Discontinuing a product breaks the cost-comparision chain. It makes it easier to increase prices or reduce quality without direct backlash. Releasing new products also makes for marketing announcements that work like advertisement (or is advertisement directly).

A consumer watch dog that meticulously tracks equivalents to combat this would be an interesting project.

> Where does my logic break down? What am I overlooking?

You're in a room of software developers who keep breaking and changing everyone's "favorite everyday" workflows, every time a piece of software is changed.

Even something as dumb as changing a design language is the same thing as a brand discontinuing your favorite every day item. Why did my UX have to get ugly for no reason? Why can't I go back? people cry out.

What do we do to support peoples' choice of software over the longterm when they can't choose to 'roll back'?

Your favorite T-shirt is still available for sale. It's just got a giant black box strapped to the back of it called AI. The t-shirt companies said that's good for you so you have to wear it now.

> Where does my logic break down? What am I overlooking?

(1) Clothing manufacturing is a lot more complicated than sockets

(2) Generally products aren't discontinued because they're popular. So what you're describing is a lot of cost, for products that a lot of people don't care about.

(3) Even if someone did write up a spec for a t-shirt—what would you do with it?

(4) The need for standards is a lot more important for things like sockets which have multiple ends, and need to ensure that both sides work consistently, than for things like a piece of clothing where there's a single wearer at a time.

There might be something to this. It does seem older models of things are better than newer models of things. So it could be the drive to lower costs and increase profits are causing this, at the appliance, car, etc. level.

It doesn't explain why every couple of years I have another four or six pairs of yet another set of socks, from the same company, but with enough variation that now I have multiple different generations of CK socks that aren't pairable.

That's why I repurpose or discard all of my old socks every time I Invest in a new set. I do this about every two years. I rotate them for uniform wear. I've successfully eliminated the possibility of mismatched socks.

Forced sock upgrades with no backwards compatibility.

> It doesn't explain why every couple of years I have another four or six pairs of yet another set of socks, from the same company, but with enough variation that now I have multiple different generations of CK socks that aren't pairable.

Most sock brands don't actually produce socks, they license the brand name out to third-party textile manufacturers to make the product.

They'll often switch partnerships to new manufacturers which has a drastic impact on the produced product in terms of materials, feel, overall quality, etc.

In many cases they even license the brand out to multiple manufacturers simultaneously, using different manufacturers for higher end stores than cheaper department stores, so even in the same time period you could get very different socks of the same style from the same brand depending upon where you buy them.

Same core problem as typical cost-cutting enshittification -- everything is hyper-optimized to extract the maximum amount of value at the expense of every other consideration.

Your logic breaks down at the critical point of sourcing: not only must we have the means of production and the schematics, we also need the original materials required to create the stuff. If we lose access to the original materials, or if they are no longer available, then the rest of the chain doesn't matter.

However, I do find promise in one aspect of your idea: an infinite archival catalogue of items-that-once-were. Then, you can link to things like, as others have mentioned, eBay listings where you can still find the "originals.'

Yes, that's a good point. Schematics, manufacturing, and patterns are powerless if the original materials disappear or change. I haven't researched this yet, but I assume that the same variety of apples, cotton, paint pigment, or grapes will be different if it is grown in different countries. Even though it's the same variety. And that's a problem.

I have a hypothesis that it's possible to make the paint independent of the supplier, so that it is the same paint every time, after 1, 5, and 20 years. We can standardize not the raw material, but the result. Using paint as an example, it's possible to create a digital color passport, and then comparing the standard with the incoming raw materials will allow us to identify the difference and compensate for it. This would make it possible to achieve a color that does not depend on the place of production or on time.

I don't know if this will work in practice. I think this kind of engineering solution could bring us closer to the idea of unchanging clothing.

What do you think?

Take for example the Sony Walkman, even if you want one really badly the actual factories that make the specialized parts have gone, been repurposed. Or a specific color yellow that only came from overfeeding cows at the turn of the century in India. Things that utilize that incredibly bright yellow color are going to have to use a replacement, and will never be exactly the same.

