Comment by rr808
13 hours ago
I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China.
Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?
13 hours ago
I'm just surprised that an American brand making electronics lasted this long. Even Japanese companies are giving up. No one can compete with China.
Apple somehow reigns supreme still. Anyone else?
A whole bunch of American and Western multinational companies design hardware in Western countries and manufacture them in China.
The manufacturing isn’t usually the most valuable part of the value chain. E.g., Apple makes the most money when you sell you an iPhone, not their Chinese and Indian factory suppliers and assemblers.
GoPro isn’t failing because they’re an American brand. They’re failing because they’re mismanaged and they made a bunch of product mistakes.
If you want more examples I can give them to you: Google hardware/phones, HP, Dell, Sonos, Bose, Ubiquiti, Cisco, Nvidia, Qualcomm.
Most Japanese corporations still do a lot of their design work in Japan. Sony even does manufacturing of Raspberry Pi devices in Wales.
And of course, speaking of Sony, the money maker for that console is in software, and most of Sony’s studios are in Western countries like the US and Japan. The manufacture of the console is the lowest value part of the business.
Companies that have significant manufacturing and fabrication outside of China/Taiwan: Intel, IBM, GlobalFoundries, ON Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Whisker (Litter Robot), and a very large percentage of the automotive industry.
Large appliances brands have a heavy presence in the US, Canada, and Mexico, including LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, GE appliances, Speed Queen, SubZero/Wolf/Cove, BSH Home Appliances (Bosch/Thermador), Electrolux.
KitchenAid mixers, Vitamix, Viking Range, BlueStar.
Igloo coolers, All-Clad, Lodge, Post-It notes, Darn Tough Socks…
That’s a great list of targets to kill. Things like Vitamix should get undercut by 300 % with same or better quality.
Most of those appliance brands have become expensive enshittified garbage, or are legendary brands that have been bought up (e.g. KitchenAid used to be a Hobart brand, it's now owned by Whirlpool. Their stand mixers used to last generations; the new ones have a lot of plastic parts inside them). I have one of the original Cuisinart food processors that my mom bought in the 1970s. The base/motor unit is heavy and it still works today. The brand today is now just a label on Conair kitchen gadgets.
Some have held out. Speed Queen are still made in Wisconsin. I will be looking at them when I need to replace my laundry machines, which I expect in the next couple of years.
A lot of what you’re saying is essentially not relevant, because even the enshittified brands are still designing and manufacturing/performing final assembly in Western countries.
Not their entire product lineups, but still a good chunk of them, especially for heavier and physically larger appliances. Your future speed queen might be just as American as if you had bought a cheap GE.
I don’t know where it’s made (probably not the US) but Cuisinart still makes the classic heavy AF food processor, if you’re interested in that.
As a side note, I don’t find that heavy weight or an older design/more metal parts has that much to do with quality or longevity. A lot of old stuff was heavy because material science had fewer options to work with. A motor assembly being made of cast iron doesn’t make it magically last longer. For example, my KitchenAid stand mixer is definitely the newer kind that has plastic parts inside, but it has never needed service and has been getting regular use for a decade with no degradation. Believe it or not I even have a notoriously unreliable Samsung washer and dryer from 2012 that are still going with zero maintenance. It even has a stupid touch screen and, yep, that works flawlessly.
Maybe the bar is low to consider that impressive but I think the point is that a lot of things getting cost cut has been somewhat logical. I see new buy it for life toasters on the market like the Lotus brand selling for $350. I just replaced a $40 Cuisinart garbage toaster that lasted 3 years and died. Chinese off brands built to similar quality by the same factories without the western brand name cost about $20.
So, do the math on that. The Lotus toaster has to last somewhere between 25 and 50 years to reach cost break-even compared to a cheap toaster.
The same math maths for speed queen washers and dryers. They are a great kit but they cost 4x more than a normal washer and dryer. If you conservatively estimate that a cheap washer/dryer lasts 6 years, you’re at 24 years before that speed queen breaks even.
If we are going to combat the economic reality of numbers like these then we need to start taxing disposal.
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I will pick an odd example. I was shocked to learn that SpaceX manufactures its ground satellite dishes (that customers need to buy) in Texas. They make more than five million units per year, and are looking to double that number. I am surprised that they did not outsource it to China. Maybe they are concerned about intellectual property theft. Still, that must be a hefty "tax" to pay to manuf in US instead of China.
Apple is China.. hence "Designed by Apple in California"
The GoPros aren’t manufactured in the US either.
> The GoPros aren’t manufactured in the US either.
True. Virtually nothing is.
