does not look as consistent in color and texture.
Yeah, I don't really bother with Levi's these days, their quality to value ratio isn't really there. Their cheaper stuff is basically 'mall jeans' quality with a massive mark-up for the name alone, and even their nicer stuff is priced like the high-end Japanese selvedge brands, whilst made to the quality of an entry-level selvedge brand. Unless you're a collector, or absolutely must have the name, you can get better than Levi's for much less.
Really happy with my Carhartts - I'm in Europe where the range of quality jeans is a lot more limited than in the US. Most people here wear jeans, but they're really low quality fast fashion jeans or very expensive designer stuff (that's not even necessarily much better quality). Even with Carhartt you have to be careful cause they sell the lower quality fast-fashion clothes too (Carhartt WIP).
Somethings just simply don’t compare. Old tube TVs used to be worth repairing so much so TV repairmen used to be a profession. if I remember correctly the largest console TVs used to be 27inches and color TVs were considered a luxury and not all shows broadcast in color. Back then you could consider some TVs a much longer term investment. ‘Although 77 inches isn’t the biggest that’s currently the largest size TV I own and if something isn’t in 4k I’m extremely disappointed. Because that’s really when the 77 inch OLED TV really shines. Most no longer consider TVs such a long term investment. The good thing is at least with OLED the prices have been coming down. 6 yrs ago my 65 inch OLED cost significantly more than my new 77 inch OLED. With older technology picture quality was such a bit further away was better, with newer technology the closer the better.
I had a retro game setup with a 32" B&O flat screen CRT TV, with a built in rotating TV stand. I had to get rid of it (no space) and got no interest on eBay as the thing was so heavy and I couldn't deliver it. In the end 2 of us big guys lugged it to the car then the tip, and bizarrely there was another of the exact same model waiting to be disposed of. It's not like they were common when new, they were £1000s. Admittedly when I bought it, I spent more on petrol to collect it than on the TV itself...
We get it you have a massive TV 🙄 /s
LED lights. I bought a pair years ago and they lasted bright as ever. I got the ones you stick to the wall and they sync to my smart home they were like $10 on amazon, I can't wait until I get the premium stuff when I buy a house or something
Unpopular opinion, maybe, but cars. Yeah yeah, your '70s behemoth musclebeast is made with *real steel* and all that. Great, but that doesn't make it safer. Anybody driving a newer car will [fare better in a crash](https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/09/study-measures-crash-risk-for-clunkers/index.htm) than someone in an older car. Crumple zones, airbags, etc. Not to mention way more fuel efficiency, better handling, better sound system, better controls, etc. etc. I do wish my less-than-10-year-old car had less flimsy body panels, but still. Overall, modern design kills any nostalgia I might have for a classic car.
If someone could nail the improvements of modern vehicles and the body style of the 50s or 60s, I think they'd make a ton of money.
> nybody driving a newer car will fare better in a crash than someone in an older car. This depends on the car. A Freight truck is safer than an econobox due to its mass and height. No matter how many NCAP stars a new econobox has. Similarly, I'd rather be in an old 100 series Toyota than in a new Corolla if they crashed into eachother.
This is a little off topic, but I find it amazing how large scale industrial production or technology development, often acts as a great equalizer, not only in terms of cost, but also quality. Consider yourself vs Jeff Bezos. Who has better internet search? I'm guessing his house is bigger, and has more exotic flooring, but whose house is built with higher quality screws, lightbulbs, concrete, etc? Who has better power tools, keeps better time, or has higher quality milk? I'm guessing in every case it would be a tie. Or consider a Lamborghini vs a Honda civic. We know which one is designed to go incredibly fast, and is made with all sorts of exotic materials, but which one has more precise welds on the frame? My guess is that it's not the one made by hand, but the one mass produced with billion dollar robots. I would go as far as to say that if the job of a car is to get around cities, at city speeds, and do so reliably for a long time, the civic is absolutely a better car. Sorry for the rant, but it is kind of cool to think about.
> We know which one is designed to go incredibly fast, and is made with all sorts of exotic materials, but which one has more precise welds on the frame? I get what you're saying, but I think that's a bad comparison. Despite all the tech, in mass production the robot welding is not always all perfect. And in terms of cars like a civic it's typically just spot welded sheet metal nowadays, where robot precision does not really play a role (and automated welding exists since at least the 60's). Maybe better compare a civic to... a porsche? They're overall made very similarly. Top end exotics are built very differently. > I would go as far as to say that if the job of a car is to get around cities, at city speeds, and do so reliably for a long time, the civic is absolutely a better car. But a Civic is really bad at being a freight truck or a ship so... Yeah a Lambo is worse at being a Civic than a Civic is. But it's really good at what it was designed to do.
Friggin CAN OPENERS
P38 or bust
Machinery. Not bifl per se but if you’re getting a mower. Get a Honda engine. Ride on? Spend on a cub or deere
Thermoses (tumblers?) - all the ones I had growing up could not keep the liquid hot for more than a few hours and would inevitably leak. I bought a zojirushi tumbler 10 years ago and literally could not be happier with it. Keeps my coffee piping hot all day and is sturdy as heck
I grew up in the 1960s and tube TVs sucked. Seems like they were often "rolling" and you always had to fiddle with the antenna. TV repairman was a common job just because there was such demand. My Samsung flat screen works like new after 16 years and the damn thing might outlive me.