Anyway, thinking of these ~fringe examples helps clarify my thinking on the matter: it sounds like we're basically targeting three different things:

1) The thing(s) you want. What is the finished product you're gunning after.

2) The raw materials that go into the thing(s) you want. What is the entire process ,, with , from an engineering perspective ,, all its "inputs" at different moments of the flow.

3) The actionable thing: Making a universal index of products that once were, so we can track what they are made of, and what their creation-cycle is from raw materials to assembly/assemblage. Additionally, here we can also track where you can still buy/procure/obtain them if versions/copies/prints exist today.

But realistically my friend, you are better off just buying ten or twenty pairs of your favorite shoes when they exist, because the rotating crushing automaton of production-reality that underpins all of consumerism is constantly consuming itself. How many times have I purchased a one-time-print of a hoodie or piece of merchandise that is no longer available, nor will it ever be available again? I won't go so far as to wax poetical and say that rarity is what makes things valuable, because it's not, however tightly coupled those traits might be; but cool things being one-offs and highly scenario-bound for obtaining them is actually useful information about how the universe works. Reproducibility and the urge for regularity is a logos-construct [logical, rational, reasoning intelligence] while dwelling in the felt-sense of the realm and leaning into intuition is an eros-abiding [intuition, connection, relation, significance].

So while I understand the urge for the clothing you like to never end or be discontinued, I think a more useful approach is not how do we keep the cool versions existing forever, but how do we keep more fresh, new cool versions coming unabatedly. Sources get exhausted in multiple senses of the term, I think we need to think more metaphysically about how to replenish sources on every level of the meaning of the word source.

I like that we moved from things to philosophy. That's exactly what the project I'm building is about. I see that the pain I described here is shared by all of us. It doesn't matter what the item is, where we live, or what language we speak. And at this point I understand that I can't solve the whole problem. But I can solve it using one specific item as an example. I want to make a T-shirt that won't change after 1, 5, or 20 years. And every time it wears out, you can buy a new one and it will be exactly the same. No "discontinued." No "we quietly changed the material."

How can this be done technically? I'll explain using color as an example. If I buy yellow paint today, it will be different from every manufacturer. A color passport, with a recorded spectral curve, allows the color to be fixed. The factory mixes the available color pigments to match the color passport. This is theory. Do we get that exact same T-shirt color after 1, 5, or 20 years? I think yes. Are we dependent on the weather, the country, or the manufacturer? I think not.

Does this engineering solution answer the philosophy I'm talking about? I think yes. And I'm looking for people who need a T-shirt like this. )

Not only does the molecular composition of something matter, but also the geography, climate, terrain, terroir, season, temperature, and more, amounting to "where" it was sourced from. Take, for tangible example, water. Water from a volcanic island like anything in the Pacific Ocean, Japan for example, has a particular deliciousness making it exceptionally suitable for green tea. The water itself is imbued with minerals and elements. On the molecular or atomic level we might call it water, h2o, but when we look at the varying strata of composition, we find that it does not just have one unique thumbprint/fingerprint for composition at the atomic level, like h2o, it also has many layers at different scales that affect its flavor and effects on the body. Similar to how cotton candy is made, by swirling all the surrounding elements into one substance, naturally occurring resources and fruits/crops are a seamless and edgeless amalgam of their surrounding "context" - constituted by temperature, air density, exposure-to-sun, rock-contents,, the thing itself is woven/weaved from the surrounding space/matter/properties and yields a very specific outcome-fruit.

