First World Problems...

Yes, that is a Rabbit corkscrew that failed catastrophically last night. Both handles broke at once, which impressed me in a sad and depressing way.

It's a good American design, and the first versions were excellent. But (and you know what is coming) they began to save money by making them with cheaper and cheaper materials, and the end result is a good product ruined by Chinese manufacturing and bean counters in the C-suite.

I have an old one, and it is the identical design, but with better materials. It worked smoothly and with less effort compared to the plastic-and-pot-metal new one. It failed after many years, and to the company's credit they replaced it, but with an inferior one. I actually repaired it using a roll pin from an AR, and it works fine! Too bad they didn't repair it for me...that would have been truly impressive.

This speaks to our throw-away culture, and the idea that we no longer expect things to last. But it also creates a feedback loop...cheaper materials can't be repaired, so replacement becomes the norm, so repair becomes anachronistic., which drives even cheaper materials and manufacturing.

Yes, part of this is "Get Off My Lawn," because there are many industries that are building absolutely fantastic products. Criticize American car manufacturing all you want for lack of style and soul, but the cars are great. And the gun industry might be building boring-looking stuff, but they run forever!

But part of it is a serious reflection on how our society has changed. Throw-away cultures lose sight of what built them, and perhaps can no longer recover as well and as quickly from major dislocations, because of the expectation that everything is instantly replaceable.

posted by CBD at 02:45 PM

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