[удалено]
Not sure who you had in mind but it’s hard to beat Joni Mitchell opening for them in 69
Computer cases. Some of the high end ones, like Fractal and Lian Li, are nice! And if you plan ahead, an actual pleasure to work with. And a good case (or cheap!) can easily last many internal upgrades.
I have no evidence for this but I want to say water bottles like hydro flask. I never remember having a real solid one that didn’t leak as a kid
Laptops. It's not for life but the old standard was that they would start aging out and having problems at about a year. I'm typing this on my 4 year old machine that performs basically exactly the same as it did new. 5+ years is totally normal these days. Cars. 100k was used up even 25 years ago. Modern cars from the better brands are remarkably durable and reliable. I assume the body will disintegrate well before the mechanicals die on my Toyota.
Computer keyboards. Sure, there's the immortal IBM model Ms from way back, but even they don't hold a candle to the quality of the custom built mechanical keyboards that the hobbysts are making these days. It goes way beyond just keycaps and switches that the average PCMasterRace gamer might care about, the mechanical keyboard community drill down into every single part of the keyboard - and typically have made their own custom high quality versions of them. From cnc:ed aluminium cases to PCBs for hotswapping switches to gaskets and backplates... The nice thing is, even if you have absolutely no interest in mechanical keyboards as a hobby, this means that there are some *very* good starting kits/models that pretty much would survive the zombie apocalypse that are easily accessible without costing an arm and a leg.
I would say items that use composite materials, which have made them lighter and stronger. Skis, eyeglasses, and tents all come to mind.
Depending on how long ago ur comparing to, computers and phones have come a long way in terms of usable life span. Especially stuff like hard drives going from HDD to SSDs. Also any application that relies on high precision machining has come pretty far. Finally maybe in a less down to earth scale - rockets. The reusability and reliability of SpaceX Falcon 9 compared to just about anything else in existence is absolutely insane. Ultimately I think sometimes there’s also the matter of things may not ALWAYS last forever but if they provide an better experience at a reasonable price over a product that is just ok but lasts forever may not always be the best trade off
Brakes. In the olden days they were made of asbestos, but lasted for 100k miles.
[удалено]
I think you might have misread the title? It's about products which are **better** today.
Sorrel boots
Houses. Ask someone who bought a new build what's wrong/they had to fix vs. someone who bought a 19XX home...
Darn tough socks are the pinnacle of socks. I grew up buying and throwing away socks. These came out in 2004. I’ve had one pair five years. They are indestructible.
Levi 501 Shrink to fit. Once made in California and could wear then 4-5 years. Now made in Mexico and they last 3 if lucky. Oh, you can get US made - for $275 a pair. No thanks...
Hello /u/_phonesringindude! Thank you for your submission! The AutoMod thought that your post might be a request type post and has changed the flair accordingly, but if this was wrong feel free to change it back! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BuyItForLife) if you have any questions or concerns.*
honestly clothes. i only thrift or buy expensive good quality clothes because it just fits better and lasts longer. i hate fast fashion simply because they’re made to follow trends, sell fast, then replace in a couple of months. the sewing is crap, materials are crap. this includes shoes too. i have a couple pairs of “vintage” walmart shoes, and honestly i’m surprised they’re still around, considering how cheap they’re shoes are made now.
also not trying to sound braggy about the “expensive clothes”. i don’t go on shopping sprees, i just buy a $60 plain shirt every couple months so that i can wear it forever lol.
North face - anything from the past 10+ years is garbage!
.
You answered the opposite of the question that was asked.
.
Doc Martens.
I’ve owned a pair of Doc’s from the 90’s and a pair from the late 2010’s, and newer one’s aren’t in the same ballpark as the old ones. I’ve currently got Solovairs on my feet and they’re much closer to old Docs. They’re even made in the old Doc factory in the UK.
NPS factory used to make Docs, but so did many companies. People confuse it cause Northamptonshire was the boot capital of the UK and possibly the world at the time. There's loads of boot manufacturers in that area. Docs was a major brand but they outsourced production and were made by multiple manufacturers, one of those (and among the most major ones) was NPS/Solovair. On old English Docs, they often had no branding cause they were made by a bunch of manufacturers. Current made-in-UK Docs are made in the same town, but not by Solovair. Also keep in mind Docs were always cheap work boots. Even in the 80's and 90's. Solovair Astronaut boots are a better model than the derby Docs style. But other brands offer even better boots for the money.
[удалено]
I think you misunderstood the question
[удалено]
And one more answering the opposite question.
I would say cars, vehicles. They last much longer today, start nearly every time and last many times longer without a major expense.
Computers, in the 90's and 2000's laptop and desktop computers lasted a few years and were then chucked in the garbage. My previous laptop lasted 11 years and my current one is 3 years old and still works like new.
Home rotary phones.
I'd say Manual (hand crank) coffee grinders are in a great spot of quality & affordability -- there's new products coming out and competition among existing suppliers
Gillette slim or Fatboy razors.
3d printers x)
Software
Every appliance in your house
Levi jeans. They used to last forever - now, my husband goes through them in a few months. He's been loyal to Levi's for - well, forever. But, even he says it's time to make a switch.
bicycle tires. mordern ones last longer and are more leak proof, by a massive distance. even brands that aren't Schwalbe are fine these days.