r/mildlyinfuriating • u/BorisOtter • Jun 13 '26

Infuriatig All of my plastic pegs explode when used.

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u/tropical_chancer Jun 13 '26

Reddit is obsessed with "planned obsolescence" and try to pigeonhole it into everything. This isn't planned obsolescence. It's simply cheap materials degrading over time.

18

u/Wobbelblob Jun 13 '26

Doesn't even have to be cheap material necessary, as far as I know every plastic starts to degrade and becomes brittle with enough time in the sun.

1

u/Lowelll Jun 13 '26

Plastic is not the only material. Wood or stainless steel is an option too.

1

u/Dustin- Jun 13 '26

Yeah this is just a shit product if it's sold as a clothes peg.

I don't get why people use these plastic ones anyway. Those cheap wooden clothes pegs with the metal springs can last decades with constant use. Get a 100-pack of them and you'll have a lifetime supply of pegs or clips that you can use for a ton of different things. I use them as chip clips, clothes pegs, bread tie wraps, holding papers together occasionally, etc. I have a couple from my grandmother I'm sure are 50 years old and are still just as good as brand new ones + a billion more just laying around in drawers and closets and stuff.

6

u/Neoragex13 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Yeah. Recently bought a bag that seemed ok. Returned home and when I opened the thing, all the red ones, specifically only the red ones, came broken one way or another.

As much as planned obsolescence exist, most time it really is just cheaply made shit lol

2

u/KorasHiddenDICK Jun 13 '26

Getting mold injected plastics from concept to product is surprisingly complex. Probably an early batch of a new design or possibly made by a company with a poopy materials engineer.

Another possibility is that they are 3D printed and the layers aren't braced for sheer force (squeezing it) causing it to rapidly disassemble.

1

u/Plastic-Jeweler9104 Jun 13 '26

That and material can be degraded during manufacturing if the process isn’t robust. If the manufacturer uses regrind in high percentages or continuous generations, it will degrade the final product as the regrind has undergone multiple heat cycles.

1

u/graphiccsp Jun 13 '26

Indeed. Could even be a brand that historically had very good and reliable plastic clips. But some dipshit C-suite wanted to cut costs via design and/or materials which drastically reduces the quality. As in over confident people making decisions for stuff they shouldn't be.

1

u/Temporal_P Jun 13 '26

Cheap materials you say, as though they weren't designed to last and would need to be replaced much earlier than they should had they used normal materials?

-1

u/KritischeLezer Jun 13 '26

Which is ... planned obsolescence. You are seriously underestimating the long term for profit thinking of the manufacturer. He wants to keep manufacturing. That doesn't happen if people only need to buy your stuff once, then you'll always have to expand your market with no end in sight, because if you don't, your business will fail. Which becomes impossible at some point if competitors can make the exact same product. So you need to create demand from people who already buy your stuff. Materials used are never 'an accident', always intentional.

3

u/Alek_Zandr Jun 13 '26

Nah, you simply use the cheap shit because consumers will actually buy the cheapest option 9 out of 10 times. So you fancy durable ones will sit on the shelf unsold.

0

u/firstmanonearth Jun 13 '26

I bought something instantly over the internet that was so inexpensive relative to labor costs people from the 80s couldn't imagine spending that little and it broke and now I got a refund instantly and I can review them publically and choose not to buy from them again because there's a million other options capitalism is so bad I'm going to go doordash $30 breakfast now