This is kind of an incredible website:

@davidho
I read the one about Cookware and I can't tell if its #AIslop or not, but it was pretty alarming and the facts about all these company takeovers etc can be verified, I imagine.

But what this particular article boils down to is that trusted high quality brands like Sabatier, Pyrex, Corning Wear, Tupperware are no longer made by the original companies or in the original countries.

New owners have cut corners to increase profits and as a result quality, safety and guarantees have been seriously diminished and eroded. But we are still paying high prices for the name we used to trust.

This seriously pissed me off, as I have trusted Sabatier and Pyrex in particular and bought them for myself and family for the past fifty years.

@davidho I read a few articles, and this is (badly, if at all) edited AI slop.

That makes me not trust the content either. (Which is also using fairly sensationalist language.)

The idea is great, but using enshittification to call out enshittification is ... ironic to borderline insulting.

@gray17 @kzodasnowman

Thanks!

@gray17 @kzodasnowman @unchartedworlds @davidho it's in his LinkedIn?

@unchartedworlds @davidho Yeah. It seems to mostly consist of clickbaity repackaging of the articles it links to. It’s got little gems like “The steak and eggs at a diner in the Texas Panhandle and […] in northern Maine […] came off at the same pallet in the same distribution center” (that one is from the “food got worse” post, & seems to be an attempt at spicing up a line from The Nation’s article on Sysco). (1/3)

@davidho

Dishwasher, agree on Bosch/Siemens, they only have cosmetic differences.
But stay away from Unreliable Smart features.

Washing Machines, Miele beats all, I had to repair my near 30 year old miele some time ago.
Parts were not cheap but readily available.

Fridge, I have one from Bosh Siemens, it has a design flaw, the condensation pipe runs to a motor evaporation tray, the whole pipe and tray thing fills with stinking mold and maggots.
That no matter how often I clean the crap..

@davidho @ckohtala AI garbage, and IIRC the guy who “writes” it works for one of the Peter Thiel companies. Which is a shame, as it is indeed a solid topic for a series of extended inquiries.

@adamgreenfield oh damn
@davidho

@kzodasnowman @unchartedworlds @davidho Where can I find these other places? The connections it makes between products on shelves, corporate ownership, and product quality are information people wish they had better, easier access to.

@adamgreenfield

How certain are you that it's slop?

https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-purpose

Newell Brands bought Calphalon in 1998, promised nothing would change. It moved production to China, and closed the last American Calphalon plant outside Toledo at the end of 2023, 130 jobs.

There are a couple of bits of nonstandard grammar here that I wouldn't expect an #LLM to emit. Of course, it's possible that Sapp did the opposite of what many people do: got an LLM to write the article and then manually edited it for voice to disguise its origin. But I've not seen an LLM being as consistently critical of big companies as I've seen on this site; presumably the big #AI companies don't want to get sued.

@davidho @ckohtala