POFS: Piece of fucking shit (The Awful stuff, bad products general) - WHY WON'T THIS FUCKING THING JUST FUCKING WORK.

[Otterly]

Miele appliances.

 

[Mark Goldbridge]

USB bluetooth for PCs
All modern wired earbuds
All modern shoes
Battery life of most modern laptops
Modern gaming consoles
Posture "corrector" strap garbage (snake oil type product)
Electric cars
All Sports equipment, the quality the past 5 years has nosedived

 

[Runescape Sperg]

HP printers. I never hated an inanimate object as much as this piece of actual shit. Trying to figure out why the fuck isn't it working yet again is a task akin to passing the trial of an ancient guardian speaking in tongues and riddles

 

[NoReturn]

Not really a product, but.... behold the worst of the "popular" houseplants!
The Calathea

This fucker is the white elephant of plants. Maybe you're thinking "Oh, does it die fast?"
No. The calathea somehow manages to be worse.
Not only is it a picky little bitch that gets upset if it's not humid enough, or too humid, or you watered it with tap water instead of distilled water made from the tears of an ancient giant living deep in the Amazon rainforest, no, it doesn't have the dignity to just die, either, so then you feel bad and can't throw it away.
So you don't throw it away. Maybe you replant it in a smaller pot so it doesn't get root rot. Maybe you move it to a new location (even though the last location was just fine for a year before the damn thing decided it didn't like it anymore), and then what happens?
It comes back. It comes back and you are oh so happy and you think "Wow, look at it go. How tough and cool, and look at those new leaves!" and you let your guard down and then one day, BAM!
Dying again, and you repeat the process all over.

 

[Jaded Optimist]

Merrell's women shoes, the men seem fine. My husband has had multiple pairs that lasted years, my lasted months. My mom had the same issue.

 

[Twinkie]

Miele appliances.

I thought Miele vacuums were supposed to be among the best on the market? I've never owned one but that's what i heard.

 

[Rich Evans Simp]

I’m in an abusive relationship with my Samsung washing machine. What I wouldn’t give for a traditional machine with an agitator, with the ability to control the water level manually.

 

[Grub]

Jeans have become complete garbage over the last couple years. The material doesn't even feel like real denim any more. I'm pretty hard on clothes but it's ridiculous, they've barely been lasting a couple months before the seams start to go. Used to be the knees would wear away before anything else. Any brand I've tried, even Levis are just pure garbage these days.

Hand tools and power tools, even the expensive name brand shit, have gone way downhill compared to tools released only a few years ago. I've had screwdrivers snap after a single use, impact driver bits snap on the first use, power tools made out of the cheapest shittiest plastic that break after a single drop, newer models of powertools that are flimsier, have less torque, can't do as much work, but cost the same or more as the previous model.

 

[The Grognard]

These 4 rings means that the driver behind the wheel is a dickhead, there's always some part that breaks that requires to be procured from the Mines of Moria, and everything is assembled as a sadistic experiment to make any mechanic alcoholic. Of course, people still buy them because they think German car = fast and reliable.

 

[Google.com]

I thought Miele vacuums were supposed to be among the best on the market? I've never owned one but that's what i heard.

The Miele C3 was literally conceived of by god himself everyone in my family owns one it is a requirement, if you don't have one you will be gifted one. Any insults against the Miele vacuum line will be punished severally.

I've never had a single issue with the Miele vacuum except the roller thingy breaking once after god knows how long of using it.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

HP printers.

Definitely agree here. I have an HP color printer. I use it so infrequently that when I actually need to print in color, it will shamelessly do a maintenance cycle that sucks up about 1/3 to 1/2 the ink before printing. I kid you not: I've had ink cartridges go empty without actually using them to print a single color page because of these maintenance cycles. Once the last of the installed cartridges runs out, I'm recycling the printer and chalking up the time and money invested in that monstrosity as a valuable lesson to avoid newer HP color printers at all costs.

Their strict enforcement of requiring genuine HP cartridges and their aggressive shilling of their Instant Ink program doesn't help, either.

Jeans have become complete garbage over the last couple years.

Dress clothes also seem to be of lower quality from my recent experiences. A dress shirt I bought maybe 2-3 years ago had a small pinhole forming at the base where the buttons are after a few washes and it got gradually bigger with each subsequent wash. I also had a pair of dress pants that barely got snagged at knee level and it ripped open in a way that couldn't be mended. All this while the price for these items continues to increase.

 

[Google.com]

Yanwen Shipping

Yanwen is a budget international shipping company which primarily ships from China to the US from what I can tell. It is very cheap for vendors so a lot are starting to use them. But how is it so cheap you might ask, well let me explain how Yanwen """""delivers"""""" packages at such an amazing price.

1. The package arrives at a Yanwen processing center and is launched via a cannon at a brick wall before being loaded onto a belt.
2. The belt takes the package to an employee who flips a coin for each package, heads and your package is destroyed, tails and it is thrown and stomped onto another belt where it will continue.
3. The parcel is then haphazardly loaded onto a wooden dingy which will make the journey across the pacific to america.
4. If your package makes it and passes customs Yanwen staff will then slam and stomp your package to ensure no undamaged parcels make it through the cracks.
5. From there they maybe deliver it to USPS to complete the delivery if they feel like it, maybe... Eventually... The one package I actually received sat in a warehouse for a month here.

