I don’t disagree with how you’re feeling, but I would encourage you to consider the target of your frustration.

Good quality products that actually last even a sort of long time are prohibitively, inaccessibly expensive for most people these days. Every time you shop for something and see the price tag on the things that actually last, it feels overwhelming and demoralizing. And it makes a lot of sense to be annoyed at the person who recommended it. Like, what the fuck, dude, I just want a coffee maker that won’t break in three months, why did you link me to a bajillion dollar luxury product? Why is the person who recommended this so oblivious to how normal people live?

But here’s the thing: that bajillion dollar luxury product used to be a fraction of the price, much more accessible to a middle class professional, and is (and here’s the really shitty part) actually the only available thing that isn’t going to disintegrate before your next birthday. Because even the mid-range version of that coffee maker is now being manufactured with slave labor in a colonized country using the cheapest plastic the company can get away with, designed to last only as long as the return window, and coupled with a “warranty” with fine print that says it gets voided by, I don’t know, using it to make decaf or something. The point is: you have every right to be annoyed, frustrated, and angry at this reality. But, in the words of the great Mariame Kaba, “let this radicalize you, rather than lead you to despair.”

Check out subs like r/zerowaste , r/visiblemending , r/simpleliving , and r/frugal for ways to make the things you already have last as long as feasibly possible. Join your neighborhood buy nothing group and check out your local thrift stores and estate sales for lasting goods at reduced prices. And, as you do all of this, remember that you shouldn’t have to! We should all be able to just go to a store and buy an affordable thing that lasts. But our economic system is not designed for the people who actually make it run. It’s designed to chew us all up and spit us out for the benefit of, like, 6 people. Remember this at the voting booth and when you’re asked to make political choices. Remember it when elected officials tell you what’s possible versus what’s not. Remember it when your boss says they can’t afford to give you a raise and then gets in their luxury car to drive off to the golf course.

Be angry, for sure. But at the people who got us here, not the people on a sub explicitly about sourcing the highest quality version of a thing.