So when you cover yourself with a blanket your parents bought you when you were a child, you are covering yourself with cotton that grew in a specific climate, in a specific place, with soil and sunshine and water and temperature that baked that cotton plant and made it exactly what it is/was. Growing the same seed elsewhere will not have identical outcomes. If you grow it in a cold place, you will get a different fabric texture than if you grow it in a hot place, or a moist place, or a dry place. And beyond the suitable range for growing, it simply will not bear fruit. We label different crops and resources by the same label and call them "varieties" of one another, but in reality we are simply being lazy with our specificity and our categorization. A plant grown in a hot climate has a tendency to transmit the heat it was gestated/incubated in, and a plant grown in a cold climate has a tendency to transmit and transfer the coolness it was gestated in. These are subtle truths not noticed by the masses - the system of conditions is imbued, is etched, into the summary product.

Consider how certain varieties of wine or lemons or drink are famous specifically because of the origin climate/temperature/soil. Sicilian lemons cannot be grown anywhere, just in Sicily. Champagne is named after the region from which it bears its eponymous name. And it is no secret that two "identical" dishes prepared in two completely different countries will taste very different and have different effects on the body, because the ingredients are sourced locally, and in the sourcing is the makeup, not on the exacting-chemical/chemistry level, but on layers that are subtle -- in the folds between the atom and aspect-of-the-naked-eye, true layers and strata that are largely invisible and untracked, knowable only by the environment which bore/gave-birth-to them.

In certain mystical traditions there is the concept of the "mandala" which is not only the presence in the center, it is the surroundings. Every fruit comes not only from its own inherent properties as encoded in the seed, but also in the soil , the water, the metaphorical sunshine it receives, the steady state temperature of the spot. All these factors constitute what we call the "material."

I completely agree with you. And I like the depth you have gone into. The same variety of cotton grown in Portugal, Poland, Italy and Turkey will be different. Moreover, the same variety of cotton grown in the same place, but at different times will be different. Because the year can be hot and dry, or cold and rainy. All this will affect the cotton. And it will be different.

I have been thinking about this problem of heterogeneity. And I am grateful that you showed this complexity. I have a solution.

The name of this solution is -- arithmetic mean or in terms of material -- a mixture. I don't bet on one variety of cotton. Because it is different and we have already seen and discussed this. I make a mix of different varieties of cotton that meet the required parameters. And then I get a stable average, independent of the year or geography.

I have the T shirt problem myself. My solution is quite simple. I have bought 500 of the shirt I like the most. My style is grayscale, so I bought greys and blacks. I’ve been wearing the same shirt style for over a decade and have only utilized about 30-40 shirts.

I do this with deodorant, soap, and shaving supplies too.

Great solution! It completely solves the problem of favorite things disappearing.

I don't have the money to buy 500 T-shirts. And I don't have the space for them either. So I started thinking: what if we made T-shirts where the important thing is to keep them exactly the same, never change them, and never discontinue them? I'm talking specifically about T-shirts. If you knew such an option existed, would it have affected your decision about the T-shirts?

I mean, I thought that was already the case. Places like The Gap has something called the essential tee. Have had it for decades. It changes all the time. It seems like every time they run a batch or move manufacturing it changes a bit. The Hanes brand of shirts is supposed to be a staple.

I’ve been burned too many times and it would take you many years to earn my trust as a new company. You also still have to hit the style, size, material, fit exactly right for me to want to even call it my forever shirt. I’m pretty particular which is why after having my favorite styles rug pulled many times and suffering for this problem for years I did the bulk order thing.

If you don’t have the money for 500 t shirts I don’t think you have the money to start this business either tbh.

Slightly related. This reminds me of this article: https://pudding.cool/2026/02/womens-sizing/

Sizing chaos (pudding.cool)

827 points by zdw 5 months ago | 435 comments

It's not about discontinuing items but about the industry incentives that seemingly go against logic making it impossible for most women to find fitting clothes.

Quotes:

"While there are no universal sizing standards, an organization called ASTM International regularly releases informal guidelines." "There are no regulations or universal sizing standards. Instead each brand is incentivized to make up its own. When size guides change — and they’re always changing — brands are not obligated to disclose updates."

Pah at least women get a decent number of sizes. Where are my Extra Medium t-shirts?

