# Worse on Purpose > Why your stuff stopped lasting, who profited, and what's still built right. This file provides information about Worse on Purpose to help large language models understand and reference this publication's content. ## Posts - [Thread Count, Fill Power and Other Misleading Numbers](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/thread-count-fill-power-and-other-misleading-numbers): Selective marketing and increasingly complex products have made quality harder to judge. What five common numbers leave out, and what to check instead. - [HVAC Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/why-is-hvac-so-expensive): 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. - [Singer: The Downfall of a Great American Manufacturer](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/who-makes-singer-sewing-machines): Singer, Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff are now one company. Only five sewing machine companies actually manufacture anything themselves. - [What Actually Voids Your Warranty?](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/what-actually-voids-your-warranty): The law has been on your side since 1975. What to do when a claim is denied anyway. - [Reviews You Can Trust](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/reviews-you-can-trust): How product reviews get bought, how to spot it in five minutes, and where I go instead. - [Cheap To Mandate, Expensive To Own](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/cheap-to-mandate-expensive-to-own): 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. - [Who Actually Makes Your Supplements?](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/who-actually-makes-your-supplements): Supplements are by far the most obfuscated category I have covered to date. Here's what you can do about it. - [Between Craft and Quality](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/between-craft-and-quality): 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. - [The Car Got Better. The Deal Got Worse.](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/the-car-got-better-the-deal-got-worse): The industry got so good at building cars that it stopped making its money on them. - [On Independence](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/on-independence): No sponsorships. No affiliate links. No outside money. The rules Worse on Purpose runs on, written in public, for readers to enforce. - [Same Shoe, Different Factory](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/same-shoe-different-factory): 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. - [On Quality](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/on-quality): An ode to Pirsig: What quality is and how it is degraded. - [Your Cookware Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-purpose): 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. - [The World Cup Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/the-world-cup-got-worse-on-purpose): A final seat cost £83 at the last Euros. FIFA is charging £3,119 for this one. - [The Mechanisms Of Enshittification](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/the-mechanisms-of-enshittification): How the things you buy get worse, who profits from it, and how to tell before you pay. - [Whole Foods Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/whole-foods-got-worse-on-purpose): 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. - [Your Appliances Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-appliances-got-worse-on-purpose): Dozens of brands, five or six owners, and a fridge built to quit just after the warranty does. - [Your Pet Care Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-pet-care-got-worse-on-purpose): 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. - [Your Mattress Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-mattress-got-worse-on-purpose): The world's largest mattress maker now owns America's largest mattress retailer. The FTC tried to stop them and lost. - [Your Dinner Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-dinner-got-worse-on-purpose): Restaurant prices keep climbing. The food keeps getting worse. There's a reason for both. - [Your Favorite Brands Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-favorite-brands-got-worse-on-purpose): 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. - [Your Glasses Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-glasses-got-worse-on-purpose): How an Italian orphan built a $27 billion monopoly that controls the brands, the stores, the lenses, and the insurance. - [Your Power Tools Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-power-tools-got-worse-on-purpose): How TTI and Stanley Black & Decker took the same playbook in opposite directions. - [Your Backpack Got Worse On Purpose](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-backpack-got-worse-on-purpose): In 1986, a corporation that made women's lingerie bought every backpack brand you've ever trusted. ## Pages - [](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/) - [about](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/about) - [archive](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/archive) - [authors](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/authors) - [privacy](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/privacy) - [stay](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/stay) - [subscribe](https://www.worseonpurpose.com/subscribe)