I saw this post and wanted to ask the opposite. What are some items that really aren’t worth paying the expensive version for? Preferably more extreme or unexpected examples.
Dogs, rescues are just as doglike and mostly free compared to the Hapsburg simulator known as breeding
I own and train hunting dogs for upland and waterfowl hunting. I’ve also done breeding in my younger days. Bloodlines absolutely matter. A puppy from National Champion bloodlines has a far, far better chance of being very good at his job. This goes for ANY working breed that is actually expected to work at their job in real life. And they cost a LOT of money to buy, train, and maintain. But these aren’t foo-foo dogs bred strictly for looks either.
If all you need is a popcorn and movie and sleep on the bed pet, then it doesn’t probably matter very much. Find a nice rescue - they need a home and love too.
But look at the chin on that dog!
Medicine. The house brands and generics are the exact same, tested the same, made the same.
Not exactly. Just a fun fact and disclaimer that I use generics if at all possible. But my pharmacology class taught that generics can have higher tolerance of error in % of active ingredient. Not usually a big deal unless the drug has a very narrow therapeutic range, meaning too little doesn’t work and too much will harm you. 99.9% of generics is fine. But if you ever wonder if one batch of your med doesn’t seem to work as well this it’s likely that batch was on the lower end of acceptable.
Aspirin and paracetamol I don’t think are patented by any one company now. Supermarket brand is super cheap.
Also, a cheaper alternative is to eat less and eat healthier. I know we can’t all afford expensive healthy foods but just simply cutting out excess fats, sugar and empty carbs from your diet will add years to your life and also add better years to your life.
Often made by the same.
But real Advil has the candy coating on the outside, and I haven’t found a generic that does =(
Otherwise 100% identical yes.
Problem with the candy coating is you can’t enjoy it, unless you want to suddenly learn what pure poison tastes like. It’s such a tease. Doesn’t help that they look like scrumptious little caramel-y morsels.
Youtube premium
Just out of curiosity, do you avoid YouTube or just deal with the ads? I’ve been on a premium family plan for years and love it - we watch a lot of yt.
Buying operating systems is not worth it. Just use Linux.
What about people that actually want their stuff to work?
Use Linux Mint.
Not 100% compatible with everything i use. I understand that advice works for most though. Or I’ve been told that at least.
What isn’t it compatible with? All these people making baseless complaints about Linux driving me crazy. Most people are just too lazy to Google an error code. I’m convinced there are hidden Windows shills in the fediverse like undercover Russian spys.
Lol, are you serious? Any Adobe software, Microsoft Office, plenty of games (especially those that rely on anticheat software). That’s everything that comes to mind right away, there’s definitely more than that when it comes to specialized software. And no need to reply with “but there are good alternatives/use an older version”, this is software that is required for work and it’s industry standard for a reason.
If I have to google an error code the OS already fucked up.
I don’t think this is much of an issue for anyone here but… expensive wrist watches. I am a reformed watch guy. My $11 Casio F-91W keeps better time than my FIL’s $6,000 Omega. Quartz and batteries were a real game changer when it comes to watches. I really like having a watch but there is no reason for anyone to spend real money on a watch that doesn’t use quartz.
If you want/need a watch, to me the sweet spot are those Casio G-Shock squares. Totally bullet proof, can last a lifetime, and you can spend as little as $35 or up to about $150 if you want solar and atomic time. But spending any more than that and you’re really just buying jewelry, not something to keep time.
For a lot of people, buying a watch IS buying jewelry. However, I do agree with the rest of your comment.
Fashion accessories. For most fashion (not workwear), the expensive stuff is made from the same material and in the same factories as the cheap stuff, they just market it harder.
Body wash. It’s watered-down soap. Just buy a bar of soap.
Amazon Prime. Amazon used to be space-age Sears. Now it’s just Aliexpress. Fake reviews and bribery are rampant, dangerously nonfunctional products get top recommendations, used and broken products get resold as new while untouched returns get thrown into landfills, Amazon Basics violates IP, and they’re putting ads in Prime Video now.