I have had 4 packages sent through Yanwen 3 were lost in shipping and the vendor had to resend via another parcel company, the fourth somehow arrived broken and deformed despite being a solid metal part. Their tracking website also just doesn't work at all, you enter the tracking number and nothing happens, you have to use a third party tracking website for it to work. Why any vendor would use this company when it is physically incapable of delivering a package is beyond me.

If you order some chink garbage and they send you a link to YW56.com.cn just cancel immediately, you won't ever see the package.

 

[retard strength II]

HP printers. I never hated an inanimate object as much as this piece of actual shit. Trying to figure out why the fuck isn't it working yet again is a task akin to passing the trial of an ancient guardian speaking in tongues and riddles

My work bought five HP printers at the beginning of the year, only two can actually be used at this point and only some of the time when it isn't bitching about ink. Gets a person fedposting irl (making terroristic threats against HP)

 

[Mojo Thief]

I bought a $250 Audio-Technica microphone a couple months back for recording and within, like, a week the crappy plastic stand broke. Now the port's busted and it only works if I plug it in at a very specific angle for some reason?? The mic itself's good quality, so I'm not sure why they'd skimp out on such an inconsequential part of the product.

Same here, I bought one of those professional-quality AT mikes that cost me like $300, and it burned itself out after literally days after the warranty expired. I have no idea how or why that happened, considering it was only ever plugged in to my computer's USB port.

I'd like to add Apple Airpods. For some reason, the pair I had just wouldn't stay connected to my phone, or even more annoyingly, would connect through only one pod. Few things make me more angry than having my concentration ruined while working out by bluetooth headphones that won't do their one fucking job. The crappy JBLs I replaced the Airpods with are super reliable in comparison.

Also, don't buy Pittsburgh-brand hand tools if you intend to use them more than thrice. Turn a flathead screw a little too hard and the whole screw tip might chip or shear right off. Finest Chinesium right there.

Finally, Breville coffee makers. The one I had was a "high-end" model that couldn't grind more than two cups of coffee beans without breaking some shitty plastic part that required complete disassembly to replace. That hunk of junk was expensive as shit, too - could've gotten an Italian-made Illy for the amount of money we spent on this Chinese-made Breville, but my family wanted all of the fancy gadgets on the Breville. We replaced it with an Illy and have had no problems so far.

 

[Yeeted Teet]

HP printers.

I know someone whose HP printer burned their house down due to an electrical defect. There was talk of their insurance company suing HP to recover the payout, but I don't know if anything has come of that.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

I bought a wireless Xbox controller a few years ago and figured I'd buy the official rechargeable battery so I didn't have to deal with third-party crap or spend a lot on double As. It completely shit the bed after about three months of relatively infrequent use and charging - after some research, I found out that was a common occurrence and everybody in the know avoids these like the plague.

On the other hand, the rechargeable Panasonic Eneloop batteries I bought as a replacement are great and I would highly recommend them.

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

How so, have you never yelled at an inanimate object before for it's refusal to obey you?

Literally today, yelling at the Plex app because its keyboard shortcuts don't really work and are stupid.

---

My entry: the Deity V-Mic D3.

Does it work? Yes! Quite well, actually. During the height of the WuFlu I had it connected to my computer for Zoom calls, and I had multiple people compliment me on my audio quality. Being a shotgun microphone basically pointed at my mouth meant that there was almost no background noise.

-however-

This piece of shit only will turn on automatically. See the little power button on the back? It doesn't actually do anything unless the microphone detects that it's plugged in. How does it do that? Is it plugged into the correct jack in just the right way*? Is Mercury in retrograde? Did Russell Greer try to procure another prostitute? The mystery is endless.

*This includes their own, rather expensive proprietary XLR adapter that only works 25% of the time, maybe?

 

[Autism Spectroscopy]

Printers in general.

I really couldn't tell you why they all fucking suck, but I have never seen a good working one.

Maybe it's the fact it's ALL proprietary money saving bullshit, but I'm at a complete loss why can't we have a simple plug and play no calibration and stupid cycles printer in 2024.

Their software fucking sucks, their hardware is a scam, where you are forced into buying specific toner and optical heads and I hate each and every one of them.

Never been so frustrated with a plastic boxes meant to do something before. I truly appreciate people who service these things and actually make them work, because I would kill myself the first day I had to deal with a second one of these pieces of shit.

 

[pork and beans]

I love my converse sneakers and I dont regret buying them at all because I got them on sale for literally 14 bucks but goddamn they crumble easily. Barely a couple of years of using them and the gummy part of the outer sole where the shoe creases near the toes is already breaking apart.

I’ve owned knockoff shoes that have lasted way longer despite wearing them a lot more

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Printers in general.

I really couldn't tell you why they all fucking suck, but I have never seen a good working one.

Maybe it's the fact it's ALL proprietary money saving bullshit, but I'm at a complete loss why can't we have a simple plug and play no calibration and stupid cycles printer in 2024.

I'm sure it's some combination of cheap parts, cheap labor, and proprietary stuff that makes many of today's printers absolute garbage. It's enough to make me appreciate the old school dot matrix printer and older color printer that lacks smart features that I keep on hand for the rare occasion I need the former and emergency situations in the case of the latter.

From my observation, the only thing all the so-called "smart features" do to printers is accelerate their breakdown and planned obsolescence.