https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-purpose
“A couple of years ago, the small All-Clad pan I fry eggs in cut me as I was
pulling it out of the dishwasher. A clean slice on my index finger off the rim.
I patched it up. Didn’t think much else of it. I discovered what actually
happened while researching this essay, sitting in a settlement archive three
years too late to file a claim.
All-Clad had been selling its American-made stainless pans as dishwasher safe.
In the dishwasher, the bonded rims corroded until the exposed edge got sharp
enough to easily slice through skin. The company settled in 2023, capped at $4
million for a class covering seven and a half years of national sales, a
rounding error for its French owner.
Anyone who bought a D3, D5, or LTD pan between January 2015 and July 2022 was
in the class. If your pan was damaged, the deal was actually fine: a
replacement plus $75, or, my favorite option on the menu, a trade of your
damaged American-made pan for a set of nonstick ones made in China.
What never got fixed was the pan. Nothing was re-engineered to survive a
dishwasher; the words "dishwasher safe" just came off the box, and the product
pages recommend handwashing now. The claims window closed in April 2023 with
most of the class, me included, never knowing it existed. Nobody mailed a
postcard about the metallurgy.
I still use the pan. It's a good pan. But it turns out the cut on my finger had
a paper trail, and so does nearly everything else in the cabinet. The cookware
aisle runs on old names and new owners. With all of the mergers and asset
handoffs, mapping who owns what in cookware was the most challenging of all the
markets I’ve covered so far. Here’s the summary.”
Via Esther Schindler.
Worth reading the whole site, especially the article on the mechanisms of
enshittification:
https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/the-mechanisms-of-enshittification
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