Though its probably worth noting that Apple's approach to China exists at a much more integrated and larger scale than your average US (or other western) electronics company and is more akin to a fully integrated partnership with various entities like Foxconn than the typical "let's offshore the manufacturing stage" that most other companies take.
Apple isn't exactly competing with China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China
At the manufacturing level it largely isn't, no, though as others have pointed out Apple at least still has the ability to explore options outside China. But Apple represents a lack of vertical integration for its big Chinese suppliers like Foxconn, an American middleman taking a big slice of the revenues and profits which come from the customer. One thing to note is that Android isn't all that different, as phone makers still have to tithe to Google.
One factor (mentioned at https://bsky.app/profile/rajakorman.bsky.social/post/3mqubnh... for instance) is Western distrust of the Chinese government and the regulatory barriers erected from both sides. TikTok's probably a good case study. There was a conspicuous lack of Chinese software companies having success in the Western consumer market before TikTok. Building TikTok involved creating a new product aimed at RoW which was separate from its original Chinese model, Douyin. And then after TikTok Western success was still elusive, to some extent, as the US government snatched away Bytedance's toy.
Though even beyond tech and other politically sensitive areas China's generally been pretty slow at generating RoW-consumer-facing products and brands. There's also the slightly remarkable fact that historically (and even to some extent still today) GUIs have been extremely, mysteriously hard for large companies worldwide to do well. The main exception have tended to either be called "Apple" or have dedicated themselves to copying Apple's homework: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288221 .
(I am not an expert on anyhthing.)
Apple manufacturing is entirely Indian and Chinese.
While GoPro is made in Thailand.
America is just where their marketing teams hang out...
Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
Is it common in American factories to have US flags hanging on the walls similar to how dictators like to hang their portraits in factories? Never seen that in the (admitted small amount) of factories I've visited around in Europe, but tends to also give off a bit of "too much nationalism" vibe around here unless there is a special event, the US flag seems to be treated differently in the US so maybe it's a common sight?
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I'm looking at GoPro packaging here that says "Made in Thailand".
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
Apple reigns supreme because of China - and the two are inextricably linked. China would not have its high-tech manufacturing prowess if it were not for Apple. The book Apple In China [1] highlights how millions of cheap laborers and the country's engineers took the lessons of working with Apple to solidify its edge in this space in a way nobody can catch up to today.
China took the long-term greedy approach to invest in the relationship. We see the US today taking equity stakes in Intel and trying to play catchup by using elements of the same playbook. The US's advantage remains in the more "intangible" side of the process: creativity, design, new tech. In a global economy with free trade, this is all fine. But China never "westernized" itself as was expected from the increase in global trade. Now the US is back pedaling, trying to jump start its manufacturing. It will take a long time...
The book is a good page-turning read. I recommend it.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668053373
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
That's because America ban anything that starts to compete, like Huawei or Chinese car companies
Huawei had spyware and backdoors in their gear, and they use forced labor in their factories. I think they earned a ban.
Consumer electronics, yes. For defense, though, American companies very much still make electronics.
Apple reigns because you can't buy Chinese brands in the US
> Apple somehow reigns supreme still.
Largely because they've been producing in China for quite awhile. Now India too.
Apple has an excellent mobile OS, which is enough of a loyal userbase that they can make a hardware mistake once in a while and still retain customers. They're less hardware-dependent than most device manufacturers. This also enables them to lag behind the state of the art if it means more reliable/consistent performance. Which is why you don't see a folding Apple phone yet, and why Samsung was able to score points against Apple by having longer battery life and a better camera. This also allows them to demand high quality from their factories.
Apple still stand because of Software which China sucks at. Good thing the US is not about to destroy its software industry by investing all of its money on AI.
Is apple making electronics? I thought they are made in India and China.
Manufacturing is primarily in China - that's true for Go Pro & everyone else and almost needless to say. The point is China usually eats the design layer too, making Apple a little unique in that they survived Chinese competition completely unscathed.
Mac Mini will be made in Houston (they already make their own servers there) https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/apple-accelerates-us-...
Apple is one of the few brands I completely expect to be able to genuinely pull this off.
Their volumes are high enough that they will literally build an entire factory from scratch to produce a single product line, they are far enough up the luxury ladder that a few extra dollar in labour won't hurt them too badly, and the contracts with their suppliers are significant enough that they don't need the short supply lines of a Shenzhen and can just demand their suppliers Get It Done.
Having a domestic factory won't hurt Apple, and with an erratic President who'll flip on tariffs twice a week it's a sensible hedge against his inevitable next meltdown.