this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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[–] tankplanker@lemmy.world 92 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

So this is obviously McDonald's but manufacturing suffers a similar path:

  1. Make high quality and respected product onshore
  2. Get purchased by vulture capitalist
  3. Lower standards to increase profit
  4. Product is offshored to cover up falling sales
  5. Quality nosedives
  6. Once the customer base catches on sales nosedives
  7. Lower quality even more and brand becomes a joke
  8. Get purchased by mega conglomerate who collects brands like Pokémon
  9. Rival product gets made onshore by a small team who used to work for you

See Doc Martin and Solvair or Hunter Wellingtons or any other of a large number of former halo brands. Filson is one going through this right now

[–] Kiosade@lemmy.ca 27 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Why do they let step 2 even happen? Is it just that the creators don’t actually give a shit about their product/brand, and just want an easy, big pay day? Screw their employees?

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 30 points 2 months ago

Money. The answer is always money.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago

I'm proud of the work I do. I get immense satisfaction for a job well done and appreciate being appreciated.

If someone offers me millions of dollars to take over my job only to do a worse job, I will absolutely take the money and retire early. No hesitation. No regrets. I won't even take the time to pack up my desk.

[–] rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 months ago

I think most would gladly retire if they were offered millions or billions.

[–] almost1337@lemm.ee 16 points 2 months ago

If it's a publicly traded company they don't have a choice. Fall in line or hostile takeover and get replaced.

[–] tankplanker@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

The latter every time. It's made much worse as it's almost always achieved via a leveraged buy out, saddling the business with huge debt and absolving the vulture from most of the risk. It's used as a one way ticket to stripping the company of any value.

[–] aquafunk@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago

because workers don't collectively own the means of production.

not to be like that, but once some new hotness graduates from 2 people in a garage, the controlling interest is never the workers who have a vested interest in products, daily work (and a brand) they can be proud of, but investors with only short term profit on their mind. innovators- and inventors-turned-C suite executives jump ship when bought out, leaving the real meat and potatoes, the real work behind the brand, to be offshored, profit prioritized and picked clean.

buy from worker-owned co-ops. buy from local crafters and people deserving of the label 'artisan'. flat out refuse to buy from brands that are a sad, hollowed out husk of their former selves. more importantly - most importantly - do what you can to keep your retirement investments away from quartly-profit mills who couldnt care less about workers or customers beyond raw sales numbers. and definitely, definitely never agree to work for them.

[–] BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Let's say you own a company you work at and made. When do you quit and realize all your wealth? Maybe you keep it forever but your children don't want it but want access to the money.

At the end of the day people are sell outs eventually

[–] Exatron@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Craftsman was the first brand that came to mind.

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[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Vulture capitalism will continue to erode everyone's lifestyle till we develop neofeudalism, and it's all according to plan.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 74 points 3 months ago

I love reading the ads, "now lower prices!!!1!"

So... That was an option all along? Cool. Glad it's only a product people use to live.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 64 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Inflate prices for profit

Give buyer less product

Lower quality

Brag about savings to shareholders

Get higher paying job as CEO of different company

Profit

Replacement CEO at first company: Why did people stop buying my product?

[–] xenoclast@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, at no point do they care about the customer. They have a recipe for profits and CEO bonuses. When they're done they're fuck over the next company.

American capitalism is all about killing business for profit right now BECAUSE nothing is more profitable.

Maybe the fashion will change in the future.. but there's nothing the small folk can do about it

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 63 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I like this because it references the concept of greed correctly.

Greed is when self interest gets irrational. Greed doesn’t maximize one’s own profit; greed maximizes one’s own profit today.

Real long term self interest means serving others consistently to create those healthy relationships that in turn serve oneself.

Greed is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[–] ZarkleFarkle@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Bro droppin Ferengi wisdom

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[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Unless there's (close to) a monopoly or all players in the market are acting accordingly. For products where simply not buying it anymore is not really a viable option, that greedy approach works out quite fine unfortunately.

[–] OpenPassageways@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It has been working out fine for the greedy so far, but is that really sustainable in the long term? At some point if greed isn't checked, there WILL be violence.

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[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I saw this happen with a local chain restaurant recently. They started cutting on ingredient quality and it was noticeable. Noticeably smaller tortillas; you could no longer opt out of onions because toppings were all combined; chips went down hill. They started losing profits, had to close a few locations, and the negative reviews started rolling in.

The end result was positive though. They saw the response and reversed the changes. They’ve gone back to their previous quality and turned things around at least a small amount. They made good with the customers—the people that are the reason they exist in the first place. I wish more places would have a similar response instead of doubling down on the enshitification.

[–] Lemonparty@lemm.ee 46 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Not to be pessimistic, but this is also a somewhat common strategy to test how shitty you can make something. Basically, intentionally make things worse to test the impact on revenue. If profits don't drop keep it that way. If the bottom line starts going down, slowly increase the quality again until they stabilize. It's likely that changes were not reversed, they were just improved over the trash they made them for awhile. Chipotle has mastered this process. Raise prices, reduce quality, raise quality slightly but not to previous benchmark, repeat.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The fact that they had to close locations mean they changed too much, too fast, though. I doubt that was part of the plan.

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[–] BackwardMonkey@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Funny, the more I learn about corporate greed the even less I like it, in fact, I strongly dislike it.

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[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

gotta love corporations making everything shittier, smaller and more expensive and then wondering why people aren't buying their stuff

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

It's because they've gotten away with decades of consumer abuse and just figured we were acclimitized to it.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (4 children)

It's not greed. It's just capitalism.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Capitalism is a belief system where greed is encouraged as a central virtue.

If it doesn't include copious amounts of profiteering, it's just sparkling market economies.

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[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 17 points 3 months ago (5 children)
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[–] FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Capitalism without meaningful regulation is just crapitalism and leads to enshittification. Regulatory capture is a real bitch.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Capitalism without meaningful regulation is just capitalist inevitability.

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[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Those are the same thing, and you cannot prove otherwise.

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[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

But they made those changes over two years, and the last one was months ago. Clearly it can not be those executives' decisions. There must be someone else to blame.

I bet it's the workers' fault.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Do people really buy less though?

[–] stepan@lemmy.cafe 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's the best part: they don't!

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is irrational cynicism. They absolutely do.

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[–] DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online 8 points 3 months ago

I'm lovin' it

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Oh hey lets lower prices by 50% of what we marked up and then pat ourselves on the back all over social media for being saintly and lowering prices for the struggling masses.

[–] rf_@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Their stock is up though, I don’t see them changing their ways if stock price is unaffected. That’s all they care about.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It ultimately harms them in the long run. I can't really feel bad for them.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I dunno. I feel like the missing slide is "retire on beach at age 35 and give 0 fucks" or "pivot to new exploitive model for profit"

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[–] alucard@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I’ve mostly stopped buying middle isle grocery store items for this very reason. On the plus side I have been cooking more to make up the snack deficit. Tastes better for sure.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

When I started low carb I began to realize just how much of the middle store aisles are just different forms of starch and flavorings at a ridiculous markup.

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