Originally Posted by
bigbenny
I have mixed feelings about this, as I can see it from many points of view. On one hand, a lot of people associate Made in China with low quality* and so are shocked when they find their expensive prized possession was made in China rather than their beloved home country, also they're very patriotic and want to support local jobs, or they fear the human rights abuses, etc. Also there's the issue with the intellectual property being stolen by overseas companies, but no-one seems to care when another Foxtrot Inc (USA) starts to make a near identical product to Echo Inc (USA) (ad infinitum), e.g. it's OK for several USA companies to make quilts but it's stealing when a Chinese company does it. * IMO this is probably a fair assessment only because nearly everything is made there, and most people are happy to buy junk so they make junk, but I think there's also a lot of high quality (and great value) Made in China products (if you need examples -> iPhone and WeChat).
It seems to me a lot of American's are glad to get a bargain on Massdrop until they find that it's not made in USA. At the end of the day if the product is quality and lasts when not abused, what is the issue. Especially, when it was the original USA company themselves that outsourced (e.g. it wasn't a knock-off or a clone), and the company was forthright about it to boot, and IIUC from reading above QA'ed the work in house.
USA above can be changed to "Insert my country here", I'm just using USA because EE/OP are from USA, most hammock vendors I know are USA and this forum seems to be mostly USA residents - the hobby is way more popular there from what I can tell with my English language bias. I'm not trying to bash USA, all citizens from all countries are guilty of this.
If some vendor's products severely drop in quality, their reputation should drop (unless they have great marketing and/or stupid fans), as their value has dropped, if they keep prices high their volume should drop, otherwise their price should drop. Some may choose to do this if their bean calculations show cost savings vs sales (margins x volume) that it makes good business sense. Cottage vendors would would probably never choose this path because they are all about high quality.
It's good for the OP to point out something that many have probably also missed. And the understanding has been further clarified after more was explained it thread. All good things. Hopefully people don't get the wrong idea of EE and no reputation damage. I think EE made a good choice that allows more people to get a high quality product they want. There's still other choices for the ultra patriotic that want a very similar product. More options are better.
It may be hard to find people with the skills a company needs, especially since those local jobs/careers/industry had died decades ago when corporate America's upper management worked out they can make better margins by outsourcing to overseas, then the hold-out competitors either were forced to follow suit in order to compete, or went out out of business due to not being competitive. It was USA to blame, not China. So hate on the USA bean counting 1%er jerks that sold America out rather than on China capitalising (your favourite economic system you fought wars over and did espionage over) on the opportunity you guys (big business jerks) made. Also the consumers either didn't realise or didn't care until it was too late (or maybe the majority still never have), so they are also partially to blame, regardless I like to put 90% of the blame on the big business jerks.
Thanks to this, USA companies need to train people from scratch, or entice those with the skills (out of retirement or from other companies), lose output of skilled staff due to training new staff, and deal with the difficulty of retaining/losing staff. They need to pay higher wages/salaries/costs, and this needs to be passed on to the consumer. To say its impossible because you can't hire enough people to meet demand is really true - if the company offers enough money people will leave other professions to learn that craft because it pays better, but the market needs to bare the cost of Made in USA. The outdoor enthusiast market is probably not big enough on its own to bring these manufacturing careers back to the glory days, so this struggle will remain forever, hence high prices for Made in USA forever for these niche products.
As a non-USA citizen nor resident, I personally don't care if the product is made in America by Americans or by an American company, I care about how well the product meets my needs/desires, it's quality, and it's value. I don't care where it's made, or where that company is based, or what nationality/ethnicity it's staff are, but I do care if how environmentally sustainable the whole life cycle is, and that the staff aren't abused and the company is ethical (e.g. not stealing IP, or dodging taxes, etc.). But then that's a lie because I do think it's sad Australia imports nearly every product, makes nothing local, has no capabilities (anymore) to make anything local (factories, tooling, local skills, etc), and would like to support local companies and jobs. But then that limits choice and TBH cost is a large factor.
I have so far spent the vast majority of my money in this hobby on USA companies products because they best met the features I wanted, the prices seemed high but worth it for the product, the R&D (innovations) and the expected quality. If the product doesn't last I will be angry. If it wasn't for 1 feature I really wanted, I reckon Tier Gear's (Made in Australia) hammock would equal the any other countries/companies in terms of product, quality, and probably better value due to reduced shipping expense. I just really wanted that WBBB shelf (which now I see Dutchware has copied, maybe it was licensed, maybe its different enough, maybe there was no patent, maybe the patent expired, maybe WB copied something before so it's tit-for-tat).
I personally would like to see the innovations riffed on and copied, so that the products can continually evolve to some amalgamated ultimate product, but I also want to see the original innovators rewarded for their contributions, so perhaps cross-licensing is a way for that to happen. This only works if the companies can agree to it, that all companies abide to it (no one-way free copying, level playing ground), or the consumers only buy from those abiding. This also has the problem of how are values assigned to innovations when they aren't exclusive. But I don't run a business, I'm no business man, and I don't know what I'm talking about, this is just my desires and thoughts on ethics.
TL/DR I'm a conflicted hypocrite.
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