Recent comments in /f/BuyItForLife

BoilerButtSlut t1_izpsrys wrote

Reply to comment by dildonicphilharmonic in What makes one product cheap junk that breaks in a week and another that lasts a lifetime? by SirCheeseAlot

Pretty much.

It's always the same story: "well this fridge from 1973 worked fine for over 40 years!"

Yeah, and that fridge cost the equivalent of $2k and would be considered super basic today. Buying a giant one with fancy features everywhere for less than $1k means that they had to cut corners somewhere.

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Potato-Engineer t1_izpqbua wrote

Reply to comment by TheJackal927 in What makes one product cheap junk that breaks in a week and another that lasts a lifetime? by SirCheeseAlot

It's a little bit China's fault. Because of competition between the Chinese manufacturers, it's not uncommon for a particular factory to underbid the price, produce exactly the requested good for a while, and then start quietly cheapening the design so that they can finally start making a little money.

It's why, if you're going to manufacture your goods in China, you need to regularly inspect the factories.

But, yes: the other problem is that China makes some cheap things cheaply because that's exactly what they were asked to do.

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Potato-Engineer t1_izppxrb wrote

Reply to comment by BoilerButtSlut in What makes one product cheap junk that breaks in a week and another that lasts a lifetime? by SirCheeseAlot

And let's go one step further: most consumers don't know whether the thing they're buying is durable. Sticking "durable" on the package is dirt-cheap. Actually making durable things is expensive. I'd guess that almost every consumer has, at some point, bought a thing they thought was durable, but it wasn't. Learning whether a product is durable generally takes some decent research about brands and products, and whether a particular brand just got bought by someone who just changed their quality to be much worse. We all have stories about how "X used to be good, but then they started making crap products."

So part of the question is "how durable does the consumer think this product is?" And if the consumer can't know, then you fall back on price again.

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Awesomest_Possumest t1_izpkc0q wrote

Reply to This pizelle maker has been used by my grandma year after year for 40+ years. by H2Joee

My mom has had one since the 80s. It's a waffle maker/pizzelle maker, removable cast iron plates that you just flip. I think hers is rival, which is always surprising to me because it's not a bifl brand now as far as I know.

I keep finding them in thrift stores but they still die after a couple of years. :( One day I'll have a full-sized one again, but I currently have a mini 3 one.

I should say we don't make pizzelles though, but use the Italian cialde recipe that came with moms maker. Uses anisette and anise seed and is more batter than dough. Amazing. No flour, just sugar, water, oil, egg, anise seed and anisette, and some vanilla flavoring. I've got to pull out the recipe for our work bake off Monday!

Edit-recipe!

1 cup sugar 1 egg 2 tsp vanilla (extract usually) 2 tbsp anise flavored liqueur (anisette) 2 tbsp salad oil (I just use veggie oil) 2/3 cup water 1 1/4 cup flour (thought it didn't use any, whoops!) 1 tsp whole anise seed

Combine all except the last two ingredients. Best well to blend. Stir in the flour and anise seed. Bake as directed for pizzelles.

I haven't made them in a year and haven't made the full sized in awhile, but I want to say one batch is about 40 cookies maybe? I usually double it around the holidays.

I think we usually do regular size for about two minutes give or take, and my minis take around 45 seconds. Depends on what the humidity is doing. We rolled them when I was a kid and sprinkled powdered sugar on, but I'm lazy and so they're flat now haha.

We also eyeball the anisette and anise seeds and put as much as the spirit moves us to.

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