People on Lemmy sure are just pissed off all the time huh? This is an interesting project at the very least and highlights just how difficult it is to truly make something in America, and does a decent job of explaining why it's bad that it's that difficult. Y'all need to just chill.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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Constant purity testing, and invalidating everything someone says because you disagree on a couple issues 💀
There are six components to this grill scrubber and at least two are from foreign source. The chain mail is from China and the top knob is from Costa Rica. He also said the handle string is of unknown source. I'm bit disappointed that he just slapped a Made in USA label on it and called it good. For 75 dollars I expect a bit better.
I wish Destine broke down the cost of every component of the scrubber and how he ended up with the $75 price tag at the end. He did that with the chain mail but didn't discuss the cost associated with any other part of the process. That leads me to believe this video was more leaning towards making money rather actually trying to get to the bottom of problem with manufacturing a product in the US. Sadly I'm left disappointed.
I think thats a kinda dumb purity test when they clearly did put a lot of effort into actually trying, and I don't see why its better if they threw away the supply they already mistakenly bought.
No I'm not suggesting that he throw away perfectly good materials. I disagree that he put a lot of effort into really trying. There was little to no follow up after discovering the parts weren't from US. There was no attempt to contact the American chain mail supplier about limited capacity. Why is it that they can only supply so little amount? What would it take to increase capacity? Is it lack of people, machinery or investment? We don't know because it wasn't in the video. Same thing with the knobs that came from Costa Rica. There was no follow up. He didn't even try to source knobs made locally. He just said he will later. He started out the video sounding like he was determined to figure out a way to complete task of trying to make a product made locally but he kinda just gave up and decided to just ship the product as is. The video was suppose to be an education focused but it slowly turned into a marketing video. I find that disappointing.
His point about investing in the pricier, good quality product instead of periodically paying for the cheaper, bad quality product, only makes sense if you have a guarantee the pricier product actually have a good quality. And that's not the only thing that matters. Companies like Malus claim to have better quality and we can debate that all day, but what's undeniable is their anti-repair stance. That means you can have a problem with their product and have to buy a new one anyway because it can't be repaired.
I actually agree, it was one small problem I had with the video, he portrays the Boots theory of socio-economic unfairness as a basic "buy once cry once" thing, when really it's about how being poor is expensive. It doesn't matter if over the course of 5 years it makes sense to pay 4 times the cost for a product that lasts 5 times longer, it's that poor people can't afford a 4x cost product. Most people understand that quality stuff lasts longer, but it doesn't matter if you can't pay it and you need boots.
That and there have been companies that had good product, but then got bought out. Only afterwards, they reduce product quality to the point of being some of the worst on the market.
These vulture capitalists are hoping that the brand recognition of what was once a good product keeps the company afloat long enough for them to rot away and consume the company from the inside.
Prime example: Craftsman hand tools.
When I was a kid, everyone had them. Worked well, lifetime warranty, yet much less expensive than professional tools
Last decade: cheap crap, work poorly, fall apart, essentially no warranty. Poor reputation: do not buy regardless of any sale. Yet more expensive after inflation
Fucking A. Printers back in the days used to just print and had refillable ink cartridges. Some expensive ones are still chugging. My dad has one from the 90s that still fucking works. The new one we got cries about colour missing when trying to print a black n white page 😩
Yep I agree. I don't think he was saying that being pricier guarantees its better quality, just that something better quality may be worth it even if it is pricier.
I would consider repair and upgrade-ability to be a part of quality.
There are lots of places where I would pay for better quality but don’t because I can’t tell if there is any such thing
100% my problem. My mom bought a sewing machine about 4 decades ago and it still works to this day. It cost her a fortune, but it paid off. Sewing machines nowadays have all kinds of fancy electronics in there and if it fails, you're fucked. I don't even know if paying more really gets you a better quality sewing machine...
I haven't forgotten Destin trying to push his creationist agenda using his YouTube platform. He makes a lot of good content, but after that I don't want to watch his stuff anymore. Fuck him for doing something like that.
He is also a staunch Republican, and a Trump supporter. I like some of his videos, but most of them are cringe if you're actually knowledgeable about the topic he is covering. He researches a topic just enough to come across as the smartest person in the room, while dumbing down concepts and talking down to the audience like we're infants. You can tell his target audience are poorly educated and easily impressed people from rural America.
