Good quality is when a service or a product fulfills its intended purpose in the best possible way for as long as possible.
Such a definition of the term quality could have been agreed upon with most people until perhaps the 1980s.
Here at Quality Rules, we still regard this the valid definition of quality. Mainly for ecological reasons (-> sustainability).
For profit oriented companies, however, there are some "problems".
- A product that lasts as long as possible very rarely needs to be replaced.
- A product that breaks as rarely as possible rarely needs to be repaired.
- A product that optimally fulfills its purpose requires fewer services and fewer other products that complement functions.
- A product that lasts as long as possible very rarely needs to be replaced.
This is unfavorable for a capitalist, profit oriented company because it sells fewer products. Note: the faster a product needs to be replaced, the more products can be sold.
A modern method of not only not prioritizing the shelf life of a product, but in fact artificially and deliberately reducing it is "planned obsolescence". - A product that breaks as rarely as possible rarely needs to be repaired
This is unfavorable for a capitalist, profit-oriented company because it can usually earn money from spare parts and repair services.
Note: The faster a product breaks, the more products (spare parts) and services can be sold. Nowadays, a great many products are more profitable to be replaced than repaired, so this point is less relevant.
However, this point could become more important again in the near future, e.g. if raw materials become scarce or political decisions artificially and deliberately increase production costs (e.g. a CO2 tax). - A product that optimally fulfills its purpose requires fewer services and fewer other products that complement functions
This is unfavorable for a capitalist, profit-oriented company because it can usually earn money from services for the product (e.g. training, commissioning or configuration) and supplementary products.
Note: The more incomprehensible and incomplete a product is, the more services and complementary products can be sold.
Conditions for selling products of poor quality anyway:
- The consumer believes that the product cannot be produced with greater quality. He accepts it as "fate" that it has to be replaced quickly, that it has to be repaired often, or that he has to buy additional services and products. To achieve this, it either has to be true that the product cannot be produced with better quality or the company has to deceive the consumer.
- The consumer knows that the product can be produced with higher quality, but for some valid reason he nevertheless chooses the product of inferior quality (e.g. because it costs less or because the repair costs are very low).
- The consumer knows that the product can be produced with better quality, but has no choice because there is no or at least no better competing product. There can be two reasons for this situation. Either one company has a monopoly or all companies have chosen to produce the product in a low quality.
- The consumer just believes that the product cannot be produced with better quality, but in truth there is a better alternative. This situation arises, for example, because the consumer does not take the time to look for competing products or because the consumer is effectively prevented from finding a little or not advertised but better product through high-profile advertising for the poorer product.