Microwaves and space heaters. The boxes may try to convince you otherwise, but the amount of heat these devices can deliver is bottlenecked by the power outlet. Every 1100W microwave is just as effective as the others. If you’re paying more, it’s for looks and for features you’ll never use like popcorn mode.
Electronics, for most people. Most people won’t get more use out of a new $1500 phone than a last-gen model from the same manufacturer for $500. Do you really want a $200 smart coffee maker, or a $20 dumb coffee maker with a $10 plug-in timer?
Software. Obligatory FOSS plug. I don’t blame people for sticking to what’s familiar, but if you have the time and energy to spare tinkering, most software out there has a good free or open-source equivalent these days. At least for personal use. In my use case, LibreOffice beats Microsoft Word, Photopea beats Photoshop, and Google Sheets beats Excel.
Water. At least here in Denmark. Bottled water is less regulated than tap water.
Most stuff on a bicycle for the average person unless it’s carbon, plastics or electronics. Including safety stuff. Some caveat if you wanna huck yourself off a mountain or do like 100kph descents on your roadbikes.
But for the most stuff? The cheap shit works absolutely fine because at it’s core it’s bits of formed metal with threads attached connected by steel wires. Very hard to fuck any of that up to the point it becomes dangerous. I keep seeing parts being rated as SAFETY LEVEL 5 E-BIKE READY as if the metal rod that is my handlebar usually disintegrates once I hit the ludicrous speed of [checks notes] 25kph. Your $2 Alibaba Special V-Brakes are, at worst, gonna have garbage springs so it doesn’t return to not-braking great, but you’re not gonna like snap them in half even if you were a gorilla riding a bicycle.
I’ll add the caveat that any bicycle sold at Walmart is complete garbage and will probably break on you
My walmart bike’s downtube failed as I was riding it up a small incline. Not even at a weld, just right in the middle.
Didn’t even know that was a part that could fail.
Had to replace the tires because the treads wore through once so it probably got more use than walmart bikes are built for.
I buy a lot of generic or store brand stuff. Usually I’m comfortable doing this with things that have been around for a long time like bleach, laundry soap, and basic foods. I assume that it is not difficult to do these things so anyone can make it and there’s little if any difference between brands.
On this topic: I heard once that you should first buy cheap tools. Use them until they break and then decide what you want to improve about those tools and buy better ones. Often those first tools never break. This seems like pretty good advice for most things.
Yup, buy most things at harbor freight the first time, if you break theirs buy whatever name brand fits your color scheme.
The tools is good advice most of the time, but not if the tool would fail dangerously. Don’t skimp on car jacks, table saws, or other things that are likely to injure you if they fail.
Screwdrivers/drills/hammers/crowbars/etc. don’t need to be expensive if you are going to use them rarely as the professional grade is mostly about being used all day every day and being able to survive rough handling by tired workers.
Cosmetics. Maybe not women cosmetics, but the expensive moisture cremes and so on only add stuff you don’t want on your skin. Btw, “natural” marigold cremes are really bad there.
Cars. Expensive cars require more frequent and complicated maintenance and repairs than cheaper cars. They over engineer them on purpose in order to make it unreasonable to maintain them in the long run. They don’t want their brand sullied by old versions of their cars driven around by poor people.
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Maybe the downvotes are because you wrote your post in the opposite route. Of you read OP again, you will see that there is a whole post for that.
Thank you for your quality post anyway!
ThinkPad for laptop (user repairability, third party parts, open schematics)
My fully decked out ThinkPad T16 Gen 1 I got for work last year is a piece of shit. Lenovo keeps messing up the BIOS (sometimes it took up to 2 minutes to reach the Windows loading screen), it sometimes has trouble with the Lenovo Monitor (which has a docking station with USB-C), or a colleague who had the same model it refused to charge.