I’ve had this happen with the clothes I get from Patagonia. What was only a few years ago a thick plaid button down is now thin and not nearly as warm. And Patagonia still makes good stuff! But I do wonder if it’s time to start shopping around again.

take a intl trip and buy stuff from locals.

like the tribal type of people who live close or off the land.

it won’t be cheap but you also won’t be paying 60% of the price for the brand name alone.

that kinda stuff is so high quality and lasts forever. plus it looks dope af compared to whatever you can buy from a retail store made by a mix of man and machine.

Mmm that is a good move. I got an Italian leather bag in Florence and it’s doing what you say, though there is some machine part. I’ve got a trip to Japan in the hopper that I’ll make this a priority for

Happens in Software and Hardware too.

Company develops product A with a crack team of developers, cutting edge stuff. Product is shipped, so the star developers go off to another project or are put in lousy roles and leave. Product doesn't change for a few years and is in maintenance mode.

When time comes to crank out a new version, those hotshot developers are gone and the new crew doesn't quite get it - they want to change the tool-chain from X to Y, remove that overly complex (but very useful) feature, radically change the UX, incorporate AI, etc. New version is mostly compatible but way different.

Seen that happen all too often.

It's all very tedious. This happens a lot with pretty mundane staples like socks, underwear, bedding, towels, umbrellas, headphones, ...

These are all "semi-durable" items that get a lot of wear and tear and inevitably need to be replaced every year or two. There really are definite quality differences, and you don't want cheap and nasty, but there's also no point overpaying because anything you get will need replacement in the not too distant future, and it's not like any of these items are status symbols.

There are often a lot of marketing hijinks in this space, like "Ralph Lauren" bedding or "Nautica" towels or whatever, where it is clear that the brand is just licensed by some no-name bedding company for product differentiation, instead of developing their own brand known for quality.

There are (very few) brands that mostly stick to a good, pretty consistent middle-market level of quality/consistency. e.g. people have mentioned Levis for jeans, LL Bean is pretty good for bedding & clothing and basically have a modest range pretty consistent / high quality stuff for shirts, trousers, etc. Crate & Barrel, Marimekko, etc. are also good usually.

I do sometimes wonder if a website/store/brand for consistently good, go-to staples could work. Something like Muji or Uniqlo, or costco "kirkland", or "amazon basics", where the store/house brand is consistently good over time, and there are few other options. I imagine it would be hard to really offer the same consistency over time with shifting supply chains/manufacturers etc, but you could try, or where that's not possible have some "transition"/"upgrade path" like our old model A sucks are no longer available, the closest new options are B, which is slightly thicker, or C, which is slightly longer.

Alternatively, there's NYT wirecutter or Consumer Reports and such that basically just tell you the right few options and cut through all the gimicky chaff.

I guess this is basically what we lost when department stores went away - a curated, modest selection of go-to items at your price point has now been replaced with millions of options, 98% of which are awful.

"I do sometimes wonder if a website/store/brand for consistently good, go-to staples could work."

This is very close to what I want to build — basic items that don't change after 1, 5, or 20 years. The same material, color, and style. I can't solve this problem for every item on the planet. I'm starting with a T-shirt. )

>3 .. what could be done to support a customer's choice for years?

Nothing lasts forever: be it websites you visit, your favorite food and the recipes and ingredients used, the clothes you wear or even the people and living things around you.

You can only delay the inevitable, but with perishable goods or clothing that will break over time? Buy more! Like those shoes? Pants? That special hoodie? Buy a few of them.

Not only will you have backups of that awesome item you love in case something bad happens, the wear and tear will also take longer as you are not using that same item over and over again.

Good luck out there and stay safe!

I've been wearing the same pair of shoes for (Vans Camacho) twelve years now because I cannot find any that actually fit my feet. Vans made these shoes that I purchased over and over again for ten years, but discontinued them in 2016. I've had to learn cobbling to some degree to keep these shoes going, though now the bottoms of the soles are so thin that my big toe might finally wear through them in the next year. It is ridiculous that in twelve years I haven't been able to find a replacement for something so simple.

