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[–] 191 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Except they're terribly inefficient and use shit like freon

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  • [–] 134 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Also, a number of them will still fail quickly. Survivorship bias.

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  • [–] 59 points 6 months ago* (4 children)

    Or you'll create something that is genuinely better with good longevity and then discover you'll have next to no sales growth since once somebody buys it, they never need to replace it.

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  • [–] 103 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    You know if I created a buisness myself and had no shareholders demanding quarterly profit increases, that would be okay.

    If it made 1 million in profit after 10 years and then needed to be shuttered that's fine by me.

    I imagine this would make an individual quite wealthy for their lifetime. We just think it's unviable because we've been tricked into believing that a buisness must grow forever to be successful

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, a million over 10 years equates to about 80,000 a year over those 10 years which is the median household income in the US. Far from wealthy and would still require you to work after that 10 years.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Is that the median? Most people I know are poor as hell I guess.

    That would be just my income. Adding in my spouses would make it above median. I suppose wether or not you think that qualifies as wealthy is up to you, I know to me with my lifestyle I could really turn that into a strong foundation.

    Seriously my income going up to 80k and my spouse's being the same would be amazing. We could pay off student loans, replace my clunker of a car, get the larger house we've wanted (mortgage of course but so much easier to save the down payment), finally get the solar panel setup I want, pad out the retirement account, that's just a lot of extra income over the time. Keeping my lifestyle the same all doable with that kind of increase in income.

    Also never said I'd never have to work again. You could hand me 1 million today, and I think we both know that is not enough to live the rest of our lives on. Still a life altering amount of money.

    And I guess this all comes down to.what we mean by "profit". That's after all buisness expenses, but I suppose I didn't think in this hypothetical company if I'd be paying myself a wage or not.

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Hmmm, a state run industry in communist east Berlin that failed in 1990. It's almost as if their business hit a wall when they couldn't expand their market through exports. Surely there couldn't have been any world changing events happening in that town in the latter days of 1989 that might have played a larger role in the demise of a state run business.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    If the article in the Wiki is true, their problems with expansion were because no one wanted to resell their product. It's not even a problem with actual customers, and there probably was enough people who would buy to make growth viable for much longer

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago

    Or you could drop your red-scared shades and read the article again: those glasses were made to last, hence were of no interest for those who expected them to break easily in order to sell more.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    CorningWare had a similar problem with their plates. We’re still using our parents old bowls and plates from the 80s. The stuff we got as wedding presents was mostly chipped or broken before our 10th anniversary.

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