Consumerism
It occurs to me that Americans, as a whole, have chosen Cheap and Quick over Quality.
There's that old saw: Cheap, Quick, Good...pick any two. I submit that there is a fourth option as well; Custom. We live in a world of mass-produced goods and consumer conformity. Wait. Consumer goods are truly more complex than that. In this simplistic model, I think Custom and Quick replace each other for some goods and services.
In the economic climate that we have, Cheap is understandable. Individuals and companies have to cut costs and look for ways of getting the same job done with less overhead. The problem is, we're getting cheaper and cheaper as we go on. In an effort to reduce costs, quality is suffering dramatically. Ask anyone who's bought a Daimler-Chrysler vehicle in the past ten years and had a squealing door lock.
I want Cheap in some aspects of my life, and Custom or Quality over Cheap in others. Very rarely do I want Quick. I am unique as a consumer. Most people probably feel that way, but I truly am. I don't like 99% of what's available in the stores. Manufacturers stop selling what I want because no one else wants it. Snickers used to make energy bars. No one was buying them. I was. Who wants an energy bar that tastes like flavored sawdust, when you can have one with real chocolate and peanuts? Apparently the general population of my market.
I wonder if, historically, other cultures have been through phases like this prior to the industrial revolution. It's hard to make a comparison, when cultures before industrialization didn't have assembly lines and computers and communication like we do now. Still...did the Romans go through a phase of incredibly cheap, generic goods turned out at greatest speed?
There's that old saw: Cheap, Quick, Good...pick any two. I submit that there is a fourth option as well; Custom. We live in a world of mass-produced goods and consumer conformity. Wait. Consumer goods are truly more complex than that. In this simplistic model, I think Custom and Quick replace each other for some goods and services.
In the economic climate that we have, Cheap is understandable. Individuals and companies have to cut costs and look for ways of getting the same job done with less overhead. The problem is, we're getting cheaper and cheaper as we go on. In an effort to reduce costs, quality is suffering dramatically. Ask anyone who's bought a Daimler-Chrysler vehicle in the past ten years and had a squealing door lock.
I want Cheap in some aspects of my life, and Custom or Quality over Cheap in others. Very rarely do I want Quick. I am unique as a consumer. Most people probably feel that way, but I truly am. I don't like 99% of what's available in the stores. Manufacturers stop selling what I want because no one else wants it. Snickers used to make energy bars. No one was buying them. I was. Who wants an energy bar that tastes like flavored sawdust, when you can have one with real chocolate and peanuts? Apparently the general population of my market.
I wonder if, historically, other cultures have been through phases like this prior to the industrial revolution. It's hard to make a comparison, when cultures before industrialization didn't have assembly lines and computers and communication like we do now. Still...did the Romans go through a phase of incredibly cheap, generic goods turned out at greatest speed?