I have a discontinued shoe that I really like and I've had great luck getting them on eBay lightly used. I keep a few spare pairs and swap individual shoes out as they wear. You might be concerned about odor/cleanliness but I've had a good success rate, the sellers with good reviews that are doing this professionally have the hygiene program down pat.

I'm so impressed by your ability to keep them going but it looks like ebay still has a ton of pairs of them if you want to stock up.

The only viable solution is to reduce dependencies where possible and deal with it.

Nobody in the commercial space is going to follow step 4. It inhibits growth and innovation and increasing profit margins. LTS support would cost a lot of money and my guess is that would not gain enough traction to make it profitable for them. Otherwise, they'd already be doing all of this. I mean, it's talked about constantly in commercial circles.

"Otherwise, they'd already be doing all of this. I mean, it's talked about constantly in commercial circles."

Do you have any links or examples where I can read about this? This is the first time I've heard about it.

Thank you.

When I say "it's talked about constantly in commercial circles" this comes from personal experience, so no.

Put another way, don't you think companies have considered this? It's a rather obvious idea. So, assuming it's been considered, why don't they do it?

Spoiler: it's probably not economically viable based on the current consumer client, which is "buy cheap, throw away when broken, repeat". It's pretty sad how quickly the US has gone from repairable to throw-away products all while proclaiming concern for the environment.

Not sure how to fix but I do miss the Private Selection™ Belgian Chocolate Milk from Kroger. Why in the world would they discontinue such a unique excellent tasting product, it's a bit similar to the Dutch Nutricia brand.. ugh. shame.. https://www.kroger.com/p/private-selection-belgian-chocolate...

It comes down to cost. A tailor could, for, say $4,000, replicate any piece of clothing you own, down to going to the fashion district and finding matching fabric and use the same process to transfer any pattern to the new garment. That's just a lot of money for a t-shirt that was originally on sale for $39.

I always have trouble buying shoes, most shops don’t stock my size in the first place, and sizes vary greatly across manufacturers, and even styles. Now when i find shoes that fit, i go order at least another 2 pairs online to avoid having to hunt down a new pair that fit well.

One bizarre one, i find when i find some foodstuff i like, the shop will eventually discontinue it, it seems almost personal…

Lidl has trialed vegan lasagna a couple times now. It sells out so incredibly fast all across the country, to the cries of many vegans in Facebook and reddit communities. And yet they discontinued it years ago. I don't understand the economics of it, but I would assume such a popular product would be a no brainier.

There is a marketing demographic of people who like products that fail in the market. I'm pretty sure I'm in it and you probably are, too.

  Are you a “harbinger of failure” Study: Some consumers have an unerring knack for buying unpopular products.

https://news.mit.edu/2015/harbinger-failure-consumers-unpopu...

banana flavoured ice cream here

I finally found a brand+model of jeans that I liked. I don’t have to buy pants/trousers often, so of course the next time I went to buy some it had been discontinued by the manufacturer. Even the “this is the closest style to that one” online recommendations had been discontinued, leaving me back at square one.

I stopped long ago buying brand jeans because there's literally none that will fit my build (fit guy with normal waist, huge upper leg, big but smaller lower leg), so I wondered if anybody did custom ones.

I've been very happy with www.madetoorderjeans.com (there are others) : get your measurements as they explain, pick the fabric you want (normal, stretch/fit, elastic; light and thin, thick, ...), make your stile, wait 2-3 weeks - for the price a brand jeans (so overall reasonable). Jeans last 3x times longer (wear patterns) and they fit me perfectly, instead of needing to have them adjusted after (expensive) purchase.

If you haven't already: Check eBay and maybe also set up an eBay Saved Search.

This is called growing up. You lose everything you ever loved. Everything decays and dies, and you will too. Better enjoy things while they still last, and move on to the next thing quickly when they don't.