Oh, I casually watched his videos and I could tolerate 1 or 2 of these stances but all 3, yeah if that's true it's time to unsubscribe
I watched this video in its entirety and it made me profoundly uncomfortable.
There was a lot of subtext that seems edited out. Yes he’s “humble” in some respects but he’s also willfully ignorant in others, or at least presents as such.
I would not be surprised if in a few years he goes off the deep end.
I also watched the whole thing, and have to imagine that a lot of xenophobic stuff was edited out when they found out their chainmail from India was actually from China. That section was so cringe, they had someone on earlier who spoke Chinese, why not ask him what it meant or research some more, than make assumptions and air that lightly filtered.
I get he's making a point to invest in local manufacturing, but then knowingly having the excess supply of chainmail come from India defeats the point he's trying to make. Considering the handle for the first 2000 are from costa rica and the excess chainmail after the 2000 units was at least thought to be from India, it seems rare anything being sold is 100% Made in America, yet has a price tag 4x as much.
I pretty strongly disagree with that characterization, at least for the manufacturing videos I watched, that I do have experience in. I appreciate how deferential and humble he is to people in his videos even if they're showing a job that is relatively unremarkable to most people.
I also think
poorly educated and easily impressed people from rural America.
is a pretty mean spirited and stereotype-based thing to say.
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Really ? he is a Trump supporter ? I know him only from his videos, but that seems out of character for someone versed in the sciences and reasoning. Can you provide a source ? I don't want to support him with views anymore if that's true
This. I'd be super surprised because he's an intellectual who likes to understand the hows and whys of things. I really enjoy his content (especially his helicopter series). If he's maga then I'll definitely not watch another.
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I've been following him for years and I don't really remember him pushing any narrative except the bible verse references at the end, can you be more specific?
It's obvious he's religious but he's a great educator and host so unless it's affecting his videos, I don't care what he does with his free time.
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Hey it's me a tool and die maker.
I can say at least that my company and the larger manufacturers in my town are spending enormous sums of cash getting students in to the trades. It's not just tool and die that's suffering, most of the "skilled" trades are bordering on geriatric.
A lot of the kids entering the trades are farm kids, which is another problem entirely. The average age of farmers in the US is close to retirement too.
That makes me so happy to hear! I kept thinking that during this video, that he’s putting the cart before the horse. Made in America is important sure but the cost is significantly more which is problematic when you’re an working class person who literally doesn’t have the cash to buy American made, we need to be sending our young people back to trades not say everyone needs college! I’m a 2004 Graduate and so many people in my class went into so much debt and for what? A barely above minimum wage desk job? I was a pariah for not going to college but going to a tech school.
If we don’t have young people in these trades, making fair wages, we have no middle class and if we have no middle class he’s going to run out of $75 scrub brush buyers sooner rather than later.
The video got really close to being a dog whistle to me a few times he did mention he wanted to talk about unions, then didn’t, I just felt like there was so much focus on “manufacturing is actually good for the US” - and it is, I’m a leftie but I agree we do want some manufacturing jobs, especially the high skilled ones, but almost no focus on how we keep these industries alive, and grow them, and how important it is that young people can access this training and why it’s important to bring education into the conversations about “made in America” - high skill manufacturing isn’t going to sprout up over night, it’s why he struggled so hard to source parts, and the video very much framed this industry as something that is an organic industry that will just be there if we buy it… which feels dishonest if we look at the bigger picture and all the lack of both knowledge and experience that will really make this industry struggle
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What a load of MAGA propaganda. Saying American made products are good quality. Ehm. No, they aren't. They are usually shit quality and aren't allowed in Europe because they are dangerous / toxic. It's overpriced junk.
Also his product looks shit. It's a combination of hard and soft materials. That means there are several weak points. The metal handle is connected with a single screw in plastic. The plastic will break and the sponge will wear really fast.
American producers need to cut costs, otherwise their already overpriced product will be insanely expensive. In China they have cheap labor, in the US they can only cut costs with cheaper materials and importing from China. When they don't import, they will have to be creative by using less material and cheaper stuff. Poorly regulated, toxic material for example. Softer metals / plastics. While in China they don't have to import most of their material, or it comes from neighboring countries. Chinese products are actually of better quality than American ones these days.
