None of what follows is new. I know this stuff happens all the time. And yet somehow this insignificant thing shocked me and it’s been gnawing at me for the past few days. And today was the icing on the shit cake.
So my wife ordered a a foot massage machine. $50, typical el-cheapo thing made in China. The thing was shipped to our home out in the boonies in less than 48 hours. Wow!
My wife opened the box, got the device out onto the floor and… she couldn’t fit her feet inside. She’s not big, but apparently the device was designed for customers in the Shire. Unusable.
So she emailed the distributor who told her to cut the cord, send them a photo proving the destruction and throw it away herself. Not return the device. Not pretend to return the device and the device is thrown away behind her back. No no: this time, the distributor told her in no uncertain terms that it’s cheaper for them to let her destroy the thing herself.
And then it hit me: here is a device that was born in China, put together by some underpaid workers in a nondescript factory, designed by someone who didn’t give a shit, made out of materials that probably came out of the ground somewhere in Africa and in Saudi Arabia - probably involving child labor at some point or other - put on a boat, shipped halfway around the world, then put into a truck, only to be landfilled here.
It didn’t even see a single second of use. This is utterly absurd and completely depressing.
I’m not compatible with that. When I buy something, the thing has value and I want it to have a decently useful life. It’s not about ecology or money: it’s just basic respect for the resources and the human labor that went into this thing. The value of the object is what it cost the Earth and the people who toiled to make it and ship it to me. When I use my things, I show respect for those who made them and it justifies the use ot the materials they’re made of.
But here I was looking at that poor thing across the room, unloved and unlovable, whose sole purpose as an object was to be landfilled without ever seeing any use. It consumed resources and someone worked to make it, yet somehow it never had any value for anybody.
And the most depressing thing about it is, its very existence from Chinese factory to my local landfill is totally absurd and makes no sense at all, yet all the invididual steps that contributed to it being fabricated and ultimately landing on our doorstep were a series of perfectly rational economical decisions: someone found added value in designing and building a shit foot massage machine, my wife found it worth buying sight unseen, someone figured there was money to be made shipping it here, and the distributor decided to outsource its destruction to the customers because it’s cheaper than destroying it themselves - let alone shipping it back to Shenzen or wherever. And yet when you string everything together, the net result is senseless waste and production of things that have no inherent worth. How crazy is that eh?
I couldn’t throw it away. So I replaced the cord and I gave it to the local Red Cross store yesterday to give to someone in need or sell it for pennies. Today, I passed by the shop on my way to work and saw the damn thing in their garbage container behind the store. In the box. Unopened. I guess it will be going to the landfill after all…
That really put the final damper on my day today…
Sorry if this is the wrong venue, but I really needed to vent.
You do know that you are part of the problem right? Without demand and profit, none of these problems exist… Your wife probably went on Temu or Wish or some other app and knew exactly what she would probably get.
OP planned on using the device. They would not be complaining if it was crappy but usable…it was manufactured in a way that makes me unusable for 90% of people but marketed to 100% of them
So all the shit about sweat shop labor and sourcing is irrelevant. I’ll shut up
I get what you’re saying but I feel like you’re deliberately missing their point just to shame them…
The supply and manufacturing chain is fucked up for just about everything. OP is realizing that not only is it fucked up, all that effort in the mines and sweatshop endes up in a landfill without any sort of usable product or silver lining.
What does he expect ordering straight from China and paying basically nothing is my point. You get what you pay for (disposable bullshit products)and he’s actively supporting it. Everyone with half a brain knows that products from those apps are almost always some dollar store reject shit built with irresponsibly sourced labor and materials that very rarely work correctly or have any durability. He got exactly what he ordered, women’s feet, hats, men’s clothing, etc are notorious for being smaller than American/European sizes
This hasn’t been true since the 70s. Back when the price of an item was dictated by things like material cost and labor.
My wife followed this influencer who was selling an $80 necklace. This influencer had sold hundreds of them. It was from her “personal” style collection. My wife was hoping to find something similar for cheaper so she reverse searched the necklace. She found the exact pendants and chain for sale for pennies. The $80 necklace cost my wife $5 to make, with shipping.
Cost is not an indicator of quality anymore. Things cost whatever the company thinks you’ll pay for them, and not a penny less.
If that’s what you think I’m talking about then I’m just going to let you have this one. You are right, cost is not an indicator at all.
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I must have missed that homie, where does it say that he bought it locally? I know it says it shipped within 48 hours to the boonies which means it came from a holding warehouse owned by the same people. Is that what you think is local? My definition of local is a little different, my apologies sir.