Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> We need to build with high-quality American fakes, not high-quality Chinese fakes!

It's entirely possible that American manufacturers are forced to compromise quality like that due to the competitive pressure of low-cost Chinese fakes.



Mo question, Chinese fakes and theft are an enormous problem, and I'll be among the first to speak against it.

However, no one was forced to compromise quality.

One can always step away from that business or project, stating that if they cannot do it right (or cannot do it right at the demanded cost structure), they will not do it.

I've stepped away from deals for the same reason -- I'm not going to compromise quality and performance to compete with lesser Chinese junk at their prices. Moreover, it is a losing game, as there are a billion of them, and producing cheap low-quality stuff is what they are best at (and in some cases they are rising above that).

They fell to the temptation to compete with the inferior grade materials by providing inferior grade materials with false test results, but they were not forced to do so.


Definitely.

And when one knows it won't work?

Say that, say why, decline and cite cost to make it a success exceeds client expectations and or ability to pay.

When they do it on the cheap, fail hard, know that cost exceeds just doing the right work with the right materials every time.

When they come back, quote them with confidence.


You and the parent are saying the same thing. You're just mincing the word "force". You're insisting on using it in a different figurative sense than the parent, but the parent's meaning is perfectly clear.


> One can always step away from that business or project, stating that if they cannot do it right (or cannot do it right at the demanded cost structure), they will not do it.

Do that too much, and you may just go out of business yourself (or have to radically reduce operations).


Of course you might.

Or, you might have to work harder and smarter to find better options.

If you are not sufficiently diligent and intelligent, it may seem that when things get tough because one sector is in a race to the bottom, that because <we could go out of business if we don't>, it's ok to just cut corners, falsify tests, etc.

Once you start doing that, you have decided that you'd rather be a rich fraud than a poor honest person.

You may think that is OK. I do not.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: