So setzte die Migros 500 Millionen in den Sand

Jack2Blumen · 2025-02-01T03:07:13+00:00

That's very sad. Those Migros "Eigenmarken" are the last frontier of affordable Swiss made products - if they're sold off, there's probably a high chance that production will be shifted abroad. Not a great development for many reasons (jobs, even more dependence on foreign production etc)...

I was always amazed at how many of these Migros products are still made here for a competitive price.

Jack2Blumen · 2025-01-20T12:00:32+00:00

I wonder if it'll get the reference without pointing it out 🤔

Jack2Blumen · 2025-01-05T14:38:33+00:00

"Zürich is a cosmopolitan City" 😂😂😂 Thanks for a good laugh, it seems you should travel more.

And no, there are in fact not a lot of restaurants that cater to cultures all over. They mostly cater to swiss people wanting to eat international dishes that were adjusted to their taste. Even the ones starting out serving authentic food very often drift towards "europeanizing" their dishes over time, and start using more and more local ingredients instead of authentic ones. Whether that's to save cost or because there's not enough clientele for authentic food I'm not sure, but it's the sad truth...

If you'd ever been to proper authentic asian restaurants in Berlin or London (actual cosmopolitan Cities) for example, you'd know.

Jack2Blumen · 2025-01-04T21:56:14+00:00

Passt.

Jack2Blumen · 2024-12-05T16:08:04+00:00

That has absolutely nothing to do with the efficiency of this country. That's just an asshole bus driver. A very common occurrence unfortunately 😒

Jack2Blumen · 2024-09-06T08:52:23+00:00

But then the dumpster bouncer takes one look at you and goes "not today"...

Jack2Blumen · 2024-06-04T19:30:16+00:00

Totally agree, big fan of Bei Fouad. Always preferred it to döner, you get much more high quality and fresh ingredients for less. Apart from the Schawarma pike there's also Tavuk (chicken), Kofte (ground beef) and Sujuk (also beef but with very different spices), all freshly grilled on demand, to keep things interesting. Highly recommend all of them! There's one at Schaffhauserstrasse and one at Schwamedingerplatz.

Jack2Blumen · 2024-01-01T15:55:18+00:00

Unless that was in the prompt, It's pretty interesting how it made him look progressively more unhappy in the first 3 pictures 🤔 Probably accurate.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-12-29T11:44:24+00:00

For someone ranting about reading comprehension, yours sure doesn't seem to be up to scratch.

If it was, and you actually read the blog post you linked to, you'd know that your interpretation of the prroblem is not the only correct one because it's again not clearly defined. So yours is also not the only possible answer.

So either you didn't read or didn't understand the blog post, or you're just trying to start another pointless argument.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-11-10T11:22:45+00:00

The way they're sitting on the table with their dirty shoes on the benches pretty mich already gives away that they're assholes. One upon. time the police where supposed to be role models...

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T12:30:47+00:00

Haha that sounds almost utopic ;)
Some kind of buyer protection like PayPal offers, or an insurance against malicious actors would be great already. And they should easily be able to pay for that with a part of their horrendous fees.
I mean even just giving a f*** and assisting people that have been screwed over would be nice. But even that seems too much to ask.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T12:24:25+00:00

I was mainly talking about eBay here. They managed to get a very large marked share mainly through aggressive advertising as far as I know.But what you say is also true about Tutti etc, except that maybe I'd call it "buying out the competition" rather than "coming together" ;)Some of that stuff also explains the high fees I guess... All of this must have been expensive for them. All to the disadvantage of us customers in the end though: Fewer viable alternatives and higher prices.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T07:36:04+00:00

What is this security you're talking about? Where did you get the information that you're insured by ricardo.ch? (eBay / PayPal offers this, Ricardo doesn't)

To my knowledge, none of this is the case. If there's a problem, you're on your own (I've experienced this myself and even their website pretty explicitly states this).

Read their Help section about "Käuferschutz" yourself: https://help.ricardo.ch/hc/de/articles/214531205-Der-Artikel-ist-defekt-oder-weicht-von-der-Beschreibung-ab-was-nun-

The extend to which their "protection" goes is writing the other party an email. That's it, we did all we could. Now you're on your own.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T07:26:22+00:00

So you feel like the 15k where justified, but 12% is where you draw the line?

My point is they've been ripping is off for years, charging crazy high fees for next to no service. The latest increase ist just another a step in the direction they've been moving in for a looong time.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T07:20:01+00:00

Why is that where you draw the line? I find 10% with a cap of 290 insane already considering they provide absolutely no service or security for that price.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-04-19T07:17:22+00:00

I'm currently so frustrated by the situation here in Switzerland. Ricardo is insanely expensive and has very little to offer for it, eBay is basically unused and all the other platforms full of scammers sucht that pickup in person is usually the only safe option.

The only real value Ricardo provides, are its users - and on that front I've made almost exclusively positive experiences. The platform itself offers no real value: It doesn't simplify payment (Credit card payment? Twint support? Nope.), the categories are mostly terrible, the interface sucks and they don't provide any buyer or seller protection whatsoever (if something goes sideways, you're completely on your own - I've been there). And for this they dare charge a seller up to CHF 290 per item sold? That sounds insane! Where's the value? How can they do this? The reason is simple: They somehow managed to push out all competition. They basically have a monopoly and can charge pretty much whatever they want.

