The search results page you linked to, as it appears for me.
Yes, our results look completely different from each other. Sorry about that!
Are you just putting “heavy-gauge aluminum cookware” into Google and pasting the search results here?
No, I was searching for aluminum cookware of a specific mm thickness (i.e. “4mm thick aluminum pot”), and then checking the thickness of the results to see if it was at least 4mm. I repeated this with 5mm and 8mm.
It most certainly does not hold true for computers. I am hesitant to launch into the computer analogue of this argument, but I could easily provide a list, similar to the one in my top-level comment, of ways in which various computer products have degenerated in quality, etc.
This seems very out there, and in line with some of the ways in which your hyper-focus on minutiae is causing you to miss the point. Computers are transparently, overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade.
With cooking vs. piano, I understand your point, but I also think that the evidence you’re supplying cuts both ways. A country full of cooks, who ought to be informed enough not to fall for manufacturer’s tricks, still haven’t successfully created a market for mainstream borosilicate glass measuring cups or thick-walled aluminum pots. That could mean that the manufacturers are just so conniving and powerful that they’ve still managed to get away with marketing the worse products and pocket the difference. Or it could mean that, even to the vast majority of competent cooks, the price difference means more than the quality difference.
By contrast, even in a country/world deficient in serious pianists, we have managed to sustain an industry capable of maintaining and even improving the technology of new-built pianos, at every price point. This suggests to me that informed demand on the part of consumers for various quality/cost tradeoffs is what’s driving manufacturing decisions, not so much the exploitation of fools.
In fact, let’s think about the vintage cookware market. If that stuff is somewhat more expensive to manufacture, but it’s also very durable, then perhaps what’s going on is that the high-quality manufacturers are forced to compete against the secondhand market, which is able to circulate, rather than manufacture, a nearly-adequate quantity of high-quality durable cookware sufficient to meet the needs of aficionados like yourself. I, by contrast, would not care to invest the money to buy such nice stuff. I like things that are lightweight, easy to clean, cheap, and disposable, because I don’t have a nice kitchen to put them in, and I’m still at a stage in my life where I’m moving often.
If multiple counterexamples (just in one category of goods!), described in detail by someone well-versed in the relevant domain, don’t cause you to update your beliefs on this, is your view truly a reasonable one?
You’ve updated my beliefs somewhat in the realm of cookware, although I still think you’re exaggerating the inaccessibility of new-manufactured high-quality cookware. More importantly, though, I don’t base my entire economic point of view on the economics of measuring cups. I think you’ve probably just found a niche area in which your perspective is at least plausible, and have then tried to extrapolate your kitchen-focused point of view into a sweeping belief about the state of the economy as a whole.
And second—the more things I have to buy vintage, the more this seems to me to be an obvious indication that our society’s ability to provide essential products is deeply unhealthy.
This is interesting to me. Most of the serious cooks I know enjoy and appreciate their ability to buy what they need vintage. From an alternative point of view, we could view this as a phenomenon in which society has successfully reallocated its skilled manufacturers from a domain where we no longer need their expertise as much—cookware—to other domains in which their expertise is needed much more.
In any case, this is becoming a bit of a rabbit hole, and also somewhat socially unpleasant. If you respond, I’ll read and consider what you write, but I don’t expect to continue the discussion further.
Computers are transparently, overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade.
The only evidence you have for that is clock speed, transistor density and memory/storage capacity. Yes, I will fully admit there have been truly incredible gains there.
But in terms of software? I fail to see how most pieces of software are “transparently, overwhelmingly better, year after year, decade by decade”.
Let’s take text editors, as an example: GNU Emacs was released in 1985. Vim was released in 1991. These are old tools, and they’re still considered better than modern text editors by a fairly sizable fraction of programmers. If computers are getting transparently overwhelmingly better, year after year, decade by decade, then why does anyone use Emacs or Vim?
The difference between computers and cookware is that (open source) computer programs don’t wear out, so it is possible for us to continue to use them for years or decades. Where that isn’t the case in software (like closed source office suites, for example), you will readily find examples of people complaining that the new version is slower, more difficult to use, and requires more system resources than the previous version.
Maybe we should ask, “better for whom?” That’s more relevant in the software case than in the hardware case.
For the average user, I think that the ease of use, auto save, and cloud backups offered by modern word processors is really helpful. Also, the affordability and increasing accessibility of computers and the internet. And most users are average users. I remember how mad my dad got when he’d forget to save and lose hours of work 20 years ago.
I know there are power users who appreciate the keyboard-centric features of Vim, and more power to them.