Don’t get me started on thermals, that thing either sounds like a jet engine or throttles down to 1.4 GHz on a damn 6 core CPU. That’s partly Intel’s fault too of course (The AMD counterpart would likely run cooler/faster).
I always thought ThinkPads are awesome, now that I actually use a $3000 one I’d never buy one myself.
I’d say for the oxymeter it depends on what you want it for. If your health depends on it, yes spend more for a good one. If it’s just for general interest the cheaper ones will likely be “good enough”.
For batteries, generally true. Except the Kirkland non-rechargeable packs are very good batteries and good value too. Not that I often need non-rechargable. Just for those few devices that are not happy with the lower voltage of rechargeable batteries.
Otherwise, definitely a good list. I’d also say in general for electronics, be very wary of Chinese brands you’ve totally never heard of selling items for less than half the price a reputable brand sells the same thing for. They are generally putting fake CE/FCC labels onto devices that are definitely not certified and will almost certainly be underrated for the requirement in a best case scenario. I am currently especially suspicious of the 100w+ PD supplies that are ridiculously cheap compared to known brands for the same rating.
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Yeah it’s why I qualified it with the “too good to be true” prices and names you don’t recognise. The odds are far greater that a brand name you’ve never heard of undercutting at more than half the price of a brand you do recognise is very likely cutting corners somewhere and stamping invalid certifications. With electronics that can end pretty badly.
Not writing off all Chinese companies. Just the ones that have a new name every month and are selling at too good to be true prices. I think they’re suffering the same as Japanese electronics did in the 80s. There were enough bad examples to make people assume it was the same for all (you’ll see it in movies of the era, with people referring to “jap-crap”). But as we know, some very big companies today rose from that situation to be extremely trusted today. I suspect over time the same will be true in China.
I’ve heard before Graphene is toxic. What did they do?
I do not think that the user above you is being brigaded by GrapheneOS.
Look into their history to see if they might’ve said to see if there was anything in their “most controversial” that could elicit a retaliation, and I found nothing.
I did find them often strongly saying unpopular opinions (or sidestepping a question), which people then downvote, and them sometime blaming the downvotes on outside actors.
“I didn’t say something that wasn’t true or not well received, I am clearly being attacked!!!”’
I’ll copy the comment you are replying to so it can’t go away:
I will go the opposite route here, and tell people to instead make an exception for certain things, and never go for cheap unknown brands.
highly reputed Oxymeter in medical establishment (do not buy inaccurate smartwatches, Apple is 20x ripoff and still subpar)
Victorinox for Swiss army knife
Victorinox or Leatherman for multitool
reputed branded batteries (Maxell, Duracell, Sanyo, Sony, Eneloop et al)
reputed battery/device chargers
PSU/SMPS and UPS for computer (APC, Emerson, Schneider and other brands) reputed brand watches (Casio, Citizen, Seiko have affordable BIFL options)
ThinkPad for laptop (user repairability, third party parts, open schematics)
Levis for jeans, they are almost BIFL
a good weighing machine for kitchen/home use
a good mixer grinder WITH safety lock (atleast 750W)
quality stationery pen, mechanical pencil, leads, eraser and other items (Uni, Pentel, Sakura, Staedtler et al, refer to JetPens website)
Edit: fuck you GrapheneOS, for almost 2 months now, they are mass downvoting my comments, and doing voting manipulation, also abusing federationReasons people might downvote:
- They are not answering the question that was asked
- They give lots of brands/products that people may disagree are high-quality.
- They recommend products that are outdated
- They gave a website that people should buy from (which may be seen as spammy)
Reasons people are probably not downvoting:
- They are GrapheneOS
“There are major durability differences between different cables and many manufacturers offer additional features, beyond the ability to carry an HDMI signal, that could add value and cost” says Park.
There can still be a difference in physical quality, even if signal quality is relatively unchanged.
