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browncore
194
Feb 22, 2018
More details on where it is manufactured?
A community member
Feb 22, 2018
where are you getting that stat? i'd be interested to know.
naterw
294
Feb 22, 2018
It’s actually closer to $20 a day, my mistake.
A community member
Feb 22, 2018
naterwhuh. that's strange to hear -- one of my friends worked for we knives full-time and was able to meet the standard of living out here in silicon valley, one of the most expensive places to live in the united states. on top of that, there were only about ten employees, according to him, who worked at we knives in china. it's strange to think they'd pay their team members so little, then pay the advertising guy so much. (my understanding is that reate knives employs about the same number of people who hand-finish their production knives.) what's also interesting is that to get a better understanding of what it means to be paid $20/day in china, you'd also have to look at the difference between the cost of living there versus in the united states. if you compare prices for a basket of groceries and other daily utilities and services, you see that the cost of living in the united states averages to something like 90-120% higher than in china -- you get less in the united states for the same number of equalized dollars. so maybe getting paid $20/day in china isn't as awful as it sounds to people here, where an average hourly-wage job pays something like $50/day. economists have determined that buying power is stronger for americans than for those living in china, so there's that to consider. but the long and short of it is that average daily wage on a national is a poor indicator for the quality of machining work that a small company in china is able to achieve. it's much more likely that successful knife production companies are paying their typically smaller teams higher wages than the chinese national average -- but, again, that doesn't give a clear indication of production quality either way.
naterw
294
Feb 22, 2018
You aren’t understating. If the cost is $2 in labor and $5 in materials to make the knife it is a rip-off even if you add on another $5 per knife for advertising and shipping etc.
Im not sure how your friend fits into the math and I think you you may be getting bogged down in a personal anecdote and missing the point.
A community member
Feb 22, 2018
naterwwait, so are you implying that a knife like what massdrop is offering right now only cost $17 to make? how do you know that?
A community member
Feb 22, 2018
if this knife cost only $17 to manufacture, ship, and advertise, then yeah i'd agree that charging $250 is unreasonable. but i don't think this knife cost so little.
naterw
294
Feb 22, 2018
Go to Shanghai and try to buy ANYTHING, if you shop around you can find it for about $20.
A community member
Feb 23, 2018
naterwyes, because chinese export philosophy has dictated that only the best makes it overseas -- you sound like you've been to asia often, so you probably already know that "made in china" means something different in china than it does outside of china. you can find terribly low-quality things for $20 or less in china -- and some of that makes it over here, too, but that doesn't characterize all of the nation's exports.
but again, have you handled one of the prototypes of this knife, or are you somehow affiliated with massdrop? how do you know this is one of the knives the unnamed chinese manufacturer produced for domestic release using sub-par materials and production methods to hit a price point of $20 or less? how do you know that it should only cost ~$20 to make?
just because you can buy cheap quality things for cheap prices somewhere in a country, it doesn't mean that everything that entire nation produces is cheap quality and should therefore be offered at a cheaper price. that just doesn't make any sense. that's like saying that because you can buy five terrible chicken nuggets for $1 somewhere in america, everything we eat in america must be trash and there's no way someone could be expected to pay $100 for a gourmet meal here.
the fact of the matter is that there are a variety of chinese companies producing a variety of things at a variety of levels of quality at a variety of price points. china isn't just one big trash factory -- it does make a lot of trash, but it also makes some of the best consumer merchandise (electronics, clothing & apparel, accessories, devices, electronics, machinery, heavy industry implements, etc.) in the world. i don't see why you can't bear to approach chinese-made knives with a broader sense of possibility and openness to encountering a range of quality.
BoxBlade
279
Feb 23, 2018
naterwI believe knives are illegal in China.