In general, people complain when new versions are worse, and just use them when the new versions are better, rather than gushing about them.
Alternatively, I work as an engineer. The things that can be done with software now would have been impossible not too long ago, both as a result of those underlying improvements in hardware and algorithmic improvements. Also, with time simply comes an expanding range of software options, as well as access to content provided via that software.
Computing improvements have a positive relationship with content delivered by those computers. Better computers result in improved logistics and processes for making and delivering physical products. One way of looking at software improvements is “Amazon.com and Netflix and Google and podcasting can exist.”
Can you find examples of product/market fit where things have been in stasis for a long time (ie Vim for power user programmers), or where things have moved backward at some point in time? Sure! Is the overwhelming sweep of both hardware and software relentlessly leaping forward? I think the answer is clearly yes.
The difference between computers and cookware is that (open source) computer programs don’t wear out, so it is possible for us to continue to use them for years or decades.
Although open source computer programs don’t literally “wear out” — the bits are still the same — the machines change under them and security faults surface that must be fixed. Is anyone using an Emacs or Vim that hasn’t been updated in decades?
Let’s take text editors, as an example: GNU Emacs was released in 1985. Vim was released in 1991. These are old tools, and they’re still considered better than modern text editors by a fairly sizable fraction of programmers. If computers are getting transparently overwhelmingly better, year after year, decade by decade, then why does anyone use Emacs or Vim?
If they’re not getting better, then why do even more programmers not use Emacs or Vim?
Yes, I think that we’ve exhausted most of what it would be fruitful to discuss in this thread; the remaining disagreements would probably take more effort to resolve than would be feasible to expend at this time (for either of us). I do want to comment on this part, though:
It most certainly does not hold true for computers. I am hesitant to launch into the computer analogue of this argument, but I could easily provide a list, similar to the one in my top-level comment, of ways in which various computer products have degenerated in quality, etc.
This seems very out there, and in line with some of the ways in which your hyper-focus on minutiae is causing you to miss the point. Computers are transparently, overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade.
Conversely, I would say that computers are transparently (!) not “overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade”. They’re certainly better in some ways, but also much worse in other ways. (Input latency is one well-studied example, but there are quite a few others.)
It is also noteworthy that many of the ways in which computer hardware has improved (“raw” performance characteristics such as clock speed, memory capacity, storage capacity, etc.) are used to support behaviors that are of dubious value at best (various fancy compositor features and graphical capabilities of window managers), and user-hostile at worst (adtech and other dark patterns of the modern web).
Understand that the things I am referring to, when I make claims like the one you quoted, are not “minutiae”; rather, they are basic aspects of the everyday user experience of the great majority of personal computer users in the world.
Input latency and unpredictability of it. One famous example is that for many years there were usable finger-drumming apps on iOS but not on Android, because on Android you couldn’t make the touchscreen + app + OS + sound system let people actually drum in time. Something would always introduce a hundred ms of latency (give or take) at random moments, which is enough to mess up the feeling. Everyone knew it and no one could fix it.
Yes, our results look completely different from each other. Sorry about that!
No, I was searching for aluminum cookware of a specific mm thickness (i.e. “4mm thick aluminum pot”), and then checking the thickness of the results to see if it was at least 4mm. I repeated this with 5mm and 8mm.
This seems very out there, and in line with some of the ways in which your hyper-focus on minutiae is causing you to miss the point. Computers are transparently, overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade.
With cooking vs. piano, I understand your point, but I also think that the evidence you’re supplying cuts both ways. A country full of cooks, who ought to be informed enough not to fall for manufacturer’s tricks, still haven’t successfully created a market for mainstream borosilicate glass measuring cups or thick-walled aluminum pots. That could mean that the manufacturers are just so conniving and powerful that they’ve still managed to get away with marketing the worse products and pocket the difference. Or it could mean that, even to the vast majority of competent cooks, the price difference means more than the quality difference.
By contrast, even in a country/world deficient in serious pianists, we have managed to sustain an industry capable of maintaining and even improving the technology of new-built pianos, at every price point. This suggests to me that informed demand on the part of consumers for various quality/cost tradeoffs is what’s driving manufacturing decisions, not so much the exploitation of fools.
In fact, let’s think about the vintage cookware market. If that stuff is somewhat more expensive to manufacture, but it’s also very durable, then perhaps what’s going on is that the high-quality manufacturers are forced to compete against the secondhand market, which is able to circulate, rather than manufacture, a nearly-adequate quantity of high-quality durable cookware sufficient to meet the needs of aficionados like yourself. I, by contrast, would not care to invest the money to buy such nice stuff. I like things that are lightweight, easy to clean, cheap, and disposable, because I don’t have a nice kitchen to put them in, and I’m still at a stage in my life where I’m moving often.