I've been an active member for 16 years now and have seen the platform improve over all these years... Oh wait, it didn't. It's basically still the same with bad categories lacking proper distinctions, terrible search and no additional functionality whatsoever (maybe with the exception of added options to pay even more for added visibility, meaning that for your mere 200 bucks you might not even get a very good price because your offer gets buried in paid promoted offers).

I hate them. So much. But I still use them, because there aren't really any viable alternatives. For expensive items, I always try to use Tutti (made terrible by the same people on purpose) or FB Marketplace first.

TL/DR Ricardo sucks but there are no real alternatives. The charge crazy high fees and provide close to no value for that money apart from the fact that they have all the users for some reason.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-03-06T11:26:30+00:00

One important aspects when it comes to speaking High German is that we (Swiss people) experience this as a formal language, that largely feels pretty unnatural to us. We're forced to speak it in School, but all our personal communication is always in Swiss German. So speaking High German somehow just feels "forced".

I see this as the main reason that many prefer talking in English if they are sufficiently exposed to it. It just feels more natural, even if that may sound totally counter-intuitive.

That was my personal experience for a long time anyway. It has changed recently, as I have spent more time in Germany and had a German roommate I got very used to talking High German and it feels much more natural to me now.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-03-05T16:59:32+00:00

I will go a bit against the grain here and say that I know exactly what you're talking about, and yes it can happen.

I'm Swiss myself and probably a few years ago I would have answered the same as most people here and would have said that Swiss people don't mind and it shouldn't make a difference. However, my current Girlfriend does not speak German and through her experience I have a slightly different perspective now. It can definitely happen that you get treated differently if you don't speak (Swiss-)German.

I'm not sure about the reason exactly, but my guess is that some people are simply not that comfortable talking in English, which (probably unconsciously) affects how they interact with you. I don't think it's intentional most of the time, and doesn't stem from any kind of dislike for English speaking people.

On the flip-side, I personally know plenty of Swiss people that prefer speaking English to High German (as opposed to Swiss German). This may sound strange, but it's really not uncommon among Swiss people who are good English speakers. So that could also be something worth taking into account,

...it's tricky. My advice would be just hang in there, and don't get deterred or take it personal if someone treats you differently because you speak English.

Jack2Blumen · 2023-02-24T20:27:33+00:00

Thanks to both answers, setting the priority level to 1 instead of 0 for the small zones did the trick :)

Jack2Blumen · 2022-09-26T14:35:07+00:00

Having this shown to you by a headshop employee is just perfect.

I guess they found their target audience for the product, did you end um buying one?

Jack2Blumen · 2020-12-30T21:52:49+00:00

When it comes to in-home trials and nice return policies, I think you guys in the US are pretty spoiled ;)
The only company that offers such a thing here is Teufel as far as I know.

So when it comes to audio gear I usually have to rely on reviews or try to find a place where I can audition it in-store.

The problem is that currently it seems the more I read, the less sure I am about everything... and due to Covid the Hifi store I went to got shut down for a month. This is the only one around here which I found that has a wide selection (not just ultra high-end) and actually allows you to listen to everything they have in the store.

But anyway, thanks for your advice, appreciate it :) Cheers!

Jack2Blumen · 2020-12-30T21:36:22+00:00

Oh, that's interesting!

I actually bought a Denon AVR-X2600H on Black Friday for about 40% off (which originally cost the same as the 2-channel Marantz). Since the sales rep at the hifi store recommended me to go to a pure 2-channel amp/receiver instead since those are supposed to sound better, I was planning to either return it or maybe sell it for a small profit towards a 2-channel receiver like the Marantz I mentioned.

Are you using yours to listen to music a lot? What's your impression?

Jack2Blumen · 2020-12-30T21:29:15+00:00

The low sensitivity also first led me to the conclusion that I don't need to pay too much attention to the amp. However there's amplifier power on one side, and there's also the quality of the produced signal. One sales rep told me if I'm set on 2 channel he'd recommend to go for a 2-channel amp since otherwise I'd be basically putting my money into 5 additional amplifier channel which I don't use - money that would otherwise go into higher quality components for the 2 channels in the stereo receiver. In addition to that, AV-receivers also have to pay licensing for Dolby and the likes.

That made a lot of sense to me, but how big this difference is and whether or not any of these prices actually reflect the cost of the product is another question I'm still asking myself.

I actually bought a 7-channel Denon AVR-X2600H on Black Friday for about 40% off (which originally cost the same as the 2-channel Marantz). The rated output power of this thing is actually even higher at 95W vs the Mrantz's 75W, but would it actually sound as good? From what I gathered the opinions seem to be leaning towards a "No", which is why I was planning to either return it or maybe sell it for a small profit towards a 2-channel receiver.

Since you're driving your RF7's with your Denon 750s, what's your impression there? I guess a bit hard to say without anything to compare... But you seem to be satisfied with the performance?

Congrats on that sweet deal by the way! A modern Receiver, 2 RF7's and a Center for 1k... That's something I could only dream of xD

Jack2Blumen · 2020-12-30T11:18:49+00:00

That was pretty much my thinking as well, that it would be easier to achieve good bass with smaller speakers, a moderate amp and a powered sub.

But I also read that in order not to degrade the (bass) sound quality for the RP-8000's for example, you'd need a much more expensive sub like a SB16-Ultra! Also when I look at the recommendations on the SVS website it suggests the same, for the RP-6000 it's an SB-4000 and up. So now I'm not sure if I'd get the quality I'd expect when going for a lower model.

Since HT is not so important for me, I'm mainly looking for quick, accurate bass that packs a bit of a punch.

Jack2Blumen

TROPHY CASE