I write Worse on Purpose, an investigation into why the things you buy don't last... and who profits when they don't.
Oct 7, 2026
•
8 min read
Selective marketing and increasingly complex products have made quality harder to judge. What five common numbers leave out, and what to check instead.
Sep 30, 2026
11 min read
Private equity bought the largest HVAC contractors. Their playbook pays technicians based on what they sell. Just six companies make most of the units they install.
Sep 23, 2026
10 min read
Singer, Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff are now one company. Only five sewing machine companies actually manufacture anything themselves.
Sep 16, 2026
The law has been on your side since 1975. What to do when a claim is denied anyway.
Sep 9, 2026
12 min read
How product reviews get bought, how to spot it in five minutes, and where I go instead.
Sep 2, 2026
13 min read
On the compounding effects of safety and emissions regulations on car ownership. Today, simple new cars are illegal to sell and all models are more costly to keep.
Aug 26, 2026
Supplements are by far the most obfuscated category I have covered to date. Here's what you can do about it.
Aug 19, 2026
Why it is so hard to prove that the new version is worse. By way of a five-hundred-year-old office for inspecting cloth, a fraud investigation from 1579, and a warning from Adam Smith.
Aug 12, 2026
14 min read
The industry got so good at building cars that it stopped making its money on them.
Aug 5, 2026
7 min read
No sponsorships. No affiliate links. No outside money. The rules Worse on Purpose runs on, written in public, for readers to enforce.
Jul 29, 2026
Only two major running brands still own their factories. The rest rent from the same pool of contractors. Many do so with no commitment past the current order.
Jul 22, 2026
An ode to Pirsig: What quality is and how it is degraded.
Jul 15, 2026
One buyout firm quietly collected Pyrex, Corelle, Instant Pot, and Oneida. Farberware is a name on a 200-year lease. And the pans still worth buying.
Jul 8, 2026
A final seat cost £83 at the last Euros. FIFA is charging £3,119 for this one.
Jul 1, 2026
How the things you buy get worse, who profits from it, and how to tell before you pay.
Jun 24, 2026
9 min read
It started as a flooded little store the neighbors bailed out by hand. It became an arm of Amazon that scores its own workers on how likely they are to unionize.
Jun 11, 2026
Dozens of brands, five or six owners, and a fridge built to quit just after the warranty does.
May 27, 2026
How Mars, KKR, and JAB quietly bought up the clinics that treat America's dogs and cats, why your bill keeps climbing and the legal trick that lets a corporation own a practice in states where that is illegal.
May 14, 2026
The world's largest mattress maker now owns America's largest mattress retailer. The FTC tried to stop them and lost.
Apr 29, 2026
Restaurant prices keep climbing. The food keeps getting worse. There's a reason for both.
Apr 21, 2026
One company owns Brooks Brothers, Champion, Eddie Bauer, Billabong, Sports Illustrated, and the licensing rights to Elvis's likeness. They don't make a single product themselves.
Apr 9, 2026
How an Italian orphan built a $27 billion monopoly that controls the brands, the stores, the lenses, and the insurance.
Mar 31, 2026
How TTI and Stanley Black & Decker took the same playbook in opposite directions.
Mar 23, 2026
5 min read
In 1986, a corporation that made women's lingerie bought every backpack brand you've ever trusted.