You’ve updated my beliefs somewhat in the realm of cookware, although I still think you’re exaggerating the inaccessibility of new-manufactured high-quality cookware. More importantly, though, I don’t base my entire economic point of view on the economics of measuring cups. I think you’ve probably just found a niche area in which your perspective is at least plausible, and have then tried to extrapolate your kitchen-focused point of view into a sweeping belief about the state of the economy as a whole.
This is interesting to me. Most of the serious cooks I know enjoy and appreciate their ability to buy what they need vintage. From an alternative point of view, we could view this as a phenomenon in which society has successfully reallocated its skilled manufacturers from a domain where we no longer need their expertise as much—cookware—to other domains in which their expertise is needed much more.
In any case, this is becoming a bit of a rabbit hole, and also somewhat socially unpleasant. If you respond, I’ll read and consider what you write, but I don’t expect to continue the discussion further.
The only evidence you have for that is clock speed, transistor density and memory/storage capacity. Yes, I will fully admit there have been truly incredible gains there.
But in terms of software? I fail to see how most pieces of software are “transparently, overwhelmingly better, year after year, decade by decade”.
Let’s take text editors, as an example: GNU Emacs was released in 1985. Vim was released in 1991. These are old tools, and they’re still considered better than modern text editors by a fairly sizable fraction of programmers. If computers are getting transparently overwhelmingly better, year after year, decade by decade, then why does anyone use Emacs or Vim?
The difference between computers and cookware is that (open source) computer programs don’t wear out, so it is possible for us to continue to use them for years or decades. Where that isn’t the case in software (like closed source office suites, for example), you will readily find examples of people complaining that the new version is slower, more difficult to use, and requires more system resources than the previous version.
Maybe we should ask, “better for whom?” That’s more relevant in the software case than in the hardware case.
For the average user, I think that the ease of use, auto save, and cloud backups offered by modern word processors is really helpful. Also, the affordability and increasing accessibility of computers and the internet. And most users are average users. I remember how mad my dad got when he’d forget to save and lose hours of work 20 years ago.
I know there are power users who appreciate the keyboard-centric features of Vim, and more power to them.
In general, people complain when new versions are worse, and just use them when the new versions are better, rather than gushing about them.
Alternatively, I work as an engineer. The things that can be done with software now would have been impossible not too long ago, both as a result of those underlying improvements in hardware and algorithmic improvements. Also, with time simply comes an expanding range of software options, as well as access to content provided via that software.
Computing improvements have a positive relationship with content delivered by those computers. Better computers result in improved logistics and processes for making and delivering physical products. One way of looking at software improvements is “Amazon.com and Netflix and Google and podcasting can exist.”
Can you find examples of product/market fit where things have been in stasis for a long time (ie Vim for power user programmers), or where things have moved backward at some point in time? Sure! Is the overwhelming sweep of both hardware and software relentlessly leaping forward? I think the answer is clearly yes.
Although open source computer programs don’t literally “wear out” — the bits are still the same — the machines change under them and security faults surface that must be fixed. Is anyone using an Emacs or Vim that hasn’t been updated in decades?
If they’re not getting better, then why do even more programmers not use Emacs or Vim?
Yes, I think that we’ve exhausted most of what it would be fruitful to discuss in this thread; the remaining disagreements would probably take more effort to resolve than would be feasible to expend at this time (for either of us). I do want to comment on this part, though:
Conversely, I would say that computers are transparently (!) not “overwhelmingly better, year by year, decade by decade”. They’re certainly better in some ways, but also much worse in other ways. (Input latency is one well-studied example, but there are quite a few others.)
It is also noteworthy that many of the ways in which computer hardware has improved (“raw” performance characteristics such as clock speed, memory capacity, storage capacity, etc.) are used to support behaviors that are of dubious value at best (various fancy compositor features and graphical capabilities of window managers), and user-hostile at worst (adtech and other dark patterns of the modern web).
Understand that the things I am referring to, when I make claims like the one you quoted, are not “minutiae”; rather, they are basic aspects of the everyday user experience of the great majority of personal computer users in the world.
Input latency and unpredictability of it. One famous example is that for many years there were usable finger-drumming apps on iOS but not on Android, because on Android you couldn’t make the touchscreen + app + OS + sound system let people actually drum in time. Something would always introduce a hundred ms of latency (give or take) at random moments, which is enough to mess up the feeling. Everyone knew it and no one could fix it.