This was pretty close to being true for 1080p and lower resolutions. If you get a 4k 120hz HDR display then bandwidth and signal integrity start becoming very important. The article you linked is rather old and really only considers media up to 4k 30fps. Cable quality especially matters at lengths above 4 ft for uhd and higher.
There’s a lot of snake oil so you can’t just trust marketing claims. I’ve had terrible luck with cables that claim to support high resolutions from amazon and even monoprice. I’ve resorted to buying cables from actual electronics suppliers like digikey since their speed ratings should be accurate.
OK, this one is true until it isn’t.
HDMI 1.4 and arguably 2.0 specs were straightforward enough that it was rare to encounter a cable, no matter how cheap, that did not support all the features you wanted if it listed the right HDMI spec. That… is no longer a universal truth with HDMI 2.1 if you need something that will do 4K120 with HDR. There are cables that just don’t like some ports, particularly on PCs.
Length is also a way this can be wrong. Go above 2.5-3m and you may start losing the ability to hit some of the spec. I have a HDMI setup that requires a longer cable and there are basic cables that work and some that don’t for the application. To get a better chance on longer cables you end up having to go for powered cables or HDMI over fiber, which are both more expensive than normal cables and it can be luck of the draw even with expensive cables whether they will like your devices and be compatible with what you’re trying to do.
So console plugged directly to your 60Hz TV over 1.5m? Sure, cheap cable will do. Longer distances or higher bandwidth requirements? Be prepared to shop around and try different options, potentially getting very expensive.
I think HDMI cables is a rabbit hole subject you can really lose some time with. I don’t know how everyone is feeling about Linus these days (I never heard how his independent ethics audit went), but he did a big deep dive on this and found result all over the place. Some cables costing WAY more than they should being total garbage, and some cheap ones being relatively OK and meeting spec, with no real way to know who is safe without either 1) testing them yourself OR 2) finding someone doing a wide batch of testing.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This used to be true, but unfortunately, like USB-C the game has changed completely.
The downside to standardization is that if you keep the same physical form for multiple iterations, the internals can change. The specs of the source and receiving ends have gone through tons of changes since 2015 and old HDMI 1.4 Cables don’t have the same standards to transmit high speed signals from things like PS5, Xbox, Apple TV etc.
Additionally because they require programming and HDCP (a verification handshake between the 2 devices it connects) when companies cheap out they may not properly program them.
That being said, you don’t need spend an arm and a leg, but don’t get shit either. Generally speaking, buy the cheapest version HDMI 2.1 from a reputable brand or vendor. Definitely not from Amazon anymore, a TON of products labeled 2.1 are actually 2.0 or worse, 1.4.
To a degree. I once bought HDMI cables at Dollarama thinking the same thing. For $4, it should work good enough, right? It took me a while to realize that the random interference that was pixalating and distorting the image was the cable and not my media PC, but not before swapping the video card to test.
You can buy cheap cables, but beware that not all cables are the same quality.
I buy good brands from China for my professional tools, phones, laptops, and gadgets. The key is knowing which brands in China are good. Nothing else can compete in terms of value for money.
Motorbikes (for commuting). My midrange motorbike cost under 2k USD brand new, and it gets me to work at the same speed as an expensive one (Asian traffic, haha).
I would be careful with gadgets that have software on them like phones and laptops. God knows what kind of Chinese spyware they come with.
Actually, that’s super exciting! I would have a fun time taking it apart, analyzing it, and publishing it. Would be great publicity, and would probably make me more money than the laptop/phone/whatever cost me.
That being said, the USA has the most established history of compromising cryptography and security. It’s not so much that I trust China or don’t trust the USA, it’s that I don’t trust any superpower, am fairly wary of nations in general, and in fact don’t have much trust for organizations of anything over a handful of people.
Headphones/ear buds. It really comes down to your use case. If you listen to podcasts and audiobooks 90% of the time then you only need good enough which is typically around $40.