It's called having a tailor, and it is expensive (in the US)

Unfortunately Levi's has started making subtle changes to the same models. I have a drawer full of Levi's, all the same model. The older pairs are 100% cotton. The newer pairs are 99% cotton, 1% elastane, and have noticeably thinner fabric. Usage that would just scuff the older pairs will put a hole in the newer pairs. Very disappointing.

I thought maybe you were buying one of the Levi's signature or special models they make for Wal-mart and others, but nope seems like even the full fat 501s are now 1% elastane. And they must have made this change in the last couple years as the last ones I bought are still 100% cotton. Death of a brand. They did always tweak the cut of the models a bit but changing the fabric is unforgivable.

Even I think ten years ago, my Levi’s would consistently fail within a year. Switched to cargo pants and haven’t had that problem since.

Levi's jeans does have pretty consistent styles and has model numbers that haven't changed their main style identity for decades.

But, I swear the different factories will often produce slightly different cuts. I used to buy 517's all the same size, and depending on which country of origin they'd all just fit a bit differently. A little tighter here, a little looser here, but all for what are supposedly the same measurements. Some enough out of whack I refuse to wear them. I don't bother trying to get the exact same anymore.

But I do have to say they have definitely come closest to actually keeping things pretty much the same across time. I can't really say that for any other mass market clothing brands which don't include custom tailoring.

I also swear by Levi’s, they also have good range of sizes with a very rare combo that fits me perfectly, and they are well made. I tend to just instinctively buy a pair whenever i see they are on sale, i now have too many and haven’t bought any in a good couple of years.

Converse shoes also have styles that haven’t changed in decades, while convenient, they’ll usually only last me a year.

> It must cost them a fair bit of money too. I wonder how much cheaper you could make shoes if you only designed one set and then fired all of your designers...

Alden has been making the same models of shoes for decades but they aren’t cheap. Assembly labor and materials make up most of the cost for producing shoes, and Alden are made in the US.

There is cost involved in supporting products for life long, moreover this assumes that the company would provide a life long support for every product it releases.

I agree. And at the same time I see that I can't solve this problem for all products. I want to check if it is possible to make one product where immutability is built in as an idea. And it is always available for sale. I will start with a T-shirt. If it works, then we can think about the rest.

I have the same with a pair of jeans, I bought the same pair 3 times but now they start to wear down and I have been trying to find another pair but no luck.

I'd probably pay a premium for a few "boring" items if I knew they'd still be available 10 years from now.

Yes, I think this is the key point of the whole discussion. And thank you for this thought. The value is not only in the quality of the item, but also in preserving the choice already made by a person. You find something that fits you once and you don't spend your time and energy searching for a replacement anymore. No "we discontinued the item", "we changed the material", as people write here about Levi's jeans.

I want to test this idea with a T-shirt.

They discontinued my freaking favorite hamburger, and nobody knows why. (Yes, I asked every branch)

Bring back PB Crisps!

This assumes there's no advancement in clothing manufacturing and design. Could you buy a 20 year old computer today and use it with a modern OS?

I believe the engineers and artisians who make the clothes you wear are also pushing the boundaries of fabric, patterns and cuts to feed an ever-famished audience looking for the 'next thing'.

Besides, they read the room - you no longer fit in those same sizes anymore!

Using a T-shirt as an example, I propose an API where there is an immutable part -- the T-shirt body. It is about the properties of the fabric, color, and style. These parameters are standardized and do not change. And there are engineering solutions that change, and this is where there is progress and novelty. It is about logistics and production. I assume that the next stage of development is cotton printing. Is this solution technologically new? Absolutely. Can we make it so that a T-shirt buyer does not feel the difference? I assume yes, and this is the task and philosophy of the project.

My project is not about an audience that is looking for "the next new thing". I am researching if there are people who care about preserving a choice they already made and not spending their resources on searching for a replacement.

About sizes I agree. A person changes with age. I think this can be considered in the size range. After some time a customer takes another size, but the item remains the same in material, color, and style.

Advancements in clothes technology in the last 40 years only optimized production, not quality...