I remember buying my first Leatherman, a long time ago. The blade is made of extra hardened steel, it's impossible to dent it. I recently bought the new flagship Leatherman, for 300 euros. The blade got dented while cutting cardboard. The multitool I bought on aliexpress for 20 euros has a hardened steel blade and doesn't dent at all.
Now Trump is angry becssue the EU won't take poor quality American products. Like chicken for example, in Europe American chicken is concidered toxic.
Chinese EV's have surpassed American EV's by a long shot now.
The time of Chinese products being shit has passed. It's a struggle for European companies to compete. The time of American products being shit is now.
The smarter everyday videos do not fit their YouTube name anymore. I used to love his videos but for several years already it has become propaganda junk. He's just a MAGA hillbilly who thinks he's super smart.
Youre just as delusional as MAGA people, just the other direction. Please don't exaggerate and portray someone as way more political than they are, that's what got us into the Trump mess. Try some empathy
I mean one of the first lines is "manufacturing locally guarantees your freedom"
That just rubs me the wrong way. Isolationism at any cost guarantees "freedom"?
This is one, quite simple product we're talking about, and they still haven't achieved the goals before bringing product to market. I don't hear him saying "nothing should be produced in China anymore" but rather " we mustn't forget how to do shit ourselves".
And how much trouble are we Europeans in because of our reliance on American software and computing services?
I think you're missing the point of the video.
The video looks like it's meant to highlight the US being reliant on other countries when that used to not be the case.
Die and tooling jobs were once more prevalent in the US, now it's very hard to come by which makes us much more reliant on foreign countries like China.
Yeah, it's called trade. Trade is good for the economy. Every economist will tell you that. But feel free to follow Trump, who says the economy will be better when everything is made in the US.
We all rely on each other. International trade has never been on a larger scale as it is right now. You can't have a complete production line in a single country. Like Nintendo said, it would cost billions to set up their entire production line of the swith 2 in the US, and even when they would try it would be impossible to do it a 100%. Resources come from all over the world. Rare earth metals are being imported into Taiwan, chips are being produced which are being imported into Japan. The chip machines are made in the Netherlands, which buys its resources from other European countries, the US, Asian countries like China. This is the entire process just to produce a chip. There's an entire different international production line for just the screens, as well as all the other parts.
Back in the days you needed copper for wiring and plastics to mold, and you basically had a rotary phone. Easy to produce in a single country. Not comparable to phones these days. Trading was expensive back then. These days trading is cheap. Beleving everything needs to be made in the US using US raw resources is completely dillusional. Like Trump.
Even for simple products like a grill scraper, the most economically efficient way is to use the international market. It might not feel nice to be reliant on other countries, especially when you start trade wars with everyone and make everyone your enemy. Look at Russia, and the European reliance on them with gass, oil and rare earth metals. Even now we buy Russian stuff, even though we don't want to. The alternative is to destroy our economy, like the US is doing right now. It isn't fun, but it's the reality. We slowly need to find substitutes. For that we can't just say we will do it ourselves, we need to look for new sources elsewhere.
The world isn't as simple as it was the 19th and early 20th century. You can't compare it to our current economy, products and lifestyles.
Trade is good, being completely reliant on another country to deliver the things you need is bad. Especially if you have no idea how to make the things you need. What's doubly bad is relying on a country that says they want to be ready to go to war with you in three years.
Trade is good, but we need to know how to make the stuff we rely on daily. If WW3 were to start, and we were to get cut off from our trading partners, we need to know how to make the things we require to continue to exist. I don't think the video is trying to convince us to never buy another foreign product. I think it's telling us we need to retain the knowledge that is required to make things in the US, so the country doesn't grind to a halt in the event of an emergency.
lol ok
Climate Town made a similar episode for their tshirt as well, which he struggle to find a tshirt maker that is fully locally made to reduce the climate impact.
Watched the video yesterday. I think it does a good job at describing the reality, and it's consequences.
The causes and solutions are left as an exercise for the reader
I think not going into that a little bit, like “education will be a key component to this industry’s survival and success” is a missed opportunity because that is also the reality. Reality includes causes, this didn’t happen in a vacuum.
As for solutions, beyond advocating for education and endorsing unions or something else equally broad, no he’s definitely not obligated to go into that
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